Q&A: Regarding the book The First Being
Regarding the book The First Being
Question
On the Sabbath I had time to leaf through your excellent book, but a number of questions came up for me regarding the fifth part on divine revelation, and it even felt to me that there are a few holes in the arguments there.
First, you assume there that it is indeed impossible to “anthropomorphize” God, and therefore it is not necessary that from His perspective there was some purpose for the universe, etc. But then you refute that claim because, in your view, the straightforward reasoning is that there is reason to assume that everything has a purpose, just as this assumption holds in Africa and on all the continents and among all people. Doesn’t that claim return us to anthropomorphism?
And again I have trouble understanding (I asked about this before) how the parable of the blind person and the sighted person is even slightly similar to a person claiming divine revelation. In the first case, the blind person knows that he is the exception, and that the second person really does have a sense that he himself lacks (that is what he knows from other people as well). In the case of revelation from heaven, skepticism challenges the very possibility that those people ever experienced revelation at all. Here there is a challenge to the very existence of that “sense,” and not only to the fact being reported by them.
Moreover, here they are presented as exceptional even according to those who claim that such a revelation exists, and the burden of proof is on them in that matter.
Answer
I explained that this is the most plausible view, and therefore, so long as it has not been shown otherwise, I assume it applies to non-human beings as well. I didn’t understand the question.
I also don’t understand the question about revelation. Someone experiences revelation and someone else does not. If the one who experienced it is convinced of what he experienced, then from his point of view the other person is blind. That’s all. Skepticism can cast doubt on anything, including the sense of sight.
Discussion on Answer
A. I don’t need to explain. You need to explain. The simple principle is that anyone who does something, whether human or not, does so for some reason/purpose. That’s all. I assume this about every being that decides to do something (excluding one whose nature simply makes it do something; then the claim can only be about its creator).
B. If someone claims to have a special experience that others do not perceive, the matter comes back to the trust you place in him. If you believe him, then even if you don’t understand, you are blind (like visual identification by a Torah scholar). If you don’t believe him, then you don’t believe him, and the question does not arise in the first place. But if you believe that he is neither lying nor delusional, then the fact that you don’t understand is no objection. Maybe you are blind. Alternatively, if you have an alternative explanation, that also changes the situation.
You didn’t explain why this is what is most reasonable to assume about God too, and not only about people (or maybe I just didn’t understand in any case… and I’d be glad to understand). After all, His essence is precisely that He is something beyond the concepts familiar to us. So even if we know one thing about Him, how can we infer from that to something else?
B. My difficulty is with the parable itself, which in my view contains a failed comparison.
I also have trouble understanding the conclusion you wrote here. After all, even today we encounter people who think they experienced something with respect to which I am “blind” (the miracles of various rebbes, and so on and so on and so on…). The moment this is a new sense the likes of which have never been seen before, that person’s knowledge and feeling and thought are not enough for me. Not only because of skepticism, but because of rational thinking.
I’m really asking in order to understand, not in order to get an answer that “pushes away” the arguments and leaves me only more confused…
Thank you.