Determinism is compatible with free will

Thank you for responding Pro. I have several complaints to start this debate off with the logic of your argument. First, you state information regarding determinism only to in the last sentence state that free will is needed because it has a beginning. You need more content to back this up, because it is illogical to just state that determinism has no begining, and therefore, since there is a begining, free will must be the beginning. This leaves me no where to refute your argument as it is invalid as it stands. Let me now move on to show you how moral responsibility is incompatible with determinism. First, an action or decision must be free. Free in the sense that it is not causally determined, or, if it is causally determined, the action must be causally determined by the agent alone. An action can be causally determined by possessing certain character traits that enhance one's ability to make a certain choice. For an action to be deemed non-determined, it must be one in which the agent is ultimately responsible. To be ultimately responsible for an action, one must be in ultimate control of that action. In order to have ultimate control of an action means that we must have at least some control over an action in the past that is now an adequate reason for us to move action. However, there are some actions that do not require us to be in complete control over, such as an action that is a sufficient reason for causing some future decision. The individual making some future decision is still responsible for that decision, because he was responsible for the sufficient cause of that future decision. According to Robert Kane, if causal determinism is true, then all of our actions are caused by events that have happened in the distant past and by the laws of nature. It is impossible to prevent events from the past from occurring, simply because it is impossible to change the past. It also follows that, since we have no control over the laws of nature, we can't prevent the laws of nature from obtaining. Furthermore, if we cannot prevent one event from occurring, and we also cannot prevent that event to cause a second event to occur, then we cannot prevent the second event. Therefore, if one does not have the ability to control an event from occurring, at least in some way, then one cannot be ultimately responsible for the decision that caused the event to occur. Additionally, in order for free will to be plausible, one must have what is required to act freely. To act freely is, in short, to have the ability to act in a way that is in complete control of the agent. For that reason, there are numerous different choices available to an agent and he is in complete control of the ability to pursue any action he desires. When the agent acts in this way, he is the complete author of the action pursued (Source 1). Thus, we proceed to the term incompatibilism. Incompatibilism states that we act freely, in the sense previously described, only if determinism is false. In book one of On Free Choice of the Will, Augustine explains to Evodius that "everyone who does evil is the cause of his own evildoing" and further explains that our actions "would not be punished justly if they had not been performed voluntarily". For an action to be executed voluntarily, means that the action was done by our own free will and not caused by past events and the laws of nature that we have no control over. In other words, since God is not responsible for the evil in the world, it follows that, the evil that is caused voluntarily is of our own non-determined free will. Also, since God is not responsible for the evil in the world, we are morally responsible. Augustine strongly believed that God could not be responsible for evildoing by stating "and I strained to perceive what I now heard, that free-will was the cause of our doing ill". If determinism were true, then under such a view, we would not be morally responsible for our actions since the actions were not done freely, which I believe to be extremely problematic. Source 1- Hall, Scot. "Kane, Alternate Possibilities, and Ultimate Responsibility." University of Minnesota Morris. Available from http://www.morris.umn.edu.... Internet; accessed 30 December 2008.