Most Christians will talk about “Gods Plan”. Which makes sense to me, the Christian God is omniscient and omnipresent so he could have a super well laid out plan for every micro second of human history.
But like, doesn’t this kind of defeat the purpose of prayer? Like if a family member gets sick, what’s the point to praying to God about it. Whatever happens is part of his “plan”, so there really isn’t any chance you’re going to change his mind on whether Grannie is going to pass.
Same with things “going against Gods Plan”. Gods plan should have every contingency accounted for, so it really shouldn’t matter what anyone does. Is there a chance that if too many people are gay that will derail Gods plan and everything will be fucked? Or did Gods Plan account for me being a big gay commie? Is the idea that you can’t fuck up Gods master plan, but if you do a bunch of weird crap God doesn’t like it will throw things off slightly and God will have to compensate which he finds really annoying?
It’s larger than Christianity, it’s religion at large. Religions, even organized ones, aren’t as organized as you’re led to expect.
Religions are amalgamous. You’re asking about the theology of the monks and how the layman’s faith relates to that. That reaches across the layers, and while there are some attempted answers, I don’t think you’ll find them satisfactory or clear. In any case, you would have to learn some theology to understand them
For example, everyone knows that Buddhism is about nirvana, but in truth that is only expected for the most dedicated monks ready to give up their lives in an instant, not the laymen who are actually only expected to live moral lives, not even caring about nirvana until a future life when they’re ready for it