Q&A: Forces of Nature
Forces of Nature
Question
With God's help,
Hello Rabbi,
Why, when looking at laws, is the focus on the laws themselves?
You could ask who operates the forces of nature, like gravity, and whether they are entities that act independently without God and have always existed.
Instead of asking who legislated the law of gravity—what am I missing?
Answer
It's the same thing. The only difference is the question of whether the laws require a constant force to operate them at every moment, or whether there can be laws that needed a creator, but from that point on operate on their own. Third-generation missiles.
Discussion on Answer
I wrote that there is no necessity. Both possibilities exist. A law can be like a machine that, once I built it, operates without me.
Thank you, Rabbi.
Just one remark about the second part of the passage:
Forces of nature are defined as action, not an entity.
But you wrote in your book that gravity, for example, is an "entity"—do you mean to say that it's plausible they are a non-personal entity with intelligence and will,
or rather something mechanical, like a machine?
Thank you for the answer, Rabbi.
I didn't understand. Is the claim that we must say that forces of nature have an activating cause or creator because, after all, there are laws governing those forces?
Can't we say that these forces have always existed?
Why not—because they aren't a personal entity, and, for example, the force of gravity has no intelligence or will to operate bodies?