Q: If you "permit" someone else to molest your children is there any “dirt” on your hands?

Dave wrote:

Not in the relevant sense. Not directly, as it would have been had He personally exnihilated raiders to steal Job's things, rather than allowing Satan to get a hold of local Sabean and Chaldean raiders for the purpose.

HaSatan is a manifestation of G-d’s Will. He’s a messenger. Bestowing some exalted status on him as this priest-like demiurge that purifies HaShem from all responsibility and moral accountability is idolatry. Why can’t you see this? HaShem doesn’t need your permission to test Job. He didn’t need Job’s. “Where were you when I set the earth’s foundation! I made you suffer and I’m not telling you why. Deal with it.” That’s the message of Job.

It’s funny to hear doctrines of causal boundaries derived from a book where the main character defends determinism – and G-d never rebukes him. I’m not saying the Book of Job entails occasionalism, just that it’s not the best place to derive demarcations of Divine responsibility. The determinism dialogues are never resolved. I can’t endorse the Malbim’s commentary too highly. I post a chunky quote because this is a philosophy forum and I honestly believe G-d wants us to think about this. It certainly wasn’t placed here as some catechism of secondary causation:

Job renews his contention that by virtue of His Perfection, G-d must have immutable foreknowledge of everything and so man has neither choice nor free-will and should not be held responsible for his actions. (10:7)
 
Though in fact denied free-will, human beings are treated and are expected to behave as if endowed with it. Not that it makes any real difference, for they only ever seem to be punished for their sins; never to be rewarded for their good deeds. Man is trapped, for his freedom of choice is an illusion created by his existence in time. With no hope of escape, it would be better if he had never been born. (10:16)
 
All the proofs presented by Job in Chapter 10 are reinstated in Chapter 12:
 
1) That we cannot hold that G-d has foreknowledge of all elective particulars but contingency still exists and choice is in man’s hand; for according to our knowledge these are contradictory things. Whence he [Job] returns to the conclusion he had previously drawn, namely, that man is compelled to act as he does and can do nothing other than that which G-d already knows with His prior knowledge that he must do by virtue of his destiny. He is just like the rest of the animals who have no discretion and whose actions are instinctive and inexorable. (12:7-13)
 
2) That the Almighty, may He be Blessed, rules and determines man’s discretionary acts just as He determines all natural matters. Like the element water, which sometimes floods the earth and sometimes lays waste and dries up. And all this is done by nature and of necessity.
 
“I desire to prove the absolute authority of G-d. But you are only forgers of lies, healers of nothingness.” (13:3-4)
As Job explained in chapter 10, since G-d knows with absolute certainty all that is to come, there can be no changes, additions, or permutations in His knowledge. Yet you have attributed changes permutations, and unending detail to G-d’s knowledge and still maintain that there is room for human choice. This makes you “healers of nothingness” – that is, in this discussion you have not “healed” [i.e. resolved] any of the issues concerning G-d’s authority and power, but have only claimed something that cannot possibly exist.
 
Chapter 23: Job again asserts that all of his actions were preordained.
 
G-d knows where I am. He knows by means of His foreknowledge the path that I will follow. He already knew beforehand that I would serve Him, and that my service would be as pure as gold that is free of any impurity. He knew that my footsteps would cling only to the path of His spiritual enlightenment. G-d knew all of this from the very beginning with His divine foreknowledge.
 
Consequently, I did not have the freedom of choice to select any other path, because that would imply a flaw in G-d’s knowledge. It would mean that if I had decided to choose another path, G-d would have had to revise His previous knowledge regarding the path that I ultimately chose to follow. This is not possible, of course, since “He is Omniscient” in the truest sense of the word. There could be no revision nor any other change in His perfect knowledge, which is identical with His essence.
 
G-d knew from the very beginning that I would follow a path of righteousness for His sake. And “who could alter His decision and who could possibly use his own free will to choose a different course?” Who could possibly alter G-d’s decision, based as it was upon His divine foreknowledge? Who is there who can possibly choose a course of action of his own free will, to do as he desires? That is manifestly impossible since it would of necessity imply a reversal and undoing of G-d’s preordained foreknowledge, which would further imply a contradiction to the perfect unity of G-d.
 
It is clear, therefore, that nothing can occur that contradicts G-d’s perfect knowledge, since this would mean that G-d’s knowledge, and thus His essence, may be flawed. And since I was compelled to perform all of my good deeds in accordance with G-d’s preordained foreknowledge, I do not deserve any reward for them.

***

G-d never refutes any of these arguments. You’d think Job would be zotted for blurring the Great Wall between primary and secondary causation. Why wasn’t he? Why didn’t G-d clarify with a sentence or ten about the magic of secondary causation and how it stops all moral responsibility black-hole style before G-d gets His hands dirty? I’m familiar with the concept of "secondary causation." Let’s just say I’m stress-testing it.

Your attempts to save G-d from all charges of immorality are misguided. Ascribing immorality to G-d involves serious category errors. What does it mean to be a good man? You’re a rational animal who uses reason to seek truth and contribute to society (or some such fulfillment of a teleologic purpose). What does it mean for G-d to be a “good” non-contingent Source of all contingent reality? Huh? What is the sound of 3? Morality doesn’t make sense here. We’re not on the same page with our concepts of Classical Theism.

The following dialogue would not have seemed out of place in TaNaKH: 

Then a spirit stepped up, stood in front of Adonai and said, ‘I will entice them as a test.'

"Adonai asked, ‘How?’

"And he answered, ‘I will go and be a deceiving prophet to Israel. I will show them great signs and wonders. I will rise from the dead. I will even use the Ultimate Evidence: direct prophetic knowledge of You, just like their ancestors experienced at Sinai.’”

"Adonai said, “"Behold, signs and wonders are in your hands; but not prophecy. You will succeed in testing them. Go, and do it.’” Now the Adversary left the presence of Adonai.

Big whoop.

 

Dave wrote:

What we have are two reports of events that, had they occurred, could only have been caused by G-d. For one, the evidence has been obscured by the ravages of time. For the other, the evidence has survived and is clear to this day. 

I conceded Jesus’ miracles for the sake of demonstrating their irrelevance to Judaism, which never says it’s going to be “fulfilled.” I do not concede that the evidence for Christianity is ubiquitous while the evidence for Judaism has been “obscured by the ravages of time.” You have a miniature, inferior Kuzari-type argument that requires the prior Revelation for coherence.

Dave wrote:

This introduces into the mind of the first person a troubling possibility - that G-d's actions and G-d's will needn't be connected. But this applies equally well to both events, the only difference between the two being that the former report describes events that occurred long before those described in the latter. As such, the person becomes skeptical of all claims of Divine Revelation - not because he thinks it unlikely, but because he thinks that revelation, as such, isn't evidence at all!

The “only difference between the two being that the former” is interpreted by its recipients as warning of the latter. The former, which claims to be a foundational charter based on an episode of national certitude, explains the latter, thereby giving itself greater credence by virtue of this predictive power. We prefer theories with greater explanatory scope. We also prefer simpler theories: the validity of revelation #2 requires many epicycles when syncing it with Revelation #1.

If one “becomes skeptical of all claims of Divine Revelation” he’s being irrational insofar as he’s choosing skepticism over a simpler explanation. He’s already a Theist who concedes that G-d has communicated with humanity. He has one theory, advocated by the oldest monotheists on the block, that explains the second revelation with much less complexity than any flavor of Christian theology, yet he suggests … skepticism of all revelations? Why? Insisting that if #2 was a test then reality = The Matrix doesn’t make it so; it describes a psychological state. It’s a panic attack, not an argument.

Look at this logic applied elsewhere. Our physics teacher says there’s going to be a test Friday, but today we can ask questions about the material. I freak out. How can I know the questions won’t be judged as part of some bigger test? I already know the teacher places the class into cruel alternative-reality torture chambers where false ideas (created by the teacher!) try to seduce us, where selecting these “wrong answers” has devastating consequences (Would you like fries with that?) If the teacher is cruel enough to do tests then what’s to stop him from testing us always? Therefore I’m skeptical of all messages from the teacher! If some are tests, they all might be!

This doesn't need a logical response. This needs a box of Kleenex and a Klonopin.

Dave wrote:

Now, suppose that this person revisits both reports, and goes over them with a fine toothed comb, searching for what they have to say about G-d's direct action in the world. Suppose also that he finds that neither report shows G-d's direct action ever misleading anyone.

I’d say he needs a new comb. The NT is filled with horrifying references to one group being “predestined” to attain special knowledge the rest of the class can’t access via free will. This has nightmarish consequences for those “misled.” Debates over its mechanics go back at least to Augustine and were Luther’s main bone of contention with Catholicism. I’m not “anticipating” Christian theology out of desperation. I’m citing a central doctrine of Christianity that involves G-d hiding essential information from people – actively deceiving them according to some traditions. The same religion that gave us predestination faints at the possibility of nasty but finite tests! I post these links for the curious. The only difference between any of these is the writers’ degree of tact.

The modest Catholic position.  And here 

Luther’s Double or Nothing

Unconditional Election, the Reformed position

The Author of Sin

Dave wrote:

  And that being the case, will he not incline first towards the report for which the evidence has survived?

What is it that “survived”? All the arguments used to attack or diminish the evidence for Sinai apply with greater force to Christianity’s inferior, mini kuzari. If a national revelation could have been concocted, the post-mortem appearance of a prophet become a colorful footnote to credulity. That which applies to the greater applies to the lesser.

Dave wrote:

  We are approaching the issue, as far as we can, from a neutral perspective. There is no prior revelation to which we may appeal. The Torah and the Gospel alike are on trial. … You seem to be confusing quality of evidence with quantity of witnesses. More people had the Vision of G-d appearing at Sinai than saw the Risen Christ. But Resurrection as such is not inferior in quality to the Vision at Sinai - for Resurrection as such can only occur by the direct action of G-d, just as a genuine Prophetic Vision can only come from G-d Himself.

This is a crucial mistake. The Sinai argument isn’t saying a nation merely heard a voice (in the way you could have seen Jesus after he rose) and inferred it must be G-d. It was a singular instance of National Prophecy that created immediate certitude in a vast group. The resurrection required an argument to the best explanation culminating in “G-d did it” and necessitated convoluted interpretations of Judaism that the vast majority of its adherents condemn. At Sinai no syllogism was necessary. Your assertion that both types of evidence are equal in quality due to G-d’s direct action isn’t a neutral position. Christianity requires it. A “neutral perspective” can’t simply assert the Christian standard as default. Judaism maintains the intrinsic inferiority of miracles to prophetic national certitude. 

I question this neutrality on other grounds. That which is new must prove itself against that which has been established. Christianity presupposes the basic truth of Judaism, but Judaism never says a word about being fulfilled by G-d’s son. Evidence against Sinai is evidence against Christianity (eroding its foundations) but evidence against Christianity is irrelevant to Sinai. There are logical differences between the two positions (their inter-dependencies).

Do you approach the claims of Sabbatai Zevi from a "neutral perspective"? Does this necessitate accepting Nathan of Gaza’s interpretation of Judaism as “possible” and the supernatural claims as “evidence” for this position? (Do they sound familiar? Supernatural evidence + convoluted interpretations of Judaism rejected by almost all Jews.) How does the “neutral perspective” adjudicate between paradigms, one of which denies its predecessors the authority to interpret it? I'm becoming skeptical of this neutral, objective, view from nowhere.

Dave wrote:

  And will he not be within his epistemic rights to interpret the earlier report by the later report, since it is on the basis of the latter that he accepts the former?

He’s in a crowded room with Mormons & Moslems, all of whom “accept” various misunderstandings of Judaism via their own more recent revelations. Jews don’t need the subsequent interfaces. Neither do you. In the way Cosmological arguments can bring one to recognize the validity of an Ontological argument, evidence of Islam or Christianity can reveal the necessity of the Kuzari, thereby removing the need for epicycle-laden access points.

Dave wrote:

  To pull off an AD 70 style upset on us would require marching up to G-d's throne room and bodily chucking Christ out of there. As long as He is there, we have our temple services being carried out. See the book of Hebrews for details.

What “Temple services” are binding on Gentiles according to TaNaKH?! It never mentions the necessity of some “permanent priest” to make sacrifices. Gentiles don’t have to make any sacrifices. The Christian understanding of sacrifices is a series of howlers projected into TaNaKH:  

“There are so many different kinds of qorbanot. There are whole burnt offerings, sin offerings, guilt offerings, thanksgiving offerings, peace offerings, individual offerings, communal offerings, mandatory offerings, freewill offerings, and special offerings for various occasions (such as the qorban Pesach, the Pesach offering). Chr*stianity, especially Evangelical chr*stianity, will find itself in quite a quandary in reducing all these to "shadows to prepare Israel for the messiah who was to be crucified for their sins." What about the fact that the individual chatt'at (sin offering) could only be offered for unintentional sins and were not available for intentional ones? (It was repentance--teshuvah--that, then as now, transforms intentional sins into unintentional ones so that they can be forgiven.) What about the many meatless, bloodless grain offerings? Are they a "shadow" of the Catholic mass? Or what about the embarrassing fact that the qorban Pesach, supposedly the "shadow" per excellence, was not a sin offering at all and that if that were the case J*sus should have died on Yom Kippur rather than during Pesach (Yom Kippur, not Pesach, is about atonement). Now it looks like you will have to become Eastern Orthodox (since they reject "atonement" as Evangelicals understand it) in order to identify the qorban Pesach as chr*stological.

“And there is one final problem. These qorbanot, according to you, were all given to Israel merely to prepare them for the atoning death of J*sus, yet the one people who were given the lesson didn't learn it, and everyone else (who never had the lesson at all) did! How likely is it that outsiders to whom G-d had never directed his "lesson" would be the ones to "learn" it while the people who actually received it from Him drew very different conclusions?”

Dave wrote:

This entails that there's something about the Divine Essence that allows it to stand in relation to itself, in some sense, as giver to given - in other words, that there are relations of emanation or procession within G-d. … All of this follows from the existence of Pure Act, and the fact that Pure Act serves as the exemplar cause for every act of any composite. Both propositions can be proven by Reason, and both of them are essential to Classical Theism. 

Essential? Maimonides was the Classical Theist par excellence. This was my synopsis of his position:
  
“If G-d is like a mind, His thoughts and their object are one. His knowledge is perfect to the point where the thought and its object lack a principle of differentiation. G-d is the object of thought as He knows the most perfect thing. Thinker, thought, and object of thought are one single principle with no internal principle of differentiation: Jackpot! HaShem-Tier Oneness. You don’t need a trinity. You can’t have a trinity. Not here. If it were the secondary tier of your ontology it would “work.” The One is the unknowable indescribable What-Have-You that proceeds via a trinity. It would be false but coherent (and kinda cool).“

There is nothing triune entailed by Classical Theism or pure reason. Maimonides’ second principle of Judaism flat-out denies this:

This G-d is one. He is not two or more, but one, unified in a manner which [surpasses] any unity that is found in the world; i.e., He is not one in the manner of a general category which includes many individual entities, nor one in the way that the body is divided into different portions and dimensions. Rather, He is unified, and there exists no unity similar to His in this world. The knowledge of this concept fulfills a positive commandment, as [implied by Deuteronomy 6:4]: "[Hear, Israel,] G-d is our L-rd, G-d is one."

Dave wrote:

Well, to me, it's obvious that Trinitarian thought emphasizes, rather than diminishing, the uniqueness of G-d. Moreover, the idea is about the inner life of G-d, not about putting up anything else beside Him. … The more "one" a substance is, the more clearly demarcated are the elements of the substance-apprehension-appetite triad!  As such, "infinite unity" as such may well be the ultimate expression of that triad, precisely as unity! Such a view is paradoxical, but it can hardly be ruled out a priori.

The more “one” a substance is, the less it has any ontological demarcations or internal relations. Consequently, infinite unity = the absolute lack of them. This is practically a tautology. At the point of total Oneness ALL such talk is wrong because the questions involve category errors. If you’ve stopped at a trinity or duality you’re involved in special pleading to avert the zing of the PSR. Only absolute division-less relation-less Oneness stops the Why questions.

Pure Oneness = the ultimate expression of the substance-apprehension-appetite triad can be ruled out on PSR grounds. Why stop at some incoherent paradox when you can have a Necessary Unity where questions dissolve? 

Dave wrote:

Welp. Something done screwed up on this hurr computer of mine, so I can't quote you.  

Funny, my computer works just fine.

Dave wrote:

That's alright. I do want to focus a few questions to a razor sharp point before returning to a discussion of Deuteronomy 13, the trinity, etc.   

So ... I typed my last post for nothing? It completely trashed several of your positions. And you respond by telling me to write another essay for you. No problem. You raised the issues I was responding to! And now you change the subject.

Which part of your phony disjunctive syllogism should I fall for, either Solomon's prayer was "inordinately sentimental garbage with no ability to fill in for real Mitzvot" (WTF?) or there must be an explicit statement that fulfillment/annulment will occur -- as if Solomon's prayer = permanent replacement or "fulfillment" in the goofy Christian sense (Sorry, forget about your command not to mention Christianity. Fingers slipped.)

Dave wrote:

so I will take this opportunity to turn our attention back to the center. 

You mean away from points like this:

119 wrote:

Look at [your] logic applied elsewhere. Our physics teacher says there’s going to be a test Friday, but today we can ask questions about the material. I freak out. How can I know the questions won’t be judged as part of some bigger test? I already know the teacher places the class into cruel alternative-reality torture chambers where false ideas (created by the teacher!) try to seduce us, where selecting these “wrong answers” has devastating consequences (Would you like fries with that?) If the teacher is cruel enough to do tests then what’s to stop him from testing us always? Therefore I’m skeptical of all messages from the teacher! If some are tests, they all might be! This doesn't need a logical response. This needs a box of Kleenex and a Klonopin.

I'll get started on my next essay right away: "It should be noted that nowhere in the Torah is it stated that atonement can only be found in sacrifice, never mind blood sacrifice."

Get ready to quote Leviticus 17.

Last edited by 119 (8/17/2018 12:00 am)

I appreciate the effort that has gone into this discussion. I used to be on top of the literature on the historicity of the resurrection, years ago, but I know virtually nothing about Judaism.

I also appreciate the tenor of it. Tempers flared a few times, but everyone quickly edited themselves.

I have a question for all parties: what is faith, and what do you think its role in all this is? I ask, partly, because I've always thought it would be dangerous to base one's belief in a religion on these kinds of shifting historical investigations (e.g. what if a piece of evidence showed up strongly (or, if you prefer, even more strongly) confirming Judaism or Christianity tomorrow? Would you then become a Jew or Christian?) and, partly, because I've been spending a lot of time reading French counterreformers (e.g. Montaigne, Charron) and I get the impression that you and they see the meaning and role of faith very differently.

Dave, You could have cracked a good joke: “Hey 119, do you ever have any thoughts you don’t write? You’re like Laurence Sterne without all that ‘genius’ baggage.”  (I know. Pray for my wife.)

It’s A. "The 244 commandments concerning temple service are currently (August 2018) a part of Israel's covenant with G-d."

Dave wrote:

2. “But without a temple, it is logically impossible for the Jewish community to obey them.

Not logically impossible. You’re overstating your position. If G-d commanded Israel to determine the largest prime number and incorporate it into their services that would be logically impossible. There isn’t one and such a command would be a non-starter. No subsequent contingencies could bring it about. It’s impossible in principle.

Dave wrote:

3. Therefore, if the 244 commandments are still a part of Israel's covenant with G-d, then the Jewish community is obligated to do the logically impossible.

It’s not even physically impossible, which is a yuuuge step down from logical impossibility. Physically impossible means the laws of physics-biology-chemistry preclude it. If G-d commands me to deadlift 400 lbs I can’t do it today, but give me six months and it’s on. Today I’m facing several obstacles (I’m fat and a Dollar Store stands on the site where my favorite gym once did). This command would be neither logically nor physically impossible, just something I can’t do immediately.

Why can’t a series of commands necessitate meticulous preparation? Why can't their observance represent an ideal state of affairs that has to be earned?
  

Dave wrote:

3. Therefore, if the 244 commandments are still a part of Israel's covenant with G-d, then the Jewish community is obligated to do the logically impossible.

Again, logically impossible is rhetorically imposing but false. Historical contingencies complicate things; they don’t negate standards. If you start doing Heroin, your capacity to refrain from theft will vanish. It remains prohibited. An historical contingency made it immeasurably harder to observe a standard. You'll need to dig yourself out of the hole you dug and start observing a standard that never went away -- even though you couldn't follow it for a while.

Dave wrote:

'3' runs headlong into a foundational principle of moral logic: "ought" implies "can." No one can be obligated to do the impossible. Thus, A appears to be absurd. 

Ought definitely implies can, even if it’s extraordinarily difficult. The following is part of a prayer Jews say three times a day:

“Look with favor, L-rd our G‑d, on Your people Israel and pay heed to their prayer; restore the service to Your Sanctuary and accept with love and favor Israel's fire-offerings and prayer; and may the service of Your people Israel always find favor. ... May it be your will, L-rd our G-d and G-d of our fathers, that the Bet Hamikdash be speedily rebuilt in our days, and grant us our portion in Your Torah."

The space between ought and can will be far more daunting for Israel than me deadlifting 400 pounds. (Only sloth and gluttony stand in my way, not the hostile forces of a false religion.) Extremely difficult is not the same as logically or physically impossible. For instance, G-d expects all Gentiles to establish courts to enforce six categorical prohibitions. This isn’t currently feasible (imagine a presidential candidate running on a Noahide Law platform: “There is no such thing as a ‘right’ to curse G-d. Vote for me!”) There’s no logical or physical laws preventing this, and historical contingencies don’t cancel it. They just complicate its attainment and postpone its realization.  

Dave wrote:

If you accept A, I challenge you to demonstrate how anyone can be obligated to do the impossible.

We’re obligated to do things that are fiendishly difficult. No adultery?! C'mon. Seriously? Why prohibit all the low-hanging fruit? No male-male relations? But some people can’t help this desire! It seems unfair, cruel, impossible even. But neither command is logically or physically impossible, just excruciatingly difficult. Trying, failing, repenting, and trying harder makes us stronger than if we weren’t challenged in the first place. If this is true for individuals, why not for Israel?

The Messianic Era is a Bullseye, mankind’s telos, but we’re not an arrow zooming straight to the target. We’re a carrier pigeon flying through a storm. It will be tough for Jews and Gentiles alike, but not impossible. Great saying: "You are not obligated to complete the work but neither are you free to desist from it."

No more walls of text. I promise. It’s not conducive to enlightenment.

I want to apologize to Johannes and Dave for being myself (and thread-jacking). It seems cruel of G-d to expect us to rise above our natural inclinations; it’s almost impossible. I know that I shed more heat than light. To paraphrase Evelyn Waugh, being a Noahide is the only thing keeping me human.

Last edited by 119 (8/19/2018 6:13 am)

It's a funny story about Waugh. He was at a party, getting hammered, being a jerk, and a woman said, "But sir, you're a Catholic!" And he said, "Madam, Catholicism is the only thing keeping me human."

Laurence Sterne's Tristram Shandy is bucket list tier. Tristram wants to write the ultimate autobiography. He starts with the night of his conception. It takes him 300 pages to get to his birth. (Big influence on Joyce.)