Q&A: Is God Bound by Rules?
Is God Bound by Rules?
Question
The Rabbi has written several times that it may be that God Himself is bound by rules, and that the laws of nature cannot come about in certain ways (maybe I misunderstood, but that’s how I understood it).
Does the very fact that God is guided by rigid rules not require the existence of a higher-order God (or cause) that is not subject to laws?
Answer
You’re mixing things up. I wrote that regarding the laws of morality. See column 457 (or 547, the Euthyphro dilemma). As for the laws of nature, He is completely free, but even He cannot create contradictory laws. Nobody else can either. I wrote about that too. Search here for "natural evil."
Discussion on Answer
Yes.
More precisely, there is no law of nature that would produce all the results that exist today, just without the bad results. So the demand to create such laws of nature in the world is impossible (a more accurate term than "contradictory").
So according to the Rabbi, it is possible that a law of nature that does not cause suffering is necessarily impossible.
And given that we assume/prove that God exists, and assume/prove that He is good, it necessarily follows that the existence of evil should be attributed to the fact that laws of nature that do not cause evil are impossible.
Did I understand correctly?