Additional Author Affiliation
New York Medical College
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2015
Abstract
The purpose of this article is to review the problem of free will and divine intervention from the prism of Jewish sources, within the context of modern science. Among the many lenses the Jewish tradition provides for us to frame history is the division between times of open miracles and hidden miracles. The Bible is full of open miracles, divine revelation, and prophecies. Whereas there is controversy among rabbinic scholars and theologians about whether the miracles happened through natural or supernatural forces, either way, the miracles were still immediately recognizable as acts of God. However, since the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple in 70 CE, those aspects of the Jewish understanding of God’s manifestation are absent from our modern world. Religious philosophers in the Jewish intellectual legacy, who will be discussed below, have offered many explanations for how God may intervene in our lives in a postopen-revelation era. Furthermore I will focus on more recent advances in the understanding of quantum mechanics as they have altered the discussion since a decade ago when Saunders concluded that SDA was not consistent with his understanding of modern theories of nonlinear dynamics (a theory that will be discussed in greater detail later) and quantum mechanics.
Recommended Citation
Kadish, A. H. (2015). God, man, chaos and control: How God might control the universe. Hakirah, 20, 115-132.
Publisher's Statement
Originally published in Hakirah, 20, 115-132. Reprinted with permission of the publisher. The original material can be found here.
