# Fatalism vs Determinism vs Compatibilism



## monoergon (Nov 26, 2012)

Can anyone help to distinguish the meaning and implications of the following?

1. Fatalism vs Determinism
2. Fatalism vs Compatilism
3. Determinism vs Compatibilism

Does anyone know a good article that talks about it?


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## Ask Mr. Religion (Nov 27, 2012)

Compatibilism (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
Fatalism (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
Causal Determinism (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

You may also want to click on the "AMR" below and retrieve a nice summary of the basics of the major doctrines as I saw in another thread you were new to Calvinism and were writing some basic things up.

AMR


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## Peairtach (Nov 27, 2012)

Man's responsibility and freedom of will, are only protected by the sovereignty of God. 

The most consistent atheists - including the Marxists - have always been determinists.

We don't know how a sovereign God maintains Man's metaphysical freedom and responsibility but because He is omniscient, omnipotent and omnipresent He is able to do it.

Unsaved men are of course _ethically_ bound by sin. See the Westminster Confession of Faith Chapter IX.

If we live in a godless universe Man is not free and responsible, but all his actions are determined as if he were an accidental puppet of fate or chance.

The further people depart from the teaching of a totally sovereign God, the more open to question Man's freedom and responsibilty come. The less sovereign God is, the more open to determination by chance and fate, Man's will is.

See this thread, but be careful of writings by Doug Wilson, because he is a Federal Visionist (see the section of he PB on this error that has arisen among some American Presbyterians in the past decade):http://www.puritanboard.com/f15/sovereignty-establishing-free-will-62841/

God's sovereignty establishes Man's free will, because only the God of the Bible could foreordain that Man's choices be free.


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## monoergon (Nov 27, 2012)

Thanks for the ebook. It is very helpful.


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## Supersillymanable (Nov 28, 2012)

I would warn against trying to fully sus out all the logic of God's full and utter sovereignty, along with our own responsibility for sin. It is a paradox that our fallen minds cannot fully come to grips with. Not that I'm saying don't think about it though .


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