Q&A: Various Questions on Matters of Faith
Various Questions on Matters of Faith
Question
Hello Rabbi,
I’d be happy to receive your answer, or a reference to your answers, to these questions:
1. In your view, is saying that God has a will problematic, in that it turns God into something lacking?
2. Rabbi Moshe Chaim Luzzatto writes that God created the world in order to bestow good. I never understood his answer. If God wants to do good, then let Him do good without all the suffering there is in the world. Do you accept his answer, or in light of what I argued, not?
3. I once heard in your name that God is subject to logic—where can I understand this better? It sounds strange to me that God is subject to something.
4. I also heard in your name that you like Rabbi Kook’s answer to the question of why God created the world—that because He is perfect, He therefore cannot perfect Himself, so He created a world that can become perfected, and through that He perfects Himself. Where can I read more about this explanation? It seems strange to me to claim that God is selfish and created the world so that He would be more complete, in my opinion…
5. The eternity of the world—from what you know, is it clear that the world was created and is not eternal?
Answer
- No. He is indeed lacking, as you wrote in section 4.
- Ask him. In my view this has no basis whatsoever.
- See here on the site. Search for “the laws of logic.” There are many discussions of this.
- Search here for perfection and self-perfection.
- Probably yes. Material things did not exist from all eternity, especially since today physics also says this.