Q&A: Debate – Is Belief in God Rational?
Debate – Is Belief in God Rational?
Question
Hello Rabbi Michi,
I watched the debate on "Head-to-Head" on YouTube, enjoyed it מאוד (and also appreciated your great patience with the lack of understanding), and for that I thank you.
Unfortunately, I never studied philosophy, and I hope I won’t write nonsense, but I hope you’ll have the patience to reply.
I wanted to ask: why is it actually important (to you?) whether belief is rational?
Or, to put it differently: it seems to me that at the end of the debate you hinted at the question of what causes us to rely on the principle of causality even though we have no observational confirmation of it (and yes, I know my phrasing is amusing because the question itself is based on the assumption that something causes us to rely on it), and likewise with induction—I think this question is a question about the human mind, and the answer to it is psychological rather than philosophical. That is, we assume causality because in everything we experience in reality there is cause and effect. This is not a logical proof, but our mind does not operate on logic at all; it operates (among other things) by grouping and generalizing things. After a baby (and recently computers as well) has learned what a cat looks like and what a dog looks like, it knows how to identify what is in front of it without any logical means (and not because induction is not logical). One can perhaps give biological/chemical explanations for how the grouping and generalization happen, but that is how it works. (I often reflect on a stronger claim—that logic itself is an invention of the human mind in order to group things together.) — Maybe this somewhat explains the gap in the discussion between you and your partner in the debate, which was evident from the start. He was talking about what "works" for us in the world, and about "persuasion," and he couldn’t grasp how you leap from our perception, which is based (as I understand it) on the reality we know, to conclusions about what lies beyond it—or, if you prefer, how your mind performs that generalization when it comes to something so different.
Or, in another formulation: is there a difference between God, who is so different from the reality we know and therefore the assumption of causality does not apply to Him (did I understand correctly?), and existence itself (which is also a subject different from what we know)?
Answer
Hello Shimon.
As for the question whether logic is a product of the structure of our mind, it came up in the discussion and I briefly expressed my position on it. You can see more about it in the columns that were posted here not long ago: 549–550. You can see there that the discussion is meaningless and there is no point in conducting it.
As for your main question, that was exactly David Hume’s position. His claim was that since this principle has no observational source, it is apparently created by our psychology. In reality itself, between the "cause" and the "effect" there are only correlations and temporal succession, but no causation. Hume was an empiricist, and in my view that is what tripped him up. Moreover, I am currently writing a column in which I explain that many atheists are empiricists, and that is what trips them up, and I demonstrate this using the last debate.
By the way, your amused remark about the circularity in your argument is not just amusing. It is a refutation of your claim. If indeed the principle of causality is not true, there is no need to propose a causal alternative for how it came into being. And if your intention is only to offer a psychological explanation, it is not very interesting when one is engaged in philosophy. By the way, even as a psychological explanation it is circular, since you are offering a psychological explanation for the way our psychology works.
I explained my position on causality in detail in the series of columns 459–466.