A few years ago, R. Matisyahu Salomon stated that sometimes the best response to a theological challenge is that we don’t yet know — “teiku.” Some bloggers and other commentators harshly criticized him for advocating this non-answer. However, sometimes this is the best answer. Intellectual trends take time settle and tides come in and out. Sometimes we need to acknowledge that the problem is our own limitations. Rambam’s answer in Moreh Nevukhim to some of the most difficult philosophical problems of his age was that man’s intellect is incapable of understanding.
R. Joseph B. Soloveitchik adopted this approach as well, as recorded in R. Aaron Rakeffet ed., The Rav: The World of Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik, vol. 1 p. 62:
I remember that once I was studying Talmud with my father. I asked him why the Talmud did not resolve the problem under discussion in so many cases. Instead the Talmud concludes with the phrase teiku ["stalemate"]. Why was no conclusion reached by the talmudic sages? My father explained to me that a Jew must apprehend that he cannot understand and comprehend everything. When a Jew learns that there are halakhot which are ambiguous, then he will also come to the realization that there are other areas that are also not clear-cut. In matters of faith, teiku will also be encountered. The greatness of Abraham, our forefather, was that he knew how to say “Here I am” [Genesis 22:1] even though he did not understand the request that God made of him. The basis of faith is teiku. If a Jew does not master the concept of teiku, then he cannot be a true believer. It would not hurt if the rabbi possessed the courage and resoluteness to admit to teiku. The rabbi must not be ashamed to declare that he must refer the question to greater experts on the topic.
“To smplify: God’s existence is necessary and therefore self-caused, that is, His essence necessitates His existence. This is to be contrasted to the existence everything else which is contingent.”
That’s positing there must be a sentient (and even more specifically, Godly) termination to the infinite regress. IMHO that termination is a philosophical construct, one which raises many more problems than it solves. Hume’s objection — “who designed the designer,” to paraphrase — stands and with evolution, is even more poignant (hence, Dawkins’ Ultimate Boeing 747 Gambit).
Dr. Kaplan, of course, is aware of all of the above objections. I’m tired of Aish and Ohr Somayach arguments for frumkeit; I would be more interested in hearing what more sophisticated frum people like Dr. Kaplan have to say. I’d bet a lot of my fellow youth in the 21st century would also like some more sophisticated defenses of God, than the kiruv drek we’re all familiar with.
Baruch — I sympathize with your last comment, but one must be careful not to throw out the baby with the bathwater. The problem is not with what Rambam said, it is with people selectively quoting him out of its philosophical context.
I started to type a response to Prof. Kaplan’s comment a number of times and held back. What I objected most to was the last line: “Now how to explain this to children is something else.” to which I was thinking that to explain it to adults is even more challenging.
Baruch: The question of an infinite regress is a serious one. My point is that putting to the side proofs for God’s existence , believers believe that God’s existence is necesary, while all existence other than God is contingent and dependent on God’s necessary existence. Given that, the question of who created God does not arise. To state it another way, once one maintains that there cannot be an infinite regress of contingent causes and the series must terminate in God as a necessary cause, again the question of who created God cannot arise.
IH: I see that, despite your intentions, you did not hold back. I really don’t think that the first four paragraphs in Yesodei ha-Torah 1 are that esoteric.
Baruch Pelta-all arguments and “answers” are good only until they are refuted. I think that Larry Kaplan’s suggestion re Hilcos Yesodei HaTorah is an excellent one.
Baruch Pelta wrote:
“I’d bet a lot of my fellow youth in the 21st century would also like some more sophisticated defenses of God, than the kiruv drek we’re all familiar with.
Baruch-I am in complete sympathy with you, and can tell you or anyone else interested that what you called “kiruv drek” neither interests me nor has a place in my book shelves. I always have found RYBS’s writings , shiurim and drashos the best approach to these issues, together with a committment to Torah, Avodah and Gmilus Chasadim that reinforces my conclusion that such a system could not have been designed by mere mortals. FWIW, I highly recommend the review of R D D Berger in Tradition on R D M Kellner’s book, in which R D Berger opens his heart, mind and soul to the reader about he resolved the issue, at least for himself, years ago.
From The Commentator(see link):
“What are the benefits and/or risks of academic inquiry in the field of Academic Jewish Studies? In the case of the latter, how should a religious Jew approach such studies? Can you describe a case where you yourself discovered something religiously troubling in your research and explain how you dealt with it?”
“We have already discussed the benefits to a certain degree and have cited some examples. Academic Jewish Studies not only allow a person to examine parts of the Jewish tradition that are otherwise not studied, but also enable him to apply academic methods to some of the most important questions Jews today have to deal with. Overall, they grant us a better and more nuanced understanding of Judaism than we would have without studying them.
However, there are some risks and difficulties associated with this field. Reading scholarly literature that subjects texts we hold to be sacred to critical scrutiny can sometimes engender religious doubts. In a review of Menachem Kellner’s Must a Jew Believe Anything, I told of an experience that addresses the personal part of this question. Here is what I wrote:
“We have an obligation to maintain the boundaries of the faith bequeathed us by our ancestors, and we cannot do this by describing even fundamental deviations as points on a continuum. Let me illustrate this point in a very personal way. In my mid-teens, I experienced periods of perplexity and inner struggle while reading works of biblical criticism. While I generally resisted arguments for the documentary hypothesis with a comfortable margin of safety, there were moments of deep turmoil. I have a vivid recollection of standing at an outdoor kabbalat Shabbat in camp overwhelmed with doubts and hoping that God would give me the strength to remain an Orthodox Jew. What saved me was a combination of two factors: works that provided reasoned arguments in favor of traditional belief and the knowledge that to embrace the position that the Torah consists of discrete, often contradictory documents was to embrace not merely error but apikorsut. If I had been told by a credible authority that there is nothing a Jew really must believe and that the only danger was that I would move to a different point on a continuum [as Kellner maintains], I am afraid to face the question of what might have happened”
http://www.yucommentator.com/2.2486/an-interview-with-dr-david-berger-1.995721?pagereq=5
“[On] Menachem Kellner, ‘Must a Jew Believe Anything?’ (1999),” Tradition 33,4 (1999): 81-89.
“I really don’t think that the first four paragraphs in Yesodei ha-Torah 1 are that esoteric.”
To anyone with a grounding in Aristotelian philosophy they are not that esoteric. But, anyone who thinks they understand it without that grounding is fooling themselves.
IH: I beg to differ. The Aristotelianism begins in 1:5. In the first four paragraphs Maimonides uses non-technical langauge. Of course, there are different levels of understanding.
“…believers believe that God’s existence is necesary, while all existence other than God is contingent and dependent on God’s necessary existence”
I understand if God is to be seen for some overarching reason(s) as a necessary construct, even with all the problems his existence raises. If God is to be seen as a necessary construct, all kashes against him can be dropped, as the Rav dropped the kashe of theodicy in Kol Dodi Dofek.
If He per se isn’t a necessary explanatory mechanism and the kashes are overwhelming, then lchora we have a problem. We’re using a Watchmaker to explain something which isn’t really as perfectly designed as a watch. And I’d expect a Watchmaker to be much more complex than what He’s being used to explain. And if He’s complex, then He had to come from somewhere.
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