What does it mean that “the information exists”? Is information a thing that exists?
Usually information is encoded in matter, and then it is a property of something that exists, and in some sense it exists too. Here it isn’t encoded in matter.
More generally, if time is part of the physical world and it was created (came into being in the Big Bang), it’s not clear to me what meaning there is to a sentence like “the Creator knows now.”

If someone (for example, the Holy One, Blessed Be He) knows the information, then it exists, completely independently of whether information is itself a thing that exists or not.
When I say that the Creator knows now, I am describing the Creator in my language. I mean that He now has the information, and a practical implication, for example, is that He could pass it on to me. When I say that the information does not exist, I mean that even the Holy One, Blessed Be He, cannot arrange for me to know it now. Or to put it differently: when the information is with me (transferred from Him to me), will you still have freedom to choose in the future?

Of course you’ll still have freedom, because you already chose…. According to that approach, He knows because of the choice you made.

Or maybe He can’t pass it on to you?
I’m not saying He can’t create acoustic waves in the world that my brain will translate into this, but that still won’t make it my knowledge of the future, only knowledge about acoustic waves. Even if He creates in my mind a thought that says, “I am the Lord, tomorrow it will rain,” I don’t think that gives me knowledge that tomorrow it will rain, only knowledge that I had such a thought.

Moshe, I won’t have any freedom, because it has already been determined in advance what I will choose. I once brought here the proof from Newcomb’s paradox that I elaborated on in The Science of Freedom. Try searching for it here.

Yishai,
1. So once again He comes out not omnipotent (He can’t create genuine knowledge in me). What have you gained?
2. Even if He can’t pass the information on to me, and even if we ignore the fact that He is then not omnipotent, I still have no choice. The moment the information exists (with Him), again I have no choice. Richard Taylor explained this well in his book Metaphysics.

1. I’m not on the stock exchange and not in a casino. I’m simply trying to get at the truth. Besides, I already knew that He can’t contradict the laws of logic, and in fact I’m saying that in every matter there is doubt, so certainty is impossible, and that is something He can’t change.
2. I already said that I don’t understand the sentence “the information exists with Him now.” Does the sentence “the information exists with Him” contradict free choice? Why?

1. I’m not talking about the stock exchange or a casino. You are raising this argument in order to preserve the assumption that He is omnipotent (otherwise, what’s so bad about saying that He doesn’t know the future that will be chosen?!). To that I answered that even if we adopt your (mistaken) thesis, you gain nothing. He still isn’t omnipotent. So there’s no point discussing it unless, for some reason, you’re just interested as part of your theological research in knowing whether He knows the future or not.
By the way, I don’t think the claim that in every matter there is doubt is logically necessary, or that its opposite is a contradiction. Why do you think so? (I have my doubts about that 🙂 ) On the contrary, knowing non-existent information is a logical oxymoron.
2. I explained. Information exists פירושו someone knows it. (That much you do understand?) If someone knows what I will do tomorrow, then I have no freedom to choose to do otherwise. I referred you to Newcomb’s paradox, which shows this.

1. When I need a spokesperson I’ll know whom to turn to :), but in the meantime I can speak for myself. I’m raising this argument because it seems right to me. Good question in the aside; I need to think about it. It seems to me that human knowledge is doubtful by definition. On the other hand, one can ask whether with Him there is something else. If He too is doubtful about everything, then His knowledge is not certain and does not compel.
2. It seems to me that Newcomb’s paradox is based on someone knowing now what I’ll do tomorrow, that is, on knowledge that precedes the act in time. Knowledge that is not in time is admittedly something strange and hard to think about, but I don’t think it leads to a paradox.

Now we’ve entered the territory of Lewis Carroll.
1. My spokesperson services are free. Indeed, I failed to fathom your expansive view that God cannot give a person any information whatsoever, simply because it seems right to you (not, Heaven forbid, in order to solve any problem). That really is an argument that’s hard to deal with (though thankfully not really necessary). As part of your theological studies, I suggest examining the issue of God’s attitude toward winged creatures whose number of wings is odd. In my opinion, He really doesn’t like them (after all, He didn’t create any). Why assume that? Just because that’s how it seems to me.
2. His knowledge precedes the event in time (and if He performs the impossible and unbelievable feat of passing it on to me, then I too will know it before the event. I do live in time). Knowledge that is not in time is meaningless nonsense (especially when it comes out of the mouth of a flesh-and-blood human being). I have more suggestions along these lines: if there is knowledge that is not knowledge, or knowledge that contains no information and doesn’t wear pants, or knowledge that is not subject to the laws of logic and includes contradictions, that too would solve (and also not solve) the problem.
Well, so be it…

If I may:

Premise A: time is part of created reality, which God created.
Premise B: God is not subject to / contained within what He Himself created.
Conclusion A: God is not in time.

A consequence of Conclusion A: God’s knowledge (like everything about Him) is not in time, and “before X” and “after X” do not apply to it.

Therefore the sentence “the Creator knows now,” or alternatively “He now has the information,” has no meaning whatsoever, because for one who is not in time, time-descriptions do not apply to him or to his knowledge.

What does it even mean not to exist in time?
I don’t know. Just as I don’t know or recognize what a thing without a cause is. But logical necessity led me to the conclusion that He has no cause (because everything has a cause, and there is recursion, therefore there must be a first cause that has no cause—even though I have never encountered a thing that has no cause).
So too here. He is not in time by logical necessity. Therefore time-descriptions do not apply to Him.

All this is entirely unrelated to the question of why one should assume that God knows our choices.
One can hold that He does not know our choices, in which case there is no problem to begin with.
Indeed, one who wants to maintain that He does know our choices [and it is indeed not at all clear why one should think so]—that is not a contradiction to free choice, because He does not know “before,” since for Him there is no before and after, because He is not in time, as stated above.

What if He reveals to one of His servant-prophets what my choice will be? After all, His servant is in time. Then indeed there will be no free choice, as Newcomb of blessed memory proved.

That is the standard explanation, and I still say it is empty verbiage. I ask: is it true to say now that He knows (my “now,” since I exist in time)? If so, then I have no free choice. That is what was to be shown. Passing the information on to me changes nothing, just as our teacher Rabbi Tzvi Taylor—may he live and be well—already proved, as I referred to above.
The term “knowledge not in time” is meaningless. It’s not that we can’t imagine it; it has no meaning at all. It’s just a collection of words that says nothing, like: virtue is triangular.

In your view, what is the difference between knowledge not in time and existence not in time? After all, His existence is not in time, because He created time. So He “preceded time” (what does that mean??) in order to create it. “Existence not in time” is no less meaningless than “knowledge not in time.” And indeed both His existence and His knowledge are not in time, because the creator of time is not in time, as was to be shown.

Yitzhak, fortunately I’ve passed the stage where if you present your argument in logical form and write “Q.E.D.,” you thereby convince yourself that it is correct. In the meantime I’ve grown up and gotten over that, and I suggest you learn from my experience—it’ll take you less time to mature. (How do I know you’re young? Precisely because I recognize the stage from my own biography.)
As for your point itself, your argument contains both kinds of mistakes that can appear in a logical argument: both a mistaken premise and a mistaken inference. You didn’t skip a thing. 🙂
The mistake in the premise: for exactly the same reason I wrote regarding the existence of information in time, there is also no such thing as “existence not in time” (where did you see in my words that I accept that?).
It might perhaps be possible to say that He preceded time (or more accurately: existed when there was no time; the term “preceded” is problematic here), but once there is time, everything that exists exists in time. My definition here too is: the claim “He exists now” (an indexical designation) is true in the present. I am not speaking about “existence in time,” because that is not well-defined, but about the truth of the proposition, or the correctness of the fact it describes, at a given time. In other words: He does not exist in time, but the claim that He exists is true even at a time when there is time. That is not a feature of existence, but a temporal marking on the existence-statement.
The mistake in the inference: the transition from existence when there is no time to existence not in time when there is time is invalid, like the dust of the earth. This is besides the fact that existence not in time when there is time is a meaningless term.

I absolutely understand your point, and you presented it well. And still, the sentence “the claim that God exists is true also at time X” still, after all, contains your assumption (and it is only an assumption)—that His existence and time are in some interaction, at some interface. That is really exactly what you wrote: “Once there is time, everything that exists (including the Creator) exists in time.” That itself is an assumption.

But I, by contrast, assume otherwise—that the “time index” does not apply or refer to the Creator. The creator of time does not interact at all with any temporal aspect or index whatsoever. This is an assumption (perhaps even an intuition) that seems reasonable to me, as I already wrote, because: A. He is the creator of time, therefore He is not “subject” to it; that is, He (and every statement about Him) is not indexed by the index that He Himself created. B. His existence was even before time.
[And in this I retract the “logical necessity” above. Indeed, there is no premise and logical inference here, but only this assumption, for which A and B above provide support in my humble opinion, though they do not compel it.]

In my opinion this is really not meaningless. It even seems more reasonable to me.

[By the way, sometimes the “Reply” button disappears after writing a few lines in a comment when using the Chrome browser. For the site staff to address.]

As I explained, not only is this not reasonable, it is absurd. The proposition “He knows X” is a proposition that I make and that is true now. But let’s not go over all this again.
When the button disappears, press Tab (maybe a few times until it works), and it will move to the button.

I heard an argument that says that precisely because of the conceptual tangle we get into when speaking about God, what should really interest us in relation to God is not whether He exists or whether He knows or not, etc., but simply the question of whether He spoke to us or not! Because in truth all talk about Him is meaningless with respect to Him, since He is their source…

And only once we shift the discussion from the question of an entity to the question of personality, of will, are we on a plane that does not require causal concepts but simply an essential soulful connection not bound by definitions that apply to material spatial existence… does that seem to you like a good argument?

If He does not exist, how did He speak to us? It is not true that all talk about Him is meaningless. Some is, and some isn’t.
In the last message, to my sorrow, I didn’t identify an argument, so I don’t know how to answer whether it is good or not. I don’t know what “an essential soulful connection not bound by definitions that apply to material spatial existence” means. I also don’t really understand how this is being offered as an alternative to clearer speech.

I know the above argument from Rabbi Sherki in the following version: there is no point asking whether God exists or not, because those concepts do not apply to Him, and one cannot claim that He does not exist (and one also cannot claim that He “exists”); one can only say that He does not create contact with us, and only that should be discussed.

I understand, but what can I do—I simply think that logically it is impossible to ascribe to the source of being and non-being, and really all concepts whatsoever, those concepts as defining Him, because He is the “space” that invented them; they can never say anything about Him in Himself… what do you do with this problem?

Yitzhak, that is of course nonsense.

David, I haven’t been privileged to see any problem here.
First, He did not invent the concept but the entity (He created the world). The concept “entity” simply describes what exists, and there is no need to speak about whoever invented the concept. Therefore I see no reason why we could not ascribe existence to Him. By the way, in my opinion He did not even create the concept of entity. After all, He Himself is, and He did not create Himself.
Beyond that, even if He did invent some concept, why would that mean that He cannot be described through that concept? Think of a case where someone invented the concept of time (or even created time itself). Could I then not ask at what hour he eats breakfast?

A. In simple terms, I think to say that He fulfills no function in time because He is not inside the conception of time; He is beyond it. B. I’d be happy if you explained to me why that is nonsense, because I think I’m not fully understanding your position. It’s also important to me to understand how you arrive at that!

The statement that the Holy One, Blessed Be He, is above time is meant to teach that He is not dependent on time, because for Him there is no past, present, and future, since He does not change and is not affected by time..

David,
I explained. What isn’t clear here?
The nonsense was said about what Yitzhak brought above you. There is absolutely no reason in the world that prevents me from saying that God exists. These are simply empty words.

I think there really is a problem here, and a serious one. Because you assume that God’s existence and your existence are the same kind of existence, or at least participatory existence. The problem with this is that, on my assumption, He invents existence; therefore He is not in the category of existing. Now, because I understand that there is a tangle here arising from the definition of concepts and the double use of concepts for two meanings, I’d be glad if you would act as a pedagogue with me and explain the logical move in which I am failing…

David, since I already explained and you are only repeating yourself, I suggest we start with your rereading carefully what I wrote, trying to understand the arguments (I raised several), formulate them, and then tell me which of them you do not understand or do not agree with.

In my opinion, by way of negative theology, when we say “all-knowing” the intention is that “His decisions,” meaning the chain of causes, are not the product of lack of knowledge. For His knowledge is not like human knowledge.

David—there is a difference between existence from nothing and divine existence. If God is the inventor of existence, then why in your opinion is He not in the category of existing? Do you mean that He is made of spiritual substance? I’m writing “made,” but He isn’t really made—He exists eternally, He is not created; He is the Creator.
According to Judaism, the divine Creator must exist by virtue of the fact that we exist, and if you go backward you will be forced to admit that there is a Creator who was not created like all created things, but rather exists eternally and is not hewn from the material from which we were hewn.

Just read Fateful Conversation… it answers all your questions.

Following up on this discussion, I wanted to suggest a way of making sense of the concept of God’s “knowledge above time”:

It seems to me that the difficulty the Rabbi points to (“knowledge not in time” as meaningless) stems from the “temporal” phrasing of the claim, not from the idea itself.
Instead of saying, “God knows now what I will do tomorrow” (a problematic sentence), perhaps divine knowledge should be described as a relation between God and the entire space-time as a single whole, without any index of “now” at all.

One might use a relativistic analogy here: along a path moving at the speed of light, proper time is τ=0, and therefore there is no “before and after” in it, even though from our point of view that path is still defined at every t. In other words, there is a coherent description of an entity related to all times without its having an internal “now.” So too, perhaps, regarding God’s knowledge:
it is not “knowledge of the future at time t₀,” but an atemporal relation to the facts of the entire space-time; and then there is neither temporal priority (as in Newcomb) nor any need to say that the Holy One, Blessed Be He, is not omniscient, but only that He does not know in advance.

Even in such a formulation, would you still say that this is just empty verbiage, or do you see some other problem here?

Definitely just empty verbiage. That is exactly the model I had in mind when I rejected this claim. The reason is that time as we know it is not described by relativity theory. It describes only deterministic events, and even there it merely offers a form of description equivalent to that of flowing time. It has no implications for our issue (and therefore the letter to the Besso family is also nonsense). Beyond that, even if the Holy One, Blessed Be He, knows what I will do before I did it, if this is a relativistic transformation then there is still an earlier moment at which He did not know it. Beyond that, He can also pass that information on to me, and then it will exist on my time axis before the event actually occurs.