Honorable Rabbi Michael Abraham, greetings,

A number of questions have come up for me that many have discussed, and I too have dealt with them a bit, but I still haven’t received an answer that really makes sense to me. Since I’ve read two of the Rabbi’s books and come to the conclusion that the Rabbi has iron logic, I would appreciate it if you could resolve the questions I’m trying to clarify.

1. The problem of evil – There are three basic assumptions that apparently cannot all hold together: God is omnipotent (the Ari maintains that God is not omnipotent, if I am not mistaken), God is absolutely good (Kabbalah, as I understand it, qualifies this assertion), and there is evil in the world (Maimonides argues that this is not precise).
The Rabbi explains that evil does not descend into the world from above.
Given that God created the world, and that embedded in the very act of creation is the potential for evil in our world, the question still stands: how is it that there is evil in the world?

2. I had the privilege of reading the book "Two Wagons and a Hot-Air Balloon," where the difference between synthetic a priori thinking and analytic thinking was discussed. Recently I watched an interview with the Rabbi on the London and Kirschenbaum program about a book I have not yet had the chance to read, called "Truth and Not Stable." In the interview, the Rabbi sounded as though he was representing an almost pluralistic position, despite taking a stance in favor of Orthodox Judaism from an internal point of view. Is there some new development in your philosophical position, or is the Rabbi in fact continuing along the line of your first book?

3. The Rabbi explains that in order to accommodate two strong conceptions, each compelling on its own—on the one hand, a world subject to the laws of physics, and on the other, free choice—we must qualify or restrict the rules of physics so that the first electron acting in a person’s brain is not driven by causality, that is, by a physical factor, but by a non-physical factor, and in that way we resolve the contradiction. But it would seem that if we choose to go by the rule known as Occam’s razor, the deterministic view should be preferred because of the simplicity of that theory, even though that runs contrary to my intuition, and perhaps to human intuition generally.

4. Are miracles also an exception to the laws of physics? If so, does Judaism bear the burden of proof to demonstrate the existence of miracles (in an era without prophets), or are there really no miracles, and the stories of the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh) are allegorical—in which case we are subjecting our outlook to the superiority of Western philosophy over the classical Jewish view?

With tremendous respect and appreciation

For some reason it seems to me that I already answered this. I’ll answer briefly again.

Greetings.
I’m not sure that “iron logic” is a compliment (since most of my days I try to explain why thinking that isn’t rigid like iron can also be logical). But I understand that your intention was to compliment me, so thank you.
As for your questions:
1. The three assumptions do not contradict one another at all. To understand this, we have to divide the question into human evil and natural evil.
Natural evil. Even the omnipotent cannot make a round triangle. If a world without evil is impossible, then there is no contradiction among the three claims. What does “impossible” mean? For example, if the Holy One, blessed be He, wants the world to operate according to fixed laws (if only in order to help us navigate and function within it. In a chaotic world it would be impossible to conduct ourselves, because you wouldn’t know what to do in any situation or how to achieve what you want to achieve. Our choice too would be emptied of content in such a situation), then it may be that there is no system of laws that would run the world in its present form, achieving the purposes for which the laws were intended, but without evil. One must remember that intervening every time evil happens in order to prevent it is not conduct according to laws. Is there a fixed system of laws that would run the world the same way but without evil? The burden of proof is on the questioner.
Human evil. This is all the more true if the Holy One, blessed be He, wants to give people free choice. Then He certainly cannot intervene every time and prevent them from acting badly. If He did that, then de facto we would have no choice. We would only be able to do good. And once again, we have a round triangle here: a world with free choice and without evil.
2. I am continuing along the line of the first book. A synthetic position does not mean that every question has only one correct answer. It means that there are questions that have only one correct answer. But there can be questions with several correct answers. Pluralism claims that this is the case for all questions.
3. The principle of simplicity is not an exclusive criterion. By the same logic one should prefer materialism over dualism because it is simpler, and Newtonian mechanics over quantum theory. Simplicity decides between equivalent theories (that explain the same range of phenomena equally well). That is not the situation between libertarianism and determinism. For example, would you accept the claim that there is no external world because it is simpler than the claim that there is one? Why not? Simply because it is clear to you that it is not true. Why? Because you trust your senses. So I trust my sense of freedom, and therefore I do not accept the “simpler” explanation. By the way, if you’re asking this question, then you also haven’t read The Science of Freedom, not only Truth and Not Stable. There I go into detail on this matter.
4. Miracles are, by definition, a deviation from the laws of nature. Nobody has ever disputed that, neither one who believes in miracles nor one who denies them. The dispute is only over whether there are or are not miracles. Therefore your wording is imprecise. You are not asking whether miracles are a deviation from nature, but whether there were miracles or not. Beyond that, this has nothing to do with Western thinking or not. This is a scientific outlook, and it is not really connected to the West (though it was created mainly in the West). As for the issue itself, I don’t see a question here.