“I don’t think literature would be possible in a determined world. We might go through the motions but the heart would be out of it. Nobody could then ‘smile darkly and ignore the howls.’ Even if there were no Church to teach me this, writing two novels would do it. I think the more you write, the less inclined you will be to rely on theories like determinism. Mystery isn’t something that is gradually evaporating. It grows along with knowledge.” – Flannery O’Connor, The Habit of Being: Letters of Flannery O’Connor
Flannery O’Connor wrote these words as our culture was just beginning to
move to a greater degree of determinism. She died in 1964 and The Habit of Being was published in 1979.