Q&A: Free Choice
Free Choice
Question
How can you say there is free choice if every person chooses what he believes will do him good? (Even an indirect choice, like helping someone, and even trying to change his belief, would ultimately stem from wanting things to be good for him.)
Answer
You could ask it more bluntly by begging the question: how can there be choice if there is no choice?
See column 120.
Discussion on Answer
Not necessarily. A person can also choose evil. But he is supposed to choose, not be mechanically driven to it.
If a person chooses evil, then he has concluded that it is worth it for him despite the bad that may come out of it. It sounds like here too he chose what is good for him according to his own conclusions.
You’ve emptied the concept of truth or good of any content. But yes, if you want to define it that way, then that is the definition of choice. See column 120 again.
Maybe the discussion of choice needs to be broadened a bit…
To choose between good and evil? After all, at least in our consciousness, there is no good and evil, only good in my eyes and evil in my eyes…
The Torah says, “and choose life,” even when good and evil appear in the same verse…
Is everything subject to choice? Can one, for example, choose not to choose? Maybe choice is actually forced on us… so how free is it?
We should examine the connection between choice and discernment. Can one choose between things that one does not distinguish?
I don’t know what I’m supposed to do with a jumble of questions phrased in a general and unclear way. If you want to discuss them, please formulate them clearly, and preferably discuss each question separately.
So as long as a person isn’t making his choices because they are true, he doesn’t reach a state of free choice?