[Avodah] Free will vs. Physics

[david guttmann]

RMB writes:

>If the person's decision is based entirely on a sum of the history of
things he experienced and the nature of his personality (both static and in
its propensities to evolve in various ways), then the soul is deterministic.
If so, his decision is entirely a product of things beyond the person's
control, and why should he be blamable for anything?

But are not his past experiences a consequences of earlier bechirot he did
and the same goes for his personality? Why limit Bechirah to this particular
act without taking into the sum total of all past decisions and actions?

>Let's posit some internal cause as a third possibility. The person can be
blamed for stealing the diamond because his decision was caused by some
factor, a taavah for wealth (or women, or...) not just external, or initial
causes, nor random causelessness. But then we must ask where that taavah
comes from. Wouldn't its origins be subject to the very same question as the
decision itself?

I think what I wrote above solves this. The ta'ava is not a momentary reflex
and urge but is the result of the whole person and his past history. That is
one more reason why Teshuvah is such a chidush and it fits with the leshonot
Harambam in Hil Teshuvah chapter 7 at the end of a discussion about Bechirah
the gist of it is that a ba'al teshuvah is a new person having reworked and
rearranged all his past experiences. 

David Guttmann
 
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