Does God Have Free Will? A Jewish Perspective on Divine Will and Human Desire

Aviv asks: "I know that God is infinite and eternal, and He does not have desires or thoughts like a human being. The philosophers denied that God has will. Yet Judaism teaches that God created the entire world with His will, everything exists through His will, and He wants us and loves us. So, does God truly have will, or is He indifferent and without will as the philosophers claimed?"

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Hello Aviv, and thank you for your important question.

First, it’s crucial to emphasize that we have no true understanding of the essence of divinity. We are human beings living in a world of matter, while God is the Creator of the entire universe — the first and ultimate reality, beyond all comprehension. Even the greatest scientists struggle to understand tiny aspects of the physical world, like quantum mechanics. All the more so, we cannot grasp concepts such as the divine will.

Nevertheless, Judaism clearly affirms that there is such a thing as divine will. Without it, the world would not have been created, nor would the Torah have been given. Divine will is what sustains existence, as we recite in our daily prayers: “He renews in His goodness, every day, continually, the work of creation.”

What does “will” mean?

Before we discuss divine will, we need to understand what we mean by “will” in human terms. Why do we want anything at all?

Modern thought often attributes desires to the brain. However the brain itself is essentially a machine, like a computer, it processes instructions and produces impulses. A computer does not want anything. You can program it to perform tasks, but if you prevent it from doing so, the computer experiences no frustration, no desire, no suffering. It simply executes commands.

In contrast, a cat, or a human being, clearly wants. Animals and humans are complex biological machines, but they are not only machines. Beyond survival instincts, there is an inner experience of desire. They feel hunger, joy, fear, and longing. This experiential drive is what has been referred to as nefesh (soul). Thus, “nefesh” refers to an inner spiritual life-force distinguishing living beings from inanimate objects.

Humanity possesses more than a nefesh. Only of man does the Torah say: “And He breathed into his nostrils the breath of life” (Genesis 2:7). This is the neshama (higher soul) — a spiritual faculty that seeks beyond food and survival, toward morality, justice, truth, beauty, and above all, connection with God.

When the body dies, the nefesh returns to the earth like that of any animal, but the neshama returns to God who breathed it. “The spirit of man goes upward, while the spirit of the beast goes downward to the earth” (Ecclesiastes 3:21).

Levels of will

Will exists in different levels:

1. Mechanical drive – like a computer or an object obeying physical laws, without awareness or desire.

2. Animal will (nefesh) – a being that experiences urges, desires, and suffering when those desires are denied.

3. Human spiritual will (neshama) – the uniquely human capacity to transcend ego and instinct, to pursue values, justice, love, truth, and God Himself.

Above all these, infinitely beyond, exists the divine will. Just as God’s wisdom is infinitely beyond human wisdom, so too His will is beyond all forms of will we can imagine.

What Judaism teaches

The Torah and Prophets frequently emphasize that God’s thoughts and ways are higher than ours: “For My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways… As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways and My thoughts higher than your thoughts.” (Isaiah 55:8–9)

Notice the phrase “higher than.” The prophets do not deny that God has thought and will, but they exalt them as infinitely beyond ours.

Philosophers like Aristotle imagined that God could not have will, love, or care, because these seemed “human”, however in doing so, they actually limited God. Judaism teaches the opposite, that God does think, God does will, God does love, but His will and love are infinitely greater than anything human beings can conceive.

How could God bestow upon His creatures something He Himself lacks? If even animals have nefesh (will), and humans have neshama (spiritual will), surely their Creator must possess the highest form of will, from which all lesser wills derive.

The Talmudic Sages explain (Berachot 10a): “Just as God fills the whole world, so does the soul fill the body. Just as God sees but is unseen, so the soul sees but is unseen. Just as God nourishes the entire world, so the soul nourishes the body.” Thus, human will is only a reflection — a faint echo, of the boundless divine will.

God is not indifferent. He willed creation into being, He wills our existence at every moment, and He wills to love us: “I have loved you with an everlasting love” (Jeremiah 31:3).

Indeed, God has will, but not in the human sense. His will, like His wisdom and love, is utterly transcendent, infinite, and beyond comparison.