Halakhah sa Isaias 66:3: Mishneh Torah, Repentance

Had the decree of God prompted man to be either just or wicked, or had there been a fundamentally inborn something to draw man to either of the paths, or to any one branch of knowledge, or to a given tendency of the tendencies, or to particular act of all actions as the astrologists maintain by their foolish inventions, how did He charge us by the prophets, to do thus and not to do such, improve your ways, and do not follow your wickedness, whereas man from his embryonic state already had a decree of his conduct issued, or his inborn nature draws him toward a given path of conduct from which he can not deviate? Moreover, what need would there be, under such circumstances, for the Torah altogether? And by what law, and under what system of justice could the wicked be punished, or the just rewarded? Shall the judge of the whole earth not exercise justice? Now, do not wonder and ask: "How is it possible for man to do what his heart desires, and have his entire course of action lodged within himself seeing that he can not do aught in the world without the permission of his Master and without His Will, even as the Verse says: "Whatsoever the Lord pleased, that hath He done, in heaven and in earth, in the seas and in all deeps" (Ps. 135.6)? Know all that man does is in accordance with His Will, although our actions are really in our own keeping. For example? Even as it is the Creator's Will that fire and air shall ascend upward, and that water and earth shall descend downward, or that the sphere shall revolve in a circle, and that other creatures of the universe should likewise follow their respective natural laws, as it was His Will for them to be, so was it His Will that man shall have the free choice of conduct in his own hand, and that all his actions should be lodged within him, and that he should be neither forced or drawn, but he, of his own free will and accord, as God endowed him with, he exercises in all that is possible for man to do. He is, therefore, judged according to actions; if he did good, his is rewarded with good; and if he did wrong, he is punished. This is in harmony with what the prophet said: "This hath been of your own doing" (Mal. 1.9); and: "According as they have chosen their own ways" (Is. 66.3); and of this very subject Solomon said: "Rejoice O young man, in thy youth, and let thy heart cheer thee in the days of thy youth, and walk in the ways of thy heart, and in the sight of thine eyes; but know thou, that for all these things God will bring thee into judgment" (Ecc. 11. 9); as if saying: "True, it is within the power of thine hand to do so, but thou art to render an accounting on the day of judgment".⁶See Shabbat, 156a; Maimonides, herein, does not deny the variations in human intelligence, nor native excellence of one and native shortcomings of another; what he maintains is that man is not governed in his conduct by natural laws, as is every creature below him. G.