Deducing God's will from the evidence for his existence is not necessary.
Honorable Rabbi Michi
First, I would like to thank you for the opportunity to ask for your time and answer the questions.
I have been reading your words for years and recently I have also watched some of the debates on the Internet, they are certainly fascinating and I am looking forward to them! If I understood your method correctly, you claim that from the point at which we conclude that God exists with rational probability to the inference that the Torah in our hands was given by Him, there is a double process and the starting assumption of A necessarily affects our attitude towards B. In one place I saw that you claimed that it is similar to two tunnels that are carved from both sides of the mountain and meet in the middle, each side is not a tunnel that goes from one side to the other unless the two tunnels meet in the middle, so one supports and proves the other (I hope I understood you correctly).
After we have concluded that there is a God, the tradition we have (the Torah, the witness argument, etc.) will meet the first inference somewhere halfway, and therefore any challenge to the inference of tradition and Torah from heaven should be stronger, because the assumption/starting point is that there is a God and from this point - somewhere in the middle of the mountain, the second tunnel should only reach there, meaning we assume with a high probability that we have an expectation of revelation and Torah from heaven, we just need to find that authentic Torah.
But here, the proofs for the existence of God – no matter how strong they may be – only prove that there is a creator, but do not necessarily prove the next link in the chain that the creator God wants something from his creatures (apart from their very existence and their actions according to the mechanisms established in them – determinism?).
The biblical text is a foundational text only after we conclude that it is true and authentic (despite all the perplexities it contains, and they are many, because if we conclude that the Torah is heavenly and authentic, it is irrelevant). In your opinion, part of the plausibility leading to this conclusion depends on the starting point that there is a God, but in my opinion, this is not the relevant point. The starting point should be the inference that the existing God wants to reveal himself and demand certain things from us. This is an assumption that is not reasonable in my opinion, it is much more clear that the Creator is not interested in demanding anything from his creatures other than their very existence according to the mechanisms he has embedded in them (based on the evidence for his existence).
For example, let's take any technology, no matter how advanced it may be, for example a Swiss watch with many mechanisms (not exactly on the beach...). The creator of the watch created it in order to tell the time, perhaps even to enjoy the magnificent technology and play with it, but he does not require the hands of the watch to act and choose anything on their own, but rather he wants them to operate in the way he designed and created them and the mechanisms that operate them.
Here lies the weak link in the connection between the two tunnels. The assumption that the Creator wishes to demand that His creatures behave in a certain way and therefore it is reasonable that He revealed Himself to them is an assumption without a necessary rational basis. God – who we have concluded exists – created an amazing wonder called the world, with many mechanisms, including living creatures and humans with intelligent capacity. But this intelligent capacity is part of the mechanisms of the game, just as plants grow, like animal instincts, so intelligence is in the G-d another mechanism created to function as the Creator created.
And hence the argument about morality, even if morality had to be determined by God, it is no different at the level of creation from the mechanism of evolution of viruses or any other natural selection. It is a mechanism that is inherent in humans and not necessarily in animals (after all, it is immoral – in the prevailing perception – for a person to eat his neighbor for appetite, for an animal to devour another animal to satisfy hunger).
I am willing to accept that the entire complexity and reality of morality (requiring that they be) were created by an entity whose perception is limited beyond imagination and the stacking of words and definitions, but the weak link is; how do we know that this entity wants to communicate with us, to reveal itself, to command, to demand actions? All of these are assumptions that stem from human thought and the rooting of religions, perhaps from feelings and experiences, but what do they have to do with rational necessity?
After a little digression, I would be grateful to the rabbi if he could enlighten me on the rationale for this weak link, otherwise there are two tunnels being dug in parallel that will never meet.
With great appreciation
Lavie
First, the very assumption that there is a Creator of the world strengthens the tradition, since some of its opponents start from the premise that there is no one to reveal. Therefore, I disagree with your fundamental assumption.
Second, I explained in the first statement why I think it is a priori likely that he will be revealed. We were given a choice (I am a libertarian), and therefore it is likely that he wants something from us. But he wants it for his own use and for himself, just like the watchmaker. But the watch has no choice.
But to your question, where does he want to communicate with us? Beyond the a priori argument I wrote, also from the tradition we received. Here again the two halves of the tunnel connect.
I either didn't understand your question about morality, or you didn't understand my argument (which is also detailed there in the fourth conversation). I am not proving the existence of God from morality, but rather claiming that if someone believes in valid morality, they necessarily assume the existence of God (because without him there is no valid morality). Therefore, your claim, which essentially means that there is no valid morality, is irrelevant to my argument. Proving God from morality is pragmatism, and I completely reject it. I don't adopt assumptions because they are convenient or useful to me.
Thank you for the clear and quick response.
First, I can only agree that the very belief in God allows for the fact that He has been revealed. For those who do not believe at all, there is no one to be revealed. And if the proof of revelation is not strong enough to prove that there is a God, it is also not proof of the revelation itself, for it has nothing to rely on.
But it's still digging two tunnels at the same time, because reality is one thing and inference about leadership is another. Your book is not available to me, but if there's a link to it, I'd be happy to read it, or any other article that explains the point (I read the notebooks eagerly years ago and have looked at them several times since then).
Your words are summed up in your answer here, that by virtue of the fact that we have a choice, it turns out that it was given to us so that we could choose, it turns out (just as we were given eyes to see and ears to smell), but why should I conclude that the choice itself will be for his use and for him specifically (do the hind legs and the dog's nose necessarily work for his use and for his?).
Similar to a random mechanism – the creator of the mechanism does not know what the results will be, but he defined it that way because from his perspective, any result is desirable because the definition of the result he wanted to achieve is a random reality, so too is choice. Giving choice does not necessarily entail a command to choose the good, if not for the commandment of "and choose life." It simply shows that the one who gave it was interested in implementing a mechanism of choice and nothing more (without going into the question of knowledge and choice, where it is clear to me that God does not know at all what will be chosen and what will be done).
And regarding morality, I think I understand your view, but I argue that it is in the Holy Scriptures another mechanism from the variety of mechanisms that were created and therefore is not binding on its own, as long as or if you do not believe that there is no divine command regarding it. There may be binding definitions defined by man, from Hillel's praise of what is hateful and so on to Kant's categorical imperative (and there is something in common between the two), but the definition of the objective reality of morality, according to you, must be external and whoever believes in this must believe that there is a being who created it. What I argue is that even if, according to you, it is not necessarily true, God created morality, but how do we know that it is His will that it be done this way? These are just more definitions that are part of the tools of the great game.
This is not digging two tunnels at the same time, as I explained. I see no point in repeating the explanation I wrote when you have not raised any argument against me.
Are you kidding yourself or me? First you said it was probably for him and not for us, and now you ask why it's for him and not for us.
I explained the matter of applying our intellect to it. I have nothing to add.
As for morality, I didn't understand anything.
Proving from tradition that God communicates with his creatures is a tunnel in itself. The reality of God is not the other half of the tunnel, even Aristotle's God did not communicate and intervene in the world. The other half of the tunnel, in my understanding, should be an inference of probability that God will reveal himself to his creatures. I am unable to reach this conclusion based on the evidence for God's existence and I have no proof for it (apart from the tradition, which is not convincing without a starting point that God will apparently reveal himself).
I will try to clarify the second point, God created mechanisms, choice is one of them. He wanted the mechanism of choice to be part of the world composed of a variety of mechanisms, but I have no reason to conclude that He wanted me to use my choice to please Him (without an explicit command), He in the Bible wanted me to choose something like any other mechanism does something.
The same goes for morality.
Thank you very much.
I don't know what's unclear here. It seems like you just insist on not understanding the basic point. I'll try again and suggest we finish.
There is a chain of claims that leads to faith and religious commitment. In short: that there is a God. That He revealed Himself and gave Torah. He gave it to the people of Israel. This is the Torah that is familiar to us and has come down to us. Such a chain is not that strong, since each of the links can be challenged. If I have shown a few first links, it strengthens the chain. And if I have shown the end, it goes back and strengthens the whole even more. This is despite the fact that each link can be challenged. This is not an argument, because that is what my argument itself is intended to resolve: the strength of the chain is greater than the strength of each link individually.
I claim that there is good evidence that there is a God. True, maybe it is Buddha, Gilgamesh, or Zeus. But also maybe God Almighty. This God created the world and it is unlikely that it is Buddha (who was a man within the world). Then I predict that he will give us something because every creator wants to achieve something. Indeed, maybe it is Aristotle's God (although it is clearly unlikely, but we will leave that for now). But now I have a tradition that we were given Torah. So you insist that it is still Aristotle's God and the Torah is a fiction invented along the way. Don't you understand that this is a weaker argument than the claim that it is fiction without me having the beginning of the chain? And conversely, without the chain and the tradition the first argument (that he expects something from us, after all, it may be Aristotle's God) is weaker.
In the second part, the basis of the misunderstanding is your use of "mechanism." Choice is not a mechanism. Therefore, it is impossible to say I will choose something just as anything else does something. Something else does something, but in choice, I am the one who chooses, and therefore it is reasonable that it expects me to choose something. This is precisely the difference between choice and a deterministic mechanism.
That's it. I think we've exhausted it.
Thank you for your response, Rabbi Michi.
Since we have reached the end of the matter, let's just summarize the points of contention:
A. According to Rabbi Michai, the God who created the world (for which there is evidence) will also reveal Himself to His creatures. In my opinion, without external proof (which is not from explanation or tradition) that God needs to reveal Himself/has revealed Himself, this is the weak link.
B. In Rabbi Michi's opinion, since the choice was given, it is clear that the one who gives the choice expects them to choose a certain path (and similarly with regard to valid morality). In my opinion, without an explicit command to choose a certain path or to act morally, even if the choice or morality was given by God, these are just mechanisms (or in the Rabbi's language, "mechanisms") that do not actually obligate me by the very fact that God created them.
Thank you again for the wonderful and fruitful website!
A. You are ignoring the other side of the tunnel. You missed the whole point.
B. Choice is not a mechanism. And carefully.
Leave a Reply
Please login or Register to submit your answer