Q&A: The Justification for an Exception
The Justification for an Exception.
Question
Hi, have a good week, Rabbi Michi.
I wanted to ask you what exactly is the justification for making a logical exception for God in order to stop the regression of an endless chain of causes.
Are you also using the legal principle of lex specialis here?
Sorry in advance if you answered this in the past; I tried asking the bot and didn’t get a satisfactory answer.
Answer
You can tie it to lex specialis, but here it is simpler, because there is no other option. The claim is that if you don’t make an exception for Him, you end up with an infinite regress, and therefore it is clear that something has to be excluded from this rule. Of course, one could give up the rule that everything that exists needs a cause, and here you could use lex specialis.
Discussion on Answer
If you give up that rule, then there is no proof. But every rational person does assume it.
In the book The First Existent, in the second dialogue, I explained in detail why infinite regress is a fallacy.
If you give up the rule that everything needs a cause, then are you basically giving up the entire cosmological proof?
Or do you mean that only things which, from our experience, require a cause—and then God belongs to the category of things that are outside our experience?
I’m asking because unfortunately I come across people who don’t see any problem with an infinite regress, even though it’s also clear to them that they have no explanation.
I tried to explain to them that it’s similar to counting 1, 2, 3, 4… when they have no starting point for the counting at all.
Is that explanation correct?
Thanks for the quick reply.