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Question about knowledge, choice, and God

שו”תCategory: faithQuestion about knowledge, choice, and God
asked 8 years ago

I read your article on free will that appears on the website. At the end of the article you write that God does not know what man will do in the future.
I wanted to ask: Do you think God does not know the future because there is no such thing as a real future and it is only a human concept, or does God have one and God is simply limited in his ability to know it? For example, does God know that the ball will go into the basket because it has a 100% shot (a physical situation in which there is no epistemic gain) but if there are other variables (the person’s free choice) the equation is incomplete and therefore has no solution, not from God’s perspective but from the perspective of the equation. Or do you want to claim that it is simply not necessary that God is omniscient and therefore He does not necessarily know the future (if so, then what is the relationship in your opinion to physical reality).
In other words, is it from the future (the future) or the man (God)?
I got a little confused in describing the question, I hope you understood…
How do you want to be addressed? Second/third person/other…I didn’t really understand from the website what is acceptable.
Thank you and have a good day.


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0 Answers
מיכי Staff answered 8 years ago
peace. You can contact us in any way you want (preferably not in a third party). It doesn’t really matter. I didn’t understand your question (usually when you get confused in formulating a question, there is no question. Therefore, it is recommended to think again and try to formulate it precisely). What does it mean that there is no future? After all, in practice something will happen, right? I argue that knowing something that depends on choice is like making a circular triangle. In essence, it is knowing information that does not exist. Therefore, God, the Almighty, is unable to know this, and this is not a violation of His entire ability.

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גיא replied 8 years ago

You could say you answered me. My point was whether the future is a real thing, meaning it already exists in the time continuum like a videotape that we are at some point and the knowledge about the future is already “written” on it and we simply don't see it because we experience time in a chronological way or whether time is a human concept to describe the things that will happen later and all the talk about prophecy is not about “seeing the future” but about “predicting the future” as if by a complex equation. From what you answered me that ”the information does not exist” I understood that you believe that the future is not real but a human concept and we can only talk about prediction as in an ideal deterministic picture regarding physical things but regarding variables such as free choice the information simply does not exist.
Did I understand you correctly?

מיכי Staff replied 8 years ago

Again, the wording is vague. You probably mean to say that information about the future does not exist now (and not the future itself). To know information that does not exist is an oxymoron like a round triangle. I discussed these distinctions in detail in the fourth book of the Talmudic Logic series (Logic of Time).

אייל זאבי replied 6 years ago

I fail to understand:
Let's say if the Creator can know what will happen in the future but chooses not to, then there is no apparent problem. But if He simply does not know, isn't there a limit to the Creator's infinite ability?

מיכי Staff replied 6 years ago

Hello Eyal, you ask me every time in a different thread, and I keep referring you.
The fact that He gave us free will means that He chose not to know. It goes with that, and there is no other option. If He knows, we have no choice, and if we have a choice, He does not know. It is clear that He chose not to know, but it is not that He could know despite our choice, but rather that He could deny us the choice and then know. That He would know together with free will for us is an oxymoron.

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