Q&A: God's Subjection to Time
God's Subjection to Time
Question
In the second book of the trilogy you discuss the issue of free choice and God's knowledge.
I wanted to ask what you think about the claim that for God there is no concept of time (past, present, future), since He created time and therefore is not subject to it—just like your argument about the laws of physics (that since He created them, He is not subject to them). If so, it has no meaning to speak about His knowledge before the act is done; rather, my choice and the doing of the act happen at the same moment (….) from His perspective, and therefore there is no problem saying that He truly knows everything.
Thank you very much, and Sabbath peace
Answer
Hello Y.,
The claim that for God there is no concept of time is not relevant (and in my opinion also not well-defined). For us, there is such a concept.
It seems to me that what people usually mean when they raise this claim is an answer to the question of how the Holy One, blessed be He, obtains information about the future before it happens. The answer given is that He is above time (whatever that may mean), that is, He can obtain information in the present about the future. But the question of knowledge and choice is a different question: if He has the information now, how is it possible that tomorrow I could do something else? As for this question, I do not see the relevance of the relation between the Holy One, blessed be He, and time.
It seems to me that I mentioned there Newcomb's paradox, which sharpens the difficulty. There you can see that it really makes no difference who that one is who knows the future, or what his abilities or nature are. The very fact that right now there is someone who knows the future creates a paradox.
Discussion on Answer
I explained that there as well. The logical status of such a claim is just a matter of definition, and therefore it can depend on the future. God's knowledge is a factual state, and that cannot come about by virtue of a future cause.
In one of your books you wrote that the fact that a certain proposition was "true" before it occurred [it is true that tomorrow I will win the lottery] does not prove determinism, since the truth of the statement stems from winning the lottery and not the other way around, just as the fact that it was true after I won does not rule out determinism. Why, in the question of knowledge and choice, can we not give the same answer: God's knowledge stems from the choice and not the other way around, and just as later knowledge does not negate free choice, so too God's "prior" knowledge does not.