November 17th, 2017 28Cheshvan, 5778 On Tuesday night, many of us heardan interesting lecture as a part of the Lehrhaus series with Dr. Mark Kaplowitz. Dr. Kaplowitz, a philosopher at the University of Memphis, offered his own understanding of God
November 17th, 2017 28 Cheshvan, 5778
On Tuesday night, many of us heard an interesting lecture as a part of the Lehrhaus series with Dr. Mark Kaplowitz. Dr. Kaplowitz, a philosopher at the University of Memphis, offered his own understanding of God and God’s knowledge, and asked us the important question of what’s at stake in this discussion. Why does it even matter what we think God knows or doesn’t know? If God knows all, does that give us as humans any agency?
All week I have been thinking about the implications of this question. Kaplowitz taught the perspective that God knows all possible outcomes of all possible situations. God knows about all possible universes. Yet, what we learned on Tuesday night that feels the most inspiring to me is that we as humans are the ones that birth those universes into existence. God, from the Maimonidean perspective that Kaplowitz taught, might know all possible universes and decisions that could exist, but humans are the ones that turn those into reality.
These implications are profound. These implications mean that we as humans are then partners with God to bring into existence the world that God could only imagine. In conversations about God’s knowledge, we can easily become discouraged, getting lost in the conversation about free will. Instead, this understanding elevates the free will that we have, making our actions weighty and significant. It means that while God might know all action we could take, we are the ones that decide which ones we do take. That is what at stake. Our ability to create the right decisions, to make the decisions that the world needs at this very moment is the power that we have as human beings, the power that God has instilled in us.
This Shabbat, and in the week to come, may we each find small ways to see how our actions matter, how we have the privilege of bringing into existence the world that God imagined.
