Question: I am truly concerned about the existence of God. Not that I do not believe in Him, but when it comes to prove my point to my friends (who do not believe) all I am able to say is “It’s my faith.” But their arguments against the existence of God are often reasonable. I realize that in order to help them I must first be able to understand why they doubt. So this is my question to you: Why do people doubt the existence of God? What passages in the Bible will help me back up the reasons as to why people doubt? And finally, how can I avoid becoming agnostic?

Answer: You’re absolutely correct that your primary job is to strengthen your own faith and I will therefore try to give you a few ideas to get you started. If these thoughts hit their mark, they might then prove effective in working with your friends.

Just a bit of background. Let’s say that there are two types of Emunah (faith): Emunah Peshuta (which is sometimes called “simple faith”) and faith acquired through investigation (this is the one I’m sure you’re after). I don’t think, though, that simple, unlearned and unquestioning faith is of all that much value. After all, you could develop such faith for any belief.

What, then, is this Emunah Peshuta?

When the Torah (Gen. 25; 27) calls Jacob a “simple man (Ish Tam); a dweller in tents” it is clearly meant as a praise. Now, one normally translates the Hebrew word “Tam” as “simple.” But how is calling someone simple (i.e., unsophisticated) a praise? From its usage in other Torah passages and in the Mishna, the word Tam, in its root form, actually means “unchanged” or “pristine.” Jacob is therefore here described as unspoiled and filled with pure idealism.

Emunah Peshuta might be understood in a similar way. Would a Jew who stood at Mt. Sinai need proof to strengthen his faith in the God of the Torah? Certainly not. Mt. Sinai isn’t the only source of this type of faith. At least in theory, a child born into a society built on pure Torah values can also possess a profound, intelligent and intuitive knowledge that requires no proof. But that’s only available for someone who’s mind has never been shaped by the psychological baggage left by a crass, materialistic and pleasure-oriented society like ours. Most of us, however, can probably trace more of our personalities and attitudes to Hollywood and TV ads than to Torah. I believe that most opposition to faith in God comes from materialistic attitudes; not from cogent and intellectually demanding arguments.

How does one counter “the street?” More often than not, that comes first through authenticating the Bible itself (and its Divine origin). What will follow is a very brief outline of how this might be done (there are a number of other approaches, but this one is most satisfying to me, so I’ll use it as my example). This approach is based on that of the medieval Jewish scholar, Rabbi Yehuda haLevi in his master work, The Kuzari. The method has been best explained in our day by Rabbi Dr. David Gottlieb in a free e-book called Living Up to the Truth, available at the author’s site. I highly recommend you take a look at it.

The first step is to state the Torah’s claim (what, according to the Torah itself, was supposed to have happened). We can then consider how believable it is. Or, to put it another way, had it not happened, how likely it would it be for a faker to have successfully fooled his unsuspecting audience and passed it off as the historical truth.

We find in the text (Ex. 19; 9): “And God said to Moshe, behold I will come to you in the thickness of a cloud so that the people will hear when I talk with you and also believe in you for ever…”

Thereafter (ibid, verse 19): “And the voice of the Shofar continued and (become) very strong and Moses spoke and God answered him with a voice.”

There’s the claim: That God spoke to Moses and clearly chose him as His prophet; not in a dream or in his private tent, but in front of and in full view of the entire nation! This validates every single statement that would later be made by Moses. Years later (soon before his death) Moses publicly reminds the people of what they had seen (Deut. 5; 4, 5): “Face to face God spoke with you at the mountain from the midst of the fire; I stood between God and you at that time to tell you the word of God…”

There’s no record of any single Jew standing up and denying any detail…evidence that the millions of Jews who stood at the border with Israel and (the many of them) who had stood at Sinai acknowledged the authenticity of events they themselves must have seen. In other words, it really happened. Again: God Himself appeared (in some way) before the whole nation and spoke to Moses. That scale and style would seem to utterly preclude “magic.”

Now you could say that there were Jews who denied and that Moses chose only to record his version of history. The truth is, that the real answer to that challenge is far too long for this letter (you can find the whole story in Rabbi David Gottlieb’s book). But, in short, the fact that there has always been a strong and literate core of observant Jews who accepted the authenticity of the accounts of the Torah means that the absurd claims (three million people survived for forty years by eating mannah every day…?) made sense to them.

How do we know this? Because if the book was made up and only published after the fact, why should any intelligent people accept what would have been obvious lies? For example: “Really! If this book is true, and it says (Deut. 31; 24-26) ‘and it was when Moses finished writing the words of this Torah in a book until its end; and Moses commanded the Levites, the bearers of the Ark of the covenant of God, saying: Take this book of the Torah and place it…’ – then why haven’t I ever heard about this book? Where has it been all these years? Why didn’t my father tell me about it?”

Or: “Really! If everything you’ve shown me is true, why didn’t I ever hear about the forty year miracle of the manna? Shouldn’t I have read about it in school? Shouldn’t the subject have come up at home? It’s a really big event!”

So the fact that the Jews accepted and still accept the Torah as it is with all its outrageous claims tells us that all the claims were believable. Or, in other words, that they were true.

This, as I said, is not the whole story. You or your friends might come up with all kinds of questions…and in my classroom I always encourage that. I’ve never, ever regretted encouraging and facing tough questions and I’ve never “lost” a student from it. If you do have any problems with this overview, let me know and we can discuss them. Carefully reading Rabbi Gottlieb’s book is also a most worthwhile investment of time and energy.

I wish you all the best in your admirable search for faith and remain available to you if you think I can be of any help.

Rabbi Boruch Clinton

[Reposted from the Archives]