Ralbag and G-D'S Knowledge

Question

I have recently read some posts here commenting about Ralbag and the Book III of Milchamot Hashem in which the basic idea is that G-D'S Knowledge of man's future actions is limited by man's free will. This was touched upon in another post but I still do not understand.

How can G-D not know that you're going to make a certain act? Maybe He didn't "predict" you to do such a thing but He still knew you were going to do said thing. So:

1) How can G-D'S Knowledge be limited by our free will and

2) How can G-D not "predict" what you're going to do if the future is standing before G-D then He must surely know what you did and this means He would have predicted this?

Answer 1

In philosophy, there are two classes of models about time. In A-Theory, time is primarily about tenses and the flow of time. Past-Present-Future are definitional. This certainly corresponds to how we experience time.

However, in Relativity, Spacetime is one thing. Time is just one out of four dimensions. For that matter, people moving relative to each other don't have exactly the same time axis. (This is why events get further apart, but spatially closer together in the direction of travel.) The equations of physics, even before Einstein, work equally well in either direction. This is a b-theory of time, where the flow of time is an experience we impose on something that is fundamentally one solid thing. (Perhaps related to how the accumulation of experience involves the growth of entropy.) B-theory is often referred to as "block time". The universe as a 4D sculpture.

Now what does this have to do about the Ralbag and Omniscience?

In b-theory, there is a truth value to "John will buy a car tomorrow". What we don't have today is knowledge -- we don't know whether he will or he won't. But one of those two is true right now, already.

In a-theory, there isn't. It's simply not a fact yet. We don't just not know, it isn't part of reality.

The Ralbag's theory of time is an a-theory.

There are less discussed, theories c-theories of time (sometimes labeled "c-theories") that would fit the Ralbag's words. Such as if he believed in a growing block time -- the past and present are real and true, but not the future. But in any case, the Ralbag does not have a b-theory, his is not a block time in which all points on the timeline are equally real.

The Ralbag believes that Hashem knows everything. But claims about the future don't exist -- they aren't part of "everything".

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(That said, I have my own problems with the Ralbag's definition of Omniscience. It places Hashem within time by assuming He Knows something after my decision that He didn't know before. But G-d is למעלה מן הזמן - "above" time; the Creator of time rather than one of us who live within it. Which in itself answers the paradox of Omniscience and free will. G-d doesn't Know now what I will decide tomorrow. But not because He doesn't Know, but because He doesn't do it now, or at any other point in time.)

Answer 2

Many people like to accept the belief that G-d knows everything, but there are Jews, wise Jews, who disagree. For example, ibn Ezra felt that G-d knows the generalities – the laws of nature – but not the details (people as individuals). Ralbag, as you wrote, also held this view. In fact, Gersonides held many unconventional opinions, such as Divine knowledge. For example, Gersonides was convinced that G-d doesn’t know people as individuals, meaning that He does not know how people will act but only the general rules of the laws of nature, how people could act, or what might possibly occur, since people can become subvert to the laws of nature. Thus, according to Ralbag, the idea that G-d is all-knowing may not be true. He seems to say that G-d does not know humans.