Q&A: The Sciences of Freedom – Questions
The Sciences of Freedom – Questions
Question
With God’s help,
To Rabbi Dr. Michael Abraham, greetings.,
I read your book The Sciences of Freedom eagerly. I believe I understood the main points, even if I wasn’t always able to follow every method and study.
I have to note that I was amazed by your level of brilliance and your command of the material.
At the same time, in my opinion several important points are missing from the book, or at least not clarified, and I think they are very significant for the issue discussed there.
First — the matter of belief (not necessarily religious belief) — is almost completely absent from the book. I’m not sure it can be equated with willpower and thought.
The central motive of human actions is belief. A person who believes does things under the influence of belief, just as someone on the right holds right-wing views out of one belief, and someone on the left out of another belief.
Almost all the major actions carried out in the world are done under the influence of some kind of belief. True, belief can be assigned a mentality similar to thought — but from my own inner feeling it seems to me a bit different.
The issue of the spectrum — I’m not sure there are people who believe one hundred percent in the libertarian picture and others who believe one hundred percent in the deterministic picture.
What actually exists is a spectrum of belief between the two contradictory approaches. And so one can also explain the theory of the lazy person בכך שגם the determinist does not believe one hundred percent that he is right, since he has no certainty or proof of it.
This of course connects to the matter of belief, which usually cannot be proven. If everyone believed with a whole heart, they would not sin.
Are the differences between the approaches really so fundamental?
From your book it seems that even committed libertarians hold that an irresistible impulse prevents free choice, and that systematic actions are not done by virtue of free choice.
Since an essential part of what happens in our world is carried out under an irresistible impulse (which of course needs to be defined), and part of it is carried out under belief, which in my opinion is also not something a person can control — then the differences between the approaches are not all that fundamental. Or did I miss something?
God plays dice
It’s possible that you already answered the following questions in your book of that title (which unfortunately I still haven’t managed to read), but the positions raised in the book give rise to several difficulties.
I have to note that I have an irresistible urge to engage with this issue ever since it first arose for me about 15 years ago, and I even discussed it with you once in the synagogue in Elkana.
According to your approach — free choice is absolute — God decides nothing and also knows nothing.
That is, God created the world, and then contracted Himself and has no control over anything.
He only waits in the World to Come to give reward and punishment, and even that according to a system of laws over which, seemingly, He has no control at all, because the Sages (of all religions) had the ability to decide whatever they wanted.
This is an absurd result, and one I find hard to accept.
Despite the difficulty, it is much easier for me to believe in the deterministic picture, according to which God does control the world, even if the price is that there is no free choice.
And since we already spoke about a spectrum, one can also accept an approach according to which God controls at least the major trends in the world, by controlling the beliefs and actions of central individuals or groups within it.
Best regards
Answer
Shlomi, hello.
First, I very much prefer questions and comments through the responsa section on my website (link below). As for your remarks, a considerable part of them is unclear to me. I’ll address the points I did understand.
1. My book does not deal with belief but with a philosophical question. I do not see what belief has to do with this. If you mean intuition (an initial belief in something) unrelated to religion, I have written about that a great deal in my books and articles, and also in this book. I argued that our belief in free choice is grounded in intuition. At the end of the book I reached the conclusion that science and arguments do not decide the question, and it remains for each person to decide intuitively.
2. There is no certain belief in anything in the world (except perhaps this claim itself). Therefore not in freedom of the will or in determinism either. There are various considerations on the basis of which a person reaches a decision and forms a position on different issues. I do not see what the spectrum adds to the problem of the lazy person. A person forms a position and acts accordingly. In general, an intellectual clarification is conducted between two extreme conceptions, and combining the two, if at all, is done only after the clarification.
3. I do not agree with your question of proportion (that most of what is done in the world is under impulse). Not at all. Otherwise most criminals would not be responsible for their actions. As for the difference between the approaches, I wrote that there is almost no practical implication, and that this is a philosophical question. But in my view it is very important for one’s worldview and for how we relate to the world. Regarding the legal implications for responsibility for our actions, see my article just published: 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%90%D7%95%D7%98%D7%95%D7%A0%D7%95%D7%9E%D7%99%D7%94-%D7%95%D7%A1%D7%9E%D7%9B%D7%95%D7%AA-%D7%91%D7%A4%D7%A1%D7%99%D7%A7%D7%AA-%D7%94%D7%9C%D7%9B%D7%94/%D7%9E%D7%93%D7%A2%D7%99-%D7%94%D7%9E%D7%95%D7%97-%D7%95%D7%94%D7%9E%D7%A9%D7%A4%D7%98-%D7%9E%D7%91%D7%98-%D7%A4%D7%99%D7%9C%D7%95%D7%A1%D7%95%D7%A4%D7%99-%D7%9E%D7%93%D7%A2%D7%99-%D7%A2%D7%9C-%D7%94
4. I did not write anywhere about absoluteness (that God knows nothing). What I wrote is that regarding what we choose, He does not know. How much of what we do is done by choice? That is another question (discussed here in section 3).
5. Where did you get the claim that the legal system is handed over entirely to human beings and God has no interest and no ability to determine anything about it? I’m astonished. God gave us the Torah and established the laws in it. From that point on, interpretation is entrusted to the sages. I did not invent “It is not in heaven.”
6. What is easier or harder to believe is irrelevant. The question is what is true. Especially if your conclusion is deterministic, then in any case your beliefs are not determined by you, and the discussion is pointless.
7. Indeed, there is a possibility that God controls things on the larger scales, and I addressed it in the second book of my trilogy. I am not inclined to think so, because what happens on the larger scales is determined by the sum of individual people. To change something on a large scale, one has to influence people’s actions.
In conclusion, this whole matter of providence and divine control over the world is explained in great detail in the second book of my trilogy (and in a series of video lectures that has just gone up on my site: ‘God and the World’). Here it came up only incidentally.
All the best, and goodbye,