Catholic Dictionary

Find accurate definitions of over 5,000 Catholic terms and phrases (including abbreviations). Based on Fr. John Hardon's Modern Catholic Dictionary, © Eternal Life. Used with permission.

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DETERMINISM

The theory that claims that every effect is produced by necessary causes, so that nothing occurs as a result of free will, whether divine or human.

Intellectual determinism holds that the human will necessarily acts on the mind's judgment that something is better.

Natural determinism holds that the human will is impelled by nature or environment, so that people are not more free than irrational animals. as a philosophy of being, natural determinism is a form of pantheism that claims that the whole universe arose necessarily and not by the free decision of God's creative will. (Etym. Latin determinare, to delimit; to direct, arrange, order.)