Do I have Free Will or Did God Make Me Do It?

Someone raised the question in a chat group last week: if God has all knowledge and knows the future, how can we truly have free will? This query has been asked over and over for time immemorial. What is the answer? Is it even important for us to know? Or is it even possible to know? There are at least two views of this subject. 

Power of Choice after the Tree

Does the fact that God knows everything mean that He predestines us to make the decisions that we make? Does it mean that He somehow directs for bad or for good, where we end up? 

The excuse: “The devil made me do it.” Is not far off from “God made me do it.” So do we have free will? And is it possible that the devil, or as some say, the evil inclination made me do it? If so, does mankind truly have free will? Is it possible to resist the evil inclination that is bound up in our DNA…Something that started after Eve and Adam ate the apple?

Does the Eternal work with our weaknesses? Is He there to give us wisdom and strength to choose the right path? 

When our first parents chose to eat of the tree, they accepted the fate of two natures ruling their flesh. Unfortunately our inclination to evil is amplified unto the third and fourth generation and so we seem destined to do evil at times. But this is not as some religions explain, original sin and we can choose our way out of it!

The idea that the Eternal knows everything and has a divine plan…does that mean that God controls us against our will and makes us mere automatons on a chess board? I don’t like that idea.

The Bible says that God “knows the way that I take” (Job 23:10). It also shows the disaster of doing things the way we feel inclined. David followed his inclination with Bathsheba and his repentance is recorded for us: David’s decision, albeit a wrong decision which produced grave consequences, worked out in the end because the Eternal knows the way we take and guides and directs even after wrong decisions have been made. But, there are always consequences! But if we broaden the view, what effect do my actions have on the lives of others?…choices they may not have made but consequences that included them?

Was it the will of Hashem to direct David to take Bathsheba? Absolutely not! But did he work out something regardless? Obviously many of their descendants, including King Solomon would never have been born. Here is David’s sincere confession: 

Psa 51:”3 For I know my transgressions; And my sin is ever before me. 4 Against thee, thee only, have I sinned, And done that which is evil in thy sight; That thou mayest be justified when thou speakest, And be clear when thou judgest. 5 Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity; And in sin did my mother conceive me. 6 Behold, thou desirest truth in the inward parts; And in the hidden part thou wilt make me to know wisdom. 7 Purify me with hyssop, and I shall be clean: Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. “

What about the sale of Joseph by his brothers? Did the Eternal plan that? Not exactly! Did they all suffer for it! Of course!  From Joseph’s point of view, he was the innocent bystander affected by the decision of his brothers. Clearly not his fault. So was this all engineered by the Master of our Fate?

The tragedy of Joseph’s sale to Egypt did save many people as he later told his brothers. Yes! We don’t know what would have been if Joseph had not been sold, but something else could have happened because the Omnipotence of God is above all of our simple human logic. 

If our DNA includes tendencies to good and to evil, then is it possible to choose good and the path of life and to resist evil? We can, but we do not always do so. So there has to be a plan B, which God already knows about before it happens. If we choose correctly the first time, we might not have so many paths and tunnels in the maze of life. Again, we don’t know and there is much wisdom in saying we do not know the mind of the Eternal. 

Deu 30: “19 This day I call the heavens and the earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live 20 and that you may love the LORD your God, listen to his voice, and hold fast to him. For the LORD is your life, and he will give you many years in the land he swore to give to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.”

All of us have made bad choices and some of us see that those very choices have brought about learning experiences and actually positioned us to be where we can affect and receive good in this world. How do you bring good out of bad? Well only Hashem knows! But it happens. Job asked the very same question:

Job 14:4: Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean?

I can’t quit believing that God has a plan, regardless of all the stuff we wade through, and it will all work out, with or without us but hopefully with us as we straighten our steps under His guidance!

Pro 4: 26 “Ponder the path of thy feet, and let all thy ways be established.

Prov 4: 27 “Turn not to the right hand nor to the left: remove thy foot from evil.”

On the Other Hand

But what happens when our path is clearly guided to something we had nothing to do with, like Job when all he held dear was destroyed? This had nothing to do with his choices. Sometimes this happens and then what? How can we say he had free will? How can the Eternal be just and throw something like this upon any human being? We know that Job was recompensed in the long run and yet it seems he had no choice in the matter.  So what? Was he chosen? And for what? 

Chosen–The Chosen People

 “I know, I know. We are your chosen People. But, once in a while can’t you choose someone else?” Tevye from Fiddler on the Roof. 

It seems the Jews are chosen to suffer from time immemorial and was there a reason for this suffering? Individually it appears very vague. Do we suffer for the sins of our ancestors? Apparently! And yet we have the promise that the son is not punished for the sins of the father. (Deut 24:16). Strange, seemingly unmerited consequences. Is there ever a way out?

Right, so yes, there are instances when people are apparently chosen as guinea pigs, as in the case of Job above. We don’t know at the time and may never know but these things happen and it seems we have no choice in the matter which puts the eternal question back in place: “If we truly have free will, then why do these things happen to me? And if God is the engineer of the world’s fate then how do I fit in and can I really direct my own life?

Ariella Casey

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