Q&A: Begging the Question in Faith
Begging the Question in Faith
Question
Hello Rabbi, in the Rabbi’s latest podcast (and in general, the Rabbi is known for this position), the Rabbi said that he assumes that if God created the world then He created it with religious expectations of human beings. Later, when the interviewer asked you why you do not accept David Hume’s analysis of miracles, you said that Hume begs the question in his attitude toward revelation. So I wondered: isn’t the Rabbi also begging the question when he assumes that the Holy One, blessed be He, created the world with religious motives? How can the Rabbi assume that he knows God’s motives?
Answer
I’ve written more than once that every valid logical argument begs the question. Begging the question is not a fallacy, but an argument that begs the question has no persuasive value (because such an argument requires the person who disagrees with me to retreat from his position before he has even heard the argument).
Hume can בהחלט assume that miracles are impossible and conclude that testimony to a miracle is impossible. That is a consistent position. But he did not merely present a position; he argued against the position that does accept miracles. He is attacking. To attack by means of begging the question is simply nonsense.
My argument is based on a general assumption that most people agree with: that if someone creates something, he probably expects something from it. Therefore one can build an argument on that. I am not assuming knowledge of God’s motives. On the contrary, that came to me through revelation. What I do assume is that He has some motives, and that is a very reasonable starting point. Whoever disagrees with it bears the burden of proof.
Greetings Rabbi,
In my humble opinion, and with all due respect, I would argue that your claim, “which is based on a general assumption that most people agree with,” already starts off on the wrong foot…
Human history presents us with a very unflattering picture, to say the least, of widely accepted agreements….
Precisely the most significant and beneficial ideas and insights for the human race were, are, and will be those that challenged, challenge, and will challenge the accepted views in every generation.
The burden of proof does not rest on the one who disputes the very “unreasonable” claim or assumption that God shares human traits such as desire, motive, or expectation.
On the contrary, common sense would be to assume that every human trait is by definition not divine.
And that is even before I speak at all about the arrogance of a human being claiming that he knows what “drives” God, what “He wants,” what “He expects”…
I am speaking only about anthropomorphizing Him.
Projecting human logic onto God, based on the assumption that if human creators have expectations then God the Creator must as well, is no different from saying that before He created the world God was probably a bit stressed, like us, and maybe today He is bored; and in general, if He has expectations of us, that means He has no idea what will happen tomorrow—whether we will meet His expectations or not, who knows….
Likewise, in the Written Torah it is not stated what God wants, what He expects, or what His motive is. It states only what we are commanded and what the consequences are if we do or do not do it—not the reason for it, nor the motive, desire, or expectation.
Therefore, my claim is that the burden of proof rests on the one who supports the position that God has a desire, motive, or expectation.