@buffalobill90 Said
Here's the basic structure of the argument:
1. Determinism is true
2. Self-determination is true
3. Self-determination and determinism are incompatible
All three of these propositions can't be true at the same time, so one of them must be false. Let me explain each one.
Determinism is the thesis that every event which happens, including human actions, are determined to happen by the events which precede them. Causality seems to imply this: every event has a cause, it can't come from nothing, so in order for something to happen its cause must happen; if its cause happens, it
must happen. Hence, if a human action is caused by, for example, a desire or a motivation, then as soon as that desire or motivation happens the action must happen. Since we do not cause our own motivations, we can not cause our own actions indepedently. We are therefore not free agents, but part of a causal chain like everything else.
Self-determination can be defined here as the idea that we determine our own actions independently and are free, to some extent, of the constraints imposed by previous events. We originate series of events ourselves; we are, in effect, all
causa sui (self-caused) 'prime movers'. Since we are not determined by previous causes, we have 'liberty of indifference', which means that when we choose to do something, we could have chosen otherwise and were not forced to do what we actually did. The choice was free, the action was contingent.
Incompatibilism is the assumption that determinism and self-determination don't go together. This is a pretty natural assumption to make. An incompatibilist, then, is forced to assume that either determinism is false or self-determination is false. Nonetheless, there are many that argue that while determinism is not compatible with self-determination, it still allows some kind of human
freedom, and things like moral responsibility are compatible with determinism since they do not actually require us to have liberty of indifference. For the sake of this argument, we will call such people
compatibilists - that is, they think freedom and determinism are compatible (but they do
not necessarily think determinism and self-determination are compatible).
Everything comes from nothing. God made everything from nothing. Therefore determinism is false.
Because of sin human beings are separated from the True 'prime mover'. In Christ we are reconciled to Him. Therefore self-determinism is false as when one is in Christ the self is destroyed.
God bless you.