Q&A: God and Nature
God and Nature
Question
Hello, Your Honor, I know that in the Rabbi’s view the Holy One, blessed be He, does not intervene in nature, and I saw a lecture by the Rabbi in another context about an unintentional killer, where God brings together at one inn two people, one deserving death and one deserving exile, and something falls on so-and-so and kills him, and the killer goes into exile. How does the Rabbi explain that if it isn’t intervention in nature?
Of course I could bring other examples from the Talmud about God’s intervention in nature; it’s just that the Rabbi himself gives this as an example in his lectures.
Answer
Why don’t you also greet me hello (instead of only greeting my honor)? 🙂
From the case of the unintentional killer I only brought proof that even in the Sages, divine involvement is only in unintentional acts, but acts done by choice are in human hands. In my view, even that is not correct (in most cases).
Discussion on Answer
But I walk behind it. Don’t I deserve some greeting too? Is it hiding me? 🙂
That is never correct. In my assessment there is no divine involvement, neither in nature nor in a person’s actions (except for sporadic cases that nobody has any way of identifying). The Sages and the Talmud thought there was, and they distinguished between intentional and unintentional acts because they thought nature really is in God’s hands. I don’t accept that, at least regarding the generations after the end of prophecy and miracles.
Could you explain what sporadic cases are?
There are dictionaries online. You can look it up there. Sporadic means occasional, esoteric. We’re talking about isolated cases, not something systematic. I cannot rule out divine involvement in a particular case that nobody saw. My claim deals with the world’s regular ongoing conduct.
I know what sporadic means, I just thought maybe you had some specific thesis about divine involvement in nature based on that… so maybe divine involvement is really in the initial process that nobody can identify, and it then rolls forward until we see ordinary cause and effect, which we interpret as nature.
Because your honor goes before you.
Can you explain in which cases it is correct?