Fatalism is the error that all events are fixed in advance by a blind, impersonal, inexorable necessity—“fate”—such that whatever happens must happen and human effort, choice, and means are ultimately pointless. It appears in many guises: the Moira or fate of the Greeks, to which even the gods were subject; the Stoic doctrine of an iron chain of causes; the Islamic kismet in its fatalistic forms; and the modern mechanistic determinism that reduces all events, including human choices, to the inevitable outworking of physical law. Fatalism must be sharply distinguished from the biblical doctrine of God’s sovereign decree and providence, with which it is often carelessly confused—by critics who slander predestination as “fatalism,” and by lazy believers who lapse into a fatalistic resignation. The differences are decisive. First, fate is impersonal, a blind necessity answerable to no one; providence is the purposeful government of a wise, personal, holy God. Second, fate is amoral and arbitrary, indifferent to righteousness; providence is moral, ordering all things to good and holy ends. Third—and most practically—fatalism severs ends from means, teaching that since the outcome is fixed, effort is futile (“what will be, will be”); but the God who ordains the end also ordains the means to it, so that prayer, labor, watchfulness, and the use of remedies are not pointless but are themselves the appointed instruments by which His decree is accomplished. The fatalist says, “If I am to recover, I shall, whether I take the medicine or not”; the believer in providence takes the medicine God has ordained as the means of his recovery. Thus the doctrine of the decree, far from breeding fatalistic passivity, establishes diligent action, for God ordains means and ends together, and the certainty of His purpose is the very ground of confident labor and prayer.