There are different ways to define fatalism. Freewill theists use fatalism as a synonym for Calvinism or predestination, but that's confused. In Reformed theology, there's a predestined chain of events leading up to a particular outcome. In fatalism, by contrast, the outcome is the same regardless of the preceding events.
Another definition is where people unwittingly fulfill an oracle by attempting to avert it. In that sense, the Bible has some fatalistic episodes. One example is the Joseph cycle (Gen 37-50) where his brothers try to thwart the prophetic dream, but their evasive actions ironically facilitate its realization.
A greater example is where Satan engineers the Crucifixion to defeat the Son of God, blind to the fact that Jesus wins in the long-term by "losing" at the cross. In the plan of God, the Crucifixion is a tactical loss. A way to achieve strategic victory. Although Satan may be a criminal genius, his evil blocks his ability to enter into the mind of God. In his effort to defeat Jesus he unwittingly defeats himself. God ironically used Satan as a means to foil Satan.
Perfect.
ReplyDelete//In the plan of God, the Crucifixion is a tactical loss. //
ReplyDeleteReminds me of when I learned the chess lesson that you should be willing to lose your queen for the sake of ultimate victory. Sometimes your opponent can be lulled into thinking you'll protect the queen at all costs. You can use that false assumption against him.
I have often wondered about this. Jesus said a lot of times he would be put to death and rise on the third day. Did Satan not actually listen or understand what Jesus was plainly saying?
ReplyDeleteDid he also think that Jesus could not rise from the dead?
Jesus could have refrained from saying those things when he knew that evil spirits were listening. Or the evil spirits who were listening took Him figuratively rather than literally. Even the Lord's own disciples didn't get what He meant until after the resurrection.
DeleteAlso, sinful rage and frenzy often isn't completely rational. It's often irrational, or a strange mixture of rational and irrational. That's true of humans who still experience Common Grace. How much more evil spirits who don't experience Common Grace. Demons who tempt humans to commit sins and crimes are being irrational in doing so. Since they ought to know that by so doing they are heaping up greater and greater condemnation and punishment for themselves in hell. But they do so nevertheless. So, they aren't ruled by perfect rationality. Human, and presumably demonic, sinners often do things in the heat of the moment contrary to their long term good. And despite their intellectual knowledge that in the long run it would hurt them to do or not do X. So, agent irrationality is often a part of sinful behavior.
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