[Avodah] ain Od Milvado v. Bechira

[Zev Sero]

On 29/04/2011 9:31 AM, David Riceman wrote:

> What they seem to have in common is their way of harmonizing absolutist
> determinism with free will: free will consists exclusively in assenting
> to the inevitable

Except, of course, that you don't *know* it's inevitable, and that
nothing *makes* you consent to it.  You're free to choose otherwise,
but you never do.

Remember that chassidus (at least Chabad, but I'm pretty sure all)
accepts and embraces paradox.  It rejects C.S. Lewis's contention that I
quote in my .sig below.  It claims that Hashem is "nimna` hanimno`os",
and that "keshem sheyesh Lo koach bevilti ba`al gevul kach yesh Lo koach
bigvul".  IOW that He is not constrained by logic; that He *can* make a
rock that He can't lift, and that He can nevertheless lift it.  "Mekom
ha'aron einah min hamidah"; it took up space and yet it didn't.  And the
nes chanukah was that the menorah burned ordinary oil, consuming it at
the ordinary rate at which oil is consumed, and no new oil was being
created, yet it didn't run out; it was a suspension not of physics but
of logic.  So applying logic to Hashem, at least in this system, shouldn't
be expected to always work.


  --
Zev Sero               Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire
zev at sero.name          meaning merely by appending them to the two other
                        words `God can'.  Nonsense remains nonsense, even
                        when we talk it about God.