In his book Mishne Tora, Hilkhot Teshuba, Maimonides presents the doctrine of “free will” (behira hofsheet), that is, the idea that a human being is free to choose his or her actions, and therefore is responsible and accountable for what he does or does not do.
The issue of free will is quite complex, and Maimonides devotes three chapters to it: Hilkhot Teshuba chapters 5, 6 and 7.
In 5:3 he says “And (free will), is a cardinal principle, and a fundamental pillar of the Tora and the commandments. As it is written: “[Now] Look, I have put before you today life and goodness, or death and evil, and you should choose life” (30:15 Debarim).
Only humans have the power to choose. In the material physical world, and even in nature, free will does not exist. Atoms can not “choose” to act differently than what they are determined to act. And living beings, all but humans, are completely conditioned to act by their survival instincts. It is true that, as Aristotle said, an animal that is both starving and thirsty, can choose whether to eat or to drink first. Animals can choose between two instincts, but no animal can make a moral choice, that is, choosing between an instinct and a value. A starving animal can not choose “not to eat”. Animals act by instinct, and they can not control it, let alone suppress it. The verse says: “ומותר האדם מן הבהמה אין” “and the superiority of man over the animal is not” (Kohelet 2: 3). Allegorically, some rabbis use this verse to teach us a lesson, changing the very last word: “and the superiority of man over the animal is ‘NO’”, in other words, the difference between animals and men is human’s ability to say NO to survival instincts. Man has the “freedom” to satisfy his needs, but he also has the power to delay or even renounce to satisfy his needs. Maimonides explains 5: 1 “This is the meaning of the verse that says: ‘Man is now like one of us.” That man is super-natural., above nature. What distinguishes man from all living beings, is free will. God’s likeness in man is precisely free will, because God “all-mighty” is the epitome of free will.
This moral freedom that man possesses implies that man is responsible for what he does. A person can not justify his or her actions by saying: “I steal money because I have an uncontrollable desire to be rich”, or something like that. Granted that we humans have tendencies or temptations of all kinds, but we have the power to control them. This is free will.
If man were not morally free, it would not make sense that the Tora would command us what to do or not to do. And it would make no sense to be rewarded for what we do right or punished for what we do wrong.
And what does Teshuba, repentance, has to do with all this? Just as we are free to act, and our moral actions are not determined by our instincts, our lives are not irremediably determined by our past. God has given us the power of Teshuba. We are free to repent, which means that in the same way that our future actions are not determined by our instincts, our past is not irreversible. And if we truly repent, we have the power to “erase” what we did wrong and start over.
As the reader can see the subject of freedom of choice is very complex and triggers plenty of questions. B’H we will devote a little more to it in the coming days.
