Macbeth: The Struggle Between Calvinism And Free Will

There has been a phenomenological debate on how free “free will” truly is from time immemorial; as long as humanity has been self-aware they have wondered if their decisions are their own. This curiosity has reared its head in theology, philosophy, literature, and more recently the fields of psychology, cognitive science, and sociology. The Catholic Christian tradition has long supported the idea that one is in control of one’s own thoughts and actions and therefore is responsible for said thoughts and actions. Calvinism, however, has largely disagreed with this sentiment in stating that there is no free will, that all our thoughts and actions are fated, and that one’s place in Heaven or one’s place in Hell is predetermined. Predestination, as this is called, was prominent in Scotland at the time William Shakespeare’s Macbeth was being written. At this time a Scottish, Protestant King has united his crown with that of England and a year before its creation there was a Catholic plot to assassinate this King, all of his advisors, and the other Protestant politicians of the time. These are events
A main dispute between the two groups was the issue of predestination, Hooker “two years after his ordination in 1579…took the opportunity to challenge the puritans on the doctrine of predestination by pursuing an essentially Arminian line…” claiming that “[one must] look for the meaning of biblical texts less in the literal word than in the realities they address…”(Plant 1&3). It is in this conflict between literal and metaphorical interpretation that the tragedy of Macbeth first begins to reflect the struggles that Shakespeare would have experienced firsthand as the son of someone who has been claimed a closet Catholic and by living in London at this