How to possibly fix the Kuzari
Without having to get Hashem to do it again, but with live video.
Would you be able to in a short summary, spell out your form of the Kuzari Argument? Maybe in some kind of syllogism if possible? Doesn’t have to be worded perfectly well, just enough that I can understand the inference. I’m pretty curious because I have never understood any version of the argument when presented to me and i like how you think about things.
Why, thank you Jethro! Just for that compliment, you will get a whole post - my second post in one day! But no syllogism, sorry. That is too official for me.
The Kuzari argument, in my understanding, is that it is far, far likelier that a major event that a whole nation believed happened actually happened, especially when there is a claimed tradition, than the alternative, which was there was some sort of myth/lie/something else which led to the creation of this myth.
The Kuzari argument, in my understanding, is that it is far, far likelier that a major event that a whole nation believed happened actually happened, especially when there is a claimed tradition, than the alternative, which was there was some sort of myth/lie/something else which led to the creation of this myth.
This is true by most events (lets say, a tradition of flood, war,, famine etc). If country had a tradition of a civil war or similar it most likely happened, even if there is no direct archeological evidence of such a war.
The main issue with the Kuzari, as I see it, is that what is claimed is even more unlikely - God wrote a book and started the One True Religion. Since this is also incredibly unlikely (as it also happened only once), no conclusions can really be drawn, as now the alternative (it was made up or in some other way the tradition started etc) is still much more likely than the extreme claim.
There are only two ways to fix this: Lower the chance or eliminate the possibility of it being made up, or increase the odds of God giving the one true religion to make it more likely.
The way I try to do it is this: First, realize that with this logic it would never be possible to prove any miracle1, and we don’t want a standard of evidence that eliminates miracles, as then we are asserting a conclusion before we start. So we need to consider this a possiblity, however remote.
Second, realize that there really aren’t that many, if any at all, good counterexamples to the Kuzari as claimed. The Jewish faith claim of mass revelation plus claimed unbroken tradition is pretty unique. (I imagine I will get challenged in the comments, but I think its a fair assessment.) Of course uniqueness doesn’t mean it wasn’t faked/evolved, as it could be it is so difficult for it to happen that it only happened once.
Third, lets examine the evidence for a God. If the Kuzari alone establishes God as existing, it fails. It is impossible to be strong enough for that. But once one accepts the existence of any kind of deity - the chances of this Deity contacting mankind become far far higher than if this deity doesn’t exist2. I will not examine the evidence for God because it is not a fruitful discussion point in my experience. I will link to a good post here, and look at that blog for some other good ones.
Fourth, lets establish when the Torah was written. If it was written later, that gives it conceivably enough time for the origin story to have evolved. If it were written close to the claimed exodus time, that possibility drops to zero, and we need an incredible liar - making it almost impossible and raising the odds the story did happen as claimed.3
Fifth, What exactly are we claiming as proof? If we are just claiming the Sinai event, that could have been faked. There are magicians that have done better tricks than seeing thunder. But if we extend the claim to the 40 years of miracles in the desert, the direct tradition of the exodus, the fact that every Israelite believed that Hashem was the one who took them out of Egypt, and then throw in the Har Sinai story, it becomes far more astonishing - and way less likely to have been faked or evolved.
Sixth, what are we claiming to prove? If its that every word in the Torah is literal and the world is 6000 years old- that’s disprovably incorrect, and you would need some sort of theology why God is lying to us - whether via the Torah or the physical world. That lowers the chance of the book being Divine Writ tremendously. Additionally, if you claim the Torah is fully moral, and slavery and underage marriage is the ideal for all time, you again lower the odds that this is Divine Writ as opposed to a human invention. It is unlikely that God’s moral ideal for humanity just happens to match the era the Torah was given.
But if you are claiming that the Torah is not literal, nor the moral final word, but rather a God-written or -inspired manual to improve the world and bring the world closer to the one True God (because he desires to be worshipped) and improve the person as well, and when one looks at the results of the Torah’s incredible moral revolution, and one notices how the Torah deftly, perfectly, and impressively rewrites polytheistic myths so slyly it is hard to imagine a man of that era possibly doing that, and you understand the Torah chose to use myth because writing was rare in that era as most information was transmitted orally4, than the odds of it being true rise tremendously as the Torah does do that.
Seventh, what results do you expect from the Torah? If you expect it to be a scientific masterpiece that has all of science encoded in it, and a book that magically improves the lives of those learning it without effort to implement, then it becomes far more unlikely as we see the Torah does not have that. But if you expect to see a slow moral revolution in those societies following the Torah with its intended moral updating (understanding the ideals behind the laws, as the American forefathers did) and a drastic decline of morality in those societies that do not keep its morality nor respect it (think Nazi Germany, Japan, and possibly America today), plus you expect to see its prophecies fulfilled - the ones it makes explicitly5. This too, no matter how unpopular, can be fairly claimed to be fulfilled by the Holocaust and the earlier exiles6 - especially the harsher prophecies of what happens when one abandons the Torah. If one approaches the Torah with the belief that it only has to justify the claims it makes and not what others claim in its name, one sees that it matches its expectations if not exceeds them, raising the odds it is indeed Divine Writ.
While this can be claimed to be Texas-sharpshooting, I think all these claims and expectations are reasonable, justified by the Torah itself, and are not being made just so the Kuzari should work. I would make all these claims independantly even without the Kuzari, and I have.
But, in conclusion, I think when the Torah is looked at properly (within the religion itself) and see what it actually claims to do and what it does, and when one dates it earlier, and accepts the existence of a God, the standard Kuzari resorts to form, as it is indeed extremely unlikely for a national tradition to start without it actually have happened, and as it is now more likely for the Torah to have been given by God than for it to have been the sole exception in history to break the Kuzari rule.
Addendum: I have heard in the name of R Aryeh Kaplan zt”l, though I have never seen it written, that one of the reasons Mashiach with miracles would be necessary is because Hashem cannot expect people to rely on the testimony of Matan Torah anymore and we would need a new national revelation. I think that is fair and it should happen bekarov mamash!
PS: Jethro, efshar you can make this a syllogism, if that is even possible?
This is Hume and the criticism thereof, which is too deep for this post. I’m not a philosopher, much to the frustration of Simon Furst).
Duh.
Kefira in the footnote: Just to be clear, we do not need the final redaction of the Torah to have been done early. We need the original written stories, especially those in ancient Hebrew like Az Yashir, which seem likely to be contemporaneous to said exodus by most scholars. Obviously, this won’t get you Orthodox Judaism, but it does get you a divine revelation.
This can also explain Torah shel baal peh as well.
As should be required for any truth claim which is made explicitly. The Torah does not need to answer for claims about it (kulo boh for example, if claimed literally). But it does need to explain its prophecies in a fair manner. (The creation claims I am justified in claiming they weren’t literal not because I am forced to, but because it can be fairly claimed that any reader in that era would have immediately recognized them as parodies, rendering this explanation not post-hoc).
Not to mention the prophesied return to Israel, which we see with our own eyes.
I strongly disagree with this post, and I plan to publish a counterpost later today, but in the spirit of concilliation and colloboration I think I can create a syllogism to represent this post.
P1 - It is far likelier that a nation's history which was believed by the nation themselves is true rather than invented, provided the history reported has an a priori reasonableness.
P2 - The reported history of the Exodus, revelation and conquest is fairly reasonable given theism and the uniqueness of bible as a theological text.
Conclusion - It is far likelier that the reported history of the exodus, revelation and conquest is true rather than invented.
"Fourth, lets establish when the Torah was written. If it was written later, that gives it conceivably enough time for the origin story to have evolved. If it were written close to the claimed exodus time, that possibility drops to zero, and we need an incredible liar - making it almost impossible and raising the odds the story did happen as claimed.3"
I don't think you need this, although obviously the Bible critics are grievously wrong in almost every respect. As long as the story of Matan Torah and Yetzias Mitzrayim is relevant to the population, and it would be EXTREMELY relevant if they were religious Jews, they wouldn't forget it. And conversely, if somebody came to a population of religious Jews and told them about the Exodus and Matan Torah that they had never heard of, they would know it's false. We can easily test this hypothesis. If there is a group of religious Jews who follow the laws of the Torah but don't know of the Exodus or Matan Torah story, that would be a counterexample to the "Kuzari Proof".