חדש באתר: NotebookLM עם כל תכני הרב מיכאל אברהם

Q&A: Faith and Knowledge

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This is an English translation (via GPT-5.4). Read the original Hebrew version.

Faith and Knowledge

Question

Hello Rabbi,
I would be glad to receive a convincing answer to this question:
Can one say that it is impossible to prove the existence of God through the human intellect because it is limited, and proving the existence of God means dealing with a subject that lies beyond its boundaries, so that all we can really do is advance questions that point to a high probability that there is a Creator God—and therefore choosing to believe in God is purely subjective and not something that can be imposed on anyone?

Answer

You have proven, by a constructive proof, that one can say that. You simply said it.
As for your actual question, I assume you meant to ask whether it makes sense. My answer is no. The fact is that there is good evidence for His existence, so why discuss it hypothetically by way of slogans and a priori declarations?
Beyond that, even when the conclusion you reached is probable rather than absolute, that does not make it subjective. In fact, every conclusion we reach in every field is like that.
And finally, you cannot force anyone not to believe anything.

Discussion on Answer

Yaakov Meir (2024-05-14)

Please explain the point that in my opinion still needs clarification:
It is true that what we are left with is, of course, a person’s common sense, and only through that can any claim about any subject in our lives be advanced. But what it is capable of doing is not to confirm the existence of a Creator God so much as to ask, investigate, and conjecture on the basis of that investigation that there is some higher power that created all of creation. Granted, a conjecture is not as weak as mere speculation, but even so, the desire to strive toward and accept that the resolution of the question and the investigation must necessarily be God is really just a choice to believe that this is so, and nothing more. If so, it is a personal matter to make such a claim, and it cannot be imposed on anyone.
It is true that the other alternatives as answers to that same investigation really do not stand up to the test of reason (randomness requires believing in processes that are very far from healthy probability; see the book God, Science, the Evidence).
But even if one does not accept those crazy conspiracies, that still does not positively mean that there is a Creator God. At most, it leaves me with the big question mark embedded in the riddle of the very basis of existence.
If so, perhaps we really cannot obligate anyone to think one way or the other about this question.
So what does the Torah demand of humanity: simply to believe? Of course, on the basis that I accept that at Mount Sinai there was a revelation and an expression of will on God’s part—but then the original question returns to its place, since I do not know what really happened there, right?
So again, are we being asked to believe that this is what happened—is that what is demanded of us in the laws of faith?

Michi (2024-05-14)

I didn’t understand a thing. What wasn’t clear in what I explained?

Yaakov Meir (2024-05-14)

I also agree that there is no alternative except to use reason in discussing any subject. It’s just that the Torah requires every Jew/gentile to believe in a Creator God.
So how can such a demand be created if the path to it leads me only to a big question mark + a probability that there is indeed a cause/creator or first cause, however you want to call it, and not to a positive answer—namely, that there really is God? At most, perhaps one can say there is some higher power that created the universe.
And if so, then all that remains for a person, whoever he may be, is to choose whether or not to adopt the belief that the answer to the riddle of the universe is resolved by the existence of a Creator God.
This is an intuition—can you command an intuition?
It is very true that all the other approaches that try to explain the universe border on embracing conspiracies very far from reason, but look, that is still not enough to positively affirm the fact that there really is a Creator God.

Michi (2024-05-14)

There is no question mark here at all, neither big nor small. You are writing in riddles. If this continues, I won’t answer anymore.

Moshe (2024-05-15)

If I understand correctly, Yaakov Meir’s question is this: since faith is not something clear and logically compelled by the human mind, but rather depends on a person’s intuition, then someone who does not feel this intuition cannot be required to feel it—just as you cannot require someone with no sense of smell to smell. If so, it follows that there cannot be a religious demand to believe in God.

(If I understood correctly, then this is Rabbi Hasdai Crescas’s question in Or Hashem, Part Two, principle five, chapter 5. He answers that in fact there is no demand to believe, only to make an effort to find the truth and connect to it emotionally.)

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