Can God Learn?

Vayera
Genesis 18:1-22:24

Précis: God “appeared” (vayera) to Abraham in the form of three travelers to whom Abraham shows hospitality. They promise of the birth of Isaac, overheard by Sarah (who laughs). God reveals His plans for the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, and Abraham argues for its salvation for the sake of any innocent who might dwell there. The scene shifts to Sodom, where Lot lives, and he and his daughters are rescued first from an unruly mob, and then from the destruction of the city itself. Lot’s wife glances back and turns into the pillar of salt. His daughters, fearing that they are the last females alive, make Lot drunk and engage in sexual relations with him, later giving birth to founders of the tribes of Moab and Ammon (traditional adversaries of the Israelites).
     Back with Abraham, Sarah conceives and gives birth to Isaac. She becomes unhappy with the continued presence of Ishmael and prevails upon Abraham to expel Ishmael and Hagar from the household, which he does (after being promised by God that Ishmael, too, will be the father of a great nation). Thereafter, the story continues with the attempted sacrifice of Isaac by Abraham, the Akedah: the Binding of Isaac.

Genesis 18:23-33 “Abraham came forward and said, 'Will you sweep away the innocent along with the guilty? What if there be fifty innocent within the city…? Far be it from You to do such a thing, to bring death to the innocent as well as the guilty'…And Adonai said, 'I will forgive the whole place for their sake.' And Abraham said, 'What if the 50 innocent will lack five? Will you destroy the whole city for want of the five?'”

With thanks to Jerome M. Segal’s Joseph’s Bones (Riverhead Books, 2007), I’d like to examine what may at first seem a highly heretical point of view: that Genesis reports the moral education and development of God. As God "experiences" humanity, His understanding of morality changes and becomes more "mature."

There is a mixed bag of God's view of humanity leading up to the Flood story. Adam and Eve are naive and are expelled, but treated well (God provides them with clothing). God protects Cain after he kills his brother Abel. But by the time of the Flood, the text (Gen. 6:5) tells us that everything every human being did was evil (except, of course, for Noah). No specifics are given. The text merely tells us that “God saw” how great was the evil – we have God’s impression of what humanity was engaged in, and that He “thought” humanity was uniformly evil, without room for individual differentiation.


After the Flood, it seems that God has "learned" that humanity is in fact a mixture of good and evil. This is suggested by God’s expression of regret for His action, and His promise never to repeat it. He creates a formal covenant between Himself and humanity, with the rainbow as a “reminder.” God’s expression of regret is troubling, precisely because it calls into question His omniscience. Who needs the reminder: humanity or God?


In Chapter 18 of Genesis, God consults with the angels as to whether He should hide his intent to destroy Sodom from Abraham because Abraham has been “singled out” to “instruct his children and his posterity to keep the way of the Lord.” Because Abraham is to be a teacher of morals, God decides to tell Abraham that he "will see" what is going on down in Sodom. God is becoming a participant in Abraham’s moral education.


It is ironic, then, that what transpires next is that the roles are reversed: Abraham becomes God’s teacher. When informed of God’s intent "to see" what is going on in Sodom, Abraham responds (famously) “Will you sweep away the innocent with the guilty?...Shall not the Judge of all the earth deal justly?”


Abraham knows what God has planned, because God has done it before with the Flood. Abraham knows God’s intent, and immediately challenges God. God’s response is interesting as well. He does not say “Of course not, I’ll pick out only the guilty.” Instead God says that He will pardon the city if 50 innocent men can be found. So while no longer suggesting that all of humanity is evil, God implies that at least some critical mass of the good can save the larger, evil society in which they live. In arguing that justice requires God to act justly, Abraham asserts that moral law is binding upon God.


Rabbinic interpretations see the connection between the Flood and Sodom. In Genesis Rabbah 49:9, Abraham reminds God about His promise: “You have sworn not to bring a deluge upon the world. Would You evade Your oath? Not a deluge of water [but] will you bring a deluge of fire? Then You will not have acted according to Your oath.” In this midrash, Abraham chides God for looking for a “legal loophole” and interprets the rainbow not as a “reminder” of how God would destroy the world, but rather about the underlying principle: that the innocent cannot be swept away with the guilty. This principle of protecting the innocent is what links the stories of the Flood and Sodom. Abraham’s argument is aimed at obtaining God’s assent to this principle and thereby demonstrating God’s moral development.


On the one hand, the Torah may be telling us that God’s understanding of morality grows as His understanding of humanity grows. Humanity has some apparent surprises up its collective sleeve, perhaps because of the operation of free will. God’s initial subscription to the theory of collective punishment slowly gives way to the concept – however poorly executed in our own lives – of individual culpability. On the other hand, if we read the text as a cautionary tale (with humans being expected to imitate God's actions), we may see that we are being to instructed to become increasingly moral ourselves, and to recognize (just as God recognizes) that we are bound to a moral imperative which exists outside of ourselves. It is a subtle, if not sublime, refutation of the concept of situational ethics and a rejection of the belief that all systems of morality share equal validity. This tale tells us that some things are always right, and some things are always wrong, regardless of circumstance, society, or faith.


The fact that life does not follow this rule is a question worth pondering this Shabbat and in the future.