Q&A: Does God Know in Advance What a Person Will Choose?
Does God Know in Advance What a Person Will Choose?
Question
If God knows in advance what a person will choose, then seemingly a person has no free choice.
Because God’s knowledge of what is going to happen makes it necessary that it happen after all (since God does not make mistakes), it follows that what a person will choose to do is already written in advance.
The implications of this are of course for the concept of free choice, reward and punishment, etc.
I would appreciate a prompt answer.
With great respect,
Dor
Answer
I have already explained here several times that in my view God does not know in advance what we will choose. For example, here:
https://mikyab.net/%D7%A9%D7%95%D7%AA/%D7%A9%D7%90%D7%9C%D7%94-%D7%91%D7%A0%D7%95%D7%92%D7%A2-%D7%9C%D7%A1%D7%AA%D7%99%D7%A8%D7%AA-%D7%94%D7%91%D7%97%D7%99%D7%A8%D7%94-%D7%95%D7%94%D7%99%D7%93%D7%99%D7%A2%D7%94
Discussion on Answer
I referred you there. Read it there. The topic has been discussed to death on the site in several different places. If you want more, search for “Newcomb’s paradox.”
Rabbi, why don’t you argue like the explanation of Tosafot Yom Tov? I also saw that many philosophers nowadays say this too: that God’s knowledge is because of man’s actions, and not the other way around, or that the two are independent of each other.
That is, since God is above time on the chronological level, He knows even “before” we did it on the current timeline. But on the logical level, it comes about because of our actions.
What is this comparable to? A video recording of a wedding, where the tape was sent back in time to before the wedding.