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Gersonides
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===Views on God and omniscience=== In contrast to the [[theology]] held by other Jewish thinkers, Jewish theologian [[Louis Jacobs]] argues, Gersonides held that God does not have complete foreknowledge of human acts. "Gersonides, bothered by the old question of how God's [[Omniscience|foreknowledge]] is compatible with human freedom, holds that what God knows beforehand is all the choices open to each individual. God does not know, however, which choice the individual, in his freedom, will make."<ref>{{Cite book|first=Louis |last=Jacobs |author-link=Louis Jacobs |title=God, Torah, Israel: traditionalism without fundamentalism |publisher=Hebrew Union College Press |location=[[Cincinnati]] |date=1990 |isbn=978-0-87820-052-8 |oclc=21039224}}{{Page needed|date=September 2010}}</ref> Another neoclassical Jewish proponent of self-limited omniscience was [[Abraham ibn Daud]]. "Whereas the earlier Jewish philosophers extended the [[omniscience]] of God to include the free acts of man, and had argued that human freedom of decision was not affected by God's foreknowledge of its results, Ibn Daud, evidently following [[Alexander of Aphrodisias]], excludes human action from divine foreknowledge. God, he holds, limited his omniscience even as He limited His omnipotence in regard to human acts".<ref>{{Cite book|first=Julius |last=Guttmann |author-link=Julius Guttmann |title=Philosophies of Judaism: The History of Jewish Philosophy from Biblical Times to Franz Rosenzweig |publisher=[[Henry Holt and Company|Holt, Rinehart and Winston]] |location=[[New York City]] |date=1964 |pages=150β151 |oclc=1497829}}</ref> :The view that God does not have foreknowledge of moral decisions which was advanced by ibn Daud and Gersonides (Levi ben Gershom) is not quite as isolated as [[J. David Bleich|Rabbi Bleich]] indicates, and it enjoys the support of two highly respected [[Acharonim]], Rabbi [[Isaiah Horowitz|Yeshayahu Horowitz]] (''Shelah haKadosh'') and Rabbi [[Chaim ibn Attar]] (''Or haHayim haKadosh''). The former takes the views that God cannot know which moral choices people will make, but this does not impair His perfection. The latter considers that God could know the future if He wished, but deliberately refrains from using this ability in order to avoid the conflict with free will.<ref>''Tradition: A Journal of Orthodox Jewish Thought'', Vol. 31, No.2, Winter 1997, From ''Divine Omniscience and Free Will'', Cyril Domb, pp. 90β91{{Verify source|what is the title and page number for the magazine article; is cyril domb's work a book, magazine?|date=April 2009}}</ref> Rabbi [[Isaiah Horowitz|Yeshayahu Horowitz]] explained the apparent paradox of his position by citing the old question, "Can God create a rock so heavy that He cannot pick it up?" He said that we cannot accept free choice as a creation of God's, and simultaneously question its logical compatibility with omnipotence. See further discussion in ''[[Free will in theology#Judaism|Free will in Jewish thought]]''.
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