Abstract

Oedipus’s basic error was to have viewed evil as a problem, whereas he learns to his grief that it is actually a mystery, an irresolvable paradox, a natural contradiction between the mutually exclusive possibilities of self-determination and predetermination, between freedom of the will and divine omniscience. This is the quandary as it is perceived by philosophy and religion. In the domains of religion and theology Fate is indeed a mystery. Ill-equipped as I am to elucidate mysteries, I will move the discussion to a firmer ground, where the concept of Fate is merely a problem, where scholars, those who “traffic in words,” as Goethe calls us, stand a fighting chance.1My major concerns will be: 1) to determine what ..