Q&A: Should the Reasonable Person Believe?
Should the Reasonable Person Believe?
Question
Hello Rabbi, I have a question for you:
Let’s assume the theistic God is real and wants us to believe in Him, etc.
He gave us a book whose main stories contradict all the factual knowledge we have about reality (evolution contradicts the story of Adam and Eve, geology contradicts the story of the Flood, and archaeology does not accept the Exodus from Egypt at all). So how exactly does He expect us to believe in Him? How can there even be threats of hell against heretics?
What I’m saying is that if there were a completely rational person, without motives or desires, who simply wants to know the truth, what are the chances that in the end he would believe? Obviously not likely. Even if there is some extremely strong argument for God right under our noses that proves Him, how much is that worth compared to all the contradictions between the book He gave us and reality? What are the chances that a rational person would arrive at faith in this situation?
Many respond that social pressure and emotions are stronger than rationality, so are you basically saying that the God who expects us to believe in Him expects us to do it through emotion and not through truth? (I know you are less like that, but I mean regarding this argument.)
How then can He give us reward and punishment for belief and non-belief?
What I’m saying is that even the greatest and most rational believers believe because of philosophical arguments that take months to learn and think through, not because of scientific proofs. Is God really going to punish someone who doesn’t have time to delve into philosophical arguments and accept them? Or someone who simply never happened to encounter the better arguments?
Answer
Where did you get the idea of punishment for a person who is mistaken? As far as I understand, there is no punishment at all. If a person did not do the best he could, then perhaps he may have claims brought against him.
But there certainly is an expectation to know the truth and act accordingly. There are good arguments, and an ordinary person does not need years for them. Each person according to his own resolution. In my view, it takes years to arrive at the conclusion that there is no God. And in my opinion, that conclusion in particular is rooted in biases and emotions. The Holy One, blessed be He, expects us דווקא not to follow them, and therefore to believe.
In my view, the contradictions with the Bible are really not strong, and when one takes into account the overall framework that leads to faith, they are negligible. It is easy to adopt an allegorical approach (which was proposed long before the difficulties with scientific/historical dating arose).
Discussion on Answer
Today we see that there is no connection between observing Jewish law and belief, and disasters and curses. Even in the period of the Sages this did not exist.
Maybe it was true in the biblical period, but today it does not exist. So the verses דווקא strengthen the Rabbi’s claim.
However, it seems from many medieval authorities (Rishonim) that there is no reward and punishment in the conventional sense, but rather consequences of beliefs and perhaps actions. And it makes no difference whether a person is coerced or not. On the other hand, a person who claims he believes but has not engaged deeply in philosophical analysis also does not really believe, and he too apparently will not have a share in the World to Come, which is attained only through intellectual apprehension, or closeness to God. And it does not matter how a person thinks of himself and his faith, but how he pictures it in his soul.
According to those medieval authorities (Rishonim), everyone needs to engage in philosophical analysis or delve into esoteric teachings.
From this it follows that there is reward and punishment even for those coerced in their beliefs.
What do you see in those verses? I see nothing there. If you do not obey His voice because of inclination, you will be punished. But if you are coerced, there is no punishment for one who is coerced, and this too is written in the Torah: “But to the young woman you shall do nothing.”
One can argue anything. I wrote what I had to write. If it doesn’t seem right to you—that’s perfectly fine.
A, I did not write that there is reward for those who are coerced. I wrote that there is no punishment.
Overall, the whole story of the creation of the world is completely absurd, together with geological facts that contradict the nonsense of a global Flood, and all the way to archaeological knowledge that shows what an extreme exaggeration it is to claim that over the course of 200 years a people the size of the Egyptian population was enslaved without leaving any trace of that slavery in Egypt.
I’ve read lots of arguments; most of them are ridiculous and can be refuted easily.
As for punishments, there are countless threats about not meriting the World to Come, hell, the soul being cut off from the people of Israel, and lots more floating around in prayer books and the Talmud.
Well, I can already see that this is just another fool whose craft is dogmatic certainty. But I won’t delete it, because of my allergy to censorship.
I didn’t understand the problem.
Can the Rabbi respond substantively?
I’ll try to explain myself.
I don’t know how much you can infer about divine law on the basis of one law of “But to the young woman you shall do nothing.”
Is there no punishment at all for those who are coerced? And what about someone who simply did not reach that conclusion, or did not want to deal with the issue?
You are ignoring several important aspects.
Even if you hold that there is no punishment, that is a relatively innovative view, and it requires rather strained interpretations of many verses in the Torah, and also of events in the Torah in which heretics are explicitly punished.
Examples, so the discussion won’t stay vague:
1. “And it shall be, if you do not obey the voice of the Lord your God, to observe and to do all His commandments and His statutes that I command you today, then all these curses shall come upon you and overtake you.”
2. “If you are willing and obedient, you shall eat the good of the land; but if you refuse and rebel, you shall be devoured by the sword; for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.”
3. “And if, despite this, you do not obey Me, then I will continue to chastise you sevenfold for your sins.”
Moreover, even if the outcome is only “complaints,” the expectation of discovering the truth about God on the basis of complex arguments that contradict much of scientific knowledge, or that are not convincing, remains problematic.
A just and fair God would take into account the varying abilities and circumstances of each individual.
In addition, you also argue that it does not take years for a normal person to find good arguments for belief in God, whereas reaching the conclusion that there is no God takes years and is based on biases and emotions.
However, the arguments for God often include complex philosophical reasoning,
historical evidence, and personal experiences that may not be easily accessible or convincing to everyone.
Scientific evidence, by contrast, is generally simpler and tested rigorously.
While you argue that unbelief is based on biases and emotions,
one could argue the same regarding belief, as you yourself often argue about belief that stems from religious emotion, since social, cultural, and emotional factors greatly influence religious belief, sometimes more than empirical or rational arguments.
Both belief and unbelief can be influenced by cognitive biases.
The important point is that rational and unbiased inquiry should ideally lead to truth, but given the many contradictions between religious texts in general, and the Torah in particular, and established scientific knowledge, it is unlikely, or at least not at all clear, that a completely rational person,
free of bias and emotion,
would arrive at belief in the religious God.
This raises a significant question about the fairness of expecting belief under these conditions, and whether it is reasonable to impose punishment, or even responsibility, for failing to find the truth or for non-belief in such a context.