Fatalism

Edinburgh, Scotland (photo from trekearth.com)

Edinburgh: 1995

I find a rare Jazz Fusion unofficial CD, featuring an artist I was looking for at a flea market. I explain this to the seller and he states. ‘It was fate’ with a strong Scottish accent. ‘Pardon’ I said, ‘It was fate’, he stated. I thought he had said ‘It was fiit’.

Last week someone at church asked me if my views within my MPhil and PhD dissertations, which feature compatibilism, also known as soft determinism, are equated with fatalism. I reason that I do not hold to fatalism. Here is a comparison between compatibilism/soft determinism, fatalism and hard determinism. Thanks to Big D for the idea.

Compatibilism/soft determinism:

P.S. Greenspan writes that compatibilism holds to free will and determinism being compatible. Greenspan (1998: 1). Louis P. Pojman, defines compatibilism as the concept that an act can be entirely determined and yet be free in the sense that it was done voluntarily and without compulsion. Pojman (1996: 596). J.S. Feinberg explains that compatibilism does not allow for coercion or force, but holds that God, or some outside force, can simultaneously determine with the use of persuasion, that an action will or will not take place. Feinberg (1986: 24). Feinberg writes that certain nonconstraining conditions could strongly influence actions, in conjunction with human free will performing these actions. Feinberg (1994: 60). With this viewpoint, there will be no contradiction in stating that God would create human beings who were significantly free, unconstrained, and yet committed actions that God willed. Feinberg (2001: 637). W.T. Stace (1952)(1976) explains that moral responsibility is consistent with determinism in the context of soft determinism and requires it. Stace (1952)(1976: 29). If human actions are uncaused then reward or punishment would be unjustified. Stace (1952)(1976: 29). Stace reasons that there must be at least some human cause within human actions to make them morally responsible acts. Stace (1952)(1976: 30).

Fatalism compared with hard determinism:

Simon Blackburn comments that this is the doctrine that human action has no influence on events. Blackburn (1996: 137). Blackburn gives the opinion that fatalism is wrongly confused with determinism, which by itself carries no implications that human actions have no effect. Blackburn (1996: 137). Tomis Kapitan notes that determinism is usually understood as meaning that whatever occurs is determined by antecedent (preceding cause) conditions. Kapitan (1999: 281). Pojman states that hard determinism holds that every event is caused and no one is responsible for actions, whereas soft determinism holds that rational creatures can be held responsible for determined actions as long as they are done voluntarily and without force or coercion. Pojman (1996: 586).

Fatalism should not be equated with compatibilism/soft determinism, but if fatalism states that no human actions can influence or cause events, and hard determinism holds that human beings do not cause actions or are morally responsible, there is clearly a similarity in definitions. D.G. Bloesch explains that fate is not chance, but instead is cosmic determinism that has no meaning or purpose. Bloesch (1996: 407). He writes that fate/fatalism would differ from a Christian idea of divine providence and its implied use of determinism, in that fatalism is impersonal and irrational, whereas providence is personal and rational. Bloesch (1996: 407). Thiessen comments that fatalism is not determinism because fatalism holds that all events are caused by fate, and not natural causes, and nothing can change these events. Determinism in contrast, holds that all events occur by necessity. Thiessen (1956: 186). Compatibilism and soft determinism does hold that what God determines must happen by necessity, but reasons that rational beings with a significant use of free will are not coerced or forced to commit acts, which must occur by necessity. A person can hold to hard determinism and believe that God determined all events without the significant use of free will of rational creatures, and a fatalist can also believe that events are determined without the use of significant free will of rational creatures, and yet this is caused without any meaning, and without the understanding that God or any rational entity is behind these events.

BLACKBURN, SIMON (1996) ‘Fatalism’, in Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy, p. 137. Oxford, Oxford University Press.

BLOESCH, D. (1996) ‘Fate, Fatalism’, in Walter A. Elwell (ed.), Evangelical Dictionary of Theology, Grand Rapids, Baker Books.

FEINBERG, JOHN S. (1986) Predestination and Free Will, David Basinger and Randall Basinger (eds.), Downers Grove, Illinois, InterVarsity Press.

FEINBERG, JOHN S. (1994) The Many Faces of Evil, Grand Rapids, Zondervan Publishing House.

FEINBERG, JOHN S. (2001) No One Like Him, John S. Feinberg (gen.ed.), Wheaton, Illinois, Crossway Books.

GREENSPAN, P.S. (1998) Free Will and Genetic Determinism: Locating the Problem (s), Maryland, University of Maryland.
http://www.philosophy.umd.edu/Faculty/PGreenspan/Res/gen2.html

KAPITAN, TOMIS (1996) ‘Free Will Problem’, in Robert Audi (ed.), The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.

POJMAN, LOUIS P. (1996) Philosophy: The Quest for Truth, New York, Wadsworth Publishing Company.

STACE, W.T. (1952)(1976) Religion and the Modern Mind, in John R. Burr and Milton Goldinger (eds), Philosophy and Contemporary Issues, London, Collier Macmillan Publishers.

THIESSEN, HENRY C. (1956) Introductory Lectures in Systematic Theology, Grand Rapids, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company.

http://satireandtheology.blogspot.com/2007/11/religious-album-covers-iii.html