Q&A: Is It Rational to Believe in God?
Is It Rational to Believe in God?
Question
Several questions regarding the Rabbi’s discussion with Aviv Franco:
“Observed laws of nature” are the cause of all the phenomena in the universe, from the Big Bang and the formation of the galaxies all the way to the shape of the human body and its diseases. Behind all these stand the four forces of nature: gravity, electromagnetism, the strong nuclear force, and the weak nuclear force.
These natural forces, or laws of nature, are not part of nature itself; rather, they are a human explanation for phenomena in nature. The fact that the earth revolves around the sun is explained to us through the force of gravity. But gravity is not nature itself. It is an organizing principle that helps us, as people who want to navigate the world, understand and mentally organize nature for ourselves.
There is no such thing as “the form of a triangle” existing by itself in nature; rather, the triangle is an abstract idea that can be applied to a triangular piece of cheese and a triangular pizza, which do actually exist. There is no such thing as the number 0 in nature; rather, it is a number that represents for us something that does not exist. So too, the force of gravity does not exist in nature; rather, it is an abstract idea that can be humanly applied to natural phenomena such as the earth’s rotation or pens falling.
Therefore, just as no one would claim, “What is the cause of the existence of the triangle?” because the abstract triangle does not exist in nature, so too no one can claim, “What is the cause of the existence of the laws of nature?” because they do not really exist in nature, but only in our minds, which give an abstract name to natural phenomena.
The belief that there is a cause for the laws of nature is not rational, since the laws of nature are a human abstraction that does not require a cause, and it is not even logical to look for a cause for them—just as we would not look for a cause for the existence of the numeral 0.
Where is the mistake?
Answer
Look here on the site for actualism versus informativeness. There are such approaches in the philosophy of science, but they don’t hold water. The law of gravitation is an organizing principle, but the force of gravity is a phenomenon in reality itself (and this has implications regarding gravitons). But even if you were right that the laws of nature are only our description of reality, that still requires explanation. Why does reality behave according to these laws? Who made it that way?
Discussion on Answer
So we’ve concluded that the discussion about the nature of the laws of nature is irrelevant. The question you raised has been answered. Now you’re raising a different question.
The physico-theological argument deals with only one question: is there something/someone that created the universe? Here there are only two possibilities, not several: yes or no. The claim that yes is far more plausible, as you yourself agree in the first message (otherwise why discuss the nature of the laws), and here too.
Who is that entity? Does it want something from us? What is that “something”? All that is unrelated to the physico-theological argument, and that is why we also didn’t touch on it in the discussion with Franco (it was agreed in advance that this is a different question that we would not deal with there).
If you want to see the rest of the path up to Jewish religious commitment, you’re welcome to read the fifth conversation in my book, The First Existent.
The problem is that in the argument for religious commitment, you rely on the assumption that if there is an entity that created the world, then it is reasonable to assume that it would require us to behave in a certain way.
That is one of the central claims you make there, and it forms the basis for our expectation of receiving revelation.
That claim itself needs explanation, and I wasn’t able to understand what it is..
The question was about the discussion with Franco. If you’re asking about The First Existent, see there. I explained it in detail. In any case, that claim does not stand on its own.
But do you agree that the question “Who made it that way?” itself requires explanation—why assume that there is a who? It’s true that according to the principle of causality things should have a cause, but already at the beginning of investigating this matter there are several options—it could be God. You said in the debate, if I remember correctly (not an exact quote), “In order to refute what I said, you have to show that it isn’t logical.” Fine, it’s logical, so what? A solution obviously has to be logical, but that still isn’t enough for it to be correct. Take a murder mystery: there are several logical possibilities. Maybe the neighbor, who had a conflict with him, murdered him. Maybe he committed suicide because they found various texts he wrote hinting at depression. Maybe it was an accidental death caused unintentionally… maybe this, maybe that, maybe something else. Everything is very nice and good and logical, but you still have to show that it’s true.
When it comes to religion this is even stronger, because there’s such a long chain that has to be demonstrated: there is a cause for the world > the cause is that there is someone who created the world > that someone is a spiritual entity > and not just an entity that created, but an intelligent and exalted entity that wants things from its creatures > this entity is the Jewish God….
And of course this can be broken down further and further. I divided it up rather roughly just to explain what I mean.