Fate vs. Free Will:
What Psychology and
Science Actually Say

The Oldest Argument

In The City of the Gods, the conflict between Will and the twin goddesses Fate and Destiny is presented as the central theological crisis of the divine world. Will argues that humans must have genuine freedom to choose. Fate and Destiny insist that every life follows a predetermined path, and that what we call choice is simply the path playing itself out.

This is not just a mythological argument. It is one of the oldest and most consequential debates in philosophy, and over the past century, science and psychology have weighed in with findings that are surprising, uncomfortable, and genuinely illuminating. Neither side has won, but we know a great deal more than we used to.

What Neuroscience Says: The Libet Experiments

In the 1980s, neuroscientist Benjamin Libet conducted experiments that sent a shockwave through philosophy of mind. He asked participants to flex their wrist whenever they felt like it and to note the position of a clock hand at the moment they decided to move. He measured electrical activity in the brain throughout.

What he found was disturbing for believers in free will: brain activity associated with the movement — what he called 'readiness potential' — began up to half a second before participants reported consciously deciding to move. In other words, the brain appeared to initiate the action before the conscious mind was aware of choosing it.

However, and this is crucial, later researchers pointed out significant limitations in the Libet interpretation. The 'decision' being measured was a trivial, arbitrary one (flex your wrist whenever). More recent research suggests that what Libet detected was not a decision but a buildup of neural noise — a preparation for action that the conscious mind can still interrupt or veto. The brain readies itself; the self still chooses whether to proceed.

Determinism and the Gene Argument

Genetic research has consistently found heritable components to personality traits, risk tolerance, emotional regulation, and even political orientation. Studies of identical twins raised apart — who share DNA but not environment — routinely find striking similarities in preferences, habits, and life outcomes.

This is the scientific version of Fate and Destiny's argument: your path is written in you before you begin. You didn't choose your temperament, your emotional baseline, your neurological wiring. These things shape every decision you make.

The counterargument, and it is a strong one, is that predisposition is not predetermination. Genetics sets a range of possibilities, not a fixed outcome. Environment shapes which possibilities are activated. And crucially, awareness of your own tendencies — the kind of self-knowledge that Chelise develops through her ordeal — can shift the range itself. The brain is plastic. People change.

Psychology's Verdict: It Depends What You Believe

Here is where things get interesting. Research by psychologists Kathleen Vohs and Jonathan Schooler found that people who were induced to believe in determinism — told, essentially, that free will is an illusion — subsequently behaved more poorly. They cheated more. They helped others less. They showed reduced self-control.

This finding does not settle the question of whether free will exists, but it suggests something that The City of the Gods dramatizes directly: what you believe about your own freedom changes how you act. The belief in choice itself causes different choices.

Will's argument, it turns out, has empirical support: telling people they have no meaningful freedom produces less meaningful behavior. Chelise's choice to believe she has agency is not just emotionally resonant; it is scientifically defensible.

The Emerging Consensus: Compatibilism

Most modern philosophers and an increasing number of scientists have moved toward a position called compatibilism: the idea that free will and determinism are not actually incompatible. Even in a deterministic universe — one where every event follows causally from prior events — there is a meaningful sense in which a self-aware agent making a reasoned decision based on their values and desires is exercising genuine freedom.

The key is not whether the choice was causally influenced (it always is), but whether the right kind of process produced it — one involving the agent's own reasoning, reflection, and values rather than coercion or compulsion.