Q&A: A Statistical Argument for the Existence of God
A Statistical Argument for the Existence of God
Question
Hello Rabbi,
I’m looking for an article of yours.
In the past I read an excellent article by you arguing for the existence of God as a consequence of the mathematical generalizations we make from observations.
The article demonstrates that for any given set of observations, infinitely many generalizations are possible.
Unfortunately I wasn’t able to find the article—I’d appreciate your help.
I should note that in my humble opinion this is an extremely powerful argument, and I even managed to persuade several people with its help.
Thank you very much,
Answer
The argument itself (in favor of rationalism as against empiricism) appears in the second half of this article:
https://mikyab.net/%D7%9B%D7%AA%D7%91%D7%99%D7%9D/%D7%9E%D7%90%D7%9E%D7%A8%D7%99%D7%9D/%D7%A2%D7%95%D7%93-%D7%91%D7%A2%D7%A0%D7%99%D7%99%D7%9F-%D7%AA%D7%A2%D7%A8%D7%95-%D7%A9%D7%9C-%D7%90%D7%95%D7%A7%D7%94%D7%90%D7%9D/
The argument was first published in my book That Which Exists and That Which Does Not, Beit El 2005. The summary presented here is based on Appendix B of my book God Plays Dice, Yedioth Books, 2011. Binyamin brought it there from article 97 of Midah Tovah, 5769, where it appears in a more concise summary.
The theological implication of it is described in Truth and Stability.
And also see the fourth notebook on the site, in the second part.
Discussion on Answer
I didn’t understand the question. Please explain what exactly in my words you’re referring to (which proof? of what?) and what your claim is.
The proof as I understood it is directed at the claim that for every scientific generalization there are infinitely many mathematical possibilities for explaining it. If so, why should we assume that the simple thing is also the correct one? And on the other hand, how can it be that every time we’re right, and it turns out that the prediction of the simple hypothesis is also correct??… It’s almost like shooting an arrow in the dark and hitting every time! (That would be nothing short of a miracle!)
And therefore, if so, then there has to be some factor coordinating between our knowledge and the world around us. Let’s call it God.
But you, by contrast, hold that no “divine” connecting factor is needed; the mind’s eye is enough, because we are endowed with an intellectual faculty of perception. And so from your perspective this proof can be ignored. What remains for you is the regular physico-theological proof that the world is complex, and here we discovered that it is also simple; most worlds would not be like this on an a priori level, and therefore there must be a designer. But this is not the epistemological proof that, as I understand it, the questioner intended.
I’m asking where we know from, to begin with, that we even have this “visual” faculty. The theological argument is based on the implicit assumption that we do have this faculty and on our trust in it (that is, that it is not an illusion), not on the success of the predictions itself. Notice that I raised the same argument with regard to the ordinary sense of sight itself.
The world is really not simple. From among the options for explaining a collection of findings, we choose the simple one.
I’d be glad to hear what exactly the big proof here is. After all, if the Rabbi believes in the existence of the mind’s eye, as you wrote there in that article, then you simply see the correct law of nature among the other laws…
At most, you’re back to the regular physico-theological question: why is the world such that it is simple (or beautiful or complex)?