Faith and Its Meaning – Lesson 18

Table of Contents

• Summary of the ways to establish God’s existence according to Kant
• A new route: reverse logic and theological argument
• The emptiness of the analytic and begging the question
• The value of logical proofs and geometry
• Pragmatism, morality, and commandments: what does not prove God
• Motives, righteousness, and the parable of the sheep
• A theological moral argument and logical reversal
• Richard Taylor: stones on the hillside and the meaning of chance
• A theological formulation of the physico-theological proof through trust in the senses
• The atheist’s response and the argument as a diagnostic tool
• Pincer movement, either way, and the plan going forward

Summary

General Overview

The text summarizes the progress made since the beginning of the year in the various ways of justifying belief in God’s existence. It presents the three “Kantian” routes that have already been completed, and now proposes a new track of arguments unified by a kind of “reverse” logic—moving from the conclusion back to the premises rather than from the premises to the conclusion. It develops the idea of “the emptiness of the analytic,” according to which a logical proof does not add new information but only reveals what was already contained in the premises. From this it follows that a logical argument convinces only someone who already, implicitly, holds the conclusion. On that basis, the text distinguishes between pragmatic arguments that have no real probative value and theological arguments that uncover what is already there, and it demonstrates such an argument through a theological formulation of the physico-theological proof using Richard Taylor’s example about trust in the senses, so that the argument becomes a diagnostic tool of consistency rather than an external “proof.”

Summary of the ways to establish God’s existence according to Kant

The text divides the ways of arriving at a factual claim about God’s existence into six or seven approaches, and notes that according to the Kantian classification there are three. It lists conceptual analysis as the ontological proof, the cosmological proof from the very fact that something exists, and the physico-theological proof based on properties of what exists, such as complexity, adaptation, and design. It states that last time the discussion of the physico-theological proof was completed, and that the first two routes were studied last semester, so the three Kantian routes have now been completed.

A new route: reverse logic and theological argument

The text proposes moving on to a family of proofs for God’s existence based on “reverse logic,” meaning going from the conclusion to the premises rather than from the premises to the conclusion. It recounts a joke heard in an introductory course at Tel Aviv University about the difference between a theologian and a philosopher: a philosopher assumes premises and derives conclusions from them, while a theologian assumes conclusions and derives premises from them. It argues that in fact both philosophers and theologians do this, and that “being a theologian” is not an accusation but a legitimate logical form that will stand at the center of the coming lectures, beginning bottom-up from an example rather than top-down from general rules.

The emptiness of the analytic and begging the question

The text explains, through the example “All human beings are mortal; Socrates is a human being; therefore Socrates is mortal,” why anyone who accepts the premises is compelled to accept the conclusion, because the conclusion is already contained in the premises. It argues that a valid logical argument is always an argument that assumes what it seeks to prove, and that “begging the question” is not a fallacy but a situation in which the argument is valid yet may lack persuasive force when the other person does not accept the premise. It illustrates this with a yeshiva joke about a hat: from the verse “And Abraham went,” they infer that Abraham went wearing a hat, and from that conclude that every Jew must walk around with a hat. The point is that the conclusion was already implicitly assumed, and therefore the argument is useless for someone who disagrees with it.

The value of logical proofs and geometry

The text asks what place there is for logic if it is “empty,” and answers that its value lies in exposing conclusions that people are already implicitly committed to, though they are not aware of it. It brings up the study of geometry, where one starts from self-evident axioms and arrives at the proof that the sum of the angles in a triangle is one hundred and eighty degrees, even though a child would not say that without the proof. It concludes that every logical proof merely reveals to a person that he has in fact accepted the claim all along, though not consciously, and compares this to a locked safe containing things that belong to a person but are inaccessible until someone teaches him how to open it.

Pragmatism, morality, and commandments: what does not prove God

The text distinguishes between trying to prove God from morality in a philosophical sense and a pragmatic argument that it is worthwhile to assume God so that “people do not swallow one another alive.” It argues that such a pragmatic argument is a “stupid argument” because it confuses what ought to be with what is. It adds that observing commandments for utilitarian reasons is not really observing commandments. It attributes to Ahad Ha’am the saying about the Sabbath, “More than the Jews kept the Sabbath, the Sabbath kept the Jews,” and argues that even if Ahad Ha’am had in practice observed every clause of the Mishnah Berurah in the laws of the Sabbath, “he never kept the Sabbath in his life,” because he did not act out of recognition of the divine command and commitment to it.

Motives, righteousness, and the parable of the sheep

The text tells a story attributed to Amnon Yitzhak about a city rabbi who got up at four in the morning, slaughtered a sheep, covered it with a tallit, and led the public on a funeral procession until it was revealed to be a “righteous one in fur,” in order to show that a sheep is “righteous” according to the criterion of not stealing and not murdering. The conclusion is that righteousness is not determined only by actions but by the reason and motive behind them. And so too in Jewish law: someone who performs the same actions without commitment to the command of the Holy One, blessed be He, is not fulfilling a commandment. It adds another example of a person who put on tefillin while still an atheist and repented at noon, and argues that “he did not put on tefillin today,” because an act without commitment is not fulfillment of a commandment.

A theological moral argument and logical reversal

The text presents a theological formulation of a proof from morality: if a person holds the intuition that there is valid and binding morality, and also accepts the premise that “without God there cannot be valid morality,” then the conclusion is that God exists. It emphasizes that this is different from pragmatism, because it does not recruit God in order to produce morality, but begins from the recognition that there is valid morality and asks how that is possible. It connects this to the logic of implication and explains the principle of denying the consequent: if A implies B, then if not B, then not A. Applied here, from the claim “if there is no God, there is no valid morality,” one gets the equivalent statement, “if there is valid morality, there is God.”

Richard Taylor: stones on the hillside and the meaning of chance

The text brings quotations from Richard Taylor’s book Metaphysics about a person traveling on a train who sees, on the side of a hill, stones arranged to spell out “Welcome to Scotland.” It presents the logical possibility that the stones were arranged by chance, but argues that if the person actually infers from the sign that he is at the gateway to Scotland and begins packing his suitcase, he cannot at the same time assume that the arrangement is the product of chance, because then the arrangement is evidence of nothing beyond the stones themselves. It adds another example of a stone found in an archaeological excavation bearing marks that an expert translates as “Here fell Kimon, as he led into battle a handful of Athenians against the armies of Cyrus,” and argues that there are only two possibilities: either the marks are accidental, in which case no historical information can be inferred from them, or they are intentional, in which case information can indeed be learned from them. But there is no coherent way to accept both chance and the content of the message.

A theological formulation of the physico-theological proof through trust in the senses

The text transfers Taylor’s claim to the complexity of the organs of sense and to the question of their reliability, and notes that a natural, non-teleological explanation for their formation is possible and, in the view of many, already available to us. It argues that the main point is not merely that people marvel at the senses, but that they trust them in order to discover truths about the world that are unrelated to the senses themselves, and that “seeing something” is taken as a good reason to believe in its existence. It presents the dilemma that one may claim our senses are accidental in origin, but if so, it becomes difficult to see how one can sanely believe that they are “reliable guides” for discovering truth about external reality. Therefore, an atheist who is prepared to say that the senses are a random product is required to accept deep skepticism and not continue attributing to the senses the status of testimony about the world.

The atheist’s response and the argument as a diagnostic tool

The text notes two possible responses available to the atheist in face of the argument: repentance, out of the realization that he already believes implicitly, or acceptance of the conclusion that there is no philosophical reason to trust the eyes and the senses. It emphasizes that it is not claiming our senses never err or that one must rely on them, but that people do in fact rely on them, and therefore a consistent decision is required. It concludes that the argument does not prove God’s existence, but points to a lack of coherence and asks a person to examine within himself which option he chooses. In that sense, the argument becomes a “diagnostic tool” and a “self-diagnostic” tool that reveals what a person already holds, rather than an epistemic argument that decides what is true in the world.

Pincer movement, either way, and the plan going forward

The text summarizes a structure of a “pincer movement” against the atheist: if one accepts that a complex thing does not arise spontaneously, one reaches the conclusion of God; and if one insists on the possibility of chance, one has to pay the price of distrusting the senses. It formulates this as an “either way” argument according to which both directions lead to God, except for one possible exit: rejecting trust in the senses and remaining a consistent atheist. It presents a goal of expanding the discussion from the eyes to all the senses, and from there to thought and cognition in general, under the heading of “the proof from epistemology,” and of dealing with possible objections to this argument from evolution.

Okay, a short summary of where we’re holding. Really this goes back to the beginning of the year, but I did a brief review, so I’m treating it as one continuous sequence. After I spoke a bit about the concept of faith / belief and the ways—yes, a factual claim and the ways to arrive at it—I divided the various approaches into six or seven, seven kinds of approaches. According to the Kantian classification there were three. One way is conceptual analysis, the ontological proof; the second way is the cosmological proof, meaning a proof from the very existence of something; and the third way is a physico-theological proof. That is, a proof based on certain properties of the thing that exists—in our case complexity, fit, design, things like that. Actually, last time I finished the physico-theological approach; the first two approaches I did last semester and summarized briefly at the beginning of this semester. So in effect we’ve finished the three Kantian approaches. And what I want to do now is propose a different route, one that includes several kinds of proofs, but all of them are based on the same logic, the same type of argument. And in order to clarify that kind of argument, we’re going to devote a few classes to it itself. Meaning: to understand why it’s different from ordinary arguments. But instead of starting top-down, let’s do it bottom-up. Meaning: I want to begin first of all with an example, bring an example of such an argument, and afterward we’ll come back and ask ourselves what is special about this example. Meaning: what special logic can be seen in this example, and then generalize it or see other similar argument-patterns. But still, you can’t exempt yourself completely, so I will give a bit of introduction before I bring this example.

So, I basically intend to speak here about a family of arguments, or a family of proofs for the existence of God, all of which are based on reverse logic. Reverse logic means moving from the conclusion to the premises, and not from the premises to the conclusion. Okay, I know that sounds a little strange, but I hope it will become clearer later. In the past I called these kinds of arguments a philosophical argument and a theological argument. Why? Not because of the content—it’s not about the fields theology and philosophy—but because of the character of the argument, the logic. Why? Because once, when I was younger—even a bit younger than I am today—in Tel Aviv University I heard an introductory course in philosophy. It was very bad, by the way, that course. It was during the Sinai withdrawal period, and the guy simply dealt only with politics. I won’t say his name because that would be slander. But among other things, here and there, there were a few points I definitely learned from him. And one of them was that he brought some joke there. He said: what’s the difference between a theologian and a philosopher? A philosopher assumes premises and derives conclusions from them. A theologian assumes conclusions and derives premises from them. Meaning, the theologian basically assumes that there is a God, and somehow builds some argument that will lead him to that conclusion.

Now I’ll come back to this point, because in fact both philosophers and theologians do this. They’re both theologians. There really are no true philosophers. Everyone is a theologian. That’s one thing. Second, being a theologian is not a crime. Meaning, there is such a logic, and you can go with it, this logic of assuming conclusions and finding the premises that lead to them. And that’s what I’m going to devote the next few classes to. Right, so that’s just a general introduction.

Let’s start in a slightly more orderly way. We spoke about the emptiness of the analytic, the vacuity of the analytic. What does that mean? When we have a logical argument: all human beings are mortal, Socrates is a human being, conclusion: Socrates is mortal. I asked: why must someone who accepts the two premises also necessarily accept the conclusion? Maybe I did this last semester, I no longer remember which semester. Okay, so I’ll do it briefly here. Why must someone who accepts the premises also accept the conclusion? Two premises: all human beings are mortal—the first premise, let’s call it the major premise of the argument—and Socrates is a human being, which is called the minor premise, because it assumes something only about Socrates, not about an entire class of entities, of things. So whoever assumes these two premises must necessarily accept the conclusion that Socrates is mortal. Why? Because within the fact—within the fact—you have the premises. What is the fact? What you want to prove is embedded within the fact. Right. Actually, within the premises.

Meaning, the claim here is that you don’t… let’s say, yes, I illustrated this there by saying: think about someone who comes to you—the Little Prince comes to you, just a second—and you say to him: welcome to planet Earth, our planet. Know that there are creatures here called human beings, and all human beings are mortal. Okay, I learned something new. Then you say to him: you know, there’s also a very special person here, his name is Socrates. Really exceptional, excellent. But unfortunately, despite how special he is, he too will die at some point. And the prince says, no, that I refuse to accept. It can’t be—such a special person, obviously he won’t die. Wait, but you accepted that all human beings are mortal, right? You also accept that Socrates is a human being. Yes, I’m new here; if you say so, and I don’t suspect you of lying, I accept both your premises, okay? He has no physical disqualification and no suspicion of falsehood, meaning he’s a trustworthy witness. So if that’s the case, I ask him: then how is it that you don’t accept that he is mortal, that he is going to die? Why should I accept that? It doesn’t sound logical to me. What do you mean? But you accepted the two premises, didn’t you? Yes, of course. So how can you accept the two premises and not accept the conclusion? I’m asking the same question I asked before, but I’m illustrating for you the difficulty you’ll run into when you try to explain to yourselves why it’s true. And when you try to explain to the person: wait, but if you accepted the two premises, you have to accept the conclusion. It’s not at all clear how you’ll manage to explain that to him. It seems self-evident to us. But how do you explain it? Meaning, why really is it so self-evident? Why is it true?

It seems to me the best way is to tell him: listen, let’s analyze the two claims you accepted, the two premises you accepted. One of the claims is that all human beings are mortal, right? Let’s break it down into components. When I say all human beings are mortal, I’m really summing up a great many individual premises here. Moshe is mortal, Yosef is mortal, Ahmad is mortal, and Johnny is mortal, and all of them—and also Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel, and Leah. Meaning all the people one after another are mortal. When I say that briefly, I gather all these premises and I say briefly: all human beings are mortal. Right? But really I should have written ten billion premises here, okay? If you want, for all the people who have lived until today, I think it’s something like twenty billion. Fine? So twenty billion such premises—briefly I simply say it as a shorthand. I say all human beings are mortal, but really I mean all of them. Now one out of those twenty billion premises is of course that Socrates is mortal, right? Because Socrates is a human being—that’s the second premise. And when I count all human beings, one of them is Socrates. So you actually accepted the claim that Socrates is mortal, so how can you now not accept it when I tell you that Socrates is mortal? You can’t accept a certain premise and at the same time not accept it. If he insists even here, from that point on it’s hospitalization. There’s no way to explain. But I hope that at least reasonable princes will accept that explanation. A thing and its opposite—he’ll agree that he can’t accept that, okay? Both that Socrates is mortal and that he is not mortal at the same time—he can’t accept that.

What did I really tell him? What I told him is that the conclusion I’m trying to persuade him of was actually embedded within the premises. When you accepted the premises, implicitly you already accepted the conclusion. So why are you arguing with me now when I put it explicitly on the table? You already accepted it implicitly before, but in fact you accepted it. Or in other words: a valid logical argument is always an argument that assumes the conclusion. Always. In logic they teach that begging the question is one item in the list of fallacies; there is always a list of fallacies at the beginning of logic textbooks. A valid logical argument is a logical argument that assumes the conclusion. That is what a valid logical argument is, and nothing else. It’s simply a synonym. The only thing is, sometimes when we talk about begging the question, it’s in some banal, trivial sense. For example: let me prove to you that this table is brown. Do you agree that this table is brown? Conclusion: this table is brown. That’s a valid argument—meaning, if I assume X, I can infer X. But it’s idiotic. There’s no point in doing it, right? I won’t gain anything from it.

Actually, in other words, why won’t I gain anything? Because if I’m trying to persuade someone that this table is brown, that means he currently holds the position that this table is not brown. So the premise on which I’m relying, which says that this table is brown—that is a premise he will not accept. What’s the point of building an argument on premises he doesn’t accept? In order to persuade him, you need to build an argument on premises he does accept, right? And when you assume the conclusion, when you assume what is sought, you’re basically building an argument on a premise your interlocutor doesn’t accept. So the conclusion does follow from the premises, the argument is valid, but it has no persuasive value. You won’t succeed in persuading anyone by means of it. That’s the point. It’s not a fallacy. It’s a superfluous argument, not that it’s invalid, but that it’s useless. Because this argument ultimately relies on a premise that he does not accept.

Yes, the joke I brought—the nice joke, a yeshiva joke—how do we know every Jew has to walk around with a hat? Here, there’s only one Jew in the class who meets that criterion. How do we know every Jew has to walk around with a hat? It says “And Abraham went,” right? There, chapter 13. A Jew like him obviously didn’t go around without a hat, right? So if Abraham went with a hat, and we are his faithful descendants who are supposed to walk in his ways, then we too must go with a hat. Which was to be proved. Now it sounds ridiculous, and everybody always laughs when they hear it. What’s funny here? Is there something problematic about this argument? You assume from the outset that every Jew… I assume—fine. Every… is there any argument you know that isn’t based on premises? Of course it has premises, okay, so what? Every argument has premises. The fact that this argument has premises is not a crime; there is no argument without premises. And obviously, whoever doesn’t accept the premises won’t accept the conclusion—everything is fine, those are the rules of the format, okay? So what’s the problem with this argument? That it assumes the conclusion. What does that mean? You say “And Abraham went,” it says “And Abraham went.” A Jew like him obviously didn’t go around without a hat. Why? Because every Jew has to go with a hat, right? That a Jew like Abraham didn’t go around without a hat is because every Jew has to go with a hat. Meaning I’m really assuming implicitly the conclusion that every Jew has to go with a hat, and therefore from that also that a Jew like him didn’t go without a hat, because every Jew has to go with a hat. Meaning the very conclusion I want to prove—that every Jew has to go with a hat—was actually one of the premises in the argument. Therefore this argument begs the question.

But as I said before, an argument that begs the question is not a defective argument. Begging the question is not a fallacy. Begging the question is simply a useless argument, not an effective one. Why? Because if someone disagrees with me about the claim that every Jew has to go with a hat, this argument also won’t persuade him he’s wrong. Because this argument is based on the very premise he disputes, so there’s no point. So the conclusion follows from the premises; this is a valid argument. It follows in a trivial way—X therefore X, okay, obvious. But it’s an argument without value. Okay?

The big question is of course: so what place is there for logic at all? So all of logic is made of worthless arguments. If you like, all of mathematics, all deductive arguments, yes, all necessary arguments, are all worthless. And the answer is no. Why not? Because there are situations where begging the question is not as banal as in this case. Sometimes begging the question is more sophisticated. It’s always there, and a valid logical argument always assumes the conclusion. But not always in such a banal way. Sometimes you assume some premise, such as all human beings are mortal, and you are not aware that hidden within it is also the claim that Socrates is mortal. Then I cause you to discover it, and suddenly you understand that in fact you do accept it. That is something that can have value.

Think of geometry studies. In geometry there are a few axioms—plane geometry, as we all learned in high school. So there are a few axioms, and from them we derive the conclusion that the sum of the angles in a triangle is 180 degrees. That argument assumes the conclusion, otherwise it would not be a valid logical argument. Okay? So what value is there in studying geometry? The value is that if I had asked you before the class what the sum of the angles in a triangle is, you would never have answered. You wouldn’t know. After I proved it to you in class, after the teacher proved it to us in class, we suddenly understand that it really is contained within the premises we know. After all, every child in sixth grade knows that between two points there passes one straight line, that two parallels do not meet—the premises of geometry are obvious to every sixth grader. Okay? But no sixth grader will tell you the sum of the angles in a triangle. Even though the claim that the sum is 180 is contained in the premises. In principle he knows it. It’s just that the way to expose it is not easy. Not easy is not easy our way, as they say. Okay? That’s why you need the help of the teacher. Therefore in such cases the logical argument, even though it assumes the conclusion, has value. Because if no one had shown me that path, I would not know that hidden in my premises this conclusion was also there.

And therefore, whenever a logical argument succeeds in proving something to you, know that you really already knew that thing beforehand. You just weren’t aware of it. That’s all. Always. Every proof by logical means of any claim—everything it can do is show you that you have accepted that claim all along, from the very beginning. From before. You just weren’t aware of it. I’m showing you that within the premises you accept, this claim is also embedded. That’s all. And you didn’t notice it. So you were simply living in error, that’s all.

Suppose I proved to someone that there is a God. Okay? And I built some logical argument—say, let’s talk about the physico-theological argument. Okay? So what does the physico-theological argument say? A complex thing is not created spontaneously—first premise. Right? Or every complex thing has a composer or maker—that’s a similar formulation, right? Second premise, the minor claim: our world is complex. Conclusion: our world has a maker. That is basically the physico-theological argument, right? Now suppose, say I managed to persuade some atheist and he comes to the conclusion that our world has a maker, meaning there is a God. Okay? What process did he go through? After all, he accepted two premises: that every complex thing has a maker. He also accepted that our world is complex. So how did he previously say he was an atheist before I brought up this argument? He was simply confused. He simply made a mistake. He didn’t understand that hidden within his premises was the claim that our world has a maker, that there is a God. And all I did with the logical argument was expose before him something he already knew before. He just wasn’t aware that he knew it. It was hidden inside broader claims that concealed it. Okay? But it was there. Because if it wasn’t there, I could not have persuaded him on this matter by logical means. Okay?

Okay, so basically what I’m saying is what’s called in philosophy the emptiness of the analytic, or the vacuity of the analytic. What does that mean? Analytic arguments—yes, logical arguments—are always empty. What does “empty” mean? They add no information beyond the information found in the premises. The conclusion we reach is not new information; it is information already contained within the premises. Okay? Therefore logical arguments are always empty. They never add information. New information is added by scientific tools, not by logical or mathematical tools and the like. Okay? That’s regarding the emptiness of the analytic.

And that basically means that a logical argument can persuade only the already persuaded. What does “already persuaded” mean? Not people who already know it, but people who know it implicitly. They’re just not aware of it, and in fact it’s already there within them. A logical argument can never take you somewhere you are not already located. At most it can reveal to you something about the place where you already are. That’s all—something you may not be aware of. Fine? I compared it then to a locked safe with all kinds of things in it that belong to me, but as long as someone doesn’t teach me how to open the safe, those things belong to me but I have no use for them. They aren’t accessible to me. The person who opens the safe does not acquire anything new for me. He gives me things that were always mine, but he makes them accessible to me. Now I can use them too, I’m aware of them, they are accessible to me. Same thing with a proof: it simply gives me access to claims that were always mine, but were locked in the safe, and the proof opened the safe for me and now those claims are accessible to me. I know that I accept them, that I believe in them.

So let me try to illustrate the meaning of these things for this type of argument that I called earlier theological arguments. Look for a moment at a formulation—really a completely simplistic formulation, I’ll come back to it—but right now just for illustration, so let’s not argue about the claim itself, about the argument itself. I only want to use it to demonstrate something. I want to say this: suppose I want to prove to someone that there is a God on the basis that there is morality. Meaning, if you accept that morality is something binding, that there is valid, binding morality, something like that, then that means there is a God. An argument of that type. Now that’s a very tricky argument. Why is it tricky? Because you can say the same argument in a slightly different formulation and then it would just be nonsense. Meaning, if what I mean to say is: look, if we don’t believe in God then people will swallow each other alive, so there won’t be moral behavior in the world—that’s a foolish argument. Not because it isn’t true, but because it doesn’t prove that there is a God. So people will swallow each other alive—so what? What do you want? Am I supposed to arrive at the conclusion that there is a God because I want the world to behave in a certain way? So I want it—so what if I want it? There’s the ought and there’s the is: the ought is what should be, and the is is what exists. I want the world to behave morally—I want that, but something I want doesn’t say anything about what exists. I can’t infer from wanting a repaired world the existence of God, even on the assumption—which can itself be debated—that without God there can be no moral world or moral behavior.

That’s what I call a pragmatic argument. A pragmatic argument is basically an argument that says it’s worthwhile for us to assume there is a God because otherwise the situation will be bad. That’s a foolish argument. It’s like: come light Sabbath candles with us, believe in God because look what a wonderful Jewish home you’ll have—that’s about the same thing. That’s good for Amnon Yitzhak. It’s a foolish argument. Why is it foolish? Not because the home won’t be wonderful; maybe it will be, I don’t know. But it has nothing to do with the question whether I am obligated by Jewish law. If there is no God and He didn’t give commandments, then I’m not obligated by Jewish law even if it creates a wonderful home for me. It could be that I’ll try to observe those commandments for the sake of the wonderful home. That is not called observing commandments.

That’s Ahad Ha’am. Ahad Ha’am basically called on us to keep the Sabbath because more than the Jewish people kept the Sabbath, the Sabbath kept the Jewish people. That’s not from Ethics of the Fathers; that’s Ahad Ha’am. And my claim is that even if Ahad Ha’am observed every small clause of the Mishnah Berurah in the laws of the Sabbath—which I doubt—but even if he observed every small clause, he never in his life kept the Sabbath. He fulfilled no commandment. That is not a commandment. He’s simply doing it because he thinks it preserves the Jewish character, the Jewish tradition, the connection to Jewish tradition—all very nice, but that is not fulfillment of commandments. Fulfilling commandments means recognizing the existence of God and His commands and our obligation to His commands. That is the basis of fulfilling commandments. Someone who does the same things but for other reasons has not fulfilled commandments. He fulfilled commandments like one acting without intent. It’s Amnon Yitzhak’s sheep.

Did I mention that? I don’t remember. I once heard—since I remembered him just before, let’s continue with that same saint. I once heard—yes, he’s a performer, so I won’t try to imitate him—but he tells that the city rabbi got up at four in the morning, slaughtered a sheep, put it on the main road, covered it with a prayer shawl, and shouted: a saint, the saint has passed away, the heavenly beings have triumphed over the mighty ones, and the holy ark has been captured, and so on and so forth. And people woke up at four in the morning, rubbing their eyes, looking at what our rabbi is doing out there in the road. Such a saint has died—who are we to stand by? Everybody comes out, joins the heartbreaking funeral procession, all weeping over that saint, until they arrive at the cemetery and there the rabbi removes the prayer shawl, and they want to place the saint into the grave, and they see that this is what’s called a saint in fur. Right, so they see there’s a saint in fur there, and they want to swap him with the rabbi and put the rabbi in instead. So the rabbi says to them: I don’t understand what you want from me. Whenever I rebuke you, you answer me: look, rabbi, what do you want from us? We are completely righteous. We don’t harm anyone, we don’t murder, we don’t steal, we’re wonderful people. So what do you want? So the rabbi says to them: this sheep is no less righteous than you. It also didn’t steal, didn’t destroy, didn’t murder anyone, didn’t hurt anyone—it’s completely righteous. It’s righteous too. If that is your criterion for righteousness, what do you want from me? Then it’s righteous. That’s it—the ultimate saint. Okay?

What does he mean? There are midrashim in his words. What he means, of course, is that a sheep cannot be righteous. Why? Because righteousness is not determined by the question of what you do. Righteousness is determined by the question of why you do what you do. Okay? If you do it because you are obligated by Jewish law, then you are righteous. Or if you do it because you are obligated by morality, then you are righteous. If you do those very same moral acts, but because you want publicity, or because you want—I don’t know—to make some kind of profit, then you are not righteous. Everything is fine, you have every right to make a profit, but you don’t deserve credit for righteousness. Okay? Meaning, motives are an inseparable part of the moral judgment we have of a person, and so too in Jewish law. A person’s motives are an inseparable part of defining him as one who fulfills commandments. He can repeat all the commandments, but if he does not do so out of obligation to the command of the Holy One, blessed be He, he has never fulfilled a commandment. He just does it like that, for no particular reason. He has never fulfilled a commandment.

No. I claim that if Chabadniks got someone to put on tefillin in the morning—yes, someone who doesn’t believe in God, or doesn’t believe in the revelation at Mount Sinai, even if he does believe in God, okay?—and he repented in the afternoon, he must put on tefillin. He didn’t put on tefillin that day. Because when he put on tefillin as an atheist, that was not putting on tefillin. It was just a ritual. “And you shall put on tefillin” is a commandment. No, it isn’t. Because in order to put on tefillin, you have to do it out of obligation to the command of the Holy One, blessed be He. No, no, everything you’re saying is correct. No, no—so not “believe,” but “feel obligated.” Believe means: I believe that there is a God and that He gave the Torah, but that doesn’t obligate me. So did he fulfill the commandment? So that’s not called “believing but lazy”; that’s called “obligated but lazy.” I am obligated to commandments only when I believe there is a God and that He gave the Torah—that’s belief in facts. Obligation means that I feel obligated, I know I have a normative obligation, not merely that I believe certain beliefs. Okay? That, yes, is perfectly fine. Such a person certainly does fulfill a commandment, if he performs it. I’m talking about someone who only believes—or not even believes—or he believes only in the facts but is not obligated. Meaning, the claim is that in order to fulfill commandments, you must do it out of obligation to the commandment and to the Commander. Otherwise that thing is not a commandment.

Therefore I’m saying that on the moral plane too? Morally too, same thing. Here I don’t quite agree, because in the end a person, unlike Rabbi Levi Yitzhak’s sheep, has urges, has many desires to murder and to steal. And if he overcomes that, even if only in order… No, no, obviously. Don’t take the parable too far. The claim is that they are basically doing it just because they are nice people, like sheep. Obviously if a person struggles and does it… A person who doesn’t sin is already making an effort. No—why is he making an effort? If he doesn’t want to sin, then he’s not making an effort. You’re assuming he wants to sin and has to overcome his evil inclination. Fine, if he overcomes his evil inclination then he really isn’t a sheep. In the parable the point is, fine, if you don’t murder and don’t steal—most of us don’t murder and don’t steal, because why would we do that? Meaning in ordinary cases, when we’re not in some special distress or something like that. Therefore we don’t deserve credit for that; in this respect we are sheep, okay? If someone else—fine, then he’s not a sheep, that’s not…

Okay, so the claim is that a pragmatic performance of things is valueless. Not in Jewish law, not in morality, nowhere. Same thing: belief in something also cannot be based on a pragmatic argument. Unlike the school called pragmatism in philosophy, which turned this into an ideology. Meaning, do you know the way to deal with good arguments against you? Give your position a name and announce that that’s what you are. Okay? Meaning, for example, there is a flaw in your position that you are pragmatic. Right, I’m pragmatic. That’s it. You have a concept now, you’ve created a doctrine. A doctrine now has a name: pragmatist. And then that allows you to do any nonsense you want. Meaning, you can believe in God because it will make the world better, you can declare someone an enemy even though he’s your best friend, because I don’t know what, because it helps you for one reason or another. Because if utility really is the criterion and not truth, then whatever you decide is the truth—meaning there is no truth. Okay? And then of course that too can be turned into an ideology. Right? There is no truth. Fine, okay, everybody has his own truth; sometimes that’s called postmodernism, doesn’t matter. These words are wonderful tools.

For example, are you familiar with the whole thing of whataboutism? There is this set of accusations—usually it’s leftists. Meaning, they have a set of accusations. When there are good arguments against them, they give that kind of argument a name and say: you are guilty of whataboutism. You show them that they behave exactly as you do when they accuse you of something. Right, but that’s whataboutism. And then everything is fine, as if. Why is it fine? Meaning, you’re doing exactly the same thing, and you say that what I’m doing is not okay? Now it’s true that if it really isn’t okay, then the fact that you do it doesn’t justify what I do. But usually when people say this to them, what they mean is: what do you want? It is okay—after all, you yourself do it too. Meaning, you admit that it’s okay, not just that it’s okay. That’s the claim, basically. But it doesn’t matter, because we have a label: it’s whataboutism, and therefore we’re done. You’re exempt from answering all of it. And this is the craft of leftists. Leftists always have such a set of names, these kinds of words, always—and it’s always against good arguments. Whenever there’s a good argument against you, the way to deal with it is to pull some label out of the toolbox of Haaretz newspaper, announce that you are a pragmatist, or a whataboutist, or whatever it may be, and that’s it, you’re exempt, you no longer need to answer anything. Fine.

What? Doesn’t that hide an argument inside it? Suppose someone says: look, you’re not obeying the rules of democracy. Someone accuses me. And I say: but you too aren’t obeying the rules of democracy. Fine, that’s whataboutism. Does the fact that I don’t obey justify your not obeying? You’re not okay—explain yourself. That’s it. No, okay, afterward we’ll discuss me. No, let’s be more nuanced: afterward we’ll discuss me, but do you agree that you’re not okay? No, I don’t agree. Because I claim that under certain circumstances it’s permissible not to obey the rules of democracy, and the proof is that you do the same thing—that under certain circumstances, you too do not obey the rules of democracy. Therefore I claim that this is a good argument, the argument against him. Because if we really both agreed that it isn’t okay, then the fact that he failed doesn’t justify my failure—unless, of course, there is reciprocity between us, in which case it may even be a justification. Suppose not, okay? If he steals from someone else and I also steal from someone else—that’s not a justification, because stealing is forbidden. No problem. That’s not what we’re discussing. But if our dispute is over whether it’s okay or not, when I say to you, look, you do it too, what am I basically saying? I’m saying: look, evidently it is okay, because a reasonable person does it too, whether that’s you or me. So what do you want from me? This is completely normative behavior, everybody does it. So no—it’s whataboutism. In short, it’s really wonderful, a marvelous technique. Part of postmodernism and all these tricks whose role is to prevent any criticism of the perfect worldview that says nothing.

So to return to our topic: pragmatism is a dirty word for our purposes, okay? Meaning, when you tell me: look, if there is no God in this place they’ll kill me—as the moralists always say regarding Abraham our forefather—that is a void argument. A void argument. Because the fact that without God the world won’t be moral—okay, then it will be immoral, and we’ll have to deal with that. I can’t assume there is a God because otherwise the world won’t be moral. Fine, and if there isn’t, then there isn’t. What can you do? You have to deal with the consequences. Okay?

As opposed to that, what I claimed earlier was something else. I say: look, without God there will be no valid morality here. That sounds very similar, right? But it is not the same thing. There won’t be—or there isn’t? There won’t be, no. Today there is, but if you now suggest that I remove God from my world—yes, Nietzsche, kill Him—then what will happen to the world? Okay, so my claim is that it sounds very similar, but it is completely different. Because what I want to say is this. Use your intuition. Do you think morality is valid, binding? Yes, certainly. Fine. But without God there cannot be valid morality. Conclusion: there is a God. That is a completely legitimate argument. I assume the initial intuition that there is valid morality, and from that I derive the conclusion that there is a God. Why? Because without God there cannot be valid morality. It sounds very similar to pragmatism, but it is not the same thing, because in pragmatism I am not assuming that there is valid morality. I want the world to behave in such a way that there is valid morality.

Like you said, gravity exists even if there’s no God, or as though you’re saying morality is sort of physical? No, I didn’t understand. If we attach morality to a physical force for the sake of argument, say God created morality. No. Let’s say—we’ll discuss that. You want to argue about the claim itself, and that’s less important to me. We’ll get to it in detail. I’m only using it to show the reversal I’m making and the difference between this and pragmatism. And assuming I succeed in persuading you that without God there is no valid morality—let’s say for now that’s fine, okay? What does that mean? It doesn’t mean anything by itself. It just depends on whether you think that there really is valid morality on the philosophical level. If you don’t think there is, then you can’t prove the existence of God from the fact that without God there would be no valid morality. Correct—there wouldn’t be. What can you do? Okay? That’s pragmatism. Meaning, to assume there is a God in order to create a world in which there is valid morality—that’s pragmatism. Fine? But to say: look, my intuition tells me that morality really is valid. It binds. I’m sure that morality binds. Now I ask myself: wait, then let’s ask backward—how can that be? After all, without God there is no valid morality. So if my intuition tells me there is valid morality, that basically means that I believe—not explicitly perhaps, but I believe—in God. And that is not a pragmatic argument. It is not a pragmatic argument. Because I am not recruiting God to produce valid morality; I am sure there is valid morality. I’m only asking backward: okay, if there is, how can I explain that? After all, without God it couldn’t be. So apparently there is a God.

Again, let’s be clear: I don’t want to argue over that claim right now. I want to assume that without God there is no valid morality. For the moment that’s an assumption. We’ll still discuss it, but I’m only illustrating the logic through it. Understand? So this is not pragmatism. This is a completely philosophical argument. What’s the difference? Why does it look reversed to us? Usually we say: if there is a God, then there is valid morality. Here we go backward: if there is valid morality, there is a God. So the first is a philosophical argument, the second is a theological argument. It assumes the conclusion—there is valid morality—and looks for the premises that would lead to that conclusion. The premises are that there is a God, because otherwise there would be no valid morality. Do you understand why I call it a theological argument? Because it is basically an argument that assumes the conclusion that there is valid morality, and then searches for the premises that lead to it. But as I explained to you just now, if it were pragmatic, then indeed a theological argument would be nonsense. But if it is not pragmatism, but really a move backward, then what is the problem? It’s a completely valid argument, even though it goes backward.

Now, even the definition of backward and forward is a very problematic definition. Because, you know, I’m basically saying this. A short introduction in logic—we’ll return to this in greater detail, but still, just to sharpen it. Suppose A implies B in logic, meaning if A then B. Okay? That does not mean that if B then A, right? It’s not reversible. Therefore you need a double condition. From the positive statement you infer the negative—that is, if this happens, I will do that. That’s a condition. You have to add: and if this does not happen, then I will not do it. Why? Because if I say only the one direction, from the positive statement you infer the negative—suppose I say: if it rains tomorrow, I’ll give you a present. That does not mean that if it does not rain, I won’t give you a present. Maybe yes, maybe no, right? If I want both things, I say: if it rains I’ll give you a present; if it doesn’t rain I won’t give you a present. You need a double condition. Meaning, a condition is not something that reverses. Meaning, if A implies B, that does not mean not-A implies not-B, right? What does it mean, though, if A implies B? That if not-B, then not-A. That’s called denying the consequent. Right? A implies B; B is the consequent. A is the antecedent; B is the consequent. Denying the consequent means if not-B—not the consequent—then not-A. That is an equivalent argument. How do I know? Let me prove it by contradiction. Suppose not-B, and let’s assume that A is indeed true. But the original rule said that if A then B. So how can it be that not-B? We arrive at a contradiction. Therefore it must be that if not-B, then certainly not-A. Because if it were A, we would arrive at a contradiction. Fine? Therefore if we want to reverse an implication, A implies B or if A then B, the correct reversal is not if not-A then not-B, but rather if not-B then not-A. Fine?

Now what I really want to say here is this. If there is no God, there is no valid morality. That’s the assumption I made earlier. And again, without arguing over it now, I’ll discuss it—but if there is no God, there is no valid morality, okay? What does that mean? No God is A, no valid morality is B, right? If there is no God, then there is no valid morality. What is the equivalent statement? If there is valid morality—that’s the opposite of no valid morality, not-B—then there is a God, right? Meaning, if I assume that if not-A then not-B, from here it’s clear that equivalently if B then A. And if indeed B is true and B implies A, then I have proved A. Meaning, B—the first premise is B. The second premise is if not-A then not-B. From that one can derive A. Fine? That is basically the claim.

Now, you understand that the moment I reverse implication claims like this, there isn’t much meaning to talking about a direct argument or a reverse argument. Which is the premise and which is the conclusion? A is the premise and B is the conclusion, because when I reverse it, then not-B is the premise and not-A is the conclusion, right? If A implies B, that means A is the premise and B is the conclusion. When I reverse it, I create the implication that if not-B then not-A, and suddenly not-B is the premise and not-A is the conclusion, right? So in our case I can prove that if—I mean, I can assume, sorry—that if there is no God there is no valid morality, then my premise concerns the existence of God and morality is the conclusion. Usually morality is derived from God, and therefore it seems to us like the regular, direct, philosophical direction. And the opposite direction is the theological direction, where you assume conclusions and derive premises. But it’s not really like that, because when we assume, we assume that there is valid morality, not that there isn’t. When we say there is valid morality, we assume not-B, and then not-B is the premise and not-A—meaning there is a God—is the conclusion. So this is a completely logical argument. There is nothing illogical about this argument, even though it looks to us as though it goes in the opposite direction. It doesn’t go in any opposite direction. Okay? It’s a completely logical argument.

The only thing is, of course, you may not accept the premise. You can say there is no valid morality; you can say I don’t see any connection between valid morality and the existence of God. These are two premises one can argue over. And among atheists who are good people it’s easier to understand that there is valid morality, and then from that you prove there is a God. Obviously. That’s how this argument is built. I say to him: look, do you agree there is valid morality? Many atheists will say yes. Fine, then think—without God there cannot be valid morality, therefore you need to believe in God. That is basically the argument directed at an atheist. And then of course, again from experience, one of two things happens: either he says, right, so there is no valid morality, and everyone does what he likes—I behave well because I feel like it, but there is no real morality that obligates me in any sense. That’s one possibility. A second possibility is that he can say, no, there is valid morality even without God. Meaning he disputes that implication. And we’ll get to that when we discuss this proof.

Okay? So that was only to illustrate the logic, why there is reverse logic here but in fact it is regular, valid logic. Now I want to move on to an actual proof for the existence of God, and this time I’ll do it in a theological argument, not a philosophical one—not on the basis of morality, I’ll come to that later—but I’ll formulate a theological version of the physico-theological proof. The physico-theological proof that we learned was: the world is complex; a complex thing is not created without a maker; conclusion: there is a God. That is the physico-theological argument; that is its philosophical formulation: from the complexity of the world to the existence of God. Okay? Now let’s see.

The source for this, I’m bringing here a quotation from a book by Richard Taylor, an American philosopher. A book called Metaphysics. It’s an introduction to metaphysical issues. A very nice book, I recommend it. A thin little book and overall fairly clear. In any case, in one of the chapters there he deals with the existence of God, and he basically proposes the claim I’m going to present to you here; I’m simply bringing quotations from him.

Metaphysics. If you can’t see—does this bother you? We can turn it off if you want. You can’t see without it? Okay. Suppose that you are traveling in a train car, and at one of the stations you look out the window and see on the side of a small hill next to the tracks a large number of white stones arranged in a pattern something like the following: “Welcome to Scotland.” Fine? Stones on the hillside; you’re traveling by train; through the window you see a message made of stones: “Welcome to Scotland.” Fine? Obviously, you would not doubt for even a moment that it is no accident that the stones form this pattern. Meaning, you wouldn’t say it was created by chance, right? Not plausible. In fact, you would be quite certain that they were arranged this way intentionally in order to convey a meaningful message. Meaning, someone put that there, apparently, in order to convey to you the information that you’re entering Scotland. Okay? Nevertheless, you are unable to prove, solely on the basis of observing their arrangement, that they were arranged by a being with intention. It is quite possible, at least logically, that behind this pattern there stands no intentional hand at all, and that it is merely the product of lifeless nature. It may be that the stones came to this interesting arrangement entirely by chance. For example, that over a period of hundreds of years each and every stone rolled down the hill until finally it came to its special place relative to the others. For clearly the fact that something has an interesting and impressive shape or structure, and therefore seems as though it was planned in advance, is not in itself proof that it was in fact planned. There may always be another explanation.

There may be another explanation, or no explanation—just chance. In principle that’s possible; at the logical level it is certainly a possibility, right? You can argue about the statistics, but at the logical level that is certainly possible. However, here we encounter the important point, which is easy to miss. You understand the analogy. We are really talking about the physico-theological argument. We say the world is ordered, complex, and therefore there is a God who composed it. What does the atheist say to us? No, all of this happened by chance. Right? That’s basically what he says. Now he says: let me pull a little yeshiva move on you, an intellectual snatch. See how you deal with the atheist’s claim: you take him to a different side.

“However, here we encounter the important point, which is easy not to notice, namely, that if on seeing through the train window the group of stones arranged as described you came to the conclusion that you were entering Scotland”—would you get off the train? He now asks you a question. Forget God, forget all the philosophy. You’re on a train, you see on the hillside a message made of stones: “Welcome to Scotland.” Presumably you would draw the conclusion that you’ve reached Scotland, right? “And if the only basis for this conclusion, whether it constitutes a good proof or not, was that the stones form the pattern they form, then you could not consistently suppose that the arrangement of the stones was a matter of chance. In fact, you would suppose that they were arranged in this way by an intelligent being or beings with intention, in order to convey a certain message that has nothing to do with the stones themselves.”

What is he saying? He says: look, I don’t know whether you’re right in concluding that you’ve reached Scotland or not; maybe not. But if you did reach the conclusion that you are at the gates of Scotland, one thing is clear: you cannot assume that the stones were arranged by chance. Right? Because if the stones were arranged by chance, then the fact that there is such a message says nothing about your being at the entrance to Scotland. Now I’m not even entering the question whether you are right or not right. This is theology. I’m not entering the question whether you’re right or not right. I’m only asking: what premises are you yourself assuming? Maybe you’re mistaken in doing this, but let’s try to do a self-diagnostic. Try to examine within yourself. You see this stone message, and you pack your suitcase. You start packing your suitcase—you’ve reached Scotland, right? And then one moment—the believer asks you: wait, maybe the stones were arranged by chance? It could be that the stones were arranged by chance, right? He says: wait—ah, you know what? Fine, they were arranged by chance and I still get off in Scotland. I still get off. Why are you still getting off? If they were arranged by chance, then the very existence of such a message in no way says that you are at the gates of Scotland. It could just as well have been created at the gates of Ireland or at the gates of Zimbabwe. Right? I mean, on the assumption that such a message could come about by chance. The basic argument says: such a message cannot come about by chance. That is the regular formulation of the physico-theological argument. This thing seems more plausible to me. Fine, no problem. You’re packing your suitcase and saying the stone message was arranged by chance? You’re about to get off, but you’re packing your suitcase? That you can’t do. Decide. You can decide it was arranged by chance, despite the fact that the message has a very distinctive structure. Arranged by chance—fine. But then don’t pack your suitcase.

Or he can say it was arranged by chance, and after it was arranged by chance they built Scotland. Then it doesn’t matter, then it isn’t chance. That’s not important. People saw “Scotland” written there. So that’s chance? Then it’s not chance. The link between the location and the stones is not accidental. It doesn’t matter whether the location came first and the stones were deliberately arranged, or the stones were there first and the place was deliberately arranged. But the connection between the place and the stones is not accidental, right? You cannot assume that the connection is accidental. Fine?

So ultimately I’m saying that there are two possible ways to relate to such a stone inscription. You can be a believer and assume that if there is such an inscription, it was not arranged by chance, and then get ready to disembark. You can be an atheist and assume it was arranged by chance, but then of course sit there and keep sleeping and wait for the loudspeaker to announce that you’ve arrived in Scotland. One thing you cannot do is say it was arranged by chance and start packing your suitcase. That cannot be; it’s inconsistent. Now notice: this does not mean that such a message cannot be at the gates of Scotland. It can, just as it can be at the gates of Zimbabwe. If you assume such a thing can arise by chance, then it could arise by chance at the gates of Scotland too. That can also happen. But one thing you don’t know is that this is the case. If you see this stone message and say to yourself, “Look, this was arranged by chance”—fine, where was it arranged? Anywhere on the globe. Maybe at the gates of Scotland and maybe not. The mere existence of the stone message cannot be a sufficient basis for the conclusion that I have reached Scotland, right? We can agree on that. Notice—not because such a message cannot arise by chance at the gates of Scotland. It can. But I, as someone seeing the message—if I have no other information besides the existence of the message, and I assume that this message could arise by chance—I have no way to infer that I am at the gates of Scotland, right? There is no logic at all in starting to pack a suitcase. It could be anywhere else in the world too, even if it arose by chance.

So notice: an argument of this kind is addressed to a person who is willing to accept that the arrangement of the stones happened by chance. We’re not attacking him for that. The physico-theological argument attacks him for that—a thing so special is not created just like that, by chance, spontaneously. This argument says: no, no, let’s go with you—it happened by chance. But then don’t draw conclusions from it. Okay? Let me continue with him. “Another way to express the same idea is to say that it would be irrational on your part to take this arrangement of stones as evidence that you are at the gates of Scotland and at the same time to suppose that they came to this arrangement randomly, that is, as a result of the ordinary action of natural forces of a physical character. If, for example, they came to this arrangement after each of them rolled for years down the hill until at last it accidentally reached the place to which it came, or if they were simply scattered this way by an earthquake, a storm, and the like, then their arrangement cannot in any way be evidence that you are at the gates of Scotland, or proof of anything else unrelated to the stones themselves.” Any message that comes out of the arrangement of the stones cannot tell you anything, right? That’s clear. Okay.

Another similar example. In archaeological excavations a stone was discovered covered with interesting markings. They can be seen as marks created by chance, and they can be seen as marks created intentionally. Remember the example of SETI, the SETI project, that I gave in the previous class—the space telescope trying to detect patterns in cosmic radiation. And now suppose an expert arrives claiming that he identifies the language in which the symbols on the stone are written, and he proposes the following translation: “Here fell Kimon, leading into battle a handful of Athenians against the armies of Cyrus.” Okay, I think that’s Thermopylae, I think. So that’s how the expert deciphers the inscription engraved on the stone. Okay. In this case two theoretical possibilities are open to us: either to claim that the marks on the stone… or to claim that the marks on the stone were created by chance. Right? It looks like an inscription in ancient Greek, maybe, but it’s a coincidence, like any other shape that might arise. In that case we cannot infer the existence of a man named Kimon from these findings. That is one possibility. Or to infer that this really is the content of the inscription, and to assume implicitly that the signs were written in order to convey this historical information. Right? Those are the two possibilities. One thing is clear: there is no logical possibility of assuming that the signs were created by chance and nevertheless learning from these stones the historical information that is supposedly written on them. That you cannot do. You can assume the inscription is accidental and then it says nothing. You can say someone engraved it and then the information there is apparently information someone wanted to convey to you. But you cannot say it happened by chance and adopt the information conveyed to you in that inscription. Right? Exactly like the Scotland inscription. Just with different information.

Yes, on the assumption that all I have is what I see. Of course there can be other information; that’s a different story. Suppose on the train to Scotland, let’s say I were to assume that the inscription was arranged by chance, but independently I would see the Scottish flag waving there in the wind from afar. I’d say okay, I have information from another source saying that this lucky accident was even luckier. Not only was a very special message arranged here, “Welcome to Scotland,” but it also happened at the gates of Scotland. A miracle of miracles. But the atheist is willing to accept anything. Okay? We are dealing with someone for whom no probabilistic barrier stands in the way of his claims. Yes? That is the nature of atheists. Atheists are not impressed by any probabilistic barrier. Those are the principles. Probability—again—is like whataboutism. Probability is intended only to attack believers’ claims. Meaning, probability is never a barrier in front of atheists; it doesn’t move them. No, no, we already discussed this in the physico-theological argument—it doesn’t help at all.

“As a consequence,” I continue the quotation, “the complexity, refinement, and seemingly purposive organization of our sense organs do not constitute decisive grounds for the assumption that they are the result of some intentional activity. A natural, non-teleological explanation of them is possible, and in the opinion of many is already at hand.” What does that mean? Think now about our eye. Our eye is a very, very special, complex, and sensitive structure. Right? So the believer comes and says: look, something so complex did not come about by chance. Right? The atheist comes and says: what do you mean? There might be some natural explanation for how it came about. In the opinion of many we already have such an explanation, not just that there might be one: evolution. Okay, no problem. Taylor says: that’s true. Up to this point, this is the third type of proof, the physico-theological proof, right? This is the dispute. I say such a thing cannot be created without someone creating it; he says no, it’s evolution, it can arise by itself.

“However, the main point, to which attention is only rarely given, is that we do not merely marvel at these structures and wonder how it happened that they are such as they are. We do not merely regard them as amazing and astonishing things and build hypotheses about their origin. In fact, rightly or wrongly, we rely on them for discovering those things we take to be true and to exist independently of these organs themselves.” We look through the eye at the world, and I see that there’s an air conditioner there. What is my conclusion? That there is an air conditioner there, surprisingly enough. Okay? Taylor says: wait, I don’t understand. One of two things. Either you tell me that the eye was designed in order to reflect what is happening in the world itself—it is not a matter of chance. It was designed. Fine. If so, if it shows me an air conditioner, I accept that there is an air conditioner here. Or you say the eye is just chance, some spontaneous process that happened by itself—and then you cannot infer anything about whether there is or isn’t an air conditioner. It could just as well be a structure that does not reflect anything at all, but simply invents things. Or just—I don’t know—there is no connection at all between what it shows you and what is happening in the world itself. Fine? One thing you cannot infer: that it arose by chance or unintentionally, and that it reflects the air conditioner. That you cannot. It’s like looking at the stone inscription in Scotland. Okay? That is basically his claim.

We’ll get to evolution-based objections in a moment, there will surely be some. But for now that is his claim. “Our senses and all our faculties may be accidental in their origin. But then they would not tell us anything either. Yet the fact remains that we do trust them without questioning the matter at all. The seeing of something is often taken almost by itself as good reason for believing that the thing exists.” When you see something, you don’t ask yourself, wait, does it exist? It’s obvious that it exists—I saw it. “No hearing can be greater than seeing,” as the Talmud says, right? It isn’t even something we usually account to ourselves for—wait, so what if I saw it? Maybe it’s not true? Who said that what I saw is real? It’s self-evident: if I saw it, that’s it, the discussion is over. Okay. And why? If you say that thing came about by chance, we’re now beginning a new discussion. Who told you that this thing really reflects reality correctly? Who told you there is a match between the picture that forms in your consciousness and the reality in the world that is translated into that picture by the eyes? The eyes and the brain, yes, our whole visual system. That is basically the claim. And he says: you can be an atheist, but then you have to be a skeptic. Don’t believe anything your senses convey to you. You can be a believer and think that this thing was created by the Holy One, blessed be He, in some way that helps us function in the world, and then accept what the senses say as a measure of what is happening in the world. But you cannot assume this happened by chance and also accept them as reliable—that the senses really reflect correctly what is happening in the world. That’s like looking at the stone inscription in Scotland, assuming it happened by chance, and packing your suitcase. Or assuming that the inscription on the stone happened by chance and inferring that Kimon fell there with the Athenians. There’s no such thing. It cannot be.

Now he continues. “We are not here arguing that our senses are incapable of error, or even that we ought to trust their testimony.” Notice, if someone comes and tells me—the atheist to whom I showed this argument—I tell him: wait, do you trust your eyes? If so, then that means there is a God. That someone created the eye intentionally, and it is not just the result of some spontaneous natural process. So the atheist has two options. Either repent and say: okay, you’re right, I understand that I am actually a believer. I said—it’s not that I was convinced to believe, but that I understood I had already been a believer before, I just wasn’t aware of it. That’s one possibility. Second possibility: no, I understood that one really cannot trust the eyes. Right, I’ve stopped trusting my eyes—you’re right. Until now I was mistaken, I lived in some illusion—you’re right, I don’t trust my eyes. That too is a possibility. This argument will not persuade an atheist to become a believer. This argument only points out to him an incoherence. You cannot trust your senses and be an atheist. That you cannot do. What can you do? Either be an atheist but then don’t trust your senses, or trust your senses and then also believe in the existence of God. Those are the two options. One thing you cannot do is trust your senses and remain an atheist. That is an internal contradiction.

Therefore the atheist often defends himself—and again, I have a lot of experience with these things—by saying: you’re right, I don’t trust my eyes, I was mistaken. Or often he’ll tell you this in a somewhat more sophisticated form: look, I don’t trust my eyes, but I don’t have anything else. I’m used to behaving this way, I have no better way to behave, so that’s what I do. But if you ask me essentially, then philosophically I really don’t trust my eyes. I have no philosophical reason to trust my eyes. If you believe him, good for you. But that’s what he says, and I’ve met millions like that. Tons. From Dan to Eilat. Meaning, a lot. I’ve used this claim more than a few times in many of my conversations. The first time, I think, was in some seminar I gave at Tel Aviv University. A philosophy lecturer there invited me; we had some connection. I presented this argument there, expanded on it later, and so on. Then I asked them: who—what do you say? Evolution is the clearest? No, they didn’t even raise that at first. Later I said to them: look, there are several options—evolution and so on—and I dealt with that afterward as well. But there was there, I think, one person who said: okay, you’re right, so I’ve stopped trusting my eyes. Meaning, again, he won’t change his behavior, because in behavior he wants to—I behave this way because that’s what I’m used to, I don’t have anything better to do. I accept that. But the truth is that philosophically I really don’t trust my eyes. There’s no philosophical reason for me to trust my eyes. It’s just that I don’t believe him that that’s really his position. I mean, it’s obvious to me that he would bet his head on the fact that if he sees a wall here, then there’s a wall here. I mean, that…

Anyway: “We are not here arguing that our senses are incapable of error, or even that we ought to trust their testimony.” I’m not saying to him: you must believe your senses. I’m only saying: you have to choose. Meaning, either trust your senses—but then there is a God—or don’t trust them. You can’t dance at both weddings. That is the claim. “The point is that we do in fact trust them. We do not merely believe that our senses are extraordinarily interesting. We do not merely believe that they generate interesting phenomena within us or that they merely produce beliefs in us. We assume, rightly or wrongly”—I’m not entering the question whether rightly or wrongly—“that they are reliable guides to the discovery of truth and to the discovery of what exists independently of our senses and of their origin.” That remark is directed against Kant. Because Kant wants to claim that we know the world because the world itself is a creation of our cognition. Okay, that is the world as it appears, the phenomenon. “And we continue to hold this assumption even when they are the only guides available to us,” when we have no other information, as in the Scotland inscription. “If we do indeed assume that they are guides to the discovery of truths that have nothing to do with themselves, then it is hard to see how we can genuinely and sanely believe this assumption while believing that they arose by chance, or that they are the accidental product of the operation of purposeless forces, even if that operation continued for ages and ages.”

Because even if it went on for ages and ages, what are you really telling me? Suppose it went on for a very long time and by chance eyes can arise that are also reliable, right? It can happen. Okay. It can. If you accept that a spontaneous process can produce a system like eyes, which are very special, then you can also believe it can happen at the gates of Scotland. Meaning that the eyes are not only special, but they also correctly reflect reality. There is such a special system, and maybe it even arose—I said, probabilistic barriers are the very last thing that worries atheists. Okay, yes, so maybe that too happened by chance. No problem. But what is your indication that this is the case? Who told you they correctly reflect reality? If I discover independently that they correctly reflect reality, I’ll say: okay, then a really marvelous accident occurred. Meaning, not only was this special system built, it was built in a way that also correctly reflects reality. Amazing. But for that I need some source of information independent of my senses to tell me that indeed it’s true, that they do correctly reflect reality. The flag over there that tells us we really are in Scotland. Right? But if I have no other source of information and all I have is only what the senses convey to me, on what basis can I assume that what they convey to me is really true and reflects the world? When I see only the stone inscription and there is no Scottish flag, and I say it was arranged by chance, I cannot infer from that any conclusion that I’ve arrived in Scotland. If I saw such a flag, then I’d say: okay, then an even greater miracle happened. Not only did a special inscription occur, it also happened precisely at the gates of Scotland. Okay, lucky accidents. With eyes it’s the same. If I had some indication independent of my eyes telling me that there really is an air conditioner here, then I’d say: not only did the eyes arise by chance, they even reflect reality correctly. This strange accidental thing—there was yet another miracle here—it reflects reality correctly. But I have an indication of that, so apparently that’s what happened. But if I don’t have any indication of that, why assume it reflects reality?

Think about a computer—what is a computer? A machine. Not a computer—you don’t know what a computer is—a machine. Fine? You tell it: here is the prime number 13; tell me the next prime number. And it tells you: 1,478. Fine? Do you accept that or not? No, I don’t know how to calculate prime numbers; I want the answer from it. If I know the answer, then obviously I won’t accept it. I don’t know whether I accept it or not—why? Because if I know that it’s a machine that calculates correctly and follows instructions, and I tell it find me the next prime, and it searches for the next prime, then I’ll accept what it gives me. But if I have no indication of what is happening inside this black box, then the fact that it outputs a number—that’s why I should accept it? Why should I accept that? No, if you asked it a million questions… I didn’t ask it a million questions, I asked one. A million. But I asked one question, not a million. Don’t drag me there. Right, if I know that it’s right, then I know it’s right. I’m talking about a case where I don’t know that it’s right. But you know that in the past it was right. What difference does that make? I don’t know. You’re taking me to a different case; I’m not discussing that case, I’m discussing this one. If I know, then I know—obviously. If I know there is inside it a computer that works correctly, then of course I’ll accept its answer. I’m talking about a situation where I don’t know anything; it’s a black box. And with this box I can communicate, and I can tell it: what’s the next prime after 13? And it answers me in writing: 1,478. Fine? Now if I know that it’s a computer that follows instructions and knows how to perform calculations and so on, then I’ll accept it, okay? Even if I have no other indication. But if I know nothing and for me it’s just a black box—I have no idea what happens inside it, how it was created, by whom it was created—I will never accept that answer. What are the chances that this box really gives the correct answer? Zero.

So also a baby, the first time it sees reality, still doesn’t know whether it trusts its eyes. And afterward… afterward what? It learns when it lives a year or two, then it has some authority—it sees a wall there and touches… No, touching the wall is also a sense. Same thing, there’s nothing. So I claim that maybe even if he saw the flag of Scotland there, maybe it’s not Scotland, maybe it’s something else? Right, like the joke about Shakespeare not being Shakespeare’s cousin. No, but the joke is a joke and here this is a serious argument. Because that’s exactly the point. I’ll expand this later to all the senses: the senses cannot give feedback to one another. Our whole sensory system is some kind of black box, perhaps created by chance. Fine, so it isn’t really a wall—it only looks like a wall and feels like a wall? Right, exactly. That’s what atheists answer. They say: look, I behave as though there is a wall here. If you ask me whether I really believe it—no. But I behave as if there is a wall here. That’s basically what they say. No, that answer I accept. It’s just that I don’t believe them that that’s really what they think. I’m asking you what you really tell me—forget behavior. What do you really say? Is there a wall here or isn’t there a wall here? There is whatever bangs me when I touch it. What? There is whatever bangs… No, nothing bangs you. There is something that feels like a bang when you touch it. Talk only about yourself, don’t talk about anything outside. So I only know that I’m about to get hit. Fine, that’s what I’m saying. You don’t believe there is a wall here. You can call whatever you want “a wall,” but I’m asking—you don’t know there is a wall here. You know that you’ll feel a hit in a moment. No problem. Now I’m asking you seriously: but tell me, what do you really think? Not what’s true—nobody knows what’s true. What do you really think? Do you really think there is a wall here or don’t you think there is a wall here? It’s obvious that you think there is. That’s all—don’t waste my time. I won’t go with you on this, yes. It’s just word games.

So again, if a person genuinely says that to me, I have nothing to say to him. He’s absolutely right. He tells me: I behave as though there is a wall here because that’s what works for me and I have no better way—everything is fine, I have nothing to say. The discussion ends there. The question is whether it’s really authentic when he says it, or whether he only says it in order to escape the difficulty. It’s obvious that it’s only to escape the difficulty, right? But fine, I don’t know. Let him decide for himself. Okay?

So the claim is really that this argument complements the philosophical formulation of the physico-theological proof. Because look what I’m really saying. The philosophical formulation of the physico-theological proof says: a complex thing does not arise by chance. Our world is complex. Conclusion: someone created it, something created it. Right? That’s the philosophical argument. The theological argument says this: our… our eyes are complex and reliable. A complex and reliable thing does not arise by chance. So apparently someone created it—or it isn’t complex or isn’t reliable, whatever, yes? Two options. So understand that this argument cannot persuade anyone of the existence of a maker. It only places you before a cruel choice. And you have to decide: either you believe in the existence of a maker, and then you can trust your senses, your eyes; or you do not believe in the existence of a maker, but then don’t trust your eyes either. And both options are acceptable. I cannot tell a person: look, I proved to you the existence of God. All I’m giving you is a diagnostic tool. Examine yourself. Don’t answer me, because if you answer me then obviously you’ll answer in the way that lets you evade it. Fine, leave it—go home and ask yourself which of the two options you choose. Leave me out of it; you don’t need to give me answers. What do you choose? Do you trust your eyes? If yes, then there is a God. Do you not trust your eyes? Then you can remain an atheist and everything is fine. Answer yourself whatever you answer, and that’s it.

And this tool is not a tool that proves anything to you. It is a diagnostic tool. It is a tool that tells you that you can examine yourself: are you a believer or not? It won’t persuade you to believe. It’s a tool by which you check whether you believe. If you trust your senses, then you believe. And again, I’m not speaking here about a pragmatist argument, that in order to trust my senses, let’s assume there is a God, because I can’t live without trusting my senses. That’s nonsense. That’s a pragmatist argument. I’m talking about what I called earlier a theological argument, an exposing argument. This argument says: I trust my senses, period. I have a clear intuition that my senses correctly reflect reality. Okay? Now I ask myself: wait, but how can that be? If it’s a closed box and I have nothing besides the senses, on what do I base this intuition? There must be someone or something that created the senses intentionally so that they would reflect reality to me reliably. Okay? So you understand that I’m going here in a theological direction, not a philosophical one. I’m not going from God to belief in the senses. I’m going from belief in the senses backward to the existence of God. Like with morality—if morality is valid, then that means there is a God who created it. Here too, if the argument is correct… because it could be that I just trust my senses because I got used to it, but it isn’t really true, one shouldn’t trust them. That’s always possible. But if I arrive at the conclusion that I trust my senses, that this is not a mistake, then clearly I believe in God, because without that it is impossible to trust the senses. But it could be that I am mistaken in the whole story. It could be that I am mistaken in trusting the senses, and in belief in God, and the whole thing is an error. I have not proved to a person that there is a God with this argument. What I proved to him is that he believes there is a God. Meaning, I helped him discover what is in his safe. I did not add anything that wasn’t already there before. I merely exposed before him something that was already there earlier. That’s the emptiness of the analytic I spoke about before. In theological arguments this is very prominent.

In fact, it is true also in philosophical arguments. Think about the physico-theological argument. In fact, if I say that the world is complex and that a complex thing does not arise on its own, then I’ve basically said that there is a God, right? If I accept those two premises, then clearly I believe in God. But this argument only helps me become aware of that. So there too one can say: it helps me become aware that I believe in God, but it could be that one of those two premises I believe is mistaken, that I was wrong about it. That is always possible. Every logical argument is based on premises. If I accept the premises and someone raises a logical argument for me, showing me that a conclusion follows from them, then I accept the conclusion as well. That does not mean the conclusion is true. It means that I accept that conclusion. And it may be that I am mistaken, that I am not right. How? If I adopted the premises in error. If I adopted the premises in error, then obviously I am not required to adopt the conclusion either.

Therefore the theological argument, as I’ve defined it here, is an argument that helps a person discover what he believes. It is not an argument that shows you what is true. It is a self-diagnostic argument; it is not an epistemic argument. It is not a cognitive argument. It is not an argument that tells you what is happening in the world. It is an argument that tells you what is happening inside you. Are you a believer, despite the fact that until now you lived under the illusion that you were not a believer, or not—you really are not a believer. Examine yourself and discover where you stand. It has no necessary connection to what is really happening. It could be that you discover that you stand in a place where there is a God, although you thought there wasn’t—but in fact you are mistaken; earlier you were right when you thought there wasn’t. That’s the truth—that there isn’t. You simply shouldn’t trust your senses. That’s your mistake. You think one should trust the senses—not true, you just got used to it. Fine? And it could be that I’m mistaken in thinking there really is a God, and I’m wrong. No—there isn’t a God. It could be that he was right at the beginning, and I, the one who proved to him that there is a God, am the one who was mistaken. It changes nothing. Because from the perspective of my argument, my argument’s goal is not to reach the conclusion that there is a God. Its goal is to show you that you believe in Him. It could be that you’re wrong, it could be that you’re not wrong—decide for yourself—but you do believe in Him. Don’t tell me you’re an atheist. That’s not true. You’re lying to yourself or to me, and-or to me. Okay? That is basically the meaning of a theological argument.

The continuation will take a bit more time, so I may stop here. I just want to say in one sentence what I’m aiming toward. I want basically to claim this. I’ll say two things. First I’ll summarize what we saw here. Basically there is a pincer movement here. An atheist is standing before me, and I raise the physico-theological argument to him. I tell him: look, the world is complex? Yes. A complex thing does not arise spontaneously; it needs something to create it? Yes. Conclusion: there is a God. Whoa, wait—no, no, that’s not the conclusion that there is a God, let’s think a second. It could have arisen by chance. I said: you know what? Fine. Let’s move to the other side of the pincers. Okay, so you accept that it arose by chance? Then don’t trust your eyes. You see that this is a pincer movement. Meaning, I say: look, either you agree that every complex thing needs something to compose it, in which case you believe in God; or if you claim there can be a complex thing without a composer, then why do you trust your eyes? Again, there is a God. Meaning, either way, there is a God. This is what’s called a disjunctive argument: either way, there is a God. Whether you believe or whether you don’t believe, you arrive at the conclusion that there is a God. Unless, of course, the only escape is to say: no, I don’t trust my eyes. Yes, I’m just used to conducting myself that way, or something like that. Okay, so that’s just a summary of the structure we reached.

I’ll just sketch where I want to go next. I want to expand this discussion. This discussion began with the eyes. I want to expand it to all the senses, basically to all our thinking and cognition. I’ll call it the proof from epistemology. All of our perceptions and cognitions. Then I’ll deal a bit with objections from evolution—objections, objections that can be raised regarding this argument. Fine? Okay, let’s stop here.