A Talk About God and His Involvement in the World

This transcript was produced automatically using artificial intelligence. There may be inaccuracies in the transcribed content and in speaker identification.

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[Rabbi Michael Abraham] If you’re talking about interpretation, interpretation is not hints. Those are different things. Interpretation is an interpretation of a verse. That doesn’t mean the interpretation is necessarily correct, or that there are no disagreements about it, or that it can’t be interpreted differently. But interpretation is something more serious than hints. Hints are the kind of little homiletic quips people make. You find in equidistant letter skips, I don’t know, every ten letters it says “the world to come” — ayin, vav, lamed, mem, heh, bet, aleph — yes, in fixed skips, so that means there is a world to come? I don’t know, I don’t think so. If you give me a persuasive interpretation of a verse, that’s obviously something stronger. But even in the world of interpretation, I’m usually pretty hard to convince, because interpretation is something you can take in a lot of directions. So speaking in general terms is pointless. If you bring me one specific interpretation, I can tell you what I think of it.

[Speaker B] Okay. Do you even have opinions on this topic at all? Because you’ve written more than once on your website that in your view studying the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh) is kind of just a waste of time. Right. Why is that? Because it’s subjective? Because it’s what?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, simply from experience. I see that people don’t actually learn anything from the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh). On the contrary, that surprises me, because I would have expected that the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh), which was given to us from on high, or through prophets, or through Moses our teacher, would teach us something. It’s a sacred text, a divine text. I would have expected it to teach us something. So this isn’t an a priori claim; it’s an a posteriori claim, just factually. I see that nobody learns anything from the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh). Nothing. There are no exceptions. Nobody learns anything from the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh). Meaning, I’m not talking about facts like that Abraham our father existed. That, yes. I’m talking about values, about non-trivial insights. Show me one person who thought one thing, studied the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh), reached the conclusion that he had been mistaken in what he thought, and changed his position. I don’t know anyone like that.

[Speaker B] I understand. When you say nobody, do you mean people alive now specifically, or also in the past?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] At least now. I don’t know about the past; that can be discussed. But at least from what I…

[Speaker B] Okay, so back to the reason we got here in the first place. I asked the question about morality in order to parallel it with the question about the commandments. You’re saying that basically you need to observe the commandments because they are true. Even if God doesn’t intervene, and even if there is no world to come, that’s the reasoning. It’s true, so you should uphold the truth. Right. Got it. And if the motivation is truth, do you think that’s enough?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That’s a question for a psychologist. For me it’s enough.

[Speaker B] I see you like that phrase.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, when people talk to me about motivations and how people will react, that doesn’t interest me. I discuss questions of what’s right and what’s not right, in my opinion. I may be wrong. But what this will do to people, or what a person’s motivations are to act this way or say that — that’s a question for a psychologist. Why should I care? Got it.

[Speaker B] In our conversation I mentioned, if you remember, that in my opinion this view of God as not intervening in the world creates a few problems. I’ll try to explain how it works through questions, and you tell me what you think. From what I saw on your website, and also from the conversation we had, you accept that the reason for evil in general — human evil, obviously — is free choice, right? Yes. Right? So the reason God doesn’t intervene in the world is to allow free choice, so as not to take choice away from a person and turn him into a robot.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I assume so, yes.

[Speaker B] Yes, at most that seems reasonable. What’s the reason God doesn’t intervene now?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I didn’t understand.

[Speaker B] In the past, generally speaking, we can say God doesn’t intervene in human evil because He doesn’t want to take away human free choice, right? Okay. Why doesn’t He intervene in free choice today? Why doesn’t He intervene in human evil today? He doesn’t intervene at all.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I answered — so as not to take away free choice. I didn’t understand.

[Speaker B] Okay, I got confused in the wording. Why doesn’t He intervene at all? You believe He doesn’t intervene at all, but why is that?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] At all — in natural evil, not human evil?

[Speaker B] No, no, generally, generally.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So I’m saying: He doesn’t intervene in human evil…

[Speaker B] In order to leave the person with choice. No, no, I’m saying, I got mixed up in the wording. Why doesn’t God intervene today at all, regardless — in good as well as evil? What do you mean in good and evil? I’m saying again, I don’t understand the question.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] If the Holy One, blessed be He, were intervening, then that would mean that every time you did something He didn’t want, maybe He wouldn’t let you do it. So that means you have no choice.

[Speaker B] No, so again, I’m not asking here specifically about evil; it just carried over from the context. In the past God intervened, right? Okay. Today He doesn’t intervene. Right. What’s the reason the intervention stopped? That’s the question.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So I’m saying: the main difference is involvement in natural processes, not in processes of human choice. Even in the past, when He intervened, it was usually in natural processes.

[Speaker B] Fine, I understand that. I’m just asking from the outset. Yes, finish.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Involvement in human choice is something rare. One of the places where this is written in the Torah is about Pharaoh, where the Holy One, blessed be He, hardened his heart — there really was that kind of involvement, where a person was not allowed to choose. Most instances of divine intervention in the past were intervention in natural processes, not in human choice. So when you ask what happened today as opposed to then, it usually focuses on natural processes, not processes of human choice — or in other words, it’s not intervention in good and evil, but intervention in what happens in the world. And the answer to that, as best I understand it — or at least a proposed answer; I have no way of knowing if it’s correct — is that in the past the world was young, humanity was young, less developed. And therefore, just as a father helps his child when he’s small at every step, gives him a hand and doesn’t let him do anything alone but helps him all the time — and gradually, as the child grows and matures, the father leaves him to act on his own and becomes less and less involved until he matures completely and the father lets go entirely — I assume, at least as a model, that this is a good model to explain the conduct of the Holy One, blessed be He, toward the world as well. At the beginning, when we were dependent on Him, we had no science, our morality also wasn’t developed, we didn’t have a good understanding of the world, so the Holy One, blessed be He, had to give us a hand and accompany us very closely. As humanity advances, the Holy One, blessed be He, needs to intervene less, and it’s also preferable that He intervene less. And therefore this process continues down to our own day, when apparently we are already supposed to stand on our own two feet, and therefore the Holy One, blessed be He, doesn’t intervene. That’s regarding involvement in things that concern human beings. More generally, I say — I divide… I divide the discussion of intervention, or really the discussion of evil, because usually what troubles us about intervention is why the Holy One, blessed be He, doesn’t prevent evil. Just to intervene for no reason — why intervene? Let nature behave and let it behave properly. Usually we expect the Holy One, blessed be He, to intervene in order to prevent evil or suffering. Okay? So here I divide between human evil and natural evil. Human evil is what I said earlier: He doesn’t intervene because if every time He did intervene, then de facto we would have no choice. We could only do good, because every bad thing we wanted to do He would intervene and not let us do, so de facto we would have no choice. So if He decided that we need to have choice, then He can’t intervene. That’s with human actions. In natural evil — tsunamis, plagues, things of that sort — there I have a slightly more complex claim. My claim basically says this: the Holy One, blessed be He, wants — this we see — He wants a world that operates according to fixed laws. That’s how He created the world. I can speculate why — maybe yes, maybe I’m right, maybe not — but a hypothesis is that without that we couldn’t function here. Meaning, you function in a world when you know what will happen if you do this and what will happen if that occurs; you can respond, you can plan. If the world doesn’t behave according to fixed laws, you won’t be able to function within it. So therefore I assume that first of all, factually, the Holy One, blessed be He, wants the world to operate on the basis of laws. Maybe that’s the explanation. But the explanation matters less to me; first of all, that’s the fact, and that’s the world He wants. Now, you’re basically saying: okay, but when a tsunami occurs, when a tsunami occurs, then He should have — or just, any kind of suffering, not specifically a tsunami — stopped it. My claim is basically that there is no way to produce a world that operates according to fixed laws, that does everything our world does, except for the points at which suffering is caused. Meaning, to produce a world that behaves like ours except for the points of suffering — that is, without suffering. If the Holy One, blessed be He, wanted such a world, He has no way to base such a world on a system of rigid fixed laws. And since He wants a world that operates on the basis of rigid laws, He has no way to do that. And therefore evil is basically certain points that are a byproduct of the laws of nature, and if we want a world that operates according to laws of nature, there’s no way to have it without that. And therefore, in a certain sense, the Holy One, blessed be He, is constrained by that. He can’t intervene and prevent suffering, because then de facto this would be a world that does not operate according to fixed laws. And that He does not want, for His own reasons. Okay? Now my claim, in short, basically says this: whoever asks that question, in my view the burden of proof is on him. I don’t need to supply excuses; he needs to explain to me why there’s even a question. Because in order to ask that question, he has to assume that there exists a rigid system of laws on the basis of which the world could have operated, and it would do everything the present system of laws does except phenomena of suffering. The question is whether such a system of laws exists. If it did, he’d have a good question: why didn’t the Holy One, blessed be He, make that system instead of this one? But I claim that in my opinion there is no such system, and if you’re asking the question, at least prove that there is.

[Speaker B] Yes, from what I’ve read in the philosophical literature on the subject, they give that same answer regarding human evil too, right? When people say it’s free will, a number of atheists ask things like: okay, so why didn’t He create a world where everyone freely — everyone just always freely chooses the good? And the classic answer is: yes, who told you such a world even exists?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, that’s not free choice.

[Speaker B] Yes, that’s exactly the point — who told you there’s a world…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] …where there is a possibility of doing good and doing evil, free choice, that always comes out one way. There’s a thesis like that that someone once told me in the name of the Ramchal — I don’t know if there’s a clear source for it — that even angels have choice like human beings, only angels always choose the good because they have no evil inclination. Now the question is whether such a thing is called choice. The Holy One, blessed be He, apparently expects a world in which there is a concrete, real option of doing evil as well, and still expects us to choose the good. To create a world where we have choice in some hypothetical way like the Ramchal’s angels, but where we always choose the good — that’s apparently not the kind of world the Holy One, blessed be He, wanted, and therefore I think the question is not really a question.

[Speaker B] I agree with you. You just mentioned — and I hadn’t thought of this, I had similar thoughts but not exactly this — that a choice that’s kind of hypothetical, where you choose the good even though you don’t have a concrete option to choose evil, isn’t really choice, you’re saying. Does the Holy One, blessed be He, have an option to choose evil? And if not, then why call Him good?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That’s an interesting question. A concrete option — no, He doesn’t have one. But He has the capacity. I assume He has the principled capacity to do evil, but He is good, so why would He do evil? He has no inclination. In short, He has the choice of the angels. Got it.

[Speaker B] Now, that’s one of the theses…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] …of Rabbi Kook, one of his interesting theses. In Orot HaKodesh, part 2, he discusses there the question of perfection and self-perfection. He asks a question there: one of the human perfections is to perfect oneself. Meaning, the idea is that you perfect yourself not only in order to reach a more perfect state, but the very process of self-perfection has value. It’s not only a means to become more perfect; the very fact that you improve is itself a kind of perfection. And then he asks: the Holy One, blessed be He, cannot have that perfection, because He is already perfect. He can’t improve, He can’t become more perfect. So he says, if so, then He’s not perfect; one of the perfections is lacking in Him — the perfection of self-perfection. And what he answers there is that He acquires that perfection through us. That’s why He created us as deficient beings who can perfect themselves and become better, and that is basically the way He perfects Himself. In other words, that’s why He needs us. This is what’s called the secret of service for a higher need. Meaning, what we do contributes to the Holy One, blessed be He, something that He could not do Himself. To some people that may sound like some kind of heresy, but in the literature of mysticism or in Jewish thought this is called the secret of service for a higher need. As if our service is the need of the Holy One, blessed be He, and He needs us. There are things He cannot do — what’s called “Give strength to God.” What does “Give strength to God” mean? Give power to the Holy One, blessed be He? I need to give power to the Holy One, blessed be He? The answer is yes: there are certain things I can do that He cannot do. And Rabbi Kook’s beautiful example is self-perfection. Self-perfection He cannot do, and I can. And if self-perfection is itself one of the perfections, then I understand very well why the Holy One, blessed be He, needs me — maybe even why He created me. He created me so that through me He could perfect Himself, because without me He cannot do that. Now the big question on this interesting thesis of Rabbi Kook is: okay, so He created me and I perfect myself — in what sense does that help Him? Meaning, why is it called that He perfects Himself through me? I perfect myself. Why, when I perfect myself, does that in some sense complete Him? So my claim — and you need a little mathematics for this; I once wrote it in a philosophical article — is that dynamic processes, say think about the velocity of a body, a moving body. There’s the thesis of — there’s Zeno’s paradox. One of Zeno’s famous paradoxes is Achilles and the tortoise, that Achilles never catches the tortoise. There’s a less well-known paradox called the arrow in flight. Following me?

[Speaker B] I’m following. Yes.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The arrow in flight paradox — one formulation of it could go like this: look at an arrow flying. Okay. At every moment you see it standing in a different place. Right? At every moment you look, it’s standing in this place, then a moment later it’s standing here, then another moment later it’s standing here — so when is it moving? When does it pass between this place and this place? At every moment it’s standing in a different place. And the answer I gave there in the article is that there’s a conceptual mistake here. Usually they tie this to infinity; I don’t think you need to get to infinity here. This paradox confuses the concept of standing still with the concept of being located. Meaning, it’s not correct to say that the arrow at every moment stands in a different place. At every moment the arrow is located in a different place. What’s the difference? The difference is that when a body moves, at every moment it is in some place, but it is not standing in that place — it is in that place. Standing in that place means being in a place with zero velocity, but when you’re moving and you have velocity, you’re still in a place, but you’re not standing there — you’re moving in that place, okay? And therefore the fact that the body is moving at a particular moment does not contradict the fact that it is in some place at that same moment. If you were saying that it is standing in that place, that would contradict the fact that it is moving. But to say that it is there does not contradict the fact that it is moving. Now what confuses people? What confuses people, and makes them miss this simple solution, is that people think velocity means change of place. What is velocity? Changing place. Say we define velocity — the distance you covered over a certain period of time, distance divided by time, that’s velocity. So velocity gets identified with change of place. But I think that’s a mistake. Velocity is a potential for change of place. A body can have velocity even at one mathematical point in time. It has velocity. It does not change place at that point in time. At a given point in time it is in only one place. It cannot change place at a point in time. But it does have velocity at a point in time. The velocity function in physics is a function v as a function of t. Every t you give me has a velocity. Every time you give me has a velocity. What does that mean? That velocity is a potential for change of place. Now usually when a body has such potential, it has velocity, then in practice you will see it change place. Right? A moment later you’ll see it standing in another place. That’s an indication that already in the previous moment, when it was in the previous place, it had velocity. Because it had velocity, you see that this goes from potential to actual in the form of the body changing place. But the change of place is not the velocity. The velocity is the potential. When the potential goes from potential to actual, then a change of place is created. For example, if the body is moving with velocity and hits a wall, then it has velocity, but the wall doesn’t let it bring that potential from potential to actual. It doesn’t let it change place and continue onward. And then it comes out in another form — maybe it bounces back, maybe it comes out as heat, that energy comes out in another way. Here is an example of a situation where you have the potential — you have velocity — but you won’t see a change of place resulting from it.

[Speaker B] Isn’t that — correct me if I’m wrong — but that sounds a bit like the classic solution of Aristotle and Aquinas with potency and actuality, doesn’t it?

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

[Speaker B] The way Aristotle and the Christian theologian and philosopher Aquinas solve this paradox in a…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Quine I know; he’s not a theologian, he’s a philosopher. Aquinas. Ah, Aquinas. Okay.

[Speaker B] In Hebrew a lot of names get pronounced oddly. Aquinas, the philosopher — okay. Okay, in short, they solve this question in a way similar to yours. They explain it in terms of something moving from potential into action; in their language it’s potential and actual. When a body moves, it’s basically actualizing the potential it has, and that’s why this paradox supposedly doesn’t work. Did you read that in them, or did you just develop it on your own? Because it’s…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, I didn’t know it at all. In any case, the claim — what I’m… why am I bringing this up here? Because of the problem of perfection and self-perfection. So my claim is that the Holy One, blessed be He, has the potential for self-perfection. He has the velocity. But because He is perfect…

[Speaker B] I’m listening, it just went off because of the battery percentage…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] …because He is perfect, it can’t go from potential to actual. He doesn’t advance, He doesn’t become more perfect. But the potential for self-perfection He also has, even though He is perfect. And that potential goes from potential to actual through us. Therefore our self-perfection helps perfect Him. Because otherwise you’d say: that’s our self-perfection, so we perfect ourselves — in what sense does that perfect Him? So the claim is that this is basically the actualization of the potential for self-perfection that exists in Him and cannot go from potential to actual there; it goes from potential to actual in us.

[Speaker B] Wait… yes. Something interesting I saw with you — I noticed it in the first conversation we had, if you remember — when I mentioned William Lane Craig and the cosmological argument, remember that? Yes. I asked you whether you read that from him or just developed it yourself. Can you hear me? Yes, yes. Yes, it was just something that came to mind, I’m… I don’t know, just sharing. You seem… how should I put it? I don’t know, you just seem kind of unique, I’d say, in that you arrive at the same conclusions and the same solutions or arguments as, I don’t know, brilliant philosophers or theologians who lived thousands of years ago, just naturally…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] …like that. It sounds arrogant, but I don’t think it is. When you think straight, you arrive at the right results. That’s one of the reasons, by the way, why in my view most philosophical things are unnecessary to read. If you think straight, you’ll reach those conclusions yourself. There aren’t some grand doctrines there. Say in physics, if I hadn’t studied it, I wouldn’t have reached the conclusions by myself — relativity, quantum theory, even Newtonian mechanics. There, in my opinion, without studying the material itself you won’t reach the conclusions. In philosophy it’s not like that. There are many people who aren’t skilled in philosophical thinking, and they don’t reach the correct conclusions. If I may say so about myself, I think I am skilled in philosophical thinking, and therefore I feel that I reach conclusions even if I haven’t read them. And if I don’t arrive at conclusions that somebody else arrived at, then in my opinion he was mistaken. I may be wrong; I’m not so arrogant as to be certain that I’m always right. But it doesn’t bother me that I don’t arrive at conclusions someone else arrived at, because if I thought properly, then my assumption is that he was mistaken. It may turn out that I was wrong — that has happened more than once in the past. Fine, then I’ll change my mind. But it doesn’t scare me that some great philosopher comes to a different conclusion than mine. It really doesn’t bother me.

[Speaker B] I got that from my page in the past, so you don’t need to worry, just a moment. Yes, there’s this trend — you don’t use the TikTok app, right? No. Yes, there’s this trend there, and I assume that if you got into it you’d realize everyone’s trolling you, if you know the word — basically joking around. There was this trend, and it was serious; people really thought this. They said things like… it started because a girl replied to some conservative guy and said: you’re monkeys, you don’t know how to think, you think that anyone who thinks differently from you is wrong. And that’s exactly the definition of thinking differently from a person. If I think differently, if I have a different opinion from you, then by definition… they’re playing around there, yes. So I made sure to clarify it very well, because in a lot of my videos I speak in a very decisive tone. That’s not because I’m 100% sure I’m right, but still.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, people’s mistake is that they don’t distinguish between two claims that sound similar but are not the same. To say that if I think differently from you, then you are certainly wrong — that’s arrogance. To say that if I think differently from you, then in my opinion you are wrong — that’s a logical tautology, and that’s obvious.

[Speaker B] It just felt funny to bring that up, because what is unique about that platform is that you can say the most contradictory things in the world, the most illogical things in the world, and you’ll find twenty million people in the comments backing you and saying, wow, I was waiting for someone to say that — it’s crazy. Yes. You mentioned earlier — this makes me laugh — you mentioned skill in philosophical thinking, right? I’m relatively new to all this. I haven’t studied much philosophy. I have a few books here. I brought this because you talked about Zeno’s paradox and they discuss it here. Yes, I saw. What book is that? The Dream of Reason — maybe you know it, I don’t know how to flip the camera here.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No — who’s the author?

[Speaker B] Anthony Gottlieb.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Ah yes, okay. You know it?

[Speaker B] Yes. Yes, great book, nice book, a little long and a little cumbersome for my taste. Okay, nice book. The point is — what was I going to say? Yes, you mentioned skill in philosophical thinking earlier, and you said that if, in your opinion, people disagree with you, then either they’re not philosophically skilled or they simply made some particular mistake, and usually the conclusions can be reached pretty simply if you’re skilled in that way of thinking, right? Yes. Do you think that the reason — I’m tempted to mention specific positions and names, but I’m trying not to mention them because… do you think that, for example, people who don’t believe in God — is that because they’re not philosophically skilled? Or not necessarily, but probably likely?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Some of them, yes — it’s because of a lack of philosophical skill. By the way, even among those who believe in God, many of them also aren’t philosophically skilled. So I don’t think you can attribute it only to philosophical skill. A large part of it is starting points, initial positions. Now all kinds of questions come up here: look, if you were born into a religious home, you come out religious; if you were born into a secular home, you come out secular. So does that basically mean everything is just social conditioning and education, and not really forming an independent position? And I argue that that’s the wrong conclusion, because it’s like saying: I studied geometry, so I know that the sum of the angles in a triangle is 180 degrees. You didn’t study geometry, so you don’t know that. Therefore that’s a sign that the theorem isn’t true, but is only a social construction. And my argument is that religious education, and a religious environment, are something that help bring out from within you things that without that education would be harder to bring out. It’s possible, but harder. And therefore in my opinion the correlation — that people who underwent religious education come out religious at much higher rates than people who didn’t — does not prove that the whole story is only social construction. Because it could also be that religious education is a kind of learning, like geometry. And if no one helps you learn, then you won’t reach the correct conclusions. And besides that, of course a person has cognitive dissonance, since now we are entering psychology. A person has a tendency to hold on to the position he currently holds. Meaning, to stick to the position he currently holds and strengthen it, and not accept counterarguments. We do have that psychological tendency. And therefore people who start from an atheistic starting point will generally use all kinds of far-fetched excuses — even far-fetched ones — to reject the arguments that prove the existence of God. And I think that’s a large part of the reason why intelligent people don’t arrive at the conclusion that God exists. To me that conclusion is called for, and if someone doesn’t draw it, I feel he’s either biased or mistaken.

[Speaker B] I completely agree with you. I mean, I agree with you completely, and I have a great example of that regarding… I’m not sure, but there’s a chance I have attention issues, and I feel like every so often I disconnect and come back. You were just talking about atheists and you said — remind me what your last words were? Because I had something in mind to say but I waited for you to finish talking.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That an atheist is generally either biased or mistaken in his judgment. Basically cognitive dissonance, right?

[Speaker B] What? You talked about how they invent far-fetched excuses to reject good arguments, right? And this is kind of — I’d say a spoiler, but it’ll take me time to edit this video. Maybe also because of the beginning, and I don’t know, we’ll see. So they probably won’t see the video I’m going to upload tomorrow. I did — I don’t know if you know him — do you know Tal from the Atheist Line?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, I don’t know him. I’ve heard of him.

[Speaker B] A friend of a friend of the one I did the debate with — Aviv.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I don’t know any of the names there.

[Speaker B] Okay, so I was just curious. And it connects to what you said; obviously I’m not bringing it up for no reason. He made a video in which he talks about people who say, “I believe without proof.” He began the video by saying — he quoted, of course, open quotation marks — “Tal, a lot of people tell me…” not “Tal, a lot of people,” he said, “Tal, a lot of people tell me that they believe without proof. How am I supposed to respond to that?” and so on. Then he explained that this is flawed thinking, because if you believe without proof, then you don’t have, kind of, any way to choose between different positions. You could just as well believe in Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and so on. And then he said that the very fact that there are people who think differently from you, also without proof, refutes that position, right? In short, he assumes that if your position doesn’t have philosophical arguments and similar things, then it isn’t valid, right? It’s not justified to hold it, right? Okay, yes, that’s just the introduction. I’m getting stuck on words because I don’t want him later to look at it and say, “He didn’t present what I said properly.” So I’m being careful with the wording. And what’s beautiful here is — obviously I’m not quoting word for word — but if you take this to the logical conclusion that follows from it, he refutes himself. Why? Because regarding the laws of logic, in the video he kind of reached the conclusion that every position requires reasons in order to be justified in holding it, right? But do we have justifications for the laws of logic? Do we have justifications for, I don’t know, basic moral intuitions? Do we have justifications for causality? For the existence of an external world? We don’t. If we don’t have justifications for the laws of logic, does that mean we should reject them? No. If you reject them, then his whole video falls too, right? Because the whole video itself uses logic. And if he says no, then he has no problem with positions that have no justifications, and then from the outset why did you make the video? Right? Either you’ll get stuck in infinite regress, or you just refute yourself. And now why am I bringing this up? I’m bringing it up because of the… This seems to me like one of them. When someone tells you, “I don’t believe in God, I believe because the presence…” it just sounds intuitive — who arranged this world, and who made things like this? I don’t know, to me that sounds like a perfectly reasonable explanation. And that’s also not an argument intended to prove the existence of God; it’s just kind of an answer to the question, right? Why do you believe in God? I believe because it seems to me that someone arranged this world. They’re not laying it out for you like some expert philosopher, I don’t know, at the Hebrew University, and saying “the cosmological argument, the ordered universe,” and so on. But yes, they are giving you the basic arguments, right? It’s common sense. And I think I rambled a bit.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] In the simplest analysis, even when I present you an argument, that argument is always based on…

[Speaker B] …assumptions.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] There is no argument that isn’t based on assumptions. Now where do the assumptions themselves come from? So you can tell me either observation or logic. And let’s say you accept logic even without a source, because it’s self-evident for the sake of the discussion — I actually do think that. Okay. But even so, there is no person in the world who can ground everything he believes on observation and logic. Including sciences like physics, even exact sciences. It’s not true that it can be based solely on…

[Speaker B] …that. This is…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] …the positivist illusion. It’s an illusion. And therefore you necessarily accept claims even though you don’t have arguments or proofs for them, and you cannot deny another person’s right to do the same.

[Speaker B] Yes, and that’s why I brought it up in the first place, because they reject people’s faith on the basis of intuition, right? They’re not coming to you now with the most, let’s say, fancy arguments, right? Because in my opinion — maybe you won’t agree — but the existence of God is kind of self-evident, and I think it’s also implied by the fact that He exists. But most people just don’t know exactly how to formulate that for you, right? They say, who created this universe? So how do you… where did the universe come from? That’s basically the cosmological argument, they just don’t know how to put it into a formal logical argument. It’s all the same thing. The only thing that’s different is the formal presentation of the idea.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] On the other hand, we need to be a little careful, because I’ve written books about intuition — and about the fact that a person who says things without proof, that isn’t inherently defective. But on the other hand, if a person isn’t skilled in philosophical thinking, then one of two things can happen. It could be that he’s using correct intuitions but just doesn’t know how to conceptualize them and define them properly because he lacks philosophical skill — and then his conclusions are correct. But it could be that if he did have philosophical skill, he would discover that those intuitions are not correct. Meaning, if I start from some intuitive point of departure, that doesn’t automatically make it correct in my view. Meaning, I need to test it, cross-check it with other intuitions, see the implications, and I may retract it and arrive at the conclusion that this intuition of mine isn’t correct. Because Aristotle had the intuition that bodies fall to the earth at a speed proportional to their weight — but that’s not true. If he had checked it, he would have seen that it isn’t true. So the fact that we have a certain intuition — the fact that it’s an intuition does not disqualify it, but on the other hand it also doesn’t automatically validate it. And therefore philosophical skill really can be important. Meaning, your ability to conceptualize your intuitions, compare them with other arguments, cross-check them, see the implications, and examine whether the implications still fit your intuition or not — that’s an important skill for testing your initial intuitions, to see whether they are really correct. Meaning, it’s not always so simple.

[Speaker B] Yes, I agree with you. I’m not saying that if you have an intuition you should obviously accept it, or that philosophical skill isn’t important. I brought it up because you spoke about dissonance and the way they reject good arguments with far-fetched excuses, right? When someone tells you “I believe from intuition,” they reject it by claiming that it’s unreliable, even though they themselves also believe things on the basis of intuition — that was my main point. I obviously accept that there are proofs, and at age twelve I experienced a crisis of faith, so I don’t know who else can relate to that as I can — I assume a lot of people. But the point is yes, I obviously think it’s very important. And yes, but I brought it up in the first place to show — to reinforce the point you made about dissonance — that they reject good arguments with very far-fetched excuses. Okay. Obviously that seems pretty self-evident to me. I wanted to talk about God’s relation to the world, but most viewers obviously wanted us to talk about atheism. I said that sounds trite to me. What do you think about that? Talking about it anyway? Okay, it doesn’t bother…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Okay. Maybe it’s trite, but it’s still a topic for conversation.

[Speaker B] For the audience of… I agree with you that it’s trite, but for the modern target audience, I’d say — insofar as we’re talking about a philosophy student, it probably won’t be so trite for them. So I don’t know, let’s talk about it briefly. We don’t have much time left anyway. How much time do you have left? I don’t know…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Half an hour at most, yes.

[Speaker B] Okay. On most of my channel I more proposed… I mostly dealt with refuting arguments against religion, or arguments against conceptions related to religion — things like free will, or how do you know the universe isn’t eternal, or I don’t know, “you reject only one god less than I do,” and nonsense like that. But people always told me: when are you going to argue for the existence of God? Right? They always said, okay, you’re refuting them, but you’re not presenting anything in favor of your position. So maybe in the few minutes we have left, we’ll deal with the cosmological argument. I’d actually be happy to deal with the physico-theological argument, but that would require too much introduction and then it would just be meaningless, I think; it’d just be a waste of time. Okay? So I’ll present the premises and we’ll talk about them a bit. Please. Okay. Although usually I think — actually I think this argument doesn’t work all that well. Actually I think it leads to the right conclusion, but I think its premises are too controversial. But okay, let’s talk about it. The argument is the cosmological argument, and it goes like this: it has two premises and one conclusion. Everything that begins to exist has a cause. The universe began to exist. Therefore the universe has a cause. Do you want to elaborate a little on the two premises? Not too much — just briefly say why you think both premises are true, and then we’ll go through a few objections.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I’m not sure it’s right to formulate it as everything that begins — that everything that begins has a cause.

[Speaker B] That’s also what you wrote in your pamphlet, if I’m not mistaken,

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Correct me if I’m wrong. Not exactly. I phrased it as: anything that belongs to the world of things in our experience has a cause, or is of the type of things in our experience that has a cause. Because later on there too—I don’t remember if it was in the cosmological argument or the physico-theological one—I also talked about the principle of sufficient reason as opposed to the principle of causality. And the principle of sufficient reason also speaks about things that may have existed forever, and still a reason is required for their existence. So the fact that it began at some point—I’m not sure that’s essential. Meaning, it’s true that whatever began at some point probably has a cause, but it’s not true that whatever never began therefore has no cause or no reason. Okay? That’s the point. But yes, in principle I accept that claim. It’s important to sharpen this, simply because one of the common objections to the cosmological argument is: what is the cause of God?

[Speaker B] God didn’t begin, not everything needs a cause; everything that began to exist has a cause.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But we claim that God is eternal, so what cause exactly? Right, exactly. So I’m saying we need to be precise: not everything has a cause, but rather everything that begins, or everything that belongs to the category of things in our experience, needs a cause. Then you’re talking about a causal chain. Fine, so there is a cause that brought about our world. Now there’s room to discuss that cause. Is that cause itself of the kind of things in our experience, or according to your formulation did that cause itself begin at some point, or is that cause something else? If it belongs to the class of things in our experience, then it too has a cause, and then I’ll ask about that cause. In the end there are only two options, one of two possibilities. Either infinite regress—that is, you just keep going endlessly with causes of things in our experience that have causes, and those causes have causes too, turtles all the way down, as they say. Downward. And the second possibility is that this chain at some point begins with something that is not of the kind of things in our experience, and therefore with respect to it no cause is required. And that something is what we call God.

[Speaker B] Since an infinite regress—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] —is not valid, it’s a fallacy, so therefore we’re left with God. Now, why this is a fallacy is not a simple story, why that is a fallacy. But yes, that’s the argument in a nutshell.

[Speaker B] Do you want to explain briefly why?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, I’ll explain, I’ll explain. Look, in mathematics it’s customary to treat the concept of infinity in a potential sense, not in a concrete sense. Meaning, when people talk about limits, when you first study calculus, the theory of limits, there they talk about the limit of a sequence that tends to infinity. What does infinity mean there? It’s what we mark with that symbol; it’s not a number. Not a number like one, two, three, and then also infinity. It’s shorthand for a certain kind of process that says—crudely speaking—a number as large as you like. Right? A number as large as you like. It’s not some enormously enormously enormously large quantity, as people usually think, but no, it’s something else. It’s whatever size you want. Okay? You can phrase it however you like; I once saw someone define it that way. And therefore when you talk about concrete infinity, you get yourself into all kinds of loops. You get into all kinds of circles like Hilbert’s hotel paradox and things of that sort, and it all begins with treating infinity concretely. You see infinity as just another kind of number, only a gigantic one, unbelievably huge all the way to infinity, but still a kind of number. Now, in order to avoid those paradoxes—and again, I’m not getting into mathematical nuances because there are other attempts too—but in order to avoid those paradoxes, we talk about infinity in a potential sense, not a concrete one. Meaning, infinity is something you can talk about only in terms of approaching it, not in terms of actually being there. And now, when you propose an explanation with an infinite regress, you’re really proposing a concrete infinity, not a potential one. Because when you tell me—the explanation of the sort of turtles all the way down—why is that not an explanation? Maybe explain for the viewers who don’t know. Yes, there’s a famous joke, I think by William James, about a Greek philosopher-physicist explaining to everyone that the world stands on the back of a giant turtle, Atlas. Yes. So some woman in the audience asks, “And the turtle—what is the turtle standing on?” So he says to her, “On another turtle.” Okay, and what is that turtle standing on? Another turtle. She points: “Well, and that one?” He says, “Listen, you don’t understand, it’s turtles all the way down.”

[Speaker B] All the way down. Yes.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Now everyone laughs when they hear that. But why are they laughing? What’s wrong with that explanation? What’s wrong with it is that as long as there isn’t some bottom turtle on which the whole chain begins, on which the whole chain stands, you haven’t really given an explanation. You’re evading giving an explanation. You’re not offering one. And when you tell me there’s an entity that created the world, and an entity that created that one, and an entity that created that one, and so on to infinity, you’re not offering an alternative explanation, you’re simply evading giving an explanation. It only creates the illusion in people that this is some kind of alternative explanation. No. An infinite explanation is not an explanation. An infinite explanation means: I have no explanation. Now if I have two options—either I have an explanation or I don’t—a rational person is supposed to choose the option where there is an explanation. And the option where there is an explanation means that this chain is finite.

[Speaker B] Yes. I’ll just sharpen that. In logic generally, philosophically, when you arrive at a certain paradox, you simply assume that that thing is impossible. It’s not that we reached a paradox and then just said okay, we don’t feel like it. When you reach a certain paradox in the course of some event, some thought experiment, you understand that that thing is impossible. Okay? That’s why we concluded that infinite regress is impossible, because we encountered paradoxes. So I just wanted to clarify that for the viewers. You spoke just now about an infinite chain, right? That it’s not an explanation. Now I’ll say even more than that, because I usually don’t use the classical cosmological argument; I use the contingency argument, which I’m sure you know, Leibniz’s argument. I say even if you have an infinite chain, you still need to explain to me why there is such an infinite chain in the first place.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That’s the principle of sufficient reason.

[Speaker B] Yes, exactly. And that’s what that principle is based on.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That’s why I qualified what you said earlier, when you tied it to the fact that the thing began at some point in time. Even if the thing never began, you can still ask what the reason is for its existence.

[Speaker B] Yes, agreed, agreed. So we covered that briefly. I’ll just say in a sentence or two why we assume or conclude that everything that begins to exist has a cause. First of all it’s intuitive to us, second it comes from experience, and there’s also a kind of evidence for it from reality. Right? We haven’t seen things—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Here, that formulation is a bit problematic, and this is always where the atheists jump in. Also in my dialogue with—I forgot his name, that guy, Aviv, yes—there too he kept coming back to this, and I explained it, and I don’t know why he kept repeating the same point, namely that the principle of causality—that everything needs a cause—we learned from experience, and therefore you can’t apply it to things that are outside our experience. Meaning, maybe there is something that created the world and has no cause. So there are two answers to that. First, that something is God, right? There is something that has no cause and it created the world—that’s God. So you’ve just repeated the proof and somehow put a question mark at the end; I don’t see why. That is the proof. That’s one. Second, it’s not true that the principle of causality is the result of observation. David Hume already taught us that the principle of causality is an a priori principle.

[Speaker B] No, no, I didn’t think the principle of causality was the result of observation. I’m saying that we also know it from our experience; we see things beginning to exist—I’d say beginning to change, because it’s some sort of matter changing form, but never mind.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] David Hume would tell you that we don’t see that from our experience, because in experience it can’t be seen. You assume it, and after you assume it you explain what the cause is. But just as well you could say there is no cause, and there’s no empirical way to rule that out. Even when you see, say, I kick a ball and the ball flies. Yes. You say, so there, I saw that the kick was the cause of the ball flying. Not true. What I saw was that first I kicked, and afterward the ball flew, but I didn’t see that the kick was the cause that brought about the ball’s flight.

[Speaker B] There’s no way to infer a causal relation.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] You can’t see it. The causal relation is not observational, meaning it cannot be inferred from observation. I bring it from home, meaning this is an a priori assumption. After I bring from home the assumption that everything needs a cause, and I see that every time I kick a ball the ball flies, I come to the conclusion that apparently the kick is the cause of the ball’s flight. But that is not a result of observation. And therefore, since that’s the case—and that’s what I explained there to Aviv—it is not correct to apply it only in places connected to our experience. It’s an a priori principle.

[Speaker B] Fine. I presented several reasons to think it’s true. As for experience, I kind of accept that; I myself used it in the past too, but it’s not all that relevant. I’m just saying most people would probably connect to the idea that it comes from experience, even if it’s not, I don’t know, not entirely correct, not entirely precise. You also find that David Hume, from what I read in him and what I understood about him, did criticize the principle of causality, but obviously he wasn’t crazy enough to doubt it. He criticized it and understood that we don’t really have a way to infer a causal relation between things.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] He was crazy enough to doubt it—David Hume was an empiricist.

[Speaker B] Yes, but he didn’t think there was no causal relation between things; he only said we have no way to infer it.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, no, he thought there is no causal relation between things. Causality is something we impose on reality; it doesn’t really exist in reality itself. It’s simply our way of looking at reality. What exists in reality is temporal succession, regularity and temporal succession. But this notion of causality—I wrote in several places—the concept of causality has three components. One component is that the cause precedes the effect in time. The second component is that the cause is the sufficient condition for the effect—or necessary and sufficient, that’s a dispute among philosophers—but let’s say the sufficient condition for the effect. And the third component is that the cause produces the effect. And those are three different components. Because to say that the cause is a condition for the effect doesn’t mean it produces it. A condition means that if the cause occurred, then the effect occurs, but that kind of correlation can also happen in a non-causal way. Yes. For example, every time there is morning, I get up. Is the morning the cause of my getting up? No. But I always get up when there is morning. So the correlation exists—if there is morning, I get up—but it is not true that morning is the cause of my getting up. Yes, I—

[Speaker B] —agree. So I’d go more in the direction of a kind of abduction, you could call it that, it doesn’t really matter. But if things really did begin to exist without a cause, we would expect to see that. The very fact that we don’t see such things is evidence against it.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Not exactly. Meaning, we don’t see it because we assume it doesn’t exist, and therefore we always attribute things to causes. And if we didn’t find the cause—if we didn’t find it. An investigative committee examining a plane crash, okay? And it didn’t find the cause. What would you say—that it crashed without a cause? No, you would say it crashed for a reason, and they weren’t smart enough or skilled enough or I don’t know what exactly, and they didn’t find the cause. Meaning, you see that causality is something we assume. We will not accept an observation of something that happened without a cause. Even if we don’t find the cause, we’ll assume there is a cause there; we just didn’t see it, didn’t find it.

[Speaker B] Yes, but I think your criticism is, I’d say, correct but not all that relevant. Because usually when these arguments are presented, they’re presented as a sort of concrete proof, demonstrations with no room for error. I tend to present it a little more cautiously. I don’t present it as a proof; I present it as reasons to think the assumption is true. And that’s why I phrase it more gently. So it makes sense to think that… I’m not saying, okay, so this proves that… I say things in slightly more careful language, like: it makes sense to think that… instead of: okay, this proves with reasonable certainty, one hundred percent, that… It’s just a matter of language. I agree with your criticism; it just seems to me a matter of terminology. But okay, fair enough. How would you say we arrive at the conclusion that the first premise in the argument is true?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Which premise?

[Speaker B] That everything that begins to exist has a cause. Or correct it however you like, but basically that premise.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The principle of causality is an a priori principle. It is clear to us that it is true. It is an assumption of—

[Speaker B] Other than that, don’t you think there are arguments besides that?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No. It’s an assumption of reason.

[Speaker B] Yes, okay, so I don’t think this is really a disagreement. I think we were simply speaking in different language. I spoke about the principle of causality as a priori, but I divided it into three subtypes, and you simply spoke about it while including all the types I was talking about. Could be. Let’s move to the conclusion.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] We can discuss what exactly is called an assumption of reason. There are people who understand that it’s really drawn from experience, only unconsciously, without your being aware of it. People usually explain intuition as an accumulation of experience. I disagree. I think intuition is some sort of cognitive faculty. We have some ability to know the world not necessarily through the senses, but through the intellect. But that’s a different kind of observation, not through the five senses. And that is what yields intuition. And I think, for example, that the principle of causality is the result of that kind of observation. What Husserl would call eidetic intuition, intuition of the idea.

[Speaker B] I agree with you. Okay, now let’s move to… this is what I personally encountered the most when I talked to people. They said things like: okay, we reached the conclusion that there is a cause for the universe, an explanation—it doesn’t matter which argument I used there. How do you infer that it is God? How do you infer that it isn’t something mechanical? What’s your answer to that? You say yours, and afterward I’ll say what I think.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] First of all, this proof only says that there exists something that is the cause of the universe. I said nothing about that something. Not that it gave the Torah, not that it is omnipotent, not that it is good, not that it is evil—nothing. The only claim is that there exists something that created the world. Therefore, all the connections people make to Jewish religious faith, Christian faith, or whatever other one, are irrelevant. That is not what this proof shows.

[Speaker B] No, no, I’m not talking about religious commitment or, I don’t know, developing the argument into something more substantial.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right. So first of all—maybe it isn’t intelligent? First of all, what I proved in the cosmological argument or the physico-theological argument—all the philosophical arguments do not prove the existence of a religious God. They prove the existence of some object much thinner than the religious God. With fewer attributes, something more skeletal or more basic. Now the question is how thin it is. Okay? So maybe it’s also something mechanical, fine, that doesn’t bother me. But at least I proved there is something that created the world. After that we can think about what it is. I’m not committing myself as to what it is. That’s all I can get to with the cosmological argument. But there is something more here than that. If it were only a mechanical matter, then there would also have to be an explanation for its own coming into being.

[Speaker B] Why is that? Why do you think that?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Because—and here I move to the physico-theological argument, not the cosmological one. Because in the cosmological argument, you’re right, that’s where it stops. I wrote this in my book too. You have to combine it with the physico-theological argument, because the physico-theological argument is really looking for the cause of the complexity of the universe, not for the mere fact of its existence—that’s the cosmological argument. And with complexity, if you say that a complex object or a mechanical object created complexity, that means that object itself is also something very special. So what—why is the world any different from it? If the world needs a cause for why it is complex, then it also needs a cause for why it is complex. Unless you say there is some intelligent entity, which itself does not have the complexity of the world—it’s not a machine that created the world. But since it is intelligent, it can produce the world out of its thought, out of its plan, or things of that kind. And therefore I think it is much more plausible—I don’t know if necessary, but much more plausible—to think that this initial factor is intelligent. Yes.

[Speaker B] I don’t make that jump in quite that way. I agree with the argument, obviously, but I don’t go about it that way. That’s also fair. I’ll present my version of how I jump from just a cause to God, and everyone can take whichever they prefer. I’ll just note before that that in cosmological arguments, and generally in arguments proving some cause, there are usually two stages. Like, I don’t know, two parts of a book. The first part is meant to prove that there is a cause; the second part is meant to identify the nature of the cause. Right?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] In these arguments, in my opinion, there isn’t much of the second part.

[Speaker B] Here a lot—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] —belongs much more to religious conceptions, perhaps. In the philosophical world, you get to a very thin image of the cause. It’s very hard to say anything about what is in it, what its attributes are.

[Speaker B] Always, always—and I mean literally always—when such arguments are presented, this isn’t a modern thing, Thomas Aquinas too, Maimonides too if I’m not mistaken, all these people always got there, they always added some further argument to show that it also has thought and isn’t just a cause. So I think it is an essential part of the argument, but okay, that’s not so—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] You need to distinguish between two things. The philosophical argument as such brings you to the existence of a cause, period. Afterward you can come and say, okay, I have a religious tradition, or a religious source, or I don’t know, something else, that tells me that the cause of the world has such-and-such characteristics. Now I say this: if I did not have a philosophical argument saying that such a cause exists, I would say this religious tradition is fantasy—who says it’s true? But since I have already reached the conclusion that such a first cause exists, and now the religious tradition tells me yes, but it is also omnipotent, benevolent, I don’t know, wants me to put on tefillin, whatever—each person according to his religious tradition—then I say fine, so apparently that reveals to me the character of that same cause that I reached through the cosmological or physico-theological argument. Yes. But you can’t get to that by philosophical tools. I arrive at a philosophical conclusion, but I don’t arrive at that through philosophical tools.

[Speaker B] No, no, you do arrive at it through philosophical tools. That’s exactly what I’m explaining. These arguments usually work—this is one argument. One argument. Both the part of proving there’s a cause for the universe and the part of identifying its nature. I can pull it up on the computer right now if you—it’s not clear whether that ever interested you—I’ll maybe pull it up after the explanation. But they don’t use—at least the Christian philosophers, at most, I’m not so sure about Jewish thought, of the Jewish sages, I haven’t read too much of it, I connect a bit more to Christian thinkers, at least in the whole area of philosophy, I don’t know, maybe others don’t. I’ll present the argument and then explain, and then you’ll understand what I meant. Okay, I say the following. There is now a cause for the universe, and there is the universe. The universe is very specific, right? It exists in a very particular state, with very particular laws, right? You mentioned earlier three conditions for cause and effect, right? Yes. So I say this: if the cause is the reason the universe exists, it is also the reason why the universe exists and how it exists. The most plausible explanation for how the cause could do that is if it has some choice, if it is intelligent and could choose to create the universe as A and not B, C, D, E, F. Do you see?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I understand. Earlier we talked about the option that it’s mechanical too, and that a mechanical thing created this universe mechanically.

[Speaker B] Yes, but that’s exactly what I’m saying. If it’s mechanical and has no choice, there really is no reason—what reason exactly is there that it created the universe specifically this way and not another way?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Because that’s how it is built. What do you mean?

[Speaker B] What do you mean that’s how it is built?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The mechanical God is built—a machine built in a certain way produces outputs according to its structure. So its structure—

[Speaker B] Yes, but that’s exactly what I’m saying. Why did it determine—why did it determine—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] —a universe like the one we know?

[Speaker B] Why did it determine a universe like the one we know? To me too that sounds like it requires explanation.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Because that’s how it is built. What do you… this machine produces plastic bottles. Why? Because that’s how the machine is built; it produces plastic bottles. What do you want it to produce—pencils? It’s a machine for bottles, not for pencils.

[Speaker B] Yes, but someone presumably designed or assembled that machine, and I claim—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So you’re returning to the argument I made earlier. That if this thing is mechanical, then the question returns: okay, so who created it? And you have to stop that chain unless you’re going with an infinite regress in an intelligent being. But in itself, without extending it that way, I don’t get to an intelligent being.

[Speaker B] Still, I still don’t quite disagree with you, right? It’s not that I disagree with you, I just think what you’re saying is simply not plausible at all. Right? There is an entity or whatever, a mechanical God, call it what you like. You say, okay, it’s simply built in such a way that it creates the universe in the way it’s built to create it. I say no, that’s not plausible. I say it’s much more plausible to assume it has free choice, and that’s why it could create the universe as A and not B, C, D, E, F. There are infinitely many possible ways the universe could have been. Why this option specifically?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I don’t see any advantage of this over that.

[Speaker B] What, there aren’t machines that produce lots of things? You don’t see some need for an explanation for why this universe?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I don’t see even the slightest hint of an advantage.

[Speaker B] You don’t see a need for an explanation of why this universe and not another universe?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No. The machine created this universe because that’s how it is built. Only if you go by the route I suggested earlier—that if the machine is built in such a specific way that it creates precisely this universe, then the question comes back: okay, and who built the machine? Or why is the machine built in a way that produces specifically such a universe? That I accept; that’s the argument I made earlier. But to say that the very fact that there is a machine creating the world, or there is a choosing or intelligent thing creating the world—that the second option is more plausible? Absolutely not.

[Speaker B] I think this is okay, it’ll probably get us into a somewhat longer dispute, right? There’s Leibniz’s principle of sufficient reason. There is of course a huge dispute about it, and that’s also why most atheist philosophers present exactly the objection you’re making. And, I don’t know, the reason that even exists is because of a dispute over causal explanation. Some say it applies only to things that are contingent, things whose existence is not necessary. But the existence of that machine is necessary, and then I can’t even ask why it did what it did, right? I’m saying something broader than that, I’d say. The principle of sufficient reason doesn’t apply only to contingent things, but to things that—let’s put it this way—things that have limitations and are not perfect. Why? That’s already a topic for another conversation and I could talk about it for half an hour. So yes, maybe another time. Here I think we’d get into a boundary that never ends. Fine. Okay. Yes, you can respond briefly, I just think that this—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I responded, I—

[Speaker B] —don’t agree. I don’t see the—no, what I’m saying is this probably stems from the fact that we have two different definitions of the principle of sufficient reason, what exactly it applies to. I apply it to more things than you do.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, I don’t think so. I don’t see any advantage, from the standpoint of sufficient reason, to an intelligent entity that created the world over a machine that created the world.

[Speaker B] No, that I understood.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I don’t see any preference for that option more than for this option. The only thing I have against a machine that created the world is only the question of who created the machine.

[Speaker B] I understand that. I’m saying that stems precisely from the fact that you have a different conception of the principle of sufficient reason. You have a narrower conception than I do of the principle of sufficient reason, and then because you hold that narrower principle more strongly, you say the following: no, I don’t see at all why to go with your approach, right? Because your approach satisfies you.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, I really don’t know, I don’t understand what you’re saying. I see no advantage at all to the view that this is a choosing entity that made the world as opposed to a machine that made the world. More than that, I have no problem with the thesis that there was a machine that created the world, and there was God who created the machine. Do you have a problem with such a thesis?

[Speaker B] With a machine that created the world but God that created the world?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No. God created a machine, and the machine created the world. You don’t have a problem with such a thesis? Well then, you see that the thesis that a machine created the world is acceptable to you too. Only what? You want there to be someone who also created it. Fine, that’s—

[Speaker B] No, but it doesn’t work because you say “created,” which means it has, I don’t know, some beginning in time, and we assumed—no, okay, first of all, that it was still created and then it’s no longer God according to the argument, so like—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Why are you returning to my argument? There’s no alternative here. You’re returning to my argument.

[Speaker B] No, I—okay, you’re saying the following: do you have a problem with, I don’t know, an explanation in which God created a machine? The machine was created. I’m saying God cannot be created, so there is no thing prior to the machine; there is something that maybe explains the machine.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Wait, you compared two things: a machine that created the world, something mechanical, versus a choosing entity that created the world. I’m saying between those two there is no advantage to a choosing entity. Only what? Why do I nevertheless think that in the background there is a choosing entity? Because even if a machine created the world, my question is who is responsible for the machine. And if you tell me another machine, once again we’ll go backward. But it has to begin, so that there won’t be an infinite regress, with a choosing entity. But regarding the question of who is at the terminal station, meaning who created the world, there is no advantage whatsoever to the claim that it is a choosing entity over a machine. You claimed there is an advantage; I don’t see that advantage.

[Speaker B] Again, I’m saying again—and that’s also why I said this would probably be something for a somewhat longer conversation—it stems exactly from our different definitions of the principle of sufficient reason. You have a narrower definition than mine, so you don’t see at all why—why prefer this over that, right? That’s exactly what I’m saying. I don’t—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] —understand what you’re saying. Can you define for me the principle of sufficient reason? What exactly does it apply to? Does it apply to God?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] To every thing. Everything that exists needs some reason for its existence.

[Speaker B] Does God need a reason for His existence?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, because His reason is inherent—He is His own reason.

[Speaker B] Yes, so wait—everything that exists needs an explanation for its existence? Simply yes, yes, whether internal or external, right? Yes. Okay. Again, I have a lot to say, but maybe we’ll go over it afterward in a bit more detail, because if I start I won’t manage to summarize it in ten minutes, so yes, better not start. Leibniz’s classic argument usually says something like this: if we assume the cause is mechanical and it is presumably, as we said, necessary in its existence, right, then the effect of that cause should also be necessary. But we saw that the effect is not necessary; it is contingent.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No—why is it necessary?

[Speaker B] No, what?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Why does it have to be necessary?

[Speaker B] Because its cause is necessary, because what produced it is necessary and mechanical.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I didn’t understand. Was this machine produced by something else?

[Speaker B] No, no, the machine produced the world, right? Okay, the machine—the existence of the machine—is necessary, right? Why? You agreed to that earlier. No. You don’t agree with that?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No.

[Speaker B] So it also requires an explanation? Yes, and that pushes it back. Right.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, in the end maybe it’s necessary, but it’s not necessarily the machine that made the world. Maybe it’s someone fifteen steps earlier, I don’t know.

[Speaker B] Yes, so here this is again a kind of—I’d say—word game, because when I’m talking to you about the machine, I’m not talking about machine number fifteen; I’m talking about the first machine, the first one on the list.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right, and you keep coming back to my argument. My argument is: even if there were a mechanical machine that created the world, that still doesn’t solve the question of who is responsible for the machine. And if you tell me another machine, then who is responsible for it? In the end there has to be an intelligent entity. I agree with that—that’s the claim I made long ago. You just said no, I can propose that in another argument: even if I’m talking about the creature that caused, that created, the world itself, the comparison between a choosing creature and a mechanical creature—the choosing creature is preferable. With that I disagree.

[Speaker B] Okay, okay, accepted. Wait, I usually don’t use the argument regarding the—wait, okay, I’ll ask this question and then maybe—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] —you’ll need to understand their argument.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] We’re already at the end of the time.

[Speaker B] Yes, I understand. How much—ten minutes, five minutes, how much is left?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] It’s already eleven, so—

[Speaker B] Okay, so I’ll just say it briefly, you respond, and we’ll close it. If God is necessary, right, and has no free choice, can He create an eternal universe? Can He create a temporal universe? God as intelligent, whatever.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I didn’t understand.

[Speaker B] If God is—if God exists and creates a universe, and creates a universe, okay, okay—would the universe He creates be a temporal universe or an eternal universe?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I have no idea.

[Speaker B] Okay, so yes, apparently you probably don’t know this argument, and that’s—shall I send you a link to it privately and we’ll see? You’re short on time, I understand; we—we, you need to go. I also don’t have much time left. Sorry. What you wanted to say in conclusion, I assume that if you agree, we’ll have more dialogues like this on the program, especially with you specifically, because you helped me a lot in moving from deism to belief in God. Do you have a few words you want to say at the end?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I don’t have much to say. I wrote about these things, I discussed them at length.

[Speaker B] No, it doesn’t have to be specifically about an argument for the existence of God. Just, I don’t know, some tip for atheists, something they should—something related to faith. So in a short word I’ll say again—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The philosophical arguments for the existence of God—some exaggerate their importance and some underrate their importance, beyond the question of whether they agree with them. I’m talking about how important they are in themselves. So religious people exaggerate their importance and think that if there is proof of the existence of God, then you need to put on tefillin. But no—the proof of the existence of God proves only the philosophical God. That is the claim of the atheists who underrate the importance of the proof of the existence of God. They say, leave it, what difference does it make for a religious worldview? It’s irrelevant. And I say both are mistaken. One should not exaggerate its importance, but also not minimize it. Because once you reach the philosophical conclusion that there is a God, that can also lead me to the conclusion of the religious God—of course this requires further steps. It does not follow from the philosophical proof. I already discussed that in my book The First Existent.

[Speaker B] Yes, speaking of books, right? Rabbi Michael Abraham writes books, deals with philosophy, science, Torah. And correct me if I’m wrong—you wrote thirty-two books? Something like that, I don’t remember exactly. Once you get to that quantity I guess you stop counting. I obviously can’t remember all of them, but the books I think are most suitable for the audience watching us are The First Existent and The Science of Freedom. Do you want to give a really brief summary, just a few sentences, of what each one is about?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The First Existent is about the philosophical proofs for the existence of God, and after that the move to the religious God, from deism to theism.

[Speaker B] Yes, and The Science of Freedom?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The Science of Freedom is about free choice and neuroscience. It’s not connected to religiosity.

[Speaker B] No, yes, yes, I deal with that a bit on the channel too.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The question of the existence of free choice in light of neuroscience. Yes. Yes.

[Speaker B] So I personally would recommend those two books. Of course he has many more books, and you’re welcome to check them out on his website or on Wikipedia. Where exactly can people get the books, Rabbi?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The details are on my website for anyone who wants them.

[Speaker B] Michael Abraham runs a website at home. Nice. Do you still have copies of The First Existent and The Science of Freedom?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The First Existent, no. The Science of Freedom is from Yedioth Books, so it’s only in stores.

[Speaker B] I understand. So yes, you can find Michael Abraham on the website. On the site, generally, besides books he also has blogs that he publishes almost weekly.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Even more than that.

[Speaker B] Yes, you’ll be able to find everything we talked about and more on his website. I think that’s it for today. It was really fun talking with you. Obviously we had disagreements here and there, but it seems to me the conversation was quite good. Thank you, Michael Abraham, and we’ll speak in later conversations. Gladly, goodbye. Thank you very much, goodbye.