On fate

When one reads the title of a piece that involves fate, his or her first thoughts might assume the article is going to be about the age-old argument of fate v. free will. Well, my friends, I’m sorry to disappoint (or please) but this is not an argument for or against either stance, rather it is a note of my most recently developed idea on the subject. And to put speculation to rest, if one were to ask which side I identify with, I would say that our lives are made up of countless instances of both fate and free will. I say it’s both. I’m a moderate. Others would say I’m non-committal. To each his own.

Now that we have that cleared up, lets move on to our topic of conversation for the day. Fate. This is where my idea comes in. ‘Do I believe in fate?’ one might ask one’s self. In response to one’s self in the natural course of one’s conversation, ‘Yes and no.’ Fate, as per our noble friend Webster, is ‘an inevitable and often adverse outcome, condition, or end.’ While the ‘adverse’ is not necessarily true, I feel this is a commonly held view of fate. However, I feel that fate inadequately describes what arranges our conditions. Rather than an inevitable fate, which leaves no room for thought and purpose, our lives are influenced by divine circumstantiation.

Divine circumstantiation – n. a placement in particular circumstances by a divine being. (R.J. Parks, 2010)

To resolve any ambiguity in the appearance of my coining of the phrase ‘divine circumstantiation’ and to summarize my stance on the initial argument brought into question, God puts one in a particular circumstances and gives one the ability to determine what course of action one should take.