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General Information
Determinism is the theory that all human action is caused entirely by preceding events, and not by the exercise of the Will. In philosophy, the theory is based on the metaphysical principle that an uncaused event is impossible. The success of scientists in discovering causes of certain behavior and in some cases effecting its control tends to support this principle.
Disagreement exists about the proper formulation of determinism - a central issue in philosophy that never ceases to be controversial. Physical determinism, which has its origin in the Atomism of Democritus and Lucretius, is the theory that human interaction can be reduced to relationships between biological, chemical, or physical entities; this formulation is fundamental to modern Sociobiology and neuropsychology. The historical determinism of Karl Marx, on the other hand, is transpersonal and primarily economic. In contrast to these two formulations, psychological determinism - the philosophical basis of psychoanalysis - is the theory that the purposes, needs, and desires of individuals are central to an explanation of human behavior. The recent behavioral determinism of B F Skinner is a modification of this view, in that Skinner reduces all internal psychological states to publicly observable behavior. His stimulus - response account also uses modern statistical and probabilistic analyses of causation.
Jean Paul Sartre and other contemporary philosophers have argued that determinism is controverted by introspection, which reveals actions to be the result of our own choices and not necessitated by previous events or external factors. Determinists respond that such experiences of freedom are illusions and that introspection is an unreliable and unscientific method for understanding human behavior.
This view has been modified within the scientific community, however, with the enunciation of the Uncertainty Principle by the physicist Werner Heisenberg. Ramifications of his work in quantum mechanics led Heisenberg to assert that the scientist, as much a participant as an observer, interferes with the neutrality and very nature of the object in question. His work also questions whether it is possible to determine an objective framework through which one can distinguish cause from effect, and whether one can know an objective effect if one is always a part of its cause.
Determinism is sometimes confused with Predestination and Fatalism, but as such it asserts neither that human affairs have been prearranged by a being outside the causal order nor that a person has an unavoidable fate.
Jesse G Kalin
Bibliography
B Berofsky, Determinism (1971), and Freedom from
Necessity (1988); G Dworkin, Determinism, Free Will and Moral
Responsibility (1970); R L Franklin, Freewill and Determinism: A Study
of Rival Conceptions of Man (1968); W Heisenberg, Physics and
Philosophy (1962); S Hook, ed., Determinism and Freedom (1969); J R
Lucas, Freedom of the Will (1970); A I Melden, Free Action (1961);
J Monod, Chance and Necessity (1972); B F Skinner, Beyond Freedom and
Dignity (1971); E Squires, The Mystery of the Quantum World (1986);
G H Von Wright, Causality and Determinism (1974).
In philosophical discussion, will is usually paired with reason as one of two complementary activities of the mind. The will is considered the faculty of choice and decision, whereas the reason is that of deliberation and argument. Thus a rational act would be an exercise of the will performed after due deliberation.
The will has figured prominently in the thought of many philosophers, among them the 19th century thinkers Arthur Schopenhauer and Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche. Historically, debate has centered on the issue of the will's freedom, a question of prime importance for the analysis of human action and moral responsibility.
Philosophers have often thought that persons are responsible only for those actions that they have the option either to do or not to do or to will or not to will. If all acts, including acts of will, are predetermined, then this option does not appear to exist.
In the philosophy of mind, the question is whether reasons in the mind are identical with or reducible to events in the brain and, if so, whether physical events determine choices, decisions, and acts. A wide variety of answers has been proposed, including ones derived from Freudian psychoanalysis and the various forms of behaviorism. Some philosophers in the analytic tradition have argued that Determinism is a matter of causes and decisions a matter of reasons and that the two are mutually exclusive. The issue remains controversial.
G S Davis
Bibliography
D M Armstrong, A Materialist Theory of the Mind (1968);
W K Frankena, Ethics (1973); A Kenny, Action, Emotion, and Will (1963);
K Lehrer, ed., Freedom and Determinism (1976); G Ryle, The Concept of
Mind (1949); R Taylor, Action and Purpose (1966).
There are three basic positions concerning man's choices: determinism, indeterminism, and self determinism. Determinism is the belief that all of man's actions are the result of antecedent factors or causes. Naturalistic determinists, such as Thomas Hobbes and B F Skinner, argue that man's behavior can be fully explained in terms of natural causes. Theistic determinists, such as Martin Luther and Jonathan Edwards, trace man's actions back to God's controlling hand. The opposite position to determinism is indeterminism. On this view there are no causes for man's actions, antecedent or otherwise. The final position is self determinism, or free will. This is the belief that man determines his own behavior freely, and that no causal antecedents can sufficiently account for his actions.
A contemporary example of naturalistic determinism is B F Skinner, the author of Beyond Freedom and Dignity and About Behaviorism. Skinner believes that all human behavior is completely controlled by genetic and environmental factors. These factors do not rule out the fact that human beings make choices; however, they do rule out the possibility that human choices are free. For Skinner, all human choices are determined by antecedent physical causes. Hence, man is viewed as an instrumental cause of his behavior. He is like a knife in the hands of a butcher or a hammer in the grip of a carpenter; he does not originate action but is the instrument through which some other agent performs the action.
A philosophical argument often given for determinism can be stated as follows. All human behavior is either completely uncaused, selfcaused, or caused by something external. Now human behavior cannot be uncaused, for nothing can happen without a cause, nothing cannot cause something. Human behavior cannot be self - caused either, for each act would have to exist prior to itself to cause itself, which is impossible. Thus the only alternative is that all human behavior must be completely caused by something external. Naturalistic determinists maintain that such things as heredity and environment are the external causes, whereas theistic determinists believe that God is the external cause of all human behavior.
There are several problems with this argument. First, the argument misinterprets self determinism as teaching that human acts cause themselves. Self determinists, for example, do not believe that the plays in a football game cause themselves. Rather they maintain that the players execute the plays in a football game. Indeed it is the players that choose to play the game. Thus the cause of a football game being played is to be found within the players of the game. Self determinists would not deny that outside factors, such as heredity, environment, or God, had any influence. However, they would maintain that any one of the people involved in the game could have decided not to play if they had chosen to do so.
Second, the argument for determinisim is self defeating. A determinist must contend that both he and the nondeterminist are determined to believe what they believe. Yet the determinist attempts to convince the nondeterminist that determinism is true and thus ought to be believed. However, on the basis of pure determinism "ought" has no meaning. For "ought" means "could have and should have done otherwise." But this is impossible according to determinism. A way around this objection is for the determinist to argue that he was determined to say that one ought to accept his view. However, his opponent can respond by saying that he was determined to accept a contrary view. Thus determinism cannot eliminate an opposing position. This allows the possibility for a free will position.
Third, and finally, if naturalistic determinism were true, it would be self defeating, false, or be no view at all. For in order to determine whether determinism was true there would need to be a rational basis for thought, otherwise no one could know what was true or false. But naturalistic determinists believe that all thought is the product of nonrational causes, such as the environment, thus making all thought nonrational. On this basis no one could ever know if determinism were true or not. And if one argued that determinism was true, then the position would be self defeating, for a truth claim is being made to the effect that no truth claims can be made. Now if determinism is false, then it can be rationally rejected and other positions considered. But if it is neither true or false, then it is no view at all, since no claim to truth is being made. In either case, naturalistic determinism could not reasonably be held to be true.
Another form of determinism is theistic determinism. This is the view that all events, including man's behavior, are caused (determined) by God. One of the more famous advocates of this view was the Puritan theologian Jonathan Edwards. He maintained that the concept of free will or self determinism contradicted the sovereignty of God. If God is truly in control of all things, then no one could act contrary to his will, which is what self determinism must hold. Hence, for God to be sovereign he must cause every event, be it human or otherwise.
Edwards also argued that self determinism is self contradictory. For if man's will were in equilibrium or indifferent to any given event or decision, then his will would never act. Just as a scale cannot tip itself unless an outside force upsets the balance, so man's will could never act unless God moved it. Thus to speak of human acts as self caused would be like speaking of nothing causing something. But since every event must have a cause, self determinism, which denies this, must be self contradictory.
During Edwards's own day some thinkers objected to his view on the grounds that it ran contrary to the biblical evidence which supported human freedom (e.g., Prov. 1:29 - 31; Heb. 11:24 - 26). Edwards responded in his Freedom of the Will that human freedom is not the power to do what one decides but rather what one desires. The cause of man's desires is God, and man always acts in accordance with them. Thus freedom is not uncaused, which is nonsensical, but caused by God.
Like naturalistic determinism, theistic determinism may be objected to on several grounds. First, to view freedom as that which one desires is inadequate. People do not always do what they desire; no one desires to carry out the garbage or clean a dirty oven. Further, people often desire to do what they do not decide to do, such as taking revenge on someone for wronging them.
Second, according to self determinism, Edwards's position evidences a misunderstanding of free will. The acts of free human beings are not uncaused but self caused. To say they are self caused is not to say that they arise out of nothing or exist prior to themselves. Such would be an uncaused or self caused being, which is nonsensical. However, self determinism maintains that man's exercise of his freedom is self caused becoming, which is not contradictory. In other words, persons exist and can freely cause their own actions (not their own being).
Third, Edwards's argument suffers from a faulty view of man. Human beings are not like a machine (scale) which cannot be moved until some outside force tips it in one direction or another. Rather, man is a person created in the image of God as a personal living soul (Gen. 1:26 - 27; 2:7), and he retains this image even after the fall (Gen. 9:6; 1 Cor. 11:7). This image includes the ability to make choices and act upon them. Hence, since man is personal, it is at best inadequate to illustrate his behavior by impersonal, mechanical models, such as a scale.
And fourth, Edwards is mistaken when he argues that human freedom is contrary to God's sovereignty. God sovereignly gave man his freedom by creating him a free creature, and God sovereignly continues to allow man to exercise his freedom by sustaining him moment by moment in existence (Col. 1:17). Thus the sovereignty of God is not thwarted by human freedom but glorified through human freedom. For God gave man free will, he sustains man so he can act freely, and he brings about all his purposes without violating man's free will. As the Westminister Confession puts it, "Although in relation to the foreknowledge and decree of God, the first cause, all things come to pass immutably and infallibly, yet by the same providence he ordereth them to fall out, according to the nature of second causes, either necessarily, freely, or contingently" (V, ii).
There are at least three problems with this view. First, Heisenberg's principle does not deal with causality but with predictability. Heisenberg maintained that the movement of subatomic particles was unpredictable and unmeasurable; he did not maintain that their movement was uncaused. Thus this principle cannot be used to support indeterminism. Second, indeterminism unreasonably denies the principle of causality, namely, that every event has a cause. Simply because one does not know what the cause is, is not proof that an event is not caused. Such lack of knowledge only reflects our ignorance. Third, indeterminism strips man of any responsible behavior. If human behavior is uncaused, then no one could be praised or blamed for anything he did. All human acts would be nonrational and nonmoral, thus no act could ever be a reasonable or responsible one.
Indeterminism is unacceptable for a Christian. For if indeterminism is true, then either the existence of God or any causal connection between God and the universe would have to be denied. But clearly a Christian could not hold this, for the Christian position is that God created the world and he providentially sustains it and intervenes in its affairs (Matt. 6:25 - 32; Col. 1:15 - 16).
Many object to self determinism on the grounds that if everything needs a cause, then so do the acts of the will. Thus it is often asked, What caused the will to act? The self determinist can respond to this question by pointing out that it is not the will of a person that makes a decision but the person acting by means of his will. And since the person is the first cause of his acts, it is meaningless to ask what the cause of the first cause is. Just as no outside force caused God to create the world, so no outside force causes people to choose certain actions. For man is created in God's image, which includes the possession of free will.
Another objection often raised against self determinism is that biblical predestination and foreknowledge seem to be incompatible with human freedom. However, the Bible does clearly teach that even fallen man has freedom of choice (e.g., Matt. 23:37; John 7:17; Rom. 7:18; 1 Cor. 9:17; 1 Pet. 5:2; Philem. 14). Further, the Bible teaches that God predestines in accordance with his foreknowledge (1 Pet. 1:2). Predestination is not based on God's foreknowledge (which would make God dependent upon man's choices) nor is it independent of God's foreknowledge (since all of God's acts are unified and coordinate). Rather, God knowingly determines and determinately knows those who will accept his grace as well as those who will reject him.
A further argument for free will is that God's commandments carry a divine "ought" for man, implying that man can and should respond positively to his commands. The responsibility to obey God's commands entails the ability to respond to them, by God's enabling grace. Furthermore, if man is not free, but all his acts are determined by God, then God is directly responsible for evil, a conclusion that is clearly contradicted by Scripture (Hab. 1:13; James 1:13 - 17).
Therefore, it seems that some form of self determinism is the most compatible with the biblical view of God's sovereignty and man's responsibility.
N L Geisler
Bibliography
Augustine, The Free Choice of the Will and On Grace
and Free Will; B Holbach, The System of Nature; W James, "The
Dilemma of Determinism," in Pragmatism; M Luther, The Bondage of the
Will; R Taylor, Metaphysics; A Farrer, The Freedom of the Will.
determinism
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