[Avodah] A God who knows the future

[T613K at aol.com]

From: garry <gk at garry.us>
>> I am missing a big chunk  of this discussion.  I simply don't see the 
mystery.  Why does  knowledge = control? <<



>>>>>
 
That's a fair question.  The problem is a problem of logic rather than  a 
practical problem.  
 
The logic goes like this:  Let's say that G-d knows that on  Monday I am 
going to speak to my mother in an annoyed tone of  voice,  thus being oveir on 
kibud eim.  
 
Now, what happens on Monday when she says something that I find annoying,  
and in addition, I am tired and cranky when she says it?  
 
Two things can happen:  I can just say the first thing that comes to  my 
tongue and commit a sin.  Or, I can think twice and bite my tongue and  not 
commit that sin.  
 
But how can I bite my tongue and remain quiet?  If I make that choice,  
then G-d's knowledge of what I was going to do was flawed and incorrect!   So 
obviously, I /have/ to choose to sin, in order to make it come out that G-d's 
 foreknowledge was correct!
 
As you can see, this is a conundrum only in logic and not in practice,  
because even if He knows what I am going to do, /I/ don't know what I am going  
to do before I do it, and at the moment it comes to my choosing, I make my  
choice based strictly on the options before me, completely without regard 
to  what G-d knows. 
 
 
(If I knew what He knows, of course, it would be a completely different  
problem.  If, for example, a prophet had forewarned me that I was going to  
sin on Monday, then I would be constrained in practice, and not only in logic, 
 to do what G-d knows I am going to do.)
 
 
The practical part of the problem comes /after/ the sin:  If G-d knew  what 
I was going to do, doesn't that mean that I /had/ to sin, whether I knew it 
 or not?  Because had I not sinned, His foreknowledge would have been  
inaccurate, but since his foreknowledge is always accurate, doesn't it mean that 
 I was in some sense programmed to sin at that moment?  Wasn't my sin in a  
sense forced on me?  And doesn't that mean that no one is really culpable  
for any sin they commit?
 
When it says in Pirkei Avos, "Hakol tzafui vehareshus nesunah" it is  
answering that argument, and Chazal are saying, "No, even though it might seem  
to you that logically you had no choice but to sin, since Hashem knew you 
were  going to sin, nevertheless, you really did have a choice, and you cannot 
evade  responsibility for your sin."
 
I would compare this to Zeno's Paradox, in a certain way.  Zeno's  Paradox, 
to summarize it, goes something like this:  If you want to get  from point 
A to point B (from Miami to New York, say), you must first get to a  point, 
X, which is halfway between point A and point B.  But before you can  get to 
point X, you must first get to a point which is halfway between point A  
and point X.  But before you can get to that point, you must first get to a  
point which is halfway to that point.  But before you can get to that  
point....and so on ad infinitum.  Thus, it is impossible for anyone ever to  get 
from point A to point B.  So, I can never get to New York.  I can  never even 
get out of Florida!
 
This is a mental puzzle, a logical paradox.  It is not a problem in  
reality, in practice, because people get from point A to point B every day,  
without worrying their heads about how they covered the intervening space by  
halves.  
 
Similarly, the paradox of G-d's foreknowledge and human free will is not a  
problem in practice, because every day we choose our actions.  And even if  
it were true that G-d's foreknowledge had really constrained our choices, 
we  still must act /as if/ we have free will, we still have to make choices 
every  day, because no prophetic voice comes from Heaven telling us what to 
do.   In practice we either have free will, or we act as if we had free will, 
but the  third choice -- wait for a heavenly order, and then obey it -- is 
not  there.
 
Chazal in Pirkei Avos are telling us that we are not just acting "as if" we 
 have free will, but that we really do have free will.
 
BTW I have seen an answer to Zeno's Paradox, a mathematical answer, namely, 
 that the fact that Line AB contains an infinite number of points -- half 
of X  and half of that, etc -- in no way implies that Line AB is an infinite  
line.  A finite line can contain an infinite number of points but the  
traveler does not have to touch separately each and every one of those points to 
 get to the end of the line.
 
I have not seen a mathematical answer to the Pirkei Avos Paradox but am  
content to accept on faith the fact that I have free will.
 
The actual range within which free will operates, I should add, is  
limited, as Chazal say:  "Hakol beyedei Shomayim chutz miyir'as  Shomayim."  That 
is, our genuine choices, the range within which we  can exercise free will, 
are only the moral choices.  Those choices that do  not have to do with 
choosing good or evil are really illusionary choices.  
 
For example, choosing to wear modest clothes is within my area of free  
will, but choosing to wear a blue rather than a pink sweater is not really in 
my  power.  The pink sweater is dirty, it is lost, it doesn't even exist --  
they don't make pink sweaters anymore -- or simply, G-d pushed my hand  
towards my blue sweater when I went to my closet, without my conscious  
awareness.  
 
Many daily choices, thus, /seem/ to be free-willed choices, but really are  
not.  Even the big ones, like what job to take or what city to live in, are 
 a product of a confluence of factors orchestrated by Divine Providence and 
not  truly in our hands.  But the moral choices are in our hands -- to do 
good,  or otherwise -- just as surely as Zeno can get from here to there.
 
 

--Toby  Katz
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