AboutRabbi Ari Shishler Expertise I'm happy to answer questions on Jewish belief, Jewish spirituality & Kabbalah.
Experience Rabbi, lecturer on Talmud and Jewish spirituality at Chabad House, Johannesburg, South Africa 1997-present.
Talmud teacher at local Jewish high school 1996- present.
Organizations Chabad Lubavitch.
Publications Jewish Tradition, South Africa.
Jewish Report, weekly newspaper, South Africa
SAUJS annual Holiday guide.
Education/Credentials Six years of tertiary education at Rabbinical seminaries in South Africa, Israel and New York.
Expert: Rabbi Ari Shishler Date: 3/29/2008 Subject: Questioning: Y--H having Total Omnipotence which contains Total Omniscience.
Question Greetings,
I have asked this question of Christian experts, but could not find a soluble answer, although their expositions were enlightening,, never the less. I am a Christian myself, and study the Old Testament, and Pentateuch, as much as the NT.
The question being, how much does Y--H exercise His Total Omnipotence (powers), in His Agency Aspect of Total Omniscience (power of sight)? The insolubility is found in the diametric opposition between His True Omniscient Sight, and our free-will, as required for our judgement. If Y--H looks into the future, what He sees must come to pass, as His Sight is True, but that means that between now and those Visions, that the universe must coalesce into those exact states of affairs, otherwise, His Vision is falsified, and He would be surprised at a deviation away from His Sight. Moreso, if His Sight is total of past, present, and future,, then He will never be surprised at our actions, and could have judged us all, at the inception of our soul’s creation, removing the need for this tired age of man. It seems, to allow our free will to blossom in its probabalistic branchings, that Y—H must restrain Himself from viewing all of the future, so that the universe can bifurcate, or split from expectations, with our choices. Otherwise, our love and following becomes a programmed response from which we cannon deviate, without making His Vision, His Expectations of the future that He Sees, a falsehood.
Selah
Answer Hi Shawn
I guess you could say that this is one of those questions that the human mind has grappled with for ages.
There are two classical answers:
1. If I know without a doubt how my child will react to a situation- and predict his moves accurately- that doesn't change the fact that he still CHOSE to behave in the way that he did.
2. G-d, being Omnipotent, can simultaneously be Omniscient AND allow us free choice, as though He has no omniscience at all. The human mind is too restricted to actually appreciate this concept (for us, one either exists in one state or the other), yet that is His greatness- infinitely beyond our understanding.
