Q&A: The Physico-Theological Argument – Beings with Will
The Physico-Theological Argument – Beings with Will
Question
Hello Rabbi,
I wanted to ask: what if the world itself were not complex, but the creatures moving around in it had free choice?
According to the cosmological argument, it is reasonable to assume that there is a first cause behind all this. Our acquaintance with free will shows that this first cause is apparently also possessed of will:
For there are three possibilities regarding the Creator: either He is deterministic, but if so, there would have to be a prior cause for His creating the world; or He is random; or He has choice. His being a first cause rules out the first possibility. And the fact that we have free choice shows that the second option is unlikely. So we are left with the third option.
What do you think of this? If so, then belief in free will alone is enough to believe in God, and there is no need to arrive at that through the complexity of the world.
Answer
I don’t see much significance in our being creatures with free choice. I also don’t understand what this has to do with the existence of God. Here you discussed His having choice, not His very existence.
But you yourself based God’s existence on the cosmological argument. So I didn’t understand what your argument is meant to say.
In my opinion, the first link in the chain is supposed to have choice; otherwise it itself would need a cause (as you also wrote).
The question, of course, is why the first link is not devoid of choice—like the atheist approach of the Big Bang and Spinoza.
That is the purpose of the argument.