Should We Believe in Luck? Are There Unlucky and Lucky People?

Should We Believe in Luck? Are There Unlucky and Lucky People?

By Archimandrite Athanagoras Karamantzanes

For Christianity and our Orthodox Church, luck does not exist. Nowhere in Holy Scripture or in the entire body of Patristic literature is belief in luck taught. The word luck expresses nothing other than our ignorance of the causes of the phenomena or events of life. There is no goddess and no blind force called luck (τύχη). Whatever appears to us as accidental or coincidental always springs from a deeper cause.

When we say that an event is due to luck, it is merely a manner of speaking, and we mean nothing more than that its cause was unknown to us — not that luck is the cause of things. That is why someone once said: “Luck is perhaps the pseudonym of God, when He does not wish to put His signature.”

But then what does exist? The Providence of our Almighty, All-wise, and All-good God, which is expressed as the uncreated energy of creation, preservation, and governance of the visible and invisible world. Through the Providence of God, every created being is helped to fulfill the purpose for which it was created. In the Old Testament we read: “For Your providence, O Father, governs all things, because You have given even in the sea a way and amid the waves a safe path, showing that You are able to save from every danger” (Wisdom of Solomon 14:3).