Faith – Lesson 34
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
🔗 Link to the transcript on Sofer.AI
Table of Contents
- [0:01] The fifth stage of the series
- [2:08] The transition to new moves
- [3:41] Our location between deism and theism
- [5:29] The difference between deism and theism
- [7:36] A logical leap to theism
- [11:46] Bertrand Russell’s example
- [16:01] The halakhic doubt between fixed and non-fixed prohibition
- [23:09] The question of the Messiah and doubt
- [27:02] The argument from tradition and disclosure
- [28:20] The philosophical proof for the existence of God
- [32:29] The question of the purpose of creation
- [38:49] Non-morality as a supreme purpose
- [41:25] The paradox of perfection in Rabbi Kook
- [42:49] The secret of worship — a higher need
- [46:53] The expectation of revelation and the historical parallel
- [54:26] Strengthening the argument through accumulation of evidence
Summary
General overview.
The lecture sums up four philosophical paths that led to the conclusion that there is a God in an abstract sense, and places them on the spectrum between deism and theism, while arguing that the fourth path already hints at a God who takes an interest in human beings and in morality. The Rabbi argues that the move to religious faith requires a different approach to traditions about revelation, because a philosophical proof of God neutralizes Russell’s image of the “celestial teapot.” He then suggests, still on the philosophical plane, that it is not reasonable that the world was created only for social morality, and that if human beings have free will, then one should expect a “religious” purpose beyond morality, and therefore also expect a revelation that would communicate it. He emphasizes that the revelation at Mount Sinai is a historical question and not a philosophical one, and that the main persuasive force comes from the accumulation of many indications and not from a single argument, so that the burden of proof may shift to whoever claims the tradition is a myth.
A question about free will and the argument from morality
The Rabbi rejects the proposal to focus on free will as the basis for an argument for God, because the question whether free will exists is itself disputed, and even if free will exists one could argue that it is a product of “physics” or at most points to a spiritual dimension that does not require God. The Rabbi argues that even if there is a spiritual dimension, one can still ask whether it was “made by God” just as one asks that question about the physical dimension, and so in his view this is not a strong argument.
The four paths to proving God and definitions of God
The Rabbi presents four approaches: an ontological proof that infers from God as “the perfect being,” a cosmological proof that infers from the fact that something exists that there is someone who created reality, a physico-theological proof that infers from planning and complexity that there is an “architect” or “engineer” of reality, and “disclosive” proofs that show that a person already believes through indications such as the validity of morality and the reliability of the tools of cognition. The Rabbi emphasizes that the fourth path is not a proof that the believer is correct, but a proof that he is not an atheist, and it challenges him to deal with the possibility that his faith is an illusion.
Deism versus theism and the gap to religious commitment
The Rabbi defines deism as philosophical belief in a transcendent being that created the world but then “sent and forgot,” without practical implications, and defines theism as a religious position in which God is interested in human actions, commands, watches, and may reward and punish. The Rabbi argues that the first three paths lead to pure deism, whereas the fourth path begins to cross toward theism because it presents a God who validates morality, expects certain behavior, and gives human beings reliable cognitive tools.
Bertrand Russell’s teapot, Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi, and Rabbi Kook: even doubt needs an indication
The Rabbi presents Bertrand Russell’s parable of the “celestial teapot” as the claim that not every situation of “I have no argument for or against” is a fifty-fifty doubt, because there are absurd claims to which there is no reason to assign weight. The Rabbi cites a passage in the Talmud, tractate Shabbat 30a, about someone who says to Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi, “Your mother was my wife and you are my son,” and Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi offers him a cup of wine — “Drink and burst” — and explains, based on Rabbi Kook’s Ein Ayah, that this is a principle of rejecting a claim that has no indications. He compares this to the halakhic distinction between a doubt where no prohibition was established and a doubt where a prohibition was established, and argues that in order to generate doubt one needs some indication; “I have no idea” is not enough.
How a philosophical proof of God changes the discussion of revelation and tradition
The Rabbi argues that the philosophical arguments “neutralize the celestial teapot claim” with regard to revelation, because if it is already known that there is a God, then the claim that God revealed Himself does not come “out of the blue” and therefore is not inherently absurd. He illustrates this with an image about Barack Obama: before one knows there is a “Black president,” it sounds absurd, but once it is known that there is such a president, the claim that he did a certain action already requires discussion rather than automatic dismissal. The Rabbi adds that after one recognizes God’s existence and His interest in human beings, testimony of the form “I met Him and He said such-and-such” may even deserve more than a fifty-fifty status unless there are counterarguments, and he compares this to the need for an initial examination when someone claims to be the Messiah, as opposed to someone who does not believe in the coming of the Messiah at all.
Criticism of the Kuzari-style tradition argument and defining the role of philosophy
The Rabbi says that the tradition argument in the style of the Kuzari, “parents do not lie to their children,” is a “dubious” argument and even “quite weak” when it stands on its own, because traditions can form even without deliberate lying. He argues that the same argument receives a completely different status when it rests on a prior philosophical foundation that recognizes the existence of God, because then the tradition is not constructing something baseless but making a claim about a being whose existence has already been established. The Rabbi emphasizes that the question whether there was a revelation is a historical question and not a philosophical one, and that there are no “philosophical tools” to prove that the revelation at Mount Sinai happened, whereas philosophy can discuss the question, “Even if it happened, who says it obligates me?”
The purpose of creation, free will, and the secret of worship as a higher need
The Rabbi argues as a basic assumption that every creature that acts does so to achieve some purpose, and he brings an example from the discussion in Jewish law about set-aside objects on the Sabbath, along with a comment by Arukh HaShulchan on “with no purpose at all,” to show that it is hard to assume action without purpose. The Rabbi argues that it is not reasonable that the purpose of creation is morality in the sense of “a proper society” alone, because there is no logic in creating something so that it will itself be its own purpose, and therefore the purpose has to be “something beyond that” and outside the human being. He adds that if a person has choice, he is not a deterministic “hammer,” and therefore the goals of creation are supposed to be achieved through his conscious decisions, which leads to the expectation that guidance will be needed beyond the morality embedded in man. The Rabbi cites Rabbi Kook in Orot HaKodesh, volume 2, in the discussion of “the problem of perfection and perfecting,” in order to argue that there is value in the process of perfecting itself, and that in a certain sense the human being was created to complete something that God “cannot” do by Himself, and this is called “the secret of worship — a higher need,” and “not every mind can bear this.”
The philosophical expectation of revelation and the move to the historical plane
The Rabbi argues that if morality is not the only goal and there is a “religious purpose” beyond man, then a human being cannot know it on his own, and so “a priori I would expect there to be revelation.” The Rabbi says that the fact that we do not have within us a “halakhic conscience” the way we have a moral sense leads to the expectation that God will reveal or command those purposes, and therefore a tradition about revelation fits the expectation and is not perceived as absurd. He states that now “we are moving to the historical plane,” and there there are objections, refutations, and possible myths, but when the philosophical foundation is sympathetic to the idea of revelation, the burden of proof may shift to the one claiming that this is a myth.
Questions about the delay of revelation and the choice of a particular people, and the clock and evolution analogy
The Rabbi replies that he has no idea why revelation came “a few thousand years after the creation of the world” and why “not to the Chinese,” and he offers the general possibility of maturation processes until human beings appeared at a suitable level of readiness, alongside the distinction that the present generation was not at Mount Sinai either, but their ancestors were. He compares this to Paley’s clock analogy and to questions about non-optimality in evolution, and argues that even if the path looks non-optimal, this does not undermine the conclusion that there is a “clockmaker,” but only teaches that the “mind” of the clockmaker is different from ours. He concludes that difficulties about the “policy” do not touch the basic issue of whether revelation is to be expected, but at most the type of revelation.
The power of the whole, presumptions, and Bayes: accumulation of evidence and not a “bundle of fifty percents”
The Rabbi argues that a single argument in any field is not necessarily “crushing,” but “the whole picture” creates a weave stronger than the sum of its parts, similar to the accumulation of evidence in court. He brings halakhic examples of a presumption formed after three repetitions, and cites Rav Chaim on the three signs of a fool at the beginning of tractate Chagigah, in order to explain that when several signs accumulate, it becomes harder to attribute everything to chance. He rejects the claim that a “bundle of fifty percents” accumulates equally to the other side as well, and says that this is a “statistical mistake,” because this is about conditional probability and “Bayes’ formula,” so the evidence does not accumulate symmetrically in both directions.
Conclusion: Happy New Year and Shabbat Shalom
At this stage the Rabbi rejects the comparison between the improbability of the world without God and the improbability of certain specific details of faith, and declares that later he will examine this while arguing that some of the details “can be thrown out” and what remains “is reasonable.” A participant suggests that perhaps revelation specifically to Israel is connected to a character of argumentativeness, and the Rabbi rejects an essentialist nature for Jews and raises the possibility that the character is a cultural product, while mentioning that the Sages say that the Holy One, blessed be He, “went around to all the nations,” and specifically Israel said, “We will do and we will hear.” The lecture ends with the words “Happy New Year and Shabbat Shalom,” and with the remark that there is no problem of “overdose” in saying Happy New Year.
Full Transcript
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] We finished the first four stages of the series, and now we’re reaching the fifth and final stage.
[Speaker B] Rabbi, can I ask something about the end of the previous lecture? Just before we already… okay. You were talking precisely about Anoch’s third question, Professor David Enoch’s, and honestly we interrupted you there with questions, and in my opinion you didn’t really get to say what your answer to him was. But that’s not mainly what I wanted to ask. I wanted to ask — after all, the proof from morality that the Rabbi brought, Enoch answers it by talking about moral facts, which I never understand what he means by. But why didn’t the Rabbi focus on the moral argument from the fact that free will exists at all? After all, to come and give morality moral validity, you have to have free will. And free will without God isn’t logical in any sense, it isn’t understandable. That very fact — if you give morality moral validity at all, then you also have to give moral validity to free will, and that doesn’t exist without God.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That isn’t connected to morality. It’s connected to free will — that’s one thing, it’s a different topic. And second, I don’t think that proof is a good one, because the question whether we do or do not have free will is, first of all, disputed. Meaning, there are people who claim that we have no free will. And beyond that, even if someone thinks we do have free will, just as physics arose here in some way, something could arise that has the ability to choose freely. At most, maybe this points to the fact that we have a spiritual dimension beyond our physiology. The question is whether the fact that we have a spiritual dimension requires the existence of God, or says anything about the existence of God. I don’t know why it should. If the physical dimension doesn’t say that, then the spiritual one doesn’t either. So it exists just as it exists. And now we have to discuss it in exactly the same way we discussed here whether that was made by God; we can also discuss whether the spirit was made by God. So I don’t think that’s such a strong argument. Fine, but let’s try to move forward. Basically, what we’ve seen up to now are four kinds of moves that can lead us, mainly four, that can lead us to God. The first move was a Kantian ontological proof, and I added one more category — the first three are Kantian. The first proof was an ontological proof, meaning a conceptual analysis leads us to the conclusion that there is a God. The second proof was a cosmological proof: if something exists, then there is someone or something that created it. The third proof was a physico-theological proof, which already says, assumes something about what exists — that it is complex, that it is planned — and therefore there must be someone who created it. The fourth kind, which I added, is theological proofs in quotation marks, or disclosive proofs. Instead of inferential arguments, I spoke about disclosive arguments, and I said that this type of proof basically tries to show a person that he is already a believer. Not to convince him to become a believer, but through all kinds of indications, like morality, like the reliability of our tools of cognition and thought, through various indications to show a person that he already believes, and it may be that he is mistaken. Meaning, this is not a proof that he is right, but it is a proof that he is not an atheist — he is a believer. Now let him deal with whether his faith is an illusion; let him say that. But first of all, it exists in him too, not only in me. That was the fourth move. Now basically we are in the following situation. Let’s say someone was convinced by some of the arguments, all of the arguments, each person according to what he chooses, that there is a God in some abstract sense. And we saw that each kind of argument assumes a different definition of the God it proves. The ontological argument assumes God as the perfect being. The cosmological one as the being that created reality. The physico-theological one as the planner, the architect or engineer of reality. The fourth argument is the being that gives validity and expects from us moral behavior, and gives us tools to know the world, to deal with it, and to manage within it. That’s where we have gotten through the arguments we went over. Where does that place us? It places us, essentially — because I want the two sides to be clear — in the philosophical world it is customary to distinguish between theism and deism. Deism is… and this is a philosophical belief in God. There is some transcendent entity that did something, created the world, gave the… I don’t know, something — that it did something. We reach the conclusion that there is some entity beyond what we know here. And people also call it God, so it’s not just anything, right, not a fairy, but it also assumes something about the nature of that entity. Theism, which is basically religious conceptions, is not satisfied with that. Meaning, they claim that this God is also interested in human actions, commands them, watches them if you like, maybe gives reward and punishment, each religion according to its own view. But there is some kind of interaction between God and the world. The picture of the philosophical God is basically a God who bears some responsibility for what happens here, but it’s third generation, what they call with mobile phones, right — send and forget. Meaning, He did something, created the world, gave us I don’t know exactly what, and went home. It’s a philosophical belief that doesn’t have many implications, or perhaps no implications at all in the practical sense. That’s deism, with a d. Theism is religious belief. Religious belief differs from philosophical belief in that the figure of God there, the one we are talking about, is a God who is interested in what happens here. Not only responsible for it, created what happens here, but interested in what happens here and expects from us, commands us, to do all kinds of things. Meaning, we matter to Him in some way. That is called theism, and the various religions are basically part of theism — different shades, fifty shades of theism. Therefore, very often when you discuss the question whether there is or is not a God, it’s important to sharpen the distinction, and sometimes that sharpening comes דווקא from the atheist side, which says: okay, you convinced me in the philosophical sense that there is a God — what does that have to do with religion, with the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh), with Christianity, with Judaism, or with putting on tefillin? Meaning, what does that philosophical discussion have to do with religious belief? And therefore, very often you’ll hear people who define themselves as atheists in some sense — atheists in the religious sense, a-theists — but they are not a-deists. Meaning, they believe in God in some philosophical sense, and if they didn’t believe, now I’ve convinced them so now they do believe, but they see no connection between that and religious commitment, between that and being religious, between that and theism. There is some logical leap here: the fact that you proved the existence of God doesn’t say much about your obligation to His commandments, or to a certain kind of commandments — Judaism, Christianity, whatever you want. So basically what remains for us is to cross this last gap. Meaning, after we’ve reached the conclusion that there is a God in the philosophical sense, can we move forward and also reach the theistic conclusion? Meaning, that there is religious obligation, that He expects things from us and that we are committed to that, and so on. Where do the four paths we took until now put us on the map between deism and theism? The first three paths are absolute deism. I proved that there is a God who may be perfect, and who created the world and planned it. That’s basically the first three paths. It’s a philosophical God that says nothing in our sense, toward us. But in the fourth path we already begin a little to cross the border in the theistic direction. And that’s an important point to notice. Why? Because once we say that God created us and gave us reliable tools of cognition and thought — meaning we see God as the guarantor that morality is valid and that our cognitive tools are reliable, all the paths we’ve discussed now within the framework of the fourth path — then that means that in some way we matter to Him. Meaning, He created the world in order that within it there would also come to be people — even if by evolution, it doesn’t matter — and therefore this is already a first hint that He did not just create the world and go home. There is something in which we also matter to Him. Now, this still isn’t interaction; it’s not that there is interaction between us and Him in the day-to-day sense. But it does mean that we matter to Him in the sense that He gave us tools to deal with the world — moral, cognitive, intellectual, and so on. Beyond that, the third sub-path within the fourth channel, yes, the proof from… within the proof from morality, says even more than that. It basically says that God expects from us a certain kind of behavior. That’s already almost a religious God. Meaning, there are commands here. True, those commands were not given in some revelatory event, but they are somehow planted within us, in our conscience, in our moral awareness, whatever — but if I attribute this to God, who is the one who gives validity to these things and who commanded us, and we saw last time that I think without that they have no validity, then that means we are already a bit beyond that border between the philosophical and the religious. There is already a small incursion here toward the religious track. But we are still very close to the border that separates deism from theism. Because I’ll formulate it now like this. When I ask myself — the philosophical God created the world — I ask myself maybe… you know what, before that. I want to make a remark about the gap between the philosophical God and the religious God, or between deism and theism. Because very often in such a discussion the atheist says: okay, I’m not a deist but I remain an atheist. Meaning, the fact that you proved to me the existence of God in the philosophical sense still doesn’t show me in any way that I should put on tefillin. And here I already want to qualify that objection. That claim is not precise. There is Bertrand Russell’s well-known parable, which I think I’ve already mentioned more than once, about the celestial teapot. Yes, Bertrand Russell basically says that if someone comes and says that God revealed Himself to him and told him to do this or that, or not to do this or that, then ostensibly we would say: look, after all, you don’t know — either God revealed Himself to him or He didn’t, fifty-fifty. Fine, so if that’s the case then I’m in doubt. Now we have to see what I do in a situation of doubt. Because after all, I have no arguments proving that God did not reveal Himself to him. I don’t know. So I’m in doubt, and that’s already a step forward. Bertrand Russell says: what are you talking about? That’s not true. It’s like someone coming to me and saying that around the planet Jupiter there is orbiting some porcelain teapot, a small porcelain teapot, orbiting the planet Jupiter. Now I ask him how he knows, and he says: I don’t know, either yes or no, neither of us knows. How would we relate to such a claim? Obviously we would throw him down the stairs. Meaning, not every claim for which we have absolutely no argument for or against remains in our eyes at a fifty-fifty status. There are claims that are absurd on their face, and if I have no indication of their truth, then it isn’t fifty-fifty; it’s a hundred-zero, or I don’t know, ninety-nine to one. All right? Meaning, I have no reason — even if I have no indication one way or the other — it is not correct to treat such things as though they were fifty-fifty, and then to start making Pascal’s wager calculations. It’s not fifty-fifty. There are claims that are prima facie absurd, with no basis at all. Even the person who tells them to me — let’s say that teapot guy — the one who tells me there is a teapot around Jupiter himself cannot know that, not only can I not know it. So why should I accept his claim even at the level of fifty percent? It’s nonsense. Bertrand Russell says: the belief that God revealed Himself and gave a Torah or gave commandments or whatever, in his view is like the claim about a celestial teapot. Basically it’s a kind of absurd speculation; there is no indication at all to think that there is anything true here, and even the one saying it could not have known it. And because of that, I do not remain afterwards at fifty-fifty, even though I have no argument in favor and no argument against. But still, it isn’t fifty-fifty. It is exactly like the celestial teapot. That is basically Bertrand Russell’s claim. There is an example of this in the Talmud, tractate Shabbat 30a. The Talmud brings there two stories about someone — one of them is someone who comes to Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi and says to him: “Your mother was my wife and you are my son.” In short: you’re illegitimate. I had relations with your mother and you were born. Meaning, you’re a mamzer. So Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi says to him: “Would you like to drink a cup of wine?” He offered him a cup of wine — he drank and burst. He drank and died. It’s not certain that he literally died; the intention is that he brushed him off completely without even bothering to answer him. And the same there — there are two such stories there. What is the idea behind that? So the proof… Rabbi Kook there in Ein Ayah on Shabbat explains it, and he says indeed — I think that really is a beautiful explanation of the matter — he says that basically what we have here is a celestial teapot. And there are certain claims that anyone can make; it’s free. Okay? There is no indication at all for this claim. And because of that, even if you claim it and I have nothing to say against you, ostensibly I should have been in fifty-fifty doubt. True, a doubtful mamzer is not a mamzer, but still rabbinically they imposed an extra stringency with lineage. So even a doubtful mamzer is a problematic status. So why was Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi not concerned at all and didn’t even make this into a doubt? Because if I have no indication, I am not concerned. In order to arouse doubt, you need an indication. Not only to prove do you need evidence; even to arouse doubt you need arguments. Maybe not such strong arguments, but still you need arguments. Not every situation in which I have no argument one way or the other is defined as a state of doubt. It’s a bit like the difference in Jewish law between a doubt where a prohibition was established and a doubt where no prohibition was established. A doubt where no prohibition was established is a situation where I have a piece of meat and I have no idea what it is. It could be meat, it could be pork, it could be kosher meat. That’s what’s called a doubt in one piece. But there is a doubt of one piece from among two pieces. I have two pieces, one is pork and one is kosher meat. I took one of them and I don’t know which. What is the difference between the two doubts? In the first doubt, I have no real indication that arouses doubt; I simply don’t know. I know nothing at all. In the second doubt, I have a reason to assume it is pork and I have a reason to assume it is kosher. A positive reason. Meaning, there are arguments in favor of this side and arguments in favor of that side. That is called a stronger doubt. For that one they bring a provisional guilt offering; for the first one they do not bring a provisional guilt offering. Meaning, again, on the statistical level it isn’t always really a stronger doubt, and one can discuss it statistically. But it is clear that from a legal, halakhic, or procedural standpoint, it is a more significant doubt. This resembles the distinction Bertrand Russell makes with the teapot. He says: if you raise an argument one way and I have an argument the other way and I don’t know which argument prevails, then I am in fifty-fifty doubt. But if you raise no arguments at all and therefore say, well, then either A or B because there are no arguments — I say no, B. Because B seems right to me and A seems like nonsense. That’s all. Meaning, when there are arguments one way and arguments the other way, I can’t just say B because A seems to me like nonsense. It isn’t nonsense — there is a good argument in its favor, and you can’t refute that argument. So you have to remain in doubt, even though you have a simple intuition that B is correct. But if you have no indication, no argument, in favor of A or B, then obviously if my intuition says B, then B. So this is an important point in discussions of this kind, that Bertrand Russell is basically saying: when someone comes to me and says God revealed Himself and demanded various things from us, for me that’s like a teapot — it’s nonsense. It isn’t fifty-fifty. And now of course if you continue with Pascal’s wager… Now my claim is that the entire path we have taken up to now basically neutralizes the claim of the celestial teapot. Why? Because if I have reached the philosophical conclusion that there exists some such transcendent entity — God, yes, however you define Him — that’s a given, I’ve reached that conclusion, I’m convinced. Now someone comes and says to me: look, God revealed Himself to me, gave me a Torah, and told me that we need to do all kinds of things. That’s no longer a celestial teapot. That is no longer an absurd claim coming out of the blue. Because after all, I know that such an entity exists. That I know independently of the testimony that this person now came and gave me. Now someone comes and says: you know that entity whose existence you know — I met Him, and He told me that one needs to do such-and-such. Maybe he’s right, maybe not, but it’s no longer a celestial teapot. Meaning, that claim still needs to be discussed — whether it is true or not true — I don’t necessarily have to accept it. But I’m saying: absurd, it no longer is. And therefore I think there is meaning to discussions about whether there is a God in the philosophical sense, even when we deal on the theistic, religious plane. Because if we reach the conclusion that there is a God in the philosophical sense, then the discussion about God in the religious sense takes on a different meaning. Now we begin at fifty-fifty and not at zero-a hundred, let’s put it that way. Now the question is whether He revealed Himself or did not reveal Himself. You know, the example I give for this, I think maybe I spoke about this once. If someone, I don’t know, thirty years ago, had come and told me: you know, in the United States there is a Black president named Barack Obama, and he passed Obamacare, their health law — I would say: and I met Tinker Bell riding a flying saucer around the planet Jupiter. Basically that would be the celestial teapot claim. I would tell him: don’t waste my time. Fifteen years passed, twenty years, I don’t know how many, and now I know — I heard it on the news, I saw it — a Black president was elected in the United States, his name is Barack Obama. Now someone comes to me and says: you know, Barack Obama, the Black president of the United States, passed Obamacare. Fine, interesting, maybe you’re right, maybe not, maybe you’re lying, maybe not — but absurd it no longer is. I’m not going to throw you down the stairs anymore, because after all I know there is such a president of the United States, meaning it’s not coming to me out of the blue. I know there is such a president. Now the question is whether he did that act or did not do that act — that has to be discussed, maybe yes maybe no — but I can’t say: leave me alone, it’s obvious there is no such president, so I’m not even starting to discuss with you whether he carried out the health reform or didn’t carry out the health reform. Therefore there is a very big difference, even in the religious discussion, about religious obligation, if we begin from the starting point that at least on the philosophical level we have proved the existence of God. The discussion is then conducted entirely differently. I’ll say even more than that: after I have proved the existence of God, now someone comes to me and says: look, I met Him and He said such-and-such. That isn’t even fifty-fifty anymore. Why not? Meaning, unless he’s a liar — but if not, then there is such a being and he says: listen, I met Him. If someone comes to me and says: look, I met your friend, he sends his regards — would it even occur to me to doubt that he is telling the truth? He might be lying, but why assume that? In order to claim that he is lying or not telling the truth, you need to bring evidence. I know I have such a friend, I know he is dear to me, I know he might send his regards if he meets someone, so someone came and delivered those regards. Now I’m saying: when you do not know that God exists on the philosophical level, then if someone comes and says, I met God and He sends His regards, yes, or He told you to put on tefillin — fine, that’s a celestial teapot. But if I already know there is a God, and I even know that I matter to Him — He gave me moral commands, He gave me tools of cognition, thought, and so on — and now someone comes and says: know that He revealed Himself to me and told me to do such-and-such — then not only is that now fifty-fifty and not a hundred-zero, not only is it not a celestial teapot, but really now why doubt it at all? Unless arguments are raised that show it is not true, and then okay, one still has to be honest and examine those arguments on their merits. But without such arguments, I would even accept the claim, not merely treat it respectfully and give it a fifty-fifty status. Why not? Someone who does not accept that claim assumes there is no God, and therefore for him it is a celestial teapot. Why would one assume that someone met someone who does not exist? The Flying Spaghetti Monster, right — those jokes always come on the background of the idea that thinking there is a God is like thinking there is a Flying Spaghetti Monster. But if philosophically you reach the conclusion that there is a God, then it is not a Flying Spaghetti Monster and not a celestial teapot. Someone comes and says he met Him and He told him such-and-such. Fine, maybe yes maybe no, but why not? Meaning—
[Speaker D] Problematic.
[Speaker D] If someone comes and says that he is the Messiah, let’s say—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That there is a fifty percent chance he is right?
[Speaker D] I’m not going to say that there’s a fifty percent chance that he is—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] is right, not even two percent, because I know where this comes from, or I know where it could have come from. On the one hand, I think maybe the Messiah will come, but on the other hand, I know that in history there were lots of crazy people who thought they were the Messiah, so I say: fine, maybe he’s also one of the crazies. But even so, I still have to treat it with more respect than someone who doesn’t think the Messiah will come at all. If someone doesn’t think the Messiah will come at all, he’ll immediately have him hospitalized. If I’m an honest person who believes in the coming of the Messiah, I need to do some initial check first, and only afterward hospitalize him. Okay? That’s a certain difference. Now of course, every case depends on its own circumstances, but clearly it matters that I believe. When someone comes and says, “I’m Napoleon,” right, that’s the example they always give for mental disorders. Napoleon is already dead. So even if there once was such a Napoleon, there are many people—not many, but there are quite a few—who thought they were Napoleon, and we know this psychiatric phenomenon, so we’ll hospitalize him. But if Napoleon were alive today, and someone came to me and said, “Listen, I’m Napoleon,” I’d say: well, I don’t know, let’s try to check, maybe yes maybe no. Even though it could be not, and maybe he does need to be hospitalized, but it’s worth some kind of examination first. In other words, the background I come with in order to evaluate the message being conveyed to me is very important when I come to discuss that message. And therefore, just as religious people are accused of being biased when they say they tend to accept the religious tradition about revelation and commandments and all that, atheists are equally biased, because they think there is no God, and that’s just begging the question, so obviously they also won’t accept this message. Both sides judge the message that reaches them through their a priori assumptions. And therefore I say: since we’ve gone a long way through the four paths I described until now, and I tried to show that our a priori starting point should be that there is a God, then now the discussion about the existence of a tradition, about a tradition that reaches me, should already be conducted under that assumption. So I think what we’ve done until now is not at all unnecessary, even if our final goal is to discuss religious obligation and faith in the religious God, yes, in theism. And that’s an important point that comes up in a great many discussions, and many people miss it—most of them, actually, miss it. A lot of people, especially simple people, say: fine, once you prove to them that there is a God, they start putting on tefillin. Then the intellectuals come and say, wait, wait, wait—even if you proved there is a God, who says He revealed Himself and commanded us to put on tefillin? That’s philosophical clumsiness. So what if there is a God? Who says that God is the God these people are talking about? But I think that in this respect the intellectuals are the ones who are mistaken—or not mistaken, but not entirely right. Because the fact that there is a God in the philosophical sense indeed does not mean you have to put on tefillin, but it gives a completely different foundation to the discussion of whether you have to put on tefillin. We are at a completely different starting point. And therefore the philosophical discussion is very important. I’ve had so many conversations where people said, yes yes, I believe in God, now let’s move on to the religious God. Then you start talking with him about the religious God, and he says, wait, wait, wait, actually, the God—I only said that for the sake of discussion, I don’t really believe in Him. Then you have to go back and start discussing God in the philosophical sense, and then return to the religious God, because this foundation is a necessary foundation. Without it, you can’t discuss the religious God.
I’ll maybe add one more sentence. This argument from tradition—that the Holy One, blessed be He, revealed Himself at Mount Sinai and it passed down by tradition from father to son, as the Kuzari says, the witness argument or the tradition argument that parents don’t lie to their children and so on and so on, and therefore obviously God revealed Himself and the Torah was given and it obligates us—that is a dubious argument. Everyone thinks it’s a terribly strong argument, and atheists mock it, and to a considerable extent they’re right. It’s a pretty weak argument. Quite a few traditions have been created without parents lying to their children all the time. There are these kinds of dynamics by which traditions are formed. So this argument, when it stands on its own, is quite dubious. I’m not saying it’s entirely void, but it’s not a particularly strong argument. But—and here again I return to the same point—if I come, if I have come, if I proceed from the starting point that my philosophical conclusion is that there is a God, then now if a tradition reaches me saying, “We met Him, and He told us such-and-such,” that’s already in a different status. Because now it’s no longer that they invented something that has no basis whatsoever. It does have a basis. There still may have been distortions, it could still be an invention, but this is already a discussion conducted from a completely different starting point. And therefore there is great importance to the philosophical path of proving the existence of God, even though of course that still does not lead us all the way to the religious God.
Another point is from the other side of the same coin. So how can I nevertheless prove, or become convinced, that God revealed Himself, that this is binding, that there is religious obligation and not just some philosophical conclusion that there is a God? That question cannot be decided by philosophical tools. Everything we’ve done until now was essentially philosophical tools. We dealt with philosophical tools, and therefore that was also universal. That is, every thinking person in principle should have reached that conclusion; it has nothing to do with whether he’s Jewish, Christian, atheist, Buddhist, or whatever else. In the end, if the argument is good, then it’s good. These are philosophical arguments, and philosophical arguments are universal by definition. In contrast, the transition from the philosophical God to the religious God—to claim that there was a Sinai event, that God revealed Himself, that He gave us something that obligates us, and so on—those are claims whose discussion is not on the philosophical plane. There are no philosophical tools that can prove there was a Sinai event or that there wasn’t a Sinai event. It’s a discussion—you could call it historical. Philosophy enters here only in the aspect that even if there was a Sinai event, who says that obligates me? That is already a philosophical discussion. But the very existence of a Sinai event is a historical discussion. And therefore the tools that need to be used are more historical than philosophical. On the other hand, they cannot be exhaustive. They can’t bring me all the way to the end. So people often say, wait, but you have no proofs that God revealed Himself at Mount Sinai, you only have proof of God’s existence. And that’s true—I don’t, because philosophy is not the right instrument to deal with that kind of question. It’s not a philosophical question. So the fact that I don’t have a philosophical proof for it—there also can’t be one. I also have no philosophical proof that I love whipped-cream cake. So does that mean I don’t love whipped-cream cake? What does that have to do with anything? The fact that I love whipped-cream cake is not a philosophical claim, and there cannot be a philosophical proof for it. But it’s true. It’s true because I know, I tasted it and I like it. In other words, many times there are claims like this: fine, you have no philosophical proof except for the existence of God, but not for the Sinai event. So I said: on the one hand, the philosophical proof is very important even in the discussion of the Sinai event. On the other hand, it’s important but not sufficient. It’s necessary but not sufficient. It cannot give you the Sinai event, because philosophical tools won’t bring us to Sinai.
A third point I want to make about this seam between theism and deism.
[Speaker C] I lost the third point.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, the third point. If indeed I reached the conclusion through our previous journeys, our four previous journeys, that there is a God who created the world, planned it, created us—whether through evolution or directly, that doesn’t matter—implanted in us both proper faculties of cognition and thought and also moral norms and the understanding that they obligate us, then that means that God basically created the world and takes an interest in our actions in some way. Let’s still try to move a bit further, still on the philosophical plane, before we get to history and Mount Sinai and particular Jewish, Christian, Muslim religiosity, or whatever else. We can move one more small step forward, and it will be important for what follows. Because I ask myself: if God created the world and us, what does He want from us? Why did He create us? Now of course one can say there’s anthropomorphizing here—projecting human traits, yes, personification. We’re used to the idea that if someone does something, there is some reason for it. But who says that is also true of God? Maybe He just did it for no reason. He woke up on the wrong side of the bed one morning and decided, today I’m creating a world. Not because He wants to do something. So the claim would be that this is some kind of anthropomorphism. And I think that’s true to a certain extent, but on the other hand I don’t think it’s precise. My basic starting assumption, my basic premise, is that every being—not only human beings—that does something, does it because it wants to achieve something by means of it. If there’s a being that does something differently, prove to me that that’s so. In other words, the burden of proof is on the one who claims that’s not the case. Therefore I say: my opening point or starting point is that God too—even though I can’t say many things about Him—if He created a world, then presumably He did it for something. Because otherwise, why create a world? Now, of course one can say it was some sort of lottery, just because He felt like it, I don’t know, a whim. But to say that—as when human beings do something, or any other being does something—we generally assume it’s because he wants to achieve something. Otherwise he wouldn’t do it.
There’s even—you know—in the Jewish laws of muktzeh on the Sabbath, they distinguish between a utensil whose primary use is permitted and a utensil whose primary use is prohibited. The Talmud in the chapter “All the Vessels,” on 123. So a utensil whose primary use is prohibited may be moved for its own use or for the use of its place, but not from sun to shade; you can’t move it from sun to shade. A utensil whose primary use is permitted may be moved even from sun to shade. The Ran proves—it doesn’t matter—from Temple vessels, that even a utensil whose primary use is permitted may not be moved for no need whatsoever. If there’s a need, such as moving it from sun to shade so it won’t be damaged, that’s permitted. But if there’s no need at all, then it’s prohibited even if it’s a utensil whose primary use is permitted. So the Arukh HaShulchan asks: what does “for no need” mean? Then why is he moving it? What do you mean, moving it? If he’s moving it, then there’s some need for which he’s moving it. Otherwise—what? Just to occupy himself, thinking while tapping the fork on the table, I don’t know exactly what. But if he’s moving the thing, then apparently there’s some reason or goal for which he’s doing it. A person doesn’t just do things for nothing. Therefore he says: so what does it mean “for no need whatsoever”? Maybe it means not for a Sabbath need, but for the need of another day or something like that. But the assumption is that there is no such thing as an act someone does without some need, some purpose, some goal he wants to achieve by that act.
And similarly, I want to claim that regarding the Holy One, blessed be He. Regarding God—we’re not yet at the Holy One, blessed be He; we’re still in philosophy. So regarding God, I want to claim that if He made a world, the simple assumption—unless someone argues otherwise—but my simple assumption is that if He made a world, then presumably He wants to achieve something with it. He wants this world to bring about something, to reach some result. Now I ask myself further: so what is that result? I say to myself: fine, maybe the result is moral behavior, to establish an exemplary society, as people always say in the old discourse here in Israel. Yes, to establish an exemplary society. That’s God’s purpose: to establish a moral society, to create moral people, and so on. That seems implausible to me. Notice, I’m still entirely on the philosophical plane, not yet history and not anything else. Not tradition. Why? Because basically it’s not reasonable that the Holy One, blessed be He, created human beings so they would conduct themselves properly, so they wouldn’t bother each other, or so they would live in a proper society. Why? Don’t create the society, and then there’ll be no need for it to be proper. It’s not reasonable that the purpose of the thing created is itself. I don’t create a hammer in order to treat hammers, so that the hammer—who knows—will treat itself. If the purpose is that the hammer should treat itself, then I won’t create the hammer and there won’t be any need for it to treat itself. Therefore it is reasonable—and again, look, all these are questions of plausibility, you can argue about everything, but it seems to me this is common sense—common sense says that if the Holy One, blessed be He, created the world and us, then it means there is some purpose that is not us and not our morality.
[Speaker B] The Rabbi interprets morality as directed toward man, toward society, which I agree with the Rabbi is completely unnecessary and has no basis. But Maimonides taught us that the highest level of man is sanctifying God’s name, that that is his mission in the world. And if the moral act and the moral obligation is sanctifying God’s name, then that is certainly the higher peak we can attain, one that has meaning beyond that. So I’d be glad to hear what purpose there is for the existence of the world.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Wait, so you’re not letting me say the next sentence, in which I’m just about to address that. The claim is as follows: it doesn’t matter whether you call it morality or not-morality. What I’m defining for our purposes as morality—call it komforkan if you want. What I’m defining here as morality is concern for a proper society, okay? Proper people, a proper society, proper behavior. That cannot be the goal. The goal has to be something beyond that. If you also call that “something beyond” morality, then good for you. I don’t like calling it morality, but that’s just a semantic issue. I’m claiming that the goals must be something beyond that, first of all. Therefore the moral argument that we discussed at the end of the previous session, in the last sessions, does not give me, does not provide me, an answer to why the world was created. The world cannot have been created for morality. It cannot be that the Holy One, blessed be He, created the world in order to give us a moral command or expect moral behavior from us. Look, step by step I’m advancing here, using only common sense—not tradition, not history—and of course it’s not necessary in the strict sense, but it seems very reasonable to me.
Now I ask myself one more step: if the purpose is not morality, then what is it? You asked a good question before: what is it, and how will I know? In other words, what am I supposed to do? Now, it could be that I’m not supposed to do anything. It could be that the Holy One, blessed be He, created the world and the world does something without being aware of it, and that achieves God’s purposes. It doesn’t have to be that I know something or am aware of my role. I make a hammer in order to drive nails; the hammer doesn’t know it was born to drive nails, but it serves me in driving nails. So where is the difference? The difference is that we have free choice—and that’s my assumption, that we have free choice—and since we have free choice, then it’s not reasonable that we are a hammer. Because if the Holy One, blessed be He, created us so that we should do something, even unconsciously, then presumably He would have created us in a deterministic way so that we would carry out that for which we were created. If He leaves us the decisions, places us in dilemmas, we need to decide, and some people err and behave immorally and morally and so on, that means God’s purpose is achieved only through our decisions. We are not hammers. In other words, the Holy One, blessed be He, does not use us like an axe in the hand of the woodcutter; rather, we ourselves carry out the purpose for which we were created. We decide it through judgment and discernment; we are also presumably supposed to know what it is.
This leads me to something I think we discussed once, what is called “the mystery of service for a higher need.” After all, in the end the claim is that human beings were created in order to complete something that the Holy One, blessed be He, cannot attain. Otherwise He wouldn’t have needed us and wouldn’t have created us. And in a certain sense, that means a deficient God, because we can do something He cannot. In Rav Kook there’s a discussion in Orot HaKodesh, volume 2, called “the problem of perfection and perfecting.” I spoke about it once—the problem of perfection and perfecting. He basically says that one of the perfections is to be in the process of perfecting yourself. The fact that you improve is itself an advantage, not only because the improvement brings you to a more perfect state, but the very fact that you move toward perfection—that movement itself has value. The derivative is important, not only the function. In other words, yes, the fact that you’re progressing, that the derivative is positive, has value beyond the fact that you’re also reaching a higher place. Now if that’s so, he says, then God cannot have that perfection. The perfection of being in the process of improvement. Why? Because if He is perfect, then He cannot advance to a more perfect state. But if that’s the case, then He lacks the derivative, meaning He lacks the perfection of being in the process of perfecting Himself. So it turns out that He is not perfect. That’s the paradox Rav Kook discusses—of course under the assumption that the Holy One, blessed be He, is perfect. Where does that assumption come from? Good question. But that’s what he argues. And then he answers and says: that’s why we were created. We were created as deficient creatures so that we could perfect ourselves, and in that way complete what the Holy One, blessed be He, Himself cannot do. There is some idea that reality should perfect itself; the Holy One, blessed be He, cannot do that, so He created a deficient reality so that it could complete itself. And that is “the mystery of service for a higher need.” Yes, our service is the Holy One’s need—He cannot manage without us. It’s called “the mystery of service for a higher need” because somehow people say you’re not allowed to say such things, yes, not every mind can bear it. So therefore—but all right, these are not such great secrets, I’m not…
[Speaker E] Why did He wait so many billions of years to do it?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Excellent question. I don’t know why. But at some stage He had to do it. So the claim in the end is that we were created here in order to do something He cannot do, okay? Basically that reflects what I said before: if the Holy One, blessed be He, created us, then He has some purpose that we are supposed to achieve. He did not create us for no reason. More than that: that purpose cannot be ourselves; it has to be Him, or reality that precedes us. Because if it’s ourselves, then don’t create us and you won’t need us to do something with ourselves. Therefore it’s clear that the goal is outside us. But that raises the question: if so, how will we know about it? How will we know what to choose? Yes, we have free choice—what should be done, what is forbidden, how do we know how to lead the world to its purpose? As for morality, that is implanted in us. We have a moral sense, we have a conscience; they tell us what is right to do and what is not right to do. So the Holy One, blessed be He, implanted morality within us, and through that we know what to do and what not to do. But how will we know if morality is not the purpose, if there are other purposes? How will we know them? So I say: I have no tradition, no historical information of any kind has reached me, but a priori I would expect there to be revelation. I expect it. Not only do I not reject testimony or tradition that reaches me and says there was revelation— a priori, if there were no revelation, I would find that difficult to understand. How could that be? There must be revelation. Because He has to tell us in some way what He is imposing on us. Morality He placed within us, so for that no revelation is needed—we understand that ourselves. But morality is not the purpose; there has to be some other purpose. Let’s now call it, for the sake of discussion, a religious purpose. For our purposes, a religious purpose is a purpose outside morality, outside human beings—something that comes to achieve goals beyond, ends that transcend. So where will we know that from? That is beyond us, so by definition we cannot know it. Therefore I would expect Him to communicate to us somehow what those ends are, what should be done, what is forbidden, and so on.
[Speaker B] Notice that revelation can’t help here, because if revelation…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I didn’t understand that strange question.
[Speaker B] Since after all revelation is, in the end, a fact, the way the Rabbi presents it. If revelation is to the inner volume within us and not…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But what was said in the revelation?
[Speaker B] Fine, it said in the revelation 613 commandments… but then why does that obligate me?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Why should it obligate me? Wait, that’s another discussion. Hold on, we’ll get there. The question whether, factually, there was revelation—does that obligate me? Excellent question. We’ll get there, we’ll get there at the end. But first of all I’m dealing with the question whether there was revelation, or whether I expect there to be revelation. So I say: notice, on the philosophical level I’m building the foundation on which I’ll begin to discuss how I relate to the tradition that reached me about revelation. Everything I’ve done until now I did philosophically. There’s no tradition and nothing. I ask myself: what does intuition say? What would I expect? What makes sense should happen? Afterward you understand that if a tradition reaches me and says the Holy One, blessed be He, revealed Himself at Mount Sinai and said to do such-and-such, that is not some crazy, far-fetched thing—on the contrary, it’s almost called for. Because were no tradition to reach me, I would think there ought to be revelation. So now a tradition actually comes—then it all fits together and everything is wonderful.
[Speaker B] But why not save the whole revelation issue and just give us a halakhic conscience too, not only a moral one? Why not spare the problem—and not only that, it would be universal. We’d have a Jewish conscience and a gentile conscience and everything would be fine; we’d spare the whole problem of revelation.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Fine, you’re asking me questions about Him; I don’t answer questions about Him. The fact is that He didn’t do that, right? There is nothing within us that tells us what is right besides morality. That’s all—that’s the fact. Why is that so? Ask Him, I don’t know. But from that fact I expect there to be revelation, or that He implanted it within us. But He didn’t implant it within us, so the second alternative is that there be revelation. Therefore the claim is that in the end, contrary to what Bertrand Russell says, my starting point is that I expect a tradition to reach me about revelation. It is reasonable that this should happen, it is to be expected that it should happen; if it didn’t happen, that would surprise me. And you understand that now when I examine the tradition that reaches me, with all the refutations and problems and difficulties and everything, I am already examining it through completely different eyes. Not biased eyes—completely different philosophical eyes. It is very reasonable. Whoever wants to claim that this is not true, the burden of proof is on him. And notice how far philosophy, a priori arguments, can lead us. It almost gets us to the trough, but actually drinking—no, not by their power. In other words, it can lead us to the point where we know that God created the world, created us, expects things from us that are not morality but religious things, let’s call them that now, and He of course has to let us know what those religious things are, command them or reveal them to us. Up to here I got with philosophy.
Now we move to the historical plane. And on the historical plane some tradition comes and says: there was a Sinai event, the Torah was given, we are commanded to do this and commanded to do that. Now, this tradition has had people come after it with all sorts of objections, yes? There are many challenges, many refutations, myths that arise in various ways—all true. But because the foundation I’ve built until now is a sympathetic foundation, yes, one that is favorably disposed, expecting there to be revelation, now the burden of proof required to undermine this and say, well, maybe it’s a myth—that’s not enough. Maybe, but maybe not. In the end, the burden of proof is on the one who says it’s a myth, not on the one who says it isn’t. Because if I’m really right in the whole line of reasoning up to now—if I’m right, if you’re with me in the whole line of reasoning up to now—then revelation is in fact to be expected. A revelation comes, and to say it’s a myth—maybe, but prove that it’s a myth. It’s like a friend comes to me and says, “I met your friend, he sends his regards.” It could be that he’s lying and didn’t meet him. But my assumption is that he did meet him, and the burden of proof would be on the one who says he didn’t meet him, that he’s lying. Okay?
[Speaker D] “From all the peoples on the face of the earth”—so why revelation to the Jewish people thousands of years after the creation of the world and not to the Chinese? What good does it do the Chinese that there was revelation to the Jews or whatever?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I join the previous question that asked why He waited 14 billion years and revealed Himself only two thousand years ago, yes? So it’s basically the same question. I have no idea. No idea. It may be that the world had to go through various processes until homo sapiens came into being, and people, I don’t know, at a certain level of intelligence or readiness or maturity, so a long process was needed. And at that stage there had to be… revelation could already happen, but that was the plan from the start. Likewise when I speak about Jews versus Chinese. There too, it may be that the revelation is done in such a way that a certain group is chosen to whom revelation is given, and that group is supposed to—after all, it wasn’t revealed to us either, not only not to the Chinese. I wasn’t there either. My forefathers were there at Mount Sinai. So that too could be asked: why didn’t we merit revelation? It’s not only the Chinese. But the assumption is that some core group would be present at that revelation, and by definition that would not be all humanity, because some of them would die—and then not some of them, all of them would die—and then humanity as a whole ultimately did not itself experience the revelation, so the Chinese didn’t experience it either. The Holy One, blessed be He, chose a certain path. Maybe we can discuss why that path is right and why He didn’t choose another. But once the information reaches me that that’s the path He chose, why cast doubt on it? If He had revealed Himself to the Chinese too, very good—then it would fit even better with how I think. It’s like—I think I talked about this in the physico-theological proof—if you remember Paley’s watch analogy, the Reverend Paley. He says: if you’re walking, I don’t know, down the street and you find a watch lying on the sidewalk, you say, well, maybe there was a process of billions of years in which all kinds of springs and screws and things came together and in the end a watch came out. Okay? That’s not reasonable. Presumably there was someone who made the watch. That’s how Reverend Paley presented the proof for the existence of God. Now, suppose we discover that this watch works in a non-optimal way, or in a way that seems non-optimal to us. We would have built it better. Does that mean there is no watchmaker? Absolutely not. It only means that the watchmaker’s mind is built differently from ours. He thinks differently, he works differently. But that in no way touches the fact, the conclusion, that there is a watchmaker who made the watch. Same thing here. They always ask about evolution: why did so many creatures die along the way? If this evolution was directed toward producing man in the end, then what was the point of the whole road until there? I have no idea. But if it’s a process that is implausible to happen by itself and needs a guiding hand, that means God did it. Why did He do it this way and not another? In my opinion the watch is not optimal, so apparently the Holy One’s mind is built differently from mine. But that doesn’t affect the proof. The proof that God did this and that it did not happen on its own is certainly correct. Could it have been more optimal? Maybe yes, maybe no; it could be that I’m mistaken and this is the optimal way. But even if I’m right, fine—then for some reason He chose the non-optimal way. But it’s still clear that He did it. Therefore many times objections to God’s policy are not important objections for the discussion here. They are interesting objections one can think about, but they don’t bear on the discussion here. When I ask whether revelation is to be expected, the answer is yes. If you ask me what type of revelation, I might say yes, revelation to the whole world including the Chinese. That’s how it seems to me. Now a tradition comes and says, you know what? There was revelation, but only to the Jews, not to the Chinese. Fine, that requires a bit of thought, but it still fits very well with my assumption that there ought to be revelation.
And in that sense I think this is a very important methodological lesson for these discussions. Very often, when we talk about different aspects of faith and arguments for or against it, we examine each argument separately. And each argument separately really is not such a strong argument. The witness argument—that a father doesn’t lie to his son and so on—is, in my opinion, a rather dubious argument. Okay? The other arguments—that the Sinai event, I don’t know, various archaeological indications, I don’t know exactly what—as is known, you can argue about these fiercely. There are those who say you can’t argue, it’s obvious it didn’t happen. But certainly you can argue about it. But I’m saying there’s something in the totality of the arguments, yes? In the joining together of all the arguments, some kind of puzzle that they all form together, which is much stronger than each argument individually. About every single argument, you can argue. But somehow the overall picture of all the arguments together, in my view, creates a fabric that is much stronger than the sum of its parts. Therefore I think that when discussing the Kuzari argument, yes, the tradition that a father passes to his son, people say: fine, it’s dubious, we threw it out. Then they move on to discuss the existence of God, yes or no. Then they move on to the Exodus, archaeology, and biblical criticism. Each of these on its own can certainly be discussed. They are not crushing arguments. But there is something in this whole complex and in the way all its parts integrate with each other that is much stronger than any one of them separately. Each one separately can be debated.
It’s like in the legal world. Every piece of evidence they bring can be disputed. They bring another piece of evidence—you can dispute that too. But when you have ten pieces of evidence, each of which can be disputed, that’s much stronger than one piece of evidence that can be disputed. The accumulation of ten pieces of evidence—that’s exactly the force of three times in Jewish law. Right? An ox that gored three times, or a woman who sees blood on the same date three times. All these legal presumptions, or brothers who died as a result of circumcision three times. Yes? What are these presumptions? They say: look, each case on its own can be explained as chance. But if there are three cases, and each one individually could still have been accidental, three cases were not all accidental. Therefore it’s clear there is some probability here, some rule standing behind it. This is the famous Rabbi Chaim on the signs of an imbecile at the beginning of Tractate Chagigah. The Talmud says there are three signs of an imbecile: he goes out alone at night, tears his clothes, and sleeps in a cemetery. So the Talmud discusses: wait, but maybe he does that for some reason, I don’t know, he’s troubled by his thoughts, and therefore he tears his clothes. It says: yes, but he also sleeps in a cemetery. You say maybe he sleeps in a cemetery because of such-and-such a reason? It says: yes, but there’s the third sign. Then the Talmud stops. Rabbi Chaim asks: why? You could ask about the third sign too—maybe he does that because of such-and-such a reason. Rabbi Chaim says: no—if you have three signs, even if each one individually has some possibly accidental explanation, but three signs together are probably not accidental. So he’s probably an imbecile. If it’s red on the inside, green on the outside, and has watermelon seeds, then it’s a watermelon. If it’s only green on the outside, maybe it’s not a watermelon. If it’s only red on the inside, maybe it’s not a watermelon. If it only has watermelon seeds, maybe it’s not a watermelon. But if it has all three, then it’s a watermelon. Okay?
So in that sense—and here I’ll finish with this point—it’s very important to me to see the full picture; afterward we’ll go into the details. The full picture is that the whole complex of arguments, including the philosophy and including the a priori arguments I just added, which bring me almost to revelation, does not stand alone. It is the foundation on which we can now begin to discuss how I relate to the tradition that has reached me telling me there was revelation. And once I connect all these things together and they fit together well, it seems to me that the burden of proof shifts to the one who claims this did not happen, that it is a myth that was created. Okay? And that’s a very important point, because very often there is no absolute proof. In the end, everything stands or falls on who bears the burden of proof. In the present situation, what is the default? What is the simple intuition I will choose as long as I have no arguments either way? And usually in most of these questions there are no arguments either way, and therefore building the initial intuition, our a priori expectations, is very important for the discussion. Very often a discussion is decided precisely on the basis of intuition, because there are no arguments either way. Okay, I’ll stop at this stage, if there are comments or questions.
[Speaker E] Yes, in our profession there’s always the joke that a certain CEO is looking for an accountant, gives him a test. How much is this plus this? He says such-and-such. Fine, go home. The second one, same thing. Finally the third comes, he asks him how much is this and this? He says, how much do you want it to be? In other words, at some level we’ve now gathered a bundle of fifty-percents, fifty-percents, that bring us to a conclusion. One fifty percent is not enough; the bundle of fifty-percents already brings us, makes sense. But in parallel, while making that accumulation, we also accumulated that same bundle of other fifty-percents in the opposite direction. So we’re left in a place where it’s your choice—tell me what you want me to choose.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Mistake. That’s a statistical mistake. What you’re saying now—go get updated with the next accountant who comes to you, because you did the calculation wrong. Think, think for example—that’s why I brought the presumption of three times. You have one sign that he’s an imbecile, say that he tears his clothes. That may have an explanation, so fifty percent. There’s another sign that he’s an imbecile: he sleeps in the cemetery at night. That too may be because he lost something there and went to look for it—fifty percent. There’s another sign: he talks to himself. Fine, it could be he’s talking to himself because he has a phone earpiece in his ear, so he looks like he’s talking to himself. Those are three times, three fifty-percents. Do you conclude he’s an imbecile? The answer is that every reasonable person would conclude he’s an imbecile. Because your mistake is in thinking that the percentages accumulate in both directions. That’s not true. This is conditional probability. And with conditional probability there is accumulation. There is accumulation of evidence, like in science. If one body falls toward the earth, you say maybe it’s not gravity, maybe by chance it felt like falling downward. A second body falls toward the earth—that could also be chance. But when three bodies do it, or ten bodies do the same thing, then for each one it’s fifty percent yes, fifty percent no, but ten bodies doing it means there is a law of gravity. You can do the statistical calculation, but that’s Bayes’ formula. The statistical calculation is not—the percentages do not accumulate symmetrically in both directions.
I thought you wanted to finish the accountant joke differently. I would finish it differently. One accountant comes to me, I ask him how much is two plus three—doesn’t matter what the numbers are—he tells me such-and-such. I tell him: fine, go home, you don’t know arithmetic. A second accountant comes and tells me the same thing. I tell him: fine, you go home too, you’re not an accountant either. Then the third one comes and tells me the same thing. I say: fine, then apparently I’m the one who needs to go home, because if three people say the same result, apparently I’m the one who was mistaken.
[Speaker E] Fine, that’s true, but that joke fits the argument less well. But all right, look, this isn’t for the end of the class to get into, but just one word. In the end, we started and slid all the way along the claim that it isn’t plausible, it isn’t reasonable, that all this happened by itself—a watch or whatever other example. But at some point, because it wasn’t plausible to us that the watch made itself, we brought explanations—and I can’t compete with you, you can find a thousand times more examples than I can of implausibility in our system of belief. Wherever you put your finger, there are things that just aren’t acceptable to the mind. Meaning, we rejected one reality because it wasn’t plausible, and brought another reality that in our thinking is ten times—yes, ten times more implausible.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That’s an interesting claim. It often comes up against an atheist when you prove to him the existence of God: it’s not plausible that the world was created by chance, therefore someone created it. He says: yes, but to me it’s even less plausible that God exists. Therefore the alternative—as Sherlock Holmes says in The Sign of Four—after we’ve ruled out the impossible, if what remains is implausible, that’s probably the truth. In the end you have to compare between two alternatives. So I’ll get to that claim later. I’ll just say one thing about it:
[Speaker E] The things…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The implausible things in our faith, in my opinion, are details that really can be thrown out. What we’re left with, in my opinion, is plausible—it is plausible.
[Speaker E] That’s what I really like about the way your mind works, but right,
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] On that, catch me at the end of the process.
[Speaker E] But maybe,
[Speaker F] Maybe that’s also the answer to why He revealed Himself to us and not to the Chinese, because from the outset we were called Israel—we’re the ones who wrestle with Him, or who always know how to explain how implausible what He demanded is. The Chinese have no free choice; He would tell them and they would do it.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I’m not sure that’s really the case. You know, it could be that this character of ours was created as a result of receiving the Torah, and there wasn’t any prior background for receiving the Torah, and the same with the Chinese. I don’t know what the Chinese were like three thousand years ago, but it could definitely be that it was possible to produce this. I’m among those who tend to think that there is no essentialist nature among Jews. Meaning, it’s a result of our culture, our biography, our history, and if another people had been chosen, then they would have been the Jews. In other words, it’s not—well, okay, of course this is hypothetical.
[Speaker F] Our history begins before the giving of the Torah, and we were already arguing even then.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I assume there were others who argued too. You know, at the giving of the Torah itself, the Sages tell us that the Holy One, blessed be He, went around to all the nations. The only ones who didn’t argue were us. All the other nations didn’t want to accept the Torah: “Wait, what’s written in it? That doesn’t suit us.” The only ones who didn’t argue were us. So I’m not sure that this picture is really the picture.
[Speaker E] We—
[Speaker B] We were “We will do and we will hear,” and He turned to us last; we were the lousy default option.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Okay, happy New Year.
[Speaker E] Okay,
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Happy New Year, so truly, happy New Year.
[Speaker E] So that’s it—are we parting until Rosh Hashanah, or what?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Wait, I’m not tracking the dates. When is Rosh Hashanah?
[Speaker F] Two and a half weeks. When? In another two and a half weeks, Rosh Hashanah eve.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Two and a half weeks? Then there’s supposed to be one more Friday before that.
[Speaker F] Guys, there’s no overdose problem with saying “happy New Year.”
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, you can say happy New Year. In any case it doesn’t help anyway,
[Speaker E] So you can say happy New Year even now, it doesn’t matter. There’s no problem with it being a happy New Year. It’s all good. Happy New Year and Sabbath—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Goodbye.