Faith – Lesson 27
This transcript was produced automatically using artificial intelligence. There may be inaccuracies in the transcribed content and in speaker identification.
🔗 Link to the original lecture
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Table of Contents
- [0:01] Kant’s three arguments in brief
- [2:46] Revealing arguments and the logical converse
- [4:27] Faith before the argument – examples
- [9:59] Taylor’s train-to-Scotland example
- [14:08] The visual system as a physico-theological argument
- [17:26] Trust in the senses requires a non-accidental context
- [28:26] An extraterrestrial computer – the need for an independent indication
- [29:48] Trust in the sensory system as a computer
- [34:08] Critique of pragmatism in philosophy
- [42:28] The logical argument about God and the senses
- [45:14] The connection between God and morality is valid
- [49:59] The joke about Abraham and the hat as an argument
- [57:25] Conclusion and Sabbath blessing
Summary
General Overview
The text summarizes the three kinds of proofs for the existence of God in Kant’s classification in the Critique of Pure Reason, and argues that Kant rejects them only by showing that they are not necessary or certain, whereas the important question is how plausible their assumptions are. It then moves to a new type of argument called revealing arguments, in which one does not try to prove that God exists from the world, but rather to show that the person already in practice presupposes belief in God through the trust he places in his senses, cognition, and conclusions. The text emphasizes the distinction between such an argument and pragmatism, and concludes that revealing arguments do not prove the existence of God but expose the hidden belief of the interlocutor.
Kant’s Three Types of Argument
The text states that up to this point it has gone through the three types of arguments in Kant’s classification: the ontological proof, which tries to prove God’s existence through conceptual analysis; the cosmological proof, which infers that if something exists then there is apparently something that produced it; and the physico-theological proof, which infers from the design and complexity of the world that there is a creator. The text defines each argument as assuming a different concept of God: the perfect being, the source of reality, and the perfect engineer, and suggests that the three definitions may be seen as referring to the same transcendent being, with Occam’s razor even lending support by favoring the simpler solution. The text argues that Kant does not accept these arguments, but that his refutations are weak because they show only that the arguments are not necessary or certain.
Transition to Revealing Arguments and the Joke about a Philosopher and a Theologian
The text presents a logical inversion called a revealing argument, or a “theological argument” in quotation marks, as opposed to a productive argument, and formulates a joke according to which the philosopher assumes premises and derives conclusions, while the theologian assumes conclusions and derives premises. The text argues that for theologians, faith preceded the arguments, and brings Anselm, who opens his proof with a prayer, to show that faith preceded rational grounding. The text explains that this is a joke because since Kant it has become clear that philosophers proceed this way too, and that in a certain sense the distinction between a philosophical argument and a theological one is questionable, since the conclusion is always somewhere in the premises, similar to begging the question.
Prior Faith and the Example of Andrew Wiles
The text brings up Andrew Wiles, who invested years in proving Fermat’s conjecture, and argues that clearly he would not have invested so much without already being convinced it was true. The text states that this prior belief does not invalidate the proof, because what must be checked is whether the proof holds up, not what the person believed beforehand. The text applies this to Anselm as well, and says this is not intellectual dishonesty but rather an early intuition and a desire to ground faith in reason.
An Argument in Which the Conclusion Itself Takes Part in the Proof
The text advances one step beyond mere motivation, and presents the possibility of a philosophical argument in which the conclusion itself legitimately participates in the logic of the proof. The text says this will be demonstrated through an argument taken from Richard Taylor’s book Metaphysics, and recommends the book as presenting interesting analyses for a general audience.
The Train Example and the Stone Sign “Welcome to Scotland”
The text describes an example in which a passenger traveling by train to Scotland sees a stone sign on a mountainside reading “Welcome to Scotland” and starts preparing to get off, while someone opposite him, a skeptic, claims that the sign could have been arranged by chance and therefore no conclusion should be drawn from it. The text concludes that there are only two consistent responses: either believe that the sign was not arranged by chance and prepare to get off, or assume that it is accidental and infer nothing until the conductor’s announcement. The text rejects as inconsistent the possibility of assuming that the sign is accidental while still behaving as though it were a reliable signal, unless one receives independent information such as the conductor’s announcement or some external knowledge.
Applying the Example to the Visual System and Richard Taylor’s Claim
The text applies this structure to the visual system and argues that the visual system is extremely complex, and therefore if one assumes it arose by chance, there is no basis for trusting that when one sees a picture there really is a picture there. The text states that one can either choose to assume the system was intentionally built to reflect reality and therefore trust it, or assume it arose by chance and then not believe the information it provides. The text presents Taylor’s claim as follows: whoever trusts his visual system must assume that it did not arise by chance, and therefore there is some factor that built it, called for the sake of the argument “God,” while noting that the challenge from evolution is obvious and will be discussed later.
The Relation to the Physico-Theological Argument and the Pincer Movement
The text places Taylor’s argument as parallel to the physico-theological argument but different from it, because the physico-theological argument claims that complexity does not arise by chance, whereas Taylor is willing for the sake of discussion to accept the possibility that it did arise by chance. The text says Taylor attacks the atheist in a pincer movement by demanding consistency: if you claim it is accidental, then do not trust it, and you cannot “dance at both weddings” by holding both accidentality and reliability. The text clarifies that the argument is directed at an atheist who is not in practice a skeptic, because he nevertheless does trust his senses.
Fred Hoyle’s Boeing Example and the Computer Found on the Moon
The text brings Fred Hoyle’s Boeing analogy about a whirlwind that accidentally assembles a plane from a junkyard, and argues that when one sees such a result, the simple assumption is that it is not accidental. The text adds the example of a computer found on the moon that returns an answer to the question what the next prime number after 109 is, and emphasizes that without an independent indication of its purpose and design, there is no reason to believe the answer is correct, even if by chance it is correct. The text identifies the “computer” with the human sensory and cognitive system, and argues that when dealing with the whole apparatus of perception there is no possibility of stepping outside the system in order to receive independent feedback about its reliability.
The Argument as an Argument about the Subject Rather than Reality
The text clarifies that the argument does not prove that God exists, but proves that the person himself implicitly believes in God, because trust in the senses requires the assumption that they were not produced by chance. The text presents two consistent exits for the interlocutor: to admit that he believes in God, or to become a skeptic who does not trust his senses. The text states that in any case there was an error either in the atheism or in the trust in the senses, and emphasizes that the argument exposes a hidden belief rather than establishing a fact about the world.
The Claim of Pragmatism and Its Rejection
The text warns against the accusation that the argument is pragmatist, meaning that one “invents” God in order to have a convenient basis for trust in the senses or for morality, and presents pragmatism as identifying truth with usefulness. The text calls pragmatism “nonsense” and offers examples such as the claim that democracy is true because it works, or the saying “if God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him,” and connects this also to Marx’s statement about “opium for the masses.” The text argues that a person who observes Jewish law for social utility in the style of Ahad Ha’am, or believes in God because it makes his life more comfortable or richer, is an atheist and, according to the claim in the text, does not “count for a prayer quorum.”
The Logical Basis: Implication, Negation, and the Distinction Between “Want” and “Believe”
The text distinguishes between a pragmatist argument that says “I want to trust the senses, therefore there is a God” and a logical argument that says “I do trust the senses, therefore there is a God.” The text explains this using the logical rule of implication: if A implies B, one may not infer that B implies A, but one may infer that not-B implies not-A, and applies this to a formulation such as “if there is no God, one cannot trust the sensory system; if I do trust the sensory system, the conclusion is that there is a God.” The text notes that one can attack the assumptions themselves, such as by asking who says the sensory system is reliable or that valid morality exists, but presents this as a general feature of every logical argument that begins from premises.
The Pattern of the Argument Regarding Morality and the Continuation of the Discussion
The text presents a parallel pattern regarding morality: “if there is no God, there is no valid morality; if I believe there is valid morality, then there is a God,” and distinguishes this from pragmatism in which one “invents” God so that morality may exist. The text announces that the discussion of morality will be sharper and will come later, and that even an argument from experience does not provide an independent indication because experience itself relies on the same sensory system one is trying to justify. The text concludes that revealing arguments reveal to a person what is already hidden within him, and clarify why these arguments fit the original joke about a theologian who assumes conclusions and derives premises, without thereby claiming a direct proof of God’s existence in the world.
Full Transcript
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Okay, so up to now we’ve basically gone through the three types of arguments in Kant’s classification. In the Critique of Pure Reason we talked about the ontological proof, which is a proof of God’s existence from conceptual analysis. We saw the cosmological proof: from the very fact that something exists, apparently there is something that produced it. And we saw the proof—we finished with this last time—the physico-theological proof. The physico-theological proof is basically a proof based on the complexity of the world, or on its being designed, suited to one purpose or another, and from that one draws the conclusion that there is someone who created it. The first talks about the perfect being, the second talks about the being that is the source of reality, the third talks about the perfect engineer, the one who succeeds in producing complexity and design. And I said that each of these types of argument assumes a certain assumption or definition of the concept of God, a different definition: the perfect being, the source of reality, or the perfect engineer. So these different definitions do not necessarily mean that we are dealing with different beings. It could be that the same being is also perfect, also the perfect engineer, and also the source of reality. I would even say that Occam’s razor would tell us that the simplest solution, if we adopt all three arguments, is that this is one and the same transcendent being, who is also perfect, also the source of reality, and also the most brilliant and most perfect engineer. So that is more or less the map of the arguments as Kant lays it out. He doesn’t accept these arguments, but I already commented on that—the refutations he raises against them are very weak refutations. In the end, he raises refutations that only show that these arguments are not necessary, not certain. But that’s true—no argument is certain. The question is whether it is plausible, whether the assumptions of the argument are plausible or not. You can always argue with the assumptions of arguments. And that’s exactly the point that leads me to our next chapter, and here I want to talk about revealing arguments. This is a very interesting logical reversal of the whole direction of thought. And so you can basically repeat arguments of other kinds, but in reverse formulation, and that is what I call a theological argument, in quotation marks, or a revealing argument instead of a productive argument. What do I mean? The source of this term—I once heard a joke: someone asked what the difference is between a philosopher and a theologian. The philosopher assumes premises and derives conclusions from them. The theologian assumes conclusions and derives premises from them. After all, the theologian always assumes that there is a God, and then finds some assumptions with an argument that will lead him to the conclusion that there is a God. We haven’t seen a theologian who arrived at the conclusion that there is a God as a result of some argument he found. Usually he assumes that there is a God and is delighted when he finds an argument that proves it. With Anselm we saw that he was so aware of this that he put it on the table. He opens his proof of God’s existence with a prayer, a prayer to God, in order to express his awareness of this fact, that his faith did not begin with the argument; on the contrary, it preceded it.
[Speaker B] Why do you call it a joke? It’s true.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What?
[Speaker B] You say it reminds you of a joke, but it’s not a joke, it really is true, what you’re saying.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, it’s a joke. I’ll explain in a moment why it’s a joke. So the claim that in fact faith preceded the arguments is certainly an accurate description of how theologians operate. Except that since Kant—and it was true even before him, but Kant was the first to put it on the table—it’s clear that this is actually how philosophers operate too. I’m not arguing with the theologian; I’m arguing with the philosopher. The philosopher too basically operates in a theological way. And in fact, the distinction between the philosophical argument and the theological argument, or between a revealing argument and a productive argument, is a very questionable distinction. In a certain sense, it’s even already contained in what we’ve seen more than once: begging the question in a logical argument. Basically, the conclusion of a logical argument is always somewhere in the premises. So in a certain sense we are always, in practice, assuming what we want to arrive at. Think, for example, about—I already mentioned this—Andrew Wiles, the American mathematician who proved Fermat’s theorem, Fermat’s conjecture. Okay? Now, he invested years in it, I think six years or something like that of work. Can you imagine that he would invest six years if he weren’t convinced it was true? Clearly, he was convinced it was true, and that’s why the investment was worthwhile for him. Think about it: you throw your whole career into the trash for six years if in the end you don’t find anything, then your career isn’t worth much. So usually, when you invest a lot of energy and effort and time in proving something, it’s something you already believe beforehand. Does that invalidate the proof? Not at all. Why should I care what he believed beforehand? Let’s examine whether his proof holds water or not. The fact that he believed it beforehand doesn’t make him dishonest. In exactly the same way, I argued about Anselm that the fact that he was already a believer before he presented this proof doesn’t indicate dishonesty. When we examine the proof, we need to see whether the proof works or doesn’t work. The fact that he himself believed before the proof is not a flaw. That’s perfectly fine. He had a certain intuition—and that’s what he says: he prays to the Holy One, blessed be He, to give understanding to faith. He has faith and wants to ground it in reason. So he tries to find a proof for something he in fact already believes. In a certain sense, a large part of philosophy is like that. A large part of philosophy basically assumes things and finds ways to ground them. I once heard in the name of Rabbi Soloveitchik—I don’t know whether he wrote this somewhere or said it—but he said that he knows almost no halakhic ruling based on proofs. In other words, the halakhic decisor always knows the answer and then looks for the proofs that will justify the answer he assumed in advance. I think that’s a bit exaggerated, but there’s a lot of truth in it. And there too it’s the same thing: it doesn’t invalidate the matter, because once the proofs hold water, the fact that I had an earlier intuition doesn’t invalidate anything. And if the proofs aren’t good, then attack the proofs for not being good. Why should it matter that I had an earlier intuition? The fact that I had an earlier intuition is not an attack on the argument I’m presenting. But here I want to make a stronger claim. I want to say that the fact that I believed earlier—true, the fact that I believed something earlier doesn’t refute or blemish the argument I found in order to prove it. But now I want to take it a step further. I’m saying: the fact that I believe in the conclusion will take part in the proof. Not just that it serves as motivation to look for a proof, as with Andrew Wiles. Wiles believed it, but that belief is not part of the proof he found. It was only motivation: since he knew it was true, he thought there was a good chance he’d find a proof, and he devoted six years to it, and he found one. But in the proof itself, when you read it, it does not say there, “I believe Fermat’s conjecture is true.” That is not one of the statements on which he relied in the proof. Now I want to go one step further. I want to claim that there is a kind of philosophical argument that uses the conclusion itself in order to prove. And it is legitimate. And that is essentially what I want to argue. But it’s subtle. Instead of talking in the abstract, let’s go straight into an initial argument, and through it I’ll try to demonstrate this logic. This argument is taken from a book by Richard Taylor called Metaphysics. He’s an American philosopher. It’s a kind of popular book meant to illustrate metaphysical issues for the general public. A very recommended book, I highly recommend it to anyone who doesn’t know it. There are definitely interesting analyses there of all sorts of issues; some analyses are less successful, but there are quite a few very interesting chapters, each chapter on a different topic. He presents things nicely, simply—very, very recommended. In any case, in this book, in the chapter on God, he brings… he brings the following claim. The train to Scotland, a favorite example of mine. A person is traveling—think of a person traveling on a train that is headed for Scotland. He wants to get to Scotland. He’s sitting there, suitcase in the luggage rack, and then through the window he sees a big sign made of stones on the mountainside, saying “Welcome to Scotland.” He packs up, starts taking out the suitcase, preparing to get off; the train stops and he gets off, he’s about to get off. Someone stops him and asks him: who told you that this stone sign wasn’t arranged by chance? Therefore you have no reason to prepare to get off; wait until the announcer on the train says that we’ll soon be stopping in Scotland. You can’t draw conclusions from the stone sign; maybe it was arranged by chance, it just came out that way somehow. There are lots of clusters of stones all over the world, so one of them ended up arranged in the form of a sign. Even a rare phenomenon can happen from time to time. This is the argument between them; this is the argument between the atheist and the believer, of course. Richard Taylor says: I accept the atheist’s argument, the skeptic’s, for the sake of discussion. But notice that there are only two ways to respond to this situation, no third. You can believe the stone sign, assume it wasn’t arranged by chance, and prepare to get off. You can say that it was arranged by chance, and then of course you don’t get off—you wait until you hear the announcement. What you can’t do is assume it was arranged by chance and start taking out your suitcase and getting ready to get off. That is, that’s simply inconsistent behavior. You have to remember: obviously, such a stone sign can indeed exist by chance, could have been formed by chance; it could even, by chance, have been formed at the gateway to Scotland. That can happen. But if all the information I have is only the fact that I saw the stone sign, and I have no independent source saying that it really was arranged at the gateway to Scotland, then true, it could by chance be in Scotland just as in Australia—but if I have no information that it happened in Scotland, then the existence of the stone sign cannot in any way lead me to the conclusion that I am at the gateway to Scotland. Agreed? It’s obvious, it can’t be. So there are two possibilities here. One possibility is to assume the sign was not arranged by chance and get ready to get off. The second possibility is to say the sign was arranged by chance and remain seated, assuming it has nothing to do with Scotland. A third possibility is out of the question, the possibility that says: it was arranged by chance and I’m getting ready to get off. Unless now the announcer says, “Welcome to Scotland, prepare to disembark,” and then I’ll understand that the stone sign, although I assume it was arranged by chance, happened by chance also to be arranged that way at the gateway to Scotland. That could be. But obviously, without the announcer, even if theoretically it could be so, there is no way to infer that that’s really what happened. And therefore this stone sign tells me nothing. But there is a third possibility. I can’t hear. There is a third possibility. What? That I’m not sure, and so I say just in case, maybe I’ll miss it. If you’re not sure, that belongs to the laws of doubt; right now I’m talking about the different possibilities. You’re in doubt between these two possibilities, but there is no third possibility. This connects to yesterday’s lecture. Yesterday I talked about whether there can be a state where you’re not completely sure, you only have partial commitment to the system of commandments, not full commitment but also not total lack of commitment. The sorites paradox. In any case, for our purposes, that is basically the example. Now, what is this all about? Taylor basically wants to make the following claim: let’s look, for example, at our visual system. Our visual system is very, very complex, very complex, insanely complex. Now, such a complex system—and now when I see, I don’t know, I see a picture on the wall in front of me, I say: apparently there’s a picture here. Then the skeptic comes and says to me: listen, such a complex system was arranged by chance; who says there really is a picture here? Why do you infer that there is a picture here? I say: one of two things. Either I think this system was built intentionally to reflect reality to me, meaning it is a reliable system, and then if I see a picture I assume there really is a picture here. Or I say that this is a system that arose by chance, but then the fact that I see a picture means nothing. One thing can’t be done: you can’t say that this system was arranged by chance and also believe the appearance of the picture, assume there is a picture here if I see it. Because if it was arranged by chance, what are the odds that such a very complex system, arranged by chance, is also reliable? Yes, like the sign to Scotland. What are the odds that such a well-arranged and organized stone sign happened by chance, and happened right at the gateway to Scotland? That is, it happened exactly there. There’s no chance of that. Theoretically it could happen, but if I have no concrete information that this is what happened, there is no logic in assuming that this is indeed what happened. And therefore Richard Taylor makes the following claim: let’s assume that we are now looking at the system, looking at our visual system, right? Let’s look with the eyes of the mind at our visual system. Then we can relate to it in two ways. We can assume it is a system built in such a way that it reflects reality to me, it is a reliable system, and then if it shows me a picture, I assume there really is a picture here. I can assume it is a system that arose by chance, but then I have no basis at all for believing what it delivers, the information it gives me. Therefore I have no basis at all for inferring that if I see a picture then there is probably a picture here. One thing cannot be, that I assume it was arranged by chance and also believe the system. Right? Think about Fred Hoyle’s Boeing example, right? A typhoon passes over a junkyard and by chance takes all the junk there and builds a Boeing airplane out of it. Okay? Could such a thing happen? The answer is, maybe it could, maybe it couldn’t, but if it happened, then someone intended it. Okay? Meaning, it didn’t happen by chance. It’s not reasonable, even though theoretically it could happen by chance, but when I see such a situation, the simple assumption is that it didn’t happen by chance. I’ll get back to this analogy. What he’s basically saying is this: if you trust your visual system, then you have to assume it did not arise by chance. That is really the claim. Because if it arose by chance, there is no justification for trusting it. And therefore this is basically a proof of the existence of a factor that built your visual system. God, let’s call Him that for the sake of this argument.
[Speaker B] Okay? Is evolution chance? I can’t hear. Is evolution chance?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] We’ll talk about evolution later. In principle, evolution is chance, yes. We’ll discuss it later. The challenge from evolution here is obvious. I just want to sharpen the argument and its meaning first, and then at the end I’ll come to the objections too. So in fact Richard Taylor’s claim is: you can choose not to trust your eyes, no problem, I have nothing to say about that, go ahead. But if you do trust your visual system, then you are assuming it did not arise by chance. That is basically his claim, and therefore you believe in God. Now notice what the meaning of this argument really is, where it is located on the map of arguments that I drew here. It is very similar to the physico-theological argument. What does the physico-theological argument say? It basically says: look, we have a visual system that is very, very, very complex. Therefore it is unlikely that it arose by chance. Right? That is essentially the physico-theological argument. I’m applying it to vision; it doesn’t matter, we could talk about the whole world, but let’s focus for a moment on vision. That is, I look at my visual system, which is very, very complex, and I say: such a complex system, and one that is also directed, right, it correctly reflects the world, cannot arise by chance. Then the atheist comes and says: why not? A complex system can arise by chance, maybe evolution or whatever. But there is—it can also just be random. It can happen even without evolution; let’s leave evolution aside for a moment. Just random chance, a system can arise, things arise this way or that way, and by chance a complex system emerged. That is his objection to the physico-theological argument. Now Richard Taylor’s argument comes and attacks him in a pincer movement. It says to him: fine, if you think it arose by chance, I’m willing to accept that for the sake of discussion—but then don’t trust it. In other words, you can’t dance at both weddings. The standard physico-theological argument argues: this can’t be, the probability is negligible. Richard Taylor says: leave it, leave it, I accept that it arose by chance. Fine, I’m not arguing. Even a strained argument can be correct. I have no problem with that. But one thing you have to admit: if it arose by chance, then you cannot trust your visual system. Why not? Why not? In the end, that Boeing flew a million times; that gave me confidence that it’s okay. That’s all. The confirmation here will come from experience. Let’s talk. Fine, let’s talk. No problem.
[Speaker C] But you have to include the other senses too, no? Because the other senses confirm the sense of sight.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Correct, we’ll talk about all the senses. We’ll talk about the whole sensory system. We won’t talk only about vision—vision is just an example. I’ll expand the argument further and further. At this stage I’m taking vision because it’s an example through which I want to sharpen the logical sting, yes, the punch, so to speak. So the claim here in practice is that even if the atheist is willing to accept the strange or far-fetched claim that a complex system can arise by chance, he still cannot avoid drawing the required conclusions from it. So if that’s the case, you can’t trust it. Therefore I say to him: look, you can assume it arose by chance and not trust it; you can trust it, but then not assume it arose by chance. What you cannot do—and this is in fact what the atheist does—is assume it arose by chance and also trust it. And I’m assuming that the atheist here is an atheist who is not a skeptic. If he is a skeptic, that’s a different matter. But if he’s not a skeptic, then he does trust his visual system. So here I say to him: listen, you are living in a contradiction. I’m not arguing with you that a complex thing can arise by chance. It can, fine, I have no problem. For the sake of discussion I do argue with that, but that was the subject of the previous proof. In this proof I’m not arguing with it; I accept it. I’m only saying: then remain consistent with your assumption. Consistency requires you not to trust the visual system if it arose by chance. Now—and I want to sharpen this, we’ll get to all the objections, there are objections here—I just want first to make the argument very clear. What needs to be understood here is that I haven’t actually proved to the atheist that he believes in God. I haven’t proved to the atheist that there is a God, sorry. What I have proved to him is that he himself believes in God. Maybe it’s not true, maybe there is no God, but you yourself are a believer. Because if you trust your sensory system, then apparently you are a believer. You apparently think it did not arise by chance. It may be that you’re mistaken and I’m mistaken too, and the truth is that everything arose by chance and one cannot trust the sensory system. This kind of argument is not an argument about reality itself, whether there is or is not a God. It is an argument about the subject, about my interlocutor. I show him that he himself implicitly believes in God. He may be mistaken and he may not, but don’t tell me that you don’t believe in God—you do.
[Speaker B] Why can’t you say that it arose by chance, and after it arose he looked at it, he examined it, and reached the conclusion that he can?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] There’s no way to check. How would you check? With the senses? My question is about all the senses. That’s exactly the point. But I’ll say this: these are objections—the objection from experience—and I’ll get to that. I did speak specifically about sight, but I can talk about all the senses; not only all the senses, but also all my thinking, all my grasp of things, all perception, all cognition—yes, all my perceptions. Who says I’m not trapped inside some bubble I built for myself? Why do I allow myself to rely on that when I draw conclusions about the world? Fine, I’m already expanding this beyond sight. But I’ll get to that broader expansion in a moment. So this argument, basically—there are two things important to understand about it. First, it’s very similar to the physico-theological argument. The physico-theological argument says: there is a complex world here; a complex thing does not come into being on its own by chance; therefore there is someone who assembled it. That’s the previous argument we discussed, the physico-theological argument. Against that argument, the atheist will come and say: not true, complex things can come into being by chance. Fine—I don’t accept the premise that a complex thing does not arise by chance. So we philosophized about that in the previous argument. Now Richard Taylor comes and says: forget it, I’m not philosophizing with you. Fair enough. You can accept an argument—you can accept the formation of something complex by chance, without a guiding hand—but then you have to draw the necessary conclusions from that. You can’t assume that it was formed by chance and also make use of it. Think, for example, about this: we saw a computer, okay? And the computer—I mean, I see some machine in front of me. In front of me is a computer. Nobody knows how it was built; I found it on the seashore. Okay? You know what—not on the seashore, on the moon. Okay? Nobody—and this is Neil Armstrong, right? I’m the first person to arrive there, and I find a computer lying on the sand there. I ask it: what is the next prime number after one hundred and nine? One hundred and nine is prime. What’s the next prime number? So the computer gives me one hundred and thirteen. Now suppose I don’t know how to check which numbers are prime and which aren’t. Would I accept that? The answer is no. Why? Because as long as I don’t know that this computer was built in a way that knows how to perform such calculations, that someone designed it and someone built it, intended it for that and planned it accordingly so it would correctly carry out those calculations, I have absolutely no reason in the world to assume the result it gives me is correct. In this case, by the way, it is correct. But I have no way of saying that the result it gives me is correct. Maybe it’s a computer that just adds four to every number I type into it. I entered one hundred and nine, it gave me one hundred and thirteen. Who says it’s answering the question, what is the next prime number? And therefore, as long as I haven’t checked what the next prime number is, I can’t trust this computer, right? Or I can trust it if I spoke to the person who designed it and he told me, listen, I built a machine here, I tested it, I know how to do this—this machine knows how to calculate prime numbers. No problem. But if I have no one who told me anything about this computer or this machine, there is absolutely no reason in the world to accept its answer. The probability that this computer just happens to answer the exact question I asked it is negligible. Think about a system, a machine as sophisticated as a computer. There are infinitely many such machines at this level of sophistication, and each one does something different. What are the chances that the machine in front of me is exactly the one that gives me the answer to the question, what is the next prime number? If it came into being by chance, if I know nothing about how this machine came into being and what its function is and why it was intended and why it was fitted for that, then there is no reason in the world to trust the answer it gives me. Only if I have an independent indication, yes? For example, from the person who built the machine, or from someone who tried it before and checked the results, or whatever. But from the mere fact that it gives me a result, I cannot infer any conclusion if I think this machine is an accidental machine, that it just came into being here, was built for some purpose but not necessarily for the purpose of the questions I’m asking. Only if I have some indication—if, say, I know how to check and I see that indeed one hundred and thirteen is the next prime number—if I know how to check that myself, then that confirms for me that this machine does the job, and once again I will trust it. Or if someone else told me, listen, I built it in such a way that it gives answers to the question of what the next prime number is—then I’ll trust it too. But I need some independent indication. The mere fact that the machine produced an answer means nothing if I know nothing about the machine. That machine is my eyes, or my sensory system in general. My sensory system gives me answers to questions—what is here, how does this behave, what does that do—questions about the world. Why should I trust the answers I get from this system? If this is a system about which I know nothing, that came into being on its own through some accidental arbitrary process, then maybe by chance it gives the right answer, like the computer. But if I don’t have an independent indication that the answer here is correct, I won’t accept it. Because systems this complicated could be programmed to show me a movie of what’s happening in Australia, not what’s happening in front of my eyes, or they could be programmed to show me a movie that is completely fictional—there is no such thing as Australia—or they could be programmed to do all sorts of things, to give me suggestions for certain purposes, to cause me to do things. I can raise infinitely many hypotheses about what my sensory system is intended for, or what it was built for, or what it’s suited for. As long as I do not know independently that it is a system that reflects the external world to me, I have absolutely no reason in the world to assume that. Now notice that I have no independent source that tells me this. Because when I speak about the entire sensory system, not just the eyes, then how do I know that the whole sensory system really reflects the world correctly? I have no non-sensory sources that can give me feedback on this issue. I have no way to check the computer and see whether one hundred and thirteen really is the next prime number. The only thing I can do is believe what the computer says. But there is no reason to believe what the computer says—it’s such a complicated system that if it wasn’t created for this, then what are the chances that one hundred and thirteen really is the next prime number? No chance. So if I now take, by analogy from that computer, our whole sensory system—not just eyes: touch, taste, hearing, sight, everything, yes? I take our whole sensory system and compare it to that computer, or to the inscription of stones in Scotland and so on—yes? Then one of two things is true: either I assume that someone created it for the purpose of helping me function, that it should reflect the external world to me, and then I trust it—that’s fine. How do I know that? I don’t know, from the previous three proofs. But if I know that, if I assume that, that it was built by the Holy One, blessed be He, in order to enable me to function, then there is justification for the trust I place in this system. If I claim that this is something that came into being by chance, because I don’t accept the proofs that someone created it, no problem. This argument says: maybe it came into being by chance, but then don’t trust it. You cannot assume it came into being by chance and also trust it—that doesn’t work. You can’t assume this computer came into being by chance on the seashore and when it gives you the answer one hundred and thirteen you declare, the next prime number is one hundred and thirteen—that’s nonsense. Because it produced one hundred and thirteen by chance; there is absolutely no reason in the world to assume it is actually giving you the next prime number. Only if you know something about it independently. If, for example, you know that the stone inscription really was arranged by the government of Scotland, then you say, fine, then this stone inscription is telling me something. Or if you know that it was arranged by chance but, amazingly, you read in the newspaper that a miracle happened: a stone inscription arranged by chance as a result of a storm wrote the words ‘Welcome to Scotland,’ and believe it or not, it happened at the entrance to Scotland. Fine—if I read that in the newspaper, and assuming there’s something true there besides the date, then I accept that this sign is located at the entrance to Scotland. But if I didn’t read it in the newspaper, I have no indication, and I say that this system was arranged by chance, then the conclusion that I’m standing at the entrance to Scotland is utterly baseless.
[Speaker B] Is my intellect part of the sensory system?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Of course. It’s part of the faculties with which I’m built, yes. Our sensing, our perception, includes brain components; it’s not just the physical eyes or ears, it’s also the processing centers of sight and hearing. Yes, that’s obvious. What I call sight is the whole system, including the brain. So this whole system is a kind of computer. Now, if I assume that this computer is just some thing that came into being as a result of a tornado passing over a junkyard, then to board this Boeing airplane and count on it to take me to Australia—I’d have to be suicidal if I understand that it came into being as a result of some random typhoon.
[Speaker B] But if I compare it to the example of the computer on the moon, then I’m also part of the computer.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Exactly. That’s why here I cannot have an independent indication. With an ordinary computer I can have an independent indication: I test it with another computer, or I test it myself with my own calculation, I work out what the next prime number is. But when I’m talking about my entire perceptual system, it’s a kind of computer that I cannot step outside of. I have no source outside it that can give me feedback as to whether this computer works or doesn’t work, because this computer is everything—there is nothing outside it, there is nothing but it.
[Speaker C] In the evolutionary process, it’s reasonable to assume that the one who survived was the one who acted in accordance with reality.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Again, that principle from evolution—I’ll get to it. All right? We’ll talk about it. I just want to clarify the nature of this argument. Now here there is a subtle point, and you have to pay attention to it. Someone who raises an argument like this can be accused of pragmatism. And in my view that is a serious accusation. That is to say, pragmatism is a philosophy—some people call it a philosophy; I call it nonsense—but a philosophy that is very common in America, in the United States, and it basically identifies truth with usefulness, with the pragmatic. In other words, I adopt claims not because they are true but because they are effective, useful. They tell me: why is democracy the right system? Because it works best, or least badly. Even that I’m not so sure about anymore, living in Israel in these years, but suppose so. That claim is a pragmatic claim. Now if you are not claiming that democracy is correct, if you’re claiming that it’s the most efficient, then there’s no problem—that’s a tautology, because if it’s the most efficient then it’s the most efficient, obviously. If you say, no, no, it’s also the most moral system, or I don’t know what, the most whatever, or the most correct in some abstract sense—you cannot say that it is the most correct because it works. Says who? Nazism worked too. It had a very, very efficient regime. So what? Does that mean it was right? The fact that something works does not mean it is right, unless you are talking about being right relative to its goals, yes? Right as in efficient. If it’s efficient, then it’s efficient, obviously. But the fact that it is useful does not mean it is true. And pragmatism shamelessly claims that it does. I think hidden within it is some kind of despair about inquiries into what is true, despair about philosophy or ethics or whatever, and so people say: forget it, let’s adopt what works; forget what’s true, let’s adopt what works. Which is really a kind of skepticism that says: I have no way to reach what is true and what is not true, so if it works, fine. That is basically the skeptical method. Now here, say in the skeptical method, they tell me: look, let’s adopt the fact that there is God because if I assume there is God then I can function in the world, then I believe my senses, I believe my thinking, maybe with morality too I can believe it—we’ll talk about that later—it will be efficient, useful, so let’s adopt belief in God. That is despicable pragmatism, because there is absolutely no reason in the world to assume there is a God just because it is useful. That’s what Marx would call the opium of the masses. He said that belief or religion is the opium of the masses, and he was right, since many people adopt it because it gives them a comfortable life, solves problems for them. Fine, if it solves your problems, it’s useful, so let’s adopt it. That is pragmatism.
[Speaker B] Like they said, if God didn’t exist, it would have been necessary to invent Him.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, exactly—not only would it have been necessary, people really did invent Him, yes. The point is—and there are many people who say yes, yes, openly: it’s convenient for me, I live this way, it gives me good experiences, it makes my life richer, therefore I believe in God. Those are pragmatic arguments. People who argue that way are atheists; I do not count them for a prayer quorum. They can observe the entire Mishnah Berurah in every fine detail, but they do not count for a prayer quorum, because they do not really believe in God. They adopt a fictional idea because it is useful. That is really the meaning of pragmatism, yes. It’s like Ahad Ha’am, who recommended keeping Jewish law, at least its principles, because it preserves the social cohesion and the cultural continuity of the Jewish people—not because the Holy One, blessed be He, commanded it and it is binding. So such a person does not count for a prayer quorum. He can pray with devotion three times a day—he’s an atheist. The fact that he invented some God in order to make his life more efficient and comfortable is irrelevant. By the way, even if it makes life morally better, that still changes nothing, because if there is no God, then there is no God. The fact that if there is a God life becomes better does not mean there is a God. Therefore, from my perspective, pragmatism is an accusation. When you say that a certain argument is a pragmatist argument, that means a foolish argument. Now there are those who relate to the kind of argument I raised earlier—our eyes and our sensory system—as a pragmatist argument. Why? Because they say: look, you basically want a basis for your trust in the senses, and now you’ve come to the conclusion that the assumption that this came into being by chance does not give you such a basis, so you invent God in order to have such a basis. Later we’ll also talk about the basis for morality—God as the basis for morality—and there too the same accusation: you invent God so that you can have valid morality. That is pragmatism. Again, pragmatism whose goal is not self-interest in the narrow sense but a value-interest—that there should be a moral world, all very nice—but it is still pragmatism, because it says nothing about the question whether God really exists. Therefore, this kind of argument that I’ve raised here is an argument that often smells like pragmatism: you are basically inventing God so that He will give you some basis for things you want to trust—morality, sensation, thought, whatever. I want to distinguish very clearly between the argument I presented earlier and a pragmatist argument, because it is not a pragmatist argument. I am making a different claim here. I’m saying: assuming that I trust my senses, then clearly, implicitly, I am assuming that there is someone or something that created them; they did not come into being by chance. The fact—I’ll formulate it like this, look. Basically, you know that in logical implication, logical implication is built like this: A implies B, yes? If A then B. You cannot infer from that that if B then A, right? If the sun is shining, then there is light. Fine? Does that mean that if there is light then the sun is shining? No—maybe there is an electric lamp producing light, right? In other words, the fact that A implies B does not mean that B implies A. But it does mean that not-B implies not-A, yes? If there is a sun, then there is light. From here one can infer that if there is no light, then clearly the sun is not shining. That is a valid argument. In other words, A implies B; the equivalent statement is that not-B implies not-A. It is not correct to say that B implies A; reversing the direction of implication is invalid. Reversing it and negating it—that is valid. The negation of B implies the negation of A. That’s a simple point in logic. What does that actually mean? It means this: if God created my sensory system, then I can trust it. That’s the statement A implies B. Conclusion: if I do not trust it—wait, how does it go there? No—if there is no God, sorry, if there is no God, it is impossible to trust the sensory system. Fine? That is A implies B. A is: there is no God, and if there is no God then it is impossible to trust the sensory system. What conclusion follows from here? If I do trust the sensory system—that is not-B, because B is not trusting the sensory system, so not-B is trusting it—if I trust the sensory system, then not-A, so not ‘there is no God,’ so there is God. Fine? That is the logical argument I’m talking about. Now, you can go directly or you can go the other way, but it doesn’t matter—it is valid either way. Therefore, going in the opposite direction here is not a pragmatist move; it is logically valid to go in the reverse direction here. It is not pragmatism. If I trust my sensory system, that means there is a God, because if there were no God then I would not be able to trust my sensory system. Now of course you can ask: yes, but who told you that one can really trust the sensory system? After all, you assume that one can trust the sensory system, and the conclusion is that there is a God. But that itself—who told you that one can trust the sensory system? That is my assumption. My assumption is that the sensory system is reliable. I experience it, I see it, whatever—each person and his own reasons. But if that is my assumption, if I really think that is true, then the conclusion is that there is a God. And that is the difference. If I say, I want to trust the sensory system, I have no indication, I want to, therefore there is a God—that makes me a pragmatist. But if I say, I trust the sensory system, I feel with every fiber of my being that it is correct, I have a strong intuition that it is correct; conclusion: there is a God—that is not pragmatism, that is a valid logical argument. Is the difference clear? It looks very similar, but it’s a completely different world. This is not opium for the masses. I am not inventing something in order to make life more comfortable for myself; rather, I really think—it’s not convenience—it is really true that my senses reflect reality, and therefore the conclusion that there is a God is not a pragmatic conclusion. Pragmatism? No—a logical conclusion that follows from here. Let’s formulate the other argument, which I’ll get to later, but which follows the same pattern. I say: if there is no God, then all is permitted and they have killed me there, yes? If there is no God, there is no valid morality. Without God there is no valid morality. We won’t get into the basis of that right now; I’ll discuss it later. I just want you to see the pattern of the argument. If there is no God, there is no valid morality. If I believe there is valid morality, then that means there is a God, right? Not-B implies not-A. The pragmatist will say: wow, this is a frightening world; a world without God has no valid morality. So let’s invent God so people here will behave normally. That is pragmatism. Fine? There’s some joke about the Roman nobleman and his slave—how does it go? I don’t remember anymore. The Roman nobleman who tells his slave that there is a God so the slave won’t kill him or something—I don’t remember, there’s some joke about pragmatism, I don’t remember it now. In any event, the distinction between pragmatism and a logical claim that goes from the consequent back to the antecedent, yes, reversing the direction of implication—that difference is subtle, but it is an abyssal difference. It is something entirely different. The second argument is a philosophical argument; the first one is nonsense. Pragmatism is philosophically nonsense. The second argument is a valid philosophical argument. You can come and attack me: yes, but who told you that there is valid morality? Yes, Voltaire, right. Who told you that there is valid morality? Or who told you that the sensory system correctly reflects reality? Good question. I’ll have to—but that is true of every logical argument. In every logical argument I start with premises and derive some conclusion from them. And you can always ask me: who told you the premises are true? I say: my intuition tells me the premises are true. Therefore there is nothing special here about these arguments; these are arguments based on a premise, and where do you get the premise from? From intuition, I don’t know from where. So that is true of every logical argument, so it is not an accusation, obviously. Every logical argument begins from some premises. So if I have premises that seem reasonable to me, I think they are true, and from them I derive the conclusion that there is a God, that is a valid logical argument. Even though it goes from morality to God and not from God to morality. Yes, the constructive argument basically says: from the very fact that there is complexity, that means there is a God. The revealing argument basically says: from the fact that I think this complexity is reliable, that means I think there is a God. It does not mean there is a God, by the way. Arguments of this kind—and that is the second remark I wanted to make—arguments of this kind do not prove the existence of God. They only reveal to me that I believe in His existence. If I think there is valid morality, or I think my senses correctly reflect reality, then I am a believer. I may be mistaken; maybe there is no God. But I cannot say that I am an atheist. I have discovered the fact that I myself am a believer. Arguments of this kind—what I called revealing arguments—are arguments that reveal to me what is already inside me. They do not reveal reality to me; rather, they reveal to me what I already believe. Therefore, many times there is a certain discomfort with these arguments when I say to a person: listen, I’m arguing with an atheist. I say to him: do you trust your eyes? He says: yes, of course, why not? I say: now you know that if this came into being by chance, there is no reason to trust them. Then he thinks for a moment. Then I say to him: fine, so if you trust them, that’s a sign there is a God. He has two ways out. He can say: you know what? You’re right, I was mistaken, there is a God—and not only is there a God, but I always believed in Him, I just wasn’t aware of it, because in fact I trusted my senses. That’s the first response. The second response: you know what? You’re right, then I don’t trust my senses. If he says something like that, I have nothing to say to him. He is consistent. He doesn’t believe in God, and therefore he really doesn’t trust his senses either. I was wrong to trust my senses—that’s what he’ll say to me. And then either you were wrong in trusting your senses, or you were wrong in thinking you were an atheist. But you had some mistake. If you embrace the mistake of trusting your senses, you can remain an atheist. But if you understand that your mistake was in atheism, then I have convinced you that you are a believer. Not that there is a God, but that you are a believer. All right? So arguments of this kind are not arguments that prove something about the world itself. They are arguments that reveal something to a person about himself. Something that was hidden within him already beforehand, without his being aware of it. Yes? If you—I’ve already mentioned in this connection, I think, that joke about Abraham our patriarch and the hat, yes—that how do we know that every Jew must walk around with a hat? It says, ‘And Abraham went.’ A Jew like him certainly didn’t go without a hat, right? And if Abraham went with a hat, then we, his descendants, who walk in his ways, also have to go with a hat. Which was to be proved. What’s the problem with that argument? The answer is—we already discussed this, I think—the answer is that there is no problem with that argument; the argument is valid. Why is the argument disturbing? Because it assumes what it needs to prove. What does that mean? Inside the argument, notice, I said that such a person certainly did not go without a hat. What does that assumption actually mean? That a Jew certainly does not go without a hat, right? That’s really what I assumed. In other words, the assumption that every Jew has to go with a hat was one of the assumptions on which I built the argument. But actually I can look at this as a revealing argument. I can say: I think every Jew has to go with a hat. If I don’t—sorry, I think—how does it go there? No, there it’s a trivial case of begging the question. There it won’t help. I have to assume that every Jew must go with a hat, and only then will it prove to me that every Jew must go with a hat. That is of course a trivial case of begging the question. But in arguments of the kind we are making here, these are arguments in which, if I start from the point that I want to trust my senses and infer the conclusion that there is a God, then I have not reached the conclusion that I believe in God; I have reached the conclusion that it is worthwhile to invent God. But if I say, I trust my senses, and from here I infer the conclusion that apparently, implicitly, I believe in God, then I have reached the conclusion that I believe in God. That is still not the conclusion that He exists, but it is the conclusion that I am not an atheist—I believe in God. That is basically the claim. Yes, Anselm in his argument turns to the villain, yes—‘The villain said in his heart, there is no God.’ So he says to the villain: do you accept the fact that there is a consistent definition of the perfect being, that supreme being you can conceive of? He says yes. And from that he reaches the conclusion: that means you believe in God. Now the atheist can respond in one of two ways: either to say, you know what, you’re right, I was mistaken, I’m not an atheist, I believe in God. That of course won’t happen, but that’s one possible response. The second possible response is: you know what, you’re right, there is some problem with the definition of the greatest being that can be conceived. Apparently that definition is not a good definition. I retract that definition. But he cannot say: the definition is a good definition, yet I still think there is no God. That won’t work. So what Anselm really did was prove to him that he himself believes in God. Not that there is a God—he did not prove that there is a God. He proved to him that if he thinks this definition is consistent, then he himself is a person who believes in God. The question of whether there is or is not a God depends on whether he is right or wrong. I’m not talking about the world itself. The proofs of the previous type—the ones I brought earlier, the physico-theological proof or the cosmological proof—those are proofs that speak about the world itself. Those are proofs that say: come, I’ll prove to you that it is reasonable that there is a God in the world itself. The proof of the type I’m speaking about here is a proof that demonstrates to a person that he himself is not an atheist. He himself believes in God. Because you can see it through the implications of that belief in his life: that he thinks he has valid morality, that he trusts his own perception, and so on. In other words, the implications express some hidden belief, so hidden that even he himself was not aware of it. So I reveal to him the belief that was inside him. Okay? So this is this type of proof, the fourth type—the revealing proofs, or theological proofs. These are proofs that basically say: I start from some conclusion—that my senses are reliable, or that there is valid morality, that’s the conclusion—and I go backward and build the theory that can ground that conclusion. And the theory is that there is a God who created my senses, and therefore they are indeed reliable. You see how this connects to the joke I told at the beginning about the philosopher and the theologian. The philosopher starts with premises and derives a conclusion from them. He has premises: the world is complex, a complex thing does not arise by chance, therefore there is a God. That’s the philosopher. The theologian says: there is a God—that is his premise. Let’s find premises and an argument that will lead to that conclusion, that will ground that conclusion. People always think that’s not honest. No, it is honest. Why? Because if that conclusion is something you truly believe, then implicitly I can go backward and claim that you probably believe the whole argument too, including its premises. If you think the senses are reliable, then you probably also, implicitly, believe that there is a God. And that’s fine—I did not prove to you that there is a God. I proved to you that you yourself believe in God. Maybe you’re right, maybe you’re wrong—examine yourself. But know that you are a believer. And many times philosophical arguments that come up in such a debate, arguments against atheists, are not arguments that prove there is a God; they are arguments that prove to the atheist that he himself is an implicit believer. He wasn’t aware of it, but actually within his own assumptions, if he digs deeply enough, he will find belief in God there. He is simply not aware of it. That does not mean that neither he nor I are mistaken; maybe we are both mistaken and there is no God. But you yourself—know that you yourself assume that there is. So don’t tell me you’re an atheist. This is a different kind of proof. I’ll sharpen this a bit more later; in the context of morality it will be even sharper, but we’ll get to that in future sessions. Okay, any comments or questions?
[Speaker D] Yes, after all, a person is born and gains experience; maybe he doesn’t believe, but he sees that it works.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But again, experience—works in what sense? True, or works? If it works, that’s pragmatism. If he sees that it is true, that’s the argument from experience, and I already answered that. Because when he says that it is true, when he sees that it is true, he sees it also by means of his senses. So the senses cannot give feedback to the senses. I’m asking about the totality of your sensory perception. Who told you that you can trust it? He says: because if I hear something and afterward I also see it. I say: fine, but your hearing and your sight together, your whole sensory system—do you have any independent indication that it works? No, there cannot be one. Because every indication you receive comes through the sensory system. You have to assume that it is reliable. You cannot infer the conclusion that it is reliable. You assume a priori that it is reliable. And then I ask: on what basis? Apparently you believe there is something, someone, who created it, who formed it, and that it is a reliable system. Yes, it’s a computer that really does output the next prime number. And therefore I believe that one hundred and thirteen really is the next number. All right? Okay then, Sabbath peace. Sabbath peace.
[Speaker C] Goodbye. Sabbath peace.