Rational Conviction in "Far-fetched" Prophecies

In the wake of the Charleston church shooting on June 17th, 2015, the media has been abuzz with talk about the so-called "Confederate Battle Flag." In the days to follow, large retailers began removing products from their inventory which featured the flag. Wal-Mart, Amazon, Sears, and eBay all announced policy-changes whereby the sale of Confederate Flag merchandise would be discontinued. 

Naturally, there was an uproar from both ends of the political spectrum. Some applauded these bans as a sign of "progress" and "justice." Others felt that they were overreactions - or worse yet, infringements on the American freedom of expression. 

Amid all of this Confederate Flag fracas, I came across an amusing photo of a comment made to Wal-Mart's Facebook page:

I found this to be quite funny. Grassroots over-the-top satire at its finest. 

But it got me thinking: What about all of the (seemingly) far-fetched prophecies in Tanach? To an outsider, these sound just as ridiculous as the aforementioned example. Consider the following prophetic predictions, and imagine what a skeptic might say:

• "When you beget children and grandchildren and will have been long in the Land, you will grow corrupt and make a carved image, a likeness of anything, and you will do evil in the eyes of Hashem, your God, to anger Him. I appoint heaven and earth this day to bear witness against you that you will surely perish quickly from the Land to which you are crossing the Jordan to possess; you shall not have lengthy days upon it, for you will be destroyed. Hashem will scatter you among the peoples, and you will be left few in number among the nations where Hashem will lead you. There you will serve gods, the handiwork of man, of wood and stone, which do not see, and do not hear, and do not eat, and do not smell" (Devarim 4:25).
  
  
  "Really? All of that is going to happen just because I make a nice little statue to display in my foyer? You really think that my innocent little artistic gesture will lead to mass exile for my offspring and the persecution of my people at the hands of our enemies?"
  
  
• "Do not become contaminated through any of these [illicit sexual practices]; for through all of these the nations that I expel before you became contaminated. The land became contaminated and I recalled its iniquity upon it; and the land disgorged its inhabitants. But you shall safeguard My decrees and My judgments, and not commit any of these abominations - the native or the proselyte who lives among you. For the inhabitants of the land who are before you committed all these abominations, and the land became contaminated. Let not the land disgorge you for having contaminated it, as it disgorged the nation that was before you" (Vayikra 18:27-28).
  
  
  "Really? REALLY?! So the Gay Pride Parade in Tel Aviv will lead to the downfall of the State of Israel? A man who sleeps with his own wife while she's a niddah will bring about yet another mass exile for the Jewish people? C'MON!"
  
  
• "If despite this you will not heed Me, and you behave toward Me with casualness, I will behave toward you with a fury of casualness; I will chastise you, even I, seven ways for your sins. You will eat the flesh of your sons; and the flesh of your daughters will you eat. I will destroy your lofty buildings and decimate your sun-idols, I will cast your carcasses upon the carcasses of your idols, and My Spirit will reject you. I will lay your cities in ruin and I will make your sanctuaries desolate; I will not savor your satisfying aromas. I will make the land desolate; and your foes who dwell upon it will be desolate. And you, I will scatter among the nations, I will unsheathe the sword after you; your land will be desolate and your cities will be a ruin" (ibid. 26:27-33).
  
  
  "Cannibalism? INTER-GENERATIONAL cannibalism, no less? You're telling me that if I don't keep halacha, then I'm going to end up devouring my own progeny, and my country will become a desolate wasteland?"

These are but a few examples of drastic prophecies from the Torah itself, but just flip through the writings of the Neviim and you encounter dozens - if not hundreds - of predictions which sound just as extreme in their dire warnings.

Now, if you are working with a model of hashgachah pratis by which God will cause these things to happen through direct intervention in the laws of nature, then these prophecies aren't problematic in the slightest. God will simply intervene as much as needed to bring about these results. However, if you are working with a model of hashgachah pratis by which this type of divine punishment is meted out by God withdrawing His hashgachah and allowing nature to take its course (a.k.a. "hester panim"), then it becomes even more difficult to differentiate one set of catastrophic predictions from another without suppressing the rational faculty. 

This brings us to our central question. We, as Jews, believe that the Torah's cataclysmic prophecies ARE different than the facetious prediction made by the Facebook commenter above - and yet, many of them strain our credulity just the same. Is there a basis on which we can differentiate between fallacious slippery slope predictions and genuine prophecies without suspending our disbelief? 

To be clear: I am not looking for a way to tell the difference between prophecy and non-prophecy. That we already have, thanks to Torah mi'Sinai, and the halachos of prophecy (see the Rambam's Hilchos Yesodei ha'Torah Chapter 7 and Chapter 8). Rather, I am looking for a means by which we can have a genuine rational conviction in true prophecies, without any stretching of the mind, without double-standards of belief, and (to be frank) without coming off like crazy religious fanatics. 

Artwork: False Prophet, by Eric Peterson

I believe that the answer is: yes! The answer lies in the recognition of three truths: (1) the law of unintended consequences is real, (2) history is often stranger than fiction, and (3) God's knowledge is different from human knowledge. Allow me to explain what I mean. 

The Wikipedia article on "unintended consequences" states: 

In the social sciences, unintended consequences (sometimes unanticipated consequences, unforeseen consequences, or accidents) are outcomes that are not the ones foreseen and intended by a purposeful action.

Here are a few diverse examples from the past 100 years of American history:

• Prohibition: The nation-wide ban of alcohol in the United States during the 1920's gave rise to Organized Crime, which has been responsible for innumerable deaths, injustices, and the spread of lawlessness throughout the country. 
  
  
• The Pill: The invention of oral contraceptives had huge ripple effects: it altered the public view of sex, it led to a shift in gender roles and acted as a catalyst for gender equality, in led to a rise in premarital sex - along with all of its unintended consequences (e.g. increase in out-of-wedlock pregnancies, STD, sexual violence, etc.) - and it undoubtedly shook up the prevailing views of marriage, the family structure, and the dynamics of population growth. 
  
  
• Passenger-side Airbags: In 1991 a federal law was introduced which mandated the installation of passenger-side airbags in automobiles, which led to an increase in deaths of children who couldn't withstand the force of the airbag, which encouraged the practice of having kids sit in the back seat, which led to an increase in the deaths of children who were forgotten in the car.
  
  
• "Charlie Wilson's War": In the 1980's, billions of dollars of aid was delivered to the Afghan Mujahideen - a move which ultimately gave rise to Al-Qaeda and the Taliban, which resulted in the 3,000 deaths in the September 11 attacks, plus the thousands of other deaths in the "War on Terror" which ensued. 

If, at the time of these events, a person confidently predicted that these specific consequences would happen, imagine how his predictions would be mocked and ridiculed: 

• "Banning alcohol will cause American cities to become filled with murder, theft, and crime?"
  
  
• "Stopping unwanted pregnancies will bring pestilence upon the land, destroy families, and possibly culminate in the election of a female president?" 
  
  
• "Making cars safer will lead to a nationwide uptick in infanticide?!"
  
  
• "Arming a bunch of rebels in the middle of nowhere will result in a terrorist attack of epic proportions on U.S. soil, which will lead to over a decade of new wars and mass casualties?" 

Indeed, such a doomsayer's confident predictions would be worthy of ridicule, even if he ended up being correct. There are SO many factors which might have affected how each of these scenarios played out that it would be foolish for any person to hold such strong convictions about any possible outcome. Historical hindsight is 20-20, but historical foresight is hopelessly myopic.

This is where God enters the picture. While human beings lack the knowledge to be able to definitively predict the long-reaching ripple effects of any event or societal change, God is Omniscient, and His knowledge is not limited like ours. For this reason, He can state with absolute certainty what will happen.

It is at this point that the skeptics would point their fingers and paint me as a religious fanatic for invoking divine omniscience. I can see them rolling their eyes and saying in a sardonic tone, "Oh, yeah, sure, well if GOD says it can happen then it can DEFINITELY happen! Such a SOPHISTICATED answer which puts to rest ALL doubt."

No, that is not what I am saying at all. I am not saying, "The Lawd said it's going to happen, and the LAAWWWWD knows what He knows!" That would not answer the question that this blog post sets out to answer. Listen very closely while I state my argument in four sentences:

• It is not far-fetched to believe that such strange unintended consequences CAN happen, for we see that they DO happen; rather, it is only problematic for a human being, with limited knowledge, to PREDICT such dire and dramatic consequences on the basis of our extremely shortsighted speculation.
  
• The only thing a person would need in order to have a rational conviction in such predictions is a credible source.
  
• Prophecy is a credible source, insofar as its authority stems from Torah mi'Sinai.
  
• Thus, one who is convinced of the veracity of Torah mi'Sinai should have no trouble accepting the veracity of prophetic predictions, without any need to stretch one's credulity - no matter how implausible these predictions may sound.

I am not claiming that we will be able to see how the fulfillment of these prophecies will come about. I am merely claiming that we should have no problem believing that they can come about. For example, we, with our limited knowledge, might not be able to see how laxity in mitzvos will lead to filial cannibalism, but we know that such things DO happen, and that they can come about as a ripple effect of a complex concatenation of events. Thus, when the Torah says, "you will eat the flesh of your sons; and the flesh of your daughters will you eat," we should have no trouble accepting the truth of this statement, without engaging in any mental gymnastics. Just as we can read about instances of unintended consequences in the past and accept them without hesitation, so too, we ought to be able to look at prophetic statements about future "unintended consequences" and accept them fully. 

I believe that having this awareness in mind while learning the writings of the Neviim will help make their prophecies more real to our minds. By remembering the law of unintended consequences, the stranger-than-fiction character of history, and the omniscience of the God Who communicated to these prophets, we can relate to the predictions of the Neviim as though we are reading prospective history book, and not a work of fiction.