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The duty of obedience – to God or to morality?

שו"תקטגוריה: faithThe duty of obedience – to God or to morality?
שאל לפני 9 חודשים

Hello Rabbi,
From what I have read and heard of you, you believe that the obligation to obey morality stems from the fact that it is the divine will, as reflected in the fact that God has instilled in us a conscience. This is similar to the obligation to obey the Torah (except that according to you, morality and the Torah are two separate categories, but in any case the obligation to them stems from the same source – the obligation to obey the divine will).
Assuming I have indeed understood your method correctly, I do not understand why there is a personal obligation to obey the divine will.
It is much more likely in my opinion that the pyramid of authority is actually reversed, that the basic obligation is obedience to morality and that obedience to the divine will also stems from the assumption that God is good and moral, and therefore it is certain that His will is also good and moral and therefore must be observed. (And if so, there is no longer any essential difference between the Torah and morality, but both fall under the category of morality and the difference is at most that morality is apparent to a human being and therefore binding even without a divine command, as opposed to the commandments of the Torah which are sometimes not apparent as moral and therefore can only be known to be so by the fact that the moral God commanded them to be observed.)
Of course, one can also ask about my proposal why there is a basic obligation to obey morality, but in my opinion this is a basic axiom that is clear to every reasonable person – that one must do what is good and moral, in contrast to the obligation to obey God, which I do not see as a point in itself without moral consideration. For example, if God were evil (assuming that such a thing is even possible), would there still be an obligation to obey his evil and immoral commands? In my opinion, no, since the authority is of morality and not of the divine will itself, but in your opinion, apparently yes…?
Many thanks to the rabbi for the investment in answering the questions, not at all obvious.


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מיכי צוות ענה לפני 9 חודשים
In my opinion, the obligation to obey God is not a moral obligation. If it were a moral obligation, there would be a loophole here (obedience to God is because of morality and obedience to morality is because of God). See my article on philosophical gratitude here on the site. The background to this is that I do not agree that there can be a commitment to morality without a commitment to God. See columns 456-7.

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