Q&A: Absoluteness in Relation to the Holy One
Absoluteness in Relation to the Holy One
Question
Hello. I am fairly convinced that the world has a Creator-designer, and I am also not a materialist. But how to continue from here, I do not know:
Suppose the designer created me for a certain purpose. What makes that “true,” such that it is now really my purpose and not just a goal that my creator wants me to carry out? After all, a robot does not “have to” do what its maker says. What makes me “obligated” to do what the Creator of the world wants?
The same applies to good and evil. If in God’s eyes one thing is good and another is evil, what makes that really now the good and the evil? And what if in my view what God considers good is evil, and vice versa?
In short, the question is really what makes the Creator of the world into some kind of conceptual and moral Archimedean point, and really: can there even be such an Archimedean point by definition? After all, things like good, evil, and purpose are in someone’s eyes and cannot float in a vacuum at all. What gives that someone the ability to determine that this is the objective state of affairs and not merely how things appear to him?
Thank you very much
Answer
A good question. But as you yourself asked at the end, there cannot be an answer to such a question. You yourself asked what could serve as such an Archimedean point, and the answer is: nothing. Every chain of reasoning begins with an axiom that itself cannot be justified by further reasoning. So what gives it validity? The fact that it is self-evident and does not require justification, like an axiom in geometry. The obligation to obey the command of the One who created me and the entire world is such an Archimedean point. Without it, the concepts of good and evil have no meaning at all, and therefore you cannot even ask the question.
See column 395.
Discussion on Answer
Absolutely not. If God determined that Amalek must be killed, then it must be killed because that is what is right. But that does not mean that this is the moral good. The Torah has additional values beyond moral values, and it demands that we uphold all of them, as much as possible. See column 15.
If you want more detail, I have a series of video lessons on Torah and morality, and you can find a systematic presentation there.
So is the good prior to God?
That is the Euthyphro dilemma. I tend to think that the good is like logic. It is binding on God in the sense that He cannot decide that something else is good. But the validity of the good stems from the obligation to the divine command.
What does it mean that the good is binding on God?
1. Do you mean that His essence is binding on Him, like for example His being one or His very existence—that it is not subject to His choice? And according to that, He could just as well have had a will to do evil, and then we would define evil as good?
2. Or do you mean that by virtue of the desire to do good, He binds Himself to the side of the good, but good as an absolute value exists even without Him?
I explained that it is like logic. The good is defined as benefiting another. The Holy One cannot determine that killing is good, because killing is bad. That is the definition of the good. Just as He cannot determine that -2+3=8, or that the sum of the angles in a triangle is 254 degrees.
I have explained here more than once that being subject to the laws of logic is not really subjection, because the laws of logic are not really laws.
See for example here: https://mikyab.net/%D7%9B%D7%AA%D7%91%D7%99%D7%9D/%D7%9E%D7%90%D7%9E%D7%A8%D7%99%D7%9D/%D7%94%D7%90%D7%9D-%D7%90%D7%9E%D7%95%D7%A0%D7%94-%D7%91%D7%A1%D7%AA%D7%99%D7%A8%D7%95%D7%AA-%D7%9C%D7%95%D7%92%D7%99%D7%95%D7%AA-%D7%94%D7%99%D7%90-%D7%90%D7%A4%D7%A9%D7%A8%D7%99%D7%AA1
So then killing Amalek is good because God arbitrarily determined it so, since there is no real good? God decides and that becomes the new good? Even if it causes harm, would that still count as good?
Does the concept of good basically get emptied out?