Q&A: Modal Logic
Modal Logic
Question
A question.
Am I saying / understanding this correctly?
In modal logic there is the possible and there is the necessary.
In relation to our world (and the nature that exists within it), is there only one thing that is necessarily existent?
And that is God, may He be blessed (according to Maimonides, Professor Leibowitz, etc.)
Answer
This has no connection to modal logic. Modal logic only formalizes the operators of possibility and necessity. You are asking a philosophical question: is there anything else whose existence is necessary besides the Holy One, blessed be He? I think not. An argument in favor of this: besides Him, nothing at all existed before the universe was created. If so, it follows that all other things are not necessarily existent, because otherwise it could not be possible for there to be a state in which they do not exist.
Discussion on Answer
If He created everything, then there was nothing before Him. Unless you know of something else that is not included in “the heavens and the earth” (in the terms of the book of Genesis).
Isaiah 43:10:
“You are My witnesses, says the Lord, and My servant whom I have chosen, so that you may know and believe Me and understand that I am He; before Me no god was formed, and after Me none shall be.”
And the obvious question is:
Where is it stated in Judaism that there was nothing before God? (The creatures are included in the Thirteen Principles of Faith—it’s possible that those refer only to people, and even if not, maybe there is something else besides Him that lies outside the need—and therefore the possibility—to be created.)