Abraham's attempted sacrifice of his son Isaac (as given in Genesis) and Jephthah's actual sacrifice of his daughter (as given in Judges), can be viewed as two-person games played by the fathers with God. Different interpretations of these games suggest there is a trade-off between "Faith" and "Rationality": the more sophisticated the rationality calculations biblical characters make, the less need for them to have blind faith in God to achieve their goals. Thus, as the faith of a character wavers, his rationality may sustain him - but not necessarily if he deviates seriously and God is unsympathetic
One conclusion I draw from these stories is that "rational" interpretations of biblical actions are no more farfetched than "faith" interpretations. In fact, I would argue that a more mundane, rational explanation, precisely because it does not assume of biblical characters super-human righteousness in the face of adversity, is more credible. This is not to say, however, that faith is irrational. On the contrary, being faithful means having preferences such that one's rational strategy is independent of the strategy of other players - that is, one's own values completely determine how one acts
דר. בּרעמס איז דאס מסכם אזוי:
In the Constraint Game, God may or may not impose constraints on Adam and Eve, who may or may not adhere to them if they are imposed. This game is complicated by the wily serpent in a contemporaneous Temptation Game, who successfully tempts Eve. She in turn inveigles Adam into eating from the forbidden fruit
We never learn why the serpent wished to tempt Eve, but in the end Eve falls prey to its powers of persuasion. Might the serpent be a Satanlike creature that God finds convenient to make His evil surrogate for testing Adam and Eve?
This hypothesis is rendered plausible if God wants Adam and Eve to disobey Him in order to set an example that violation of His commands carries serious consequences. But the fact that God does not kill Adam and Eve for their sins, as He had threatened to do, suggests that He wanted them to fail in order to be able to promulgate both His power and His mercy in punishing them but sparing their lives
God’s real concern, it seems, was that if Adam and Eve ate with impunity from the tree of knowledge of good and bad, they would become godlike and so too much like Him. As a consequence, they might be able to challenge His dominion over all living things
But God also makes clear His vulnerability — in particular, that a thin line separates Him from them, based on His possessing a kind of moral knowledge. He does not want to share it with humans, it appears, lest they be able to mimic Him. Ironically, however, God’s moral superiority is challenged in later stories by the evil that He sanctions
The three Testing Games highlight this issue. In Testing Game 1, God asks Abraham to prepare Isaac, his son, for a burnt offering. Abraham is obedient to a fault, so the test is successful: Abraham proves himself willing to do something awful, without a peep of objection, and, consequently, Isaac’s sacrifice is arrested by the intervention of an angel
Does this signify that Abraham had complete faith in God and the superiority of His moral judgment? As I reconstructed the players’ choices and preferences in Testing Game 1, Abraham could surmise that God has a dominant strategy of reneging on His command to sacrifice Isaac. Supposing that God will choose it, Abraham can afford not to choose his own dominant strategy of disobeying God. Instead' he can heed God’s command for a sacrifice, which yields an NME [Nonmyopic Equilibrium] that is not the Nash equilibrium
But there is a second NME, whereby Abraham obeys God’s command and God reneges on His demand that Isaac be sacrificed. However, it occurs only if play starts at this outcome, which one might argue it did when Abraham prepares Isaac for sacrifice
God can implement this NME if He has moving power. However, its invocation is not necessary if Abraham anticipates that God will renege on His command, based on God’s promise that Abraham will found a great nation and have multitudinous descendants
Obviously, this cannot happen if Abraham kills Isaac. Abraham, therefore, can afford to forsake his dominant strategy of disobedience, knowing that Isaac will almost surely be saved and this will please God
On the one hand, if Abraham outwitted God in this manner, we might question whether God is really the superior player. On the other hand, it seems plausible that God could anticipate that Abraham would make this kind of calculation, in which case God would know that His testing of Abraham is not genuine. If this is the case, can God be considered morally superior if He knows His test has been adulterated, and the results are bogus?
In Testing Game 3, Job is a paragon of righteousness at the outset, but God still permits him to be tested by Satan. This time, it is the afflicted player, Job, who eventually succeeds. However, he suffers mightily before triumphing over Satan, in part because, while faltering, he never loses his faith in God entirely. One can say that God is vindicated, obtaining His best outcome, but Job does not do so well when he must endure the worst depredations of Satan. Although Satan loses his wager with God, he apparently survives to another day to test other human players
In summary, the people tested by God or Satan all survive their tests, but their experiences are bittersweet:
• Abraham saves Isaac, but there may well be repercussions in their father-son relationship over Abraham’s apparent willingness to sacrifice his son
• Job is rewarded with a new family and great riches, but is that really recompense for being severely tested, and losing everything, in order that God can win a wager?
All these stories put God’s ethics under scrutiny, which casts doubt on whether He can be considered on a morally higher plane than those He tests
I consider the choice, as formulated by Pascal, about whether to believe or not believe in God. Although biblical characters almost never doubted the existence of God, some, such as Pharaoh, questioned whether He had the supernatural powers attributed to Him
Pascal analyzed, from a decision-theoretic viewpoint, the consequences of P’s choice when she takes into account the penalties and rewards associated with each of two states — that God exists or does not exist. This became known as Pascal’s wager, although Pascal never suggested that betting actually take place
From a pragmatic, if not secular, perspective, Pascal concluded that belief in God is justified — even if there is only a small probability that He exists — because of the horrific consequences of not believing when, in fact, He exists. Pascal even recommended that P [person] adhere to rituals that reinforce her belief, especially if she thought that she might waver
I amended Pascal’s wager in the Search Decision to include the possibility that the existence of God, whom I subsequently refer to as SB [Superior Being], might be indeterminate. With the inclusion of this option, P does not have a dominant strategy and, therefore, cannot make the relatively easy choice that Pascal’s wager affords her
In the Search Decision, an agnostic might wish to continue searching — though this could prove costly in terms of time, mental effort, or emotional energy — so it seemed reasonable to postulate as a state of nature that SB’s existence could be indeterminate. In the related Concern Decision, wherein P must decide whether to be concerned about the choice she makes, there is a similar problem: Whether P benefits or not depends on whether SB is aware of, and cares about, P. Not knowing the answer to this question, P is left in a quandary
The P that I assume in these decisions, based on her preferences, is neither a believer nor a skeptic but rather someone eager to find answers, unavailing as they may be. In my opinion, the decisiontheoretic framework helps to show why P’s choices are difficult and may leave her vexed and anxious
דר. בּרעמס איז מסכם די "געים" פון התגלות ואמונה אזוי:
SB is a player, whose existence and behavior cannot be described as simply a state of nature. Like P, SB makes choices to advance his goals; furthermore, it behooves both P and SB to try to take into account the other player’s preferences in deciding on a rational strategy
In both Belief Games, SB’s strategies are either to reveal himself or not to do so, and P’s strategies are to believe or not to believe in SB. In the two Belief Games, SB’s goals remain the same: Primarily, he wants P to believe in his existence; secondarily, he does not want to reveal himself, lest doing so prevent a test of P’s faith. P, I assume, is of a scientific bent and seeks evidence — positive or negative — for her choice. In both games, she wishes, as a primary goal, that her belief (or nonbelief) in SB’s existence be confirmed by evidence (or lack thereof)
What distinguishes the two Belief Games are the different secondary goals of P. In Belief Game 1, P prefers to believe in SB’s existence if he exists, whereas she prefers not to believe if he does not exist in Belief Game 2. Thereby P gives SB the benefit of the doubt in Belief Game 1 but not in Belief Game 2
In both games, SB has a dominant strategy of not revealing himself, inducing P not to believe, which is the unique Nash equilibrium in both games
דאס איז וואס איך האב גע׳ענטפערט:חשוב׳ע מיטגליד האט געשריבן:ליינענדיג די תגובה קומט מיר צו וואונדערן, וויאזוי קענסטו זיך מתענג זיין מיט אזעלכע חקירות און הסברים וואס זענען געשריבן מיט גאנץ א שוואכע (אונזעריגע…) השגה אין גאט, און אדם ואברהם, און אין די ניסיונות? ווי לדוגמא (און לאו דווקא דאס) די מושג פון עונש וואס איז מער אלס א בירור הנפש ווי די פשטות’דיגע הבנה פון ’עונש’ (”נקמה”), לערנט ער כאי’ ס’איז יא עפעס א פייט און די עונש איז פשוט ווייל גאט איז שטערקער ממילא קען ער צוריק שלאגן?
איך מיין נישט ח”ו קיין מוסר, זאל יעדער טון כפי רצונו ואיני נותן דעמן, כ’ברענג נאר ארויס מיין נייגער וויאזוי די ביסט זיך מתענג מיט אזעלכע דברי חכמה.
און אוודאי א גרויסן ייש”כ פאר אלע דיינע תגובות וואס זענען קישורים לעינים!
(עכ’פ דיזע וואס כ’בין זוכה צו פארשטיין...)
מי אני האט געשריבן:ווי איך האב צוגעברענגט אין אפאר פלעצער, לדוגמא דא פון דר. קריסטיִן העיס, איז די אקאדעמישע קאנסענסוס אז די כותבי התנ"ך האבן פאקטיש יא געהאט אזא סארט "אונזעריגע" קאנסעפּשאן פון ג-ט. די פילאזאפישע "רמב"ם'יסטישע" סארט מופשט'דיגע לגמרי קאנסעפּשאן פון ג-ט איז ארויסגעוואקסן שפעטער, און דערנאך האט מען דאס אריינגעטייטשט בהתורה. (און ווי כ'האב למשל צוגעברענגט דא האבן לכאורה אפילו חז"ל געהאט א מער "אונזעריגע" נישט פילאזאפישע וכו' קאנסעפּשאן פון ג-ט; טאקע מער ראפינירט ווי אין די בּיבּליקעל עפאכע, אבער נישט די ראפינירטקייט פון שפעטער. וואס דאס ווערט טאקע אלס מער ראפינירט בהתפתחות החכמה, וואס אפילו בתוך די פארשידענארטיגע סטרענדס בהתורה טרעפט מען די חילוק צווישן די וואס זענען געשריבן געווארן פריער און די פון שפעטער, ואכמ"ל. ועיין ג"כ לדוגמא כאן.)
עכ"פ דר. בּרעמס גייט לפי דעם paradigm. ולפי"ז, ווי צוגעברענגט פריער פון דר. העיס (ווי אויך דא), זוכט מען צו פארשטיין די ליטערערי כאראקטער פונעם ווערק און אין דעם איז ג-ט טאקע א ״כאראקטער״ מיט רצוניות'ן אא"וו. אין אנדערע ווערטער, פון די פּערספּעקטיוו פון די כותבים וואס האבן דאס געשריבן.
נ.ב. פאר דו נעמסט דיך שרייען ״כפירה!״, איז לענ"ד קען מען דאס אלעס רואיג משווה זיין מיט דת. דאס איז א חלק וואס איך בין נחית מבאר צו זיין אין מיינע ארטיקלען און פארגעגרייטן אשכול דערויף.
