Fate

From BiblePortal Wikipedia

Webster's Dictionary [1]

(1): ( n.) The element of chance in the affairs of life; the unforeseen and unestimated conitions considered as a force shaping events; fortune; esp., opposing circumstances against which it is useless to struggle; as, fate was, or the fates were, against him.

(2): ( n.) A fixed decree by which the order of things is prescribed; the immutable law of the universe; inevitable necessity; the force by which all existence is determined and conditioned.

(3): ( n.) The three goddesses, Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos, sometimes called the Destinies, or Parcaewho were supposed to determine the course of human life. They are represented, one as holding the distaff, a second as spinning, and the third as cutting off the thread.

(4): ( n.) Appointed lot; allotted life; arranged or predetermined event; destiny; especially, the final lot; doom; ruin; death.

Charles Buck Theological Dictionary [2]

(fatum) denotes an inevitable necessity depending upon a superior cause. The word is formed a fando, "from speaking, " and primarily implies the same with effatum, vis. a word or decree pronounced by God, or a fixed sentence whereby the Deity has prescribed the order of things, and allotted to every person what shall befal him. The Greeks called it as it were a chain or necessary series of things indissolubly linked together. It is also used to express a certain unavoidable designation of things, by which all agents, both necessary and voluntary, are swayed and directed to their ends. Fate is divided into physical and divine.

1. Physical fate is an order and series of natural causes, appropriated to their effects; as, that fire warms; bodies communicate motion to each other, &c." and the effects of it are all the events and phenomena of nature.

2. Divine fate is what is more usually called providence.

See PROVIDENCE, NECESSITY.

Holman Bible Dictionary [3]

 Psalm 49:12 Psalm 81:15 Ecclesiastes 2:14 Ecclesiastes 3:19 Ecclesiastes 9:2-3 Job 15:22 Isaiah 65:12 Hosea 9:13

References