There are two ways to view the future with regards to one’s life. One of these ways is fate, the belief that the events that comprise one’s life are predetermined and can occur in only one way. The other way is chance, the belief that one can control the events in their life through choice as they encounter them. This concept of fate versus chance was one that fascinated the ancient Greeks. They believed strongly in fate over chance, and the three Moirae (fates), Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos, controlled the lives of all humans on Earth through metaphorical threads. Staying true to his Greek beliefs, Sophocles depicts the triumph of fate over chance in his play Oedipus the King.
Oedipus recounts that at the shrine at Delphi the priestess “prophesied that [he] should kill Polybos, / Kill [his] own father,” and marry and sleep with his mother. Try as he might to evade this prophecy, Oedipus cannot. It was he who killed his father and Oedipus did in fact marry his own mother. In the play, all who believe in chance and reject fate are ruined. Oedipus carries out his horrid fate unbeknownst to him and blinds himself in the end. Iocastê, Oedipus’s wife and mother who regards all prophets as phonies, is married to her own son and takes her own life. According to Greek beliefs, as demonstrated in Sophocles’s play, any attempt to escape one’s fate is futile.
Perhaps the real reason why the concept of fate versus chance is so controversial is because neither one can be ruled out as being entirely incorrect by simple logic, and they can both be considered correct given different viewpoints. For example, say I walk into a 7-Eleven and decide to buy a soda. I can buy a Coke, a Sprite, or a Fanta. Chance: I choose to buy a Coke. Fate: However, in the end, I did choose a Coke, and not a Sprite or a Fanta; the event could only take place in one specific way. And thus we are left with the same dilemma faced by the ancient Greeks. If neither fate nor chance appear to be entirely incorrect, which one in fact exists? The ancient Greeks answered this question in the same manner we humans answer most questions we cannot answer: they created a higher being, the Moirae.
The way I perceive it, fate and chance are just two different vantage points from which to look at the events in our lives. From the chance vantage point, we have the ability to make decisions entirely out of our own free will, and thus we have the ability to control our own lives. However, from the fate vantage point, in the end the events in our lives can and will turn out in only one specific way. (472)
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Gino--I like your discussion, but there's one thing I didn't quite understand. As I understand the role of chance, it contains the belief that events happen in our lives for no reason at all, randomly as it were. One passenger boards one plan, his friend misses the plan, and only because the taxi was late does person B escape death when the plane crashes. So when you talk about chance and choice in the same sentence, I wonder if you have a different meaning in mind from the one I use.
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