Q&A: God’s Intervention in the Spiritual Realm as It Relates to the Material
God’s Intervention in the Spiritual Realm as It Relates to the Material
Question
If we all agree that God determines which soul enters which body (and if you don’t agree with that, please say so),
doesn’t that mean this also has implications for His intervention in the material world?
Presumably, if exalted souls like those of David, Moses, and Abraham were placed into bodies walking around the world these days, then in practice that would have an effect on the world, and from that one could argue that God does in fact intervene, no?
Answer
I’m talking about ongoing involvement. There is also this kind of indirect involvement, through the fact that He established the laws of nature.
Discussion on Answer
Call it involvement. That’s just a semantic question. I wasn’t talking about that kind of “involvement.” It is definitely possible.
That’s true, it’s really not the kind of involvement you were talking about.
But if the kind of involvement I was talking about really exists, I think one can argue that God is very involved here in the world.
If God really sent a general soul like that of Rabbi Kook specifically to the generation of Zionism…
If God really sent a soul like that of the Baal Shem Tov specifically after the Sabbatean crisis…
And a thousand thousand distinctions apart, if God placed an Amalekite soul in Hitler…
Then one can certainly say, objectively, that God intervenes in reality and causes it to be shaped,
even if that has nothing at all to do with the kind of involvement you were talking about.
Sabbath peace
Thanks for the response.
There are new bodies all the time (hundreds of thousands of births every day), and according to Judaism, souls enter them.
Wouldn’t that count as ongoing involvement?
If a baby is born now (a particular body), who determines which soul enters it if that isn’t ongoing involvement?