God's will part 3 - a Paradox and Prophecy.

In my last post, I posited that God’s will is not temporal. It therefore follows that from God’s perspective everything has already happened and consequently is pre-determined. Even man’s actions, which are subject to his free will, are already known to God. This brings us to the paradox of God’s “knowledge” and man’s free choice. How can man be responsible for his actions if God already knows how he will chose? The answer is that although God “knows” it does not pre-determine man’s actions. We do not know how that works because God’s “knowledge”, just like His “will”, is just words that explain certain observations we make about the result of God’s actions. Rambam in Hilchot Teshuvah 5:5 legislates:

[ה] שמא תאמר והלוא הקדוש ברוך הוא יודע כל מה שיהיה קודם שיהיה: ידע שזה צדיק או רשע, או לא ידע; אם ידע שהוא יהיה צדיק, אי אפשר שלא יהיה צדיק, ואם תאמר שידע שיהיה צדיק ואפשר שיהיה רשע, הרי לא ידע הדבר על בורייו.
יא דע שתשובת שאלה זו "ארוכה מארץ, מידה; ורחבה, מני ים" (איוב יא,ט), וכמה עיקרים גדולים והררים רמים תלויים בה; אבל צריך אתה לידע ולהבין בדבר זה שאני אומר.
יב כבר ביארנו בפרק שני מהלכות יסודי התורה שהקדוש ברוך הוא אינו יודע בדעה שהיא חוץ ממנו כבני אדם שהן ודעתם שניים, אלא הוא יתברך שמו ודעתו אחד; ואין דעתו של אדם יכולה להשיג דבר זה על בורייו. וכשם שאין כוח באדם להשיג ולמצוא אמיתת הבורא, שנאמר "כי לא יראני האדם, וחי" (שמות לג,כ)--כך אין כוח באדם להשיג ולמצוא דעתו של בורא: הוא שהנביא אומר "כי לא מחשבותיי מחשבותיכם, ולא דרכיכם דרכיי" (ישעיהו נה,ח). וכיון שכן הוא, אין בנו כוח לידע היאך ידע הקדוש ברוך הוא כל הברואים ומעשיהם.
יג אבל נדע בלא ספק, שמעשה האדם ביד האדם; ואין הקדוש ברוך הוא מושכו, ולא גוזר עליו לא לעשות כך ולא שלא לעשות כך. ולא מפני קבלת הדת בלבד נדע דבר זה, אלא בראיות ברורות מדברי החכמה. ומפני זה נאמר בנבואה שדנין את האדם על כל מעשיו כפי מעשיו, אם טוב ואם רע. וזה העיקר, שכל דברי הנבואה תלויין בו


In other words we live in a dialectic reality which is pre-determined and not pre-determined at the same time. From our perspective some things are predictable and pre-determined, such as natural phenomena, and some are not such as human actions. From God’s perspective everything, past and present, has already happened and is known. It is the interaction of these opposites, nature’s predictability and man’s freedom of choice, thus his unpredictability and on the other hand God’s “knowledge”, that is, as we will see, the basis of Rambam’s understanding of prophecy and miracles.

One of the ways God’s will manifests itself in our universe is through the laws of nature. These laws in a certain sense contain in them everything that happened and will happen. When we look at the Universe without taking into consideration God as creator we look at it from the outside. We observe phenomena, analyze them, develop a theory of how they function and then verify if the explanation fits all manifestations of those phenomena. If we take God as Creator into consideration, from God’s perspective, He has designed these phenomena. He has an a priori knowledge of them and their effect. Rambam addresses this difference in Moreh 3:21 as follows:

“Whatever we know of the things is derived from observation: on that account it is impossible for us to know that which will take place in future, or that which is infinite. Our knowledge is acquired and increased in proportion to the things known by us. This is not the case with God. His knowledge of things is not derived from the things themselves: if this were the case, there would be change and plurality in His knowledge; on the contrary, the things are in accordance with His eternal knowledge, which has established their actual properties, and made part of them purely spiritual, another part material and constant as regards its individual members, a third part material and changeable as regards the individual beings according to eternal and constant laws. Plurality, acquisition, and change in His knowledge are therefore impossible. He fully knows His unchangeable essence, and has thus knowledge of all that results from any of His acts. If we were to try to understand in what manner this is done, it would be the same as if we tried to be the same as God, and to make our knowledge identical with His knowledge. Those who seek the truth, and admit what is true, must believe that nothing is hidden from God; that everything is revealed to His knowledge, which is identical with His essence; that this kind of knowledge cannot be comprehended by us; for if we knew its method, we would possess that intellect by which such knowledge could be acquired. Such intellect does not exist except in God, and is at the same time His essence.”

Rambam here describes one aspect of God’s “knowledge” and how it differs from ours. It is an elaboration of what he wrote in Hilchot Teshuvah I quoted earlier. He considers this as an extremely important doctrine :

"Note this well, for I think that this is something most extraordinary and a true opinion; if it is carefully studied no mistake or distortion will be found in it, nor will incongruities be attached to it and no deficiency is ascribed through it to God .. "

Although God’s “knowledge” is something we can never acquire it is still man’s goal to, as impossible as it is, try to acquire some of it through getting to know as much as possible about God’s ways and His will. Medieval philosophers call the information available to man for that purpose, Sechel Hapoel – Active intellect. In our modern termwe would call it scientific knowledge however looked at from a perspective that allows for God as Creator to be part of it. It is a combination of empirical science with metaphysical interpretation. The metaphysical interpretation must however, first and foremost, not clash with the scientific evidence. Prophecy is when a person has reached that perfect balance between science and metaphysics.

Without having experienced prophecy we can only build a theoretical construct of what it is. However we can get this understanding from what we glean from Tanach and the rabbi’s interpretation thereof. The process needed to develop prophecy is in itself an interesting subject of great practical importance to every Jew. I will address these issues in future posts. Here I have outlined a sketch of what the goal is and how it relates to God’s will.

Finally, as I have discussed in earlier posts, the word angel describes any tool that God uses in the functioning of the universe. This Active Intellect being composed of the laws of nature that are behind the functioning of the universe is therefore referred to as an angel. Rambam in Yesodei Hatorah 2:5-7 explains that we designate different names to the various forces that function as sequences of cause and effect and govern our universe. To help us visualize them we separate them into ten groups with the last one in the sequence of cause and effect, the Active Intellect. That last group is also called “Ishim” –

ומעלה עשירית, היא מעלת הצורה שנקראת אישים, והם המלאכים שמדברים עם הנביאים ונראים להם במראה הנבואה; לפיכך נקראו אישים, שמעלתם קרובה ממעלת דעת האדם.

This post is already longer than I intended. I will leave it here knowing full well that I have only touched on “Rashei Perakim”. I just wanted to outline the connection between God’s “will”, “knowledge” and prophecy.