Determinism is the metaphysical view that all events within the universe can occur only in one possible way. Traditional Calvinist doctrine describes God’s sovereignty in a way that can reasonably be called:
- absolute (God controls every event in the universe, including human decisions);
- meticulous (he controls all the tiniest details, such as the position of every atom at every moment in history), and
- deterministic (there are no alternative possibilities since every event is fixed).