Is there such a thing as luck?

[rocklobster]

I really don't think there is such a thing as luck. The reason being you can get all the protective talismans you want, and it still won't save you from something bad happening. Besides, relying on luck is bogus. You're better off relying on God.
Well: agree or disagree?

[ClosetOtaku]

The lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from the LORD. (Proverbs 16:33)

If this is the case then, no, there is no such thing as luck. There is absolute determinism spread out over such a large scale and mired in such complexity that it only appears to follow laws of probability.

[Rusty Claymore]

Quote Otaku's quote for truth. There is no bad luck, just a God given oppertunity to build character!

[Mr. SmartyPants]

Yes. Rolling two 7's on a pair of dice is luck.

[ShiroiHikari]

I think it's more a matter of chance and probability than "luck".

[Nate]

Isn't this just "predestination vs. free will" with a fresh new coat of paint?

Anyway, yes.

[Midori]

I prefer not to use the word 'luck' because it has multiple definitions that are hard to disambiguate.

If you hear someone who's gambling saying "I'm feeling lucky today", the 'luck' they are talking about is merely superstition. The belief that objects or activities can influence your luck or even that your luck has any sort of consistency is false. This is the kind of luck I believe rock is talking about in his post.
However, if by 'luck' you simply mean 'chance', then yes I believe it exists. Which is not to say that God is not in control; rather that he allows the die roll to have even probabilities just as he allows me to have free will. This is the kind of luck I believe MSP and Nate are talking about.

Here's a good way to put it: Many tabletop RPGs have a character stat called 'LUCK' which determines how lucky your character is. In real life that sort of luck does not exist; there's chance and there's the will of God. Neither of these is luck.

EDIT: bad typo, I said "is in control" instead of "is not in control". Whoops, looks like Nate did too!

[Nate]

[quote="Midori"]Which is not to say that God is not in control]
Correct. I'm not implying God is in control, and I'm not saying there's things God doesn't or can't do. What I'm saying is that luck exists in that when I roll my dice at a D&D game, God doesn't sit there and go "I'm going to make it roll a 7!" God set forth physical laws in this universe for how things move and act, and lets them do their own thing. Can He intervene? Sure, but He doesn't always.

[Lynna]

Yes and No: As others have stated, there is no kind of superstitious luck, but for some things I don't think he always regulates

[Yamamaya]

Yes there is luck, but that doesn't mean that everything that happens is the result of luck.

[Rusty Claymore]

You feelin' lucky, Punk?

[Shao Feng-Li]

There's no such thing as luck.

[Htom Sirveaux]

There's no such thing as luck.

Not to be critical or anything, but if you are in a situation where, for no universally significant reason, you flip a quarter and it lands on heads, would you say it was God's will?

[Nate]

Or let's up the stakes. Suppose I flip a coin and say "If this coin is heads, God exists." If it comes up heads, did God make it come up heads to prove He exists? If it comes up tails, did God make it come up tails to test my faith? Does God really care about the results of my coin flip at all? If so, why?

[Shao Feng-Li]

Not to be critical or anything, but if you are in a situation where, for no universally significant reason, you flip a quarter and it lands on heads, would you say it was God's will?

Yeah.

[Nate]

Man I must have invisible posts again. That's weird.

[Shao Feng-Li]

Man I must have invisible posts again. That's weird.

Nate, all I know is that nothing happens outside of God's will. From the path of an individual blood cell in a vein to earthquakes to coin tosses. That's all I've got for you today. We all know we disagree and we've been down this road.

[Nate]

I never said anything happens outside of God's will. However, that doesn't mean that God makes everything that happens happen. You're confusing the two terms. Otherwise that means God made me sin because if everything that happens God makes happen, and I sin, well it happened, right? So then God made me sin.

I don't really believe that, I'm just saying that us sinning is proof that God doesn't make everything in the universe happen. Which means die rolls and coin flips can happen without God making them happen. Saying God doesn't make every single electron spin around an atom is not the same as saying God is powerless, nor that things can go against God's will. It's just saying God doesn't do everything.

[Cognitive Gear]

I never said anything happens outside of God's will. However, that doesn't mean that God makes everything that happens happen. You're confusing the two terms. Otherwise that means God made me sin because if everything that happens God makes happen, and I sin, well it happened, right? So then God made me sin.

"God made me do it" might be the greatest court defense ever. Or the worst. It depends on how you look at it.

[Shao Feng-Li]

I obviously don't understand it all or how to reconcile with it all, but it's just what I believe. Maybe someday I will be able to better defend myself, but right now the knowledge just isn't all there. Neither is the will for a discussion/debate/etc.

[Nate]

I obviously don't understand it all or how to reconcile with it all, but it's just what I believe.

Hmm. Okay, fair enough. Obviously I can't force you to debate/argue with me, and neither of us will likely concede to the other. I do find it a bit odd to believe in something with no reason or evidence to believe in it, but that may be a failing of my brain. Kinda like how I suck at remembering things.

Anyway, the reason I believe what I believe, to put it simply, is because of what I said. We all sin. That's obvious. If God did everything, then logically, God makes us sin. However, we know that God does not make us sin, the Bible tells us this clearly. So if there is one thing that we can be sure God does not do, then there are probably other things God does not do. And again, I'm not saying God can't do those things. He obviously can. But God put physical laws into this universe so He wouldn't have to do anything.

Like gravity. God put gravity here so things would naturally be drawn to other things. If I hold a pencil in the air and let it go, is God making it fall? Is God pushing it to the ground? No, God is letting the physical law of gravity influence that pencil, which causes it to be attracted to the ground. It'd be kind of weird to think God is making everything fall.

[ClosetOtaku]

Umm... we're talking about 'luck', not about 'free will', as far as I know.

Whether I choose Rocky Road or Pistachio, that's my free will.

If I flip a coin in the middle of the desert, the outcome is God's will.

If you've never done so, read up sometime on the German Enigma machine in World War II. The Germans believed their codes were invulnerable, and it took the intervention of a lot of smart people in Britain to finally break them. But the British allowed the Germans to decimate Coventry in a bombing raid, even though they knew of the raid in advance. Why? Because defending Coventry would tip the Germans off that their codes had been broken, and the Germans would have abandoned Enigma and changed their methodology.

In a sense, it is the same for God. C.S. Lewis, through the devil Screwtape, writes:

You must have often wondered why the Enemy does not make more use of is power to be sensibly present to human souls in any degree He chooses and at any moment. But you now see that the Irresistible and the Indisputable are the two weapons which the very nature of His scheme forbids Him to use. Merely to override a human will (as His felt presence in any but the faintest and most mitigated degree would certainly do) would be for Him useless. He cannot ravish. He can only woo.

God doesn't tip His hand often. Probability, IMO, is how He maintains the 'plausible deniability' that He might not exist or intervene in the affairs of mankind. It requires faith to look beyond the probability and agree that God DOES indeed does control circumstances and events (outside my free will).

We have a word that describes when God does suspend natural probabilities: a Miracle. Diseased eyes do not regenerate, water remains water and doesn't spontaneously change to wine, dead bodies do not come back to life, without a Miracle.

So, is there 'luck', in the classic sense? No. There is probability, which affects everything from the quantum state of each particle in your body to the dice that land on the gambling table. But even in this sense (see Galatians for a 1st-Century explanation), God is in control of these seemingly random events. Like the stage crew of a particularly good production, though, He remains as off-stage as possible, being 'seen' only when we decide to ditch our 'suspension of disbelief' in the distractions onstage.

[Htom Sirveaux]

Could it not be God's will that the coin should land on whatever side it just happens to land on?

[Nate]

Umm... we're talking about 'luck', not about 'free will', as far as I know.

The reason I brought up free will is because this is the same question, just about a different subject.

"Luck" asks "Does God cause everything that happens in the physical world to happen?"

"Free will" asks "Does God cause everyone who does something to do it?"

Whether I choose Rocky Road or Pistachio, that's my free will.

Ah, but this is where it gets interesting. You state that's your free will, but is it? Maybe God is making you choose one of those two for His reasons. If you believe God makes a coin land on heads or tails, why doesn't God make you choose Rocky Road or Pistachio?

Remember some Christian denominations do not believe in free will. They believe in Predestination, that God chose beforehand what you would do in life, and you have no free will, you can only follow the script God wrote for you.

You might say "That's ridiculous, of course I have free will." Well, that's how I feel about luck. :p That's ridiculous, of course luck exists.

However, here's the thing that I keep stressing and apparently keeps getting lost somehow. Am I not saying it properly? Am I being confusing? I hope I'm not, but it seems like I am since no one seems to notice it. But I'll try again.

Those who believe in free will admit that God can and does influence people to do things sometimes. God doesn't always do it, but He does sometimes. Look in Exodus at the Pharaoh. God purposely hardened his heart to not let the Israelites go. This is proof that God, at least SOMETIMES, does cause people to do things. But He doesn't always do it, just sometimes. That's if you believe in free will.

Those who believe in Predestination say "No, no one can ever make a decision of their own free will, ever, God has ordained it all, no one can go off-script."

Okay, now. I believe in luck, as I said. Now, I do admit sometimes God does influence things! God can and does make certain things happen in the world, God may make a coin flip land how He wants it to, sure! But He does not always do it. Only sometimes! When are the times He does and He doesn't? I don't know! But He obviously doesn't do it all the time, just as He doesn't make people do things all the time.

And then on the other hand, those who don't believe in luck say "No, nothing can ever happen on its own, ever, God does everything, nothing can do anything without being controlled."

This is why free will is very parallel to luck in discussion. It's the same discussion, but with different nouns. It's like a mad libs argument, they're the same arguments, but with different words in the blanks. Replace "free will" with "luck" and replace "decision" with "event" and boom, you've gone from free will to luck with two simple changes!

I also would like to hear (and this is an honest, genuine question) why those who think luck does not exist believe in gravity. Does God push/pull objects to the ground and gravity is an illusion created by God's actions? If the answer is no, gravity is real, then why does God not control things falling to the ground, but does control the die I roll when I'm playing a game? If things fall because of gravity and God does not intervene, cannot also my die fall at whatever angle I throw it at, bounce according to the laws of physics, and land wherever it lands without God intervening? Why does God not involve Himself in how an acorn falls from a tree, but does involve Himself with how a die falls from my hand?

It just doesn't add up. As I said, if we know that there are things God does not do (God doesn't make things fall, gravity does that), then obviously God does not do everything. And if God does not do everything, then obviously luck exists, because God doesn't make everything happen. Now, again, and this is the part people seem to miss, I don't know why, but God CAN make everything happen. He's God. He's omnipotent. God can totally make everything happen, if He wants. But He obviously doesn't want to make everything happen, because He created this universe with physical laws so He wouldn't have to make everything happen. Can God stick His hand in and do things? Absolutely! I'm not saying God can't ever do anything ever and the world is alone to its own devices. That's the opposite of what I'm saying, because God can do it if He wants! He certainly can do it! Never let it be said that I was claiming God cannot do things (except sin obviously)! I'm just saying He doesn't, and saying He doesn't do something is not the same as saying He can't do something. They are two completely different statements and concepts. He can do things that He doesn't do. God can make me a millionaire right now. Sure He can! But He isn't. He probably won't. That doesn't mean He can't do it, it just means He isn't doing it for whatever reason.

Okay. Hopefully I have made myself really clear this time, and won't be misunderstood. I have tried really hard to express it in the least confusing way I can. @.@

Could it not be God's will that the coin should land on whatever side it just happens to land on?

Also this. XD

[ClosetOtaku]

Ah, but this is where it gets interesting. You state that's your free will, but is it? Maybe God is making you choose one of those two for His reasons. If you believe God makes a coin land on heads or tails, why doesn't God make you choose Rocky Road or Pistachio?

Because without this choice, it is senseless to speak of right and wrong, of Heaven and Hell. Without this choice, there is no justice.

Now, God (or Cthulhu, if you prefer, in this sense) can certainly pervert justice, punish people for making them do exactly what He wanted them to do, and call it all "right" and "just". He can call a potato a kiwi fruit, for all it matters]Those who believe in free will admit that God can and does influence people to do things sometimes. God doesn't always do it, but He does sometimes. Look in Exodus at the Pharaoh. God purposely hardened his heart to not let the Israelites go. This is proof that God, at least SOMETIMES, does cause people to do things. But He doesn't always do it, just sometimes. That's if you believe in free will.[/quote]

No doubt God influenced Pharaoh, but did God 'make' him do it? Pharaoh changed his mind. We do it all the time. God 'hardened his heart' -- note this -- so Pharoah frequently said, "Go, Moses", only to ponder his 'mistake'. God gave Pharoah over to his fears, his sense of 'Nah, these plagues are just coincidence', to 'what will I do without slave labor', to what Pharaoh's advisors and court were no doubt whispering in light of Pharaoh's weakness. Think of Pilate and his wife, Pilate and his sense of 'justice'. Jesus called Pilate's ultimate decision a 'sin' (comparing it favorably, though, to Judas' sin), thereby indicating Pilate was no God-sponsored patsy (just like Pharaoh). Just as Paul says in Romans -- God didn't make mankind sin, but He 'gave them over' to even more sinful behavior because of their unbelief. I don't think God 'made' Pharaoh do anything he wouldn't have done -- God just denied Pharaoh wisdom when Pharaoh most needed it. My explanation and opinion.

But He obviously doesn't do it all the time, just as He doesn't make people do things all the time.

Then we shall agree to disagree. I would like to think God doesn't involve Himself in random happenstance, but the Scriptures seem to indicate otherwise.

And then on the other hand, those who don't believe in luck say "No, nothing can ever happen on its own, ever, God does everything, nothing can do anything without being controlled."

Well, I don't say that.

This is why free will is very parallel to luck in discussion.

And I think it is a false dichotomy. We are made in God's image, which suggests we also have free will, as God has His permissive will. I don't control quantum states, however, and God does. They are two separate issues with two separate engines that look similar only because we don't understand either one thoroughly.

I also would like to hear (and this is an honest, genuine question) why those who think luck does not exist believe in gravity. Does God push/pull objects to the ground and gravity is an illusion created by God's actions?

I guess it depends on what you mean by 'pushing'.

If I leave a candle burning in my living room, and it falls over and burns down the house, and people die, the Courts will find me guilty of negligent homicide. Now, I didn't push the candle over, I didn't set the drapes on fire, I didn't suffocate the victims. The candle and fire did it on their own. But I, as a 'first mover', lit the candle. An unlit candle doesn't burn down a house.

The falling object falls because it exists in a gravitational field created by another massive object (e.g. Earth). It does so in response to physical laws which demand it do so. Those laws were created by God. He is the 'first mover'. Whether it requires His direct intervention or not is of no matter.

So, are there 10,000 angels mediating the fall of that twig or apple or airplane? I suppose there could be, although I find that unnecessary.

Now, the die falling is another matter. It obeys the laws of physics, just as the twig does. It has angular momentum, and translational mechanics determine how it rolls. In theory, we could trace everything from the temperature of the die itself, the amount of humidity on the craps table (or concrete sidewalk), the orientation of the die as it leaves my hand back to a moment when I picked up the die and started to change its facing by rolling it. So, in theory, if we had enough data, we should know what it would roll even before I threw it.

But that's not what Scripture says.

Now, perhaps that is splitting hairs. After all, the tower in Siloam fell (see Luke). Did it fall due to negligence, a gust of wind, age...? Jesus didn't seem to indicate there was any God-smiting going on, just that it fell over. Where were those 10,000 angels?

It just doesn't add up. As I said, if we know that there are things God does not do (God doesn't make things fall, gravity does that), then obviously God does not do everything.

Syllogism refuted, as argued above.

And if God does not do everything, then obviously luck exists, because God doesn't make everything happen.

Logical conclusion based on false proposition is not necessarily false, but I still have to disagree.

Okay. Hopefully I have made myself really clear this time, and won't be misunderstood. I have tried really hard to express it in the least confusing way I can.

You were quite clear. I am not convinced it is a sound argument. You are not being misunderstood, just disagreed with.

[ClosetOtaku]

Could it not be God's will that the coin should land on whatever side it just happens to land on?

Most certainly.

I guess some folks are overwhelmed by the complexity suggested when someone says "God determines all these things". I have no problem believing a being who created a Universe that spans billions of light-years and has ~10^78 particles would have issues with determining the outcome of a truly meaningless coin flip, although some feel He could probably care less. Maybe. Or maybe they think it is meaningless, and therefore project their feelings on to God.

But I think there's an underlying structure. Consider Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle. Why should God/nature care whether we could know a particle's position and momentum simultaneously? But that's the reality. And Feynman, in his lectures, explained why: Heisenberg's principle is why we don't fall through chairs when we sit down on them. Listen to his rationale, it's amusing. It's counterintuitive. But it's basically this -- we aren't allowed to know, but the behavior of matter is such that by sitting on the chair, we come closer to knowing, which isn't allowed, so the chair 'pushes' back, and we don't fall through. (Those who aren't shocked by quantum mechanics, said Niels Bohr, haven't understood it.) That's Feynman's take, but he's the physicist, and has the Nobel to prove it. I'll take him at his word.

So, maybe there is an underlying structure to why God handles probabilities the way he does. Perhaps it is 'control'. Perhaps it is just to maintain the veil between faith and certainty.

[Atria35]

Can I just interject here and say this is probably going rght into 'locked' territory?

[Mr. SmartyPants]

Can I just interject here and say this is probably going rght into 'locked' territory?

Unless we're lucky.

[Nate]

Because without this choice, it is senseless to speak of right and wrong, of Heaven and Hell. Without this choice, there is no justice.

See, that's what I say. 'Tis why I'm a supporter of free will as opposed to Predestination (since how can God make someone do something then punish them for it). Usually though the response is of course what you said, the whole "the potter has a right to do what he wants with his clay" verse.

No doubt God influenced Pharaoh, but did God 'make' him do it?

Eh, I suppose you're right about that. Exodus does say repeatedly "The Lord hardened his heart" but that does leave room for certain vagueness. 1 Samuel 18 (among other places) says explicitly that God sent evil spirits into people, but I suppose that does not equate to God forcing them to do anything either.

I would like to think God doesn't involve Himself in random happenstance, but the Scriptures seem to indicate otherwise.

I don't see much indication of this other than the whole "not even a sparrow falls to the ground" verse, but I don't interpret the verse to mean that. But still, yes, we'll have to agree to disagree. XD

It does so in response to physical laws which demand it do so. Those laws were created by God. He is the 'first mover'. Whether it requires His direct intervention or not is of no matter.

Right, but see, that's how I feel about the coin flip. God created laws, and those laws do their thing when you flip a coin, such as the weight of the coin, how fast it's spinning, and so on. To me, God directly intervening in the outcome isn't necessary. Sure, he can, but why bother? He has better things to do, like forgive sins and cure diseases miraculously. And watch out for stupid people like me when we make stupid mistakes.

Seriously I can't count the number of times I've done something extremely boneheaded when I was driving a car or something and could have caused a serious accident if not for the grace of God. @.@

So, in theory, if we had enough data, we should know what it would roll even before I threw it.

Actually yeah, we should, although the data would be pretty hard to obtain, since the slightest change can alter the result. It would be impossible to recreate a die roll for the fact that, for example, friction is rubbing off a bit of the die, as well as the surface the die strikes. It's definitely a microscopic, perhaps even atomic level of friction, but it's still there, and that little bit can fundamentally alter the outcome. It's like if you forget to carry the one in a math problem, it's a small mistake, but you'll come up with a completely crazy and different outcome. The small change adds up. And I don't think we have the calculational (is that a word?) ability to do calculations on a scale that small, or if we do, it's hard to measure exact enough to get the right variables to plug in.

But yes, theoretically we should be able to calculate the outcome. And I think we often do calculate the outcome of things like that, maybe not on that scale or of things that are quite that insignificant, but take, say, safety regulations on a car. We need to be able to calculate how long it will take for a car moving at this speed to safely be able to stop at a point in x amount of time. However, calculations will always vary because cars have different amount of tread on the tires, may be carrying different amounts of weight, may have more or less brake fluid than another car, may have better or worse brake pads, etc. But we can definitely calculate how long the average car takes to stop under certain conditions. The die is a bit smaller, but the same principles still apply to a degree (although of course, this isn't a perfect example, as a normal die has six possible outcomes, and a car trying to stop has really only one, which is it stopping).

After all, the tower in Siloam fell (see Luke). Did it fall due to negligence, a gust of wind, age...? Jesus didn't seem to indicate there was any God-smiting going on, just that it fell over. Where were those 10,000 angels?

Right, which I would use for evidence that God doesn't do everything, although of course Jesus was talking more about how just because bad things happen to people doesn't mean it's some sort of divine punishment (it still doesn't answer the question of "Did God make the tower fall" just "Did God do it to punish those people" for which the answer was a clear no).

[Mr. SmartyPants]

Back in the day, Jews did have the assumption that everything that happened was God's will anyway. Obviously this has kind of still stuck around to Christian thought.