"So What?"

As far as the “so what” response to the question of free will and determinism, after studying the subject for the past month or so and reading arguments, definitions, and examples of each category, I have already started to slightly alter my line of thinking from originally thinking everything was left up to free will to believing in a balance being struck between ones free will and different levels and types of determinism.

The main reason for my shift can basically be summed up to ignorance.  I was not aware of the study and ideas behind such determinism as genetic, or environmental  determinism.  Where how one’s genetic disposition or how/where they were raised playing a part in their decision making process.  I was under the assumption that all determinism and all of its categories relied heavily on God or a higher power controlling the strings and humans basically being along for the ride.  The “so what” comes into play with this way of thinking and it’s a thinking that I still do not agree with at all because it leaves too much up to a higher power and takes everything, including responsibility, out of the hands of the individual.  This leaves too dangerous of a slope with regards to crimes, feelings, attitudes, and general behavior in that an individual can simply state that any and all of these things were out of their control and were being directed by a higher power.

I think the movie Adjustment Bureau did the best so far in dealing with where I believe the true answer lies and that is with compatibilism.  The idea that one has free will but that they have it in a controlled environment that has certain aspects already predetermined.  One of the first readings had a very good analogy with regards to how compatibilism works when it referenced a poker game and having several different ways to handle the hand that you are dealt, but not being able to alter the hand that you were dealt.  I believe that certain people, whether due to cultural, environmental or other types of determinism are dealt weaker hands than others, but can still end up above others who are dealt much stronger hands based off of the decisions that they have made.  To think otherwise what be a defeatist attitude that leaves little hope for those given a weak hand except to find comfort in the idea that God gave them such a weak hand in order to test them or to justify somehow giving them a better stake in the afterlife.  I don’t know about everybody, but the God that I believe in and the God that I have faith exists does not make people suffer on a whim and does not play favorites. 

So I guess the “so what” response would be just that.  In order to believe completely in theological determinism, one must have a “so what” attitude with how their life is led, what happens to them and the ones they love, and their own actions and behavior.  That does not seem like the type of life I would want to live and it does not seem to fit with the belief that the type of life the God that I was taught about as a child would want us to live.