I think the problem with the "everything is predetermined" argument is that it assumes that there is only one possible response to each set of circumstances with which an individual is faced.
I think that this is palpable nonsense as every choice we make is affected by previous choices we and others have made. The permutations flowing from each choice are so numerous and so complex that for the predetermination argument to work, we would each be having to make millions (if not trillions) of predetermined decisions each and every day, with every decison we make prompting further "trees" of predetermined reactions on the part of others. We would be reduced to something akin to a complex Scalextric car.
At a global or historical level, the choices humans have made have allowed us to develop and invent exciting things like penicillin, nuclear bombs, cars and tax returns. Many of our breakthrough discoveries were, apparently, discovered by accident, or were used for other purposes first. We have a great capacity to learn by doing and to learn from our mistakes. We can see further because we have stood on the shoulders of giants.
This is because our brains are wired in such a way that we do far, far more than just respond to a stimulus or react to a situation. We tend to be proactive rather than reactive. Our putative Scalextric car, by comparison, can do nothing until something happens to it - someone turns the power on, depresses the handset or throws it out of a window.
Predetermination also suggests that there is a force out there which sets the boundaries and which makes the choices for us. This is actually one of my big issues with religion, and although I have the very greatest of respect for Parson as an individual, I cannot see how anyone could be happy to accept such a massive and insoluble contradiction at the root of their faith.
To whit, free will and predetermination can only exist side by side if we accept that god has, for some reason best known to himself, given some the non-beleivers just enough rope to hang ourselves with. He becomes the celestial Scalextric controller, deciding that he will cause certain cars to go into that tight hairpin at full tilt, meaing that they will inevitably leave the track and never cross the finish line to join the winners on the pearly rostrum. So, in other words, he punishes them for doing what he caused them to do in the first place. He forces them to take responsibility for his actions and to live with the consequences which he has also determined. If that doesn't completely undermine the notion of a loving or caring god, I really don't know what does.
But if there is no force out there, there is nothing to predetermine what we do. The "rules" governing our world which we have identified may have been identified wrongly or understood incorrectly or may not exist at all. Therefore we must be exercising free will. We must be shaping our world rather than the other way around.
Given the pigs ear we generally make of it, the evidence would seem to support this latter proposition.
Regards,
Peter
