Q&A: Knowledge of the Holy One, Blessed Be He, from Our Own Perspective
Knowledge of the Holy One, Blessed Be He, from Our Own Perspective
Question
Hello Rabbi, there is a claim that all of our conclusions about the Holy One, Blessed Be He, are only from our own perspective, but the Holy One, Blessed Be He, the Infinite, is in the category of a mystery and is not limited by anything at all, not even logic. This claim comes up repeatedly in debates about free choice and divine foreknowledge, for example. Is it really possible to distinguish between our God and the Infinite itself? And what does that mean?
Answer
Not in those senses. When I speak about something, including God as He is in Himself, this is done within my conceptual world. All of these are evasions meant to avoid giving an answer to hard questions. A statement like that really says nothing. Take, for example, the claim that He is not limited by logic. Then at the same time He is also limited by it, because without logic there is nothing to prevent adopting both a statement and its opposite. So what exactly have you said here?
Discussion on Answer
Indeed correct. I agree with every word. This distorted idea of the “unity of opposites” came to us from Christianity through the mediation of Hasidism.
Copenhagen, again, you are contradicting yourself.
Someone bound by the laws of logic cannot be the First Cause. And yet you are imposing your laws of logic on God.
And as for the question itself, this is a very important question. It points to a very major problem in the whole conception. When a Jew says the blessing, “Blessed are You,” what does he mean? Who is this “You”?
And indeed, according to reason, we are limited to a certain level of perception and relation, and we cannot relate to God, because He is beyond all understanding and reason and logic and morality and every other human attribute. And therefore there is always a trace of idolatry in this. In the end, if a person relates to something, it will always be to some concept that exists within his own soul. It is never to something outside him.
Point,
I did not claim that there is someone outside God who forces the laws of logic on Him. That is your arbitrary decision to put that claim in my mouth.
When a Jew recites a blessing, the meaning of the “You” is interpreted according to what is said immediately afterward: “our God, King of the universe.” There is only one answer to the question of who the God of Israel and King of the universe is, and it cannot be an entity that did not create the universe. It would have been correct to say that there is a concern here for idolatry if there were more than one possibility as to who the Creator of the universe is—for example, like those Christians who associate “God the Father” with some distinct “Logos” identified with “God the Son” in creation; there, it is a problem.
The Christians were mistaken; they did not know about Grandpa’s existence. Copenhagen is actually the Son’s grandfather and God’s father—he tells God what He is and what He can be, and how He has to behave and what is imposed on Him. It may even be that on Yom Kippur God comes and asks Copenhagen’s forgiveness for the sins He committed against him.
Point, notice that you too are forcing God into the mold you set out for Him, though I am not sure I agree with Copenhagen.
You do not understand what is meant. When people say that God is subject to logic, they do not mean that someone is forcing Him to obey it. They are not “laws” like traffic laws. For example: Mr. Point asks God to create for him a wall that cannot be penetrated and also a missile that penetrates every wall. God asks Mr. Point: do you want that missile to succeed in penetrating the wall or not? Mr. Point does not let God confuse him and explains to God very eloquently that He is not subject to the laws of logic, so there is no problem. Copenhagen argues that God still will not give Point the longed-for missile and wall. Why? Not because some “legislator of the laws of logic” is forcing Him, but simply because Point’s request is undefined, since it contains a logical contradiction.
D,
you are even worse than Copenhagen in the way you concretize God.
You are claiming that God is subject both to the laws of logic and to the laws of physics. In order for you to ask God for something, He has to be subject to the laws of physics.
I was only explaining Copenhagen’s words.
Your second sentence is utter nonsense. I can absolutely ask God for things, and He does not have to be subject to any law. When I pray every day, am I violating some prohibition of concretizing God, in your opinion?
Noam,
If the “Infinite” is a more original or primordial stage than the Holy One, Blessed Be He, as He appears from our own perspective, then that Holy One, Blessed Be He, of “our own perspective” is not the First Cause, and it is forbidden to worship Him or relate to Him as God.
The ability to violate the laws of logic does not exist in the Judaism of the medieval thinkers; it is a relatively late invention of various self-styled mystics. With it you can collapse all of Judaism anywhere you want. A god who is not bound by the laws of logic would have no problem, for example, choosing Joseph Smith as a true prophet binding on the Jewish people despite the contradiction to the Torah, or canceling all the commandments and commanding murder just for fun. In addition, this runs contrary to the Cartesian intuition that God is not a deceiver, one who tricks us into grasping the law of non-contradiction as necessarily true and true in every possible world. I have a hard time understanding how anyone can take this nonsense seriously.