The Greeks possessed an understanding of Fate (as is plain from Oedipus), but do not clearly distinguish between the inevitability cast by the Fates and the contribution of human agency to moral action (see, for instance, Iliad, Book 6; Aeschylus' Eumenides; Sophocles' Oedipus; and the Electra and Orestes of Euripides).

We more precisely state that the Greek mind, proximally and for the most part, regarded volitional action, especially of the Hero, to be his moral property per se, and not a reflection of imparted virtue from the Gods.

Nietzsche and subsequent existentialists recognized this well. If there is no perfect Will, then there can be no absolute redemption, since man stands in no need of such, possessing a will that can be perfected either from practical experiences leading to Eudaimonia (c.f. Aristotle); intellective apprehension of the Good (e.g. the Moral Realism of Plato and Plotinus); a willful rejection of intemperate Pleasures (Epictetus, later Seneca); or an existential understanding of the transience of all Pleasures and Pains (Epicurus, later Lucretius).

The Cynics, contrary to much speculation, did not reject the existence of the aperceptive faculty by which Virtue could be obtained; rather, they rejected the material implications of Eudaimonia, arguing that perfect simplicity is the state of the natural man, and is thus a corequisite to the exercise of virtuous living (c.f. Antisthenes of Athens; Diogenes the Cynic). These thinkers did not ever equate the satisfaction of natural functions and their resultant pleasures with defection from Virtue; but they did not, like the Cynics of Aristippus, form a Cognitivist theory of pleasure in which the Good is the pursuit of such exclusively (e.g. non-Intuitionist Hedonism). Even the great Stoic Aurelius did not deny Antisthenes' claim that enjoyment of natural pleasures forms a defect of the Will (see, for instance, Meditations Book 2).

The emergence of Christianity in the Roman Empire, perfected by the persecutions (Nero, Aurelius, Decius, Diocletian, etc.), saw Virtue and pasio (longsuffering) as imparted qualities, derivative of Divine goodness and reflective of Divine grace. The inertia of the Hero, and the bondage of his will in the Divine image in the face of agony and brutal death, is the dominant theme emerging from the Persecutions (see Foxe's Book of Martyrs); such can be seen in the doctrine of kenosis, in which the saint is literally empty of himself, and fully inspired by Spirit. Moral luck poses no challenge to this ethics; the nature of Christ is both rational and Divine and can admit of no contradiction. A realist ethical ontology emerges in which Reason and Revelation can never contradict, so that every consistent ethical theory must, in the end, conform to Divine nature. This ontology is a product of Neoplatonism and Platonism but represents a diversion from Aristotle on the point of the acquisition of moral knowledge, which is, for Aquinas, a matter of Revelation and Reason both (see, for instance, Summa Theologiae).