חדש באתר: NotebookLM עם כל תכני הרב מיכאל אברהם. דומה למיכי בוט.

Deducing God's will from the evidence for his existence is not necessary.

שו"תDeducing God's will from the evidence for his existence is not necessary.
שאל לפני שנה 1

Honorable Rabbi Michi
First, I would like to thank you for the opportunity to ask for your time and answer the questions.
I have been reading your words for years and recently I have also watched some of the debates on the Internet, they are certainly fascinating and I am looking forward to them! If I understood your method correctly, you claim that from the point at which we conclude that God exists with rational probability to the inference that the Torah in our hands was given by Him, there is a double process and the starting assumption of A necessarily affects our attitude towards B. In one place I saw that you claimed that it is similar to two tunnels that are carved from both sides of the mountain and meet in the middle, each side is not a tunnel that goes from one side to the other unless the two tunnels meet in the middle, so one supports and proves the other (I hope I understood you correctly).
After we have concluded that there is a God, the tradition we have (the Torah, the witness argument, etc.) will meet the first inference somewhere halfway, and therefore any challenge to the inference of tradition and Torah from heaven should be stronger, because the point of assumption/starting point is that there is a God and from this point – somewhere in the middle of the mountain, the second tunnel should only reach there, meaning we assume with a high probability that we have an expectation of revelation and Torah from heaven, we just need to find that authentic Torah.
But here, the proofs for the existence of God – no matter how strong they may be – only prove that there is a creator, but do not necessarily prove the next link in the chain that the creator God wants something from his creatures (apart from their very existence and their actions according to the mechanisms established in them – determinism?).
The biblical text is a foundational text only after we conclude that it is true and authentic (despite all the perplexities it contains, and they are many, because if we conclude that the Torah is heavenly and authentic, it is irrelevant). In your opinion, part of the plausibility leading to this conclusion depends on the starting point that there is a God, but in my opinion, this is not the relevant point. The starting point should be the inference that the existing God wants to reveal himself and demand certain things from us. This is an assumption that is not reasonable in my opinion, it is much more clear that the Creator is not interested in demanding anything from his creatures other than their very existence according to the mechanisms he has embedded in them (based on the evidence for his existence).
For example, let's take any technology, no matter how advanced it may be, for example a Swiss watch with many mechanisms (not exactly on the beach…). The creator of the watch created it in order to tell the time, perhaps even to enjoy the magnificent technology and play with it, but he does not require the hands of the watch to act and choose anything on their own, but rather he wants them to operate in the way he designed and created them and the mechanisms that operate them.
Here lies the weak link in the connection between the two tunnels. The assumption that the Creator wishes to demand that His creatures behave in a certain way and therefore it is reasonable that He revealed Himself to them is an assumption without a necessary rational basis. God – who we have concluded exists – created an amazing wonder called the world, with many mechanisms, including living creatures and humans with intelligent capacity. But this intelligent capacity is part of the mechanisms of the game, just as plants grow, like animal instincts, so intelligence is in the G-d another mechanism created to function as the Creator created.
And hence the argument about morality, even if morality had to be determined by God, it is no different at the level of creation from the mechanism of evolution of viruses or any other natural selection. It is a mechanism that is inherent in humans and not necessarily in animals (after all, it is immoral – in the prevailing perception – for a person to eat his neighbor for appetite, for an animal to devour another animal to satisfy hunger).
I am willing to accept that the entire complexity and reality of morality (requiring that they be) were created by an entity whose perception is limited beyond imagination and the stacking of words and definitions, but the weak link is; how do we know that this entity wants to communicate with us, to reveal itself, to command, to demand actions? All of these are assumptions that stem from human thought and the rooting of religions, perhaps from feelings and experiences, but what do they have to do with rational necessity?
After a little digression, I would be grateful to the rabbi if he could enlighten me on the rationale for this weak link, otherwise there are two tunnels being dug in parallel that will never meet.
With great appreciation
Lavie


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מיכי צוות ענה לפני שנה 1
First, the very assumption that there is a Creator of the world strengthens the tradition, since some of its opponents start from the premise that there is no one to reveal. Therefore, I disagree with your fundamental assumption. Second, I explained in the first statement why I think it is a priori likely that he will be revealed. We were given a choice (I am a libertarian), and therefore it is likely that he wants something from us. But he wants it for his own use and for himself, just like the watchmaker. But the watch has no choice. But to your question, where does he want to communicate with us? Beyond the a priori argument I wrote, also from the tradition we received. Here again the two halves of the tunnel connect. I either didn't understand your question about morality, or you didn't understand my argument (which is also detailed there in the fourth conversation). I am not proving the existence of God from morality, but rather claiming that if someone believes in valid morality, they necessarily assume the existence of God (because without him there is no valid morality). Therefore, your claim, which essentially means that there is no valid morality, is irrelevant to my argument. Proving God from morality is pragmatism, and I completely reject it. I don't adopt assumptions because they are convenient or useful to me.

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