Question

Rabbi Michi, is this correct? (Thank you.) This is a summary based on what I understood from the site and from my questions.
1 – According to the view that there is no change of will in the Creator (the assumption of the philosophers, as brought by Maimonides), and really no change at all—neither action nor knowledge (and in any case, any change in knowledge causes a change in will, which causes a change in action)—it follows that He must know the future (unless this is Aristotle’s god, who takes no interest at all in his world and does not know it). Therefore, Maimonides, who holds that there is no change of will in the Creator, must understand that He knows human choice.
2 – According to the view that there is no change in the Creator, it also follows that there is no self-perfection or development (indeed, see Guide for the Perplexed I:55), and therefore Maimonides, consistently with his view, says that we do not know why He created the world.
3 – Knowledge of the future implies not being subject to time, assuming there is no determinism (and indeed, see Guide for the Perplexed I:57).
Now Maimonides’ position on divine knowledge and free choice is also understandable: it is a logical contradiction. If He knows what will be chosen, it does not seem that we have choice. (Because of this, the Ravad, Or Hashem, Rashi, and others indeed held that He does not know the future—at most in the way astrologers know it, as the Ravad says, or, in modern terms, by the law of large numbers, mathematical statistics.) But Maimonides, like all the medieval authorities (Rishonim), later authorities (Acharonim), mystics, and philosophers (unlike Christians and the Hasidim), held that the Creator cannot do logical contradictions. On the other hand, the philosophers also took it as a necessary assumption that there is no deficiency in the Creator, and that change—or not knowing the future (which is also a change, as above)—is a deficiency in their view.
So he tried to carve out some path, because he could not say that the Creator is omnipotent in that sense (which indeed he did not say; rather, he stretched his language as though trying to solve something), since, as stated, He cannot do logical contradictions. And if the answer is that we do not understand His knowledge and yet the Creator can somehow do it, then let us say the same thing about a square triangle and the like—and as stated, that is impossible. However, Maimonides apparently thought there is some slight understanding of the distinction between them, and he tries to go in that direction. But Or Hashem on Genesis 6:5 rightly refuses to understand such a distinction, and explains Maimonides as saying that the Creator decided not to know in order to allow choice. Rabbi Michi sharpens this further and says that Or Hashem understands the contradiction to free choice as being that someone knows the choice, and therefore Or Hashem answered that the Creator decided not to know. But Rabbi Michi emphasizes that in truth, the contradiction to choice is the very possibility that such information about the future exists already in the past; that itself is a contradiction to choice, even if nobody, including the Creator, knows it. But as stated, Maimonides cannot agree to this, because in his view that would be a deficiency in the Creator.
The difficulties for the view of foreknowledge (even assuming that somehow there is also free choice), and, as stated, assuming there is no change or deficiency in Him:
4. Other theological difficulties:
A. The very confusion in human thought over the contradiction between knowledge of the future and free choice. (A person enters in his thoughts into Newcomb’s paradox.)
B. This whole world then seems like just a game. Why, if He wills it, does He not place a person immediately in the Garden of Eden according to the reward He knows he will choose? Why is this whole unnecessary path needed? (Of course, according to their view, it is also impossible to answer that He knows the choice before the choice but only after you actually choose it—assuming we even understood what we are saying—because then what have you gained? Then He is not omnipotent to know the choice before you actually choose.) And indeed Maimonides says that we do not understand why He created the world.
C. The problem of evil becomes even stronger according to this, because He knows in advance every evil that one person will do to another through his choice, and in general every evil that will happen in the world. So why does He allow this suffering, being omnipotent? And even the answer about the importance of choice will not help here, because He could give it up, since He already knows in advance what each person would choose, and as stated He could give reward in advance.
Whereas according to the views that hold He does not know the future, they can go with the idea of development or perfection, because in any case they attribute change to Him, from the very fact of change in knowledge, which automatically brings along the other changes as above. And then indeed there was a need to create His world for some purpose that He could not achieve without creating the world. The fact is that He created it, which implies that He had some need that He could not achieve without it—whatever purpose you choose, whether self-perfection, doing good, etc.
We should just note that those who claim that He knows the future in advance, and that there are no changes in Him, thereby hold that He is above time, as above (a concept we do not understand), and that is also their explanation for how He knows in advance even though there is free choice. But that leads to another difficulty:
D. If according to them time is created and did not exist before the creation of the world, then what is the belief in creation? What does it mean that the world was not always with Him and that only later He created it? There are no such concepts. This too creates confusion in thought that burdens the believer. In contrast, those who hold that He does not know the future can definitely maintain—and this also follows, because if He does not know the future that means He is subject to time—that time always existed. Meaning: from the very fact that you admit that a Creator exists, or that anything exists, you admit that there is time. Time is basically the movement of life. In other words, this is logically necessary. It is like saying that if someone claims that the Creator can do logical contradictions, then everything becomes absurd, because then the Creator does not exist—for He is omnipotent, so even if He does not exist He can exist, and even if there are 2 there are 1.
According to the mystics, who invented the sefirot so that there would be no change in the Creator:
A. Then according to them it must be explained that the sefirot that bring the reward (the “flow,” in their language) are pre-programmed by Him, such that whoever does X receives flow X (for example, Netzach of Hod of Tiferet, etc., endlessly). And we must say that He placed understanding into the sefirot so they would understand this, because otherwise who conveys to them in a way they would understand what the reward is? This requires cognition—unless one holds that it is possible to create robots with human-like cognition.
B. The mystics who claim that the sefirot are necessary so that change should not apply to Him—this implies that they hold He does not know the future. Because if He does know the future, they could have explained it like Bechinat HaDat, who also agrees with Maimonides that the Creator knows the future, and explains that the Creator’s rewarding His creatures does not indicate change, because He prepared it in advance, since He knew the future in advance. (If they did not think of this, then we have no business with their wisdom.)
So it seems that the mystics contradict themselves, because after all they invented the sefirot due to the claim that there is no change in Him, and as above, so they thereby understand that He is above time, because otherwise there would be change in Him, as above. But if so, there was no need to invent the sefirot; the explanation of Bechinat HaDat should have been enough.