Q&A: Simple Faith
Simple Faith
Question
Hello Rabbi, I listened to two lectures the Rabbi gave on simple faith, and I wanted to ask about them. The Rabbi said that in his view, for a person to be considered a believer, his faith needs to find expression on two planes: a. consciousness; b. his intuitions, assuming all the arguments were before him. And in that sense, even for a person who believes in his own awareness of himself, there is no reason not to investigate, whichever way it goes: if he discovers that he still believes, nothing has happened (and there is even something to gain), and if he discovers that he does not believe, that is only in the sense of a matter that is revealed retroactively—that he had always been such a person.
If I understood correctly, the Rabbi meant all the theoretically possible arguments. And this is basically a process of exposing what already exists within him. According to what you said, is that very thing that exists within him on the potential level something that can be changed, or does every person have his own potential intuition? And if it is not changeable, and the Holy One, blessed be He, exists, is it plausible that all people are basically believers (as Rabbi Kook argues, as far as I understood)?
Thank you
Answer
A person’s beliefs can certainly change. But if his belief changes because of some argument, then whatever he believed until now was only because he had not been familiar with that argument. And again, here too it is a matter revealed retroactively.
Discussion on Answer
As I wrote, you did not understand correctly.
What kinds of changes are not in the category of something revealed retroactively?
For example, when a person becomes acquainted with some argument that did not persuade him in the past, and suddenly he is persuaded by it.
If I understood correctly, then potentially, from the moment a person is born, he is definitely either a believer or a non-believer, in potential, and that cannot be changed? Of course, the “actual” can be changed by encountering the various arguments…