[Avodah] "Does God Change His Mind?"

[Micha Berger]

On Thu, February 7, 2008 5:55 am, R Michael Makovi wrote:
: Rav Berkovits explicitly says in G-d Man and History that Hashem
: actually did experience that emotion; He does NOT act "as if" angry,
: but rather, He actually is angry....
: I'm not sure if Rav Berkovits however counts as a "hashkafah that
: [has] survived to this day". ;-D

In the eyes of most O Jews, it isn't. Frankly it's ideas like these
that kept REB on the sidelines of Torah thought. I know from repeated
citations that you think highly of his approach; however, I would
hazard to guess that most of us do not see them as particularly
mainstream.

Overly anthropomorphic, complete with Rav Saadia Gaon's, the Rambam's
and the Kuzari's problems with assigning positive attributes. It also
doesn't work in a timeless context -- it would mean that Hashem feels
every emotion at once.

:> Michael Makovi wrote:
: What, no R'?

I don't always catch the line my email reader automatically places
before quoting. (And, as you can tell, I use more than one email
reader depending on where I am, that do different things. One with
time stamp, as in the first line, one without.) Sorry.

...
: In your blog, you yourself say this is not the case, for it is not
: that He is now resting and letting His work carry on; He created the
: entire 4D sculpture at once, and it is only our perception of time
: that makes it seem as if time is passing. But still, I'd say, the
: result is about the same, viz. He created the sculpture and now the
: sculpture does whatever it does, without input.

Not at all! There is input, the input is equal at every moment:
"hamchadeish betuvo bekhol yom tamid ma'aseh bereishis". However, it's
only one input, one "Act". Remove the "and now" from your last
statement, it shows you didn't fully embrace the model. The sculpture
doesn't do anything after its creation, "after" is one of the
dimensions within the sculpture. You turned my 4D sculpture into a 4D
movie, creating a second concept of time in addition to the one folded
into the model.

...
: So, instead, I would say, He Himself is outside time, but when He
: interacts with the world, He perforce does so within the limits of
: time and place; not that He is within time and place, but His act
: itself is. It's like if I interact with a software program. I myself
: am not within the limits of the software, but my act itself is.

Actually, your act is mechanical, hitting a key, moving a mouse,
etc... Your act has IMPACT on the software.

SheTir'u baTov!
-micha

-- 
Micha Berger             "Man wants to achieve greatness overnight,
micha at aishdas.org        and he wants to sleep well that night too."
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