[Avodah] ain Od Milvado v. Bechira

[Zev Sero]

On 29/04/2011 1:29 PM, David Riceman wrote:
> On 4/29/2011 11:11 AM, Zev Sero wrote:
>> 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.

> I don't understand your point. How does this differ in Spinoza and in
> Hassidus? In both schools you naively don't realize it, but by assiduous
> study you can come to realize it.

I neither know nor care what Spinoza had to say on the subject, since he
didn't believe in an actual god anyway.  But I don't understand how any
amount of study can tell you in advance what decision you're going to
make, or what you're going to do.  Take the example from the passuk,
that chassidus uses as a proof-text: "ki Hashem amar lo kalel".  How
could Shim`i possibly have known, before he decided to curse David, that
Hashem wanted him to do so?  And yet David says that that was the case;
if Hashem hadn't wanted Shim`i to curse him he wouldn't have cursed him.

-- 
Zev Sero                      The trouble with socialism is that you
zev at sero.name                 eventually run out of other people’s money
                                                      - Margaret Thatcher