Q&A: The Physico-Theological Proof and a Question about Morality
The Physico-Theological Proof and a Question about Morality
Question
Hi Rabbi,
I have two questions:
A. In your YouTube lectures on faith, you keep coming back to the point that the physico-theological proof does not come from biology but from the laws themselves. If I remember correctly, in your book God Plays Dice you did claim that evolution also does not prove at all that there is no guiding hand, because the probability of a mutation that survives and then gives rise to another mutation is negligible, and therefore there is certainly a guiding hand in biology as well. Have you retracted that claim? Or perhaps you prefer to avoid it because it has a God-of-the-gaps style?
B. One of the strongest proofs in my view is the moral proof. However, there is something I do not understand: if each person has a different morality, and each culture sanctifies a different morality, one could argue that there is no such thing as morality at all and that everything is just a social construct. I do not accept that, because the proof is that we all still feel bound by morality. But something still bothers me: if morality is something divine, why is murder acceptable in some cultures? Doesn’t that show that morality has no absolute values? And if there is no objective morality, then it really does go back to the idea that everything is basically nonsense and social construction / just the way our brain works….
Answer
A. I argued there in two stages: first, the probability of a survivable mutation is negligible, because the number of such mutations out of all mutations is negligible. But the laws of nature ensure that such mutations will arise, and therefore the proof comes from the laws.
B. The claim that everyone holds a different morality is not correct. The disagreements are at the margins. But even if there were substantive disagreements, that would not affect the proof. The very fact that you hold a morality that is binding from your perspective requires belief in God. Each person, from his own perspective, thinks the other is mistaken and immoral—that is, he believes in binding standards. Relativism about morality does not undermine the proof, so long as each person believes in the validity of his own morality.
Discussion on Answer
A. I answered that this is a two-stage argument. There is no plausible random explanation unless there is a guiding hand that arranged it through the laws of nature.
B. My argument does not deal with that. If you prefer to say it is a social construct, then from your perspective there is no valid morality, and then there is no necessity to believe in God. What I am claiming is that if you advocate a valid morality, then you necessarily believe in God.
Here I will tell you that personally I really do hold the first approach, because in my opinion there is a valid morality and it is not a social construct. Why? That is my intuition.
Rabbi, thank you very much for the answers. If I may ask a bit more:
A. Regarding evolution—what does it mean that “the laws of nature ensure that such mutations will arise”? I was under the impression that you said no reasonable explanation had been found for survivability without a guiding hand… have you retracted that claim?
B. Regarding morality—why do you prefer the claim that the validity of morality comes from God, rather than thinking it stems from social / evolutionary construction? That is to say, we are creatures who need morality in order to survive, so that society can function, and therefore it is one of the most deeply rooted “values” within us.