Q&A: Discussion with Rabbi Makbili
Discussion with Rabbi Makbili
Question
Hello and blessings.
A very nice discussion; I highly recommend it.
Question: There is free choice, which is a gift or an ability or something that God gave us human beings. Suppose the Holy One, blessed be He, decides to take free choice away from a person—would that be called intervention in the laws of nature? After all, originally free choice is not within the laws of nature, or in any case there is some kind of empty space apart from them, so if God intervenes in that space—is that a change in the laws of nature, or a change in one layer from which changes in the laws of nature are then merely derived?
If we say that this is not called involvement in the laws of nature (indeed it is involvement in the world, but not one that suspends the laws of nature), can the quantum range be compared to a kind of free choice—meaning that the quanta supposedly have free choice, except that a certain percentage will choose one way and others another way (just as a person has free choice whether to sin or not, and nevertheless there are statistics that he will sin, etc.; that is, to say that percentages are not an indication that there is no choice)? God supposedly intervenes in their choice and takes that choice away from them. Same idea. If we take this model from the micro to the macro, doesn’t that mean there is divine intervention with practical ramifications in the world that does not suspend the laws of nature?
I hope I was clear.
Thank you very much.
Answer
This is just a semantic discussion. It is intervention in nature even if not in the laws of nature. Because our choice is part of the nature of the world (we are part of the world).
In quantum theory, those are part of the laws of nature, except that it is not a deterministic law but a statistical one.
Any intervention, whether in quantum phenomena or in human choice, is intervention in nature and a change in it.
Discussion on Answer
You’ve given definitions here. What could be correct or incorrect about that?
There is no suspension of anything deterministic, but there is intervention in a statistical law. You changed the distribution and the result according to the distribution.
You’re playing with words.
So it’s simply a matter of definition.
Is free choice part of nature, or a bubble in which the laws of nature do not exist? If I do indeed define it as a bubble, then intervention could indeed exist without harming the laws of nature—that is, without violating any deterministic law. Are my words correct in your opinion?
I’m not knowledgeable in quantum theory. I’d just be happy for some clarification: when the Rabbi says it is a statistical law, what does that mean? As I understand it, the point is not merely an inability to predict, but that there is something essential here. And if so, if I define that something as being subject to the supposed free choice (so to speak) of those particles, then again it can be defined as a non-deterministic bubble, and if so there is no suspension here of anything deterministic.