Even though in hindsight it is possible to find reasons why things turned out as they did, the past does not completely determine the future. In general, ahead of time, multiple outcomes are possible. There are many possible ways to meet a requirement, need, or desire, and there are chance intersections and collisions of different, mostly independent vectors of determination. This is all to say that the determination of things is in some measure equivocal (i.e., not univocal). (See also Efficient Cause; Free Will and Determinism; Kantian Freedom.)
A related point is that there is such a thing as objective ambiguity in the world. This means not just that we are unsure or conflicted about something, but that the best or most complete evidence available in a particular case may have more than one reasonable interpretation. (See also Aristotelian Identity; Things in Themselves; Copernican; The Epistemic Modesty of Plato and Aristotle.)
The Postmodern Peripatetic 