An Argument for Fate
I’ve thought a lot about meaning lately, particularly with events, like meeting people who change your life, and the things leading up to it. The things that had to happen for it all to unfold the way it did, however big or small. These significant instances in life are almost always accompanied by a strange feeling of “what are the odds of this“?
For me, I think about how losing my job during Covid led me to a barista position where I met my now-partner of four years.
Or how a random post I made on Adopted.com led my long-lost sister and I to meet.
Even smaller moments feel included, like when my partner and I visited an event recently and noticed something we wanted to try but hadn’t budgeted for. Not 10 minutes later, a stranger, who knew nothing of our conversation, handed us a free ticket for the exact thing.
Experiences like these leave me constantly torn between a feeling of inherent alignment and the simple explanation of cause and effect.
The hobby that turned into a business — was it really just luck?
That person who sent tidal waves through you — was it really just by chance?
Or the loss you suffered with an unknowing reward of something greater — was it really accidental?
Without bias, it’s a draw between the divine intervention of fate — and coincidence.
The religious man will claim it’s by the hand of God.
The superstitious claim it’s their inherent karma.
The rationalist claims it’s as simple as a tree sprouting from where its seed fell.
So, who’s right? To what end can we know?
The religious man might believe God is watching out for him. Leading him to believe that if he wavers in faith, the same watchful eye might turn cold. Perhaps his faith leads him away from a future of alcohol abuse and a path he never knew possible.
The superstitious person may believe their own kindness is being returned to them by the universe, which then fuels their kindness, changing the lives of those who otherwise wouldn’t have been affected.
The rationalist might not believe in divine reward at all, but still finds deep gratitude in the seed that became the shade in which he now enjoys, later leading to a place his family meets for generations afterward.
Just as any human, I can only speculate that signs point back to fate as the most likely contender to explain the purpose and correlation of such things.
Often, though, these ideas, like fate, faith, and coincidence, get put under the same umbrella, and that’s where I think conversations stop.
The God-of-the-Gaps Fallacy refers to the conceptual overlap where everything we don’t understand is stuffed into one placeholder. This presents a false dichotomy that frames the unknown as either a random coincidence or proof of God, and further oversimplifies complex subjects that otherwise deserve our true contemplation as human beings.
When concepts like fate are automatically tied to religion, it becomes hard to explore them as their own subjects. We lose the opportunity to look at fate, coincidence, or purpose in their own terms worth understanding.
Still, I can’t ignore how discussions of fate overlap with religion. While I’m not speaking from a place of belief, I can acknowledge that statements in favor of religion, like the one I’m about to tell you, can support the topic of fate as well.
One particular text in Duties of the Heart, written by Bahya Ibn Pakuda, stands as a strong symbolic argument toward the existence of a Creator, and, more relevant to fate, the existence of purpose.
A king challenges a rabbi to prove the existence of a Creator.
The rabbi asks for a quill, ink, and paper, and then has the King leave the room.
When he returns, a beautifully written poem lies on the paper awaiting him.
The King is impressed but skeptical. “This doesn’t prove the existence of a Creator. It only shows you are a marvelous poet.”
The rabbi tells the king that he did not write the poem. Instead, he placed the quill on the paper and poured the ink on top of it. The letters and poem were formed from the spill.
The king feels fooled and suggests it is impossible for an ink spill to form a letter, much less a word, and certainly not a beautiful poem.
The rabbi smiles and replies: “Well, there is your answer. If a poem requires a poet, surely the world requires a creator?”
This parable argues that complexity and beauty, like a poem, require intention, with the same logic applying to life. If we dismiss events as pure coincidence, we ignore the possibility that there’s a framework.
Not necessarily something divine, but something deliberate.
Of course, the counter-argument is that letters did eventually form from the spilled ink. However, even if that were the case, it fails to offer a consistent or reliable explanation for the complexity we’re talking about.
It’s not just one letter. It’s words, full sentences, grammar, tone, structure. It’s the theme of the poem, the emotional depth, and human relatability. It would take trillions of lucky accidents to fall in perfect alignment for spilled ink to ever yield a poem, and in the same logic, it would take trillions of lucky accidents to fall in perfect alignment for life to be as it is now and for us to be who we are as individuals.
William James argued that when faced with a choice we can’t prove, but that matters deeply to our lives, we’re justified in choosing faith over proof. He called it The Will to Believe, which was the idea that it’s better to move forward with faith in something meaningful than to be stuck in a loop of coincidental indifference and miss out on something potentially infinite.
