Is There a Difference Between Fatalism and Determinism?

Fatalism refers to inevitability. What happens could not have happened otherwise; or in other words, what will be will be because it is preordained, or necessary. Efforts of agents to thwart a fated end (e.g. Greek tragedy) or their efforts to produce any end are not the governing issues in determining what ends will be--fate is. This seems to me an inherently religious perspective.

Determinism refers to pre-existing causes. What will be will be, because causes and conditions that have "gone" before have set forth cause and effect chains that determine the end. Secular determinism is the framework of Godless science (not that science is necessarily godless). Theological determinism is the framework of Calvinism.

By way of illustration, let's say there is a person who sees the probability of an unpleasant future looming ahead of her. She decides to take action and change the course of her future. She takes what action she can, and experiences a chain of events she would not have if she had not taken action. It appeared she had changed the course of affairs and the initial probability wasn't so probable anymore. Unfortunately, the thing she feared came upon her anyway.

A fatalist would say, "I told you so, there is nothing that can be done to avert or change what is fated." The outcome proves the premise. What would the religious determinist say about that end that would be different in any useful way? The thought to avert the future was predetermined; the course of mitigation attempted was predetermined; the apparent success of that course was predetermined; and the ironic result of the whole affair was predetermined. How is the analysis of the end result any different for one viewpoint as opposed to the other?

If a theological determinist is to be a determinist, that one is also, ultimately, a fatalist. Whether one looks at an end occurring regardless of intervening actions, or examines consequent actions step by step, the result is the same--what ends up happening happens because it was necessary and it could not have occurred otherwise. That one cares more about the steps to get there than the other, seems to me to make precious little useful difference, in the end, at all.

Jury Duty

I just finished an experience I've always managed to avoid one way or another all these years. I sat on a jury in a civil trial. I never want to do it again. I don't think I'll have to worry about a criminal trial, since I'm absolutely opposed to prison and would not send any non-violent offender there regardless of the evidence or the law. I doubt that would pass muster in the pre-selection process.

The OJ Simpson trial (and more recently, even the Casey Anthony trial to some degree) have thoroughly undermined my confidence in the jury system. The jury system no longer works (if it ever did) because not all jurors are capable of following simple cause and effect trails, let alone difficult ones; jurors are purposely kept ignorant and information limited by the system so decisions have to be made on the basis of less than the totality of facts or science; a host of legal technicalities and terms make the process of weighing and determining facts very uncertain; etc., etc., etc.

My own experience has only served to validate my concerns. Did the jury I served on do justice? Maybe, but I have my doubts. We took the best guess we could given what we were presented. We were offered precious little, and very purposely I might add. We were deadlocked until a couple of people were willing to acknowledge that the situation meant that there just wasn't enough evidence to make the plaintiff's case. Such is justice in the US, heaven help us.

I think lawyers ought to make up the bulk of juries. They understand the proceedings, the terms, and the nuances of legal determinations. They are the ones making money off the system (would it be too much to ask them to serve some time every year rendering verdicts?). As long as they do not have a horse in the race, they would make the best jurors. They can be mixed with people who, instead of not knowing anything about the fields in question, are familiar with them. We would get more just verdicts, and probably quicker ones I would think.

Arminians Cannot Logically Adopt Perseverance

If grace is resistible and election is conditional, as Arminians claim, then there remains no basis for positing perseverance of the saints.

Calvinists can claim perseverance because it logically proceeds from unconditional election and irresistible grace. An apparent apostate would, in fact, be one who wasn't actually elect and therefore never saved in the first place. Though an Arminian would rightly oppose the Calvinist position on the matter, some Arminians claim something theologically similar to perseverance but founded, it seems to me, upon regeneration rather than election and irresistible grace. 

To maintain such a view, a "once saved, always saved" Arminian has to posit a transition in God's governance of the believer along the lines that God initiated salvation according to Arminian principles (freedom and grace), but after rebirth continued salvation according to Calvinistic principles (determinism). Though a biblical mechanism for such a shift could be postulated on the basis of texts like Philippians 1:6, or John 6:39, there is no way to harmonize such a conception with the book of Hebrews or other passages warning that all is lost if one ceases to persevere in faith.

From God's perspective (either looking back from the end or seeing all at once), there is no issue. Of everyone who is finally and eternally saved it will be the case that they will have made it because of God's efforts to preserve them. For everyone who made a turn toward God, or even came to know him intimately, but ceased to believe in Christ and repudiated him, it will be the case that they fell irretrievably because of their own freedom to believe or not believe. If Adam was free and could fall from a state of perfection in relationship with God, anyone can fall from a similar state.

That God loses none of those he foreknew does not mean he will not lose some of those he knew along the way.

If it is intrinsic to God's will that mankind be free (as any Arminian would attest), then on what basis would a shift to Calvinistic precepts for the saved be justified? It seems to me, any such basis would have to be established by ignoring some scripture on its face in order to emphasize other passages of scripture. What would drive that? Emotion? Comfort? Make no mistake, any such effort thoroughly undermines the Arminian conceptions of soteriology in the first place. If one knows that God's grace is resistible, then one cannot posit a perseverance that isn't.

Biblical Economics

The world's in turmoil and capitalism and free markets seem to be getting most of the blame. What position on these economic matters should a Christian take? Let me sketch out an outline of Biblical Economics that may help you make up your mind.

Private Property
The foundation of freedom under God and economic prosperity is private property. When Moses led the formerly enslaved out of bondage into a land flowing with milk and honey, freedom and opportunity lay in each man having inviolable land rights in perpetuity. When a person has what they have, unassailable by fellow citizens or governmental power, that person has the basis to work and make a future for himself and his family, and at least the basis for freedom from tyranny.

Entrepreneurial Freedom
God gives people the ability to create wealth. Folk anywhere who have the freedom to take risks and prosper from their efforts, make such efforts to their own benefit and that of those around them. The entrepreneurs gain wealth, those around them gain goods and services they desire. Capitalism (even in it's muted form practiced in the West) has been the only reliable engine of economic development and rising standards of living the world has ever known. Why not, it was God's idea for the economy of a fallen world.

Equality in Justice
Government is responsible under God to maintain justice between people. Me and mine should be protected from violations coming from you and yours. Justice must be blind, with the economically weak standing on equal ground before the bench with the economically strong. That in NO WAY means that justice can be, or should be, equated with economic equality. The poor will always be among us, the law should never allow them to be trampled under by rest of us. Certainly, making everyone poor in the name of equality is the very worst injustice.

Care for the Poor
Since the unfortunate, the feeble, the young, and the disabled will always be among us, sustenance should always be made available to them. However, no provision whatsoever should be made for the able but idle: they should be left to their condition in the hopes that their belly might teach them the lesson of life--no work, no food. The unfortunate, the feeble, the young, and the disabled are no burden to society despite their need. The idle are parasites and fools.

Workers' Wages
A worker's labor is as much an entrepreneurial risk as the investment of intellectual and tangible property. Workers, therefore, deserve to benefit from the profits of any entrepreneurial endeavor as much as do the entrepreneurs themselves. There would be no need for the disaster that is unions, nor the myriad socialistic and inefficient governmental impositions on business if workers were allowed to "freely" share in the profits of the organizations they work for. Perhaps worst of all has been the shill game (SS, healthcare) which in effect refuses to pay workers their wages for today, today.

The Wealth Gap
When economic activity sifts people into the haves and have nots over time, differences in economic prosperity and power can become entrenched and widen. The richer gain more of the means of production and power, the poorer lose more and the result is a loss of freedom and opportunity. A mechanism to reshuffle the economic deck in about every other generation (about every 50 years) would be helpful to long-term, overall economic activity and opportunity.

Usury
Relative weakness between the parties in a transaction, the existence of urgency, and sheer greed should not be allowed to so color interest rates that they become so burdensome that they lock intransigently the borrower into a perpetual state of debt, or threaten (just by their extent) the on-going ability of the borrower to continue economically. Whereas it is economically beneficial to have a ready pool of capital within any nation that can be borrowed by those with a need or with an idea to exploit, it is anything but economically useful to have the burden imposed in order to do so be so weighty as to crush further economic activity from the borrowers.

Monetary Manipulation
Dependable scales are necessary to continuing market activity. If measures are constantly shifting, someone is getting the shaft and the resultant uncertainty will depress economic activity. When the value of money is constantly shifting, either arbitrarily or through manipulation, it is as if a pound is a pound one minute but not the next, or for one customer but not the next. Policies that allow central banks and government printing presses to manipulate currency values seem to me destined to artificially benefit some economies at the expense of others. Ultimately, the result will be depressed economic activity that otherwise could be greater and political instability.

These are temporal considerations that affect this age of sinful man. None of them will transition into eternity, but today, for this age, they form the basis of understanding what a biblically informed approach to economics would look like. I think it interesting that no politician is even remotely promoting such an approach to economic policy, nor is any political party. For all the posturing that comes from such quarters, it is obvious that politicians pay no attention whatsoever to what the Bible might suggest concerning practical considerations of governance. But maybe the Cubans are starting to.