1. A. Not convincing at all. The physico-theological proof is based entirely on common sense and a fair look at reality. If I go along with that way of thinking, then I’m also supposed to go along with the idea that God is not what stands behind the design (God = a perfect being). Why?
When you see software with a bug, that necessarily reflects a deficiency on the part of the programmer/engineer. There really is no such thing as “defective software,” meaning the programmer isn’t perfect. So too if there are defects that are products of the nature created by that programmer. That seriously weakens the conclusion that this is God (a perfect being). Maybe it’s some “super-alien” with amazing abilities, but not God (a perfect being).
B. At best, this is a tautology. At worst, like in the section above, it shows that this is not God (a perfect being), but an alien with very high abilities, yet still limited.

2. “That means its designer had long-range vision and a very impressive ability to realize the vision.”
To me, that דווקא shows that God is limited (and therefore not God).
Besides, I didn’t understand the Rabbi’s excuse — if I drive from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv by way of Yeruham, I assume the Rabbi would not claim that I have long-range vision and a very impressive ability to realize the vision.
If the whole trip I were distributing food to the needy, then it would be clearer. But again, what is the significance of all the T. rexes that walked around here for tens of millions of years? If there were significance to the whole evolutionary process that led to man — fine, but it doesn’t seem that there is any significance.

Best,
Ehud

What the questioner means is that if we examine something and try to understand whether it came about through design or through a random event, the signs that guide us are whether the object before us shows features that should not have been there had it been the product of design; and if it has such features, it is not reasonable to say there was a “crooked designer,” but rather that it was formed without a designer [if that is a possible alternative, of course].
And since it is clear that the world as it is today is not the product of precise design looking 14 billion years ahead, because for the evolutionary process to succeed it required not only time but also a lot of luck, then if a designer’s hand is involved we are forced to say that he planned to intervene wherever necessary in order to steer the process as he wished [whereas believers in chance argue that things really could have turned out very differently, but in practice this is what happened], and therefore the signs indicating lack of intervention where it was needed [such as mass extinctions and several reversals] constitute evidence against it.

I don’t know whether they constitute evidence against a “designer,” because on the other hand, you can’t deny the immense design that we do see in creation. But all the defects certainly indicate the designer’s limitations. So it’s possible we were created by a super-alien, but not by a perfect God.

Ehud, in order to determine that it’s not convincing, you need to read.
1. When there is a complex structure, the assumption is that it has a maker (it did not arise on its own). And if it has defects, that changes nothing in this regard. For example, a very sophisticated watch that shows the wrong time (always one hour slow) also did not make itself. At most, you can infer that the mind of the watchmaker who made it is not like yours. That has no bearing at all on the basic claim that there is a watchmaker.
Additional assumptions about God (such as that He is not limited) are unrelated here. The proof only establishes that there is some entity that created the world, that’s all.
2. You indeed did not understand. Read it again. I answered this. My claim is that there is no possibility of creating this in less time.

Thank you, Rabbi, for the response. I’ll reply briefly.

1. The physico-theological proof allows one to conclude that there is a creator. But given the difficulty posed by defects in creation, one can also conclude *necessarily* that this creator is not God, unless one adds another layer beyond the physico-theological proof.

2. It is impossible to create it in less time under the *current* laws of nature. But from a perfect being I would expect laws of nature that are ad hoc, not ones that pass through dinosaurs and Homo erectus, which are completely irrelevant.
If I make a pizza (human beings), I have no need whatsoever to drill holes in the wall (dinosaurs), change the oil in the car engine (erectus), or do laundry (mammoths). And if I do all those things in order to get a tasty pizza, that’s a sign that I don’t exactly know what I’m doing.
But again, the Rabbi will say that the physico-theological argument only comes to teach that there is a creator, and that’s all. The problem is that along the way one also concludes that this creator is not God…

As best I recall, at the end of the section that discusses the physico-theological proof, the Rabbi talks about teleology and its importance. It’s time to develop teleological thinking as well regarding the 14 billion years that passed (apparently) without meaning, and regarding the defects we see in creation.

I explained here the issue of the defective watch. I have nothing to add to that (the defects neither add nor detract; the question is what degree of complexity remains after the defects).
Even a perfect being cannot do things that are logically impossible (a round triangle). I explained this there as well, and also several times here on the site (search for the laws of logic, the paradox of the stone that God cannot lift, the problem of evil, and the like).
The statement that this creator is not God is an oxymoron. In the physico-theological context, God is defined as the being that created the world. That’s all.

I didn’t ask for a round triangle to be created. Nor did I ask that under the current laws of nature a different result should emerge (that’s probably impossible because they are deterministic). I did ask that He program the laws of nature from the outset in a more efficient way.

And I repeat and claim that this is impossible. Your objection is based on the assumption that one can create a system of laws that will yield the same results without the defects. I claim that apparently there is no such thing. Since you are the one objecting, the burden of proof is on you.

In the analogy between the laws of nature and software code, there is no shortage of examples of systems whose code does a perfect job. For example, creating a certain folder structure without creating defects in the operating system or unnecessary folders (and certainly this is true of far more complicated operations). I am bringing evidence for my position from experience.

The Rabbi’s claim that it is impossible to produce the laws of nature more efficiently is equivalent to the creationist’s claim that the systems of sweating / lactation / immunity cannot develop through mutations and the laws of nature alone (and require divine hocus-pocus) because we do not have the ability to track it at the bit level (mutation after mutation). One cannot really observe mutation after mutation accompanied by natural selection and genetic drift.
Like the creationists, I assume the Rabbi is making some logical fallacy here (I have no idea what it’s called).

Best,
Ehud

The problem is not what to call it. The problem is that there is no fallacy here. But if you assume there is a fallacy in my words, good health to you. I usually answer questions, not assumptions.

I also didn’t understand the answer to the question of why God couldn’t have been more efficient. Simply put, I see no reason to assume that such efficiency is beyond His powers or that it is an illogical demand.

Doron, I also didn’t see an answer from the Rabbi. He simply claimed that this is what he thinks, and that the burden of disproving his words (which of course is impossible) lies on whoever disagrees with him. I brought evidence from our human experience that it is possible to work perfectly, and the Rabbi didn’t address that either. Perfect programming exists — that’s a fact.

True. I also thought of an example of human action that can create perfect products, and all the more so I would expect God to succeed in that.
Could it be that Michi himself plans to respond only after a very, very long time, and meanwhile he is inserting into his answer many defects and “mutations”?

I really don’t understand what is unclear in what I wrote. What do software programs have to do with this? I’ll explain again.
I am asking: how do you know that there is some system of laws that creates exactly everything that exists in our world, but without the defects? That’s all. Software that does one thing or another proves nothing in this context. For example, is there a program that can determine whether a given Turing machine halts or not? The answer is no (at least not a program that is itself implemented by a Turing machine). And that is a much simpler task than creating a super-complex world like ours without any defects.
As for me, by reasoning alone I tend to think there is no such system of laws (it is really not plausible that there is a system partially identical yet perfect compared to our world’s system of laws, and that the non-identity is precisely at the defective points). But as I wrote, even if one does not assume that, and leaves open the question whether there is or is not such a system of laws, the burden of proof that there is such a system is on you, because you are the ones raising objections. One may answer with difficulty, but not object with difficulty.
Let me summarize again for the sake of clarity: I claim that such a complex world did not come about by chance. Its complexity is far too strong. You objected that it contains defects. To that I replied that this makes no difference for two reasons: 1. Despite the defects, there is still here a system far too complex for chance (entropy far too low). That is the example of the defective watch. 2. I claim that perhaps there is no system of laws that would create a more perfect world (in my opinion it is likely there is not). If you claim that there is, and on that basis object to my argument — please prove your assumption.

I don’t understand the answer, and if I do understand it, I don’t really see the connection between it and the fundamental problem standing in the background of your words.
That problem is God’s status in relation to the world.
According to your view, God is bound not only by the laws of logic (and in that you may be right), but also by the laws of nature. The absolute creator is bound a priori by the created and relative world.
If you assume God is absolute, and that is of course your assumption, then it follows that you should graciously allow Him the ability (at least in principle) to create somewhat more successful laws. Since you choose to refrain from doing so, you condemn your conception to inconsistency. Hence the burden of proof here is on you.

Doron, I don’t know how it is possible to write more clearly what I have already written here more than once. He is not bound by the laws of nature but only by the laws of logic. But there are laws of nature that contain a logical contradiction and therefore cannot exist. My claim is that perhaps a system of laws as proposed here includes a logical contradiction (the law says a thing and its opposite), and therefore it cannot exist.

Apparently you did not write as clearly as you think.
If your claim had been that there are laws of nature that contain a logical contradiction — fine. But from your words it is clear that that is not what you claimed.

Here is what you wrote above about the pace of creation (temporality) in your answer to Ehud:

“Indeed, you did not understand. Read it again. I answered this. My claim is that there is no possibility of creating this in less time.”

In simple words, in your opinion the actual passage of time of the universe cannot be altered at all, and therefore your unfortunate God is condemned to servitude under a physical law (the actually given rate of the passage of time).
As usual, you people are not satisfied with abusing the son of God, and you abuse the father too… what a pity, no?!

What I perhaps left out is what seems obvious to me: time (or the rate of the passage of time, or the rate of cosmic events within time) is not logically bound by definition to flow at a certain speed. Therefore one may argue that a different flow of time is possible without falling into an internal contradiction. Therefore this is a law of nature, not a pure law of logic.

Even if we accept the Rabbi’s claim that it is impossible to create more refined laws [yeah, right], that still does not completely solve the difficulty, because the real question is: why would God create the world in the form of fixed laws with a minimum of interventions? The very fact that we see a result that comes about in a way that appears completely random, and attribute this result to an omnipotent God [instead of His creating everything in one bang, as would seem fitting, and as He seemingly presented in His Torah] is strange.
And true, one can say that we do not know God’s considerations, but as observers from the side, when asking whether to conclude that the result before us is the fruit of the design of an omnipotent being, or the fruit of random development, the lack of understanding of why an omnipotent being would act this way affects the balance.

That is no longer an objection but a question. There are many things we do not understand about Him. But here we can even understand, and I have explained this more than once. In a world without laws, we could not manage. We would live in Kafkaesque chaos and would not know how to conduct ourselves within it.

The question was why He should not create the laws together with the creation of the world in its full stature and form, as tradition indeed claims happened. What is the point of starting everything from a tiny point and from there letting nature reach this point by such a long and winding path?
This question, which human reason has difficulty with [as all the questioners above have shown], is not just some question about His conduct, but a tilt in favor of the assumption that chance created it, and not God who chose to create in such a “random” way.
And by the way, there is no wisdom or proof from the fact that we see that His plan succeeded, because just as it succeeded, so it could have failed [unless He sometimes intervenes in favor of existence against the laws. But then again that shows that the laws are not perfect, and that in any case with them alone it is impossible to create everything].

As I wrote, this is simply a lack of understanding of His plans. So what? The complexity still compels His existence. Even a watch you do not understand, if it is sufficiently complex, has a watchmaker who made it. All this was well explained in my book God Plays Dice. If you think that what happened here is not something special, I also explained that well in several places.