I want to believe that our actions are products of our own will who can choose to do right or wrong but I find this very difficult to believe for a simple philosophical reason. Given the principle that something can not come about by nothing it seems like an absolute and indubitable certainty that the total state of affairs in the universe at any one given moment in time would completely determine the state of affairs at another moment in time. The only thing that keeps me from believing this is my suspicion that my mind is playing a metaphysical trick on me and my hope in religious and spiritual possibilities. Is there some flaw to this reasoning that I can not see? Are there any good arguments that refutes the intuitive position that a non-deterministic universe is an absurdity? I suppose that you could argue that certain areas of science such a quantum mechanics refute the idea of a deterministic universe but such scientific theories don't have the simple persuasiveness of the above mentioned thesis.