Q&A: Value in Simple Faith?
Value in Simple Faith?
Question
Hello, honorable Rabbi,
Is there value in someone who believes in God מתוך "simple faith" and not out of rationality?
What about people who don’t have a high level of thinking ability? Personally, I really love reading your articles and listening to your classes on faith and so on, but I know many people who wouldn’t understand a word.
If you’ve already written about this, I’d be happy if you could point me to it.
Akiva
Answer
I’ve addressed this more than once, also in The First Cause and in various series. There’s no such thing as naive faith. Every logical argument is based on assumptions, so in the final analysis we all begin from “naive faith.” If someone believes because it seems true to him, and that’s it, that is faith in every sense, and it is no less than faith based on intricate philosophical arguments. There are people who don’t have that kind of naive faith, or who have encountered difficulties, and so they need arguments. Someone who has no trouble with it—good for him.
There is a certain advantage to someone who has examined his faith and has also encountered difficulties, because the “naive” believer may not really be a believer at all; if he had encountered the difficulties, he might have abandoned his faith. So the fact that he never encountered them does not make him a believer. He is an unconscious atheist. But no one has encountered all the difficulties and all the formulations, so in that sense you could say this about every person.
Discussion
Discussion on Answer
Unfortunately, Rabbi Michael is mistaken on this matter, as on other matters. Anyone who is not on a high enough level to know how to discard the peel and eat the fruit is advised to stay as far away from this site as possible.
After all, the Torah tells us explicitly that pure and innocent faith is the main thing, and so too all the great sages of the generations tell us. What is the commandment "And you shall tell your son" if not the Torah’s claim that the truth of faith is to be taught through education? "So that you may tell in the ears of your son and your son’s son," "And you shall tell your son," "And when your son asks you." How many sources are there showing that knowledge of God comes from one’s parents, not from all kinds of proofs or lofty emotional experiences. With all due respect, the plain meaning of Scripture does not depart from its straightforward sense.
When you grow up with the Torah and its stories and its laws, the Torah becomes the way you think. Even former religious people who become extreme describe that they cannot completely abandon “religious thinking,” and not necessarily by their own choice. The difference between childhood education and discovery at a later age is enormous. Late discovery can certainly be meaningful, sometimes even on a higher level, but there will always be an aspect that is not entirely that, because there was a period in which you knew the Torah from the outside—something a person raised religious from birth never experiences and never will experience. That component is the component of innocent faith that the Torah reveals to us in the sources I cited above, and it is the higher side of faith because it is more complete.
If you are not sufficiently knowledgeable, it makes sense that you would be seduced by Rabbi Michael’s arguments because of their logic. That is exactly why it is better for you to stay away from this site until you study for some good years in a good and respected yeshiva.
How wonderful that this site is also open to the wise-hearted, who know how to separate the wheat from the chaff and the fruit from the peel. Fortunate are we. In short: beware of seductive logic as you would of fire. Do not go near it or its ways, and remain with a clean and pure mind, free of logic.
Rabbi Michael, from you I expect an attempt to address the claims I raised, and even to accept them if you find that you are mistaken. I do not think you are a dishonest heretic, but rather that you are mistaken and have fallen off the path of faith. Therefore I do recommend learning from you for someone who is knowledgeable and knows how to understand that logic is not everything in life, and who knows the words of the Torah thoroughly. I think I even saw that you yourself admit your mistakes in matters of faith, but I don’t remember exactly where.
I’d be happy to address any argument. In your message I did not notice that type of text (arguments). It belongs more to the genre of preaching and declarations. But from someone who is wary of logic, it is hard to expect arguments. And someone who makes declarations instead of addressing arguments, while at the same time asking for his arguments to be addressed (which do not exist), is truly a hopeless case.
The verses that “Man of Truth” brought are irrelevant. They simply say that parents are obligated to educate and pass on the tradition. It doesn’t say how that is done, or how the adult who grew up with it is supposed to relate to it.
Rabbi Michi,
Your patience is simply amazing, the way you stay calm and answer all those who preach and talk nonsense.
By the way, I studied in a top-tier Haredi yeshiva and I was always the “heretic” with questions, but nobody ever answered me seriously.
I thank the Holy One, blessed be He, that I found your site (if He’s involved, of course 😄), and of course I thank you for all the articles and classes you write and give. They’re simply a pleasure to read and hear, all of them. Sound judgment and rationality are what this generation is lacking.
Why people who have no answers to questions get angry at those questions is one of the mysteries I still haven’t solved.
I’d rather live with enormous difficulties, even if it’s sometimes unpleasant, than live with forced answers.
Thank you, Akiva
Many thanks. When you meet Him, please thank Him in my name too. 🙂
Rabbi Michi,
Your patience is simply amazing, the way you calmly answer everyone who preaches and talks nonsense.
By the way, I studied in a top-tier Haredi yeshiva and I was always the “heretic” with questions, and nobody gave a serious answer. I thank God that I found your site (if He’s involved, of course 😄), and of course I thank you for all the classes and articles that are simply a pleasure to read and hear. Thank you for the rationality and for the aspiration to truth. I’d rather live with enormous difficulties than with forced answers.