Q&A: Atheist
Atheist
Question
Hello Rabbi,
What is the best proof I can bring an atheist for the creation of the world and for providence over individuals?
(Rabbi Akiva brought the argument from design, but that has already been refuted too many times.)
Answer
The creation of the world, or providence over individuals? For providence over individuals (active providence, meaning divine involvement in the world), there is no proof at all, and it is probably not true either. As for creation, I discussed this at length in my book The First Existent, and in the notebooks here on the site. In my view, the best proof is the physico-theological one (of which the argument from design is one version). See there in the third conversation/notebook.
Discussion on Answer
Amit,
Have you heard of the Big Bang?
It sounds like you've never read what Rabbi Michi writes.
What does the Big Bang have to do with it?
Yes, I've heard of the Big Bang. Not just big—very big, primordial organic soup and 15 billion years. But one thing is certain: I wouldn't leave you alone in my house. So that you shouldn't think my television just happened to get there by chance and decide it's fine to take it. It seems much more likely to me that a world so planned and orderly was created by a Creator, and for all I care that same Creator created the world through a Big Bang. So what's the connection?
Why is the matter of providence over individuals not true, Rabbi? Could you expand? Does God not intervene in the world?
Search here on the site for divine involvement in the world. I've written a lot about it. For example, in column 298.
Can you explain, just for general knowledge, why Rabbi Akiva's design argument was refuted?