The several passages in the New Testament in which the doctrine of Predestination is plainly set forth are too well known to necessitate their quotation here. St. Augustine says: "What happens of thee he himself [God] works in thee. Never anything happens of thee which he himself does not work in thee.... Never is anything done by thee unless he works it in thee."[L]
The universal feeling that we possess "free-will" is no proof of its reality, and only on the basis of the axiom that nothing is too unscientific or extraordinary to be possible (which is sound enough) can it be accepted as a possibility. Even Locke could not, for the life of him, reconcile omniscience and free-will, although he believed in both.
Taking free-will as a sensation, we must pronounce it to be just as illusory as any other sensation, except as a sensation. On the other hand, the Determinist view cannot be classified as a sensation, but is rather a product of reason. Professor James says: "Genuine Determinism affirms, not the impotence of free-will, but the unthinkability of free-will."
St. Paul writes, with reference to sin: "It is no more I that do it, but sin (or evil Karma) that dwelleth in me." And we are instructed in some parts of the Christian Scripture that all good is of God, and not of ourselves. Here, then, there appears to be a complete obliteration of the idea of free-will in respect of actions either good, bad, or indifferent; and in confirmation of this view it is necessary to remember that the language of free-will was used for convenience sake, that God is distinctly said "to have called those things which be not as though they were." St. Paul says: "The creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly." Possibly he may have had in mind when he delivered this dictum the vanity, or vain conceit, of assuming free-will.
If it be permissible to assert that we exercise no control, in the sense of free-will, over the functions of our digestive organs, which perform their work without our being sensibly conscious of it (except in the case of abnormal disturbance), one would think the assertion might be extended in regard to cerebral functions also. We conceive thought to precede many of our actions, but if thought is the non-spatial accompaniment of cerebral cell-action, and the latter is no more amenable to the control of free-will than our digestive organs are, then those actions which are the sequences of thought cannot be "free-will" actions.
It is generally admitted that there are occasions when an individual acts without exercising free-will; when, for instance, a man loses his head, as the expression goes, in a sudden catastrophe. There are also distinctly involuntary actions, such as blushing, turning pale, perspiring, etc. It seems, then, that an individual only exercises his will, according to general belief, under certain conditions. But if free-will is acknowledged to be absent under some conditions, may we not reasonably conclude that it may be absent altogether, and only exists as an illusion of the senses?
Anyhow, circumstances—or, in other words, the molecular activities of the universe—appear to be the dominant factor in determining our actions. These activities, when working through cerebral cells, turn out thoughts; when operating through the skin pores, they produce perspiration.
Locke, in his chapter on "Power" (human understanding), seems to draw very near to an admission of Determinism, but then flies away from it, evidently alarmed by the spectre of irresponsibility. He labours to demonstrate that uneasiness or desire determines the will to the successive (so-called) voluntary actions whereof the greatest part of our lives is made up, and by which we are conducted through different causes to different ends. This is, as far as it goes, unadulterated Determinism.
Dr. Paul Carus defines freedom of will as the power to do that which one wills, not as the freedom of a man to will what he wills. Indeterminism he declares to be based upon error, because it attributes to man an exceptional place in the universe. Man is supposed to be exempt from the uniform and inexorable law of cause and effect which rules in the universe. He says: "The decision of a free man depends upon his character"; but character is only the result of innumerable causes, which has become a cause upon which other effects follow, according to the cosmic law of causation, which must include in its impartial sway man as well as all other integrations of matter.