Free will and predestination constitute a polarity in many of the religions of the world: is salvation determined by a divine choice or is it a matter of personal self-determination? Free will in this article does not refer to the general philosophical...

FREE WILL AND DETERMINISM. Free will is a moral, religious, and social concept that is central to philosophy and most religions. It has been argued that the basis of freedom lies in the contingency of natural events. Though this line of reasoning has...

To have free will means that in some nontrivial sense persons are able to make choices that are not determined by causes other than themselves, so that each person may be regarded as the unique author of his or her own thoughts and actions. The term...

is an implicit feature of the doctrine of karmic retribution which presupposes responsibility for one’s thoughts, words and deeds and the capability to choose. The choice in terms of concrete action may be limited by circumstances brought about...

in humans, the power or capacity to choose among alternatives or to act in certain situations independently of natural, social, or divine restraints. Free will is denied by those who espouse any of various forms of determinism. Arguments for free will...

Problem arising from the apparent inconsistency between causal determinism in nature and the human power or capacity to choose among alternatives or act freely in certain situations, thus independently of natural, social, or divine compulsions. Its...

The belief that each individual can make free moral choices. According to *Deuteronomy 30:19, *Moses told the Israelites, ‘I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse; therefore choose life.’ Later the *prophets emphasized the...

Characteristic of a verbal action that is carried out intentionally. This feature plays a role as a syntactic category in Hindi (...

The question of free will is whether, and in what sense, rational agents exercise control over their actions and decisions. Addressing this question requires understanding the relationship between freedom and cause, and determining whether the laws of...