Q&A: Divine Providence
Divine Providence
Question
To Rabbi Abraham, greetings and blessings. It is known what you hold regarding providence: that it is not feasible in the reality known to us today, where nature is deterministic, etc. However, what about human decisions and ideas—are they too foreseen in advance? For example, if a person is in a certain distress, an idea may occur to him about what to do and whom to turn to, and perhaps prayer could help with that? And what about the actions of two people? After all, it is clear that a person can perform the same action in different ways, and the results will be completely different. For example, when a terrorist shoots at you, you argued that if he is holding the rifle at a certain angle and you are standing opposite him in a certain way, then he will necessarily hit you. But what causes him to hold the rifle in the way he is holding it? Can’t one think that this depends on divine providence?
Answer
That is certainly possible. The Holy One, blessed be He, created the laws, and He can also depart from them. The One who forbade is the One who permitted. As for involvement in free choice, that has already been asked dozens of times, including in comments on the column here. It is not essentially different from involvement in the laws, and therefore there is no reason for it to happen if departures from the laws do not happen.