The Big Question: Does Humanity Have Freedom of Will?
In our world, we are almost completely dependent on nature’s providence. We are compelled to be born; we do not choose our time of birth or our family, our talents, or the people we meet in this life. We enter an environment we never chose.
All my characteristics are predefined: the feelings, the aspirations, and the character. Everyone is born with his or her own Mazal (luck). Moreover, it is said that “there is not a blade of grass below [in our world] that has not an angel above [a force from the upper world] that strikes it and tells it: Grow!” So is there any freedom at all?
Both nature and society evolve according to their own laws, and so do all the changes in the universe and the ever- greater catastrophes that happen, hence there is nothing that depends on us. But if everything in humankind is dictated from above, not only our characteristics and inheritance, but everything outside us, including the forces that lead us to the end of correction, to a predetermined state, what kind of freedom can we talk about or even think about?
Predetermination vs. Free Choice
On the other hand, if we just obey nature’s orders, it is unclear why we were created in the first place, not to mention everything else around us. If everything is predefined and there is no freedom of choice, there seems to be no point to the whole of creation. The goal of creation, however, is not that everything will continue the way it has so far advanced, without any reason, but rather to attain completeness, precisely through our gift of free choice. For that reason it is vitally important that we find where and in what our free choice manifests.
Continue reading “The Secret of Whether or Not Humanity Has Freedom of Choice”
