Introduction
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I began practising as an advocate of what was then known as the Supreme Court of South Africa in 1967. In 1982, I was appointed senior counsel, and in 1987, became a judge of that Court. I retired as a judge in 2008 and have since practised as an arbitrator. For 56 years, I have been intimately concerned with litigation involving a great variety of cases, including those of murder, fraud, corruption, divorce and contractual, corporate, delictual and labour disputes of all kinds.
Litigation involves essentially two enquiries: what is the law and what is the truth about the facts in dispute? In virtually every case, the facts and the search for the truth are much more complicated and difficult than the law. After studying and painstakingly analysing factual disputes for 56 years, I have become much more of a mechanic of fact – a mechanic of establishing the truth – than a mechanic of the law. I have applied the expertise of my lifelong experience in analysing facts and assessing truth to two central questions: does God exist and is the Torah - the Five Books of Moses- true? In regard to the first question, of course, prima facie God does exist. In S v Veldthuizen 1982 (3) SA 413 (A) at 416G-H South Africa's then highest court said of the words "prima facie evidence" that "they mean that the judicial officer will accept the evidence as prima facie proof of the issue and, in the absence of other credible evidence, that that prima facie proof will become conclusive proof ...." The universe, the world, including life in all its forms, is without question prima facie proof of a creator, given the ubiquitous complicated interrelationships with the appearance of design which science has discovered. And so those who contend that God does not exist must bring evidence to counter the clear prima facie evidence which exists everywhere and is in fact so overwhelming that to contend against it and for atheism is actually preposterous. Of course, many attempts have been made to do just that. They have utterly failed, and The Verdict presents some insights, mostly original, as to why that is very clearly so. As to the second question, the Five Books contain mankind's only written history of the Jewish people beginning with Abraham. The writing itself appers to be authentic. It presents a credible story of that history which is echoed in much of the later books of the Bible, and also in the later history of the Jewish people. Prima facie it is true and in the absence of conflicting evidence must be held to be so. Here too The Verdict presents insights, mostly original to support that finding. Much has been written on the two issues I confront, and I do not intend repeating at length arguments which are well known and have assisted me in reaching my conclusion. I have restricted the insights which follow to those I believe to be substantially original. The task of the advocate in preparing a closing argument and that of the judge in formulating a judgment is to extract from a multitude of facts and factors those which are crucial and then to state them as concisely and as easily comprehensibly as possible. That is how I have tried to write The Verdict. Insights 1 – 4 are about the existence of God, and Insights 5 – 15 about the authenticity of the Five Books of Moses. The advantage of the digital presentation of The Verdict is that additions or corrections can be made at any time and need not await further editions, as is the case with a book. The launch of the website in July 2017 was followed by changes in some of the Insights, as well as radio interviews and videos, and snippets of videos, which were added to the site. Thereafter “New Insights on the Existence of God” - 11, “New Insights on the Authenticity of the Torah” - 3, and a “Postscript”, containing “More Reasons for the Authenticity of the Torah, mainly from the literature” - 26, were added. |