1. Allow me to point out that most often our information is coming from newspapers,t.v., internet, what our friend told us during laining etc…the point is, there is no reason to assume that our information is more accurate than theirs.
2. Last time I checked most of us were not either engaged in investigating facts. We just rely on whomever we heard it from. So it’s not like our da’as is such hot stuff.
3. When it comes to elections & other such matters, 99% of the time we are arriving at our conclusions based on what we consider to be our own brilliant analyzation of the situation, but again, Hashem’s opinion is nowhere in the equation.
4. Someone who lives, breathes & sleeps Torah will have a knack, sixth sense, innate ability or chush to “feel” the ratzon Hashem in any particular situation with which they are somewhat familiar.
This is not blind, foolish faith. As I pointed out before, this is common sense & true to any proffesion in the world.
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I added numbers to nopashut’s comments to me to make it easier to respond to them.
1. I never claimed to have better information on secular isues than Gedolim. I simply posited that Gedolim often have inaacurate or incomplete information, and act accordingly, yielding imperfect or inaccurate results.
2. Same as 1 above.
3. How do you know for sure that G-d does not influence what we all do? Where is it stated in our tradition that the gift of Divine intervention is reserved only for the spiritual elite amongst us? Indeed one pasuk in Tehillim seems to reserve it for fools (“shomer p’taim Hashem”). You say this is common sense. I say it is a sychophantic cop out. Is it not possible if not highly probable that someone who truly yearns for G-d to “show him the way” will get such a “signal” in a way that compels him to act as G-d wants him to act?
4. This notion is unfalsifiable and I therefore cannot accept it. Moreover, I don’t need it to have a legitimate and fulfilling spiritual system. And when you think about it, it removes the possibility for any disparity of opinions; which is systemically invalid. The contemporary formulation of Da’as Torah is that Gedolim, by virtue of their scholarship and advanced spirirtual development are better able to discern or intuit the singular Divine will in any given situation. That construct asumes that G-d has only one will or desired result. Thus if two Gedolim disagree about who should be president, for example (and I assume no ulterior motives in this hypothetical dispute), one per force has to be wrong since G-d can only truly prefer one candidate. Never minding the impossibility of determining who is right, such a secenario violates the axiom of “Yesh harbeh panim laTorah.” As such it’s simply a false ideology.