In Search of Man’s Destiny
WHY is belief in fate so widespread? Throughout the ages, man has sought to unravel life’s mysteries and to find some purpose in unfolding events. “It is here that the categories ‘god’, ‘destiny’, and ‘chance’ enter the scene, depending on whether the events are derived from a personal power, an impersonal order, or no order at all,” explains historian Helmer Ringgren. History is replete with beliefs, legends, and myths relating to fate and destiny.
Assyriologist Jean Bottéro says: “We are largely formed in all aspects of our culture by the Mesopotamian civilization,” adding that it is in ancient Mesopotamia or Babylonia that we find “the oldest perceptible reactions and reflections of mankind on the supernatural, the oldest identifiable religious structure.” It is also here that we find the origins of fate.
Fate’s Ancient Roots
Among the ancient ruins of Mesopotamia, in what is now Iraq, archaeologists have discovered some of the oldest writings known to man. Thousands of tablets written in cuneiform give us a clear picture of life in the ancient civilizations of Sumer and Akkad and in the famous city of Babylon. According to archaeologist Samuel N. Kramer, the Sumerians “were troubled by the problem of human suffering, particularly relative to its rather enigmatic causes.” Their quest for answers led them to the idea of fate.
In her book Babylon, archaeologist Joan Oates says that “each Babylonian had his own personal god or goddess.” The Babylonians believed that gods “shaped the destinies of all mankind, individually and collectively.” According to Kramer, the Sumerians believed that “the gods in control of the cosmos planned and instituted evil, falsehood and violence as part and parcel of civilization.” Belief in fate was widespread, and it was held in high esteem.
The Babylonians thought that it was possible to find out the gods’ plans through divination—“a technique of communication with the gods.” Divination involved trying to foretell the future by observing, deciphering, and interpreting items and events. Typically, dreams, animal behavior, and entrails were examined. (Compare Ezekiel 21:21; Daniel 2:1-4.) Unexpected or unusual happenings that were said to reveal the future were recorded on clay tablets.
According to French scholar of ancient civilizations Édouard Dhorme, “as far as we go back in Mesopotamian history, we find the soothsayer and the idea of divination.” Divination was an integral feature of life. Indeed, Professor Bottéro says that “everything could be considered as the possible object for examination and divinatory deduction . . . The entire material universe was taken as the evidence from which the future could in some way be extracted after a careful study.” The Mesopotamians were thus fervent practicers of astrology as a means to predict the future.—Compare Isaiah 47:13.
In addition, the Babylonians used dice or lots in divination. In her book Randomness, Deborah Bennett explains that these were to “eliminate the possibility of human manipulation and thereby to give the gods a clear channel through which to express their divine will.” However, the decisions of the gods were not considered to be inexorable. Help to avoid an evil fate could be had through an appeal to the gods.
Fate in Ancient Egypt
In the 15th century B.C.E., there was extensive contact between Babylonia and Egypt. Religious practices connected with fate were included in the cultural exchange that ensued. Why did the Egyptians accept belief in fate? According to John R. Baines, professor of Egyptology at the University of Oxford, “much of [Egyptian] religion concerned attempts to comprehend and respond to the unpredictable and the unfortunate.”
Among the many Egyptian gods, Isis was described as the “mistress of life, ruler of fate and destiny.” The Egyptians also practiced divination and astrology. (Compare Isaiah 19:3.) One historian says: “Their ingenuity in questioning the gods was without limit.” Egypt, though, was not the only civilization to borrow from Babylon.
Greece and Rome
When it comes to religious matters, “ancient Greece did not escape the far-reaching but intense radiance of Babylonia,” notes Jean Bottéro. Professor Peter Green explains why belief in destiny was so popular in Greece: “In an uncertain world, where men were increasingly loath to be responsible for their own decisions, and indeed often felt themselves mere puppets, jerked from point to point by the requirements of a Fate as inscrutable as it was inflexible, divine oracular fiat [fate determined by the gods] was one way of having the future mapped out on the individual’s behalf. What was fixed by Fate could, given especial skills or insights, be predicted. It might not be what one wanted to hear; but forewarned at least was forearmed.”
In addition to reassuring individuals of the future, belief in fate also served more sinister purposes. The idea of fate helped to subdue the masses, and for that reason, according to historian F. H. Sandbach, “the belief that the world was entirely ruled by Providence would have an appeal to the ruling class of a ruling people.”
Why? Professor Green explains that this belief “was a built-in justification—moral, theological, semantic—for the social and political fixed order: it was the most powerful and subtle instrument of self-perpetuation that the Hellenistic ruling class ever conceived. The mere fact of anything happening meant that it had been fated to happen; and since nature was providentially disposed toward mankind, what was fated could not fail to be all for the best.” In reality, it provided “justification of ruthless self-interest.”
That fate was commonly accepted becomes evident from Greek literature. Among the ancient literary styles were the epic, the legend, and the tragedy—in which fate played a key part. In Greek mythology, man’s destiny was represented by three goddesses called the Moirai. Clotho was the spinner of the thread of life, Lachesis determined how long life was to be, and Atropos cut off life when the allocated time had expired. The Romans had a similar triad of gods whom they called the Parcae.
The Romans and the Greeks were eager to know what their supposed destiny was to be. Thus, they borrowed astrology and divination from Babylon and developed them further. The Romans called the events used to predict the future portenta, or signs. The messages these signs gave were called omina. By the third century B.C.E., astrology had become popular in Greece, and in 62 B.C.E., the earliest-known Greek horoscope appeared. So interested were the Greeks in astrology that according to Professor Gilbert Murray, astrology “fell upon the Hellenistic mind as a new disease falls upon some remote island people.”
In an attempt to know the future, the Greeks and the Romans used oracles or mediums widely. Through these the gods supposedly communicated with humans. (Compare Acts 16:16-19.) What was the effect of these beliefs? Philosopher Bertrand Russell said: “Fear took the place of hope; the purpose of life was rather to escape misfortune than to achieve any positive good.” Similar themes became the subject of controversy in Christendom.
“Christian” Debates About Fate
The early Christians lived in a culture strongly influenced by Greek and Roman ideas of destiny and fate. The so-called Church Fathers, for example, drew heavily upon the works of such Greek philosophers as Aristotle and Plato. One problem they tried to resolve was, How could an all-knowing, all-powerful God, “the One telling from the beginning the finale,” be reconciled with a God of love? (Isaiah 46:10; 1 John 4:8) If God knew the end from the beginning, they reasoned, then surely he foreknew man’s fall into sin and the disastrous consequences this would bring.
Origen, one of the most prolific of the early Christian writers, argued that one of the important elements to keep in mind was the notion of free will. “There are, indeed, innumerable passages in the Scriptures which establish with exceeding clearness the existence of freedom of will,” he wrote.
Origen said that ascribing to some exterior force the responsibility for our acts “is neither true nor in conformity with reason, but is the statement of him who wishes to destroy the conception of free will.” Origen argued that while God can foreknow events chronologically, this does not mean that he causes an event or that any necessity is placed upon it to happen. However, not all agreed.
An influential Church Father, Augustine (354-430 C.E.), complicated the argument by reducing the part that free will plays in events. Augustine gave predestination its theological basis in Christendom. His works, primarily De libero arbitrio, were central to discussions in the Middle Ages. The debate eventually reached a climax in the Reformation, with Christendom deeply divided over the issue of predestination.a
A Widespread Belief
Ideas about fate, though, are by no means limited to the Western world. Revealing their belief in destiny, many Muslims say “mektoub”—it is written—when faced with disaster. While it is true that many Oriental religions emphasize the role of the individual in personal destiny, there are, nevertheless, notes of fatalism in their teachings.
Karma in Hinduism and Buddhism, for example, is the inescapable destiny resulting from acts in a previous life. In China the earliest writings discovered are on tortoiseshells that were used in divination. Fate also formed part of the beliefs of indigenous peoples in the Americas. The Aztecs, for instance, devised divinatory calendars used to show the destiny of individuals. Fatalistic beliefs are also common in Africa.
The widespread acceptance of the concept of fate actually shows that man has a fundamental need to believe in a superior power. John B. Noss, in his book Man’s Religions, acknowledges: “All religions say in one way or another that man does not, and cannot, stand alone. He is vitally related with and even dependent on powers in Nature and Society external to himself. Dimly or clearly, he knows that he is not an independent center of force capable of standing apart from the world.”
In addition to the need to believe in God, we also have a fundamental need to understand what is happening around us. There is a difference, though, between recognizing an all-powerful Creator and believing that he immutably fixes our destiny. Just what role do we play in shaping our destiny? What role does God play?
[Footnote]
a See our companion magazine, The Watchtower, of February 15, 1995, pages 3-4.
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A Babylonian astrological calendar, 1000 B.C.E.
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Musée du Louvre, Paris
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The Greeks and the Romans believed that man’s destiny was fixed by three goddesses
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Musée du Louvre, Paris
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Egypt’s Isis, the “ruler of fate and destiny”
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Musée du Louvre, Paris
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Earliest Chinese writings on tortoiseshells were used in divination
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Institute of History and Philology, Academia Sinica, Taipei
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Signs of the zodiac appear on this Persian box
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Photograph taken by courtesy of the British Museum