Does anything really ever happen “by chance”?

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victorg2001

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I’ve been thinking about this extensively the past few weeks and haven’t found much literature or Church teaching on the topic. For example, two soulmates meeting each other at a bus stop, or even the way dice land on a table. Since God created the universe and ordered the laws of nature in such a way that things may appear to occur “by chance”, wouldn’t almost all events be a result of Divine Providence and/or our own actions of free will? But back to the dice analogy, since God set the laws of gravity, and knew at the beginning of creation how the dice would land, since He is all-knowing, can we really say that any physical occurrences happen randomly? It’s sometimes difficult for me to think that God would be directly tied into something so little as a toss of the dice, but it seems like this must be so out of logical necessity. Ecclesiastes 9:11 says

“I returned and saw under the sun that—

The race is not to the swift,
Nor the battle to the strong,
Nor bread to the wise,
Nor riches to men of understanding,
Nor favor to men of skill;
But time and chance happen to them all.”

It seems to me that the chance being observed is more apparent, and not literal randomness. Rather, things appear to be accidental to us because we do not see the whole picture. I’ve had things in my life happen that appeared to be mere accidents at first, but ended up forever changing me spiritually and mentally. I can no longer think that they were accidents. Please note I’m not taking a predestination viewpoint as I think it is completely obvious that we have free will and I feel our actions greatly impact the coming to pass of things that appear to be “by chance”. But in regards to the physical world, it seems to me that nothing occurs on accident, as all was set and ordered by God. This is a complex topic and I would love to hear all of your opinions. I don’t have a hard and fast position on this so please correct me where I may be wrong. God Bless!
 
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victorg2001 said:
I’ve been thinking about this extensively the past few weeks and haven’t found much literature or Church teaching on the topic. For example, two soulmates meeting each other at a bus stop, or even the way dice land on a table. Since God created the universe and ordered the laws of nature in such a way that things may appear to occur “by chance”, wouldn’t almost all events be a result of Divine Providence and/or our own actions of free will? But back to the dice analogy, since God set the laws of gravity, and knew at the beginning of creation how the dice would land, since He is all-knowing, can we really say that any physical occurrences happen randomly? It’s sometimes difficult for me to think that God would be directly tied into something so little as a toss of the dice, but it seems like this must be so out of logical necessity. Ecclesiastes 9:11 says

“I returned and saw under the sun that—

The race is not to the swift,
Nor the battle to the strong,
Nor bread to the wise,
Nor riches to men of understanding,
Nor favor to men of skill;
But time and chance happen to them all.”

It seems to me that the chance being observed is more apparent, and not literal randomness. Rather, things appear to be accidental to us because we do not see the whole picture. I’ve had things in my life happen that appeared to be mere accidents at first, but ended up forever changing me spiritually and mentally. I can no longer think that they were accidents. Please note I’m not taking a predestination viewpoint as I think it is completely obvious that we have free will and I feel our actions greatly impact the coming to pass of things that appear to be “by chance”. But in regards to the physical world, it seems to me that nothing occurs on accident, as all was set and ordered by God. This is a complex topic and I would love to hear all of your opinions. I don’t have a hard and fast position on this so please correct me where I may be wrong. God Bless!
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there is no chance with God. He knows everything… even before it happens
 
Personally I believe there are very few, if any, coincidences in this life. We meet people at appointed times, we have an effect of one kind or other, then we may part. Circumstances work out to ensure we face what is needed to strengthen our character. Every piece of joy or adversity is designed and placed in our path. We still have ample choice, mind you, and are not required to participate in everything that comes our way. But the choices and options are there and we learn from all of them.
 
Yes, same here! I especially think we meet certain people for a reason. I’ve seen the impact so many times in my own life.
 
Even when we talk about a “random” event in a mathematical sense, there is still some determinacy to the randomness. If we put 12 6-sided dice into a bag, and we shake the bag and dump out the dice, 12 dice will fall and display numbers 1-6 on each. It is only random in a derivative sense, within the confines of the parameters of the system. Randomness would only be truly possible in an infinite system, and there is no such thing at that point. A physical universe is confined, then, by its own physicality, its own limitedness. An infinite universe that was random could not be sufficiently ordered for even the illusion of randomness to be possible. Randomness at the level of a system, no matter how complex or how simple, depends upon some degree of constraint or limitedness in order for it to even be possible.

In short, randomness is not a separate independent reality from causality, but can only be seen or evaluated in contradistinction to it–akin to darkness not being an independent reality from light or cold not being an independent reality from heat, both are simply degrees of light or heat. Darkness does not rush in and replace light when we turn off the lights and draw the shades, nor does cold replace heat–things simply become less light and less warm. Randomness, then, is not a separate independent quality from constraint or determinacy, since it always happens within limits–it is merely the appearance to some degree within the universe of discourse of a given occurrence that there is no limit or constraint.

-Fr ACEGC
 
Thank you. And I follow up with one point I usually make when having this discussion but have forgotten here:

When we empty our bag of dice, again, it is only random in the derivative sense, meaning that other things than the numbers 1-6 on each of our 12 dice cannot come out. We would not expect 27 dice or 10,000 dice or 4 dice to fall out (unless several were stuck inside the bag for some reason), and we would not expect one die to display 9 and one to display 12 and another to display 57 and another to display the letter J. Still less would we expect to come tumbling out of the bag a 6-side die displaying 4, and then a 12-sided die displaying 9, and then a basketball and a squirrel and a pony and a galaxy and an amoeba. This would defy the way the system is put together (and the basic logical framework of the universe, to say the least). So any system, whether it is a bag with 12 dice in it, or the vast universe, still operates under constraint in some way, and operates with some degree of determinacy. It is only in the realm of the un-physical, the metaphysical, that we can begin to talk about infinity, which is limitlessness–physicality is a limit upon the extension of something. A physical universe could not be infinite, and thus it could not be truly random.
 
victorg2001 said:
For example, two soulmates meeting each other at a bus stop, or even the way dice land on a table. Since God created the universe and ordered the laws of nature in such a way that things may appear to occur “by chance”
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“By chance”?

The result of rolls of dice are determined by quite complex physics. If “by chance” or “randomly”, you mean “I can’t calculate the results in advance”, then that’s fair. That doesn’t mean “chance”, though… just “I can’t do the math.”

Soulmates? That’s a secular concept that’s more romantic than real. The vast majority of people are folks you’ll never come in contact with – they either already lived and died, or haven’t yet been born, or aren’t within a narrow range of birth date in order to be a romantic match, or live too far away from you for meaningful contact. Therefore, for “soulmates” to be a true concept, what you mean is “of the scant <0.00001% of human population whom I might be able to consider a romantic match, there’s exactly one meant for me.” So… one out of millions? Nah… more like one out of hundreds.

Rather, I think the Christian concept would be that we choose a spouse, and choose to love and honor them for the rest of our days together. So… no; I don’t see choice of spouse as ‘chance’, either.
 
I have heard people talk about how they met their husband or wife…
Many believe it was - an act of fate - not chance 😇
 
“You know, the most amazing thing happened to me tonight… I saw a car with the license plate ARW 357. Can you imagine? Of all the millions of license plates in the state, what was the chance that I would see that particular one tonight? Amazing!”

Richard Feynman (whose picture I use as my avatar).
 
I love this quote by a great Jewish Rabbi, The Baal Shem Tov:

“God is at your side and He alone is to be feared.
God sees, God watches.
He is in every life, in every thing.
The world hinges on His will.
It is He who decides how many times
the leaf will turn in the dust
before the wind blows it away.”

Whether or not God controls our world to this extent, I don’t know.
But we know the faithful are securely in His hands.
 
That is humorous but the chances could be calculated. One of the laws of statistics is the law of finite probabilities, which we see operate all the time. If there is a chance of something happening, no matter how small the probability, it will happen sooner or later.

On a short outing I saw the same (moving) car twice.

I watch the program Air Disasters. The crashes are a result of pilot error, lack of training of pilots for events that are not expected to happen, stress failure of components that are not supposed to fail, limitations of testing and design, etc.

I had a seminar with some statisticians that found six thousand factors that contribute to the thickness of the oxide coating of magnetic tape during manufacture.
 
Bradskii said:
Richard Feynman (whose picture I use as my avatar).
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Dang. And here, all this time, I’d hoped that you were Feynman, back from the dead, teasing us with doubts about God and the afterlife… 🤣 😉 👍
Bradskii said:
“You know, the most amazing thing happened to me tonight… I saw a car with the license plate ARW 357. Can you imagine? Of all the millions of license plates in the state, what was the chance that I would see that particular one tonight? Amazing!”
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A sense of scale would be useful, here. This example allows for at least 17.5 million license plate numbers. There are 40x more stars than that in the Milky Way. In other words, seeing that license plate is less exciting an occurrence than looking up at the sky at night and seeing stars. (Unless, of course, you live in LA…)
 
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There are several good answers here, particulary Bradskii’s. He has brought this sort of thing up before, and He’s right. For example, if you take any particular event that’s happening right now–the fact that you are sitting in a particular chair in a particular place reading this at exactly this time, etc. etc. then what are the odds of this happening? In other words, if you went back in time 25 years and laid out the exact events that you are doing right this moment, and you bet someone 25 years ago that exactly what is happening would happen, the odds against it would be astronomical. And yet it’s happened, as have all the other events occurring at this moment. So obviously that’s not the way to analyze things.

To me this sort of question is like religion and evolution; there is no conflict. Just like there is no conflict between an all-knowing and all-powerful God and chance events. What might be seen as random or chance to us is not necessarily seen that way by God. That is not to say that God is somehow actively guiding events everywhere in the universe to do x, y, and z. That, in my opinion, is just silly. But God did create natural laws, and among these natural laws chance and “random” events certainly play a role.

And there is a saying that goes something like this: If an event is not impossible, then, given enough time, it is certain to happen. (Going back I see ottri has given the same quotation–his comments are also very good.) All of us have coincidences in our lives. But of course if we ALL have coincidences, however improbable, then clearly they are not improbable at all. For example, I used to teach overseas. On vacations we would travel in Europe. Inevitably (literally–every vacation) we would meet some other teacher from the school in some unlikely place (the cisterns of Istanbul, the city gate in Canterbury, the Tower of London were all examples). Pretty improbable, right? Not really. We were all going on vacation at the same time. We all went to Europe. We all went to the standard tourist places. So of course we would bump into each other–the fact that we did all the time proves it. Another example: Once I was in London, and I stopped to watch a cricket match in a park. An English guy wandered by and explained some things for me. A week later–in a different city 100 miles away–who did I bump into? The same English guy. What are the odds?

Now some pious (and to my mind very misguided and superstitious) people see coincidences as a sign from God. For example, they find a penny in the street and the date on the penny is their dead mother’s birth year. Or a blue jay lands on their picnic table, and their mother’s favorite bird was a blue jay. The same with dreams–I dreamt that so-and-so would call me tomorrow, and sure enough, they did. Are these signs from God? They are if you are a pagan living in 1st century Rome. We should know better.
 
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There was a great movie a few years ago, “Free Radicals,” by an young Austrian woman. Basically a young woman from Austria went on vacation to Brazil. On the way back, her plane crashed. The movie then examined the consequences that flowed from that. But (and thus the title) the “expected” never happened. Two people met, were very attracted to each other, and went their separate ways–the opposite of most movies, but exactly what happens in real life. But the movie is a great exploration of “chance” in life.

Now the movie opened with a shot of a butterfly in the Brazilian rain forest flitting around. After the movie, I was able to talk to the director–it was a film festival. I told her I thought it was a great idea to put the butterfly at the beginning as a foreshadowing of the chaos theory the movie was trying to illustrate (you know, the old cliche of “If a butterfly flaps its wings in Brazil…”). And what did she say? “I never thought of that.” So even things that can SEEM to be carefully planned and scripted (like a movie!) are often influenced by chance (she thought butterflies were pretty…).
 
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I remember 9 / 11 and the stories that followed afterwards.

The people - who didn’t go to work that day -

Many things that people mentioned - truly hinted towards fate -

It was that eerie vibe -
 
But all licence plate numbers have exactly the same chance of being seen. That you saw one particular plate was a random occurence and nothing special whatsoever.

Extrapolate from that and you can see what is meant by the example.
 
Seagull said:
I remember 9 / 11 and the stories that followed afterwards.

The people - who didn’t go to work that day -

Many things that people mentioned - truly hinted towards fate -

It was that eerie vibe -
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Lots of people didn’t go to work the previous day. Or the day before that. Or on any given day. That planes were flown into the buildings does not make anyone’s decision to take a day off anything special.

50,000 people worked at the towers. A conservative estimate of the number of times people call in sick is that 50% do it once a month. So 25,000 people had a sick day that September. So around 850 on that day. And look up the frequency of dreams regards flying. It’s around 1.8 percent.

So 15 people had a dream the night before Sept 11 about flying and then took a day off sick.

If I named 10 people that that had happened to and showed you sworn written testimony, you’d freak out. But that would be well under the avarage for that day. No big deal. We’re just easily fooled by such stories.
 
_
Given for one instant an intelligence which could comprehend all the forces by which nature is animated and the respective situation of the beings which compose it—an intelligence sufficiently vast to submit these data to analysis, it would embrace in the same formula the movements of the greatest bodies in the universe and those of the lightest atom; to it nothing would be uncertain, and the future as the past would be present to its eyes. Pierre-Simon Laplace
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Unfortunately, Laplace could not come to believe that such a being did exist.
 
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