The Introduction begins with a cursory overview of divine determinism, which will be further refined and nuanced in Chapter 1. It then provides an overview of the scope of the work. In short, this work sets out to examine the challenges, rather than the benefits, of adopting divine determinism. It does not, then, propose to settle the question of whether this view should be accepted or not, but merely attempts to ascertain how costly such an acceptance would be by an examination of arguments against this view together with an analysis of possible responses to such arguments. Finally, the Introduction provides a summary of each chapter so that readers may gain a bird’s-eye view of the work and so that those interested solely in particular arguments or issues may direct their attention to specific chapters.

In this chapter I explore a number of different proposals for how to define ‘divine determinism.’ I settle on one to guide the rest of the book, which was first offered by Heath White. On this account, divine determinism is the conjunction of two claims: (i) The facts about God’s will wholly determine every other contingent fact and (ii) the facts about God’s will explain every other contingent fact. I then turn to a brief overview of some motivations for divine determinism. I begin with philosophical motivations, including motivations arising from consideration of the principle of sufficient reason, divine sovereignty, divine power, divine knowledge, divine aseity, and divine providence. I then turn to motivations that are more closely tied to particular religious traditions, including ones related to prophecy, scriptural authorship, and specific scriptural passages. Finally, I investigate two different varieties of divine determinism: primary divine determinism and Edwardian divine determinism.