Question

With God's help,
To Rabbi Michael Abraham,
Greetings and blessings,
I went through the first booklet and enjoyed it very much. Although I did not really understand every word, I think I grasped the basic idea. I feel obligated to preface that I am a complete ignoramus in philosophy and even in methods of inference and argumentation, and I ask that you be understanding toward any logical "slips."
You wrote:
Simple faith: a second problem
But beyond this obvious difficulty, another question emerges from the picture we suggested above. In what sense is this simple believer really a believer? Think about Reuven, who was born into a Jewish home and believes in the Jewish tradition. In Rabbi So-and-so's assessment, if that same Reuven were to open the critical and philosophical literature, he would arrive at the wrong conclusions, and therefore the rabbi forbids him to do so. Reuven of course listens to him, since he is a deeply God-fearing person and is careful about the instructions of Jewish law, both minor and major.
Is Reuven a believing Jew? For if we analyze his current outlook, he is actually a heretic, except that he does not do what is required to expose it. If Shimon the atheist were to present him with this or that logical argument, Reuven would change his view and become an atheist. We have already seen that if Reuven is persuaded by some logical argument, then clearly the conclusion of that argument was already present within him unconsciously. If so, even before he heard the argument that would lead him to the conclusion that there is no God, he was in fact an unconscious atheist. If that is the case, then even if we forbade him to engage these issues, we accomplished nothing. The man is an atheist (hidden, even from himself) who observes the commandments.
In light of the picture we described above, one can say that he does indeed hold in his mind the idea "God exists," but only in the first two senses of entertaining a thought. In the third sense—not so. The essential content expressed by that sentence does not exist within him, and so at least on the essential level he is an atheist.
The implication is that a person who believes with simple faith can never know whether he is truly a believer. It is possible that he is an unconscious atheist, for if logical arguments would in fact persuade him to become an atheist, then he is already one now. Until he examines himself and his coherence, and uncovers the assumptions implicit within him, he cannot know whether he is a believer or an atheist.
It seems to me—and this is also the impression that arises from various parts of your columns—that an unconscious believer is not defined as a believer. That is, the fool who confronts Anselm, assuming Anselm's arguments are correct, is not defined as a believer as long as he has not heard the lecture (and accepted the argument). On the other hand, in the words I quoted from you, you assume as something obvious that an unconscious heretic is a heretic in every respect.
I can understand the distinction this way: belief is a positive consciousness, and as such, so long as it is not conscious it does not exist. Heresy, by contrast, is a negating consciousness, and it is enough that the believer's assumptions implicitly contain heresy in order to negate the validity of the belief. Even so, I find it hard to define the difference clearly, and I would be glad if you would sharpen the distinction further.
But even if we accept this, I can still understand the approach of Rabbi So-and-so who forbids Reuven to open books of inquiry or develop a conversation with Shimon the atheist. Rabbi So-and-so holds that Shimon's arguments and/or those discussed in those books are not correct—either because the premises are false or because the inference is mistaken. (His knowledge is based on his own independent inquiry, or on trust in other thinkers who investigated the matter independently.) There is a concern that Reuven, despite his traditional faith, is mistaken and already now accepts the unjustified premises; or alternatively, that he will make a mistake and accept the flawed inference. After all, logic is not a field free of error, and in your own booklet you showed how philosophers err, sometimes badly (and let us not forget the "personal biases"…).
I think that a mistaken heretic who is unaware of his heresy is not a heretic.
That is: one who is a heretic due to error and is aware of his heresy—he is certainly a heretic. (If only because he is not aware of his faith.) A believer by mistake who is unaware of his heresy (where the premises underlying it are correct, and the inference is also sound)—he too is a heretic, because his belief is based on an incorrect inference or on premises whose invalidity can be clarified to him. But a heretic by mistake who is unaware of his heresy—even though his (mistaken) assumptions contain within them heresy (at least for those who err), so long as he has not consciously entertained the heretical conclusion, in my opinion he cannot be defined as a heretic.
Rabbi So-and-so, in his concern for Reuven's soul, to save it from the pit prepared for heretics, seeks to prevent him from falling into the trap of error spread out before him. And therefore he forbids him the inquiry that may shift him from the believer's slot to that of the heretic.
I also have some complaints regarding the first problem you raised about "simple faith," but we will save that for another opportunity.
With blessings,