Do Geese See God? Do Babies Believe?

The following is adapted from our short, subscriber-exclusive Hebrew ebook (far better and more accurate in my opinion).

Do animals and infants believe in God? Yes.

How do we know? The same way we know all humans do: from action.

Babies move and cry. A cow knows its owner (Yeshayahu 1:3). Not only “Man acts” in economics, but all “Life” does. Volitional action (goal-seeking behavior, not mere reflexes or conditioning) means the being recognizes patterns and causality, expects the future to resemble the past, and expects one location to resemble another. They expect their actions to affect reality. They expect laws, which means they tacitly believe in a Law-Giver.

Birds, babies, and biologists all demonstrate they believe in the Law of Induction, the scandal of atheism. They constantly act as if the world is constant and intelligible. (Animals also have a degree of Da’as, including even “כונה להזיק”, which is why they are liable for nezek.) So, atheism is not just foolish (which would make it possible for the fool, at least), but ontologically impossible. Incidentally, it’s not clear the Torah even mentions atheism, only denial of Divine Providence (אין אלהים). We are commanded to gird faith and reveal belief, recall miracles past and present, honor God, and reinforce knowledge, not reason our way toward it.

Atheists either contradict themselves outright or later smuggle God in the back door, whether as “Reason”, “History”, “Will”, “Structure”, blah blah. Not only can’t they “fully” justify induction, they can’t justify it partially, either. And when they say they believe in induction because it pragmatically works, they either contradict themselves or fall into circular reasoning. (And then they say, “Well, humans aren’t perfectly rational”. Of course, we already know that from observing people claiming to be atheists!)

The whole secular philosophical enterprise is self-refuting. A common evasion is that induction is just “useful”. But if it’s useful, in this case, that means it reflects reality, and thus truth.

Living Beings Claiming (Even Pondering) Atheism = Living, Live-Action Performative Contradiction.

Bottom line:

• 1: Atheism doesn’t exist.
• 2: Babies and animals do exist.
• Ergo, 3: Animals and babies aren’t, God forbid!, atheists.

Here’s a maximally stuffy symbolic logic formulation, courtesy of Claude (and don’t feel bad, I can’t read it either!):

Definitions:

• Let A(x) = “x is an atheist”
• Let E(x) = “x exists”
• Let B(x) = “x is a baby”
• Let N(x) = “x is a non-human animal”
• Let D = “the domain of all existing beings”
• Let ℱ = “God forbid” [moral/theological operator]

Premises:

1. ∀x ∈ D: ¬A(x)
   [For all x in the domain of existing beings, x is not an atheist]
2. ∃x ∈ D: B(x) ∧ E(x)
   [There exists at least one x such that x is a baby and x exists]
3. ∃x ∈ D: N(x) ∧ E(x)
   [There exists at least one x such that x is a non-human animal and x exists]

Inference: 4. ∀x ∈ D: (B(x) ∨ N(x)) → ℱ(A(x)) ∧ ¬A(x)
[For all x, if x is a baby or animal, then God forbid x should be an atheist, and indeed x is not an atheist]

Conclusion: 5. ℱ(∃x: (B(x) ∨ N(x)) ∧ A(x)) ∧ ¬∃x: (B(x) ∨ N(x)) ∧ A(x)
[God forbid there should exist babies or animals who are atheists, and indeed no such beings exist]

∴ Q.E.D.