Chapter 7/11

Freedom and Determinism

Freedom and determinism? We need to understand this dialectic if we are to think clearly.

We are free to make choices. The range of our choices, however, is limited. Heredity and socio-cultural heritage limit our options. Every free choice we make determines a wide range of future options. Many decisions we make are irreversible; others can be reversed. So the development and character of life is determined by heritage, circumstances beyond our control, and personal decisions made within the limits imposed by heredity and environment–heritage, environment, and free choice.

We are and are becoming the embodiment of the dialectical interaction of these three factors. These are the elements that comprise the bipolar tension between determinism and freedom.

We are free to choose neither our genetic makeup nor our social heritage. My immediate heritage involves the Great Depression and World War II, rural southern Oklahoma, and small Baptist churches. My more distant heritage includes poverty-stricken, uneducated, Scotch-Irish farmers who fled Ireland’s Great Potato Famine and became Appalachian hillbillies. I had no more choice in any of this than I did of the genes that gave me a tall, slender frame, blue eyes, and an introverted personality.

If you were born in Vietnam in the 1960s, the daughter of a United States Marine and a Vietnamese mother who, before the war, had lived in a well-to-do home, your heritage would be quite different from mine. Perhaps now you live in Caldwell, Kansas where your husband has become a successful realtor, and you are an active member of the PTA. In your mind and heart you are still Buddhist.
Your thinking and mine will come from widely differing starting points. Although it is unlikely, it is possible that we might find common ground and come to similar conclusions for similar reasons. This could happen only after many dialectical considerations.

None of us choose our heritage, yet it is an inescapable element of our body, soul, and mindset. It provides the fundamental framework within which we find our personal options for making decisions.