By Mark W. Christy, PhD
In China, many people can be seen wearing amulets or displaying them in their cars and homes. During their wedding ceremonies (at least in Shanxi province), the color red could be seen everywhere with red carpet covering the walking area and red pieces of paper covering any observable man-holes. When asked about these things, the Chinese would begin to discuss the various procedures being undertaken in regard to how their activities produced good luck and warded off bad luck.
Within such an environment, the question ‘What is Luck’ began to arise within me. Is it a natural or supernatural phenomenon? Or, is it merely a figment of our own imagination? Armed with these questions, I set out to engage the Chinese on this matter.
In public, most Chinese openly affirm scientific materialism and naturalistic atheism. Within this worldview, everything can and should be explained via naturalistic means. Luck, however, avoids any such attempts to render a scientific explanation. For example, no one can explain why a lucky charm produces good luck in a scientific manner. The same could be said of using the color red in weddings.
In the end, when confronted with questions about the scientific explanation for luck, the Chinese were ultimately forced to say that this was simply a matter of belief. This explanation, however, completely undermines their publicly confessed acquiescence to atheism. To put this another way, they were willingly and knowingly relating to their world in such a way that violated their claim that the world is purely naturalistic. The moment that they admitted that they believed in luck they were confessing their duplicity.
Luck, if it even exists, must occur outside of the physical laws of nature. One can hope for it, believe in it, and even seek it. Given these parameters which undergird one’s relationship with luck, it should become clear that luck is spiritual and religious in nature. It is essentially an impersonal force or god that can somehow be controlled by people through their use of various colors, paraphernalia, etc. Luck is seemingly simple to control and does not require any purity in the character of its adherent. Luck, though taking a spiritual role, essentially allows the person to remain the center of worship while luck itself is controlled to do the bidding of its master. While thought to have almost endless power to pour forth good times on its seeker, luck still remain powerless to control itself due to its impersonal nature. One could also infer that luck, as an impersonal force, must be stupid because it can be easily controlled by things such as colors.
In regard to the one who believes in luck, such a person can no longer rightfully claim to be a naturalistic atheist who holds to scientific naturalism for this person has ventured beyond the naturalistic realm (again undergirded by physical laws) and embarked toward the supernatural. Unfortunately, those who make this journey are forced to conjure up luck as a spiritual reality while also doing the same in regard to its controlling tenets (e.g., which color does luck require).
The conjuring up of religious worldviews is nothing new among men. The plethora of religious claims to exclusive truth runs the full gamut in the world’s many belief systems. Luck, though arguably unsophisticated, is simply one among many. As one searches among these, one will find that most rely on mythology (e.g. Animism and Buddhism) or the claims of one person to exclusive divine insight (e.g Mormonism, Buddhism, and Islam). Unlike these, Christianity relies on the claim that God revealed His Word in the course of human history (about 1500 years) so that many could openly witness various events that are portrayed in the Bible.