[Avodah] How did Abraham Discover God? The Experiential Approach

[Micha Berger via Avodah]

So, beqitzur, R/Dr Seth / Avi Kadish gives three explanations for the
medrash of the Illuminated or Burning fortress, the first two of which
highlight the debate between the Jewish Scholasticists (pro-Maimonidians)
and the allegedly less rationalist rishonim.

It's that chiluq I wanted to bring under discussion. Because in its
day Or Hashem was an anti-philosophical book. But by the way we use the
terms now, R' Chasdai Crescas's approach (shared by his rebbe, the Ran,
and his talmid, the Iqarim) would not even be considered philosophical,
we would consider it more rationalist than the Rambam's.

In the Rambam's Day, Greek Philosophy, a set of worldviews each of which
run from metaphysics through physics (and even medicine, c.f. the word
"physician" vs physicists, and the 4 humors vs the 4 elements) were
accepted as the only rational ways to see the world for the past 1,500
years when the Rambam was writing. So "rationalism" was associated
with this quite unscientific appal to authority. It was "rationalist"
to consider Aristo's viewpoint the baseline, rather than just another
appeal to authority.

And so it was until science supplanted Natural Philosophy, and a whole
new definition of what was rationalist emerged.

As RSK writes:
: I. Returning to a classical model of Judaism: The Bible and Chazal
: rarely if ever touch upon the question of whether God exists. God is
: there, and powerfully so. The real question is not whether or not God
: exists, but rather what is the state of our mutual relationship with
: God: Is it characterized by love or hatred? Respect or disgrace?
: Loyalty or betrayal? The God of biblical religion and halakhic Judaism
: is a personality, not a concept.
...
: II. Shifting from medieval to modern religion: Crescas dealt with a
: great deal of what we would now call "science" in the first treatise
: of Or Hashem. Perhaps the greatest difference between medieval science
: and modern science (although one with which Crescas himself didn't much
: engage) is that the latter insists on empirical verification. Logic on
: its own is insufficient. Theories need to be confirmed by conformity to
: hard facts, and those facts need to be objectively verifiable by anyone.

: Because of this, religion ceased to be a scientific issue in modern
: times. God cannot be tested for in a laboratory...
: It is thus no accident that Crescas' abandonment of the conceptual
: God of logic, in favor of returning to the personal God of life, is
: tightly connected to the historical shift from medieval science to
: modern science...

Or as I always put it, the chiluq between knowing ABOUT G-d, and knowing
G-d. And then I generally quote R/Prof Carmy from Avodah's earlier days
http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/vol07/v07n087.shtml#07>:
> People who throw around big words on these subjects always seem to take
> for granted things that I don't.

> The people who keep insisting that it's necessary to prove things about
> G-d, including His existence, seem to take it for granted that devising
> these proofs is identical with knowing G-d.

> Now if I know a human being personally the last thing I'd do, except as a
> purely intellectual exercise, is prove his or her existence.

But I enjoyed someone else explain that (by today's standards) this
is actually the more rational and scientific approach.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             It is harder to eat the day before Yom Kippur
micha at aishdas.org        with the proper intent than to fast on Yom
http://www.aishdas.org   Kippur with that intent.
Fax: (270) 514-1507                       - Rav Yisrael Salanter