A common objection to astrology is that it suggests a lack of free will and the abdication of personal responsibility for one's acts. If it is possible to predict the future, are we powerless to change that future? Does destiny rule? Is everything predetermined? The usual astrological answer is that the stars "incline but do not compel". To what extent are we capable of acting against our own inclinations? In Julius Caesar, Shakespeare writes, "the fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves, that we are underlings." What he meant was that if we wish to exercise our free will we may cease to be 'underlings'. The stars may set predetermined natures for each of us, but what we do with our talents is up to us. An acorn cannot become a rose, nor can a man become whatever he chooses to be. Limitations are set both within the acorn and within each of us. To accept the validity of an astrological horoscope does not entail the refusal to accept responsibility for our actions. The horoscope simply describes a potential, not a reality. In A Christmas Carol Ebenezer Scrooge stated: "Men's courses will foreshadow certain ends to which, if persevered in, they must lead; but if the courses be departed from, the ends will change."
And so it is that astrology expresses the probability of events. The coming together of certain planetary symbols does not describe a particular concrete event. The advance notice that astrology provides can be heeded so that we can influence events to some degree.
