Q&A: From God the Creator to God Who Reveals Himself
From God the Creator to God Who Reveals Himself
Question
Hello Rabbi,
I have indeed reached the conclusion that there is a Creator of the world, but it is still not certain that there is any purpose to the world, since His mind is beyond my understanding. Beyond that, even if there is a purpose, it is really not certain that it is on planet Earth, just as we have no knowledge of any specific purpose for planet E3205. Furthermore, let’s say there were some purpose to life on Earth—who says it is specifically for human beings? Maybe He is waiting for a new species to emerge through evolution in another 2 billion years. Just as, according to our view, the animals that were created before man waited until human beings and were created for him, it could very well be that we were created for someone else. And even if we do assume all these far-fetched assumptions, to claim that our purpose must specifically come through revelation, and not through our basic morality for example, or something else—I don’t know—that is an extremely radical step. I would be glad to understand why this argument is reasonable. (And not because of the witness argument, because as you noted in your book, the witness argument also derives its force from the fact that divine revelation is not such an implausible thing. From here it seems very implausible.)
Thank you in advance.
Answer
I wrote about this at length in The First Being. In short, I really do not agree that this is far-fetched. On the contrary, the assumption is that He conducts Himself in a reasonable way, as we do, though of course one can challenge that and argue that we do not understand Him. The starting point is that what is reasonable applies to Him as well. Therefore, what you are suggesting is a collection of far-fetched possibilities.
Beyond that, you are ignoring the significance of the tradition that has reached us, which together with the conclusion that there is a God joins up to make it very reasonable to conclude that He told us what was said in the revelation.
Discussion on Answer
The entire fifth conversation.
In the fifth conversation, on page 478, Hillel asks: “Indeed, in our previous conversation you already explained that in light of belief in a philosophical God, an event of revelation is reasonable and even to be expected.” I didn’t find very much about that in the fifth conversation, nor in the fourth one..
To my dear Ariel, how did you reach such a conclusion, that there really is someone who created everything? Just curious to know—I’m still tangled up in this. Thanks.
It’s the whole fifth conversation.
In the book you brought up the analogy of the black president of the United States. Let’s set out three cases:
– There is no black president, and someone explains to me that a black president passed a healthcare reform, while at the same time racism is flourishing in the U.S.
– There is a black president, and someone explains to me that the black president passed a healthcare reform.
– There is a black president, but someone tells me that he ordered the killing of all black people in the United States.
Indeed, the first case is not reasonable, certainly less so than the second case. But regarding the probability of the third case, some would say it is even less reasonable than the first!
Indeed, at first glance, if I hold that there is a God, it will be easier for me to ‘digest’ the idea that there was a revelation—at least easier than in a case where I do not think there is a God.
But my claim is that this is very far from necessarily so. If I believe in God as Creator (I do not accept the argument from morality, because I truly do not claim that morality has that kind of force, but that is already another discussion), the most reasonable thing is that just as there has until now been some system of natural laws, so it will remain. Even if we say that He has a will, something that is not certain at all, it really does not seem that this would be connected specifically to human beings, because it could be for many other things as well, including inanimate matter. The probability of that is very small. And even if it is for human beings—why specifically through revelation?? These are very long matters; in general I can say that the chance that He would reveal Himself specifically to human beings is, to me, highly doubtful, and therefore I certainly would not rush to believe in a God who reveals Himself. And even if I heard a tradition about this—I would certainly be skeptical.
(Of course revelation is not as improbable as a black president ordering the killing of all black people, but I only brought this as an analogy to show that even if I believe something, there can still be something that it is very improbable that it would do, and if someone told me that, I would not rush at all to believe him—unlike how it is presented in the book, where revelation is like healthcare reform.)
This seems to me like mere stubbornness. I’m done.
I’d be glad to understand where this is in The First Being; I couldn’t find the chapter about it.