Free Will and Divine Knowledge in Medieval Jewish Philosophy: Maimonides, Gersonides and R. Shlomo Ben Adrat (Rashba)

Abstract

This article discusses human free will from the perspective of three Jewish thinkers of the Middle-ages: Maimonides, Gersonides and Solomon Ben Adret. We commence with understanding the parameters of free will in Jewish thought and then discuss the theological problem of all religionists in the middle-ages, namely, God's prescience and the possibility of human free will. We discuss as well the idea of Divine knowledge of the present and the future from the perspective of the rationalist and kabbalist.