Predestination?

Determinism would argue that because everything has a cause (which is the initial premise), there is no free will. Determinism argues that actions are a type of event, that each event has a cause, and that because there is a cause, there is a necessary effect– there is nothing to ‘choose’ (McFee, 21). Of course, in order to accept this theory, you have to accept the initial premise (that everything has a cause). If we accept determinism, we have no moral responsibility for our actions, because our actions are predetermined by their cause. Calvinism operates on this type of system. Although at first it would seem as though there is little meaning offered in this system, if one is part of the group of 'saved’ individuals, there is nothing to be worried about, because one’s salvation is already set in stone. The problem with theories of determinism, of course, is determining how the cycle of causes somehow begins. If everything has a cause, then one would ask what the cause is of this initial cause. For the sake of our argument, we will leave the determinism argument aside and continue on with the line of reasoning for free will.

Each day we make decisions which may or may not have outcomes that affect us morally. We make evaluations that affect others and ourselves. These can be said to be moral decisions, because their outcomes have some kind of weight to them. We take action and we are responsible for these actions (McFee, 5). The results of these actions, whether good or bad, are our responsibility. Likewise, if there is no free will, it seems as though there is no moral relevance to our lives. The people we are good to, the people we are mean to, the people we completely ignored… it ultimately has no meaning if there is no free will, because without free will, there is no moral relevance to the way we treat others or any of the decisions that we make in our daily lives.

Works Consulted
Bowes, Pratima. Consciousness and Freedom: Three Views. London: Methuen & Co Ltd, 1971.

McFee, Graham. Free Will. London: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2000.

Lucas, J.R. The Freedom of the Will. London: Oxford University Press, 1970.

Luther, Martin. Christian Liberty. Trans. W. A. Lambert. Ed. Harold J. Grimm. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1957.

Ofstad, Harald. An Inquiry into the Freedom of Decision. Norway: Norwegian Universities Press, 1961.