Fate as Providence

Now, Christian theology by no means opposes the idea that all things were known and determined by God from eternity. To that extent it even recognized a "fate," and some theologians believed they could also use the word in a good sense. If we remember, says Augustine, that fatum is a derivative of fari and then describe by means of it the eternal and unchanging word by which God sustains all things, the name can be justified. Boethius referred to fate as "a disposition inherent in changeable things by which Providence connects all things in their due order."

-Bavinck, God and Creation, 600.

"Fate" could, in a pinch, still have a good meaning in the Christian world-and-life view; but chance (casus) and fortune (fortuna) are un-Christian through and through.

-ibid, 603.