Question

“Is it not written in the Torah, ‘and they will enslave them and afflict them’ (Genesis 15:13)? So He decreed that the Egyptians would do evil. And it is written, ‘and this people will rise up and stray after the foreign gods of the land’ (Deuteronomy 31:16), so He decreed that Israel would worship idolatry. Why then were they punished? Because He did not decree regarding a particular known person that he would be the one to sin; rather, each and every one of those sinners who worshiped idolatry—if he had not wanted to worship, he would not have worshiped. The Creator informed him only of the way of the world. What is this comparable to? To saying: among this people there will be righteous people and wicked people. Because of this, can the wicked person say that it has already been decreed upon him that he will be wicked, just because the Holy One, blessed be He, informed Moses that there would be wicked people in Israel, as it says, ‘for the poor shall never cease from the land’ (Maimonides, Laws of Repentance 6:5).” According to this Maimonides, does it follow that in principle prophecies can turn out to be false? After all, if each individual truly has free choice, then by definition there is no single outcome predetermined in advance.