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supervision

שו”תCategory: faithsupervision
asked 8 months ago

Hello Rabbi,
Can providence be explained in a way that does not require intervention in the following way:
G-d knows all the choices that all humans will make from the moment the world was created (in an instant or over millions of years), and therefore He arranged the world so that everyone will receive their punishment, or be saved, etc. For example, if the people of Israel keep the Torah, it will rain, because the Almighty knew when they would keep the Torah and arranged for it to rain in those years, and until someone is saved from their pursuers because of a stone in the road.
I know that everything is based on the fact that God knows the future and that the Rabbi’s opinion is not. But on the side that God does know (that’s what I believe), what does the Rabbi think?
Thank you very much!


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מיכי Staff answered 8 months ago
You really don’t need to know the future for a theory like this. You could say that He created laws that would respond to commandments and transgressions, and everything happens automatically. Set and forget. That’s of course possible, but it’s a compromise. You gain nothing from it.

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מנחם replied 8 months ago

Why is this interference? All reward and punishment are predetermined. He does not change nature or interfere with nature to give man his way.

מנחם replied 8 months ago

One could of course say that he created laws that respond to transgressions. But I have no indication that such laws exist. If they are natural then these are things that should be possible to test and examine. We have not consistently seen (in an individual) doing a bad deed and getting the same punishment.
On the other hand, in the theory I proposed, I am not necessarily supposed to see how it works.

מיכי Staff replied 8 months ago

You should definitely see these things in your theory as well.
As for the proposal itself, you need to clarify for yourself what you are trying to answer. Why even assume that He is not involved? It is clear that He can intervene, since the mouth that forbade (created the laws) can also permit (interfere with them). The problem is only that when looking at reality, we see conduct according to fixed natural laws, such as the laws of physics. The thesis about divine involvement does not fit with our worldview, according to which the world seems to operate according to the usual and familiar laws of nature.
But if this is the problem, your theory is of no use at all. Even if God created in creation primarily responses to commandments or transgressions, or implanted responses based on foreknowledge (if you insist on this), it still violates the laws of nature known to us. In other words, there is still a picture here that does not fit with our observations of the natural conduct of the world. Therefore, you have gained nothing. That is why I wrote that it is still involvement for all intents and purposes. There is no difference in the way the world works between divine intervention and your suggestion. The world will look exactly the same.

מנחם replied 8 months ago

The theory that you proposed that he created a correlation between commandments and transgressions and reality really doesn't fit with observation. I wrote that too earlier.
Therefore, I think my proposal solves this problem (although I'm not that enthusiastic about it either). According to my proposal, there is no necessary legality. God determined in advance what He wanted to determine, punish, and reward according to the special conditions of each situation. If there really was a certain legality, I should have seen it, but if there is no necessary legality between a certain commandment and a certain reward, and vice versa for transgressions, but everything is predetermined, then perhaps God, for His own reasons, decided to punish this way or that way. The point is only that He could do it without intervention (i.e. providence without changing nature). And that's what I gain, there is providence without intervention. I don't understand what I missed.

מיכי Staff replied 8 months ago

What you missed is that your proposal also doesn't fit with reality. We were supposed to see that the laws of nature are broken, meaning that we have no natural explanation for what is happening. There are actually no laws of nature.

מנחם replied 8 months ago

What?!
I suggested that when God created the world, He arranged things like this to “settle” reward and punishment or whatever God wants to happen.
For example, He knew in which years the people of Israel would keep the Torah and made sure that “at the creation of the world” it would rain in those years. Down to the small detail that He created the world so that there would be a stone in the way that would make you fall and break your leg for “running your feet to harm”.
I didn't understand where here you have to break the laws of nature.

י.ו replied 8 months ago

In my opinion, he definitely gains something. It can be argued that without changing the laws of physics (which we will assume are completely deterministic for the sake of simplicity) that the Creator could, through the initial conditions (or the value of the constants, etc.), determine as a kind of providence what will happen in each situation according to the different scenarios that can develop (the possible splits due to free choice). The problem is that we enter into the calculation of the degrees of freedom, that is, are there enough degrees of freedom in the initial conditions to support so many possibilities (in simple terms, it grows exponentially according to the possible “nodes of choice” but one could think of the coalescence of some of the branches). Maybe there is a way to calculate this, I have no idea how to approach such a calculation at all.

מיכי Staff replied 8 months ago

Well, there really is no point in that. The entire discussion is based on the unfounded assumption that there is knowledge of future choices. And another assumption that the laws of nature can be adjusted in a way that suits sins and commandments. And all this despite the fact that we see no real connection between sins and commandments and what happens in the world. If he adjusted everything in advance, then why is there really no organized response according to commandments and offenses?
I've exhausted it.

י.ו replied 8 months ago

I'll try to clarify a bit because it seems to have been understood completely the other way around. There are 2 issues. 1. Does it seem like there is providence in terms of the order of the world, etc.? 2. Is it even possible to talk about providence without breaking (at least partially) physical laws. I only addressed 2 (you already wrote that in your opinion the main thing is 1 because at most people claim that laws are broken for the sake of providence). The claim was not based on the fact that there is knowledge of what a person will choose from the options open to him, but rather that there is knowledge of what the options are that are open to him and that it is possible (perhaps) to prepare for all possible scenarios even without knowing in advance what he will choose.

מיכי Staff replied 8 months ago

I understand. But this is a strange quibble. You are basically arguing this: If we adopt the assumption (which is, in my opinion, unfounded) that God knows in advance what will be chosen and when, and also assume that God has no other considerations in determining the laws of nature (but only compliance with the commandments and transgressions. And why was the rest of the universe created) and that there are enough degrees of freedom to adjust this, and also ignore the fact that in practice we do not see providence (a connection between the commandments and what happens), then it would be possible to say that there is providence without involvement in the laws.

So why didn't He really do this (since according to assumption 3 we do not see providence)? Probably because at least one of the first two assumptions is incorrect. In my opinion, both.

מנחם replied 8 months ago

You have to adopt either that God knows in advance, or that there are enough degrees of freedom, not both.
And it's not difficult why you don't see providence. As Y.W. wrote, this is a separate question, here the issue is only that providence does not require involvement, the fact that they don't understand why a baby dies is a different question (which is more in line with the fact that there is no providence, but still a different question).
In my opinion, what I saw as important here is that there is a way to providence without involvement, even if it's not such a consistent explanation for the arrival, it shows that there is no frontal contradiction, perhaps there are better explanations. It just negates the assumption that because there is no involvement there is no providence.

מיכי Staff replied 8 months ago

You definitely need to adopt both. If he knows in advance and there aren't enough degrees of freedom, he won't be able to coordinate the rules to suit all situations.

מנחם replied 8 months ago

If he knows in advance, then there is no need to coordinate the two options. He only coordinates with what the person will choose. If he knew all the choices, then why couldn't he start from an initial state so that everything would work out? In the view of God, it is like a completely deterministic view that any outcome can be calculated.
Are you saying that it is impossible to arrange such a reality? I didn't understand why not.

מנחם replied 8 months ago

Ah, I understand.

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