Preface
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’.
Reply to Miss Cia: Soft determinism, indeterminism, hard determinism, fatalism
My friend, Miss Cia, cited the article below on Facebook and made a request to me for a reply:
Eric W. Dolan May 18, 2020: PsyPost
Psy Post Cited
New research published in the Journal of Research in Personality provides evidence that belief in determinism plays an important role in right-wing authoritarianism.
Miss Cia cited
Believing in "your life being predetermined by fate" causes individuals to believe in determinism and possibly more authoritarian governments. This appears similar to Presbyterian predestination theology.
Russ Murray - I want to hear from your brain about this.
Of course, only God knows the inner views of persons, but I attended and was a member of a Presbyterian church in Vancouver for over a decade and I knew many of the leaders personally. I would deduce that generally most attendees, members and leaders were politically moderately left or moderately right. The church was respectfully, biblically Christian and embraced far from what could be philosophically reasoned as authoritarian theology, authoritarian philosophy, or authoritarian political views.
Within this Presbyterian Church, the bible was taken seriously, as the ultimate, inspired, spiritual authority for those within the Christian Church. The bible as the word of God.
As far as Presbyterian theology, overall, I would deduce that most Canadian, American and British devotees, within a Reformed worldview, hold to forms of democracy.
Archives, Definitions and Analysis
Wednesday, July 11, 2012
Fatalism Revisited
Sunday, November 11, 2007 Fatalism
Compatibilism (Soft determinism)
P.S. Greenspan writes that compatibilism holds to the philosophical concepts of 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).
John S. Feinberg explains that compatibilism does not allow for coercion or force (for there to be significant human moral accountability with human will and actions, my add), but holds that God, or some outside force, can simultaneously determine, with the use of persuasion, that actions 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 these were 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).
I personally embrace, what I named
limited free will, within compatibilism. Human beings through nature, consciousness, desire and will embrace as secondary causes, thoughts, acts and actions. Simultaneously, God, within theistic compatibilism, is the primary cause of all things, but with holy, pure and good motives.
Incompatibilism (Indeterminism)
Indeterminism is equated with incompatibilism which states that God, or any other being, cannot cause by force or coercion, any human action, nor can any action be simultaneously willed by God or any other being, for the human action to remain significantly free. This would include concepts of
libertarian free will.
Philosopher Tim Mawson reasons that incompatibilism, which is also known as libertarianism or libertarian free will, concerning human free will, believes that true human free will must be uncaused by preceding states. Mawson (1999: 324). In other words, no external force must cause a legitimate and truly free act of the human will. Within incompatibilist theory, human actions would never truly be free because God or another external force (non-deistic view) would have willed and determined it, before being simultaneously willed to a given person. Mawson (1999: 324). Pre-determined before committed by the human being.
Compatibilism would agree with incompatibilism that God or any other being cannot cause by force or coercion any significantly free human action, but contrary to incompatibilism thinks that God can simultaneously will significantly free human actions.
Determinism (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).
In other words, there are forms of determinism where human actions are significant.
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 actions determined, as long as they are done voluntarily and without force or coercion. Pojman (1996: 586).
Fatalism
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).
In contrast to 'fate' or fatalism, biblical, theological determinism, has divine meaning.
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 do hold that what God determines must happen by necessity, but within this view, rational beings with significant use of (limited) free will are not coerced or forced to commit acts, for which they are morally accountable, 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.
Practical realities
Ph.D. Viva
I was challenged on the similarities between fatalism and my view of determinism, which is soft-determinism/compatibilism in Wales in January 2009 at my Ph.D. Viva. I used the material from the 2007 post in the defence. I think I was successful. The reviewer noted that there are definite similarities in that both determinism and fatalism bring about events by necessity without libertarian free will from a secondary cause. Fair enough.
But I did note correctly that determinism was theistic, at least in the context discussed. In contrast, fatalism was not for certain, theistic (In our Christian context). Fatalism more likely exists in a naturalistic philosophical context. Fatalism is not Christian philosophy, although fate and determinism are also aspects of Islam, which was beyond the scope of my thesis.
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| Edinburgh, 1995 |
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.
KAPITAN, TOMIS (1996) ‘Free Will Problem’, in Robert Audi (ed.),
The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.
MAWSON, TIM (1999) ‘The Problem of Evil and Moral Indifference’, in
Religious Studies, Volume 35, pp. 323-345. 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.
