Fatalist - who is this?

Sometimes, during a dispute or a heated discussion, we hear: "You are a fatalist!" For some people this is like accusation, many even take offense. But let's see, fatalist - who is this?

From a philological point of view, it is a destined destiny, written from above, and which a person is not able to change, however much he wants. According to the logic of the fatalist, any of us is just a toy in the hands of the higher forces, a passive observer, who only remains that to continue to live and take the events that happened for granted. However, the passivity of observation does not mean that you do not need to do anything. All life activity and all aspirations fit into a certain canvas that will lead somewhere.

In this respect it is interesting to know what the fatalist believes. First of all, in the predestination of fate. With this, everything is clear. But the main thing here is the belief in the regularity and certain logic (sequence) of ongoing events. For a fatalist, there are no accidents, everything that happens to him is a link in one chain, where people's actions occur with absolute probability. For him there is no question: "Fatalist - who is this?" The question is meaningless, for it thus defines both the philosophical understanding of the essence of man, and the metaphysical transcription of being.

However, when searching for an answer to the question posed, one can not avoid the topic of free will. For a fatalist, who burns time, there is neither the past nor the present. For him there is only the future and the expectation of this very future. The personal choice is reduced only to a minimal awareness of what is happening, which in a particular situation can be constructed depending on personal interests. Therefore, the answer to the question "fatalist - who is this" should be sought both in personal egoism, and in the denial of the very principle of choice. Or even more precisely - in the relative acceptance of the possibility of choice in the ideological denial of it. Life is a choice without choice. Like Vladimir Vysotsky: "The track is just mine, get out of your rut!"

The hero of our time is a fatalist. At least, so habitually characterize critics of the main character of the novel of the same name M.Yu.Lermontov. However, Pechorin, three times experiencing his fate in the course of the plot, never thinks about the consequences. He goes ahead like a battering ram, proving to himself and others that no one dares to determine how to live and what to do. In a certain sense, of course, this is fatalism. But on the other hand, he plays not so much with his own, as with other people's destinies, testing the strength of fate. A person becomes like God, he does not take on faith everything that happens to him, does not try to change anything seriously, but makes the outside world and people around him change. And if we remain within the framework of the Pechorin-fatalist concept, then it should be clarified that the fate in Lermontov's understanding is the external world surrounding the reality, a certain "order of things", unchanging and absolute in its existential essence. But not the human soul.

That is why, answering the question "fatalist - who is this," one must proceed from the Catholic understanding of free will. Yes, a person has the right to choose, but this choice is already in itself predetermined. We do not know our destiny and are therefore free to do what we want. But this does not mean denying the fate and will of God. The fatalist simply hopes for his own destiny. Like many of us.