The Arcane Teaching · 10 of 21
Lesson X. Fate and Destiny
From the earliest days of philosophical reasoning, metaphysical speculation, and theological dogmatism, the great questions regarding Fate or Freedom have formed an important feature of controversy. In many forms, and in manifold guises, has this great question presented itself for consideration by the human mind. Backward and forward has this tennis‑ball of thought been tossed, victory being claimed by all parties engaging in the game of discussion. Early philosophy was concerned with the question of Fate and Destiny vs. Freedom, and able thinkers arrayed themselves on the respective sides of the question. Metaphysics joined in the controversy with subtle and hair‑splitting definitions, theories, explanations, and conceptions. Theology took an active interest in the fray, its particular tennis‑ball being called Predestination, Foreordination, or Predetermination. Modern Science has now entered the field and her advanced thinkers insist upon the truth of the principle of Determination (but not pre‑Determination) by Natural Laws, which applies to all branches of science, and is seen in operation in all the fields of universal activity, physical and psychical. The Arcane Teaching holds as Truth the idea that every thing and all things—every event and all events—are governed by Law. That every thing and every event is under Law, Order, and Sequence. That there is no such thing as Chance. That every event is a link in the Cosmic Sequence of events. That every thing is a part of, and not apart from, the Whole Thing. That every event is a part of, and not apart from, the Whole Event. That nothing “happens” without precedent causal events proceeding regularly and in logical sequence. That there are no “accidents,” or events outside of the regular order. Hearing these statements, the student will feel impelled to ask the inevitable question: “Is this Reign of Law, Order, and Sequence, but another name for the old fetish of Fate, Destiny, or Predestination? Are we then ruled by arbitrary Fate—governed by the decree of Destiny? Are all events Preordained, Predetermined, and Predestined?” And this question must be met—and shall be met—not ignored and evaded as is customary in so many of the teachings, philosophies, and theologies. Let us consider the matter in the light of the Arcane Teachings. Listen to the Aphorism: Aphorism xvi. Know ye, that Fate is but the distorted image of Law, Order, and Sequence. The wise know that Fate, if existent, would be an exception to Law—a twin‑error to Chance. Law there is; Order there is; Sequence there is—but Fate there is not. Fate, Destiny, and Predestination would imply the existence of Decree and Foreknowledge in the Cosmic Mind. There is no such Decree; no such Foreknowledge. When the Cosmic Mind “knows” a thing or event, it knows according to Law, and the knowing and the manifestation are simultaneous. Fate, Destiny, and Predestination, are but names for half‑truths—imperfect visions of Law, Order, and Sequence.
Although to the average mind there appears to be but slight connection between the idea of Fate or Destiny and that of the foreknowledge and decree of Deity, still the former ideas have had their birth in the latter. Back of the fundamental conception of Fate or Destiny one always finds the shadowy form of some Supernatural Being who decrees the Fate or Destiny. In the old mythologies the gods decreed the fate and destinies of mortals, and all cosmic happenings, the details and working out of the plan being left in the hands of minor supernatural beings, such as the Parcæ, Fates, or Destinies, who were goddesses believed to preside over the birth, life, and fortunes of men. In the Grecian and Roman mythologies these Fates were three in number, Clotho who held the spindle, Lachesis who drew out the thread of men’s destiny, and Atropos who cut it off. The Supernatural Being, or beings, always promulgated the decree of Fate or Destiny. Fate was never a matter of natural law and order, but always the working out of an arbitrary decree, or divine fiat. This idea is seen to be correct by reference to the definitions of the terms as given by the best authorities. Consider the following definitions: Destiny: “The power which presides over the lot or fortune of men; the fate, lot, doom, or fortune appointed, allotted, or predetermined for each person or thing; the ultimate fate of a person; etc.”
Fate: “The decree of God by which the course of events is fixed; a fixed destiny depending upon a superior cause, and uncontrollable by man; appointed lot; doom; inevitable destiny; etc.”
Fatalism: “The doctrine that all things are ordered for men by the arbitrary decrees of God.…It is carried out to its most pitilessly logical extreme among the Mohammedans, where everything that can happen is ‘kismet’, or Fate.…in theology it has given birth to theories of Predestination.” (By some writers the term is used also as synonymous with “Determinism,” which is the scientific doctrine of causation, continuity, etc., from natural causes. This usage of the term is misleading, and is historically incorrect.)
Predestination: “The act of appointing beforehand by irreversible decree or unchangeable purpose; the act of foreordaining, decreeing, beforehand, or predetermining events; the purpose of God from eternity respecting all events;” as, “God’s infallible providence and predestination” ( Joyce); and, “If God pre sees events, he must have predetermined them” (Hale); also, as “By the decree of God for the manifestation of his glory, some men and angels are predestined unto everlasting life, and others foreordained to everlasting death. These angels and men are predestinated and foreordained.” (Westminster Confession of Faith.)
So, it may be seen, that the decree of a Supernatural Being is always back of, under, and in, all true conceptions of Fate, Destiny, Predestination, etc. These ideas cannot be divorced—they stand and fall together.
One of the main points of difference between the opposing conceptions of Law, Order, and Sequence, and of Fate, Destiny and Predestination, is seen to be in the assumption and denial of the Divine foreknowledge, and decree. Fatalism holds that some Supernatural Being has foreknowledge, and exercises arbitrary decrees determining all events, including the fate or destiny of mankind, as a race and individually. The theory of Law, Order and Sequence, on the contrary discards the idea of foreknowledge, and denies the arbitrary decree and foredetermination. Instead, it holds that the Cosmic Activities, and the incidental events, proceed regularly, orderly, and in sequence, from and by reason of the operation of Natural Laws. The Arcane Teachings hold that these Natural Laws are superimposed by, and are reflections of, The Absolute Law—the Efficient Reason of the Cosmos. The modern scientific schools of Determinism agree with the Arcane Teaching so far as the idea of determination by Natural Laws is concerned, but differ from it by holding that The Law is but a name which may be applied to the sum total of Natural Laws.
Another great point of difference between Fatalism and the Arcane Teaching is, that Fatalism insists upon arbitrary happenings and events, unrelated to, and in spite of, natural law and order. Fatalism denies that preceding events have any relation to the “fated happening,” and holds that the latter would have happened in spite of any precedent event. In short, Fatalism makes the “fated happening a thing standing apart from the Chain of Sequence—something resulting from arbitrary and independent decree. Thus, Fatalism holds that one’s death, for instance, is “fated” (decreed) to happen in a certain way, at a certain time, and at a certain place, irrespective of the Law and Order of the Cosmos. Fatalism carried to an extreme shows the fallacy of the idea, as for instance the Mohammedan who refuses to allow his wound to be treated for the reason that if he is fated to die of the wound he will die, and if fated to live then he will recover without treatment. Or, the fanatics who refuse to run from a wild beast, on the same grounds. Or those who refuse to rescue a drowning man, lest they interfere with Fate.
The following quotation from the article on Fatalism, contained in the New International Encyclopædia, will show the distinctive points between the teachings of Fatalism and those of the scientific school of Determinism, which latter agrees in many important essentials with the Arcane Teaching. The writer of the article says, in part: Fatalism is “the doctrine that the course of events is so determined that what an individual wills can have no great effect on that course. Fatalism must be carefully distinguished from Determinism, as the confusion of these two conceptions has been responsible for much of the popular prejudice existing against Determinism. Fatalism, as has been said, denies that Will has efficacy in shaping events. Determinism maintains that this causally efficient will is itself to be casually accounted for; this is entirely different from the fatalistic assertion that Will counts for nothing. In fact Determinism and Fatalism are fundamentally antagonistic. Determinism asserts that events are determined by some of the events that immediately precede them; that if the latter were different the former would be different. Fatalism denies that immediately preceding events have anything to do with the origination of events immediately following: It asserts that the latter would occur even if the former were changed.…To say that one’s death is fixed by Fate is to deny that it takes place by natural law. Or, more accurately, it is to say that however much one varies the cause, one cannot vary the effect.…The fatalist’s position is that the end is predetermined, but not the means; the determinist’s position is that the events now occurring lead by causality to other events, which are thus fixed because their causes are actually existent. Or, to put it still another way, for the fatalist what actually determines the event is not another event immediately preceding, but some mysterious decree issued by some mysterious agent ages before the event. This enables us to see that Fatalism gives no scope to the will. But Determinism, which merely asserts that every event has its determining conditions in its immediate antecedents, includes among the antecedents the human Will.… Thus Determinism is consistent with a belief in the efficiency of Will, and Fatalism is not.”
In short, Determination holds that events are Determined—Fatalism holds that they are Predetermined. The one recognizes Natural Laws as the determining power—the other holds that Supernatural Decree predetermines and foreordains.
Predestination is Fatalism carried to its logical conclusion; Predestination holds that God appoints and determines beforehand by irreversible decree or unchangeable purpose—arbitrarily and irrevocably predetermines— the events of the universe, first and last, great and small, in general and in detail. Not only the universe as it is at present, but as it must have been forever through all eternity, and as it will be forever through all eternity. If the Divine Fiat has so gone forth, then everything is predetermined, and the Eternal Universe is but an automaton registering the Divine Decree, down to the minutest detail. In this case, everything, indeed, is caused by “the Will of God.” Theologians endeavor to escape from the above conclusion by a flow of words—like the cuttle‑fish they darken the waters of thought by the flow of dark, unintelligible words, and thus make their logical escape. But a plain consideration of the facts of the proposition, laying aside theological subtleties—a consideration in the light of Common Sense—shows us that admitting a Personal Deity, possessing All‑Wisdom and All‑Power, then Predestination must be a logical result. Let us examine the statement.
If Deity be All‑Wise, (Omniscient), then he must know all things, absolutely, truly, infallibly—all things, past, present, and future. He must know the subsequent results of all actions—the subsequent effects of all causes, the operation of all laws. He would not be able to make mistakes of judgment, or errors of foresight. There could be no necessity for any changing of his mind, if his wisdom is absolute. He must possess perfect and infallible Foresight, Foreknowledge, and Prescience, which means: “The quality of having knowledge of, or foresight into, events before they take place.” And if he so knows what will take place, and his knowledge be true, perfect and infallible (and it must be so to be absolute) then these foreseen, and foreknown, events must take place and occur. As Hale well says: “If God presees events, he must have predetermined them.” If this be not so, then the absolute qualities attributed to Deity are false and non‑existent, or the terms are meaningless.
Moreover, if the All‑Wise knows what will happen (and this he must know if he be All‑Wise) then even his All‑Power cannot change the things that he knows to a certainty. Some theologians, wishing to escape from this dilemma, have held that his All‑Power may overcome his All‑Knowing, and thus take away his infallible Foresight, Foreknowledge, and Prescience—but this is childish, for Absolute Knowledge could not be destroyed, impaired, inhibited, or changed. Deity must be held to be either absolute or not absolute. If he is absolute, the above facts must be assumed to be correct— if he is not, then we must go behind and beyond him for the true Absolute.
Moreover, if such a Deity exists, he must have made the laws of the universe, for there could have been nothing else to have made them, and if they existed without his making, then such a Deity would not be absolute. If he made them, then he must have set them in motion, and kept them in motion ever since. And, if so, then he must be held responsible for all that happens, or can possibly happen, under them—they are his own creation, and he is their Cause, and the Cause of all that proceeds from them. Moreover his All‑Knowing must have made him fully aware of all the possibilities and certain effects of the operation of these laws. There is no escape from this conclusion. No wonder that old Omar raised his voice in indignant protest against this conception when accompanied by the “bribe of heaven and threat of hell” as a reward or punishment for doing that which must be inevitable because it has been predestined by Deity. The conception of a Personal Deity, or Personal Supreme Being, absolute in nature, who created the universe and its laws, must carry with it as a logical accompaniment the conceptions of Foresight, Foreknowledge, and Predestination—which are but newer names for the old fetish of Fate and Destiny. In this is found the parodox of theology, from which it can never escape, and which it has never been able to reconcile.
But the Arcane Teaching does not hold to Decree and Foreknowledge, either in a Personal Deity or in the Cosmic Mind. Its Aphorism denies the “existence of Decree and Foreknowledge in the Cosmic Mind.” It says that “When the Cosmic Mind ‘knows’ a thing or event, it knows according to Law, and the knowing and the manifestation are simultaneous.” For when the Cosmic Brain “thinks” or “knows” a thing or event—then the “thought” becomes a thing or event, and is actually manifested. The Cosmic Mind knows only what is existent, for what it knows is manifested because of the knowing. And what it knows, it knows because of the manifestation. In the Cosmic Mind, knowing and manifestation are identical—simultaneous—one. The Cosmos is the only Being that exists and can know the Cosmic Activities. Other than itself there is naught but The Law, which is above Being, and above Knowing, and above Action, as we know those terms. Any attempt to attribute to The Absolute the qualities, attributes, and properties of Man, inevitably results in postulating a Personal Deity, whose All‑Knowledge is the Predestination of the Universe—whose will, decree, and fiat, is Fate. And in that case upon that Deity must be placed the responsibility for everything that happens in the universe. In that event, then indeed we may say with the poet: “His the credit; His the blame; His the glory; His the shame.”
In the place of Fatalism, Destiny, and Predestination, the Arcane Teaching offers the Orderly Trend under Cosmic Laws inherent within the Cosmos, proceeding as Law, Order and Sequence. Not the result of arbitrary fiat or decree, but the result of natural laws proceeding in regular order, as the Cosmos evolves toward Cosmic Consciousness and All‑Knowledge. When the Cosmos is resolved into Infinite Nothingness, then we find naught existent but The Law. And The Law is the only thing left upon which to fix the Final Blame—if blame there be. Fix it so, if you will. If it belong to The Law—give to It Its own. But The Law is no Person—no Being—It is Absolute Law—constant, unchanging, invariable, eternal. In Law we find the only refuge in our highest flights of thought, reason, or imagination. It is not a Law Giver—it is Law in Itself.