Q&A: The Problem of Divine Knowledge and Free Choice
The Problem of Divine Knowledge and Free Choice
Question
Hello Rabbi, the question of divine knowledge and free choice has been bothering me lately, so I tried to formulate my problem clearly. Here is the formulation. I would be happy if the Rabbi could resolve the previous points for me.
Question: how does the Holy One, blessed be He, know what will be chosen, and yet we still have free choice?
Three possible solutions:
1. We do not have free choice
2. The Holy One, blessed be He, does not know what will happen
3. He knows what will happen because he pulls the information from the future, after we have already chosen
Objections to the answers:
1. If we do not choose, then there is no point in receiving reward or punishment
2. If He does not know what will happen, then how does He judge us in the end for our actions? After all, He is not aware of them
3. This answer addresses the question, "How does the Holy One, blessed be He, know what we will choose." But it does not explain why our choice is free. Because in the end, today He knows what I will do tomorrow, and that means I cannot act against His knowledge; that is, I have no free choice.
Answer
Objection 2 is not clear to me. He is aware of them after they are done.
Objection 1 is only part of the picture. First of all, there is intuition and there are various considerations that indicate that we do have free choice.
Discussion on Answer
Absolutely not. A. He does not know before it happens. B. He knows after it happens. C. There is no contradiction at all (quite apart from the fact that the impossibility of His changing is a notion pulled out of thin air, and the assumption that additional knowledge constitutes a change in Him is even more pulled out of thin air).
And in general, it seems strange to me to say that in order to keep the Holy One, blessed be He, perfect, one says that He does not know what every person can know (to know what happened after it happened).
Regarding objection 2: I assume that if the Holy One, blessed be He, knows something at a certain stage, then He also knows it in the past and in the future, because He is a perfect being who cannot change.