Once I heard Rabbi Uri Sherki offer an interpretation regarding seeing heresy as a religious sin. He argues that the accusation is that the thinker gave his impulses and his evil inclination permission to steer his way of thinking (what in Freudian psychology is called “rationalization,” which is an instinctive mechanism underlying logical thought). The heretic is not condemned for his logical mistake, but for the will underlying it. Therefore Rabbi Kook said, “There is a faith that is heresy, and there is a heresy that is faith.” Everything depends on the will.

So if that’s the case, and philosophical analysis doesn’t lead anywhere, then there’s no point at all in engaging in it..

You can always argue that, including about believers as well (after all, Marx already said that it is opium for the masses. There is an urge to believe. It’s convenient). I do not dispute that sometimes impulses and inclinations have an influence, but I don’t think every mistake is the product of impulse. Therefore, in my opinion, you cannot blame a person for mistakes. And these are the well-known words of the Radbaz, that one who errs in matters of belief is like one under compulsion.

I didn’t understand.

I was answering Shai.

So can I get an answer, Rabbi? I didn’t understand.. On the one hand, philosophical analysis doesn’t lead anywhere, and on the other hand, the Rabbi engages in philosophy?

I didn’t understand. Was the question directed at me? I did not write that philosophical analysis doesn’t lead anywhere. On the contrary, in my opinion it definitely does lead somewhere. I only said that many influences affect it, and one should try to neutralize them. By the way, philosophical analysis is no different from thinking in any other field. It is useful even though mistakes and biases are possible.

So Rabbi, if I may summarize: philosophical analysis—if done by a sufficiently serious and deep person who is not biased by preconceptions, impulses, and the like—will lead to belief in God?

I think so. That is what I tried to show in the notebooks.

Rabbi Michi,
What troubles me is the question of how it is possible that educated people who are skilled in philosophy do not accept the conclusion that God exists, even when they study the arguments for His existence. It is hard for me to believe that a person like Bertrand Russell would fail because of a logical mistake. It makes more sense to me that such a person refuses to accept a certain premise, and therefore he also cannot arrive at the conclusion that God exists. It may be that agreeing to accept a certain premise depends on the will of the thinker, meaning that it precedes the logical process.
It is like the late Yeshayahu Leibowitz, who did not agree to accept the psychoanalytic theory of the subconscious because of his belief in human rationality (as his grandson, Yoram Yovel, recounts in the book Stormy Mind).

The problem is almost never a logical mistake but rather a philosophical one. That is, not in the inference but in the premises. And regarding Leibowitz, in my opinion Yovel is mistaken. He refused because psychoanalysis is not science, as Popper determined. Leibowitz was a positivist and did not accept such speculations, and rightly so.

Ugh, Rabbi Michi and psychoanalysis … disagreeing again.

Rabbi, regarding avoiding bias from preconceptions, impulses, and the like—what are the ways to avoid that as much as possible?

The advised advice is to avoid it as much as possible. 🙂
Maybe to test your position against others who hold different views, and to listen to their comments attentively and seriously. Be willing to change your position.

Rabbi, regarding the advice—it is clear to me that testing my position against others and listening to their comments is helpful, but how does that relate to preventing the influence of preconceptions, considerations of convenience, and the like?