Determinism
Philosophical questions about determinism involve the nature of the causal structure of the world. Given the occurrence of some factor or factors C that cause an effect E, could E have turned out otherwise than it did? Determinists answer no: In a strictly deterministic world all things happen by necessity, as a direct function of their causal antecedents. Indeterminists hold that E might not have occurred, even with exactly the same initial conditions, because of the possibility of true randomness or free will.
General Forms of Determinism
Early religious versions of determinism were based on the belief that people's lives are supernaturally ordained. As exemplified in the tale of Oedipus, even actions taken to try to avoid what the gods have in store turn out to be the means of sealing that destiny. Predestinarianism, a view held by some Christian sects, states that God controls and foreordains the events of human lives so that it is determined in advance whether one will go to heaven or hell. A related view holds that determinism follows from God's omniscience; if the future is undetermined, God cannot be said to be all-knowing. Modern forms of determinism dispense with supernatural beings and hold that invariable laws of nature fix events.
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