Agenda Going Forward

I haven’t a lot of time to post now (not enough to do a complex idea justice) but will anyway outline the course of thinking that I plan to pursue in greater detail in the coming blog-posts:

(1) Correlation of divine will and human will

We have already quoted a classic dictum from Ethics of the Fathers: “Do God’s will as if it were your will.” I believe this to be the central meta-ethical idea characteristic of the majority of the mainstream of the Jewish tradition. (The difference between meta-ethics and ethics can be summarized: “Ethics” deals with “what is good (concretely)?” Meta-ethics deals with “what makes the ‘good’ good? -- What determines the good?” The Euthyphro problem (God <—?—>good) is a meta-ethical problem. We need to explore: What are the deeper implications of this idea?

(2) The nature of “will” and “purposive action”

By speaking of “God’s will” (as in the creation of the universe) or “human will” (as in our performing an ordinary action freely), we are speaking of a particular modality of action. What is the nature of this modality?

(3) “Purposive action” compared with “physical causality” and “random event”

I maintain that there are three kinds of action affirmed in our current basic scientific model of the universe and/or in everyday life. The scientific model recognizes absolute causality (as when one billiard ball bounces off another as described in Newtonian mechanics) and random events (as when a particular radium atom emits an alpha-particle at a particular time). It does not recognize “purposive action” as I understand it. Is “purposive action” then reducible to a combination of absolute causality and random events? Or does a third modality of action really exist?

(4) The correlation of two problems: divine creation of the world, and human free will

I will further maintain that it makes sense to affirm “purposive action” in the universe only if we affirm it on two levels: that the universe is purposive (i.e., God created/creates the world) and that the self is purposive (i.e., we act by free will).

(5) Back to ethics

This leads back to a reaffirmation of my resolution of the Euthyphro dilemma, based on a contemporary cosmological perspective: The “good” can be identified with “God’s will” as expressed through the creation of the universe, if and only if we maintain the existence of “purposive action” on the cosmic and individual level. If we view the cosmos as purposive, then we ought to see our own lives as framed by that cosmic purpose, and act for the advancement of all existence and all life, as the expression of God’s cosmic creative will.