Q&A: God and Morality
God and Morality
Question
Do you accept Dr. משה רט's argument that "God not only created the human body, but also his psyche, consciousness, and soul, and programmed them in a way that implanted certain moral perceptions in man. If we rely on the moral sense that God programmed into us, and believe that it guides us to the truth, then we must necessarily assume that God Himself is just and good, and therefore trustworthy. And if we suspect that God is not just and good, then we cannot rely on the moral sense He gave us—but then the moral criticism directed at God also collapses, because one cannot construct a critique on the basis of a distorted and unreliable moral sense"
Answer
I don't remember having read his wording, but your formulation isn't precise. If you do not accept your moral sense, then there is no reason to assume that morality exists at all. If so, what room is there for the concern that you are behaving immorally?!
A more precise formulation could argue that if He implanted a moral sense in us, apparently it is important to Him that we be moral. From that it is reasonable to infer that He is a moral being.
Discussion on Answer
See column 457. By the way, Abraham our Patriarch had moral criticism of the Holy One, blessed be He.
So you don't accept his conclusion that "therefore, however you look at it, moral criticism directed at God is a logical fallacy, in the sense of 'Shall the axe boast over the one who chops with it?' God's justice is a necessary assumption for any epistemic outlook, so if a certain line of thought leads to the conclusion that God is not just, an error message should pop up for us, like on a calculator when you try to divide by zero"?