God’s submission to time

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asked 6 years ago

In the second book in the trilogy, you discuss the issue of free choice and the knowledge of God.
I wanted to ask what you think about the claim that God has no concept of time (past, present, future) because He created time and therefore He is not subject to it, just like your claim about the laws of physics (which, since He created them, He is not subject to them). So there is no meaning in talking about His knowledge before the act is done, but rather my choice and the act happen at the same moment (….) from His perspective, and therefore there is no problem in saying that He truly knows everything.

Thank you very much and have a good weekend.

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מיכי Staff answered 6 years ago

Hello Y. The claim that God has no concept of time is irrelevant (and in my opinion, undefined). We have such a concept. It seems to me that what people usually mean when they make this claim is an answer to the question of how God obtains information about the future before it happens. The answer is that He is above time (whatever that means), meaning that He can obtain information about the future in the present. But the question of knowledge and choice is a different question: If He has the information now, how is it possible that I can do something different tomorrow? Regarding this question, I do not see the relevance of the relationship between God and time. I think I mentioned Newcomb’s paradox there, which exacerbates the difficulty. There you can see that it really doesn’t matter who the person who knows the future is, or what their abilities or character are. The very fact that there is now someone who knows the future creates a paradox.

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תוהה replied 8 months ago

In one of your books you wrote that the fact that a certain statement was 'true' before it happened [it is true that tomorrow I will win the lottery] does not prove determinism, since the truth of the statement stemmed from winning the lottery and not vice versa, just as the fact that it was true after I won does not rule out determinism. Why can't the question about knowledge and choice be answered with the same answer: God's knowledge stems from choice and not vice versa, and just as later knowledge does not rule out free choice, so does God's 'early' knowledge.

mikyab123 replied 8 months ago

I explained that there too. The logical status of a claim is just a definition, and therefore it can depend on the future. Knowledge of God is a factual state and it cannot occur by virtue of a future cause.