[Avodah] what G-d can't do

[Micha Berger]

On Wed, Jul 23, 2008 at 03:32:24PM -0700, Eli Turkel wrote:
:  "On Divine Omnipotence and its Limitations", Hakirah Volume 2,
: : available from: http://www.hakirah.org/Vol%202%20Grossman.pdf

: as mentioned in the article all rishonim seem to agree that G-d can't do
: things against logic or basic physics laws.
: He separately mentions that Ramchal disagrees.

Well, RYG could speak for himself, but...

He gives three categories: logic, math/geometry, and philosophy/
theology. Natural laws, while considered at the time part of philosophy,
are generally considered contingent by rishonim, except *perhaps*
according to the Ralbag. The question of whether the Ralbag believed in
violations of nature has been debated here in the past.

(My take on the Maharal was originally that he was attacking the Ralbag
for not believing they were possible. Then it was showed to me that
the Maharal's objection was on something far less extreme. However,
the Ralbag's take in hashgachah is that it's limited to insuring people
know specific things at specific times, which is far too small to include
nissim geluyim.

: Are there other achronim that say that G-d can (if he wishes) violate logic or
: basic laws of physics (eg change events in the past)

As I already wrote, I don't know what "change" means when the starting
state and ending state are assigned to the same point in time. And as
above, discussions of nissim geluyim -- qeriyas Yam Suf for example --
clearly violate laws of nature (or at least posit exceptions to the
rules created into the system).

But in terms of things where I agree most rishonim declared impossible
even for the Omnipotent Deity, I do not know if the Ramchal is alone.

Rav Tzadoq writes in Resisei Lailah 17:
    Whenever a new thing about the Torah is found by a wise person,
    simultaneously arises its opposite... When it comes to the realm
    of po'al (action), it can't be that two [contradictory] things are
    true simultaneously. In the realm of machshavah (thought) on the
    other hand, it is impossible for a person to think about one thing
    without considering the opposite.
However, he's contrasting talmud Torah, where paradox is inevitable,
with pesaq halakhah. Human action, not Hashem's. So I don't know how
literally to take his "can't".

The Mussarists who bought into Kant's idea that we only know the
phenomenological universe (the world as experienced) and not what's "out
there" are entirely outside of this discussion. Kant argues his point
based on the existence of antinomies, things that would be paradoxes if
the world under discussion didn't involve human perception, and people's
ability to conceive of paradox. That includes REED, who discusses a
person's ability to switch universes based on what he looks for in them,
and the Alter of Slabodka (also cited by RAEK) who speak about "bishvili
nivra ha'olam" in terms of Hashem creating a separate universe for each
person, that only overlap because people cooperate.

My problem with the Ramchal's position is that if he truly believed that
Hashem could defy logic, how did he write Derekh Hashem, Da'as Tevunos,
or Qela"ch Sha'arei Chokhmah? Why would the Ramchal bother trying to
reason about theology?

When RYG and I recently discussed on-list that essay in Hakira,
I mentioned that today we would have to adapt that statement about
geometry. Euclid's geometry was shown to be just one example of a
consistent geometry and there are even others that exist that (after
Einstein) are meaningful to physicists. So perhaps if the Rambam were
aware of Reimann and Lobaschevskian spaces, he would have said it was
impossible for Hashem to do something that didn't work in any geometry.

Similarly, there are now alternatives to Aristotle's and Boole's logic,
and they are used in fuzzy logic in modern control systems (possibly in
your thermostat), in Quantum Mechanics, and elsewhere. Even statistics
can be considered an alternative to Aristotilian logic. So perhaps the
Rambam would have to similarly broaden his statement to include all
possible logics.

In which case, he wouldn't be that far from the Ramchal. In fact, that
mjight be what the Ramchal meant, recast in modern terms. The Ramchal
called logic a beri'ah, and thus Hashem isn't subject to it. In modern
terms: Since the fact that the world of po'al (at least above the quantum
scale) is boolean is itself a feature of how the universe was created,
Hashem could choose to let things operate by other logics at whim.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             A sick person never rejects a healing procedure
micha at aishdas.org        as "unbefitting." Why, then, do we care what
http://www.aishdas.org   other people think when dealing with spiritual
Fax: (270) 514-1507      matters?              - Rav Yisrael Salanter