Category:Determinism (subject)

Determinism

When Philo describes the two major features of Jewish monotheism, he defined God as "creator" and "Father". God is not only the maker of the universe but take care of his creation. He is therefore deeply involved in the history of humankind and has the authority to influence or modify the events of history. To which extent, however god's determism does not undermine human freedom it is a matter of debate among different Jewish groups and theologies. Josephus put the matter of the major criterion of distintion between "Sadducees", "Pharisees" and "essenes".

Extant literary sources form the Second Temple perio allows us to identify

The idea of covenant implies that God will reward and punish individuals and peoples, determining their future destiny. In his sense God's action is not seen in opposition to human freedom but on the contrary as the necessary corollary of human responsibility.

Sapiential tradition prefers to stress the absolute sovreignity and freedom of God, who is able to turn everything to a good goal. Human freedom is seen as the capability to adjust to God's times. Sirach, Wisdom Philo.

God's determinism is mostly emphasized in apocalyptic traditions. Their stress on the power of evil goes to the direction of limiting the authority of God on human history, which is rather seen as the unfolding of demonic sources. However, such an emphasis requires to that at least in its final account the opposition between good and evi would be resolve with the triumph of good. The book of the watchers set a limit of seventy generations

The crisis of the maccabean revolt Similarly the book of Daniel The more the present was seen as a time of evil, the mre it became necessary to stress that however disturbing the disorder of evil was compressed into a framework of goodness. the 490 years are a long but clearly defined time of punishment in which the evil forces are unlashed but only in order to be defeated at the end with the reestablishment of the liberty f Israel'

In the Animal Apocalypse, in the Apocalypse of Weeks and in the Book of Jubilees the preordained framework now extends to the entire course of history, from creation to the end of times.

The most radical position is that expressed in the "sectarian" texts of Qumran where the deterministic stance come to include the destiny if individual