Choice and Determinism

שו”ת › Category: faith › Choice and Determinism

asked 5 years ago

Hello Rabbi, the Rabbi wrote in his book No Man Has Dominion Over the Spirit, that humans have a choice, but elsewhere regarding active providence, the Rabbi said that there can be no active providence because the world is deterministic: “Given a state of affairs x, then the laws of nature determine that the next state will necessarily be y.”
How can a person limited within these deterministic laws of nature have free choice?
And if the laws of nature are not deterministic, then why would x necessarily be followed by state y, and not y or z, and then God could actively intervene and choose one of the states?

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מיכי Staff answered 5 years ago

This question has been asked here several times. The laws of nature are deterministic, but man is endowed with the ability to interfere with them. I explained this in my books on the science of freedom and in an article here on the site: https://mikyab.net/%d7%9b%d7%aa%d7%91%d7%99%d7%9d/%d7%9e%d7%90%d7%9e%d7%a8%d7%99%d7%9d/%d7%9e%d7%91%d7%98-%d7%a9%d7%99%d7%98%d7%aa%d7%99-%d7%a2%d7%9c-%d7%97%d7%95%d7%a4%d7%a9-%d7%94%d7%a8%d7%a6%d7%95%d7%9f God, of course, can also intervene, but in my opinion, there is no indication that he does so.

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