William James - Free Will or Determinism?

Buddhism and christianity are essentially religions of deliverance. The man must die to an unreal life before he can be born into the real life. Both theories can account for the past, but william james says, when looking into the future, your belief about whether you have free will or not is ever thin. If we can't have certainty any way about how things unfold, then, pragmatically, it makes sense to believe in intentionality.