Q&A: Does Theism Not Lead to Determinism?
Does Theism Not Lead to Determinism?
Question
Hello Rabbi,
I will present to you two arguments (probably weak ones, since my philosophical knowledge is infinitesimal compared to yours or that of any other person, but I’ll still try): one logical and one from the Jewish tradition, for the claim that God knows the future and in fact has already decided it.
From these arguments I will ask why they do not necessarily lead to determinism, and then I will present one or two practical implications that arise from whether or not there is free choice.
Argument A – Philosophical:
God is beyond our understanding; we cannot grasp Him, His actions, or His will with our intellect. From this comes the obvious thought that God is above time—that is, He knows what will be in the future because from His perspective it has already "happened," since 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 every given moment and what the world will look like in every possible situation.
If God knows what the world will look like, that means He effectively determined how the world will be, and also determined that the world would operate according to certain laws—which leads, at least for me, to the conclusion that there is no free choice. (Again, because everything is visible and known in advance.)
From the sources:
The Hebrew Bible (Tanakh), the Mishnah, and the Talmud are full of examples in which God shows human beings the future, so from the standpoint of Judaism everything was already determined when God created the world.
A few examples:
A. Ten things were created on the eve of the Sabbath at twilight, and these are they: the mouth of the earth, the mouth of the well, the mouth of the donkey, the rainbow, the manna, the staff, the shamir, the writing, the inscription, and the tablets. And some say: also the harmful spirits, the burial place of Moses, and the ram of Abraham our father. And some say: also tongs made with tongs. (Mishnah Avot 5:6)
B. Rav Yehudah said in the name of Rav: At the time when Moses ascended on high, he found the Holy One, blessed be He, sitting and tying crowns onto the letters. He said before Him: Master of the Universe, who is holding You back? He said to him: There is one man who is destined to arise at the end of many generations, and Akiva son of Joseph is his name, who is destined to derive heaps upon heaps of Jewish laws from every tiny stroke. (Menachot 29b)
There are more examples, but the picture is clear: according to tannaitic 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, since after all, everything I do has already been determined?
What practical difference does it make?
A. If so, it is not clear what the point of living is. If I have no choice about what I do, why shouldn’t I end my life now, since in any case nothing I do changes what is going to happen, because it has already been decreed that I will die? (I am not about to do this; there is no need to call the welfare authorities. This is only a question about the meaning of life.)
B. In Judaism there is the idea of reward and punishment. The conclusion from determinism shows that there is not really any point to reward and punishment, because they will not change anything in a person.
C. What is the point of repentance in Judaism, or anything similar.
Thank you very much for reading this far. Any answer will satisfy me.
Adir.
Answer
Hello Adir.
I completely agree that if God knows everything in advance, then there is no possibility of free will. I do not accept the claims (as in the Raavad on chapter 5 of the laws of repentance) that there can be knowledge that does not dictate the future (like the knowledge of astrologers). But precisely because of that, it is clear to me that God does not know in advance what a person will choose. In my book The Science of Freedom I demonstrated this through Newcomb’s paradox (see Wikipedia).
This does not contradict His omnipotence, because "foreknowledge of a free choice" is like a square triangle or dry water. There is no such thing. Omnipotence is the ability to do anything possible. But that which is undefined and impossible—even the Almighty cannot do.
When God shows us what is going to happen, that is only when the matters do not depend on choice, or when He has taken the reins into His own hands (taken the choice away 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, in the section "Beit HaBechirah," about the knowledge of prophets).
From this it follows that the difficulties you raised are not relevant. Still, two comments on what you wrote:
A. The question why create a world is not decisive. It may be that He has His own reasons for this. Human beings also build machines to perform various tasks for them.
B. There is a point to reward and punishment, as the determinists explain: not as a sanction for a person’s guilt, but as a device whose purpose is to cause him (in a deterministic way) to act properly.
But as stated, this is not important, because the difficulty does not exist.
One more note. In the appendix to the above-mentioned book of mine, I elaborated on why determinism is incompatible with Judaism.