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On the Question of Knowledge and Choice and Selection – Maimonides’ Method

שו”תCategory: faithOn the Question of Knowledge and Choice and Selection – Maimonides’ Method
asked 5 years ago

peace,
In your book “No Man Has Dominion Over the Spirit,” you (or Hillel on page 137) claim that there is a contradiction in Maimonides’ approach to the question of knowledge and choice. I did not understand what is contradictory in Maimonides’ words.
As Rabbi Kapach says, “Our rabbi, in the depth of his explanation, came to uproot the question from its very foundation. Our rabbi teaches us that the entire question arises from our ignorance of the concepts of God. For if we knew the Lord, the God of Israel, as best we could, there would be no question here, and the whole thing came about only because we imagined and believed that His knowledge was similar to our knowledge or a kind of our knowledge” – that is, contrary to the Rambam’s Rabbad, Tshuva answers.
You yourself brought up the principle that this is a different knowledge than ours on a different but similar subject – the subject of prophecy. Only someone who has not experienced faith can ask how Abraham was sure that he had received a prophecy. Likewise, a blind person will not understand what vision is. The same is true here – there is knowledge here that we do not know. He who invented the concept of knowledge and who is not subject to it and its limitations – can both know in advance and allow choice, and there is no contradiction in this. God, the Blessed and our knowledge are different things, and not like with humans, where we have our knowledge.
I would appreciate your explanation.
thanks


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מיכי Staff answered 5 years ago
I do not accept claims of this kind. When I say something about God, it is my statement and not His, and as such it must comply with the rules of logic. His not knowing as we know is just confusion. What is your point: does He have knowledge in our sense? If so, then what have you solved? And if not – then say that He has no knowledge and that is it. As I explained there, those who deal with this issue tend to mix up different questions (how does He obtain the information and if He has the destination, do we have the freedom to choose). In the context of prophecy, it is not a logical contradiction but a lack of understanding on our part. There is no reason to assume that we can understand everything. But in the question of knowledge and choice, it is a logical contradiction, and a contradiction cannot be sustained. I have made this distinction clear there more than once.

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יוסף replied 5 years ago

But Rabbi, this is exactly the argument the questioner raised. The logical contradiction begins only if we assume that there is an identity between our knowledge and his knowledge. If we do not assume this, then we are left with a difficulty, not a logical contradiction.

מיכי Staff replied 5 years ago

What does I assume identity mean? When you say that God knows, you mean the term “knows” in the sense that we give it. Otherwise, you are just throwing words out of your mouth. In short, does He have knowledge in the sense that is accepted by us?

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