Why does nobody realise there is not necessarily a conflict between free will and destiny/determinism? It's these constricting notion of past, present and future that blinker us. They're relative terms, not absolute!
Now, how's about this? In any given moment, although our choices are our own, we could not make them any other way than that which we do, or we would not be ourselves as we were at that moment. We may choose differently given the choice again, but that is because we have changed, even merely in having made the choice already, and the past acts through us to determine the future. Though possibly nodalities exist where true arbitrary decisions exist to be made and nothing about our selves assists us in this choice. But my point is, free will, predetermination by history, they are one and the same as our free will is guided by who we are and what we have seen.
Basically, the language is giving us words for apparent concepts which, when examined closely, have no real meaning. Like if I were to say "there is a fourth primary colour". The sentence has apparent meaning, until compared with reality.
Rob |