If God Knows Everything, Do I Really Have Free Will? Jewish Philosophy Explained

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Dear Rabbi

Menachem Lehrfield

100 episodes

1 week ago

Concise weekly answers to your questions about Judaism. If you are a wondering Jew, visit www.joidenver.com/dearrabbi to submit your own questions.

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Concise weekly answers to your questions about Judaism. If you are a wondering Jew, visit www.joidenver.com/dearrabbi to submit your own questions.

Judaism

Education,

Religion & Spirituality,

Spirituality

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If God Knows Everything, Do I Really Have Free Will? Jewish Philosophy Explained

Dear Rabbi

3 minutes

1 week ago

If God Knows Everything, Do I Really Have Free Will? Jewish Philosophy Explained

🎧 Listen to this and other episodes at www.joidenver.com/podcasts.

In this episode of Dear Rabbi, I tackle one of the most profound philosophical questions in Judaism and theology: If God knows everything, including what choices I'm going to make, do I really have free will? After all, if God already knows what I'm going to choose, isn't my choice predetermined? This question has puzzled philosophers and theologians for centuries, but the answer may be simpler than you think.

I start by explaining that just because God knows what you're going to choose doesn't stop you from making a free will choice. The key to understanding this lies in how God relates to time. From God's perspective, there is no time - God exists above time and beyond space. What was, what is, and what will be are all essentially the same to God, with no distinction between past, present, and future.

To make this even clearer, I propose a thought experiment involving a time machine. Imagine you eat breakfast, and then I get into a time machine and go back ten minutes to watch you make your breakfast choices. I observe everything but don't interfere - I just watch. The fact that I know you chose Wheaties with a banana and orange juice doesn't mean you didn't have free will to make that decision. I just happen to know what you chose because in my timeline, it already happened. You're still making those choices yourself; I'm just observing from a different temporal perspective.

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