We turn now to one of the most intractable problems in medieval Jewish thought, namely that of divine providence, and its implications for the presence of evil in the world. Medieval philosophers, concerned with safeguarding the freedom of human action, worried whether God’s foreknowledge of future contingent events entailed the necessary occurrence of these events. That the force of God’s knowledge need not be causal was already claimed by Saadia Gaon. In answer to the apparent paradox that God’s foreknowledge necessitates the objects of his knowledge, Saadia’s response is that ‘‘he who makes this assertion has no proof that the knowledge of the Creator concerning things is the cause of their existence’’ (Saadia Gaon 1948:186). What concerned medieval philosophers in general, and Jewish philosophers in particular, was the fact that if God is infallible, then the objects of his knowledge cannot fail to be what God already knows them to be. How to account for the ability of humans to contravene the prior infallible knowledge which God has of their actions became of paramount importance to later Jewish philosophers.
Under what conditions does God know unactualized particulars? Maimonides emphasizes that the term knowledge is predicated equivocally of God and humans, maintaining that God is in no way affected by what He knows. God remains one even though His objects constitute a plurality, and He remains unchanged even though the objects of His knowledge are mutable. These points are reflected in two brief assertions: first, that God’s knowledge does not contain plurality, and second, that God cannot acquire at a certain time knowledge He did not possess previously. Since the divine knowledge is a priori, it is not affected by the ontological status of objects which result from this knowledge. Hence Maimonides argues that since the objects of God’s knowledge do not causally act upon His knowledge, His essence is unaffected by their multiplicity. The second claim, that God’s knowledge is unaffected by any change in its objects, is supported in the context of a distinction between absolute and relative nonexistence. Absolute non-existence is never an object of God’s knowledge (Maimonides 1963, III.20:480). Relative non-existents, or future contingents, are possible objects of God’s knowledge. It is not impossible, Maimonides claims, that God’s knowledge has as its object those “non-existent things about whose being brought into existence we knew beforehand” (Maimonides 1963, III.20:481). Like Averroes, Maimonides asserts that God’s knowledge of future possibles does not change their nature; neither is His nature altered by a change in the objects of His knowledge.
Gersonides is one of the only Jewish philosophers who upheld a form of indeterminism as a solution to the paradox of divine omniscience. Although intimated in a number of texts, this position is developed most fully in treatise III of Wars, wherein he develops his main argument that an omniscient, immutable deity cannot know changing particulars. The underlying premise in this argument is that all future particular objects are in fact mutable: that is, they change from a state of nonexistence to one of existence. Gersonides claims that an immutable deity cannot be omniscient, if omniscience entails knowing objects which undergo change. But does it follow from God’s knowing a future contingent that it is necessary? In contradistinction to Maimonides, who claims that God’s knowledge does not render the objects of his knowledge necessary, Gersonides will want to maintain that divine foreknowledge and contingency are incompatible.
Arguing that divine omniscience severely compromises the contingency of the objects of God’s knowledge, Gersonides dismisses Maimonides’ form of compatibilism. Having rejected Maimonides’ attempts to harmonize foreknowledge and contingency, and having upheld the existence of contingency in the universe, Gersonides adopts the one option left to him, namely that God does not know future contingents. According to Gersonides, God knows that certain states of affairs may or may not be actualized. But in so far as they are contingent states, he does not know which of the two alternatives will in fact be actualized. For if God did know future contingents prior to their actualization, there could be no contingency in the world (Gersonides 1987, III.4:116if). Gersonides claims that God’s inability to foreknow future contingents is not a defect in his knowledge (Gersonides 1987, III.4: 235-236). With respect to future contingents, God knows their ordered nature or essence, and he knows that they are contingent, but he does not know which alternative will become actualized. But has Gersonides in fact solved the problem of divine omniscience? Despite his admonition to the contrary, I have argued in other works that ultimately Gersonides’ theory of divine omniscience does not fully account for other theological concerns, for example prophecy (Rudavsky 2000).
Hasdai ben Judah Crescas is the last outstanding original Jewish philosopher in the late medieval period. His major work Sefer Or Adonai (The Book of the Light of the Lord, 1405-1410), finished several months before his death, was written as a polemic against his two Aristotelian predecessors Maimonides and Gersonides. In this work, Crescas sought to undermine the Aristotelian cosmology and physics that pervaded the works of his predecessors. Crescas rejects the views of both Maimonides and Gersonides, arguing that God acts toward the world with goodness, love, and grace. Against Gersonides, for example, Crescas affirms God’s knowledge of future contingents, even those determined by human choice. He then argues that human freedom is only apparent and not genuine: humans think they are free because they are ignorant of the causes of their choices. Human responsibility for action lies not the actual performance of the action, but rather in the agent’s acceptance of an action as its own. The feeling of joy an agent feels at acquiescing to certain actions, for example, fulfilling the commandments, is the reward for that action. So too, God experiences joy in giving of himself to the world (Crescas 1990: 123-205).
World History
