Q&A: He Was a Great Painter
He Was a Great Painter
Question
Hello,
I have a difficulty with the view of the heretics. The Raavad, in the laws of repentance, mentions the position that “your God was a great painter, who found pigments and with them painted the world.”
That is, there exists a primordial hylic matter from which God fashioned the world.
But what puzzles me is why the heretics did not go in something like Spinoza’s direction and say that that primordial matter itself is God, and that it also has free will, so that the world was created in this form and not another. That way they could reduce unnecessary entities, something that seems preferable.
B. Does the Rabbi think that energy could serve as a suitable candidate for this role, or is it too deterministic?
Answer
- His being a painter is a midrash of the Sages (see Berakhot 10a and elsewhere). The interpretation that primordial matter is eternal is the heresy.
2. The midrash says that God created the world by making use of primordial matter, so what you are proposing is certainly not an interpretation of the midrash. Beyond that, it may be that they were not prepared to accept that the world was created out of God Himself. And primordial matter is matter, not an entity with free will and/or intelligence. And if it does have free will and intelligence, then that itself is God. So what is the heresy here? But really, I am too small to explain the view of some obscure heretics. Why is this important?
B. I didn’t understand. Is energy what created the world? How is that better than primordial matter? See all my answers above.
Discussion on Answer
I answered. If energy is an entity with intelligence and free will (and it isn’t), then it is God.
Why doesn’t the Rabbi assume that?
A general emotional intuition, or a more well-founded reason.. ?
Assume what? I don’t see any assumption here.
I explained in the booklet that the proof does not enter into the question of who that entity is that is called God. We proved that there exists an entity that created the world and its laws, and we call it God. So if by chance it is also energy or matter or a frog, that really makes no difference.
If you were asking about my assumption that energy has no intelligence or free will: that is like my assuming that the chair next to me or the stone in the yard has none of these either. Energy is part of physics, and it does what the laws of physics require.
So in practice, if I assume that energy has consciousness, do I also have to assume that the chair has consciousness? Does that follow from Einstein’s laws?
The reason I have an initial thought in that direction is that energy sounds like something rather abstract and “spiritual,” suitable for serving in that role. Or am I mistaken because I don’t have real knowledge of physics?
As I understand it from your words, you do not assume that the chair has consciousness because you think we have intellectual awareness outwardly.
And you do not “see” that all materials have consciousness like you do, just as you think that human beings indeed do.
And because you think there cannot be something at the macro level that has no basis at the micro level, you assume that you and other human beings possess a non-material entity. Am I right?
Forgive me, but I’m exhausted. As far as I’m concerned, the matter has been explained ad nauseam.
The heresy here is that He is not completely abstract.
This question came up for me as to why you don’t interpret the physico-theological proof as meaning that God is energy itself, possessing free will. We have no real objection to assuming that energy has the power not to act this way. And there is no obstacle to assuming that matter does not have free will.#
So with the addition of Ockham’s razor, that would seem to be the proper understanding to assume.
2. Is it even scientifically possible to argue this, or is it a complete misunderstanding of the concept of energy?
# Until today we have observed matter as deterministic because that was His will, but that is not a problem in itself.