Q&A: Questions on Booklet #1 on Faith
Questions on Booklet #1 on Faith
Question
Have a good week, Rabbi,
After an in-depth study of the first booklet on faith, I would like to describe a few difficulties that came up for me regarding the ontological proof. I would appreciate your response.
1. You did address this in the booklet, but I would appreciate some sharpening. God was defined as something that can, among other things, be grasped by the intellect. But concepts of infinity cannot be grasped by the intellect (at least not by me).
The word infinity is not understandable to me beyond its manifestation in reality, meaning that any number I take is smaller than infinity. But I do not really understand what infinity is. The same applies to the definition of God—I cannot conceive of “a thing than which none greater can be conceived.” I can understand what the concept means, but not understand the thing itself.
Isn’t that a contradiction to assumption 1?
2. Regarding the lost island argument, you described there how the assumption about God—that His existence is essentially necessary—is different from assumptions like a lost island. I took this one step further and proved to myself the existence of Satan.
If I 1. define Satan as the thing than which nothing worse can be conceived, and 2. assume that bad things that happen in reality are worse than bad things that do not happen in reality, I arrive at the conclusion that Satan as thus defined exists in reality (otherwise there is something worse than him), and also that he exists necessarily (otherwise there is something worse than him).
I would be glad to know whether, according to Anselm’s approach, one must accept this conclusion as well (whose premises, in my view, are no less reasonable than the premises of his own argument), and if so, where you recommend fleeing to.
3. In the booklet you discussed the fact that Anselm’s definition of “greater” is not well defined. It seems obvious that one has to pour content into this concept in order to really discuss it. At first I thought it could be paralleled to “better,” so that God is “better” than anything else, but then existence is not necessarily better—for example, the concept of “pure human suffering” would be better off not existing in reality.
Do you think the concept of “greater” in this context has a concrete meaning that allows a real comparison between concepts, in the sense in which existence is greater than non-existence, where “pure human suffering exists” is greater than “pure human suffering”? And if there is no such meaning—how can one avoid throwing assumption 2 in the trash?
4. In addition, I had a difficulty regarding something else described in the booklet.
On p. 50 you describe Kant’s view about synthetic a priori judgments, and note that the laws of nature are synthetic a priori. Do you think this claim is correct? In my opinion it is not, and I will explain.
Take, for example, the claim that if I lift a ball off the floor and let go of it, it will necessarily fall. Can one say that this claim is necessarily true (it is a direct derivation of the laws of nature)? In my opinion, the best one can say without “fooling oneself” is that with probability very close to 1 the claim is true. To say that the claim is 100% true, which the average person would say, is in my opinion an approximation the mind makes to that probability because the mind is not used to thinking in probabilities that are so tiny.
I think this because it is obvious that any sane person would say that if you showed him a case in which the ball did not fall to the floor even though you let go of it (when the other conditions did not change), he would stop thinking that the ball falls every time it is let go. The same applies to any scientific claim about the world—this is our current theory, with very high probability it is true; if you show a counterexample it will be refuted and we will adopt a new theory. To assign probability 1 to a claim derived only from observation is, in my view, nothing more than an approximation of the mind that neglects the low probability that it will not happen in light of its observations.
In other words—if someone claims that “the sun will rise tomorrow,” his claim necessarily implies that this is true with probability close to 1 (or he is lying). If we were purely logical creatures, we would say instead, “the sun will rise tomorrow with probability almost 1.”
Thank you in advance, and many thanks for your enormous contribution to shaping my views about reality.
Answer
- I do not know what “assumption 1” is. But who was talking about infinity? The discussion was about a perfect being. Beyond that, I do not see any problem in grasping the concept of infinity in its potential sense. Mathematics deals with it quite a bit, so it is hard to say that we do not grasp it.
- It seems so, with the same limitations that I raised regarding the proof of God’s existence.
- I did not understand the question. I myself noted this in the booklet. So what are you asking?
- I did not understand the connection between your description of the laws of nature and the claim that they are not synthetic a priori. There can be synthetic a priori claims that are refuted empirically. A priori I think X, and then it becomes clear to me through measurement that X is not correct. Synthetic a priori is not identical with something that cannot be refuted. If that were the case, then I would basically be claiming that the laws of nature cannot be refuted. But by definition a thesis is scientific only if it is refutable.
Discussion on Answer
As for question 1, I wrote that I was not talking about infinity. This discussion is not relevant. Still, I will repeat that there is no problem at all in grasping this concept in its potential sense. If you are talking about seeing it visually, then you cannot, but that should not interfere. There are other things that we do not see visually as well (energy).
As for question 4, which category among which categories? You need to clarify your claims/questions. I am not supposed to guess what you mean.
Regarding question 4, I meant one of Kant’s categories: analytic, synthetic a posteriori, synthetic a priori (I hope I am getting the terms right; you know better than I do).
Sorry for the lack of clarity.
Simply speaking, this is an ordinary synthetic a posteriori claim. It is a product of observation (that the sun has risen until now). True, there is a generalization here by way of induction, and therefore one can also relate to it as synthetic a priori. Either way, this is of course a claim that can be refuted.
Excellent. So the claim I am making in question 4 is that when people say, “the sun will rise tomorrow,” a sentence that you describe as synthetic a priori, they actually mean the sentence, “the sun will rise tomorrow with probability almost 1″—that is, it is synthetic a posteriori (or at least, if they thought about it a bit, they would understand that they cannot state with absolute certainty that “the sun will rise tomorrow,” and would therefore explain that this is what they mean).
Does that sound reasonable to you? If so, doesn’t that change the conception of claims about the laws of nature, which you said are synthetic a priori, into synthetic a posteriori claims (or else a lie)?
I said that the classification as a priori or a posteriori is a matter of definition. There is observation here of the previous instances, but observation alone does not give me the conclusion except with the help of my own generalization. And indeed, this is similar to the category of the laws of nature. I did not understand what the problem/question is.
By the way, there is no point talking here about probability, except perhaps plausibility. And of course this cannot be quantified either.
Thank you for the answers.
Regarding 1, I assume one cannot discuss everyone’s subjective perceptions, so I will only say that I do not think a person is really capable of grasping the concept of infinity, but only of thinking about finite magnitudes (however enormous they may be). If you really can grasp this concept in your head (and not just its meaning and implications), then in my opinion that is quite surprising.
In question 3 I am asking whether, in your opinion, there is a meaning to “greater” that does allow a real comparison between objects.
Regarding question 4, in order to understand your answer, I would like to ask which category you would assign the statement: “With probability almost 1, the sun will rise tomorrow.”