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Divine Providence and Free Will
Over the past year, I have noticed a growing sense of connection, of clarity and hope in my life. I’ve often wondered if my sense of the Divine’s influence in those experiences is genuine or wishful thinking. And at the same time, I’ve thought paradoxically it might be both. As I struggle with life’s questions and embrace the opportunities to explore and understand them, I’ve wondered where creative ideas and a sense of wholeness come from, even as I stumble and pick myself up, again and again. This weekend I found the beginning of an answer.
When I read the Torah portion on the Sabbath, I also read a couple of commentaries. My favorite one is Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, who has written on four of the Five Books of Moses (known as the Chumash); I am reading his commentary on Genesis. He writes with such love and clarity on Judaism, that this week’s commentary stood out for me, because he addressed the seeming conflict between our understanding of divine providence (G-d’s influence on our lives) and free will. He points to the paradoxical question, how can G-d intervene in our lives if we have free will? He explains it with the following:
The apparent paradox arises because of the nature of time. We live in Time. G-d lives beyond it. Different time perspectives allow for different levels of knowledge. An analogy: imagine going to see a soccer match. While the match is in progress, you are on the edge of your seat. You do not know—no one knows—what is going to happen next. Now imagine watching a recording of the same match on television later that night—you know exactly what is going to happen.
Part of the reason this concept is so difficult for me to embrace is that I know that I am the one who chooses the paths I will take. I am the one who will make the decisions. No one, no thing is forcing me, nudging me, telling me the steps I should take. At the same time, I know that there are times, when I stay open, that I am graced with wisdom, clarity, and a choice that comes from beyond my limited self. If I have already gained sufficient insight to allow myself to relate to that “information,” my life is greatly enriched. If I ignore it, because I have human preferences or because a decision may seem inconvenient or unpleasant, I can make a different decision that will take me down a different path. Whichever path I take, I will learn and grow.
Rabbi Sacks explains these outcomes by describing life as a story:
We decide between alternatives. Ahead of us are several diverging paths, and it is up to us which we follow. Only looking back does our life take on the character of a story. Only many years later do we realize which choices were fateful, and which irrelevant. Things which seemed small at the time turn out to be decisive. Matters that once seemed important prove in retrospect to have been trivial. Seen from the perspective of the present, a life can appear to be a random sequence of disconnected events. It takes the passage of time for us to be able to look back and see the route we have taken, and the right and wrong turnings of the way.
How much, when, how does the Divine intervene? How do we know to what degree our choices are really our own or whether we are just yielding to a Divine decision? Maybe these understandings are just our own innate intelligence. Does it matter?
Do you see this unification of Divine influence and free will in your own life?
Published in Religion & Philosophy
I have long thought on this. People will say after they missed a plane that crashed that “God saved them”. Great for that person, but what about the rest of the flight?
I am never sure what God wants in the now. I can always look back and try to figure things out. I do know that I have two stand outs, of where I wanted one thing sooner than it happened, and had that been the case, it would have been a disaster.
The first is my wife and I trying to conceive. It took us a blighted ovum and one and a half years. We were beginning to think it would never happen. Then the month I received a promotion that would allow Linda to be a stay at home mom, boom. It is funny, because, Linda planned to go back to work, but once she had our son in her arms, she had no desire to return. Had we had a baby sooner, then it would have been a major issue.
The second is my current job. It is not what I thought it would be, but it is what I have been trying to get too all my life. I wanted the prestige, the power, the status of such a job. It just would not come. April of last year, things changed. I emitted a poem, and like an element, I changed into something new. I was a peace with the state of my career. I was OK where I was. One month later, I had the opportunity I have now. Had that peace not had a chance to come, I would have failed in this job.
Hard not to see God’s hand in things.
Susan,
On the mountain as Moses is alone with Gd, Moses expresses his wish to see Gd’s face. Gd answers that no one can see his face only his back after he has passed by. Moses is positioned behind a rock and Gd passes by. I have always interpreted this just as Rabbi Sacks explains. We can’t know what will happen and in a way that is what Gd is for. After all, if we could know the future what role would Gd have to play. There will always be a situation that will require you to make a decision. Often there will be insufficient evidence or conflicting evidence for you to proceed with confidence in your reason alone. This is the role of faith. Faith in an omnibenevolent super-rational Gd. Some of us want to believe we are always in control. Most adults know very well this isn’t true. Some of us want to be guided 100% by some magical outside force that makes all of our decisions for us. Most mature believers know that this isn’t what Gd is about. Gd expects you to employ all of your intellectual resources to solve the problem on your own. However, when you have reached your limit it is not only justified but wise to reach out and ask for help.
If we climb half way up the mountain on our own, Gd will come half way down to meet us.
Regards,
Jim
Oh wow. I have chills. Beautiful stories, Bryan. We just never know. Thank you so much for sharing them.
Oh Jim, thank you so much. All you say is true.
This, too. It is our job to reach out, to help others, to create, to serve. On that journey, we are never alone.
Rambam has this to say in Guide
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The more mystically inclined tend to extend individual/specific Providence farther than does Rambam.
I am not a scholar, but I’m relieved to see how the word “control” is elaborated on. Although it says “controls all their deeds,” it appears that He doesn’t, in our usual sense of the word. Certainly G-d can know, influence, and act upon our lives, but the truest sense of the word control would suggest a lack of free will. Don’t you think?
Near the end of Genesis, near the end of Joseph, he says to his brothers, “you meant it for evil but G-d meant it for good.” Later on in Exodus, Moses speaks the word of G-d to Pharaoh: “For this purpose I have raised you up…”. It is quite in line with Ayn Rand, nobody ever yet did anything contrary to their will.
Just because we cannot see His hand, nor ever clearly perceive its work, I trust that He rules over all things after the counsel of His own will. So, I try to live in accordance with His expressed intent from the Scriptures, and don’t insist on understanding all His purposes.
it is, I think, not reasonable for finite man the created to comprehend the infinite, omniscient mind of the Creator.
(I started this when there were no comments but kept being interrupted – His will I am sure- so this is all probably redundant by now.
The problem extends to perfect foreknowledge, too. That’s why it says in Avot “all is foreseen yet free will is granted.”
I guess for G-d, Heisenberg was wrong. For the rest of us, not so much.
Put another way, G-d is simultaneously immanent and transcendent, each of which has its own different and complementary mode of knowledge.
As the Ba’al Shem Tov was wont to say, “No place is devoid of Him.”
But the mystics say that this is concealed from us for our own good: that if we saw the inner reality, how whatever action we are contemplating fits in with the structure of actions and their true consequences, no sane person would transgress, and without our experiencing free will, there is no reward.
True, though
Agreed but for the last five words.
Mathematics, science, art, music, and poetry are all doomed to fall short, but if there were no sense of something beyond what we now have, where would we be?
Such an inspiring and warm post, Susan! Thanks and have a blessed Christmas season. I don’t have time at the moment for a long comment, but I’m sure the Big Guy is watching over my family.
Why is Chanukah about a light that lasted for 8 days? After all, there was a huge military victory, and much else besides. It did not really matter, after all, whether a single oil lamp could be lit – or stay lit. In the scheme of things, it is the smallest of details. So why do we make it the core component of the entire festival?
I heard a beautiful explanation the other day credited to Rabbi Silber: When a little boy hurts himself and comes to his mother for a kiss, we all know that the kiss does not itself provide any real physiological benefit. And yet, the kiss helps. Why? Because it is a way of sharing pain, of saying, “I am here.”
The miracle of the light of the Menorah was precisely like this: G-d provides the little things in life to say, “I am here, and I love you.”
If one looks for those kisses in everyday events, then they are there, waiting to be recognized. The more we look for G-d’s love even in the darkest days, the more we find it.
My understand of the free will question is that for most people, the laws of nature, manifested statistically, govern the universe.
G-d is only involved in the lives of those who seek to have a relationship with Him. And His preferred method of engagement is not through external forces, but in our hearts and minds, the “still small voice.”
I think we have complete Free Will, at least to the extent that we can believe we do (people who believe in fate or that people cannot change are in a self-fulfilling world of their own creation). G-d may well know all possible futures; we make the choices that become our reality.
I have found that G-d influences my life as much as I chose to ask him. Sometimes I struggle on by myself and other times I remember to call on him for a helping hand.
More and more I just trust that he will give me the fortitude to handle what is going to happen in my life, though I do occasionally ask for direct intervention. Either way His providence is the lens through which I view my life.
I’ve noticed that my trust in his providence is what keeps me happy and keeps my life on an even keel no matter what comes my way. For example when my schedule is absolutely full to the brim something else impossibly demanding will be thrown into the mix. I choose trust, and time seems to stretch and expand so that not only will everything get done to my exacting standards but I will even have time to relax.
Nowadays I almost always reserve my requests for direct intervention for others. And almost without exception my prayers are answered. Which makes absolute sense since by definition G-d can do anything he chooses.
It’s not at all redundant. It is, in fact, well-stated. We over-rate our function in the universe. Thanks, Chuckles.
Love this, Otlc. The mystery and the desire to serve is what should motivate us. Any other understanding would only freeze us in our steps.
You have filled my heart with this, iWe. How grateful we can be to be kissed by G-d’s love and the friendship of each other. Thank you.
Ah, so true. We are not in this world alone, and don’t need to act as if we are. Beautiful, doulalady.
I prefer the film analogy. We see one frame at a time and until one frame has passed, we cannot see the next one.
G-d sees all the frames together, side-by-side, so to speak. He is beyond the notion of time.
While I am here, let me mention that my brother died Friday night in Chicago and is being buried in Arlington Heights Monday. I will begin sitting after the funeral, ie Monday night, at home in Jerusalem. My sisters will sit in Elkana and Buffalo Grove.
May you be comforted among the mourners of Zion and Jerusalem.
I am so sorry to hear of your loss, Israel. Our hearts are with you. Thank you for taking a moment to share with us.
Indeed. I like your analogy, too.
Many good comments. I would just add, that when we ask for God’s assistance for something, we must be open to the possibility that what He wants/provides for us, may not be what we are asking for.
I find so many people who struggle with this concept, “blaming” G-d when bad things happen or they don’t get the outcomes they expect. We simply can’t know the mind of G-d. Thanks, Pugshot.
It’s all about discernment. At one time I would say, “Oh G-d, please, please, don’t let anybody go into labour tonight, I am exhausted, please just this time.”
On reflection I realized I needed to say, ” G-d, I’m exhausted, but I trust that if I am called tonight you will give me strength so that I can serve my clients well”.
But when I said, “G-d, everybody is losing hope, the attending will be here in half an hour and I need a miracle right now.” I got a miracle right then. If I did not ask I did not get one.
God plays a more active role in our lives than many modern Westerners are willing to admit. How many times throughout the Torah does the Lord bless or curse entire family lines? After all, for most people nothing is more important than their children. So God rewards the faithful by blessing their children and grandchildren as well.
If Jews were chosen to be His people, is it not by fate that some were born Jews and others Assyrians or Sumerians who would never meet a Jew? From nationality to genetics to inherited income to contagions and weather, so many of our choices respond to circumstances beyond our control.
Life is as much response as direction, and the Lord guides our circumstances whether we invite Him to or not (though especially if we welcome Him). He is the Lord of all, not just of the grateful chosen.
In the modern era, old age is a common blessing. Through it, many proud souls are reminded of child-like dependency which humbles but does not oppress. We are more than base animals and must strive to fulfill that unique potential as willful beings. But worth is not determined by action. As one can love a helpless infant, God loves the weak and bent.