Is Belief in God Rational? – Rosh Be Rosh

[Speaker A] Hello and welcome to Head-to-Head, the first filmed debate podcast in the country. I’m Eyal Yosef, and in each episode I host two experts who stand at opposite ends of one question. And today: is belief in God something rational? In the second episode, about whether the revelation at Mount Sinai really happened, I got a lot of responses, most of them positive, but along the way I also got quite a bit of criticism that I had chosen figures who weren’t the most accurate fit for the topic. In addition, I got countless suggestions from you for other debaters in the field. I tried to take all those comments and all those suggestions into account, and I hope this episode will provide a high-quality response. Just before we begin, I want to remind you to show some love with a like, hit the subscribe button, and turn on the bell so you can stay updated every time a debate goes up on the channel. And of course, that will help me grow the channel and bring in better debaters. So the big question before us today is whether belief in God is something rational. On the side supporting the view that the conception of God and belief in Him are rational, Rabbi Miki Abraham, who teaches at the Institute for Advanced Torah Studies at Bar-Ilan. Thank you for coming. On the side presenting the position that does not support the idea that belief in God is rational, Aviv Franco, host on the atheist line, a group whose goal is to promote critical thinking, skepticism, and rationality, and which runs a weekly live call-in show every Sunday at nine o’clock. Hi Aviv, thank you for coming. So friends, we want to begin with the introduction stage, your opening statements. We spoke and agreed that Aviv would have less time, you asked for a shorter slot, right?

[Speaker B] I think I’ll need less time, yes.

[Speaker A] Michael, do you want to start? You asked for fifteen minutes to begin with your opening statement, and you can also tell us about yourself in that statement. The floor is yours.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] All right, I’m mainly going to use it for the opening, because the time is very, very short, far less than what’s really needed to do justice to a topic like this. I did a doctorate in physics; today I mainly teach Talmud, but also a bit of Jewish thought at Bar-Ilan, and I deal a little with these issues as well. Anyway, to our matter: in the opening I want to focus mainly on the framework of the discussion and less on the argument itself, which I assume will come up later. Because of the shortness of the time available, I’ll have to focus on that, because I can’t give it up. In other words, I already have a bit of experience, and these points usually come up. First point — I’ll do it quickly. First point: belief, in my view, is a factual claim. For me, it’s a factual claim. Not an emotion, not an experience, not anything of that kind. I’m not interested in clarifying semantically what the word “belief” means; this is the kind of belief I mean. When I say I believe in God, I am making a factual claim: there is a God. Okay? That’s the first point. Second point: what is God? I believe in God, but the concept has to be defined. The definition of the concept depends on the argument, or depends on the path through which you arrive at Him. There are proofs that arrive at God through the fact that He is the one who gives validity to the rules of morality. So here, the definition of God is some kind of legislator, let’s call it that — someone who has some kind of authority to give validity to norms or laws. There is a definition of God that speaks about the creator of the world or the engineer of the world — those are two different proofs in Kant’s classification — and again, the definition of God depends on the argument. The argument of the Christian Anselm, yes, of Canterbury, for example, claims that God is the perfect being, and uses that definition to try to prove His existence. So for the moment I’m setting the definition of God aside. I know it’s something we’ll still need to discuss, but I’ll do that the moment I enter the argument itself. Because the argument dictates what definition of God I’m talking about. The first point I want to claim or put on the table here is that the existence of God is not a scientific claim. Even in my own view. On the one hand, I completely identify with the goals you presented as the basis of the work of Aviv and his friends there on the atheist line. I’m in favor of rational thinking, in favor of skepticism, in favor of criticism, in favor of all the values you described in his name. I think I also work a lot on behalf of those three values.

[Speaker A] So we’ve got a good basis for discussion, I think.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I believe strongly in those three values and try to fight for them both inside the religious world and outside the religious world. It may be that we differ — that there is a dispute — on the question of what rationality says. In other words, does rational mean believing in God, or does rational mean דווקא not believing in God? Fine, that’s the argument we’ve gathered here for. But the basis, I think, is a basis we agree on. I definitely do want to arrive at God in a rational way. I don’t have religious experiences, I don’t think they are necessary, and I don’t deal with belief on the experiential plane. So as far as I’m concerned, I’m taking that off the table. Personal experience is not a factor.

[Speaker A] It’s not a factor.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I’m talking about a philosophical question that is — or a scientific-philosophical one, I’ll get to that in a moment — that ultimately leads to a factual claim. So first of all I want to argue that it is not a scientific claim. The claim “there is a God” is not scientific. It is a factual claim, as I said before, but it is not a scientific claim in the sense that you cannot subject it to a falsifiability test. In other words, I don’t know how to propose some experiment whose result would give me an indication whether there is or isn’t a God. In that sense I can’t speak of it as a scientific claim. But I want to argue that this does not mean it is not rational, because a rational path to any claim can be one of two principal paths. Each of them is a whole toolbox of tools, but there are two basic toolboxes. The first toolbox is the scientific-observational toolbox; the second is the philosophical a priori toolbox, let’s call it that.

[Speaker A] Define a priori for me.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] A priori means not subject to observation, not derived from observation, not based on observation. Now, that too is a claim that needs to be discussed a bit more carefully, because when I speak about something a priori, that doesn’t mean I’m not using observation, but rather that observation is not enough to lead to it. In other words, I may start from observations, but the observations in themselves, or by themselves, won’t bring me to this conclusion; I need some additional assumptions that are not the result of observation. Okay? So that’s why I’m defining two toolboxes here. Now, I said before that the claim is, in my view, a factual one, not scientific, but still rational, and that raises the question: okay, through which of these two toolboxes can one reach it? So as I said before, I think one can arrive at it philosophically, but that philosophical path is not detached from facts. In Kant’s classification of the proofs for the existence of God, there are three types. In the Critique of Pure Reason — elsewhere he also has a fourth type. The ontological proof, which is a conceptual proof. That is, a conceptual analysis that produces a factual claim, which is a kind of logical hocus-pocus that would seemingly be impossible.

[Speaker A] Just give me an example for the viewers.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Anselm’s argument, for example, said: I define God as the perfect being. Now, an existing being is more perfect than a non-existing being. Therefore, if you define Him as a perfect being — and I’m saying this very briefly — if you define Him as a perfect being, He must also exist, because if He doesn’t exist then He isn’t perfect. Right? Now of course this isn’t quite as silly as it sounds, but in the end, in my opinion, it doesn’t hold water. It doesn’t hold water not in the sense that the claim is bad — the argument is good — but it’s not ontological. An ontological argument means an argument that does not rest on assumptions. And he thought, Anselm thought, that his argument was purely conceptual logical analysis, and that from it he could derive the factual claim. In that he was mistaken. As for the quality of the argument — I wrote half a book, a quarter of a book, about that, so I won’t get into it here — but I just want to show that there are different kinds of arguments. One is a purely philosophical argument, and in my view ultimately it doesn’t hold water. There are arguments — and most arguments are like this — that do require facts. And in that sense they are somewhat similar to a scientific argument. For example, the argument from complexity or from design — what Kant calls the physico-theological argument — which is a general name for several shades or several kinds of arguments. This is an argument that begins from facts. First of all, there is a world, or the world is complex, designed, fitted, whatever — there are various versions of this — and as a result of that one arrives at the conclusion that there is a God. In a certain sense this resembles a scientific move. You start from facts and offer them an explanation. Where does it stop being scientific? Because the explanation does not submit itself to a falsifiability test. In other words, I evaluate the explanation by whether it is a reasonable explanation. And I think that can be discussed. In my view it is also reasonable. But it is not correct to demand that it stand up to Popperian tests of falsification. Yes, Popper said that a scientific theory is only a theory that can be subjected to a falsifiability test. And here it doesn’t meet that criterion. So on the one hand it has an affinity to facts, it is connected to facts, it follows from facts; on the other hand the result is a factual claim, but not a scientific one. Okay? That is the framework, the frame within which I place the discussion. I want to say one more thing in the background of all this. Science too is not purely empirical in the sense I defined before. Science contains a great many assumptions whose source is not observation. A priori assumptions, assumptions of reason. David Hume, I think, put that perhaps most prominently on the table. He talks about induction, talks about causality. You can add other things — Occam’s razor, whatever, all kinds of things. There are many other assumptions — that there is no action at a distance, as it is called in physics, yes, action at a distance. So that is an assumption of physicists, that there cannot be action at a distance, that two distant bodies cannot affect one another unless there is something mediating between them, transmitting the force between them. Where does that come from? It has no observational basis. It is a logical principle that most physicists swear by. In other words, it is obvious that it is true, even though it has no principle — no observational basis. In the meantime, with most things, we really have succeeded in finding a theory like that which does not require action at a distance, but I’m putting it here as an example of an assumption that is not derived from observation and still stands at the basis of science. And there are many others. Therefore the distinction between philosophy and science that I made before, the distinction between those two toolboxes, is much less sharp than people think. In other words, at the basis of science too there are all kinds of assumptions whose source is in reason — that is, philosophical assumptions. Okay? So that’s the first point. And therefore, when I now speak about the question of which of the two toolboxes I’m going to use, I don’t know how to answer that, because I start from facts, and in that sense it is like a scientific move. It does not end in a scientific theory because it cannot be put to a falsifiability test, and there are philosophical elements here, but in science too there are philosophical elements. Indeed, it is good to think in terms of these two toolboxes, but one has to be careful not to take that too far. In other words, the distinction between them is not as sharp as it may sometimes seem. Now, arguments — since I want to present an argument or arguments on the way to the existence of God — arguments by their very nature are based on assumptions. That is obvious. Unless they are ontological arguments. An ontological argument is an argument that purports to reach a conclusion without assumptions, only through philosophical conceptual analysis. Kant argued strongly that such a thing is impossible. By the way, I personally tend to agree with him — again, for logical reasons — but I do tend to agree with him. Therefore, in the end, what remains for us are arguments that do have assumptions at their foundation. Now, what may at first glance seem surprising, but I think is very clear on second glance, is that what people are usually accustomed to treat as a fallacy — begging the question, meaning you assume the conclusion you want to reach — is not a fallacy. Every valid logical argument begs the question. By definition. If it did not beg the question, it would not be valid. For example, all human beings are mortal, to use the worn-out example everyone uses. All human beings are mortal, Socrates is a human being, therefore Socrates is mortal. Now you understand that if you assume all human beings are mortal and you assume Socrates is one of them, then within your assumptions you have assumed that Socrates is mortal. In other words, the conclusion necessarily follows from the assumptions simply because it is contained in them. There is nothing in the conclusion beyond what is in the assumptions. And when you think about it that way — and I think that surprises a lot of people — every valid logical argument begs the question. A valid logical argument means that the conclusion necessarily follows from the assumptions. The logical necessity comes from the fact that the conclusion is essentially contained in the assumptions. You placed it there implicitly — yes, not always explicitly, but implicitly. Why is this important? Because when we talk about an argument in favor of the existence of God, then one has to understand that if that argument is to be valid, then obviously the existence of God is somewhere in the assumptions. Because otherwise I couldn’t present such a valid argument. And then of course that immediately opens the door for whoever assumes that there is no God — I assume Aviv thinks that, I don’t know, he’ll say later — but whoever assumes there is no God, then we already have a dispute right at the outset. In other words, I build an argument that starts from certain assumptions, and implicitly — not always explicitly, but implicitly — the existence of God is in some sense already there, and that straightaway jams the debate. It jams the debate because the side that disagrees won’t accept the assumptions. And so what I want to say, and I want to set the framework of the discussion here, as reflected in the title — and we talked a bit about this in our preliminary conversations, and I’m glad we agreed on it — is that the purpose of the discussion is not to prove that there is a God. Because proving that there is a God is always proving on the basis of assumptions, and then we’ll begin arguing about the assumptions. I am taking for myself a more modest goal. And that goal is to argue that one can arrive at the existence of God in a rational way. Okay? In other words, that someone who believes in God, at least by the path I am going to try to present here, cannot be said to be irrational. He is a rational person. Now it may be that another rational person will arrive at a different conclusion and not believe in God; at least for the moment I am not claiming that he is irrational. I am trying to defend this claim — namely, that believing in the existence of God is a rational position. There is a rational way to get there. It is a modest goal, but it seems to me that it is the really important one, and perhaps also the truly workable one, because you can always argue about assumptions. And therefore this is really the discussion. And in that sense it slightly reverses the balance of forces. We talked in the preliminary conversation about the fact that I am basically the one making the claim and Aviv is trying to refute it or reject it, attack it, criticize it, however you want to phrase it. In a certain sense I am now somewhat reversing the mechanism of the discussion, because I am not coming to assert a claim in order to persuade someone. All I am trying to say is that the attack is not correct, and in that sense the attacker is actually in the initial position, the opening position, and I am trying to show that the attack is not correct.

[Speaker A] Before we get to the end of your opening, I have a question: am I going to get to hear what God is? A definition?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I said at the beginning — I hope you will. I’m getting there. But it’s very important for me to put things on the table. It’s important; I completely understand now why. So now, when we talk about the question of what rationality is, that’s really the question now. Because if I want to defend the claim that belief in God can be rational — and I am not claiming that all believers are rational — I am claiming that there is a rational path to God, and my path in my opinion is such a path. The question is: what is rational? And here I return again to the structure of an argument, the annoying structure of logical arguments, where there are assumptions and there is the inference from the assumptions to the conclusion. Now rationality in the narrow sense, or the purist sense if you like, is only the validity of the inference. Because the assumptions can be argued over: you accept this assumption, he accepts another assumption. The question is whether, on the basis of those assumptions, you can reach the conclusion in a logical way. But that is not interesting, because I can always set up such assumptions that by simple logic I’ll arrive at the conclusion that there is a God; there is no problem presenting such assumptions. So the really important question is whether those assumptions are reasonable. Now, whether speaking about the reasonableness of assumptions counts as speaking about rationality — that’s a definitional question, I don’t know. There are those who argue that certain assumptions — someone who assumes there are demons is not rational. That seems true to me as well, by the way, but it’s hard for me to explain why, because yes, I think there are no demons.

[Speaker A] Sorry, Miki, your time is up. I’ll give you two minutes so you can wrap the argument up.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So in the end, I’ve more or less finished the introduction. What I want to do is really just put the tools on the board, and then we’ll start playing with them. What I want to argue right now, to focus on — there are several arguments, as I said — I want to focus on the physico-theological argument. In other words, the common, widespread argument — really very trite overall — but I think there are some subtleties in it worth discussing, and this is the argument: there is a complex world, I don’t know, something like that — let’s speak of complexity for the purpose of the discussion — designed, fitted, whatever, we can speak in different terms. A complex world. The assumption is that at the basis of a complex thing, it is logical, rational, to expect there to be something that put it together. That, basically, is the argument in a nutshell. And because of that I claim that there is such a thing. Now, the moment I define that as God, I have defined God. In other words, God is the engineer, or the one responsible for the complexity of reality. Maybe we’ll also bring in what Kant calls the cosmological proof — that He is responsible for reality itself, but also for its complexity. In other words, He both created it and shaped it, let’s say. So I’m combining two arguments here, but for the purpose of our discussion that’s good enough as well.

[Speaker A] Are we talking about Him also intervening, or not?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I haven’t assumed that at all. Not yet? Not at all. I’m speaking only about the starting point. Afterward we can talk about intervention, and there—

[Speaker A] That’s already another discussion. You could do a whole separate debate just on that.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I just want one sentence, and with that I’ll finish. Obviously what I’ve put here is only an initial formulation. The preliminaries were more important to me, because this formulation itself, I assume, we’ll still discuss, and therefore this is only a first formulation, and obviously there are still many objections and clarifications and rejections and so on. Thank you.

[Speaker A] Amazing, thank you very much, Miki. Aviv, your time for the opening statement starts now. Seven minutes is the time you requested, we’re beginning.

[Speaker B] So good evening, I’m Aviv, I host on the atheist line, that’s about the only credentials I have. I’m not a scientist, I’m not a philosopher, I’m curious — that’s about the best I can offer right now — and I’m an atheist. When I say — part of my opening often deals with definitions and explains what I mean by the words I’m using. When I say that I’m an atheist, that means I do not believe in a god or gods. I do not believe that a god or gods exist. Why? Because I’ve never encountered one that justifies my belief. When I say belief, what do I mean? For me — and I think we’re pretty much on the same page — belief is conviction. Belief is when someone tells me, “I believe God exists,” what he’s saying is, “I’m convinced that the claim ‘God exists’ is a positive claim and that the answer to it is yes.” And when he says someone is convinced, that means he was persuaded. For me, conviction is not a matter of choice. Either I was persuaded or I wasn’t persuaded. I can’t choose to believe. I can hope — hope is something else. But either I was persuaded or I wasn’t. If I found good reasons to be persuaded, then I was persuaded, and if not, then not. And if I’m convinced, then I believe; and if I’m not, then I don’t believe. For me it’s very simple.

[Speaker A] Wait, a question, sorry — a clarification question — so what is knowledge?

[Speaker B] As for knowledge, the most classic definition of knowledge is justified true belief. Meaning, if you have all the things we believe, under that you have the things we know. Meaning, things we believe that we can justify in reality, that we have a reason right now to think are true. For me, when someone tells me that he knows something, it’s like someone telling me, “I really, really believe this” — that’s more or less the same to me.

[Speaker A] It’s a sub-category of belief?

[Speaker B] Right, and it’s very important to emphasize this point, because knowledge isn’t necessary. In the end, belief is a tool that has one purpose: to help us make decisions. Why believe something? Because if I believe something, I’ll act in accordance with my belief. If I believe there’s a door here, I’ll have to open it in order to leave. If I believe there’s an elevator in the shaft I just entered, I’ll get into it and not wait. As far as I’m concerned, if someone tells me he knows, then okay, he really believes it. He believes it at a level where, for him, it would change his world if it turned out to be true. But in the end it’s the same set of decision-making processes—that’s what interests us. Okay. So now we ask whether belief in God is rational. When I say rational, I mean in accordance with reason and with prior evidence, in accordance with the information I have. Meaning, I infer the conclusion based on the things I know. If someone tells me he believes, that he’s convinced, he can be convinced for good reasons and he can be convinced for bad reasons. Good reasons, for me, are reasons that fit reason, logic, the evidence presented to him. Bad reasons could be emotion or experience, all kinds of reasons that in my view aren’t enough to be convinced. And from my perspective, when we look at it that way, not all beliefs were created equal. You can tell me, for example, that you have a computer under the table. A computer is something I know can exist under a table, and therefore I’ll accept what you tell me; I’ll probably be convinced there’s a computer here. Why will I be convinced? Because I know computers, I know there’s such a thing as a computer, I know it can be under the table. If you tell me there’s a dragon under the table, then maybe it’s a toy dragon, but if you tell me there’s a real live dragon under the table, I probably won’t believe you. Why? Because reality teaches me that there really is no such thing as dragons. Now beyond that too, I can simply not believe you and that’ll be the end of it—we’re not going to have a debate about it in some studio. Why? But if you say that this dragon will eat me if I don’t put a kippah on my head, or that I need to get married in a certain place because the dragon says so—now I’m really going to demand that you justify what you’re saying before I believe it. Because if not, not only will I not be convinced, I’ll also act against it the moment your beliefs affect me. At the end of the day, everyone is entitled to believe whatever he wants, rational or irrational; a person has the right to believe whatever he wants. The point where it begins—where we come in, where the line starts—is the place where other people’s belief harms my way of life. If you believe something and you think it’s true, great. Does it affect me? Then you need to demonstrate that at some point. In the end, when we talk rationally, the rational way human beings have found—the best analogy—is a courtroom. Imagine this in a courtroom, and we have a defendant charged with the gravest crime possible: existence. God is accused of being existent. And on one side we have a prosecutor who is supposed to prove that God does indeed exist, and I’m not really the defense attorney—I’m the juror, I’m the one sitting in the jury room and whose job is to be convinced. Now it’s important here to understand this point: when we talk about existence, about something that exists, there is what’s called the null hypothesis. What is the starting position? The null hypothesis is basically the position that says that if I’m in it, nothing happens, there are no additional assumptions. Meaning, let’s say if this table is here, the default assumption is always that anything that exists has to demonstrate that it has significance in reality. Therefore, when we come to the question of God, the basic position is non-existence. Not only on the question of God—on every question of existence. The number of things that could exist is infinite. Anything could exist; if we talk about Bigfoot and Nessie and a unicorn, as opposed to things that really exist in reality, which are limited, and we can probably agree on that. So then we begin: okay, so our basic position, our starting point, the point from which we begin, is no—what can you do. For the same reason that a person goes to court innocent until proven otherwise. We don’t start from the position that he’s guilty and then say prove that you’re not guilty, and you don’t prove that you don’t have a sister—you start with okay, fine, we’ll accept that. So we’re in court. And I’m like, okay, so first of all the defense doesn’t—no, the prosecution doesn’t even produce the defendant; he’s not sitting on the defendant’s bench. We have no evidence that he exists physically, and I think we can agree on that. Beyond that I expect to receive evidence—that’s the strongest thing a juror can get. Evidence. And when I say evidence, I mean philosophically, in terms of possible worlds. That’s what I’m looking for. Suppose there are two possible worlds. In one world I’m right—there is no God, God doesn’t exist. In the second world God exists, the God that Miki believes in exists. Some observation, experiment, something I can do—I don’t care about science—something I can do, some action that has a reliable prediction in reality, that will give me behavior in this world and not in the other world. Meaning that if this hypothesis, that God exists, is correct, it will operate only in that possible world and not in the other. That’s the evidence I’m looking for, that’s the kind of evidence I want, and in my opinion I won’t hear that today, because even the arguments Miki mentioned at the beginning already move to the next principle, which is logical arguments. The weakest position—there’s nothing weaker than that, because there’s no evidence, there’s no defendant, and logical arguments, as they can always be challenged, have a lot of problems, especially if they’re theoretical logical arguments. A theoretical logical argument, in my view, in the way I see it, is incapable of—irrelevant to reality. Logic is something we invented. Logic is something human beings invented in order to think better, in order to draw better conclusions. Logic does not bind reality; there are enough examples like paradoxes and so on. Reality is the arbiter. Logic is the map. Reality is reality; the map reads reality, but if you draw a mountain on the map that doesn’t mean the mountain will suddenly appear there. And therefore for me a pure logical argument is not enough; I need it to be a synthetic claim. Meaning okay, X Y Z and therefore Y. Something in reality that I can test. If it’s not in reality, it doesn’t interest me. In our preliminary preparation we talked about, for example, taking Spinoza’s God off the table because it really isn’t interesting. Believing in Spinoza’s God—that God is reality—is the same thing as being an atheist. It has no effect at all.

[Speaker A] Do you want two minutes on Spinoza’s God, just briefly?

[Speaker B] God as reality, God as reality itself, nature, reality, the universe. God doesn’t intervene, doesn’t create, he is nature. Okay, in terms of the actions I would take in the world, there is no difference between a person who believes in Spinoza’s God and the no-God that I believe in. There’s no such thing. So it’s the same thing, both people will conduct themselves in the world the same way. And therefore what I want to get here today—again, I think I’ll come away only half-satisfied—but I would like to get evidence. I’ll settle for logical arguments because that’s the lowest bar. But at the end of the day, I think a reasonable juror standing in a situation like this, where there is no defendant, no evidence for his existence, and all there is are logical arguments that aren’t necessarily successful in my opinion—that’s not serious, given, again, how important this question is, because this is one of the questions. It affects how you dress, whom you marry, where you live, what you eat. Your whole life is affected by this question. And therefore the weight of the evidence here, the weight of the prosecution, is not enough to justify this belief. And that’s my position.

[Speaker A] Very nice, thank you very much, right on time. We’re moving to the lead-off stage. At this stage each of you will basically lead the discussion. It’s supposed to be some kind of guiding idea. You have fifteen minutes for that, and afterward we’ll move to the open discussion stage. Who wants to start? Your fifteen minutes, Rabbi, start now.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Okay, so you spoke about a computer versus a dragon under the table, and basically what you assumed here is that an explanation is supposed to rest on the familiar. Because you’re saying, if I don’t know dragons, don’t tell me there are dragons under the table because I don’t know dragons. Computers I know; I don’t know whether there’s one under the table or not, but if you say there is and there are indications for it, I’ll accept it. Now I think that’s a common mistake. A scientific explanation, at least in Thomas Kuhn’s framework, a scientific explanation in a state of paradigm shift is based on the unfamiliar. Meaning, for example, Newton found the law of gravitation, so he had all kinds of familiar phenomena—tides, attraction between bodies, falling to the earth, the paths of the stars, and so on—and he based all these familiar phenomena on a theory that until his day had not been familiar: the theory of gravitation. And in that sense I don’t accept the distinction between a computer and a dragon. Meaning, if there were indications that there’s a dragon under the table and not a computer, I would accept that too.

[Speaker B] Of course, but we’re in the same place on that story. I’m saying that because I don’t have prior knowledge of dragons, I won’t accept his position. But as I explained, I’m not going to… throw him down the stairs right now. I’m saying, as far as I’m concerned, with the existing knowledge I have—here, it doesn’t even have to be a dragon, I’ll give you a better example. If he came and told me he has a sixty-inch television in his living room, I’d accept it. If he said he has a hundred-inch television in the living room, you’d say, listen, I’m not really familiar with televisions in those sizes, but maybe it’s true. If he says he has a two-hundred-inch television in the living room—now notice, we haven’t crossed over into the supernatural, we’re still in the realm of—

[Speaker A] science—would you already demand proof?

[Speaker B] Then that’s already the point where I’d say okay, this is already something that doesn’t fit what I know. It’s still in the scientific realm, it’s still in the physical realm, there’s no divinity or supernatural here, but still I won’t accept it because it doesn’t fit my existing knowledge.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, but that’s exactly the point that needs sharpening. I think we agree, but it’s important to me to sharpen it. Meaning, I can indeed claim that there is a dragon under the table if I have indications.

[Speaker B] Of course, that’s the claim—there’s no disagreement here.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So if that’s the case, I don’t think there’s any essential difference between a computer and a dragon. Meaning, a computer too—if he says there’s a computer under the table, it could be that if he says so and I know him as a reliable person, I’ll accept it.

[Speaker B] But that’s exactly, that’s exactly the point—you’re right, but that’s the issue, because the issue is how much it fits my existing knowledge. I know what a computer is; of course there’s a difference between a computer and a dragon. I have lots of evidence for the existence of computers; I have zero evidence—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, no, I’m not talking about the existence of the computer, I’m talking about the claim that there’s a computer under the table.

[Speaker B] So I said, I explained that in the opening. I said I accept it because he seems like a nice guy to me, and I know computers exist, and it doesn’t—and this point is important—it doesn’t change my worldview in any way. I don’t need to do anything in life because there’s a computer under the table. Okay fine, there’s a computer under the table. By the same logic, if he told me there’s a bomb under the chair, then on the one hand I could accept it, but the meaning for my life is much more critical, so even though that claim is a physical claim, I still might check the evidence a little more before I stand up.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes. Here, I really think this is another point I wanted to comment on in what you said. In my view, discussion of some thesis, some claim, some theory, is not related to the question of what it says about me. In that sense I don’t accept what you said. What do you mean not related? It may be that I’m not interested in it, it doesn’t interest me, no problem—but my assessment, if I’ve decided to examine this claim and form a position about it, whether it’s true or not, I’m not interested in what it says. Meaning, the question is whether I have indications that it’s true or not. After that I can discuss whether it interests me, whether it says something about me or not. I don’t mix up the question of what it says about me with the question of whether it’s true.

[Speaker B] I don’t understand how you can avoid mixing that in, since again, if you agree with me that beliefs are a tool for decision-making.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Belief—

[Speaker B] is not a tool for decision-making. Not necessarily. So why? So let’s say, as we talked about Spinoza’s God, that’s a belief that has no value at all for decision-making, so you agree with me—you yourself told me that that’s atheism.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That’s my next comment. What I agreed with you on probably wasn’t precise, or we’re not saying exactly the same thing. I claim that Spinoza’s pantheism is simply conceptually identical to atheism, not because it tells me nothing. Because if you say that the whole world is God, not because it has no implication—you’ve defined the whole world as God, good health to you. You’re not saying anything, not because it has no implication. Therefore, for me the important point is not the implications. For example, if someone claims there are a billion ants in the world. Okay? Extreme positivism claims that this is not a claim at all, it’s a pseudo-claim, because there’s no way to check it empirically. Go check all the ants in the world. Okay? Now I think that’s nonsense; of course that’s not true—it is a claim. I have no way to check it, and it also doesn’t say much—what do I care how many ants there are in the world.

[Speaker B] But you won’t sit in a studio discussion late at night and argue about it with someone.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That’s a different discussion—that’s the question of whether it interests me. I’m not talking now—we’ve already arrived at the discussion. I’m talking about the question of whether it’s true. The question of whether it’s true is not related to the question of what it says about me.

[Speaker B] Again, I agree with you—whether something is true or false is not relevant to what I think about it. The point is that the burden of proof on the one making the claim is much stronger; as they say, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. That’s all. Okay.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That’s the direction here. I’m prepared to accept that novel claims require good, strong evidence. Claims that say something about me or demand something of me—then psychologically of course I’ll want to check them more thoroughly, that I accept.

[Speaker A] There’s more reason to debate them.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But philosophically it doesn’t matter what it says about me; philosophically, the question of whether it’s true or not is not related to the question of what it says about me.

[Speaker B] No, I’ll stress once again, I’ll clarify the point—again, we agree. Whether something is true or false is not relevant to my opinion on the matter, but in order for me to believe it, in order for me, sitting opposite you, to believe it, there definitely is a factor of whether it affects me or not. In order for me to believe. But what is believing?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] If it’s true, that’s what believing means to me. No. Saying it’s true—that’s what being convinced means. I don’t know any difference between those two things.

[Speaker B] Right, but again, as we explained—there’s a computer under the table, so again, I’m prepared to accept that without any further evidence. I don’t demand anything at all.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, that I agree with, we already agreed on that earlier.

[Speaker B] Good, so that’s what I mean. So no, again, just so we’re not talking past each other. Excellent, we’re synchronized.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Excellent. Meaning, the difference between a computer and a dragon is the question in the absence of evidence. If someone comes and says, listen, there’s a computer under the table—why should I doubt his words? There probably is. If he says there’s a dragon, I will definitely doubt his words. Exactly, that’s what I said. But if there’s evidence, then there’s no relevance at all to computer or dragon, okay?

[Speaker A] But the question is also the strength of the evidence.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Fine, okay. The strength of the evidence is a factor. We’re making progress.

[Speaker A] Shall we move on in the discussion? Okay.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Now one final additional point, perhaps, in response, is that logic is not our invention, in my view. Logic is the most objective thing there is. In my theology—yours has no theology because you don’t believe in God—but in my theology God too is subject to logic. Meaning, you can’t say that God can create a round triangle, because the concept has no meaning; the statement has no meaning, that a triangle—or that God can create a round triangle. Therefore, for me, logic is not only not our invention, it is much more objective than physics. Since it is true in the sense of multiple worlds—in deontic logic, or modal logic, sorry, one uses the framework of multiple worlds. You spoke about possible worlds; logic is true in every possible world. Physics isn’t. There could be another imaginary world in which physics would be different, and in that sense this is only a side note—I don’t know whether we agree—

[Speaker B] or not, but I’m not sure I want to go down that pit, that rabbit hole, because I do—I claim that reality is the—like you say, you can’t have a round triangle. That’s not—I can say, here, here’s a round triangle. There, I said it. A round triangle exists. There, that’s a claim. Did the world explode? Did anything change? No. I simply can’t present you in reality with such a thing that you would identify as a round triangle. Okay, so here we’re back—the problem here is reality. Meaning, just like—can there be a triangle that has three—that has four sides? No, but in a world with several dimensions there could be such a thing, some kind of thing like that. But that’s because our reality is ultimately—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So here we return to our previous disagreement; I don’t agree.

[Speaker B] Fine, but I don’t think that’s a point worth getting into in this discussion because it’s a rabbit hole that isn’t all that relevant.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Fine, okay, so we can let that go. Good. So up to here these were just comments. Now we’re roughly synchronized, it seems to me, right? Now I really do want to present the argument. The argument, basically, as I said earlier, is that when I see a complex reality in front of me, the simple assumption—let’s call it the rational one—is that there is something underlying that complexity. Unless it is necessary from within itself in some sense. Of course, if so, that’s something else. But if it’s not like that, then there has to be something underlying it. What that something is, at the moment I don’t know. A dragon, fine? But it’s a dragon not in the sense that there’s a dragon under the table, because for me the complexity of reality is an indication of the dragon under the table. Meaning, I’m not saying to you, accept that there’s a dragon because I say there’s a dragon. I’m claiming that because there is complexity in reality, that is an indication that under reality, under the table, sits a dragon. Meaning, there is someone who created something, or someone who created this complexity.

[Speaker A] But that’s an agent with desires and a purpose.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That’s already a further stage. I do, yes, I think so. Because otherwise, if I looked at it as some kind of deterministic mechanical mechanism that created it, I would gain nothing. Since the complexity, ultimately, of the thing that created the complexity in reality now itself requires explanation. So what did I gain? Then I’ll go to God one, God two, God three, to infinity. Meaning, it’s turtles all the way down, as they say. Therefore I think that if we want to stop this infinite regress, and my assumption is that infinite regress is not an explanation, then there has to be some link—and as far as I’m concerned it can be God 17 or K Y T, I don’t care which one, there may be several more along the way. I’m talking about the last in the chain, the last turtle, okay? Atlas, the one carrying the world on his back. And that turtle has to be something with—I don’t know whether to call it desires because that’s already a human concept—but yes, with some kind of plan, some kind of ability to determine, to plan, to decide, to will, in our language. I’m willing to use that concept.

[Speaker B] Okay, now let’s start unpacking this a bit. First of all, the biggest problem here, of course, is definitions of what complexity means. Meaning, okay, how many realities do you know?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I know only our reality.

[Speaker B] Exactly. Now, you claim that our reality is complex compared to what? For comparison—this is like the example we often use—like you telling me the room is messy. Great. In order to tell me the room is messy, you have to know what a tidy room looks like. Meaning that in order to say this reality is complex, you have to tell me what a non-complex reality looks like. That’s one. Two: this complexity you’re talking about, at the end of the day we already know that if we go down far enough, we can simply get to the laws of physics. Our laws of physics—and we can demonstrate this with various games of life—definitely provide, meaning very basic laws of physics that exist definitely provide, the infrastructure for generating complexity. Meaning laws that always hold, operating on one another—games of life show how they create natural complexity. It forms on its own. Now, the problem with this turtles thing is that I personally don’t understand the logic. Because if you claim infinite regress is impossible, that means your inference is wrong. It doesn’t mean you can now invent a logical mistake to fix it. If you got to a point of infinite regress and you claim it’s not possible—not only do I disagree with that, and maybe in a moment we’ll say why I disagree that it’s not possible—it’s as if you got one plus one equals three and then divided by zero to make it come out right. The fact that you made one mistake and reached infinite regress because you probably just went wrong somewhere along the way does not give you the right to make a special pleading fallacy, a special pleading of okay, I stopped it somewhere. I stopped it. I stopped the regress. Where is the mistake? A special pleading fallacy. My rule—wait, what are you actually saying? My rule is right except this one time. My rule is always right. Something leads to something leads to something, turtles all the way down, except this one time when I stopped it. Right. That is by definition a special pleading fallacy. You stopped it where? And you yourself even said it doesn’t matter where I stopped it. I stopped at God seventeen, I stopped it there. No—that’s a special pleading fallacy meant to correct a logical mistake that you presented; you created an infinite recursion which as far as I’m concerned isn’t even a logical mistake. Because infinite recursion is based on very naive assumptions about time. It’s our view of time—you’re even more of an expert on this than I am—time is not like we know it, linear in that way from the way we’re built. So for something to be infinite, you need a very naive view of time which we actually already know is not really correct. So as far as I’m concerned, those are my initial objections to what I’m seeing here.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Okay, I’ll say two things. First of all, I’ll present this in the form of a logical argument. Fine? I’m saying: things of the sort I see around me, in my estimation, require a cause. Meaning, a world-complexity like the one I know, made up of matter, of the things I know, does not come into being without someone assembling it. First assumption. Fine? We can discuss all the assumptions afterward, but that is the first assumption. Second assumption—so if that’s the case, then there is someone who assembled it. The conclusion—not the second assumption. An intermediate conclusion: there is someone who assembled it. Now I ask: what is the nature of the one who assembled it? Is he also of the same kind of things I know, which cannot exist unless someone created them, or is he of another kind, about which I have no experience? And then it could be that he is of a kind I don’t know; he may indeed be able to exist by inner necessity inherent to himself, what in ancient philosophy is called causa sui. I don’t like that term—

[Speaker B] But do you know why you don’t like it? Because we don’t know anything like that. What exists by itself?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Therefore I’m saying, I’m not talking about the question of what we know. This is all logical analysis for now. All I’m saying is there are two possibilities; we have to choose between them. I’m saying there is something that created the complexity before us. I ask what created it. What created it depends on the question of what the thing is that created this complexity. If it is of the kind of things I know, then it needs something else to create it. If it is of another kind, then not. As I said, I don’t know, so that’s something else. These are two possibilities; there is no third.

[Speaker A] Of course there is. Sorry to jump in like a magician—the fifteen minutes are up. Do you want to continue?

[Speaker B] I was counting for him and he got interrupted, because I think we can.

[Speaker A] So we’re moving straight into open discussion. Agreed by both of you?

[Speaker B] I think that’s fine. I’ll enjoy it. Everything’s fine.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No

[Speaker A] problem, I’ll make it forty minutes of open discussion. If we need more or less, we’ll see. Go on.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Now my claim in the end is that if I continue this logical chain and I now ask about God two, let’s call them that—or whatever, the second stage, yes?—I ask what his nature is: is he of this kind or that kind? And that will compel God three, and so on. Now there are two possibilities for ending this, and in my view they are both necessary. Two possibilities for ending this. Either an infinite chain, which in my view is not acceptable as an explanation—you apparently disagree, but that is one possibility. The second possibility is that it stops somewhere in the middle because somewhere there really is something unfamiliar to me in my experience, and since that is so, then apparently it can exist without something having created it. Now since I do not accept the infinite chain—as I think many philosophers do not accept it either, though fine, I’m not relying on authorities, I’m only saying that this is an assumption—let’s say you can’t say it’s irrational; many rational people assume it, that infinite regress is not an explanation, even if you personally don’t agree with that—why exactly can be discussed later.

[Speaker B] No, I agree with you, it can be—I claim it can be an explanation, but I think more than that, infinite regress shows you have a problem in the whole business, that’s all. Your business is mistaken. You reached—it’s like if I’m programming a computer, and I create recursion with no end, the computer crashes. It knows I did something wrong. Clearly. Because it knows I did something I wasn’t supposed to do. If I divide by zero, that’s infinite recursion, I performed an operation I’m not supposed to perform. Obviously. So if you reached it, that means the whole business is wrong, not that you can invent your own error.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Let’s go back for a moment to my wording. I described precisely the path I took. Now, I did not reach infinite regress; I arrived at two possibilities. One possibility is that there is infinite regress, and the second possibility is that the regress is not infinite.

[Speaker B] Or that this regress is not really a regress.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Give me one second.

[Speaker B] Give an example. Because you’re claiming someone created this. Do you have evidence that someone created this?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I don’t have evidence; I have an argument based on logic.

[Speaker B] No, but again, you agreed with me that you don’t know other realities; you know one.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Correct. So why assume it was created? Because just as every thing I know in the world that is complex is created, so—

[Speaker B] therefore I assume reality is too. And here there is a logical mistake of comparing apples and oranges. Meaning, everything you know in this world was created from something else. Meaning, you were created from your parents, I was created from my parents, a tree comes from a seedling. But all of that is just a rearrangement of matter that already existed. You know—I’m not going to teach you the first law of thermodynamics—all of it is matter that changed form. Those atoms were previously elsewhere; you were elsewhere; all of us are composed of atoms. Meaning, all these explanations you’re giving here of I know something is created—this is something from something. But when you’re talking about reality, you’re talking about something from zero, something from nothing. That’s a false comparison. You cannot assume a logical inference from something-from-something as opposed to something that you yourself say is not from something.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So I disagree, and I’ll explain why. David Hume already showed that the principle of causality is an assumption of reason—I mentioned this earlier—it is not the result of observation. You can’t derive the principle of causality from observation. That’s obvious. You can’t derive it from observation; you assume that everything has a cause, you do not derive it from observation.

[Speaker B] Fine, the problem of induction.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The problem of induction and causality are two different problems.

[Speaker A] Explain that to our audience.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] David Hume basically says that two very foundational assumptions of science cannot be derived by means of observation. The first principle is the principle of causality, that everything has a cause.

[Speaker A] A physical cause?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] A cause, yes—physical or whatever, some sort of cause. Whether physical or non-physical is another matter, but there has to be some kind of cause. And the second principle is the principle of induction, meaning that what has happened until now will probably continue to happen. All right? Or that what is true in one case is probably true in all cases of the same kind.

[Speaker B] I dropped this pen, I’ll drop it a thousand times, I’ll assume it will keep falling, but I have no reason—I mean, there’s no actual proof that if I drop it the thousand-and-first time it will keep falling.

[Speaker A] Meaning, you have no evidence about the future.

[Speaker B] Exactly. No matter how much you observe the past, you still can’t necessarily know with one hundred percent certainty, you can’t prove—

[Speaker A] But that’s the kind of thing where you just can’t know the future one hundred percent all the way through.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, but the interesting part here is that even though these things do not come out of observation, all of us think they are true.

[Speaker A] How do you define true?

[Speaker B] Yes, but you haven’t solved the problem I raised. Why? Because everything we feel is true derives from the reality we live in. You take a law from the reality in which we live and assume it outside it. By way of comparison, if there is a computer system that works according to certain laws, there is no necessity that something outside that computer, if it exists, will work according to the same laws. Clearly.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But this isn’t a specific law; it’s a law that is true in all the sciences, for all reality, so why assume it won’t work in the case I’m talking about?

[Speaker B] Because you don’t even know what it is. Because you assume there is something outside reality. I’m saying demonstrate that such an option even exists. We know only reality, and you agreed with me there’s only one. Who said there is anything outside at all? I didn’t say there is.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I’m saying that the one who told me that is precisely the argument I’m laying out now. Nobody told me—

[Speaker B] that. If someone had told me that and brought no arguments, I wouldn’t accept it. But you say you had an intuition, an appearance showing you yes, that it seems everything is created from something else. But again, you agreed with me that this is something from something, something from something, something from something. And somehow you take that and shift it to something from something else. It doesn’t work. This from that, this from that—I agree with you. But we’ve gotten to some point of okay, from now on you infer from existence to non-existence. You’re basically saying non-being created being.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Not non-being created being; one being created another being.

[Speaker B] No, so if it’s another being, then there is something outside reality.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] God, if you want to call that outside reality.

[Speaker B] Do you have evidence that anything at all can exist outside reality?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Why do I need evidence? Here, this argument is the evidence. This argument is the evidence?

[Speaker B] And there you have begging the question. I assume something exists outside reality because I assume something—which by the way, I also disagree with you on this point that there’s no begging the question. In my opinion you’re getting a little confused between A equals A and begging the question. At the end of the day I don’t think God exists; you do. But we still manage to have a conversation about him. Why? Because we can still use a word—a word, an abstract concept—that doesn’t necessarily exist in reality. And to bring this down a notch—let’s talk about a unicorn, okay? I assume you don’t think there’s such a thing in reality as a unicorn. But we’re capable of having a conversation about it, even though we both know they don’t exist. Right. Because the term unicorn, the term exists in our language. Okay. But if I say, if I say a horse has a horn so it’s a unicorn, I haven’t assumed anything here, I just used language. That’s a logical argument. In order to say existence, you have to show something. You after all—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That’s why I gave the introduction, and I really do not agree. In the introduction I explained that there are two toolboxes with which you can arrive at conclusions. This conclusion does not derive from experience, I’m saying that explicitly. The problem is that the whole principle of causality, including its application in science, does not derive from experience. It is an a priori principle.

[Speaker B] That’s not accurate, I don’t agree with that. Because we do do it because it works. That it works—you can’t argue with that. The fact that we’re sitting in this room and having a conversation and the fact that afterward someone will look at the camera and see us—that shows you it works.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But the fact that it works doesn’t mean it’s true, it means it works. Think, for example, about induction. One of the solutions offered for the problem of induction—David Hume asked, yes, how do we know induction is true? That what has happened until now will also happen later. We know it by induction. Since until now what we assumed worked until now also worked later, therefore we assume that in principle everything that worked until now worked later.

[Speaker B] Let’s bring this down—let’s bring down where this discussion can get, because we’re talking philosophy here. At some point we’re going to get to something that is probably a brute fact. It’s like you’re saying… who created God, the world? God. And who created God? Didn’t create him, did create him, we can argue, doesn’t matter. But why did God create? Why is reality like this? In the end there are questions whose answer is probably just: that’s how it is. That’s how. Because we have no other answer. Maybe we’ll have an answer in the future. But right now we put—we again talked about the null hypothesis. Meaning, as long as this works, you can’t say—by the same token become a solipsist, sit outside and say objective reality doesn’t exist. Okay, fine.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Which in my opinion is false.

[Speaker B] Obviously, but why is it false? Because it improves your experience?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, no, not because of that, because I think it’s false.

[Speaker B] Fine, but that too you can’t prove. Of course not. But still—so there you go, we’re talking about things you can’t prove. Right. And you still behave as if they are true. Good, you’re talking—we talked about whether belief is rational. Rational, according to reason. Do you agree with me that there is no evidence that something exists outside reality? There is no evidence.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] There’s excellent evidence for it. I just said it. What? Because the alternative is infinite regress.

[Speaker B] Evidence by negation. No, no, no. Why can’t there be a reality that always existed? This is reality, this is what there is, there is nothing else.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But this reality did not always exist; today we know that scientifically. How do you know that scientifically?

[Speaker B] If we’re going here into the scientific discussion, in the direction of the Big Bang, the Big Bang after all is the beginning of the universe in its present form. Right. You have not the slightest idea what came before, and not only that, we don’t even know whether the term “what came before” is relevant at all. It may be like asking in language, “what is farther north than the North Pole.” Right. So again, we don’t know. The fact that our reality—the fact that, for the current period of time, the current universe had a starting point X time ago, does not mean it was created. Because you’re talking—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Again, so you’re talking about the question of whether matter was created. That’s related to the cosmological question. I’m talking about the physico-theological question. Was the complexity created? The complexity did not exist at the Big Bang.

[Speaker B] How do you know?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Because in the Big Bang there was one singular point.

[Speaker B] Exactly. And with the laws… but again, I’m presenting, I’m presenting to you, there are lots of game-of-life models that show that the laws of physics as they are are sufficient. Enough. We know that complexity arises automatically. Not only that, everything in biology shows us that. We know biological complexity arises on its own. Now, if you want, I have no problem getting into the physico-theological argument with you. Also, I’ve read your writings, and you really like the watchmaker argument. And I think we can use it for the audience, because it’s much nicer to talk about. Do you want to present it? Should I present it? However you want. Please, go ahead. The watchmaker argument comes and says—and if I’m not presenting it correctly, stop me, because I don’t want to create a straw man—it says: if I’m walking on the seashore and I see a watch, the very complexity of that watch tells me that someone made it, and since the world is even more complex than the watch, it too requires a creator. Did I present that correctly? Yes, more or less. I claim that… that a fundamental mistake was made here—again, oranges and apples. What makes you think that this watch, what stands out to you about this watch, is the fact that it’s artificial, not the fact that it’s complex. And I’ll explain and prove it. If I take a tree—a tree is no less complex than a watch. It has cells and roots and water systems and photosynthesis and spores and seeds and it reproduces. A tree is no less complex a thing than a watch. But if I tell you, I walked on the seashore, I saw a tree, and the tree testifies by its complexity—suddenly that argument doesn’t work. That argument definitely doesn’t work. It does work. No, because in the end even the stone testifies to its complexity. Right. So everything testifies to its complexity. There, that’s begging the question. If you can’t—so if everything testifies to complexity, then nothing testifies to complexity. You’ve assumed the conclusion. It works even more strongly with things we’re not so sure about. For example, I walked in the forest and saw a pool. A pool. We know pools can form naturally through the laws of nature, and they can also be created by human beings. The fact that I tell you I saw a pool is not enough; the argument doesn’t work. I need to give you details about this pool in order to know whether it’s complex or not. So in the end, what makes the watch stand out to you is that it’s artificial, not natural. We know how watches are made; we don’t know any natural way for a watch to come into being. And beyond that, this contains the flaw in the argument itself, because what you’re saying—if everything is complex and everything is artificial, then you wouldn’t be able to distinguish the watch, because everything is a watch. You’d walk on the seashore and the seashore is a watch and the water is a watch and everything is a watch, because everything is complex, and you wouldn’t be able to distinguish it.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So I’ll answer this step by step, because this has really already built up into several different points. I apologize, I kind of went off, I kind of went on a rant.

[Speaker B] It’s all right, you’re right, I kind of went on a rant.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Look, the point is this. The claim about the watch is not a claim that from the watch I learn about the world. The watch is an example, not a proof. And that’s a very important point that connects to what I said earlier. The principle of causality is a principle of reason; it is not derived from experience. That’s clear—it is not derived from experience. Since Hume, that’s completely clear. Now if that’s so, there is no reason in the world—certainly a priori—I see no a priori reason to assume that the principle of causality is true only of things within our experience, because it is not derived from experience. Now since that’s the case, I also don’t accept the distinction you’re making between a watch and a tree. My argument is that the argument he made about the watch, the priest Paley, the argument he made about the watch—I make about the tree. That is exactly the physico-theological argument. I say: just as you infer from the watch the existence of a watchmaker, I infer from the tree the existence of the creator of the tree. It’s exactly the same thing. But it doesn’t work, the argument doesn’t work. Wait, I’ll explain why it does work. Why does it work? You claim there is no objective definition of complexity, right? That’s basically what you’re saying.

[Speaker B] It’s not that there’s no objective definition. It means that any definition you give me won’t be able to distinguish between the watch and the tree.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No problem. They’re both complex and they were both created.

[Speaker B] But then again, on what basis did you decide—so you walked on the seashore—why did the watch stand out to you? Because everything is complex. The stone is complex too, the sand is complex too, the water is complex too. Why does the watch stand out to you? If your argument is correct, the flaw built into it, if it’s correct, then the watch can’t stand out to you.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I’ll explain to you why you’re mistaken. I think—sorry, but that’s what I think. When I walk on the seashore and I see a tree, I ask myself why there is a tree here, and my answer is that God created it. Created it—again, evolution and all, I accept evolution, but through all those processes, and we’ll get to that too. When I see the watch, I know it is artificial, as you say, and therefore I ask myself, wait a second, this God didn’t create; this is the work of human hands. Therefore there is a watchmaker here. So the logic is exactly the same logic; it’s just that the explanation for an artificial object will be that a person made it. When there is a natural explanation, the one who made it is God. That’s all—the same logic.

[Speaker B] But that’s not rational. You simply assumed that God created it because you assumed it.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, no, one second.

[Speaker B] Because again, you know that trees do arise naturally—you do know that trees arise naturally, they weren’t where… again, I’ll bring you back to the point, my opening point, that I heard—give me—between two worlds. My world explains what you’re saying perfectly well, and I don’t need God at all. He’s not needed at all; he doesn’t change anything in the category for me.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So I disagree with that.

[Speaker B] Why? Where does God come in here?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I’ll explain. The point is that there is an objective definition of complexity, even though I know only this reality. Physicists call that definition entropy. The entropy of a system represents its complexity.

[Speaker A] What is entropy?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Entropy is a physical measure—it doesn’t matter—in thermodynamics, it’s a physical measure of the complexity of a system. Okay. Say a living system, for example, is a mathematically more complex system; you can simply show that it is a more complex system, with lower entropy than an inanimate system. Now, even an inanimate system, when you go into the microscopic level and everything, is very complex—what you said earlier, everything is complex. There are objective measures of complexity, and this is a very important point. Why? Because if there really is such a measure, then now you can absolutely ask a rational question: when there is an object at complexity level X—and now there are levels of complexity, I have a scale, because I can count the states, there is a way to calculate entropy—I can count the states, and therefore I don’t need to know another reality in order to define how complex our world is. It has a number.

[Speaker B] No, but wait, no, no, but I’m not—so where is the argument here?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Meaning, okay, but again, wait, now I—

[Speaker B] We agree that entropy is a thing, and we agree that life has low entropy. Right.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So now I ask, now I ask: if so, there doesn’t need to be another reality as you said earlier. I look at this reality, I ask myself what its entropy is, or what its complexity is—because the translation to entropy isn’t entirely exact, but it’s just an illustration. How complex is this? At such a level of complexity, is it reasonable that this thing arose by itself? That is my question. But wait, I’ll answer in a moment, because you asked the question. You say you have an excellent explanation through the four basic laws of physics. Agreed. My whole question is: who created those four laws of physics?

[Speaker B] And that is what’s called a loaded question.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What do you mean? I didn’t understand.

[Speaker B] Why are you asking who created—why are you assuming there is a who? You assumed there is a who.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Okay, I assumed that principle that I assumed.

[Speaker B] Okay, and if I don’t ask that question?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] If you don’t ask the question, you won’t arrive at the conclusion of the question. Exactly. But that question is a question grounded in the principle of causality, and the principle of causality is relevant to everything, not just to things we know from our experience.

[Speaker B] You can’t—it’s not a matter of experience—you don’t—if you agree with me that reality is reality and we don’t know whether there is something beyond it, and you assume—not only do you assume there is something beyond, notice what a double assumption. I don’t assume, I infer. One second. You also assume that the principle that works inside reality will work outside it.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Absolutely I assume that, right.

[Speaker B] On what basis? Notice what a double assumption—not only did you assume there is something without evidence, you also assumed—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, I didn’t assume anything, I inferred that it exists. I didn’t assume it exists; I inferred it from this argument.

[Speaker B] There’s no inference here. Sorry, I’m not—there’s no if X then Y here.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I’ll define it again once more; I’ll present the argument. Tell me why it’s not an inference. There is a complex reality at a certain level of complexity, high, okay? In my rational estimation—you may disagree—but it’s certainly rational, and in my opinion most—

[Speaker B] And it’s not rational because it doesn’t follow.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] It doesn’t follow—it hasn’t followed yet. I assume. I say: I assume that a thing at a sufficiently high level of complexity does not arise by itself. Now if that’s so, why?

[Speaker B] Wait, stop, stop—why?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Because the principle of causality is true of everything, because it is a priori; it’s not only for things from our experience.

[Speaker B] But in this reality.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Why? Why do you assume that?

[Speaker B] Because I can’t assume—because after all, do the laws of a computer system also work outside the computer system? No.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, those are specific laws. Fine, so how—but those laws I don’t assume; I know them, I know them from the computer, I know they’re there, and I don’t know them elsewhere. But the principle of causality is a product of reason.

[Speaker B] But reason is part of reality; we are in this reality, we are subject to it.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I am part of reality, no doubt; on that we have no disagreement.

[Speaker B] So we can’t—we are subject to reality, we can’t use—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I’m a slave to no one. I’m part of reality, and my definition—

[Speaker B] When I say—I’ll just explain—when I say that I’m a slave to reality, I’ll explain what I meant. I mean that in the end there are laws of reality that no matter how much you want to, you can’t break. You can’t.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Well, so I didn’t understand—so what?

[Speaker B] So the point is, fine, but those laws are in this reality. We know one reality—you agreed with me on that.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But causality is not a principle about reality; it is a rational principle.

[Speaker B] Only a principle in reality—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Because it is—that’s why I brought up David Hume first.

[Speaker B] This principle in this world—does this principle exist in this world? Yes. Fine. Does it work in this world? Yes.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] This is the reality we are in—

[Speaker B] Then it is part of it, by definition.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, no, that’s an insane logical leap. The sum of the angles in a triangle is one hundred and eighty degrees. Is that true in this world?

[Speaker B] That’s mathematically true; it’s not true in this world.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Of course it is. Draw a triangle—the sum of its angles is one hundred and eighty degrees. No, no, what do you mean no? It is true in this world, but it is not part of this world. That’s logic, not physics.

[Speaker B] It’s true under the definitions of mathematics that were defined.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Fine, let’s talk in Euclidean space.

[Speaker B] In Euclidean space it’s true. Of course. But Euclidean space doesn’t exist. I didn’t understand, I now have—but—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The rule that the sum of the angles in a triangle is one hundred and eighty degrees is not a rule in physics; it is a rule in mathematics. Right. Good. Even though it works in the world. So that means there are laws that are not laws of physics even though they work in the world.

[Speaker B] Causality is also like that. But mathematics too, like logic, is it not a human invention in order to describe reality?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] We’ve returned to the discussion we didn’t want to get into earlier, because I don’t agree with that. If you want to talk outside logic, then it seems to me we’re no longer moving in the realms of rationality.

[Speaker B] There’s nothing here outside logic. On the contrary, logic applies only in this reality, because you don’t know another option. I don’t understand.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] You yourself said that the sum of the angles in a triangle is one hundred and eighty degrees in every Euclidean space, not in this reality.

[Speaker B] But Euclidean space is an imaginary space; it does not exist.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So what? But if there were a place—

[Speaker B] So do we agree that God is imaginary and does not exist? Fine, we agree. No, no—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That’s really a logical leap—

[Speaker B] No, because if we—because in your opening, you said the claim of faith is that God exists.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right, absolutely.

[Speaker B] Good. Exists—do you know of something that exists in reality without any properties whatsoever?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What do you mean without any properties whatsoever? I didn’t understand.

[Speaker B] What physical properties do you mean? Any properties. Yes.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] He has no physical properties—so what? My soul doesn’t either, for example. I’m a dualist, I don’t know what your view is. My soul has no physical properties, and I think it exists.

[Speaker B] Okay. That’s a rabbit hole we won’t go into—that’s the next discussion if you want, whether there is a soul. Fine.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But I’m saying, I can’t manage to understand this claim that says that if something describes reality, then it is part of reality. Absolutely not. All the mathematical theories used in physics are exactly of a character that is not like that.

[Speaker B] If something describes reality, then that is exactly what it does—it describes reality. Fine. You took a rule that describes reality—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Also describes reality.

[Speaker B] No, no. There, you added the “also.” Of course.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I didn’t add it—I said it from the start. But there is no reason—

[Speaker B] But there is no reason—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So I’ll say it again. The reason the principle of causality is not derived from observation is that therefore there is no reason to restrict it only to the domains of observation.

[Speaker B] Just—do you know an example, dark matter. Do you know that idea? Yes. Do you think it exists? Yes, I assume it exists. You assume it exists even though you have no direct observation of it.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I have indirect observations.

[Speaker B] Indirect, fine. Indirect, perfectly fine. Great. We too have indirect observations of God.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Where? In the fact that the world is complex.

[Speaker B] But you—again, we’re going in circles, this isn’t getting us anywhere. You agreed with me that you know only one reality. Of course. Only one. Right. And I asked you to let me explain on what basis—in order to say that this world is complex, you need to present me with a non-complex world. No. Why? How did you distinguish it?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I’ll explain. I answered that. What I answered is that the complexity of the world is defined mathematically, without any need to know any—and entropy, fine.

[Speaker B] But that complexity, that entropy, if you know the idea, that entropy has an explanation in the world—it is not—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What does an explanation in the world have to do with it? You asked me whether I need to know another reality in order to speak about the complexity of the world.

[Speaker B] The answer is no. But the reality you know includes both high entropy and low entropy at the same time. Right. But it has entropy. Right. Do you know a reality without entropy? No. So how can you say—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So I’ll explain to you. Listen. You—

[Speaker B] This is already getting a little early. I’m joking because you just—because you agree with me on everything—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No. Up to the point where it’s not true, you’re not right.

[Speaker B] Because you come and tell me that this reality is a complex reality because it has points—notice—of low entropy. Okay. But it also has—most of its points, even, are very high entropy. Right. And the laws of physics, which are part of this reality, explain that perfectly well. Right. So why… okay, Occam’s razor. Yes. Good. You added something here that isn’t necessary. Not at all. Why? Where is its necessity?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So I’ll explain. The world of phenomena—I add the laws in order to explain the world of phenomena. I added something, but it is necessary. Why? Because it serves as an explanation for the phenomena. That’s how science works. Right? Now I ask a second-order question. What is the “theory,” in quotation marks—it’s not scientific—that explains the laws? The laws explain reality; I ask what explains the laws?

[Speaker B] Fine. And to that I say: first, it may very well be that they are brute fact—that’s just what there is, it is what it is, that’s all.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That’s what there is, sure. But the question is whether I don’t need to ask a question.

[Speaker B] One second, one second. No problem asking a question; ask as many questions as you want. This universe could also be a union of countless realities—a multiverse, and you know that theory. I’m not putting it on the table here, but it exists. It could be that this universe is one of countless universes. That’s not the point. When you ask whether these laws have an explanation, I agree with you that that’s a legitimate question to ask. Right. But we are at the null hypothesis. As long as you haven’t presented something, I remain in the position of the non-believer, and more than that, I remain in the position of not accepting the argument, and more than that also… I have to add this, I’m sorry. Because this discussion is a physical and scientific discussion, nice and all that. But you—even if we don’t agree today, obviously—but we are here, and you are here because you don’t just believe in some thing that created reality, whether it has an explanation or not, that’s that. You are talking about a very specific deity, with a name, with will and ability and active influence in reality, that wants things from you, that expects things from you, and you conduct yourself—and again, I’m not attacking you personally, heaven forbid, this is a discussion, I hope that’s clear. But if there are cameras here, you and I don’t look the same because of what you believe in. Because your style of dress may be different, and you have something on your head that distinguishes between us. And that means you’re not talking about some deity out there somewhere; you’re talking about a super-specific deity with a very distinct will and ideas, and your foundation—I’m sure there’s some chain of reasoning here that leads you from here to there. I think it’s shaky all the way through, in my opinion, and that can be heard earlier.

[Speaker A] Yes, that’s also a different discussion, by the way—it’s an entirely different debate regarding a specific God.

[Speaker B] Yes, yes, yes, I’m not expecting you to defend that now, heaven forbid, don’t misunderstand. Okay, so let’s return to the discussion we do agree on. No—why am I mentioning it anyway? Because from the start it’s so shaky here that if the chair here is shaky, there’s no chance you’ll get there. Let’s talk about whether the chair is shaky.

[Speaker B] But that’s the point, because in the end we are here. Because if we stopped here—if you came and told me the laws of physics have an explanation, okay, I agree with you, the laws of physics may have an explanation, maybe. Okay, is there something pragmatic I can do in reality today because of that? No. Suppose you and I agree that the laws of reality have an explanation, that they may have an explanation—will you and I behave differently because of that?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No. Not in itself, no.

[Speaker B] So that’s the point. The point is, as I’m explaining, that already at the foundation we are saying: the explanation the laws of physics provide—you come and add something else on top of them. My role is first of all to reject what you’re presenting to me until you present me with strong evidence to justify it, and all there is here is a principle of causality that is a product of reality somehow trying to go outside reality.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] We really are going in circles, so I’ll try to bring this again.

[Speaker A] Let’s do that, because I want to hear you a bit.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Okay, I’ve talked a lot.

[Speaker A] It’s all right, it was interesting from both sides.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I’ll really try somehow to present it again, because this really is circles. The point is this: the principle of causality operates in reality. In mathematics there is a theory—or doctrine—and a model. What does that mean? There is a theory, some mathematical theory, some principles, and it has a model. For example, arithmetic addition—arithmetic is a mathematical theory; it has all kinds of models. If you want to add oranges into a basket, that is described by arithmetic addition. But forces in physics, for example, are not described by arithmetic addition but by vector addition. Meaning, arithmetic—the adding of forces—is not a model for arithmetic theory.

[Speaker A] You kind of lost me there, but—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, the point is this: when I talk about something, some theoretical principle, the fact that it works in reality does not mean it is part of reality. When I talk about group theory in mathematics, for example, group theory has various applications in quantum theory, in all sorts of places. That doesn’t mean group theory is part of physics; group theory is conceptual.

[Speaker B] I just want to say one sentence. I just want to emphasize the following point: the fact that it works in reality—it may also work somewhere else, but that is not necessary.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Nothing is necessary.

[Speaker B] And you present it as if it were necessary.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, no. So let me explain. I present it as rational, not as necessary. That’s why I made the introduction. I’m not claiming that by force of my argument you now must philosophically repent—we’re not even talking about the religious God yet—but become a deist, okay? No, I’m not claiming that. What I am claiming is that my move is a thoroughly rational move, not that it is necessary. Based on what? It is based on the following move; I said it, I’ll just repeat it. There is complexity here. That complexity has measures that don’t require knowing anything else. In mathematics those measures are called entropy, but that doesn’t matter. There are measures I can define without knowing other realities. Such a level of complexity, according to the principle of causality—which is not part of reality, but I bring it to reality; I assume it even before I encounter reality, and I impose it on reality, and that is generally accepted in philosophy, and I think it is correct, therefore for me it is… it is true. Therefore for me it is an a priori principle; it is not specifically connected to reality. And therefore, when I ask what the cause of something is, it does not need to be part of reality for me to ask that about it. It too is subject—wait a second—it too is subject to the principle of causality. One second, I think I’ve managed to present a picture.

[Speaker B] Just a second. I’m trying to understand how you can come with such a principle without reality. If there is no reality, does the principle of causality hold?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] One second, one second. Let me finish, and then put your finger on where we disagree. But I want there to be some picture, because I feel we’re going in circles so much. So I reach the conclusion: since I can now ask the question of cause also about reality itself, or also about something that is not part of reality, because for me everything must have a cause—that is the principle of causality—therefore I ask this question also about the totality, yes. And now I say: there is some cause for this totality. That cause I call God. I do not assume there is a God; here is the argument that brought me to believe in His existence, because otherwise I have no explanation for this reality, and there must be an explanation because of the principle of causality. Now, that is my argument.

[Speaker A] As an explanation, can you say “I don’t know”? What? The answer can be “I don’t know what the answer is.”

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So I’ll explain. There are two possible answers to this: either there is a cause or there isn’t a cause. Right? There is no third option. Now, you can say, I don’t know which of the two options is correct—that you can say.

[Speaker A] And also I don’t know what the cause is.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, fine, I didn’t ask what the cause is. I asked whether there is a cause or there isn’t a cause.

[Speaker A] No—

[Speaker B] But you can say I don’t know whether there is a cause.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I said, you can. “I don’t know” is not a third option. “I don’t know” is the option of saying I don’t know whether it’s one or two.

[Speaker B] What you presented is my position, meaning—and we already agreed on this at the beginning of this conversation—that whether I know or don’t know, whether I believe or don’t believe, regarding this answer, this dichotomy he presented here, explanation-no explanation, what we think about it is irrelevant. It’s true or false; our opinion is irrelevant.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right. Okay, so if I now have two possibilities, then for me, if I rule out the possibility that there is no explanation, on the basis of the principle of causality, which in my opinion is always valid—that is, not only for reality itself, as I said earlier—the alternative that remains is a proof by elimination, logically. There is no way out of it. A proof by elimination: there is a cause. That’s as far as we’ve gotten. Now I haven’t said anything about what the cause is. Nothing. And therefore all I claim—and I said that the definition of God is a function of the argument you use to arrive at Him—the cause of reality, which I reached the conclusion exists, that is what I call God. I don’t assume anything; I reached that conclusion by means of a philosophical argument.

[Speaker B] But there are several problems here, several errors. Several errors. First of all, first of all, you are confusing things here—you are switching concepts of cause. Meaning, suppose this pen fell. Now, the cause of its falling is that gravity acted on it. Right. But in the same way, the cause it fell is that I dropped it. Those are two causes, but they are not the same kind of causes. Obviously. But you are making that switch, because the principle of causality you know is the principle that the pen falls because forces acted on it. Forces acted on it. That’s what we know. Now, there is also a human principle of causality, where agents act on things. But most of this universe as we know it is not like that; it operates without any need for an agent. Then you reached this point, you got to the point that this pen came from matter to matter to matter to matter to matter, and when you got to the cause of reality, somehow suddenly it switched from a physical cause, from a cause of laws operating, to an agent-cause. You went looking for the agent. Will. You switched here between two kinds of cause, suddenly—there’s one switch there. One second, let me just finish one more point. And I’ll still bring you back. If you didn’t have reality—there was no reality, it didn’t exist—would you be able to infer the principle of causality?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I assume so. How? What do you mean how? I don’t infer it from reality. So why do you need reality in order to infer it?

[Speaker B] Wait a second. Can there be a reality in which causality does not exist?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Good question. I don’t know. I personally—

[Speaker B] Wait, just a second. You agree that “I don’t know” is an answer. “I don’t know” means that for you this is a possibility. You haven’t ruled it out.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] It is a live possibility, although my reason tells me that it is not a likely possibility. But it can’t be certain.

[Speaker B] Yes, but the problem here is that your reason is based on a reality in which this occurs. No. How can you—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But one second, one second. Logic is a science. That’s not true. Logic is not the result of observation.

[Speaker B] It’s not a matter of observation or not observation. The point is, I’m saying, you agree with me that reality can exist without causality. Can there be a reality without causality on the logical level? Yes. That means—you just agreed with me that causality is not a necessity. It doesn’t have to exist outside reality. Good. You took something and assumed that causality exists outside reality; that is an assumption without basis. There is no reason—you have no reason to assume that, because not only do you have no reason to assume it, you agreed with me that it isn’t required. Meaning, if we’re talking about modal logic, then it’s not necessary, it’s possible. It’s not necessary. It’s possible.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So let’s move from modal logic to fuzzy logic.

[Speaker B] No, don’t do fuzzy logic to me.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, the point is, you’re mixing two concepts here. The question whether something is possible does not tell us how probable it is. When I say that something is not necessary, I am already telling you now: for me nothing is necessary, except this principle itself, that nothing is necessary. That is the only thing that is necessary for me, including the existence of God, including whatever you want.

[Speaker B] A clarifying question, just a clarifying question. Is reality necessary?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Nothing is necessary.

[Speaker B] Fine, I just asked, fine.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] For me nothing is necessary. Therefore, when I say that I reach the conclusion that there is a God—and that’s why I also said this in the introduction—I am trying to offer a rational framework by means of which I arrive at the conclusion that there is a God, and in my view this is not only within the rational framework, in my eyes it is much more rational than the opposite. But that is already a stronger claim. At the moment I am defending only the weaker claim. Okay? Now, there is no statement here that this is necessary. Don’t attack me on the grounds that it’s possible that it isn’t so. I agree that it’s possible that it isn’t so. It’s also possible that you don’t exist here. I assume you do exist here.

[Speaker B] No, but again, let’s not go back to solipsism. Are we—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] It’s possible. Don’t do solipsism.

[Speaker B] No, but are we—but we agree that this law of causality does not necessarily operate outside it? Not necessarily, no. But notice how many things we agree on. We agree that there does not have to be something outside reality. It could be that reality is all there is. Right. It does not have to be that the principle of causality operates outside it. Right. You think it does, but you have no proof of that, no evidence of that. No, you explain to me that you think it’s true, but you have no evidence other than—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That you think it’s true.

[Speaker B] I’ll come back—so what is that… I simply can’t understand the difference between “I believe in God because I want to believe in God” and these two positions.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So I’ll tell you what the difference is. The difference is that in rational thinking—take a rational person who is not discussing God, okay? He’s not dealing with God, not talking about anything. A reasonable, thoughtful, intelligent person and so on. Ask him: do you think the principle of causality is true? True not only in reality but in general—that things should have a cause. I claim that someone who answers yes is a rational person. First of all. Whether that is necessary or not is another question. First of all, I claim he is a rational person. Not only is he a rational person; in my opinion, at least after studying Hume, most people should say that. Because Hume taught us that this thing is not the result of observation. And if it is not the result of observation—

[Speaker B] That means it should accompany us in every context, not only in the observational context. But you made a double leap here. You say “every context”—again, we’re in circles. Not necessary. It’s not the point—but you assumed it. Notice how many unnecessary assumptions—assumptions that aren’t needed at all.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, they are very much needed.

[Speaker B] Why? But again, you agreed with me that reality is explained well without them.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, it is not explained well without them. That is exactly why I don’t accept it. I claim that reality is not explained without this. No, you claim there is no explanation.

[Speaker B] I claim “there is no explanation” is an alternative to an explanation.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I claim “there is no explanation” is a default position.

[Speaker B] No problem, but “there is no explanation” is not an alternative to an explanation.

[Speaker B] The fact that we don’t like there being no explanation for something—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Not “don’t like”—the rational principle says that things are supposed to have an explanation.

[Speaker B] Let’s see what we do agree on. Okay. Things in reality—not necessarily everything, because there is—you agree with me that there does not have to be an explanation for reality, right? Right. Good. The default position is that there does not have to be an explanation for reality. That is the default position. Okay. Good. You left the default position. That is the difference between us. I am still in the default position; you left it. Right. And what caused you to leave the default position is that you took a principle that we agree applies in our reality—we agree, there’s no need to make deals here, we agree it applies—and inferred that there is something outside this reality.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, I didn’t infer.

[Speaker B] Although if—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, the fact that it works in reality is, for me, a particular case. This principle is always true. I did not infer that. That is the principle of causality.

[Speaker B] No, and here the language comes in. When you say it is always true—always true, not necessarily. Again, two different things. No, but when you say always, what is always?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Always in every context.

[Speaker B] Always in this reality?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, in every context, not only in reality.

[Speaker B] There, you stepped outside reality. You just—don’t say you didn’t. You assumed there is an option outside reality.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, but when you say stepped outside, you mean: I know the principle of causality in reality and then I step outside reality. No.

[Speaker B] I know in advance that there is—

[Speaker A] Wait, guys, I’m giving you five more minutes to finish the point, and then we’ll move to closing statements.

[Speaker B] No problem. The point I’m making is, notice this: we were at the default position, we were at a position where there is no explanation at present, or there doesn’t have to be an explanation. You assumed there is even the potential for there to be something beyond reality. You assumed such a thing could even exist. One assumption. You assumed the principle of causality operates outside, in that thing you assumed—so notice, assumption one, assumption two, and beyond that, you assumed that this thing is something—a being, a force, a will, and so on.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But that still belongs to the other page, not here among the premises.

[Speaker B] No, no, because in the same way—even if I don’t agree with it, I don’t agree, I haven’t agreed all along—but even if I did agree with you, then how do you rule out a multiverse of just infinitely many universes that produced this, meaning created from another universe and another universe to infinite infinity?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That is one of the illustrations we need to discuss, but I don’t know if we’ll be able to.

[Speaker B] No, I just want—I don’t want to—I didn’t open that up, I’m taking it back with me, because I don’t want to drag you into pits so it won’t turn out that I got you into points you can’t defend, I— But I do want to talk about one topic with Itay that I didn’t address enough: our talk of infinity is based on a very naive view of time.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, no, you said that earlier and I didn’t get a chance—

[Speaker B] To say, even that—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] This doesn’t speak about the time axis at all.

[Speaker B] Of course it does. Causality requires time—do you agree or not?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No. No.

[Speaker B] In order for something to cause something, something has to come after. No. What do you mean no? No. Can there be a cause before an effect?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] A cause can be simultaneous with the effect. For example? By the way, ancient philosophers claim that every cause is simultaneous with the effect, because that’s the meaning of a cause. After all, if you say the cause precedes the effect, that means there is a moment when the cause existed and the effect did not yet exist, but that can’t be, because the meaning of a cause is that the moment the cause occurred, the effect occurred as well. We’re getting into a philosophical minefield here.

[Speaker B] Look, look, look, this page was here, I moved it here. There has to be a time when this page was here and now it’s here. If there were no time, you couldn’t produce cause and effect.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That’s a common mistake. I’m sorry, we just—I’ve written books about causality, and I think that’s a big mistake. Time is one of the components of the causal process, but it is not a necessary component. It’s not a necessary component. When I talk about an infinite regress, it has nothing whatsoever to do with a timeline. An infinite regress is an infinite chain of causes. As far as I’m concerned, they can even be simultaneous. If there weren’t, I don’t know, relativity limiting the speed of transition from cause to effect, then no—then there’s no limitation, it can happen at the same time.

[Speaker B] Have we ever, ever seen an effect that wasn’t caused by a cause?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] We’re speaking a priori.

[Speaker B] Again, but—but you—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] You’ve also never seen an effect caused by a cause, ever, you’ve never seen that. You decided that it was caused by a cause.

[Speaker B] Oh no, again, no—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] This is very important,

[Speaker B] It’s not, because that matters from a philosophical point of view, not from a scientific point of view, because science already settled this a long time ago. I mean, we can argue, we can argue about science—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] It settled nothing.

[Speaker B] What do you mean science settled nothing, that’s nonsense. Wait a second, you’re more of an expert on this than I am—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I’m not a scientist.

[Speaker B] Right, so I’m telling you that science did settle it. I’m not a scientist—wait, I’ll say what it settled and then you tell me whether it settled it or not. According to the scientific view, according to the existing theories, is time part of space—space-time? Clearly. Clearly. Meaning our reality, which space is part of—maybe you could even say all of it. Okay. The time component is embedded in it.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Fine, so what does that have to do with causality?

[Speaker B] Good, wait a second, and we talked about the Big Bang, and we said that this space as it exists now did not exist at the point of the Big Bang. Right. Good. That means that time as we know it did not exist at the point of the Big Bang the way it does today. Very true. And therefore this inference of what caused what caused what caused, in some sense, is a very naive inference.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But I don’t know, I’m saying things very clearly, I don’t know why this isn’t understood. I’ll explain again: of course time did not—well, not of course, but the accepted assumption is that time did not exist. That too needs discussion.

[Speaker B] I’m not sure that’s true, but leave it.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, let’s assume time did not exist. All I’m saying is precisely that the concept of causality is not subject to the timeline. In our world, where there is time, there are also temporal relations between cause and effect. In a world where, I don’t know, there is no time—which is hard for me to imagine, but never mind—in principle it could be.

[Speaker B] No, and that’s the question: can you describe a possible reality in which there is no time but there is causality?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The ABCs of every physics course are a world localized at a point in space and time that we deal with, and all the physical properties exist at a point in time and space, and there’s no problem at all. They talk there about causality, they talk about everything. At that specific point there is no problem talking about it, none. In our world there is time, right, that’s obvious. But is the concept of causality subject to time? No. When it appears in our world, it appears along the timeline.

[Speaker B] Do you have a way to demonstrate that?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What do you mean, how to demonstrate it?

[Speaker B] Can you show me that in a world without time, causality occurs?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I also have no way to demonstrate four dimensions, okay? Right, I—

[Speaker B] I know reality—what is the inference based on? I mean, on what basis did you infer that? Yes, you’re making a claim, I understand that you’re saying it—

[Speaker A] He means in theory.

[Speaker B] I claim—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, no, it’s not only in theory. Again, I’m saying that the principle of causality that you use is also not drawn from observation.

[Speaker A] Okay, friends, friends, friends, time is up for the opening discussion—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Or logic.

[Speaker B] Time’s up? What time is it already?

[Speaker A] All right, friends, we’re moving to the summary stage. Each of you has three minutes. Do you need more than that? Doesn’t look like it.

[Speaker B] I think we’ll manage with three minutes.

[Speaker A] Three minutes to sum up the discussion we had here. So go ahead, who wants to start? This time you start, Aviv?

[Speaker B] First of all, I enjoyed it. First of all, I enjoyed it, and I thank you very much for coming. If you’d like discussions of this kind in the future, I actually think it could be nice on other topics—not this topic, because here apparently we won’t manage to reach agreement. If I go back to my opening, then again, I’m the juror. The juror, from my perspective—I, the juror, say: I needed to see the defendant. The defendant did not appear. I expected evidence, which for me was the thing I most wanted—something that would make me distinguish between a reality in which God exists and one in which God does not exist—and none was presented. And a logical argument was presented, the physico-theological argument, the watchmaker argument. I think it is full of flaws, I think it has very many flaws, but I think that specifically in this discussion we managed to narrow down this flaw, and this is how I see it when, again, we talk about Occam’s razor. Occam’s razor says there’s no reason to add variables unnecessarily. To say that if there is a sufficient explanation as it is, there’s no need to add something to it. And if that explanation is good, great. And the only way an explanation with more variables would be better is if it explained more, which I don’t think is happening here. There is a principle of causality that I agree exists in this reality. I don’t care whether it’s observational or not observational—we inferred it, we talk about it in this reality, and this is the only reality we know. We don’t know any other reality; we don’t even know that there is any option for such a thing outside reality. We don’t know whether this reality was created or always existed. The first law of thermodynamics דווקא points to an eternal universe, but that’s not even the proof here. The point is that in the end I remained at the basic position. All I received was a principle of causality that I do not accept as existing outside this reality. That is, maybe it does, but I haven’t seen evidence for that. I’m not—maybe there is something outside this reality, but I haven’t seen evidence for that. And even if I agree to those two foundational assumptions, I still can’t understand how we got from that to something with a—why say, why if I assume that something physical caused something physical caused something physical—if the explanations are physical all the way down, how did I suddenly leave the domain of physics and arrive at the domain of something that is not matter and not this? I mean, why isn’t it a multiverse? Why—I mean, there are infinitely many other potential explanations that could be entertained. That is, potential explanations of reality are infinite, and somehow we arrived at some explanation where somehow in this chain I end up reaching the final defendant at the end. And I, as the juror, have to say: not guilty.

[Speaker A] Thank you very much, Aviv. We’ll begin with your speech.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Well, the truth is that I thought in advance it would be a little difficult to do justice to this within the allotted time. We didn’t even begin to get to the first objection to the argument. I could present ten objections here besides the multiverse, and I’ve written about each one too—not just that, one could discuss them at length. And so I set myself a modest goal in advance, at least for this discussion. I am not here to prove to Aviv that God exists. I’m here to show that the conclusion reached by a person who arrives at God through this route is a rational conclusion. Okay? That was my goal from the outset. Therefore, once I presented it that way, the objections at the moment are less important. In my view I have good answers to all of them, but that’s less important. Why? Because if I claim that my principle of causality is the principle of causality accepted by Hume, by Kant, by very many—most rational philosophers, I think—who claim that it is not taken from reality, but is a product of our cognition. I think it’s not cognition, by the way; it’s some kind of awareness in some form, not cognition. But it is not connected to and not derived from this reality. So when I ask what caused the laws or what caused the world, that is a question entirely within the rational domain. Now even if Aviv says he doesn’t agree—and in my eyes it doesn’t make sense not to agree—he would have had to make a stronger claim in order to defeat what I said. He would have had to claim that what I’m saying is illogical, not merely that it isn’t necessary. Because after all, I came with a modest goal: only to show that this position is a rational position. Now to say that a principle of causality—to adopt the principle of causality in other contexts—is rational, in my view that is a simple claim. But fine, it may be that we disagree about that. Beyond that, I think this demonstration of a zero point where from the outset God does not exist, and then why should I accept that He does exist—returning to that all the time is irrelevant. I agreed to that. The only question is whether I had a sufficient argument that led me from H0 to H1. Yes, from one hypothesis to another hypothesis. I thought I did; you apparently think I didn’t. But one point I still want to add on this matter: you said a contradiction, even in the summary. On the one hand, you say maybe there is no explanation for the laws—who says there is an explanation? On the other hand, you say I have a sufficient explanation, and therefore I don’t need any additional hypothesis. Now, to say I have no explanation is not an alternative explanation. It’s not: I have a sufficient explanation, why do I need something else? You’re only saying maybe there is no explanation. That is not the same thing, and it’s a very important point. Because essentially, when you say you have a sufficient explanation, then you are saying: I answer your principle of causality too, even if that won’t convince me. If you say, listen, I don’t need an explanation—that’s legitimate, so that’s what you think. But then my point remains intact, because then what I’m basically saying is that if you want an explanation, then you need to arrive at God. The alternative is: I have no explanation. Now, to say that this is not rational, in my view, is absurd—not just incorrect. The one who proposes an explanation is irrational, and the one who says there is no explanation is the rational one? That sounds strange to me.

[Speaker A] Thank you both very much. Friends, I have to say, this is a fascinating debate. As a debate enthusiast—and that’s also the reason I started this channel, that was the main goal, to bring debates at this level—so thank you very much, Aviv, thank you very much, Miki.

[Speaker B] Thank you very much, with pleasure, thank you very much, thank you very much.

[Speaker A] Thank you very much to the viewers, we’ll meet again next time on Head-to-Head.