Q&A: Determinism and Revelation, Torah and Reality
Determinism and Revelation, Torah and Reality
Question
Good evening, Rabbi Michi,
A few months ago I asked about your explanation of the two tunnels that connect in faith: one being the various philosophical proofs that God exists, and the other being the tradition we have about revelation and the Torah. At the time I argued that, in my opinion, the weak link is the assumption that if there is a God who created the world, then He would necessarily also reveal Himself and communicate, and therefore the tunnels are parallel and will never meet. The Rabbi claimed that I was being stubborn, and in the end the discussion was dropped.
Today, after reading Column 691, and also a small comment I left there, the above question came up for me even more strongly.
The Rabbi advocates what seems, rightly, to be the view that the world is completely deterministic (except sometimes at the quantum level). There is no room for miracles. That does not mean God cannot perform them, but in reality it does not seem that there are any, and there is no reason to hope for them. If so, then there is also no room for individual providence, or even general providence. There is almost no chance that prayers will help, because everything is predetermined, fixed, and unchanging.
My question is: how can one, on the one hand, assume and strongly argue that it is reasonable to suppose that the God who created the world revealed Himself / will reveal Himself, when on the other hand we conclude that God does not intervene in the world at all? If the world were not deterministic, then clearly one could say that God intervenes in every movement, and presumably there would be room to assume that He would reveal Himself. But if God Himself created the world in such a way that He does not intervene in its course, then the reasonable assumption would say that He also would not reveal Himself, because that too is intervention. Therefore the assumption that He presumably did reveal Himself / will reveal Himself is not reasonable.
In addition, from the Torah itself it appears that God does intervene in the world. Whether the miracle stories happened in reality or are parables, the message is that actions cause consequences here in this world. For example, sins cause the Flood and the descent into the Egyptian exile; faith in God brings redemption and a return to the Land of Israel; prayer and crying out save; God listens and communicates, commands and acts. In other words, the Torah educates us against determinism, whereas the reality we know is deterministic—is this not a fundamental contradiction between reality and the Torah? It does not seem that they came from the same source.
With blessings,
Lavi
Answer
Revelation is a one-time event, and since there are good arguments that it would happen, and a tradition has come down to us that it indeed did happen, there is no reason to rule it out. As for the miracles too, there was apparently a change in the Holy One’s policy. In the past He was involved, through prophets and open miracles. This changed in later generations, and so I assume that the hidden miracles also diminished until they disappeared.
Discussion on Answer
I will repeat what I wrote, and with this I will conclude.
The revelation at Mount Sinai is an event that is very reasonable to accept, because there are arguments that would lead us to expect it, and testimonies that it occurred. Other events are less expected, and there is more room to cast doubt on them. Still, there is a tradition about them, and especially since if the revelation at Mount Sinai occurred, why assume that they did not?
I did not say that a miraculous event cannot occur, only that in practice it does not occur in these generations. In earlier generations it does seem that such events occurred, and that points to a change in the Holy One’s policy. That’s all. With that, I’m done.
I feel that I am imposing too much, but it does not seem to me that I received an answer to my question. The Rabbi explained a change in policy; that is an excuse (a rather strained one) after we already believe. I am asking about the stages that come before that.
Part of the Rabbi’s proof system, the two tunnels, relies on the assumption that if there is a God, He will desire to reveal Himself. Another assumption, which in my opinion is very similar, is that He will also intervene in the world (providence). After all, the Torah hammers this home in dozens of variations of stories and promises. In my opinion, the two assumptions have similar reasoning and motivation, and if one turns out to be wrong, the second assumption is undermined as well.
Since today we do not see providence, we understand that the world operates according to the laws of nature; the assumption that a Creator would supervise His world appears to be mistaken. Since this assumption is mistaken, the assumption that the Creator would reveal Himself is also mistaken.
After all, it is obvious that we do not understand His motives, and if we concluded that He does not supervise—even though we seemingly should have expected that, especially in light of what is written in the Torah—then neither is He expected to reveal Himself. He chose to remain distant from His world. So it turns out that we are left with a missing link in the chain of proofs, or with two tunnels that were not dug toward one another and apparently will never meet.
I apologize for the stubbornness, but if I don’t ask, I won’t get an answer.
The revelation at Mount Sinai was a one-time event, but there were other revelations that we learn about from the Torah itself: the revelation to Abraham, the revelation at the burning bush, many miracles such as the plagues of Egypt, the splitting of the Red Sea, the miracles in the wilderness (the well, the manna, the pillars of cloud and fire, and more) that continued for decades, and prophets for hundreds of years afterward. All these are not just a one-time event. It clearly appears that according to the stories of the Hebrew Bible and the tradition, whether they occurred in reality or were parable or dream, God definitely revealed Himself and intervened over long periods in different ways.
According to your view that intervention in a deterministic world is impossible, that there are no gaps, then how did all this happen? Did the world become deterministic at the end of the age of the prophets, but not from the creation of the world onward? And if it has been that way since its formation, then clearly we need to find another explanation for the contradiction between determinism and miracles—for there were so many miracles, so why should I conclude that there are none today (at least the small miracles)?
But my question is more fundamental: while from the Torah we see the opposite of determinism, reality proves otherwise. Something here does not add up, or as I wrote, it does not seem that the deterministic world and the Torah, which endlessly tells of and preaches divine intervention, came from the same creator (unless the Torah is no longer relevant today, and if so then it is not eternal).
More power to you