Q&A: Does God Play Dice?
Does God Play Dice?
Question
Hello and blessings.
I am quoting from your wonderful book Does God Play Dice?, p. 98:
“An entity that is primordial is not part of our experience, and therefore there is no reason to apply to it the principle of causality, which is a conclusion drawn from our experience regarding entities familiar to us.”
My question is: if God is not part of our experience, then according to your approach, how can we apply our rules of logic to Him and claim that He is bound by them, and therefore cannot create a triangle with four sides?
And likewise, how can we apply our own understanding of knowledge to Him and thus claim that He does not know the future? And what about the argument that God’s knowledge is a kind of knowledge that does not exist on the axis of time, and therefore it is not determinative knowledge, so the principle of free choice remains intact—as the prophet says: “For My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways, says the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts”?
More generally, if He is not part of our experience, how can we know anything about Him other than through prophecy?
Answer
I have already explained this several times on the site. The claim that God is subject to the laws of logic is not really a claim about Him. The laws of logic are not “laws” in the same sense as the laws of physics or the laws of the state. It is just the same word being used for different things. The laws of logic determine the meaning of the thing itself; they do not impose something on it from outside. Therefore, you cannot say anything that is not subject to the laws of logic, whether you are speaking about something else or about God. Such a statement is meaningless.
Discussion on Answer
1. The claim that His knowledge is not on the axis of time is irrelevant to the question. I am asking whether He knows now what I will do tomorrow. What is the answer to that question? If yes, then tomorrow I have no choice. The claim that His knowledge is not limited by time can at most explain how He obtained that knowledge before the events occurred. But the question is: once He has that knowledge, do we have freedom of choice? That is a question about us.
2. “My thoughts are not your thoughts” means that we do not understand the thoughts of the Holy One and cannot fathom the full depth of His mind. It has nothing whatsoever to do with logical contradictions.
1. And regarding my question about the Holy One’s knowledge?
2. What is the meaning of the verse, “My thoughts are not your thoughts…”?
Thank you very much.