Steven Bayme on questions of God and belief
To the Editors:
In her article “The False Binary of Theism vs. Atheism” (Summer 2024), Adena Philips strikes a powerful trope in rejecting the traditional model of belief/non-belief in favoring a far more nuanced (and occasional) model that we all may encounter a sense of the spiritual at different moments while also at times doubting God’s existence. Moreover, I was delighted in the evocation of doubt as praiseworthy and in a sense as a form of belief. Permit me to add several points that I believe add to the argument and, perhaps, a brief word on my own highly inadequate theology.
1) Franz Rosenzweig, I believe, was the first to define revelation as “moments when you know that the heart is speaking truth.” Obviously these are rare moments but quite real to the “listener.” I can’t say I have ever experienced them, but reading Ms. Philips’ essay reminded me of the spiritual dimension or, minimally, the quest for a spiritual truth, that may be quite fleeting but that resides deeply within us as individuals.
2) Elie Wiesel in Gates of the Forest writes beautifully how anger towards God constitutes an affirmation, namely that you care enough about God to be angry. Neutrality, by contrast, connotes denial.
3) Ms. Philips’ dismay with the binary model reminded me of the time decades ago I was walking along Broadway and saw a child trip and fall on the sidewalk. He wasn’t hurt, but his caregiver or grandmother said loudly, “God is punishing you for….”, presumably a minor misbehavior of some sort. I was disgusted and wanted to ask the caregiver whether she truly believed a benevolent God would punish an innocent child for some trivial naughtiness. But that essentially is what we are left with in the all-too-common binary or fundamentalist model often found in Orthodox education and child-rearing.
4) Speaking for myself, I often do “see” God in the wonders of nature: Niagara Falls, the Adirondacks, New England foliage, to name a few. On one lecture tour in Cape Town, I went so far as to comment, “If there really was a Garden of Eden, Cape Town would have been its venue.” Even gazing out at my superb view of the Hudson River evokes that sense of wonder at the beauties of nature. Does God exist? In some sense yes, in others maybe not (see next point), and in still others, perhaps.
5) I am left with a dilemma: Does God control history or are we autonomous agents in history, acting in accordance with free choices and decisions that we alone make? The binary model is quick to say “There are no coincidences; everything comes from the Almighty.” A Protestant pastor commented back in 1945 to Rabbi Richard Rubinstein in Berlin, “Remember, rabbi, that whatever the Nazis did, it was God’s will.” Rubinstein replied, “That is blasphemy.” Yet, again, so many of our fellow Jews would argue that everything flows from God and that God had a reason for whatever has happened in our lives. While we were sitting shiva for our late son a decade ago, a Haredi rabbi whom I did not know asked if he could visit. Everything was fine until he was ready to depart, when he stated, “The Almighty has reasons for doing this.” I told him I was deeply hurt and offended by the idea that God wanted my beloved son to be killed in a tragic car accident. He, in turn, was baffled by my reaction.
In the years since I have come to emphasize the importance of free will. Absent free will, there can be no human accountability either for merit or demerit. If God controls everything human beings are neither to be praised nor blamed. But if God has in fact granted us the gift of freedom, God neither controls the details of our lives nor are we exempt from taking personal responsibility for the consequences of our freely-chosen decisions and actions. Traditional Jewish optimism, aside from empowering us with the courage to persevere over the entire course of Jewish history, connotes faith that, flawed as we are, history itself remains purposeful rather than random and our job as individuals and as a people is to nudge it in a positive direction. Accidents are indeed coincidences because God does not in fact rule what occurs in our individual lives. God may guide overall historical direction but the details of our personal lives rest on individual decisions-whether wise or foolish-that we ourselves determine and actions and events that we encounter, whether intentionally or coincidentally.
God has created wonders of nature, but as the Psalmist said in our Hallel prayers, “The skies belong to God, but the earth He has given over to human beings.”