necessitarian
/nɪˌsɛsəˈtɛəɹi.ən/
Etymology
From necessity + -arian.
necessitarian means of or pertaining to necessity or necessitarianism: opposed to libertarian. The Arminian has entangled the Calvinist, the Calvinist has entangled the Arminian, in a labyrinth of contradictions. The advocate of free-will appeals to conscience and instinct — to an a priori sense of what ought in equity to be. The necessitarian falls back upon the experienced reality of facts. Froude, Calvinism. (The Century Dictionary, The Century Co., New York, 1911). Lexicurio rates it Sui generis — a strength score of 88 out of 100.
Why this word is great
NECESSITARIAN — [Adjective] Of or pertaining to the doctrine that all events are determined by antecedent causes, rendering free will an illusion. From English necessity (meaning "the state of being unavoidable or predetermined") + the suffix -arian (denoting a person who believes in or advocates for a particular principle). Unlike the libertarian, who champions an agent's power to forge an undetermined path, or the voluntarist, who exalts the will as the primary metaphysical force, the necessitarian perceives only an unbroken chain of causality stretching into the dark. It is the falling domino finding its path already etched in wood, the precisely predictable arc of a stone cast from a cliff, and the scent of ozone before a lightning strike that must follow—a philosophy that replaces the anxiety of choice with the melancholy of perfect inevitability.
adj
- Of or pertaining to necessity or necessitarianism: opposed to libertarian. The Arminian has entangled the Calvinist, the Calvinist has entangled the Arminian, in a labyrinth of contradictions. The advocate of free-will appeals to conscience and instinct — to an a priori sense of what ought in equity to be. The necessitarian falls back upon the experienced reality of facts. Froude, Calvinism. (The Century Dictionary, The Century Co., New York, 1911).
noun
- necessarian
- One who maintains the doctrine of philosophical necessity, in opposition to that of freedom of the will: opposed to libertarian. (The Century Dictionary, The Century Co., New York, 1911).