By Stoics, everything happens by fate. Everything is causally determined, which is fate. Fate is the connecting cause of the things which exist, or a rational principle according to which the cosmos is arranged.
Cosmos is a chain of events, a chain which is inescapable. It is determined by God. Then what I am doing is predetermined. God is the body. He penetrates all of matter. He mixes with everything. He is the active principle. God is the mind. God is the craftsman. God is the connecting cause, a whole chain of events.

The are four elements of fate:

  1. There is an element of rationality, organisation and order in fate.
  2. Organisation is such that whatever occurs had been organized before it occured.
  3. Necessity, inevitability are connected with fate.
  4. Fate is described as an interaction between bodies this interaction is described as “chain” of causes.

Stoic’s determinism is a universal determinism. There is exactly one chain of events and this is the chain of events that is the actual one. Every movement and state is included. Raising one’s eyebrow, stretching out one’s finger, or turning one’s head is the example for small movements that are predetermined.

Stoic’s determinism is a teleological determinism:

  • Nothing comes to be in the universe without a cause, because there is nothing of the things in it that is separated and disconnected from all the things that have preceded.
  • If any causeless motion were introduced, the universe would be torn apart and divided and not remain single for ever.
  • For something to come to be without a cause is similar to, and as impossible as, the coming to be of something from what is not.
  • The organization of the whole goes on from infinity to infinity evidently and unceasingly.

Stoic’s determinism is a causal determinism:

  • all interactions are interactions between bodies, and this interaction is described as causation,
  • a cause is that because of which,
  • a cause is a body and that of which it is the cause is a predicate,
  • it is impossible for the cause to be present and that of which it is the cause not to be the case,
  • a cause is that because of which something comes about.

Bibliography:

  • Cicero, On Fate 39-44 [=Inwood-Lloyd Gerson II-90]
  • Alexander of Aphrodisias On Fate, 192.9-18.