Q&A: Grounding Faith
Grounding Faith
Question
Honorable Rabbi, the contradiction I see between parallel universes and the Jewish view is in the idea that if God created universes in which, in one of them, say, Cain murdered Abel, and in another Abel murdered Cain, or any other variation whatsoever (for the sake of the example), that means: 1. To which reality does God ascribe moral importance?
I intuitively feel that the idea of parallel universes, based on the example I gave earlier, diminishes the significance of a person in God’s world to “just” one possibility out of infinity. There is something in this that leads (me, at any rate) to despair and nihilism.
But on the other hand, as you wrote earlier, “Why should there be a contradiction with anything?”
That leads me to the question whether it is even possible for a new and sophisticated scientific or philosophical conception, however advanced it may be, to clash with the Torah, or whether one can live with some kind of organizing principle according to which every such theory or another can be aligned with the Creator?
I hope I wrote clearly and in an understandable way. Thank you very much for your time and effort.
Nevo
Answer
This question continues a previous one, doesn’t it? So why open a new thread?
Please move it there.
Discussion on Answer
I didn’t understand these pilpul-style subtleties. We have a universe, and the Torah was given in it. It has to be applied here. Why should I care what universes, if any, exist in addition to ours?
There wasn’t an old thread, only an email exchange, so I moved it here as you requested.