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Doesn’t theism lead to determinism?

שו”תCategory: philosophyDoesn’t theism lead to determinism?
asked 8 years ago

Hello Rabbi,
I will present to you two arguments (probably weak because my philosophical knowledge is infinitely less than yours or anyone else’s, but I will try nonetheless), one logical and the other from Jewish tradition, that God knows the future and has in fact already decided it.
From the arguments I will ask why they do not necessarily lead to determinism, and then I will present one or two consequences that arise from whether there is free choice or not.

Argument A – Philosophical:
God is beyond our understanding, we cannot grasp Him or His work and will with our minds. This creates the clear thought that God is above time, meaning He knows what will happen in the future because it has already “happened” from His perspective because He is above the dimension of time.
Likewise, God knows exactly how the soul (the non-material side of us) operates and therefore knows what every human being will do at any given moment and what the world will look like in any given situation.
If God knows what the world will look like, it means that He has actually determined what the world will be like and also determined that the world will operate according to certain laws, which leads, at least to me, to the conclusion that there is no free choice. (Again, because everything is obvious and known in advance.)

From the sources:
The Bible, the Mishnah, and the Talmud are full of examples in which God shows people the future, so that from the perspective of Judaism, everything was already determined when God created the world.

Some examples:
A. Ten things were created on the Sabbath evening between the six, and these are the mouth of the earth, and the mouth of the well, and the mouth of the donkey, and the bow, and the manna, and the staff, and the myrrh, and the writing, and the writing, and the tablets. And some say, even the one who is And some say, “Even Tsevat B’Tsevat is a work” (Mishnah Avot 5:6)

on. Rav Yehuda said, Rav said, When Moses ascended to heaven, they found the Blessed One sitting and tying crowns to letters. Rav Sha’a said before him, “Who is hindering you?” He said to him, “There is one man who is destined to be at the end of several generations, and his name is Akiva ben Yosef, who is destined to teach about every thorn and thorn, every thorn, every thorn of the law.” (Menachot 29:1)
There are other examples, but the picture is clear: according to conditional and Talmudic Judaism, and of course Kabbalistic and Hasidic Judaism, God has already determined everything.

If God has already determined everything, doesn’t that mean there is no free choice, because everything I do has already been determined?

What is the meaning of Nafka Mina?
A. It is not clear then, what is the purpose of living? If I have no choice about what I will do, why don’t I end my life now, because anyway, nothing I do changes what is going to happen because it has already been decided that I will die? (I am not going to do that, there is no need to call the welfare authorities, it is just a question about the essence of life.)

on. In Judaism there is a matter of reward and punishment. The conclusion from determinism shows that there is really no point in reward and punishment because they do not change anything in a person.
third. What is the point of Teshuvah in Judaism or any similar topic?

Thank you very much for reading so far, any answer will satisfy me.

mighty.


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0 Answers
מיכי Staff answered 8 years ago
Hello Adir. I completely agree that if God knows everything in advance, there is no possibility of free will. I do not accept the claims (as in Rabbah P.H., hal. Teshuva) that there can be knowledge that does not dictate the future (like the knowledge of the Iztagnin). But precisely because of this, it is clear to me that God does not know in advance what a person will choose. In my books on the science of freedom, I showed this through Newcomb’s paradox (see Wikipedia). This does not contradict His omnipotence, since “foreknowledge of free choice” is like a circular triangle or dry water. There is no such thing. Every ability is the ability to do everything possible. But what is not defined and is not possible, even the omnipotent cannot do. When God shows us what is to come, it is only when things are not dependent on choice, or when He has taken the reins into His own hands (He took the choice from us). Another possibility is that He shows us what is likely to happen, but if we choose differently, it will not happen (this is what the Shelah writes in the introduction to his book, the section ‘House of Choice’ on the knowledge of the prophets). Hence, the difficulties you raised are irrelevant. Nevertheless, two comments on your words: A. The question of why he created the world is not decisive. He may have his own reasons for doing so. Humans also build machines to do all sorts of things for them. B. There is a point to reward and punishment, as determinists explain, not as a sanction for a person’s guilt but as a device whose purpose is to cause (in a deterministic manner) that he will act correctly. But as mentioned, it doesn’t matter, because the difficulty doesn’t exist.

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מיכי Staff replied 8 years ago

Another note. In the appendix to my aforementioned book, I expanded on why determinism is incompatible with Judaism.

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