[Avodah] Source of Emunah

Micha Berger micha at aishdas.org
Thu Jan 11 02:45:01 PST 2018


On Thu, Jan 11, 2018 at 09:57:20AM +0200, Lisa Liel wrote:
: Aside from the fact that I disagree with your equating emunah and
: belief, you're overgeneralizing.  It might be correct to say that
: *for some people*, it's the experience of Shabbos that convinces,
: and the acceptance of the proof follows, but it's certainly not the
: case for everyone.

Well, even if you follow the Rambam that emunah is knowledge, "knowledge"
in the Rambam's universe is "justified and true belief". So you need
belief in there either way. The Rambam insists that the justification
must be philosophical proof. He rules out trusting mesorah (which I would
wall a kind of reliabilism), believing because one trusts ones teachers
explicitly.

(And if you side with the Rambam about knowledge, do you agree with him
[last ch. of the Moreh], that perfection of knowldge is a higher ideal
than perfection of character? That it is knowledge that causes one to
have a place in the World to come [Hil' Teshuvah 8:2-3], that earns on
hashgachah peratis [Moreh 3:18], and knowledge that makes one capable of
prophecy [1:2, see the opening 2 chapters also about Adam haRishon and
knowledge as human perfection]? The Rambam's attitude toward knowledge
is so distinctly Aristotilian. <http://www.aishdas.org/asp/akrasia>)

My problem is that few philosophers since Kant believe that solid proofs
of the sort the Rambam is talking about are even possible. The field
that studies this thing ended up (so far) siding with R' Yehudah haLevi
over the Rambam about the nature of their own field.

And few psychologists would agree with your assertion that we could
retain enough objectivity to identify a solid proof if we bumped into one.
Just as people need a motivation whether to choose whether an unanswered
question is a disproof, or to decide it's merely something interesting
to shelve for later because some answer must exist. We need motivation
to even look for that question. We need motivation to find a first
principle compelling.

Yes, the result is still knowledge according to the classical definition
-- justified, true, belief. Just that the justification for believing
the something that is true is that it accords with experience.

So yes, I feel comfortable saying that even people who think they are
believing because of proof are really believing in the authenticity of
the proof because they already believed in the conclusion. The proof
serves as chizuq emunah. But people are incapable of initiating belief
because of proof. Not some people; there are independent reasons bullt
into the limitations of philosophy, and into the human condition.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             We look forward to the time
micha at aishdas.org        when the power to love
http://www.aishdas.org   will replace the love of power.
Fax: (270) 514-1507                - William Ewart Gladstone


More information about the Avodah mailing list