Q&A: Inferring God's Will from the Proofs of His Existence Is Not Necessary
Inferring God's Will from the Proofs of His Existence Is Not Necessary
Question
Dear Rabbi Michi,
First of all, thank you for the opportunity to reach out, ask for some of your time, and receive answers to questions.
For years I have been reading your writings, and recently I also watched some of the debates online—definitely fascinating and enlightening. If I understood your approach correctly, you argue that from the point at which we infer that God exists with rational probability until the inference that the Torah in our hands was given by Him, there is a twofold process, and the initial assumption of A necessarily affects our attitude toward B. In one place I saw that you said it is like two tunnels being dug from opposite sides of a mountain and meeting in the middle: neither side is a tunnel that goes all the way through unless the two tunnels meet in the middle, and therefore each one supports and proves the other (I hope I understood you accurately).
After we infer that God exists, the tradition we have (the Torah, the witness argument, etc.) will meet the first inference somewhere in the middle of the way, and therefore any challenge to inferring tradition and Torah from Heaven has to be stronger, since the starting assumption is that there is a God, and from that point—somewhere inside the mountain—the second tunnel only has to reach there. That is, we assume with high probability that we should expect revelation and a Torah from Heaven; we only need to identify that authentic Torah.
But here is the problem: the proofs for God's existence—however strong they may be—prove only that there is a creator, but they do not necessarily prove the next link in the chain: that the creating God wants something from His creatures (other than their very existence and their actions according to the fixed mechanisms embedded in them—determinism?).
The biblical text is a foundational text only after we conclude that it is true and authentic (despite all the many difficulties in it, because if we conclude that the Torah is heavenly and authentic, that is no longer relevant). According to your view, part of the probability leading to that conclusion depends on the starting point that there is a God. But in my opinion, that is not the relevant starting point. The starting point should be the inference that the existing God wants to reveal Himself and demand certain things from us. In my opinion, that is not a plausible starting assumption. It seems far more likely that the creator is not interested in demanding anything from His creations other than their very existence according to the mechanisms He implanted in them (based on the proofs of His existence).
For example, take any advanced technology, however sophisticated—say, a Swiss watch full of mechanisms (not necessarily on the seashore…). The watchmaker created it in order to tell the time, perhaps also to enjoy the splendid technology and play around with it, but he does not demand that the hands of the watch act and choose something on their own; rather, he wants them to operate in the way he designed and created them and the mechanisms that drive them.
This is where the weak link lies in connecting the two tunnels. The assumption that the Creator is interested in requiring His creatures to act in a certain way, and therefore it is likely that He revealed Himself to them, is an assumption without compelling rational basis. God—the one we have inferred to exist—created an amazing wonder called the world, with many mechanisms, including living creatures and human beings with rational capacity. But that rational capacity is itself part of the game mechanisms. Just as plants grow, just as there are animal instincts, so too reason is basically just another mechanism created to function the way the creator made it.
And from here also to the argument about morality: even if morality had to be established by God, that is no different at the level of creation from the mechanism of viral evolution or any other natural selection. It is a mechanism embedded in human beings and not necessarily in animals (after all, according to the common view, it is immoral for a person to eat his neighbor with appetite, whereas for an animal to prey on another animal to satisfy its hunger is not immoral).
I am prepared to accept that all the complexity and the existence of morality (which do require what they require) were created by an entity whose nature I can grasp only beyond imagination and a heap of words and definitions. But the weak link is this: how do we know that this entity wants to communicate with us, reveal itself, command, demand actions? All these are assumptions that stem from human thought and the entrenchment of religions, perhaps from feelings and experiences—but what do they have to do with rational necessity?
After taking the liberty of going on at some length, I would appreciate it if the Rabbi could shed light for me on the rationale for this weak link, because otherwise we have two tunnels being dug in parallel that will never meet.
With great respect
Lavi
Answer
First, the very assumption that there is a Creator of the world strengthens the tradition, because some of its opponents begin from the premise that there is no one to reveal Himself. So I disagree with your basic assumption.
Second, I explained in The Primary Entity why, in my opinion, it is plausible a priori that He would reveal Himself. We were given free choice (I am a libertarian), so it is reasonable that He wants something from us. But He wants it for His use and for His sake, just like the watchmaker. But a watch has no choice.
But as for your question, how do we know He wants to communicate with us? Beyond the a priori argument I wrote, also from the tradition we received. Here again the two halves of the tunnel connect.
I did not understand your question about morality, or perhaps you did not understand my argument (it too is detailed there in the fourth lecture). I do not prove the existence of God from morality; rather, I argue that if someone believes in valid morality, he necessarily presupposes the existence of God (because without Him there is no valid morality). Therefore your claim—which basically means that there is no valid morality—is not relevant to my argument. To prove God from morality is pragmatism, and I reject that entirely. I do not adopt assumptions because they are convenient or useful to me.
Discussion on Answer
This is not digging two tunnels in parallel, as I explained. I do not see the point of repeating the explanation I already wrote when you have not raised any counterargument to it.
Are you confusing yourself or me? First you said that this is probably for His sake and not for ours, and now you are asking how we know it is for His sake and why not for ours.
I explained the issue of applying our intellect to Him. I have nothing to add.
As for morality, I did not understand a thing.
To prove from the tradition that God communicates with His creatures is a tunnel in its own right. The existence of God is not the second half of the tunnel; even Aristotle's God did not communicate or intervene in the world. The second half of the tunnel, as I understand it, has to be an inference that it is probable that God would reveal Himself to His creatures. I cannot reach that conclusion from the proofs of God's existence, and I have no proof for it (other than the tradition, which is not convincing without the starting point that it is likely God would reveal Himself).
Let me try to sharpen the second point. God created mechanisms; free choice is one of them. He wanted the mechanism of choice to be part of the world, with its variety of mechanisms. But I have no reason at all to infer that He wanted me to use my choice to please Him (without an explicit command). He simply wanted me to choose something, just as every other mechanism does something.
The same applies to morality.
Thank you very much.
I don't know what is unclear here. It seems that you are simply insisting on not understanding the basic point. I'll try one more time, and I suggest we wrap this up.
There is a chain of claims that leads to faith and religious commitment. Briefly: that there is a God. That He revealed Himself and gave a Torah. Gave it to the people of Israel. This is the Torah familiar to us that has reached us. Such a chain is not all that strong, because each of the links can be challenged. If I have shown some of the first links, that strengthens the chain. And if I have shown the end, that in turn further strengthens the whole chain. This is so even though each link can be challenged. That is not a claim against it, because that is precisely what my argument is meant to solve: the strength of the chain is greater than the strength of each link separately.
I argue that there is good evidence that there is a God. True, maybe it is Buddha, Gilgamesh, or Zeus. But maybe it is also the Holy One, blessed be He. This God created the world, so it is not reasonable that it is Buddha (who was a human being within the world). After that I expect Him to give us something, because every creator wants to achieve something. True, maybe it is Aristotle's God (even though that is utterly implausible, but let us leave that aside for now). But then a tradition comes to me that a Torah was given to us. So you insist that nevertheless it is Aristotle's God and the Torah is a fiction invented along the way. Don't you understand that this is a weaker argument than claiming it is a fiction without my having the beginning of the chain? And conversely, without the chain and the tradition, the first argument—that He expects something from us, since perhaps it is Aristotle's God—is weaker.
In the second part, the root of the misunderstanding is your use of the term "mechanism." Choice is not a mechanism. Therefore one cannot say: I will choose something just as every other thing does something. Another thing does something, but in choice I am the one who chooses, and therefore it is reasonable that He expects me to choose something. That is exactly the difference between choice and a deterministic mechanism.
That's it. I think we have exhausted the matter.
Thank you for your response, Rabbi Michi.
Since we have reached the end of the discussion, just to summarize the points of disagreement:
A. In Rabbi Michi's view, the God who created the world (for which there are proofs) is also likely to reveal Himself to His creatures. My claim is that without external proof (that is not based on reasoning or tradition) that God needs to reveal Himself / did reveal Himself, this is the weak link.
B. In Rabbi Michi's view, since free choice was given, it stands to reason that the giver of choice expects people to choose in a certain way (and similarly regarding valid morality). In my opinion, without an explicit command to choose a certain way or to act morally, even if free choice or morality were given by God, these are only mechanisms (or in the Rabbi's language, a "mechanism") that do not necessarily obligate me merely by virtue of the fact that God created them.
Again, many thanks for the wonderful and fruitful site!
A. You are ignoring the other side of the tunnel. You missed the whole point.
B. Choice is not a mechanism. Note this well.
Many thanks for the clear and quick response.
First, I can only agree that belief in God itself makes it possible that He revealed Himself. Someone who does not believe at all, from his perspective there is no one to reveal Himself, and if the proof of revelation is not strong enough to prove that there is a God, then it is not proof even of revelation itself, since it has nothing to stand on.
But this is still digging two tunnels in parallel, because existence is one thing and an inference about conduct is another. I do not have your book The Primary Entity on hand; if there is a link to it I would be happy to read it, or any other article explaining the point (I read the notebooks eagerly years ago already, and have gone through them several times since).
Summing up your words here: from the fact that we have free choice, it follows that it was given to us so that we would choose. That does make sense (just as we were given eyes to see and not to smell), but why should I infer that free choice itself is for His use and for His sake דווקא? Are the gazelle's legs and the dog's nose necessarily operating for His use and for His sake?
Similar to a random mechanism—the creator of the mechanism does not know what the results will be, but he defined it that way because from his point of view every result is desirable, since the result he sought to achieve was a random reality—so too with free choice. Granting free choice does not necessarily entail a command to choose the good, were it not for the command "and choose life." It simply shows that the one who granted it wanted to implement a mechanism of choice and nothing more (without getting into the question of knowledge and choice, where it is clear to me that God does not know at all what we will choose, and this is not the place to elaborate).
And regarding morality, I think I understood your view, but I argue that it is basically just another mechanism among the variety of mechanisms that were created, and therefore it is not binding in itself, as long as—or if—you do not believe that there is a divine command regarding it. There may be binding definitions formulated by human beings, from Hillel's statement of "what is hateful to you," etc., to Kant's categorical imperative (and these two do have something in common), but according to you, the definition of the objective reality of morality must be external, and whoever believes in that must believe that there is an entity that created it. What I am arguing is that even if, as you say, that is so, it is not necessarily true that God created morality—but how do we know that it is His will that this necessarily be done? These are just more definitions that are part of the great game setup.