Quotes about Determinism

Materialists thereby deny the reality of mind (while they use their minds to advance materialism), determinists deny the reality of human choice (while they choose determinism), and relativists deny the fact of right and wrong (while they judge you if you disagree).

Two times two will be four even without my will. Is that what you call man's free will?

How, then, does an order of causes which is certain to the foreknowledge of God necessitate that there should be nothing which is dependent on our wills, when our wills themselves have a very important place in the order of causes?

God foreknows what will be because He has decreed what shall be.

Spinoza says that if a stone which has been projected through the air, had consciousness, it would believe that it was moving of its own free will. I add this only, that the stone would be right. The impulse given it is for the stone what the motive is for me, and what in the case of the stone appears as cohesion, gravitation, rigidity, is in its inner nature the same as that which I recognise in myself as will, and what the stone also, if knowledge were given to it, would recognise as will.

Do the laws governing the universe allow us to predict exactly what is going to happen to us in the future? The short answer is no, and yes. In principle, the laws allow us to predict the future. But in practice the calculations are often too difficult.

If man is nothing but a material mechanism and part of the world mechanism, then his choices of good and evil are mechanically determined, and he cannot be said to be an autonomous and responsible ethical being. Thus if materialism is to save moral responsibility and at the same time save determinism, it must represent man as partially determined (in his organic functions) and partially free (in his ethical capacity).

What I want to know is whether God had any choice in the creation of the universe.

Hence the unskillful rashly infer, that man did not sin by free choice.

The materialist thinks me a slave because I am not allowed to believe in determinism. I think the materialist a slave because he is not allowed to believe in fairies.

Most researchers are quick to point out that the biologically oriented studies suggest that genetics can influence people, and with this Scripture has no dispute. People can be physiologically predisposed to enjoying a particular drug, food, activity, or physical experience, but there is a categorical difference between being influenced by genetics and being determined by it.

I shall never believe that God plays dice with the world.