Fate and Nature's Evolution

“Fate is decreed, no one can escape it, not even a God.” (Herodotus)

“Necessity” as the way of nature's evolution might help explain “fate” in ancient Greece. Evolutionary “justice” in nature is not always the same as human justice, and this is where justice might seek harmony with nature's evolution. In this sense, Charles Darwin and E.O.Wilson could be thought of as our evolutionary “oracles.”

Fulfilling what appears to be the largely determined fate of nature's evolution seems to be the overarching challenge, but how to discern nature's evolution and nature's justice and then apply it to human justice is the epic question.

Meanwhile, we often act as if we are free when we don't know our fate in nature's evolution. But then animal's fulfill their fates in nature even though they are totally ignorant of their fates. We can apply science to try to figure out any determinism in nature, but we can also apply intuition and even revelation (oracles to the Greeks). Rationality might even have to bring itself in line with nature's evolution.

The fundamental pattern perceived in the fate of nature's evolution as seen in theological materialism, written about here, is the largely determined evolution of material life to supermaterial Godhood. Humans are at least partially free to choose between several determined paths. Ronald Osborn (Modern Age, Winter 2015) thought that localized political freedom was applied by the Ancient Greeks but it could not release them from the underlying fate of their Gods.

Osborn suggests why obedience to the rule of Law by the Greeks was superior to obedience to the absolute monarchy of the Persians: “the law bids them always the same thing” whereas the monarch can be capricious and unpredictable. This had profound consequences for future politics and the social order in the West.

 

The old Norse suggested a way out of fate through great courage or great love---“Courage at the edge of the Abyss”---which is interesting coming from one of the gloomiest ancient religions regarding the certain fate of man and the world.