You can’t even predict the weather exactly, despite all the measurements. So certainly not a human brain, where there aren’t even measurements on it.

It seems the question was understood. What has no meaning here?
Is that what religion rests on for you? Is that what defines a human being in your eyes?

I’ll just add to this fascinating discussion
that determinism does not necessarily negate religiosity.
The Lutheran stream in Christianity made a foundational principle of its faith the idea that there are people who from the outset receive salvation, and they are the ones who, because of that, ought to recognize gratitude to God and serve Him.
A similar kind of determinism also existed among us in the thought of Rabbi Tzadok HaKohen, the Rebbe.

To Rational,

That is also the view of Rabbi Hasdai Crescas, one of the great sages of Spain. As best I remember, it was brought in the book The Science of Freedom near the end.
In Rabbi Tzadok’s thought this is limited to certain commandments in which there is no power of choice, again as best I remember.

Rabbi Tzadok’s determinism is expressed mainly in his unique and fascinating thought, which says that a Jew will never turn out wicked and a gentile will never turn out righteous.

His fascinating and self-contradictory thought, which says nothing at all. It is full of statements and their opposites, even more than his other Hasidic colleagues.
The same is true of the Protestants (and not only Lutherans; also Calvinists). There too we are dealing with a doctrine that is astonishingly contradictory.
With Rabbi Hasdai Crescas there are contradictions on this matter, and Ravitzky already pointed this out.

Not pleasant to say, but I really don’t like this way of looking at a gentile as against a Jew. In general it seems to me a complete contradiction to the whole concept of reward and punishment.
According to Rabbi Crescas’s view, apparently the reward is for the joy in the act and not for the act itself.

Religions that exist by virtue of the relationship they maintain between man and God are religions whose essence is the impulse of pride: the desire to resemble God.
Religious people who believe in such religions cannot tolerate a humiliation like determinism, where man is basically a robot.
Therefore Maimonides was forced to say that this is a pillar of the Torah, otherwise they would flee to other religions that cultivate the impulse of pride more and grant man free choice—just so he can feel good.

The Last Decisor,
Are you claiming that Maimonides did not in fact believe in free will,
or is this a psychological claim about the human soul?

Ish,
Rabbi Tzadok’s thought indeed denies gentiles free will in a certain sense… he develops the idea of Israel’s special quality to a very radical status. To summarize, if I remember correctly, a gentile can indeed choose the good, but it is something that affects him only externally and not internally (in his inwardness, in the depths of his heart, he remains evil, and therefore has no share in the World to Come). It is not entirely clear whether this is a semi-psychological claim or a “theological” determination that gentiles simply cannot attain the World to Come and receive reward, even if they behave like the “righteous among the nations.”
From what I read, he tends toward the second direction (and then explains that they consume their reward in this world).

In his view*

Michi,
I’d be happy to hear what you mean by saying that Lutheran thought is built on contradictions.
Because when I read it a long time ago, the claim seemed simple enough: a person is born either a sinner or righteous from the outset (the righteous person receives the Christian faith through divine grace, while the sinner receives disbelief).
As for Rabbi Tzadok—fascinating Judaism in the sense of its radicalism. Did he also express himself in an incoherent way and with wordplay like other Hasidim? (As you wrote years ago in the columns on Hasidism?) In my humble opinion, no. He does use all kinds of unclear concepts, but he does often make theological or factual assertions and does not leave poetic verbiage that can be interpreted however one wants.

If everything is predetermined, then our actions are too. So what is the point of making an effort to prove that we are among the elect? That doctrine sounds like nonsense to me.
As for Rabbi Tzadok, the problem is not his style of expression. Compared to other Hasidim, he is actually fairly reasonable. The problem is that there are frontal contradictions in his doctrine. True, I do not know it in depth, but on the topic of free choice and determinism I did examine it somewhat in the past.

Rational (Relatively),

It should be clear that this is a scientific question: does a person have free will or not? Therefore it is less important what so-and-so thinks about the matter.

As for Maimonides: if you read him precisely, it seems there is no belief there in free will in its pure sense:
“If he wishes to incline himself… the choice is in his hand.”
From a deterministic perspective, once there is a desire, it is already too late in the chain of decision-making. A desire does not simply arise on its own. And just as the desire did not simply arise on its own, in the end the desire to carry out one desire rather than another also will not just happen. There will always be a cause.

But Maimonides probably thought, at the very least, that belief in free will has educational significance, as I noted. Otherwise they would flee to foreign fields.

I asked the Rabbi whether the question of free will has practical implications for him, in order to understand whether for him this is a scientific question or a religious question.