🧬 Nature
You did not choose your genes. They affect your health, your abilities and partly your personality, such as how easily you become anxious or angry.
The Universe and Human Beings: Key Ideas » Free Will, Determinism and Predestination
What you'll learn this session
Study time: 30 minutes
Edexcel spec: Paper 1, 1.4
- What free will, determinism and predestination mean
- Different views about whether human beings have free will, and what limits it
- Whether determinism means our choices and actions cannot be free
- How far people should be held responsible and punished, and whether God decides their fate
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Unlock This CourseThree big ideas
You chose to open this lesson. Or did you? Perhaps your genes, your habits and your past made it certain that you would. Are we really free? Three ideas sit at the centre of the debate.
Key terms:
- Free will: the ability to make real choices. When you chose, you could have chosen differently.
- Determinism: the view that every event, including each human choice, is fixed by earlier causes, such as genes, brain chemistry and upbringing.
- Predestination: the religious idea that God has already decided what will happen to each person.
- Fate: what finally happens to a person, in this life or after it.
- Moral responsibility: deserving praise or blame for what you do.
Notice the difference between the second and third ideas. In determinism, earlier causes fix what happens. No God is needed, so an atheist can be a determinist. In predestination, God does the deciding, so it is a religious belief.
Do human beings have free will?
Many people, religious and non-religious, say yes. We all have the experience of choosing: you weigh up two options and pick one. We also praise people, blame them and feel guilt, which only makes sense if people could have acted differently.
Many religions teach that human beings are free to choose between right and wrong, and that this freedom is what makes their choices matter. Most humanists also believe people can use reason to decide how to live.
Almost nobody says our freedom is total, though. Free will has limits.
🏠 Nurture
You did not choose your family, your language, your culture or the beliefs you were raised with. All of these shape what you want and what seems normal to you.
🔒 Circumstances
Choices depend on the options open to you. Money, health, the law and the country you live in all narrow them. A person cannot take a job that is not open to them, or buy what they cannot afford.
🔗 Addiction
A person addicted to gambling, alcohol or drugs may truly want to stop and still find it very hard. Their freedom is reduced, although many people do recover with help.
Does determinism mean we cannot be free?
Determinists start from cause and effect. A ball moves because something pushed it. Your brain is part of the physical world, so your thoughts and choices have causes too. Does that leave room for freedom? There are three main answers.
🚫 Hard determinism
Determinism is true, so free will is an illusion. You feel as if you choose, but the result was fixed by causes you did not control. You could never have done anything else.
🕊 Libertarianism
Determinism is not true of human choices. Nature and nurture influence us, but they do not fix what we do. When we decide, more than one future really is open.
🤝 Compatibilism
Also called soft determinism. Determinism and freedom fit together. An action is free when it comes from your own wishes and reasons and nobody forces you, even if those wishes have causes.
Take an example. Sam gives money to a charity. A hard determinist says Sam's nature and upbringing made the gift certain, so it was not free. A libertarian says Sam could have kept the money and freely chose not to. A compatibilist says the gift was free because Sam wanted to give. Had a robber forced Sam to hand the money over, it would not have been.
Non-religious people are found in all three groups. Some atheists are hard determinists because they believe a human being is only a physical body and brain. Many humanists take the middle view: we are shaped by our past, but we can still think, choose and change.
Should people be held responsible and punished?
If nobody can help what they do, is it fair to blame or punish anyone?
✅ Yes, people are responsible
Libertarians and compatibilists say a person who chose to do wrong, knowing it was wrong, deserves blame. Many religions agree and teach that each person will answer for their actions.
❌ No, or only partly
Hard determinists say nobody truly deserves blame, because nobody could have acted differently. Many of them still accept that society may need to stop dangerous people to protect others. They say the aim should be to change the causes of crime, not to make people suffer.
Most people say responsibility comes in degrees: the less control a person has, the less blame they deserve. The law works this way. In England and Wales a child under 10 cannot be charged with a crime. Courts may also treat a person differently if a serious mental illness meant they did not understand what they were doing, or if they were forced by threats.
Does God decide our fate?
Many religious believers say God is all-knowing. If God already knows everything you will do, are you free to do anything else? There are different answers.
- God decides. Some believers accept predestination. God is in complete control, so nothing happens outside God's plan, including each person's fate. Some find comfort in this. Critics ask whether it is fair to reward or punish people for a life that was planned for them.
- God knows but does not force. Many believers say that knowing is not the same as causing. A parent may know their child will pick the chocolate ice cream, but the child still chooses. In this view God knows each person's future, yet they freely make it.
- Actions decide. Some religions teach that a person's own actions shape their future, so their fate is in their own hands and is not handed down to them.
- Nobody decides. Atheists and humanists do not believe in a God who plans lives. For them what happens to a person comes from nature, nurture, chance and their own choices.
Here is a one-line taste of each religion. Your own religion's lesson will teach it properly.
- Buddhism: Buddhists do not believe a God decides anyone's fate. A person's own actions shape their future.
- Christianity: most Christians believe God gave people free will. Some believe God has chosen who will be saved.
- Hinduism: Hindus believe past actions shape a person's present life, and that people are free to choose how they act now.
- Islam: Muslims believe Allah knows and has power over all things, and that people answer for their own choices.
- Judaism: Jews believe the Almighty gave people the freedom to choose whether to keep the commandments.
- Sikhism: Sikhs believe everything happens within God's will, and that people choose whether to live centred on God.
Common mistakes
Do not mix up determinism and predestination. Determinism is about earlier causes and needs no God. Predestination is about God's decision. Do not say that all religious people believe in predestination: many believe strongly in free will.
Exam-style question
Paper 1 style question. Parts (a) and (b) test AO1. Parts (c) and (d) test AO1 and AO2.
(a) Identify three things that may limit a person's free will. [3 marks]
(b) Outline two different beliefs about whether God decides a person's fate. [4 marks]
(c) Explain why there are different views about whether human beings should be held responsible for their actions. [6 marks]
(d) 'Human beings are not free to choose how they act.' Evaluate this statement, showing you have considered different points of view. In your answer you should refer to at least one religion. [12 marks]
Model answer
(a) 1. Their genes (nature) (1). 2. Their upbringing (nurture) (1). 3. Addiction (1). (Circumstances, such as poverty or the law, would also score.)
(b) Some believers accept predestination, the belief that God has already decided what will happen to each person (1), because God is in complete control and nothing happens outside God's plan (1). Other believers say God knows a person's future but does not decide it (1), because knowing what someone will choose is not the same as making them choose it (1).
(c) Some people believe humans are fully responsible because they have free will. A person who chose to do wrong could have chosen differently, so they deserve blame. Many religions teach that each person will answer for their actions.
Hard determinists disagree. They believe every choice is fixed by earlier causes such as genes and upbringing. This means nobody could have acted differently, so nobody truly deserves blame.
Compatibilists take a middle view. A person is responsible when the action came from their own wishes and nobody forced them. This is why young children, or people forced by threats, are blamed less.
(d) Plan. For: genes, upbringing and circumstances shape every choice; hard determinists say choosing is an illusion; addiction shows that wanting to act differently is not always enough; predestination says God has already decided.
Against: everyone has the experience of choosing; libertarians say influences do not fix what we do; compatibilists say an action is free if nobody forces it; many religions teach that people freely choose between right and wrong.
Your religion: add teachings from your own religion, by name, on the side they fit.
Possible conclusion: judge each point as you go, then pick a side. For example: I disagree. Our choices are limited and influenced, but being influenced is not the same as being forced, so some real freedom remains.
Exam tip
In part (d), the statement says people are 'not free', which is an all-or-nothing claim. A strong answer points out that freedom can be limited without being absent.