Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!decvax!harpo!floyd!whuxlb!pyuxll!eisx!npoiv!npois!hogpc!houxm!hocda!spanky!burl!duke!unc!bts From: bts@unc.UUCP Newsgroups: net.religion Subject: Playing games with God, II Message-ID: <5646@unc.UUCP> Date: Tue, 2-Aug-83 03:22:41 EDT Article-I.D.: unc.5646 Posted: Tue Aug 2 03:22:41 1983 Date-Received: Wed, 3-Aug-83 04:00:55 EDT Lines: 131 I haven't been able to find either of Steven J. Brams' books in the Math/Physics Library at UNC. This past Satur- day night, however, I found a volume titled "Applied Game Theory", edited by S.J.Brams, A.Schotter, and G.Schwodiauer, published by Physica-Verlag in 1979. The last article in the book is "Faith versus rationality in the Bible: game- theoretic interpretations of sacrifice in the Old Testa- ment", by Brams. In the interest of continuing this discus- sion, I'll summarize parts of the article. (The book, according to a card on the inside cover, cost $80.00. The other articles are more mundane game theory. Given that it was until re-bound a paperback, however, I'd say the book's interesting.) All biblical quotes will be from the KJV, other quotes from Brams. Brams studies two stories in the Old Testament wherein God tested the faith of fathers by seeing if they would sacrifice their children. The first story is well known to all of us: Abraham and Isaac (Genesis 22:1-18). There, God called off the sacrifice at the last minute. The second story is about Jephthah's sacrifice of his daughter (Judges 11:30-40). Since the latter story is not so familiar, I'll start with a synopsis. During a battle, Jephthah vowed a vow to the Lord and said, If You shall without fail deliver the children of Ammon into my hands, then whatever comes out of my house to meet me when I return in peace from the children of Ammon, surely it shall belong to the Lord, or I will offer it up for a burnt offering. (Judges 11:30-31) When Jephthah returned home, he was first greeted by his daughter, his only child. Despite his grief and with his daughter's consent, Jephthah went ahead with the sacrifice. (He did give her a two month's delay (Judges 11:37) so that she might "go up and down on the mountains and weep for [her] virginity.") This time God did not intervene. (At this point, by the way, there is an intriguing quo- tation from the Encyclopedia Judaica, vol. 9, p. 1342, on "Jephthah". It says that this story is "exceptional and cannot be treated as indicative of the norm of human sacri- fice in Israel". Would any scholars care to enlighten us as to what that norm might have been?) Brams models these stories as two-player games. In each game, the father has two choices: to offer the sacri- fice or to refuse. Since God moves second, He may make His move based on the father's. Therefore, He has four choices: He may (1) reject the sacrifice if offered/forgive if the father refuses, (2) reject the sacrifice if offered/not forgive if the father refuses, (3) accept the sacrifice if offered/forgive if the father refuses, or (4) accept the sacrifice if offered/not forgive if the father refuses. Hence, there are eight outcomes to each game. Under the assumptions that God would prefer not to have Isaac sacri- ficed but would rather Jephthah kept his promise, Brams ranks these outcomes from God's point of view. (This seems weak to me. Brams rationalizes by saying that "since Abraham's time, the Israelites had caused God much grief... so He was not inclined to be sympathetic with people... who were too quick to make solemn vows." (p. 440) The rankings of outcomes according to the fathers can be disputed, too.) Next, he ranks the outcomes for the fathers' under three levels of faith: "faithful regardless", "wavers somewhat", and "wavers seriously". If the father is "faithful regardless", there is a clear choice, in the sense of a dominant strategy. In the other two cases, neither strategy is dominant. In those cases, according to Brams, the father must try to anticipate God's choice by assuming that God is a "rational" player. Abraham will, in all cases, decide on just the strategy he chose: to sacrifice Isaac. Jephthah, on the other hand, will make the sacrifice in the "faithful regardless" and the "wavers somewhat" cases, but he will refuse in the "wavers seriously" case. By now, there are any number of holes in Brams' arguments. Let's take his analysis for granted, how- ever, and look at his conclusions. All that this leads to is the following: [It] is impossible to ascertain whether biblical char- acters are blindly faithful or wavering. Thus a major alternative explanation of their actions might be that they did indeed waver, but anticipating God's rational strategy, they were compelled by their own rationality to demonstrate their faith by offering to sacrifice their children. (p. 443) Contrasting the two stories: If God is sympathetic, as in Abraham's case, Abraham can waver seriously and still rationalize the offering of his son. Some wavering is possible if God is less sympathetic, as in Jephthah's case, but if Jephthah prizes his daughter above everything else, it is not rational for him to offer to sacrifice her, given the two sets of preferences I have postulated for God, and Jephthah's awareness of these. (p. 443) My feeling is that I don't need to bother pointing out the holes in Brams' reasoning, if this is all it can offer should I accept it. Perhaps the arguments presented in his books are more compelling, and I suspect I'll look for them in our main library next time I'm there. Finally, for anyone who might be tempted to read Brams for himself, some reassurance. I saw nothing at all in his article which anyone might consider blasphemous-- except possibly the idea that we can gain an understanding of how God thinks by analyzing stories from the Bible. Bruce Smith, UNC-CH duke!unc!bts (USENET) bts.unc@udel-relay (lesser NETworks) Next: If my keyboard isn't incinerated by the flames after this one, a review of Martin Gardner's 1961 religious novel "The Flight of Peter Fromm".