Q&A: Empiricism
Empiricism
Question
With God’s help,
Hello Rabbi, many people ask how one can explain the Holy One’s desire to create the world, since desire indicates a lack, and no lack can be attributed to Him. I heard that some answer this based on the problems David Hume raises about drawing empirical conclusions of cause and effect. In other words, the conclusion that desire indicates a lack is itself a cause-and-effect inference that has no empirical justification, and therefore the question is unfounded to begin with. Does the Rabbi agree with this or not, and why?
Thank you very much.
Answer
Hello.
I agree. The need to posit desire in order to explain actions is a result of the principle of causality.
But beyond that, the argument is not necessary, because His perfection dictated that there should be a world (as the Arizal writes at the beginning of Etz Chaim, and Rabbi Kook in Orot HaKodesh 22 on perfection and becoming). Therefore, His perfection is realized in His including a created world. In other words, it is not that He was lacking and then became complete through the creation of the world, but rather that His perfection is the whole totality: a period without a world and afterward with one. Perfection is not necessarily a static state; it can also be a function across the axis of time.