Difference Between Theological Fatalism And Free Will Essay

While it may just seem like semantics, free will and freedom differ. The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines free will as a “voluntary choice or decision” or “freedom of humans to make choices that are not determined by prior causes or by divine intervention” (Free 1). Free will includes the ability to make simple, everyday choices. The definition of freedom differs from that of free will: “liberation from slavery or restraint or from the power of another” and “the absence of necessity, coercion or constraint in a choice or action” (Freedom 1). Someone with freedom can say, do, act, and feel however he wishes without the threat of outside forces.

Free will is the philosophical idea that we have the power to think, choose and act voluntary without any external factors. To believe in free will one believes that we are agents who are capable of making decisions that can alter our course of action regardless of external factors and antecedent conditions. Do not confuse free will with political freedom, which is called liberty. In 1924, two Chicago teenagers, Richard Loeb and Nathan Leopold kidnapped and murdered a boy named Bobby Franks. Loeb and Leopold were two bright college graduates with what looked like very promising futures.

Nasseli, Andrei. "Do We Have Free Will?" Reformation21. N.p., Aug. 2009. Web. 25 Apr. 2015..

Free Will is the capacity of acting without the pressures of fate and the ability to act because of one’s discretion. It is an idea that most believe in, because it means that you are in control

What is free will? Merriam Webster defines free will as the ability to choose how to act and the ability to make choices that are not controlled by fate or God. In the epic poem, Beowulf, the author uses Grendel as a symbol of what is evil and unremorseful. He demonstrates how Grendel is acting on his own free will and what motivates Grendel to behave the way he does. Some may say this is fate, however, the epic poem clearly demonstrates that Grendel’s hideous and violent deeds stem from free will.

The first matter to be noted is that this view is in no way in contradiction to science. Free will is a natural phenomenon, something that emerged in nature with the emergence of human beings, with their

An individual with “Free Will” is capable of making vital decisions and choices in life with own free consent. The individual chooses these decisions without any outside influence from a set of “alternative possibilities.” The idea of “free will” imposes a certain kind of power on an individual to make decisions of which he or she is morally responsible. This implies that “free will” would include a range of aspects such as originality, moral value, and self-governance. However, in life, individuals may not be free in making decisions. The aspect of freedom could entail remarkably a high status action and achievement in an individual’s life whose attainment could be close to impossibility. Often, people make

Free will is using individuality to speak your mind and do what you want on your terms. This directly connects to The Constitution which states that we the people have the freedom to speak what you want and be free to believe what you want to believe. Amendment nine states that everyone will have individual freedom. The founders of America

As humans, free will is something we commonly assume we have. When evaluating what free will is, we become less certain. David Hume calls it “the most contentious question of metaphysics.” In simplistic terms, free will is having the ability to determine your own plan of action. There is a relationship between free will and freedom of action and causal determinism that must be evaluated to have a complete understanding of free will. There are compatibilist views that believe in free will and incompatibilist views that imply there is no free will. Free will is also related to both theological determinism and logical determinism.

Pike’s article shows a good argument against the idea of human free will. Pike makes his arguments by analyzing ideas from Boethius. Pike agrees that “if one collected together just the right assumptions and principals regarding God’s knowledge, one could derive the conclusion that if God exists, no human action is voluntary.” (Pike)

Whether we have free will is widely controversial. The absence of a universal definition poses a primary problem to this question. In this essay, I shall base my argument on a set of three conditions for free will: 1) that the actor is unconstraint in his action, 2) the actor could have acted otherwise and 3) the actor must be ‘ultimately responsible’ (Kane, 2005: 121) for his action. After I have explained them, I shall apply these conditions to three scenarios that cover most, if not any, circumstances that occur when taking choices. The purpose of this essay is to show that if my conditions are true, none of the scenarios is based on free will and thus we do not have free will.

Thus, the philosopher does not directly argue that God’s foreordainment can be ignored by any human being, who is to exert the will of Lord (Houston 67). Nevertheless, the writer cannot agree with the fact that all individuals lack liberty, free will and even ability to perform or refuse to perform a certain action.

Since antiquity religion and philosophy have grappled with whether humanity truly possesses free will or if our actions and all the events in our lives are merely governed by fate. In the western pagan world the idea of fate laid down by various deities pervaded common thought on the subject. The introduction of Christianity saw this viewpoint wane slightly with its new focus on choosing to complete good deeds and living a christian life. These new ideas challenged the ancient view of fate, but it remained largely dominate under the guise of divine providence, or God’s plan. The emergence of the Reformation ideas of sola fide, or predestination, countered the Catholic ideas of free will contending that one does not have any say in one’s salvation as everything has been predetermined by God. It was not until the enlightenment that free will began to heavily advance in intellectual circles, eventually pervading most of liberal western thought down to the masses.

We have free will over our actions because we have a choice when we take our actions. An example of free will is when someone goes to Johnny's for bequive and they have a free choice to either choose a parfait, a bagel, or a bowl of cereal. No one is forcing them to get any one of the choices they have a free choice to make. Another example of free will is our ability to change our mind, going back to the last example, let's say I initially wanted to grab a bagel but after getting a doughnut and coffee, decided I really wanted a parfait. This is ability to waver and feel the change in our mind shows how we have free choice because if I was predetermined to get a parfait then I would have gotten a parfait the first time and wouldn’t have a change of mind or indecision.

For a substantial part of the Christendom history, there have been wide divisions regarding the determining agent of human temporal fate and his eventual destiny. While some Christians hold on to the assertion that Scriptures testify of man’s possession of free will, a significant number assert that man has no claim to free will. The latter group stands for predestination. Among this group are John Calvin and Martin Luther. These two protestant reformers developed constituted two different theories of predestination. While Calvin composed the “Double Predestination Theory.,” Luther composed the “Single Predestination Theory.” Looking at the two theories, Luther’s theory seems to be more consistent with itself and the scriptures than Calvin’s theory.