God is playing hide and seek.
So many rational people who try to find out whether God exists come to the conclusion that there is no good enough evidence for His existence, much less a God who commands, and certainly a God who dictated the Torah we have in our hands. You claim that all those many good people are probably wrong because you think there are good arguments, so far so legitimate.
My question is: Assuming that God really exists, why hasn't He provided us with clear enough evidence of His existence so that so many rational people who come willingly and without resistance to be convinced of His truth won't be deceived? Are you claiming that all those people don't really come open to clarification and that any reasonable, unbiased person should immediately grasp this? (God does not command, does not require any commitment, and even God commands, He comes with all sorts of indulgences of meaning, etc., so it's not clear where there is more evil inclination.)
First, I think he did provide. People who are not convinced are probably biased. I am not claiming that they are biased from looking at them. My starting point is that the arguments are good, and the implication is that those who disagree with them are probably biased. Therefore, I do not see myself having to provide explanations for their bias.
Second, even if this is not true, I have no explanation for God's policy on this matter, as with many other things in His leadership of the world.
God created the world so that we would do His will (morality + law). The whole game begins when you recognize God as the commanding one, and then you are required to choose good. There is enough of an evil inclination that we will not do good even when it is clear to us. God brought us here in the world with pretty bad starting conditions so that the game does not even begin for so many people in the world. There is such a strong geographical correlation that determining whether you start the game depends almost entirely on where you grew up and how you were raised.
I understand that you claim that after you have strong evidence for the existence of El Mitzvah, all other questions remain to be examined and do not disprove its existence, but:
1. You also admit that God, who revealed Himself to reveal His will to us, is weaker than our vision and our evidence is not very high there.
2. All of these questions may not necessarily change your belief in His existence, but each one of them is at least a blow to the theory of God commanding existence, while the theory of God commanding non-existence fits in perfectly with all of the above questions.
How many such questions will be enough to change the paradigm as Rabbi Thomas Kuhn taught us?
One could also ask why he gave us a choice and didn't program us to do what he wants. Apparently, beyond the bottom line, he also wants us to choose. As such, he may want us to get to this point and not spoon-feed us. But as I said, I think the evidence is good and the instincts are in our hands and not his, and therefore this whole discussion is only about the side that doesn't.
Hello Rabbi,
I listened to all the arguments I was able to find, and I still haven't reached a sufficient level of certainty. The claim that if we know for sure that God demands religious requirements from us, it will deprive us of the ability to choose is a false claim, because we see in the Bible that even when there is certainty in the reality of God, the people of Israel sin. And even people who have experienced direct revelation sometimes do not keep God's commandments (e.g. Jonah, Moses, David, etc.).
Moreover, from our own reality we know situations in which we have certainty about certain moral truths, and yet we fall and do not uphold them, out of weakness of will, laziness, or following our inclinations. How then can we say that this is only out of inclination or bias?
I think I once heard you explain that if God wanted to teach us lessons through history (assuming he intervenes), then he's a pretty bad teacher because overall there are enough good students here who want to learn authentically and everyone learns something different.
If God wanted to achieve religious goals through our choice to keep His commandments, He would have had to provide clearer evidence for the existence of the revelation at Mount Sinai with the set of commandments from the Torah that Orthodox Judaism today is trying to sell.
Do you think we are really bad students? (Except for those good students who were convinced that God really wants us not to eat pork)
This analogy is irrelevant. My argument about learning from history arises because the argument it attacks speaks of learning from history. This cannot happen and therefore clearly is not the goal. You are expanding the scope to everything that does not sound reasonable to you. What I raised is a problem or contradiction, and what you raise is a question. If you wish, I will tell you that you can indeed prove that God's goal is not the fulfillment of the commandments per se (but rather existence from a decision that is not forced or deterministic, and in your opinion is also not entirely intellectually clear, in my opinion it is clear). As I wrote to you, the evidence for this is the very fact that we were given a choice, rather than being programmed. The same can be said about circumstances that do not necessarily lead everyone to the correct conclusions (and, note, I am not claiming that it was done so that we would have a choice, as is the common claim. In my opinion, this is an unreasonable claim).
I am not attacking the issue of choice. I am completely clear about the value of our choice and that we will not become robots. I am making it difficult for you from the value of choice itself. The whole "game" of choice and its value begins when I know that God forbade me from eating pork. Now I have to choose to observe or not. My problem is that God did not provide clear evidence at all that it is forbidden to eat pork. You claim that He wanted us to "choose" and overcome our biases and realize that if there is a Creator of the world, He is certainly also the one who brought us the Torah 3,000 years ago. My mother claims that it is not at all plausible that so many wise people who openly come to clarify the arguments for the validity of the Torah and tradition (even if they accept the arguments in favor of a Creator of the world) are not authentically convinced by them. Therefore, it is not plausible that God really commanded it. If this was the purpose of creation, it should be clear that these are the rules of the game, and now let's see whether the people of Israel choose to observe or not.
I am beginning to despair. I am writing to clarify that I am not dealing with the question of choice, and the argument that this was done for the sake of choice is foolish in my opinion (precisely because of what you wrote here).
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