Rene Descartes saw freedom as choice, and showed that a person could choose to do something else. In order to make any choice one must be human, in the sense that the

Jonathan Edwards, like Descartes, agreed that we have will, and agrees that we make choices, but he states that the human will is determined by God (4). He believed in Predestination, where God is in control of everything. Since he states that our will is our own, but is determined by God, freedom is taken away. That will is what enables us to make choices, and in predestination, God makes all those decisions. He claimed that the concept of free will or self determinism contradicted the sovereignty of God. If God is genuinely in control of all things, then no one could act contrary to his will, which is what self determinism must hold on to. For God to be sovereign, he must cause every event, be it human or otherwise (5). Edwards showed that to speak of human acts as self-caused would be like speaking of nothing causing something. However, since every event must have a cause, self determinism, which denies this, must be self-contradictory. For if man's will were in equilibrium or indifferent to any given event or decision, then his will would never act (4). Unless an outside force upsets the balance, man's will could never act, unless God moved it. This Predestination allows for humans to make choices and have a will, but this will is determined by God and all of the choices are predetermined. This takes freedom out of the picture, by not allowing a person to have the true ability to choose.

Skinner concurs with Descartes that humans make choices, but states those choices are controlled by outside influences, which is called Determinism. Determinism, where all choices are predetermined, is seen in two main ways, biological and environmental or socia

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