A word/phrase for someone who finds significance in anything/tries to rationalise anything

Question

I'm looking for a word to describe someone who makes themselves believe that anything that happens to them is for a reason, or believing "it's a sign!!"

For example: "that person is a (noun)." or "they are so (adjective)/ such a (noun)." or "that person (phrase)".

I must stress, the type of person I am trying to describe is not religious, if anything they could be spiritual (think astrology), but this isn't the kind of description I'm looking for. The description would also not really be 'superstitious'.

This type of person also does not believe in coincidences - for example if they saw an advert on TV for something they were just thinking about buying, they'd be amazed but more than a regular person. They would believe that that happened for a reason and that they have some kind of divine- or universal-level of importance!!

I also need to add that if they saw anything which could potentially be metaphoric, they will make that significant. For example, seeing a plant growing out of a crack in a concrete pavement, they would just inflate the importance of it, saying how 'life finds a way~~' or something.

I'm sorry if this is a long, confusing request, but I have searched everywhere lol. I don't mind if you provide multiple words for the various parts, or one answer as a whole though I'm doubtful such a word exists.

Thank you in advance!

Answer 1

A predestinarian believes in predestination.
In your friend's case it is a belief in fate/destiny rather than in anything theological.

Cambridge dictionary definition predestination:
the belief that people have no control over events because these things are controlled by God or by fate.

In a philosophical sense your friend might also be a determinist of one form or another.

Wikipedia has an article on determinism with the following broad definition.

Determinism is the philosophical belief that all events are determined completely by previously existing causes.

He might for instance believe in predeterminism. (On possible subtle differences between predeterminism and predestination consult your local philosopher/theologist or Google.)

Predeterminism is the idea that all events are determined in advance. Predeterminism is the philosophy that all events of history, past, present and future, have been already decided or are already known (by God, fate, or some other force), including human actions.

Answer 2

You're looking for the opposite of sceptic? There are several words with different implications, mostly grades of negative.

Fairly neutral - Credulous - having or showing too great a readiness to believe things. This is not necessarily belief in the spiritual /religious mode.

Fairly neutral - believer in the first sense - 1) a person who believes in the truth or existence of something. 2) an adherent of a particular religion; someone with religious faith (Google definitions)

Negative - idiot / preposterous / asshat /glaikit. The confusion of correlation with causation (what you're describing) is almost never viewed positively.

Colloquial - Pollyanna. This errs on the side of referring to an optimist but is not quite that.

We in the west don't have many words for this, since any word with this meaning could be used to imply either a) a cause other than God, b) not requiring evidence/reason is a good thing, or c) criticism of the religion. Since religion has been part of the establishment for pretty much all of European history, with many religious wars and religious vs atheist clashes. The religious wars tends to reduce the acceptability of sites that refer to a non rational cause other than the abrahamic God. The religious vs atheist clashes with religion in power reduce the use of words that could be used to criticise on this specific basis. There are lots of synonyms for sceptic. There are few antonyms.

You could construct a word. Coincidentalist?

Credulous is almost certainly your word though