Q&A: An Apparent Contradiction Between Your Different Views on Miracles and Statistics
An Apparent Contradiction Between Your Different Views on Miracles and Statistics
Question
In one of my Passover prayer books, I came across your book ‘The First Being’. While leafing through it at random, I found myself browsing the topic of the supposedly coincidental course the Jewish people went through in all its exiles and dispersions, and its wondrous ability to survive. And from that whole chain of events the obvious conclusion emerges: the Torah was apparently given by God, blessed be He, to the Jewish people.
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And then I asked myself, ‘Wait, isn’t this the same person who firmly maintains that there is no individual divine providence?’ And indeed, in a footnote at the bottom of the page you immediately note that this is not necessarily a miracle but rather evidence of a special power the Jewish people received. That is a rather vague and fairly weak answer, not really characteristic of your usually orderly method. a0
Let us assume the people of Israel received some special power. Is that enough to keep going 2,500 years into the future? And if it is, doesn’t that mean it is some divine / heavenly / spiritual power that continued with us? Otherwise that power should have gradually faded, if we were talking about physical, worldly continuity. In other words, what exactly is that power, and how does it continue over such enormous stretches of time?
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In addition, how does that special power we received at Mount Sinai explain the bizarre condemnations from the UN and the unreasonable antisemitism?
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In short: either way. If all this has a simple natural explanation (which is a necessary condition, etc.), then the whole theory collapses. And if there is no natural explanation, then it contradicts everything you argued in the past about individual divine providence.
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Answer
You quote the answer I gave there, and then ask the question as if I hadn’t written it. And you do this without explaining what is wrong with the answer I wrote there. Your assumptions about some inertia that is supposed to fade seem completely detached to me, and I don’t see what there is for me to answer here.
Discussion on Answer
What’s unclear about what I wrote there? It’s about the Torah that we received and the culture we developed around it. That’s all. No need for any mysticism, miracles, or divine involvement.
Do you think the condemnations and the antisemitism are a miracle that the Holy One, blessed be He, did to us? Is that the plausible theory you’re proposing? Is that more reasonable than seeing it as a response to our culture and our messages? What exactly am I supposed to address here?
On the contrary, I’m saying exactly the opposite: I think it shows absolutely nothing. It does show our separateness, our strength, and our influence, but since there are technical and simple explanations for it, I don’t understand how you connected all this to an argument that supposedly proves the giving of the Torah at Sinai??
You’re the one who argued that this combination of highly improbable scenarios proves the miraculous giving of the Torah from heaven, not me.
I explained there that it is evidence of the uniqueness of the Torah and the culture around it. Not of divine involvement in history. The simple technical explanations are based on a unique culture, and indeed, given that it exists, the unique historical outcomes can result.
Not trying to drive you crazy, but then I didn’t understand what the evidence there actually is… A combination of scenarios that point to a unique culture—does that prove anything about the giving of the Torah to the Jews? I assume one can find other explanations for that that are no less acceptable.
Good luck searching. If someone gives you a Torah that creates a unique history unlike that of all other nations, and that’s not evidence of his intelligence and of our uniqueness, then I don’t know what evidence is.
I’ve exhausted the point.
We weren’t looking here for an explanation and evidence of the people’s uniqueness and intelligence; on the contrary, you brought those as evidence for the uniqueness of the Torah.
Also, you set up a prior assumption here that the Torah is what created the culture and tradition, and then argued: go find another Torah like that… Isn’t that begging the question a bit?
In itself it’s an excellent answer, but as stated, it seemingly stands in contradiction to your absolute position denying individual divine providence. If this is some miraculous power that has remained with the Jewish people until today, then there is some kind of divine intervention in our actions and in our very existence. And if it is a power that was given only then, how does it continue until today?
Maybe let me ask it differently. The lines you describe in the book lead to one thing: the Jewish people conduct themselves above the natural order, in an open miracle. But a moment later you contradict that and claim it does not indicate a miraculous path, without giving a sufficient and satisfying explanation, only something very general, which in my view is sorely lacking when trying to present a complete and well-founded theory.
P.S. you didn’t address the issue of antisemitism and the UN