With God’s help
Have a good week,
I preferred not to write on the site because it’s hard for me to read and write through it. The text area is very narrow, unlike email where you can write full sentences, and reading too is in a narrow rectangle, unlike email.
I read the article you pointed to, but I did not see an explicit statement that from the Creator’s side there may be an act that is not good, though it does indeed seem that you hinted at it.
But even if an act of creation is not necessarily good, that does not mean it cannot be good…. and therefore it is still possible that the “bread of shame” approach does indeed answer it.
So the Rabbi’s words are still unclear to me.
If the Rabbi wants, can we continue on the site? Just should you post the question, or should I post the original question?

Post the original question there.
Regarding what you wrote here, I will only say that I disputed the assumption that the purpose of creation is beneficence. That does not say whether it is good or bad, and whether it can be one or the other.

Continuation of the dialogue:

Thank you, I posted it.
I think it is a bit presumptuous to make a definite claim in these matters.
And in any case, since we know that in order to create something you need intention and desire for the thing, and desire is usually aroused and comes in the wake of a lack (although it is not deterministic). If so, in the case before us of a perfect being that needs nothing, why assume that it would create anything? (Of course, from this conclusion one can reach two further insights: either God is not perfect, or there is no God.)
And therefore, the claim that it is the nature of the good to do good gives us a wonderful bridge to the reason for God’s desire to create something. [Question A that I asked]
Of course, from here the next question will be why the Holy One, blessed be He, did not create angels-gods / beings with maximal pleasure [my question B].
Here one can answer via question C: that every thing is good because the existence of something [even something messed up] is better than absence. And certainly C2 if it is correct. But it seems the Rabbi does not agree with that.
And more than that—and this is the main point—when God creates some reality, that creature belongs to Him (like copyright). But once that creature advances by its own power, it increases its own “ownership percentage” over itself, as it were. So when the Holy One, blessed be He, gives it reward, He is giving to a genuine being and not, as it were, to Himself. (Or in different versions of this same basic idea—for example, since when God bestows good it is out of grace, but once a person serves Him, then He is obligated to bestow good upon him by justice, in the manner of “one who goes down into his fellow’s field”)
Or one could argue that a perfect being lacks something because of its very perfection and wants to complete it, such as:
Perfection and self-perfection—but these are puzzling words: A. is self-perfection really a lack?! On the contrary, it is an advantage that the perfect being-without-lack does not have… B. how does self-perfection, which is not found in you, complete another being? [Though here one could argue that the Creator has, as it were, percentages in the creature.]
Or all kinds of egoistic claims in the style of: there is no king without a people. [Thus to complete attributes for God.] More than that, there has to be someone who recognizes Him, etc. etc.

If the Rabbi has new insights, as seems to emerge from his words, I would be glad to hear them.

Who here made a definite claim? I do not agree that every desire is a result of lack, but even if so, then He had a lack. “It is the nature of the good to do good” is a wonderful solution exactly like “it is the nature of X to do X”—just place in the spot of X whatever you want. If you like, say that it is God’s nature to create worlds.

Indeed, the Rabbi really can claim that it is God’s nature to create human beings.
But the price of that claim is heavy: you turn the concept of “God” into a complex concept. Just as you would not assume that the laws of nature are a brute fact, because they are complex.
And after all, our goal is to argue for the simplest possible being (otherwise that God too would need a god, and the regress would stop at the simplest possible being; see the cosmological argument—Leibniz).

But when we claim that God is the best possible being, that quality is derived from God’s foundational “attributes.”
Let us define it this way: every statement about a divine being will derive from four simple assumptions:
Existence, power, intelligence (omniscience), and will.
And from one simple fact: before God created anything, He was completely free. (And this too can be derived from the fact that God has infinite power.)
The analogy for our point is that just as human beings have power, so God has infinite power. Just as human beings have some intelligence, God has infinite intelligence. And so on. Thus the concept of God is a very simple concept.

The claim that God is good and does good follows from the two assumptions above—intelligence and power.
Since God has infinite intelligence and knows everything, on the one hand,
And on the other hand, moral values are values of truth and falsehood. (As the Rabbi wrote so well in the fourth notebook.) For example, the statement that killing an old woman for no reason is an evil act—that statement is *really* true.
Therefore,
1) it follows from the understanding that God has full knowledge that He knows what is good and what is evil.
2) because He is completely free and has all powers, He will do only the best thing. (Or something equal to the best.)
That is what was to be shown.

(By contrast, the Rabbi adds some description X to God—X, for example, equals creator of worlds—without any grounding in previous assumptions.)
————
I have three more questions about the Rabbi’s words here:
1. If the Rabbi were to see a disordered world with no order at all, would he assume it has a creator? Why not? After all, perhaps there is a creator with a desire to create disordered worlds…
2. The Rabbi writes that he does not agree that every desire is the result of a lack. If so, surely it comes in the wake of some understanding of reality—for example, that it is *good* / *right* to create human beings. Can the Rabbi show an example of an act that does not come from the category of a good act in order to create something, and on the other hand does not come from lack? And can such an act relate to the creation of human beings in an environment full of trials and difficulties?
3. Does the Rabbi see the “bread of shame” approach as a bad solution, for example because of an inherent problem? Or does he simply not see any point in supplying an explanation for the Creator’s actions?

Thank you for the response, and with great respect,
Kobi

What you are describing is a decision to do good, not beneficence flowing from His nature. But that is exactly what you wanted to avoid.

1. Maybe yes and maybe no. By contrast, an ordered world cannot plausibly arise by chance (that is, the probability is very low).
2. I did not understand. I see no logical necessity connecting desire and lack. Why do we need examples? I also do not know of any example of a being that creates worlds. Beyond that, every moral action of a human being is the result of desire and not lack.
3. It is one possible speculation among several others. I do not see in it anything beyond that. And of course it is also unnecessary, because there is no point in referring to the motives of a being we neither understand nor know.

Indeed, of course this is a decision to do good; that is also our tradition—only **after there arose** in His will specifically to do good. In any case, such a decision is precisely a decision that does not arise from lack.

1.A. In practice then, according to your words, when we see an engineered reality we assume that at its basis stands some willing factor. (That is, we have no clue who it is, whether it is perfect or lacking, or what its goals are, but certainly there is someone.) For that reason, I assume the Rabbi was too quick on the draw in assuming that He is not perfect—“but even if so, then He had a lack”…
But there is a serious problem with this argument, which in my view is woven throughout the other answers as well. We must remember that when we claim that a complex / special world exists, there is opposite it a large continuum of possible worlds that are not in the category of a complex world. [The entropy analogy at the beginning of the notebook.]
Therefore, when we come to assess the likelihood that that “creator” would create the complex world, we need to estimate what kind of worlds the “creator” would want to achieve. As long as we do not know which worlds the creator would want to create, we cannot know whether our hypothesis about a creator has any basis!
For some reason, from your words it seems that when one sees a complex world, any creator would want to achieve that. This is puzzling; I would be glad for an explanation. (And then indeed the explanatory power of your hypothesis would be very good.)

B. The Rabbi ignores the probability of that hypothesis about a creator. Let me sharpen my first question: when we see a disordered world, one can define that world as very special.
After all, what is the likelihood that star A would be in location X,Y,Z and star B specifically in location X’,Y’,Z’, and so on?
Surely negligible. Perhaps we should assume that there is a creator of the world whose whole desire is to create worlds in precisely those locations. I assume the Rabbi would not accept this hypothesis as correct… why? Admittedly, the hypothesis claims that such a world in those locations would almost certainly come out. But its **probability** is negligible. It does not seem plausible to me that there exists such a bizarre creator.
So too here: when the Rabbi adds to the Creator ungrounded assumptions that He wants to create complex worlds, but He is so different, it is really not plausible that such a being exists@!!

2. Indeed I agree that there is no logical necessity linking lack to desire. But not everything is logic (see Kant). The fact is that to this day I have not encountered even once someone who acted not because of lack (even something like jiggling one’s leg when unfocused) and toward desire (to do a good act).
Does the Rabbi not think that the hypothesis of that anonymous creator, who does His acts for no reason of a type we can even conceive of (we have never seen an act done not because of lack or a good act), seems like a rather weak hypothesis? And who says that such a creator, whose entire consciousness is built completely differently, has any interest in creating complex things?!
(So question 1A returns with greater force: “As long as we do not know what worlds the creator would want to create, we cannot know whether our hypothesis about a creator has a basis,” and again the implausibility in question 1B grows.)
3. The Rabbi writes that there is no point in referring to the motives of a being we neither understand nor know. The question is whether that does not again strengthen objection number 1.
If there exists a being so different from us, how can we assume that the result it wants is the creation of something complex? Only when we can assume what that hypothesis probably wants can we speak about whether it fits the world.

It is very strange to me that the Rabbi does not see these objections as forceful objections.

Incidentally,
it should be emphasized for anyone who sees in my words here too much anthropomorphism in the Creator’s mode of thought, that one can of course argue that because the Holy One, blessed be He, wanted to create a world *out of His goodness* in such a way that *we* would understand our Creator from it and be able to function within it. But in truth we are not speaking of the essence of His thought at all. And that is why, for example, the laws of nature are uniform.

There can be countless other decisions not stemming from lack. The decision to fidget or channel-surf or do millions of other things unfamiliar to us. If for you beneficence is just another name for a decision without lack, then fine—but then it is a matter of definition. All this assuming He really had no lack.
I am not getting to the bottom of what you mean. The questions I do understand here I explained very well in the notebook and in other places here on the site.
1. A. Here you are raising the anthropic argument, and I already answered it in the book, the article, the notebook, and various questions on the site.
B. According to this, even getting the result 6 on a die a hundred times is not special compared to any other random result. There is a thread here on the site with an endless argument on this topic (which I am not entering because I am a bit tired of this question).

2-3. Have you ever encountered any god whatsoever? Nobody said He has a desire to make complex things apart from the fact that I see Him doing so. This is not an a priori claim but a fact we have observed.

I must say that not only do I not see these questions as a powerful objection, but in my eyes these are rather worn-out questions that have already been answered very well in all the places mentioned.
Therefore I suggest we end here.

I still think we know of no action that is not done because of a need arising from lack, except for beneficence. (Channel-surfing comes from wanting to calm irritability, in the vein of “one who breaks his vessels in his wrath,” and the same with fidgeting—to dispel boredom.) Maybe the Rabbi has another explanation; unfortunately I did not understand…

1A, B, 3, 2. I think what I am saying here is very simple; it seems there is a communication gap between us, and therefore I will present it in a more formal way.
It is only important that I first say that my claim is absolutely not the anthropic argument. The anthropic argument says that there are probably infinitely many worlds, and therefore we should not be surprised that specifically by us a special world was formed. But my claim is only about measuring complexity and explanatory power.

According to Bayes’ theorem:
Pr(h|e&k) = [Pr(e|h&k)*Pr(h|k)]/Pr(e|k)
And in a form more convenient for our purpose:
Pr(h|e&k) = [Pr(e|h&k)/Pr(e|k)]*Pr(h|k)

h – the hypothesis that there is a God
e – the set of evidence that there is a God – an ordered world with human beings and free choice
K – logical truths, simplicity of the hypothesis, current understandings of how the world works, etc.

Explanatory power—what is the probability that given the case, the hypothesis would likely bring it about:
Pr(e|h&k)/Pr(e|k)
The higher the probability, of course, the more reasonable the hypothesis is.

Multiplied by the plausibility of the hypothesis, i.e. how plausible it is a priori that there is a God
Pr(h|k)

My claim is that it is not enough to throw out an entity called “God” without assuming how likely it is that it would create such a world, on the one hand, and on the other hand without paying a price (usually) in the plausibility of the hypothesis.
For example, if we are playing cards and the cards were arranged in a certain order (evidence – e) by X, then according to that order of cards we assess whether X is a cheat (hypothesis – h) and the shuffle was rigged.
At this point I argue that one must assess a priori what card orders the cheat would want to produce from the deck, divided by the total possible card orders.
A. But once you claim that His mode of thought is *essentially* different—not only in degree but also in kind—from your mode of thought, you cancel our ability to claim anything about Him—even to claim what He wants to produce.
By contrast, from your words it seems that when one sees a complex world, then certainly *every* kind of intelligence would want to achieve that, however strange it may be, even if it thinks in an essentially different way. (As if the desire to create something complex is, in your view, included in K.) This is puzzling; I would be glad for an explanation.
B. (Questions 2,3) Once you claim that His mode of thought is built in a way *essentially* different from ours, you also lower the plausibility of the hypothesis that He exists. The more one posits the source of a phenomenon by something more and more complex and stranger and stranger, the more it weakens the plausibility of the hypothesis Pr(h|k).
And here too it seems you are not worried, and are even willing to give the creator hypothesis the property “to create worlds,” as you mentioned, just to save explanatory power [Pr(e|h&k)/Pr(e|k)],
while on the other hand not taking into account the crushing blow to Pr(h|k)….

And if we examine your approaches relative to the “bread of shame” view, it appears:
@ that the “bread of shame” approach (boosts the explanatory power for why human beings with free choice would be created in a world with many trials and difficulties, on the one hand, and on the other hand without harming the plausibility of the hypothesis *at all*.)
@ versus the Rabbi’s weak explanation (which boosts God’s desire to create worlds, but on the other hand takes a severe hit in the plausibility of the hypothesis)
@ and versus the Rabbi’s devastating explanation (which says we have no understanding of God at all, and therefore there is simply no way to evaluate the explanatory power of the Rabbi’s hypothesis on the one hand, and on the other hand it also lowers the plausibility of the hypothesis)

Incidentally 1:
You mentioned whether complexity is objective. I wanted to note that I agree that in the case of a die coming up 6666 there is indeed objective specialness, because instead of a uniform spread of results there is a repeated result. As opposed to something like 123456—in terms of complexity, to be honest I am more hesitant, but my heart still leans to say that this too is objectively special. As opposed to the example I gave, where star A is in location X,Y,Z and star B specifically in location X’,Y’,Z’.
But still, however high the degree of specialness may be, it does not help us assume that there is someone behind it who caused it, unless we also assume that the person behind it indeed desired to bring about that result.

In any case, if the Rabbi does not want to continue discussing this matter, I accept that.
I would just be glad if the Rabbi would answer the original questions, which did not deal with these issues at all, but rather with the question of what is called a good or evil act in creation.

Clearly He wanted to bring that about, but that is not an assumption; it is a conclusion. I do not assume that this is His desire, but infer that this was probably His desire.
I did not understand the question.

I basically had two questions here and one request. In the rest of my words I explained the questions.
To the extent that you assume God is perfect, then you need to give a reason why He created the world, because it is not self-evident that a perfect thing would create a world. All the reasons we know for action come in the wake of the stirring of some prior external cause, which desire comes to complete. Or else for the sake of a future good goal. The Rabbi wants to argue that there is an additional category—let us call it Z. (I agree, admittedly, that it is logically valid.) It claims that there can be desire not because of deficiency and not because of a desire to do good.

1) Now, because we have no clue what that Z is, we cannot assess how likely it is that Z would create this world out of all the other possibilities before God.
2) Once you add to a being an unfamiliar tendency Z, that greatly weakens the explanatory power of the thing.
That is my question: why does the Rabbi not think so?

And the request is: can the Rabbi answer the original questions, because we got carried away into a topic not so connected to the original one.

I will answer one more time. There is not the slightest importance to His purpose in creating the world. The fact that there is a complex world means that there is someone who created it (and who probably had a purpose, though for this matter it is not important what it was). That is all.

I asked what the original questions are that you want an answer to.

It is clear that there is no importance to what the purpose is. To what is this comparable? If we saw a Coca-Cola bottle on Mars, we would assume that there was an alien that created it, even though I do not know what its precise purpose was.
But the answer that would satisfy me regarding the alien cannot satisfy me regarding God.
Because of a very simple distinction. In the case of the alien, I assume that even if I do not know the *precise* explanation for why it made the Coca-Cola bottle,
I assume that it has the same *pattern* of explanation for action, from the same *type* that I know—that is, either the filling of a lack / a future completion, or for the sake of a good purpose.

But with God, the most perfect being, it is difficult for us, because the pattern we know for voluntary action does not fit what could be the case for the Creator.
For completing a lack does not apply to the fully perfected being. And full beneficence is a testimony contradicted before our eyes—as is known, we are not like God, so apparently He also did not bestow good. Conclusion: the Creator thinks in a way essentially different from us. But once we reach this conclusion, my claim is that we will not be able to assume anything about Him, and moreover this is a terrible explanation.
And therefore the “bread of shame” approach comes to explain it. Does it do so? That is my original question, and that is why I asked all the preparatory questions.
Well then, the original questions are: (A-C). Regarding question D, we have already corresponded more than enough regarding the general position there:

A. But it is not clear whether a genuinely good act really takes place in creation ex nihilo, or only in ‘repairing / helping / improving’ an already existing being. After all, as long as He had not created us, we had no needs, and consequently there was also no meaning to the hardships or the benefits we received from Him.
B. I do not understand at all what it means to create something ex nihilo that is called good. Does it mean a creature with *maximal pleasure*? Or perhaps to be the *most complete* being [I am not assuming that completeness is pleasure]? Or perhaps the very existence of something is already a good thing.
C. (This connects to the end of B, but from another angle) Assuming that a good act really does occur in creation ex nihilo, when the Holy One, blessed be He, creates a suffering / defective creature, is He creating something less good than a happy / complete angel? After all, it is impossible to assess the relation between nonexistence and any kind of existence—between a perfect creature and a suffering, damaged creature…
C1. Even if so, there may still be an essential difference between a happy angel and a suffering human being. That is, they are not the same entity at all! A happy angel is essentially different from the suffering person [it is not the same “I”]. What does the Rabbi think about that? And then all the more so it is impossible to evaluate the creation.
C2. And if the answer to C is that there really is a less good act in creating a defective creature, is creating a defective creature an evil act? Or is it simply not an act of maximal good? [After all, in the end that evil otherwise would not have existed at all.]
C2. If the answer in A is no (there is nothing good in creation ex nihilo), then together with C is the best thing for the Holy One, blessed be He, to create a messed-up reality and then help it? For example, a doctor creating a sick person in order to heal him?

With blessings, and thank you for the responses so far.
Kobi.

I already answered this. Creation is not necessarily good, and therefore all your questions assume a premise that has no basis.
I’m done.

So what if creation is not necessarily good? It is also not necessarily the case that if there is a complex world, that is a sign of a planner… We only assume that there is probably a planner, but certainty? Of course not. The conclusion from that would be that the assumption that there is a creator for a complex thing has no basis.

Can there be a good creation? From the Rabbi’s words it seems so, and that is exactly my question: when are good creations called such, and when not? By what parameters do we go—perfection or perhaps maximal pleasure, etc. etc.