Q&A: Free Choice and Determinism
Free Choice and Determinism
Question
Hello Rabbi, in your book No Man Rules the Spirit, you wrote that human beings have free choice, but elsewhere regarding active providence you said that there cannot be active providence because the world is deterministic: "Given a state of affairs x, the laws of nature determine that the next state must necessarily be y."
How can a person, who is limited within these deterministic laws of nature, have free choice?
And if the laws of nature are not deterministic, then why must state y necessarily follow x, rather than y or z, in which case God could actively intervene and choose one of the possible states?
Answer
This question has already been asked here several times. The laws of nature are deterministic, but the human being is endowed with the ability to intervene in them. I explained this in my book 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
The Holy One, blessed be He, of course can also intervene, but in my estimation there is no indication whatsoever that He does so.