Q&A: Why Is the World This Way and Not Another Way?
Why Is the World This Way and Not Another Way?
Question
Hello Rabbi,
I wanted to ask about one of the proofs people like to mention when they want to talk about an intelligent designer: “Why is the world this way and not another way?” Leibniz’s question.
It became sharper for me בעקבות the Talmud in Sanhedrin, where someone asks why the sun rises in the east and sets in the west, and one of the Amoraim answers him that he would have asked the same thing even if it were the other way around.
Along those lines, is it really proof of anything that the world is this way and not another way, or would I ask that no matter what the world looked like?
Thank you very much
Answer
The question is not why it is this way and not another way, but why it is so complex and not simpler.