One can\u2019t help but be stunned by the wonders of nature and its varieties and laws. How many times does one have to catch sight of the wide range of human hearts, faces, and realities, to say nothing of the even wider range of animal, vegetable, and mineral realities on earth, in the vast seas, and in the wide skies, before he steps back and is overtaken by the sheer magic of it all? And how stunning are the laws of physics, chemistry, mathematics, and more that seem to serve as the universe\u2019s very keystones!<\/p>\n
Yet, it could all have been otherwise. Not only could everything have looked, sounded, smelled, interacted, etc., differently than it does now; and not only could the \u201ckeystones\u201d have functioned utterly unlike the way they do now; but, reality could have been formed to behave in astoundingly unknowable ways<\/em>. Rather than needing to breathe to exist, as one trite example, we might have needed to irradiate one color one moment, and then to irradiate another color at another moment. And what if we were all somehow colorblind, and could thus never understand our situation?<\/p>\n So as people of faith we\u2019re to believe that God created things just as it is and purposefully; and that He had everything follow certain rules and to interact in ways we can grasp just so<\/em> we can grasp them and know what to expect (for the most part). After all, God is under no imperative to do anything whatsoever, given that His rule is sovereign, and that He\u2019s omnipotent and omniscient.<\/p>\n So Ramchal makes the point that \u201cThe very first thing to know about (God\u2019s) governance is that it\u2019s dependent upon sequence, which is the first principle God wanted\u201d to exist in the universe (comments to Petach<\/em> 30), rather than the universe be \u201cformless and empty\u201d (Genesis 1: 2). In other words, God deliberately created sequence and order so that we might understand His ways herein. \u201cNo one could say that God was forced to act that way\u201d or within such a system \u201c\u2026 given that He\u2019s utterly omnipotent\u201d as Ramchal put it there and as we\u2019d suggested ourselves above.<\/p>\n One clear implication of God\u2019s having chosen to allow things to function in sequence and predictably (for the most part) is the fact that He chose to forgo or to delimit His omnipotence as a consequence, as Ramchal points out there, too. And He allowed things to work themselves out in time, bit by bit, otherwise we simply would never understand His ways whatsoever [1].<\/p>\n But there\u2019s more to it than that, as one would expect.<\/p>\n Note:<\/p>\n [1]\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 See Ramchal\u2019s Klallim Mitoch Milchemet Moshe, Da\u2019at Tevunot <\/em>40, as well as his comments to Petach<\/em> 10.<\/p>\n (c) 2011 Rabbi Yaakov Feldman<\/p>\n Feel free to contact me at feldman@torah.org<\/a><\/p>\n ———————————————————-<\/p>\n AT LONG LAST! Rabbi Feldman’s translation of Maimonides’ “Eight Chapters” is available here<\/a> at a discount.<\/p>\n You can still purchase a copy of Rabbi Feldman’s translation of “The Gates of Repentance” here<\/a> at a discount as well.<\/p>\n Rabbi Yaakov Feldman has also translated and commented upon “The Path of the Just” and “The Duties of the Heart” (Jason Aronson Publishers).<\/p>\n Rabbi Feldman also offers two free e-mail classes on www.torah.org entitled “Spiritual Excellence<\/a>\u201d and \u201cRamchal<\/a>\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" One can\u2019t help but be stunned by the wonders of nature and its varieties and laws. How many times does one have to catch sight of the wide range of human hearts, faces, and realities, to say nothing of the … Continue reading