Q&A: The Transcendence of God
The Transcendence of God
Question
To Rabbi Abraham,
I do think there is indeed one God, but I still do not understand why it could not be that He is a God so transcendent beyond human thought that He is completely beyond comprehension, and that He created the world without any defined reason,
and we cannot understand why because of His overwhelming greatness, while for the Creator of the world this is something very small.
True, this is not logical, but logic is not any kind of proof at all. Logic stems from the basic assumptions on which we were raised and educated. One cannot believe something without seeing it [or at any rate, something known to have been seen].
I was raised as an empiricist…
I would be glad to hear your answer.
Thanks in advance
Answer
It may be that He is beyond human thought, and it may be that He is not. If there is a logical explanation, there is no a priori reason to reject it on the claim that maybe it is not correct. After all, it could also be that there is no force of gravity, and every object we have seen simply wanted to land on the ground and rest.
The claim that logic is not proof is unclear to me. Who was talking about proof? I am talking about plausibility. If I have a logical explanation, it is more plausible than the claim that maybe it is not true, which, as noted, can be raised regarding any logical explanation. Does the fact that you were raised as an empiricist prove something? Someone else was raised as a communist or a pagan. So what? The question is what is true, not what you were raised on.
Discussion on Answer
“The nature of the good is to do good” is not a statement about the world but about the Holy One, blessed be He. By His nature He is good, not bad.
My question was: “Who says God created the world with some particular reason? Maybe we do not understand Him at all.”
And you wrote: “If there is a logical explanation, there is no a priori reason to reject it on the claim that maybe it is not correct.”
So I asked: what is the logical explanation that God created the world with some particular reason?
Best regards, and thanks again
The principle of causality says that things do not happen without a reason. When some agent does something, he presumably has a reason for it; otherwise, why did he do it?
As I wrote above, He is so transcendent that we have no way of understanding Him, and that is a logical argument!
Many thanks in advance
To understand means to give an answer as to why He does what He does. If there is no reason for it, then there is nothing to understand.
I am truly sorry, but I did not understand your reply.
Respectfully
This discussion seems pointless to me. I will repeat myself one more time, and I suggest we stop there.
I said that your argument does not allow one to conclude that the world was created without a reason. Usually, when something is done, it is done for a reason. And the claim that we do not understand the Holy One, blessed be He, is irrelevant, because to understand something is to understand the causality in His actions. If an action has no reason, there is nothing to understand in it.
But can one understand that there is such a thing as “an action without a reason,” and that this is what God did in the world?
Sorry for bothering you; I simply do not understand.
Awaiting a reply, and thank you
You can understand anything. The question is what is more plausible. That is all. We are done.
But I did not understand what the logical explanation is that God created the world because "it is the nature of the good to do good"; by the same token, God could have created it so that it is the nature of the good to do harm, no?
Awaiting your reply