Question

I would appreciate it if the Rabbi would address this question despite its length; it has been bothering me a lot lately.
Maimonides in the Guide for the Perplexed (III:32) proves that the Holy One, blessed be He, does not change human nature by means of three questions. This is what he writes: Many things are stated in our Torah to the effect that it is impossible to go suddenly from one extreme to the opposite. Therefore, it is not possible, according to human nature, for a person to abandon all that he has become accustomed to all at once. … This is what is said: “And He did not lead them by the way of the land of the Philistines, although it was near; for God said: lest the people regret it when they see war, and return to Egypt.” “So God led the people around by the way of the wilderness of the Red Sea.” Just as He diverted them from the direct road, which had been intended from the outset, to another road, out of consideration for what their bodies were naturally incapable of enduring, so that the original intention might be achieved … And what prevented God from leading them by the way of the land of the Philistines and giving them the ability to stand firm in war, so that there would have been no need for that circling around by the pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night? And just as God contrived to lead them astray in the wilderness until they gained courage—for it is known that life in the wilderness, when the body is rough and dirty, requires boldness, whereas the opposite conditions require timidity, and people were also born who had never become accustomed to slavery and degradation …
So too He imposed the commandments we mentioned (the sacrifices), because of consideration for what their souls were naturally incapable of accepting … For just as it is not in human nature for someone brought up in slave labor with mortar and bricks and the like, and then immediately to wash his hands of that filth and suddenly fight the offspring of giants, so too it is not in his nature to be brought up amid many kinds of worship and practices to which people had become accustomed and to which their souls had become so habituated that they were like a first intelligible principle, and then stop them all at once.
And the following question likewise necessarily arises … since God’s first intention and will are that we believe in this Torah and perform its actions, why did He not give us the capacity to accept it and to act according to it always, without His needing to devise this scheme for us, whereby He does good to us when we obey Him and takes vengeance on us when we rebel against Him, bringing about all these goods and all this punishment? This too is a kind of device He employs in order to obtain from us His first intention. What prevents Him from causing the performance of the acts of obedience that He desires, and the avoidance of the transgressions that He hates, to be a nature implanted in us?
The answer to these three questions and others like them is one general answer: although miracles involve a change in the nature of some particular existing thing, God does not change the nature of individual human beings by miracle in any way whatsoever.
Because of this great principle He said: “Oh that they had such a heart as this always, to fear Me and keep all My commandments all the days, so that it might be well with them and with their children forever.” For this reason there came commandment and prohibition, reward and punishment.
In his words here, Maimonides answers that God does not change human nature by miracle, and therefore there is a command regarding sacrifices because people were accustomed, in terms of their nature, to idolatrous worship; and therefore God took them by way of the Red Sea and not by way of the Philistines because of the cowardly nature of a slave, which cannot be changed. This situation also allows for free choice, and therefore God seemingly cannot give a new heart that would be implanted in us by nature so that we would not commit transgressions.
Maimonides asks: why can God not give us a nature implanted in us to perform commandments and avoid transgressions? And he answers that God does not change human nature in any way, and then Maimonides continues that because of this great principle He said, “Oh that they had…” etc.; for this reason there came commandment and prohibition, reward and punishment.
It seems from his words that free choice really has no value at all and ought to have been abolished; only because God does not change nature does free choice remain, and if it were possible that He did change nature, He would abolish choice.
It seems from his words that the basic natural state is free choice, and because God does not wish to change nature He created a system of reward and punishment, rather than the other way around. So if the basic natural state had been absolute determinism, the Holy One, blessed be He, would not have created free choice.
Can one infer from Maimonides that free choice has no value in itself, and is only a necessary byproduct of the fact that God does not change nature?