Blog Post Religion Online February 12 , 2016

In movie, The Adjustment Bureau we see an exaggerated example of what it looks like to have your life determined by a higher power. This closely relates to ideologies of determinism, which is the idea that all of our choices to some degree are decided before we even make them. In David’s case, every event in his life and his family’s life is what determined what made him want to become a senator and eventually president. The reason that David wanted to become a senator is because his father brought him on a trip to the capital after he had lost both his mother and brother. This traumatic event is what “nudged” David into his path of wanting to be a senator. It becomes clear though that the Adjustment Bureau does not have full control over everyone and what they do.

While the movie mostly points towards more of determinism for writing the scrip of life, I would argue that there is some form of compatibilist. The adjustment bureau has a path that they want everyone to follow and they “nudge” people when they feel as though they have gotten off track too much. However, these stories change over time. When Harry and another member of the adjustment bureau are sitting in a room talking about why David is getting so off track from his path there is a mention that the plan for David wasn’t always for him an Elise not to be together. In fact, they were supposed to be together up until recently. We find out that these impressions from a past path are what are making David desire to be with Elise. While this would still suggest that there is a determined path for David it also shows how the story can change which suggest more of a compatibilist approach. Another example of this is when the adjustment bureau did not account for David and Elise meeting once again, “by chance”, on the bus. That would suggest that aspects of the plan are constantly being changed and manipulated by other forces of free will.

At the end of the movie, we see how David was eventually able to convince the chairman into letting him stay with Elise. I saw this as another example of the aspects of free will that David had. If he did not have some allowance of free will he wouldn’t have been able to run around and convince Elise to come with him and convince the chairman to change his story. David had a path, but he could change it based off of events that changed him path. In the end the movie shows that we have a path built off of prior events in our life, similar to Newtonian determinism, but that we also have the ability to make smaller choices in our lives and even change them drastically if we want.