How Does Islam, Christianity & Judaism View Free Will?

Islam

(Contributed by: Imam M. Abdus Salaam)

In the above example, the parachuter had the choice and free will to jump out of an airplane. It was his choice and free will to pack his chute, get on the plane and jump out, but he never had control of how things could or would end for him. And, herein lies the difference between the Islamic concept of destiny and the free will we human beings possess. We’re free to choose our actions but God has ultimate control over the outcome of those actions. 

According to teachings of Islam, God (Allah in Arabic) has given humans free will to make choices in their lives but only God has foreknowledge of our destiny, and He has total control over it. (Read more: Concept of God in Islam)

Free will is favored by GOD to mankind and jinn to check who is on the right path and who goes astray. GOD has revealed scriptures in order for man to understand what is right and what is wrong, the consequences of what he choose in the name of free will, will ultimately decide his future now and in the hereafter.

Al-Qadr is an Arabic word meaning Allah’s predestination of measurements and sustenance of everything and everyone, according to His Knowledge and Wisdom. It comprises the following four aspects:

1. Knowledge – The belief that Allah’s knowledge encompasses everything, every matter, major or minor, and the time frame of everything that happens in this universe. Allah’s Knowledge encompasses all of His actions and actions taken by His slaves.

2. Pre-Recording – The belief that Allah recorded everything in a Tablet that He kept with Himself, called ‘Al-Lawh Al-Mahfooth’ (The Preserved Tablet). Allah Says (what means): “Do you not know that Allah knows what is in the heaven and earth? Indeed that is in a Record [i.e., Al-Lawh Al-Mahfooth]. Indeed that, for Allah, is easy.” [Quran 22:70] Abdullaah bin ‘Amr bin Al-‘Aas  said that he heard the Messenger of Allah  say: “Allah recorded the measurement of all matters pertaining to creation fifty thousand years before He created the heavens and earth.” [Muslim] 

3. The Will of Allah – The belief that nothing, whether related to Allah’s actions or actions taken by His slaves, can occur without His permission. Allah Says (what means): “And your Lord creates what He wills and chooses…” [Quran 28:68] And (what means): “…And Allah does what He wills.” [Quran 14:27] And (what means) “It is He who forms you in the wombs however He wills…” [Quran 3:6] As for actions taken by His creation, Allah Says (what means): “…And if Allah had willed, He could have given them power over you, and they would have fought you.” [Quran 4:90] And (what means): “…And if Allah had willed, they would not have done so. So leave them and that which they invent.” [Quran 6:137] 

4. Creation – The belief that Allah created all creation, all what they possess of attributes, and all their actions. Allah Says (what means): “Allah is the Creator of all things, and He is, over all things, Disposer of affairs.” [Quran 39:62] And (what means): “…He has created each thing and determined it with [precise] determination.” [Quran: 25:2] Also, Ibraheem  said to his people (what means): “While Allah created you and that which you do?” [Quran 37:96]

Believing in Al-Qadr, as described above, does not mean that people have no power over the actions they choose to take. 

Allah Says about one’s own will (what means): “…So he who wills may take to his Lord a [way of] return [by obeying his commandments].” [Quran 78:39] And (what means): “So come to your place of cultivation however you wish …” [Quran 2:223] As for one’s own power over his actions, Allah Says (what means): “So fear Allah as much as you are able and listen and obey…” [Quran 64:16] And (what means): “Allah does not charge a soul except [with that within] its capacity. It will have [the consequence of] what [good] it has gained, and it will bear [the consequence of] what [evil] it has earned…” [Quran 2:286]

As for reality, every human knows that he has a power and a will of his own. He uses his power and will to indulge in or avoid actions of his choice. People distinguish between what they do by their own power and between what they have no power over, like shivering due to illness or the extreme cold. However, the power and will of mankind is under the control of Allah’s Will and Power; Allah Says (what means): “For whoever wills among you to take a right course. And you do not will except that Allah wills – Lord of the worlds.” [Quran 81:28-29]. The universe is Allah’s property and nothing happens in His Kingdom without His Knowledge and Permission.

Christianity

(Contributed by: Pastor Valentine)

Within Christianity, the spiritual concept of free will begins with the idea of being liberated from preferring what is infinitely less preferable than God, and from choosing what will lead to destruction.

Before the fall of Adam, man was sinless and able not to sin. For God “saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good” (Genesis 1:31). But he was also able to sin. For God had said, “In the day that you eat of it [the tree] you shall surely die” (Genesis 2:17). 

As soon as Adam fell into sin, human nature was profoundly altered. Now man was not able not to sin. In the fall, human nature lost its freedom not to sin.

Why is man not able not to sin? Because on this side of the fall “that which is born of the flesh is flesh” (John 3:6), and “the mind of the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed, it cannot, and those who are in the flesh cannot please God” (Romans 8:7–8, my translation). Or, as Paul says in 1 Corinthians 2:14, “The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.”

Notice the word cannot twice in Romans 8:7–8, and the words “is not able” in 1 Corinthians 2:14. This is the nature of all human beings when we are born — what Paul calls the “natural person,” and what Jesus calls “born of the flesh.”

Here’s another perspective.

Judaism

(Contributed by: Dr. Saundra Epstein)

We begin this discussion with this verse from the story of the Creation of all that is in Chapters One and Two of Bereshit/Genesis – (the beginning of the Jewish Torah and the Old Testament of the Christian Bible):

Bereshit, Chapter 2 with Rashi:

Many Jewish scholars teach that it is at this point that human history really begins; the preceding 37 verses of Chapters One and the beginning of Chapter Two set the order and the stage for all that was created in our universe.  NOW begins the relationship between God and humanity.  The word וַיִּ֩יצֶר֩ is uncharacteristically written with two yudim.  

Commentators come up with lots of explanations, the two most compelling of which are that this reflects the notion that the human is created both from the earth (the root a.d.m. is the same for human and ground and by extension, blood and the color red, the color of earth) and from above, with God having provided the breath and soul (also the same Hebrew root of n. sh. m) for the human as we know and are in our own lives.

As part of that Creation of all that Is, God created the human being with FREE CHOICE, (Be-chi-rah Chof-sheet), by which we all have a good inclination and a not-necessarily-good inclination called respectively the yetzer tov and the yetzer hara. In this way, we are taught that as humans, we are in a category by ourselves, as God ordains all and the angels that act according to God’s dictates are not confronted by the most powerful of human dilemmas.  Namely, how could God, if God is all good create evil and allow it to hold its place in our world?

Pirke Avot 3:15 “Everything is known by God and the choice is given (to the human)

הכל צפוי והרשות נתונה

How do we reconcile these two seemingly opposing ideas? How can we choose in our lives if everything is already known by God?  Here is how we approach this understandable dilemma.  Going back to the discussion on Creation and God (which you may want to consult at this time), the human being is set aside, to partner with God, if you will, in maintaining and growing all that God created.  This is our “human mission.”  In doing so, the individual MUST have agency, so we learn that God indeed created us with the choice to determine how we will use our resources and our lives. 

Consider the following text from Shemot/Exodus, Chapter 8 regarding the actions of Pharaoh, the king of Egypt during the narrative about the Ten Plagues from which Egypt would suffer:

Previously, Pharaoh had hardened his own heart. This time his heart was hardened. The Hebrew implies that he would have conceded defeat at this point, if God hadn’t removed his free choice.  This drama will continue throughout the telling of the Ten Plagues/Eser HaMakot.  Here God is no longer hardening Pharaoh’s heart but just sitting back, if you will, while Pharaoh is on his own, not having this choice removed.  To have done any differently would obliterate the very essence of free choice.  This is one of the most fundamental issues in Jewish faith – How do we speak about free choice, understanding that it is the capacity that we as humans have without blaming God, the Creator of All that Is, for the negative outcomes of using that choice?

הכל בידי השמים חוץ מיראת השמים

Everything is in the hands of God except awe of God (that is for humans to have on their own)

In the beginning and middle of the twentieth century, Rabbi Eliyahu Dessler dedicated much attention to this dilemma.  He speaks of NekudatHaBichira, going back to Genesis 2.7 when God makes the decision, if you will, to give agency for choice-making to the human being that has been created.  God will ultimately actually REGRET that choice, when God states in Genesis 6: 5 – 8:

However, as R. Dessler and so many others teach, God had to reconcile, in a sense, what the human being was capable of doing and recalibrate any expectations regarding humanity that God had held.  We too, in our lives, have great hopes for our brothers and sisters in the family of humanity and are too often disappointed and devastated by some of those choices that are made and disastrous results.  However, that is precisely the nature of choice.  R. Dessler teaches that this internal war between our good and not-so-good inclinations (yetzer hatov and yetzer hara) is precisely what defines us as human beings with agency.