[Avodah] Rav Elchanan Wasserman & Why People Sin

[Kaganoff via Avodah]

On Tue, Apr 28, 2015 at 12:01 PM, Micha Berger <micha at aishdas.org> wrote:

> On Thu, Mar 19, 2015 at 01:53:10PM -0400, Kaganoff via Avodah wrote:
> : For many years i had extreme difficulty with R. Elchanan Wasserman
> understanding
> : as it conflicted with my belief that Judaism (and other religions) was
> not
> : logically provable (contra to Moshe Mendelssohn and his contemporaries)
> and
> : therefore required a "leap of faith" and that a disbeliever could not be
> : faulted for failing to take such a jump.
>
> This is a false dichotomy. Logically proving things are not the only
> way to justify belief in there.
>
> How do you know that (in a flat space) two parallel lines never meet? If
> you're like me, you pictured it in your head. Even though infinite lines
> don't exist in the real world. (Nor, does it turn out, does flat space.)


Actually non-euclidean geometry is an excellent example. We cannot say with
absolute certainty that two parallel lines will never meet or that there is
only one line that goes through a particular point that is parallel to
another line, as there is a well developed body of literature on
non-Euclidean geometry (such as Riemannian Geometry).

One might "feel" strongly that Euclidean Geometry is true and non-Euclidean
Geometry is false. But someone might also feel that chocolate ice cream is
superior to vanilla ice cream. But neither can be proven.


>
> Did you figure out that oppression was evil by logical proof, or by a
> combination of imagination and empathy?
>

Calling anything "evil is not meant to be logical but rather to pull at an
audiences' heartstrings. Evil is neither logical nor illogical. Nor can one
"prove" that the Nazis are evil and that circumcision is not.

However, that is a red herring. Again, emotions are not proof. Feelings are
neither true nor false.



> My favorite example is answering the question, "Do elephants have hair?"
> A logical/verbal approach would be: Elephants are mammals, all mammals
> have hair, and so unless elephants are the exception to the rule, they
> must have hair. Elephants are well known and discussed animals. Could
> they be an exception to the rule and I don't know it? Nah, they must
> have hair.
>
> How it is more likely the question jogged your memory of elephants
> you saw, or saw pictures of. The detail may be blurry, so you may have
> to manipulate the picture a bit. Finally, a version of the picture
> which has a tuft of hair at the tail, maybe (if your memory is good)
> some downy hair around the eyes and ears, strikes you as the most
> familiar, the most real. And again you could reach the conclusion that
> elephants have hair.
>

That is a proveable thesis. One could prove either way whether or not
elephants have hair. Unlike the two earlier examples.

As for whether one could prove the existence or non-existance of God, I
don't have time now to start that discussion.


>
> (See <http://www.aishdas.org/asp/ruach-memalela> for some musings about
> the two modes of thought I'm contrasting here.)
>
> In <http://www.aishdas.org/asp/argument-by-design-ver-40> I compare
> different versions of the Argument from Design from R' Aqiva's response
> to the apiqoreis through the Rambam, through similar approaches based
> on more modern science.
>
>     "G-d created" (Gen. 1:1): A hereic came to Rabbi Aqiva and asked,
>     "Who made the universe?". Rabbi Aqiva answered, "HQBH". The heretic
>     said, "Prove it to me." Rabbi Aqiva said, "Come to me tomorrow".
>
>     When the heretic returned, Rabbi Aqiva asked, "What is that you
>     are wearing?"
>
>     "A garment", the unbeliever replied.
>
>     "Who made it?"
>
>     "A weaver."
>
>     "Prove it to me."
>
>     "What do you mean? How can I prove it to you? Here is the garment,
>     how can you not know that a weaver made it?"
>
>     Rabbi Akiva said, "And here is the world; how can you not know that
>     Haqadosh barukh Hu made it?"
>
>     After the heretic left, Rabbi Aqiva's students asked him, "But what is
>     the proof?" He said, "Even as a house proclaims its builder,a garment
>     its weaver or a door its carpenter, so does the world proclaim the
>     Holy Blessed One Who created it.
>
> Not very rigorous. Rabbi Aqiva's reply revolves around giving a parable
> to make the conclusion self-evident. Not contructing a deductive argument.
>
> The more rigorous we try making it, the more arguable the proof becomes.
> R' Aqiva's argument is far more convincing than the Rambam's statement
> based on how objects lose form over time, not gain it. Or a similar
> argument based on thermodynamics or information theory.
>
> (Ironically, every formal / logical proof is built from givens taken
> as self-evident for informal-reasoning reasons.)
>
> Anyway, that's how I understood REW. R' Elchanan argues that on an
> informal level, the idea that the universe had to have a Creator is
> as obvious as a Euclidean postulate or the injustice of oppression.
>

I believe that such an explanation is disrespectful to REW. I am assuming
that REW believed what he wrote and wrote down clearly what he believed as
opposed to assuming that REW believes one thing and wrote another.


>
> To not believe in G-d requires a formal proof, which one's negios then
> determine if they find it sound or specious,  and whether they accept
> the postulates on which it's built.
>

To believe and to not believe in God can be pulled off without formal
proofs.

However, it is intellectually dishonest to state that one has an arguement
for God's existance and than say that we are not talking about formal
proofs when a counterarguement is made.


> Notice I didn't invoke any leaps of faith.
>
> Tir'u baTov!
> -Micha
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.aishdas.org/pipermail/avodah-aishdas.org/attachments/20150526/fb8806be/attachment-0008.html>