Avimelech clearly sinned against Avraham and Sarah, but in what sense did he sin against God? Radak's answer expresses what it truly means to be a "rationalist."
This idea sounds similar to God speaking to us through our conscience, perhaps two sides of the same coin, with one more intuitive than the other, what do you think?
Btw, cf., e.g., ר' בחיי בראשית י"ח:כ'
ואע"פ שלא נתנה תורה עדיין, הנה הצדקה מן המצות המושכלות, ודבר מתועב הוא שיראה אדם את מינו מוטל ברעב והוא עשיר ושבע מכל טוב ואינו מרחם עליו להשיב את נפשו, על אחת כמה וכמה על מי שהוא מאומתו ודר עמו בעיר אחת, ועל כן אבדן הש"י לאנשי סדום שהיו מונעים אותה ולקח נקמת העניים.
I think it depends on what you mean by "conscience." My understanding is that the conscience is a function of the psyche, not the צלם אלהים. I give my students the following analogy:
When I was in yeshiva, the dorm had smoke detectors throughout. When one went off, ALL of them would go off. The problem is that one smoke detector was located in the kitchen right above the stove, oven, and toaster. Consequently, when you were woken up by a smoke alarm at 11:30pm, you didn't know if the building was on fire or if someone burnt their late-night toast.
So too, the conscience functions like a smoke alarm: when your conscience "goes off," giving you feelings of fear, shame, and guilt, you don't KNOW that you did something wrong, because the conscience could be reacting to something that has no basis in reality. Rather, you have to treat your conscience as that yeshiva smoke alarm: it's a signal to investigate - not an automatic sign that something is awry. And if a person were to take THAT conscience as the voice of God, then they'd find good company in the Crusaders, Inquisitors, and witch-hunters of Salem.
But if, by "conscience," you mean "an innate sense of morality based on common sense" - like what Rabbeinu Bachya is describing - then I think the Radak would be on board with that.
This idea sounds similar to God speaking to us through our conscience, perhaps two sides of the same coin, with one more intuitive than the other, what do you think?
Btw, cf., e.g., ר' בחיי בראשית י"ח:כ'
ואע"פ שלא נתנה תורה עדיין, הנה הצדקה מן המצות המושכלות, ודבר מתועב הוא שיראה אדם את מינו מוטל ברעב והוא עשיר ושבע מכל טוב ואינו מרחם עליו להשיב את נפשו, על אחת כמה וכמה על מי שהוא מאומתו ודר עמו בעיר אחת, ועל כן אבדן הש"י לאנשי סדום שהיו מונעים אותה ולקח נקמת העניים.
I think it depends on what you mean by "conscience." My understanding is that the conscience is a function of the psyche, not the צלם אלהים. I give my students the following analogy:
When I was in yeshiva, the dorm had smoke detectors throughout. When one went off, ALL of them would go off. The problem is that one smoke detector was located in the kitchen right above the stove, oven, and toaster. Consequently, when you were woken up by a smoke alarm at 11:30pm, you didn't know if the building was on fire or if someone burnt their late-night toast.
So too, the conscience functions like a smoke alarm: when your conscience "goes off," giving you feelings of fear, shame, and guilt, you don't KNOW that you did something wrong, because the conscience could be reacting to something that has no basis in reality. Rather, you have to treat your conscience as that yeshiva smoke alarm: it's a signal to investigate - not an automatic sign that something is awry. And if a person were to take THAT conscience as the voice of God, then they'd find good company in the Crusaders, Inquisitors, and witch-hunters of Salem.
But if, by "conscience," you mean "an innate sense of morality based on common sense" - like what Rabbeinu Bachya is describing - then I think the Radak would be on board with that.