Q&A: God — a Compassionate and Gracious God
God — a Compassionate and Gracious God
Question
Hello,
There is a question that I really haven’t found an answer to. I’d be glad if the Rabbi could help.
Why do we assume that God is good? And not on the basis of the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh).
(If the Rabbi claims that He is perfect, then I will ask, all the more so, where the very idea of perfection comes from.)
Answer
Why not on the basis of the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh)? It’s from the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh).
Discussion on Answer
I have lots of medium-level arguments, and I don’t see any point in them. Why do you need an argument if there is information? Do you have an argument for the law of gravity? It simply exists because we’ve observed it. Even though I have hereby been appointed one of the greatest philosophers, a great philosopher needs to know where philosophy isn’t needed and what it cannot do.
If it were only one mediocre argument, fine.
But if there are lots of different arguments, then they can be combined. And even if no argument can stand on its own, together each will help the other, and one will say to his brother, “Be strong.”
Maybe the Rabbi could just write the titles of the arguments so I can look them up on Google or something like that. 🙂
K., I don’t consider myself a search engine, and I have no interest in dealing with valueless arguments.
First of all, you need to ask yourself why you assume that you are good.
After that, you need to ask why you assume that God is good in the same way you are.
Then you begin to understand the problem. And then you begin to ask: what is good at all? Who decides?
In Maimonides’ view, the statement that something exists and the statement that it is good use different predicates that point to the same thing. The explanation is long, but in my opinion anyone who studies the issue will be able to see the correctness of this. From here, it will not be difficult to see that the source of existence for all things is in fact the supreme good and the standard for every possible good.
The claim that God is good is the claim of the holy books. If you see a person for whom things are going well, or whose burden has been eased, someone will say that this happened because of God’s goodness. But even without examining human fate:
A dolphin gets tangled in a net and of course slowly begins to suffocate from lack of air. The terrible suffering ends with its death.
How often does this happen? About 800 times every single day.
A chick is ground up in metal blades.
How often does this happen? In Israel alone, about 25,000 every day.
Nestlings are cast to their deaths by their siblings.
Animals are eaten while still alive.
Animals die from smoke inhalation.
Animals die from gunfire.
Animals die from cold.
Animals die from poisoning.
Animals die from abuse.
Animals are burned to death.
And in the end what are we told?:
“The Lord is good to all, and His mercies are upon all His works.”
The question of the thread is: from where do we know that the Holy One, blessed be He, is good. You are raising an objection from reality, and that is already a different question, which I actually have answered in several places.
Here very briefly: https://mikyab.net/%D7%A9%D7%95%D7%AA/%D7%A8%D7%95%D7%A2-%D7%91%D7%A2%D7%95%D7%9C%D7%9D/
And here:
https://mikyab.net/%D7%A9%D7%95%D7%AA/%D7%9E%D7%A0%D7%99%D7%A2%D7%AA-%D7%94%D7%A8%D7%A2-%D7%91%D7%A2%D7%95%D7%9C%D7%9D/
And here:
https://mikyab.net/%D7%A9%D7%95%D7%AA/%D7%91%D7%A2%D7%99%D7%99%D7%AA-%D7%94%D7%A8%D7%95%D7%A2-%D7%95%D7%94%D7%A1%D7%91%D7%9C/
And many more.
Does our master, may he live long, one of the greatest people in philosophy and especially theology of all time, have some argument for God’s goodness?.. Even a medium-level argument~?