This paper used stories of predestination of the Tang Dynasty to re-evaluate the characteristic philosophy of life in Chinese culture, in order to illustrate the concept of predestinarianism of the Tang Dynasty. Although people of the Tang Dynasty continued to accept the "Three Destinies" of the Han Dynasty, the bureaucratic system of Heaven and Hell took over the execution of fate by emphasizing the "Inherited Destiny" and weakening the influence of "Morality-based Destiny" and "Circumstance-based Destiny". This change not only influenced by the religious belief of the people of the Tang Dynasty, it also related to the concept that heaven was the source of all values. It allowed the strong independence of individual fate that could not be questioned nor challenged. Therefore, the inherited destiny set by the Heaven almost could not be changed. Because there was no room for changes in the will of the anthropomorphized Heaven, it was inevitably in opposition to the retribution concept of good and bad deeds and the transmigration in Buddhism. Facing the flourishing of Buddhism and the fact that the retribution concept already rooted in the mind of people, the predestinarianism of the Tang Dynasty partially acknowledged that in "the Three Periods"retribution, the transmigration must go through "Present Life Retribution" and "Next Life Retribution", in reference to the determination of a person's destiny by the Heaven, yet without changing its essential characteristics. As to the view of individual life, the course of life was treated as a sequence of events and the essence of life was the process of consumption in life materials. This was to evaluate the execution and accuracy of the will of Heaven. Such a pessimistic philosophy of life with little changes became the common characteristics of the predestinarianism or stories of predestination of the later era.
