What is the Catholic teaching on 'luck'?

[bbentrup]

(Apparently, after five days, the apologists are too busy for this one… )

What is the Catholic teaching on ‘luck’? God is obviously omniscient and omnipotent - so nothing happens against His will. However, I was wondering if, like sin, a ‘lucky’ occurrence may happen due to his permissive will. Is it absurd to suggest that God could let a result be determined by some passive (to us) set of characteristics?

If the answer is the flat proof that luck is absurd, I have a brief follow-up question: is it wrong to wish people good luck (esp. where it is common protocol, as before a tournament chess game) if there is ontologically no such thing?

 

[StCsDavid]

We do find the word luck in sacred scripture in both the Revised Standard Version and the New American. Nothing in the King James that I could find.

Do not reveal your thoughts to every one, lest you drive away your good luck.
Sirach 8:19 RSV

*Leah then said, “What good luck!” So she named him Gad. *
Genesis 30:11 NAB

In both cases it’s probably a flabby translation and perhaps would better read as “good fortune.”

I don’t think the Church has taken an official stand one way or another on the question of does luck exist? I don’t see any sin in wishing someone good luck.

 

[1holycatholic]

The word “luck” does not appear in the Catechism of the Catholic Church. The phrase “divine providence” does.

 

[bbentrup]

Thanks 1holycatholic for an inspiration… Found this in the Catholic Enyclopedia under Fate:

Catholic Teaching
According to Catholic teaching, God, who is the Author of the universe, has made it subject to fixed and necessary laws so that, where our knowledge of these laws is complete, we are able to predict physical events with certainty. Moreover, God’s absolute decree is irrevocable, but, as He cannot will that which is evil, the abuse of free will is in no case predetermined by Him. The physical accompaniments of the free act of the will as well as its consequences, are willed by God conditionally upon the positing of the act itself, and all alike are the object of His eternal foreknowledge. The nature of this foreknowledge is a matter still in dispute between the opposing schools of Bañez and Molina. Hence, though God knows from all eternity everything that is going to happen, He does not will everything. Sin He does not will in any sense; He only permits it. Certain things He wills absolutely and others conditionally, and His general supervision, whereby these decrees are carried out, is called Divine Providence. As God is a free agent, the order of nature is not necessary in the sense that it could not have been otherwise than it is. It is only necessary in so far as it works according to definite uniform laws and is predetermined by a decree which, though absolute, was nevertheless free.

Moreover, in the case of miracles, God interferes with the ordinary course of nature; and the supposition that, at certain periods of the world’s evolution, such, for instance, as when man first appeared on the earth, there have been other providential interpositions involving new departures in the world-process, provides for certain facts in the region of organic life an explanation not less scientific than the opposite assumptions of the materialists. St. Thomas distinguishes fate from Providence, and calls it the order or disposition of secondary causes according to which they act in obedience to the First Cause.

It follows from what has been said that, in the Catholic view, the idea of fate–St. Thomas dislikes the word–must lack the note of absolute necessity, since God’s decrees are free, while it preserves the character of relative necessity inasmuch as such decrees, when once passed, cannot be gainsaid. Moreover, God knows what is going to happen because it is going to happen, and not vice versa. Hence the futurity of an event is a logical, but not a physical, consequence of God’s foreknowledge.

 

[allhers]

I believe the official teaching of the Catholic Church is that it has nothing to do with luck, unless of course, it is the luck of the Irish :irish3: :shamrock2:

(…and just so no one thinks that I am serious about this, I was kidding okay?)

I personally never wish anyone good luck but instead usually just say that I will pray for them, but I don’t think that when someone says “good luck” to me that they are a sinner.

 

[Cadellin]

What is luck but a favourable circumstance. There is nothing contrary to Church teaching about one experiencing a favourable set of circumstances. So to wish someone good luck is simply to say you hope they will experience a favourable set of circumstances.