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Theodicy re-visited
Book #1 is primarily devoted to a solution of the age-old problem of the classic problem of Evil: theodicy.
THEODICY: If there is a God who is all-powerful and
all-merciful, why is there gross evil?
The ultimate answer to the philosophical conundrum of God and Evil, however, may transcend neo-classical reasoned philosophical discourse. En toto,
this work, God and Good, is
de facto a philosophical response to theodicy, as well.
*
“What is it,” French journalist Cheron asks the Jewish writer Wiesel, “that is most radically counter-poised to the mystery of death and the mystery of Evil?”
Replies Elie Wiesel: “The mystery of life and Good.”
*
No question about it.
*
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Author’s First Midrash
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Genesis / “Bereshith”
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Midrash:
God’s 100 Archangels
Before the beginning of form
Before the beginning of time
The God of Israel
Lord of Lords
King of Kings
gathered his 100 Archangels
from the far corners of the universe
They stood in a celestial phalanx
10 Archangels deep by 10 Archangels across
Each spanning a light year
Thus, by current measure, the celestial phalanx covered 100 square light years,
if such a comparison can even be made
facing the Divine
I have called you here, Archangels of the Universe
to advise me...
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as to whether or not
to create
Heaven and Earth
Advise me, my celestial Archangels
Shall I proceed forward or not?
If I do not proceed, clearly you will never see realization
as more than Ideas
as more than Visions
as more than possibilities
interacting only with the Divine
But you must decide
I seek your celestial counsel.
One by one
the Archangels of the universe
stepped forth......
*
Do NOT create
admonished the Angel of LIGHT,
There will be too much suffering
Do NOT create
said the Angel of HOPE,
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There will be too much suffering
Do NOT create
said the Angel of LOVE,
There will be too much suffering
Do NOT create
said the angel of BEAUTY,
There will be too much suffering
Do NOT create
said the Angel of VICTORY.
There will be too much suffering
Do NOT create
said the Angel of SPIRITUALITY,
There will be too much suffering
Do NOT create
said the Angel of POETRY,
There will be to much suffering
and so it went,
on and on
different Archangels
- but with the same utterance
Angel after Angel
quadrant after quadrant
with but one conclusion......
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the Angel of the TIDES
the Angel of JOY
the Angel of CREATIVITY
the Angel of DREAMS
the Angel of ELEGANCE
...of EXPLORATION
...of FREEDOM
...of KINDNESS
...FULFILLMENT
...MERCY
...PASSION
...JUSTICE
one Archangel after another
stepped forward
to front–and–center
of the phalanx
faced the Divine
and said
each one almost verbatim
Do NOT create Heaven and Earth
There will be too much suffering
The 75th Angel, the 76th Angel, the 77th Angel...
the 85th, 86th, 87th...
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moving towards unanimity...
...95th, 96th, 97th, 98th, 99th...
...up to the 100th Archangel
the one in the very back left quadrant/corner
of the celestial phalanx...
.....the Angel who BURIES the DEAD
and there was the slightest of pauses, almost imperceptible
as the Archangel shuffled his way forward to the front...in his patented trudge.......
stood before the Divine
stood silent for a few moments
then uttered very deliberately...
“UVACHARTA”
and thou shalt choose...
[the Angels of HOPE, LOVE and MERCY shifted slightly and coiled...]
“BA-CHAYIM”
LIFE
and, simultaneous with the utterance...
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The God of Israel
King of Kings
Lord of Hosts
arose in all glory from his celestial throne
[all 100 Archangels bowed down]
the Divine stretching forth his right arm
...and in one grand majestic sweep...
IGNITED THE COSMOS
Creating the heavens and the earth
*
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from
Kohelet
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Ecclesiastes (Chapter 3)
( English )
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Kohelet (Chapter 3)
( Hebrew )
source: JPS Hebrew–English Tanach (pp 1765 and 1768–9)
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The UNITY “POTENTIAL”
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MAARIV FOR YOM KIPPUR YIGDAL
*A source: Rabbi Nosson Scherman, The Complete Artscroll Machzor
Yom Kippur, Mesorah Publications, Ltd., New York, © 1986, p. 158-159.
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[see “Yigdal” prayer (page prior) – in the original Hebrew plus English translation]
The UNITY “POTENTIAL”* a
SUMMA II will propose that this UNITY
– encompasses all – and always has
– is an integrated consciousness
– keeps evolving or generating additional layers,
layers whose parameters are, perhaps, out of our ability to comprehend at all
– has at its core, Quest for Potential * b
– is an outwardly expanding spiraling vortex
– continuously iterates to keep re–optimizing and
re–evolving and re–layering
– mimics on a grand level, that which we do on a human level (or vice versa perhaps being more accurate)
– drives the cosmic order * c
– is a penultimate ‘collective’ of all
– life–force
– consciousness
– spirit
*a see also Appendix H
*b à la the Kabbalistic En Sof
*c as per tradition
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To give a very rough parallel:
a single individual red blood cell (in a single individual human) IS
to the vast Milky Way Galaxy
as
a single individual human IS
to the infinite Quest for Potential∞ Unity
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note:
The
Key
Term
Quest for Potential∞
should always be understood as
Quest for Potential∞ (recursive to the infinite power)
meaning
Quest for Potential∞ (within Potential (within potential...
...ad infinitum
Quest for Potential∞
is infinitely recursive;
an infinitely recursive, unique supra-dynamic:
Quest for Potential∞
within Quest for Potential∞
within Quest for Potential∞ (.......ad infinitum)
hence, the INFINITY symbol
Another way of looking at this schematically would be
Q4P ( Q4P ( Q4P .......
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Yes, like those wooden Chinese/Russian
dolls-within-a-doll, within-a-doll, etc.,
usually, ~6 – 10 dolls
But in our case, it is a
dynamic-within-a-dynamic, within-a-dynamic, etc.
ad infinitum
(to the power of INFINITY)
– and ad infinitum means an awful lot of
‘coiled potential’
Q4P = Quest for Potential∞
Q4F = Quest for Fulfillment
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Encapsulization
Quest for Potential∞ is at the core of the Divine
Quest for Potential∞
(to the Infinite Divine Extraordinariation power)
drives the cosmic order
– Book #1
Quest for Potential∞ –
the embryonic Divine
...an infinitely expanding,
fully integrated METAPHYSICAL WOMB –
encompassing all in its wake –
from the beginning
through the forward reaches of TIME
energizing
life-actualizing
optimizing
nourishing
and
potentializing
our cosmos –
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.....and all cosmos
– as it actually IS the cosmos –
...striving for complete fulfillment
and striving to attain Infinite Divine Extraordinariation
*
Quest for Potential∞
is at the core of the infinitely questing Divine
They are essentially one-and-the-same
* * *
Quest for Potential∞
IS the cosmic order
*
The dynamic IS the cosmos
*
The cosmos IS the dynamic
***
Quest for Potential∞
gobbles-up ‘nothingness’
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“We hope to explain the entire universe in a simple
formula you can put on your T-shirt”
– Leon Lederman (Nobel Prize in Physics) c. 2004
Q4P∞
Quest for Potential
(infinitely recursive)
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pre-Summa II
“To my mind, there must be at the bottom of it all, not an utterly simple equation, but an utterly simple IDEA. And to me that idea, when we finally discover it, will be so compelling, and so inevitable, so beautiful, we will all say to each other, ‘How could it have ever been otherwise?’”
– Professor John Wheeler, former Chair of the
Physics Department at the University of Texas at Austin,
(from the PBS science documentary,
“The Creation of The Universe” 2004)
post-Summa II
“Birnbaum’s God and Good
is a major intellectual triumph and
potential conceptual breakthrough”
– Professor John Wheeler
Professor Emeritus of Physics
Princeton University, 2008
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“All revolutions take time to settle in”
– Lanza del Vasto (1901-1981)
“All that was new in the work, was false,
and all that was true, was old”
– May 1859
sample / negative initial academic reaction<
by Professor Samuel Haughton
of Dublin, Ireland
to Charles Darwin’s newly-published
Origin of Species
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Caution to dogmatists:
This book supplants centuries–old perspectives.
This book peels away layers of the cosmic code.
This book attempts to “cut-to-the-core”.
Parental guidance suggested.
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FOREWORD
by D. N. Khalil
*
Jewish philosophy is often resigned to the assumption that fundamental descriptions of God and the universe are beyond the grasp of the human intellect. Questions of Jewish philosophy are generally posed in the context of a mysterious framework that is rarely examined per se. Such a mindset is often more concerned with man’s place, role, and duties in the world, than it is with the contours of the universe and the latter’s relationship to the Eternal:
“[The reason of Jewish philosophy] is the reason that we find in chess...Chess offers the greatest possible scope for calculation...But all this takes place in accordance with a set of rules that determine which moves are permitted and which are not and how the pieces are set up. The rules themselves are the limits of reason in chess. They are not questioned nor need they be justified because the rationality of chess begins after the rules have been set down...This is Jewish intelligence...[it] has a sense of limit, of the vanity involved in hurling questions at the limits...”
– Michael Wyschogrod, The Body of Faith I, 3.
[italics mine]
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Of course, there have been noteworthy attempts to defy this generalization. Maimonides is perhaps the most prominent example of a Jewish philosopher who would analyze – if not challenge – Judaism’s fundamental suppositions. In his Guide of the Perplexed, Maimonides describes a Judaism that dovetails seamlessly with an understanding of the universe as established primarily by Aristotle. As Maimonides holds Judaism to the light of Aristotle’s logic, he finds concordance on all topics, with merely one exception: the question of eternalism.
Aristotle is the ‘eternalist,’ believing that the universe is eternal and that God comes into existence at some point in time. Maimonides asserts the converse: that God is eternal and that the universe is actively brought into being. It is striking that Maimonides, who accepts Aristotle’s position on an array of topics, including the essence of both God and man, cannot find agreement with Aristotle on the relationship between God and the cosmos. It is even more astounding that neither Maimonides nor Aristotle claim to prove their respective positions vis-à-vis God’s relation to the cosmos. It is as if both men probe to the depths of metaphysics together in complete accord, only to resign, quite openly, to their respective presuppositions at the end
of the journey.
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Both sides appear to be missing tools that are essential to complete this journey. And both sides admit their respective unpreparedness by abandoning the very thought-process that brought them to this point:
“As for the matters concerning which we have no argument or that are too great in our opinion, it is difficult for us to say: why is this so? For instance, when we say: Is the world eternal or not?”
– Aristotle, Topica I, 11
“The eternity of the world or its creation in time becomes an open question, it should in my opinion be accepted without proof... it is not in the power of speculation to accede.”
– Moses Maimonides, Guide of the Perplexed, II, 16
It is at this juncture that David Birnbaum enters the forum. He does so by delineating the relationship between God and eternity in the context of a unified metaphysics that concurrently addresses the relationship of God to the cosmos and the cosmos to eternity.
Such is the philosophy expounded in his first work, God and Evil. It is this simultaneous solution that lays the foundation for the work’s understanding of the existence of gross evil in the world. Birnbaum’s is a solution that has been left almost entirely unchallenged in the eighteen years since its publication in 1988. In the current work, God and Good, Birnbaum has looked further into the implications of this metaphysics and found the individual to be central. Here the individual is revealed as the engine of cosmic evolution. The relationship of man to God, man to the cosmos, and man to eternity thus become the focus of this work.
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Birnbaum feels no compulsion to obey the rules that his intellectual predecessors followed. Building on the foundation of ancient Jewish principles, particularly Kabbalistic ones, he is not afraid to draw on Eastern principles of temporal circularity, concepts from biology and physics that have yet to be applied to metaphysical issues, or insights from other scientific and humanistic disciplines that have been left untapped in philosophy.
Asserting that previous attempts to characterize the essence of the cosmos have fallen short for their lack of an adequate conceptual arsenal, as exemplified by Maimonides’ and Aristotle’s impasse, he consolidates these eclectic influences into a defined set of metaphysical ‘tools.’ Birnbaum presents these tools at the outset of God and Good. He then uses them to build a model that is applicable to all the arenas from which its influences were initially derived.
The implications of Birnbaum’s original – markedly straightforward – doctrine therefore, range from the most general to the most specific. The doctrine is unified by the central thesis that unbounded potentiality pulls both the individual and the cosmos towards a Divine ideal. Potential is universal. Potential is the nexus:
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“One of the great afflictions of man’s spiritual world is that every discipline of knowledge, every feeling, impedes the emergence of the other...This defect cannot continue permanently. Man’s nobler future is destined to come, when he will develop to a sound spiritual state so that instead of each discipline negating the other, all knowledge, all feeling will be envisioned from any branch of it...No spiritual phenomenon can stand independently. Each is interpenetrated by all.”
– Abraham Isaac Kook, Lights of Holiness, I, p. 22
Interestingly, in spite of its novelty, the paradigm elaborated by Birnbaum is no less firmly anchored in Biblical and Talmudic concepts than the previous Jewish perspectives that were restrained by these same influences. For instance, God’s self-identification as “I will be that which I will be” (Exodus 3:14) is perhaps the single best articulation of God and Good’s description of potentiality’s association with God.
In his first work, Birnbaum meticulously dissects Adam’s Garden of Eden dilemma (Genesis 2:17), understanding it as humankind’s choice between potential/infinite growth and bliss/limited growth. Birnbaum then goes on, throughout God and Evil and now God and Good, to reveal the theme of potential in traditional Jewish narratives and even Judaism’s specific commandments.