Q&A: From God to God the Giver of the Torah
From God to God the Giver of the Torah
Question
Hello Rabbi, I am a student in an advanced yeshiva, and a few months ago I watched your series of lessons on faith on YouTube. Let me preface by saying that in general I know that God exists because of the physico-theological and cosmological arguments.
My problem was more with the Rabbi’s transition from belief in God to belief in a God who reveals Himself in the world.
Because the fact that the Creator did not create the world for nothing does not necessarily mean that He wants something from us.
There are a variety of possibilities for why God might have created the world, for example:
1. God has no consciousness or will, but is like a “machine” that has always operated and always existed and always acts and creates the world. It never had a beginning, no one created it, and it never started working—it simply has always operated. (Just as I say that God has always existed and no one created Him, the same would be true of the machine, except that it has no awareness and operates all the time.)
2. He created us just out of interest; He is interested in what will happen if He puts a group of creatures here and does this and then that happens, etc.
4. He created us for something that does not depend on us—meaning, they will live their lives with free choice, and thereby, even if they do not do any particular thing, simply by living they create something that God wants. (And it seems to me that necessarily the thing He wants would have to stem from our free choice and consciousness.)
5.
5a. He created the world because He wants us to carry out something specific, and therefore He created the world with certain features and with moral codes built into the human being so that a person would know how God wants him to behave.
In your lessons you addressed the idea that it cannot be that God wants us to observe morality in order to achieve human perfection, and in that way you ruled out the option that the purpose of life is to act according to morality.
But it is quite possible that God put morality into the world so that we would fulfill it for some other purpose, not human perfection.
And in that case, God does not really need to give a Torah in order for us to do what He wants; rather, He implanted in us feelings of good and evil and moral codes, and based on that He wants us to infer what He wants.
5b. He created the world because He wants us to carry out something specific, and therefore He gave the world some kind of guide so that human beings would know how He wants them to behave in the world (Torah).
And this is essentially the claim that God gave the Torah, and that of all religions, Judaism is the most reasonable, so the claim is that Judaism is true.
But here too, the Rabbi ignored the questions that come afterward about Judaism itself.
Difficulties and questions and sometimes petty answers, and biblical criticism, and things that do not fit, endlessly, from one end of the world to the other.
Therefore, because of all the questions and difficulties regarding this possibility, and because there are other reasonable possibilities as well, it is very possible that one of the other possibilities is the correct one. So one should not conclude from the fact that there is a God that God also gave a Torah with commands to perform.
I would be very glad if you would answer me. Thank you very much.
Answer
Hello.
In principle, there are of course other possibilities, and it is hard to rule them out a priori. But that is when you examine each argument separately.
Still, the simplest assumption is that if we were created, there is a reason, and if we were given choice, then we are expected to make use of it. Now comes a tradition of revelation and giving of the Torah that conveys to us the content of our task. The combination of these two together (along with the unique history and so on) significantly raises the probability, even if each argument on its own can be questioned. As Rabbi Chaim said about the signs of a fool at the beginning of Tractate Chagigah.
And of course there is no certainty about anything. We are looking for probability.
Discussion on Answer
Yes…
I never said there is no reason why we were created. In my opinion, to say that would be completely absurd. It cannot be that a wise God would do something for no reason, when even a simple person does not do things for no reason.
What I mean is that there is certainly a reason—but who says the reason God created us is so that we should do something specific? (Because of our ego, that it has to be connected to us?!)
It may be that He created us for something external to us that follows from the mere fact that we exist with free choice and consciousness (and not from some specific thing He wants us to do).
And because it is either this possibility or the possibility that the Torah is true,
and since there are many “failures” and problems in the Torah almost without end (there are solutions, but sometimes they are weaker and sometimes less so),
therefore, in terms of probability, one should conclude that the option without the problems found in the Torah is more reasonable and therefore ultimately more correct.
In addition, regarding what the Rabbi wrote about the mechanical option—I meant that it is like the Creator: just as with God you do not need a reason why someone produced Him (the first cause), so too with the machine, except that the machine is without consciousness or will. (It is not really a machine because no one created it, but that is what I mean.)
Thank you very much.
I already explained. Who says? He does.
I understood what you meant, and I answered that. Such a machine needs a cause, and therefore it is not like the Creator.
Ami,
I have gone through almost all the claims of biblical criticism and various scientific difficulties. My impression is that the “failures” in the Torah that you are talking about are based on various assumptions and interpretations that are by no means necessary—both Torah-based and scientific ones—and if you remove them, the “failure” disappears.
Hello Moshe,
I did not say the difficulties are difficulties that cannot be answered. I also meant that indeed they can be answered, but sometimes there are very strong objections to them, or very forced answers, or in general things seem incorrect. (I think that especially you, who has gone through almost all the claims of biblical criticism and various difficulties, know this as well.)
You are right that everything can be answered and everything can be explained away,
but very often the explanations seem forced.
Now, maybe I would keep quiet if there were no other possibilities available—but there are other possibilities that do not deny the existence of God (which in my opinion is necessary).
So in my opinion the possibilities that do not include these kinds of problems are preferable to the Torah option.
Hello Rabbi,
I understood the Rabbi to be saying that if there is a God, then He also probably gave the Torah.
In my humble opinion, the Rabbi also used the example of the teapot.
The Rabbi said that the philosophical proofs remove the claim that “God revealed Himself to someone” from being a “teapot in space,” since we already know that God exists. But in my humble opinion, just as if I know there is a teapot, that still tells me nothing about it being in space, so too the fact that I know there is a God tells me nothing about Him having revealed Himself to someone, so long as I have no indications of that.
So I will ask about the Rabbi’s answer:
Who said that He said so?
Because according to my understanding, the tradition itself, together with other proofs, does not provide sufficient proof that God gave the Torah. (They may perhaps provide evidentiary strength that clearly outweighs other religions if I assume that one of them is certainly true, but they are not enough as a strong proof on their own.)
And therefore, because of all the problems known to all of us (despite the sometimes forced answers to them),
it is preferable to go with the possibilities that do not include such problems, and therefore they are preferable to the Torah option.
Also, I would be glad for an explanation of why the machine needs a cause but God does not.
You are repeating the same thing again. I explained. I have nothing to add.
If we are talking about a machine that does not need a cause, that is God. If it creates a complex world, that means there needs to be an explanation for why it is such a thing that creates such a world. In God’s case, that is a decision, and therefore it does not require an external explanation.
Hello Ami,
My claim is not as you say. I think the difficulties—even the good ones!—are usually based on foundational assumptions or interpretations (including rabbinic ones) that are not necessary.
Sorry Rabbi, but I did not understand the explanation, and I would be glad if the Rabbi would explain it to me.
I understood from the Rabbi during the lessons that belief in a God who gave the Torah is relatively baseless without the knowledge that God exists, and without the knowledge that God exists it is like a “teapot.”
And I do not understand why one should infer from the fact that God exists that He gave the Torah, when there are more reasonable possibilities compared to this option that God gave the Torah at Mount Sinai, which has many problems and flaws.
Thank you.
I do not understand what is unclear. I explained that if there is a God, He probably wants something from us. A tradition comes to us saying that He gave the Torah and that this is what He wants. One can raise doubts about each of these two sides, but the two together are stronger than either one alone. I do not see anything more reasonable than that.
Rabbi,
I do not understand why He probably wants something from us. Where does the Rabbi infer that from? To me this seems like an arbitrary decision without reason! Why does the Rabbi think the option that He wants something from us is more probable than the other options? It is not clear to me why the Rabbi thinks this is more logical. On what basis did the Rabbi make this decision?
Because if He created me and gave me choice, then apparently He wants something from me that I will do by my own decision. And if a tradition reaches us that He indeed expects me to choose various things, that closes the circle.
Apparently He wants me to do something by my own decision, and apparently the tradition passed down to me is therefore true,
although there are grounds to say that He does not want anything from me.
In addition, that same tradition contains many “mismatches” with what I would expect from a divine Torah.
A. My main claim is that I see the “apparently He wants me to do something” as canceled out by the Torah’s “mismatches.”
I feel—and I do not understand—why the Rabbi treats these as completely separate stages from one another and does not combine the doubts about the Torah so as to lower the assumption that He wants something from me.
B. In addition, there is also a line of reasoning that He wants me to infer from the world and from morality how to do His will, and not by means of a specific Torah.
C. Also regarding the machine, sorry, but I did not understand why according to the Rabbi that is incorrect, because seemingly,
just as no reason is needed for why God decided something,
so no reason is needed for why the machine operates in a certain way.
(That is, it was always that way from the outset, just as I do not ask why God existed from the outset as one who wants certain things.)
And if the Rabbi means probability,
then just as it is probable that there would be a God who wants to create a world, it is equally probable that there would be a machine that does exactly the same thing.
I said what I had to say.
Yes, but you did not answer the question, or at least that is how it seems to me.
And that is a shame.
I need to repeat a cliché that I usually do not like: this is not a question but an answer. The questions here have been answered.
Every answer is a response to another answer.
And as far as I can tell, the Rabbi has not addressed this “answer,” even though in my opinion it really does merit a response. And I would be glad if the Rabbi would address it.
I would be very glad if the Rabbi could perhaps guide me a bit on this topic, or if he could guide me regarding what to study so that I can reach the correct conclusion.
Thank you very much.
Look at what was written here in the thread. In more detail, in The First Commonplace, fifth conversation, but that is not necessary.
I didn’t go into examining every possibility you raised, because the scheme I presented answers all of them. There are problems with the various options too. For example, something mechanical is not an option as a result of the physico-theological argument, because it too would require a cause/creator. I won’t elaborate here.