Bk02 Chapter 04

IN THE FOLLOWING SECTIONS,1 Maimonides explains all the names of God’s actions, with the exception of the name Jehova, which the Talmudists correctly call Schem Haezem, the Name of the Essence, for it means absolute Being (abstracted from all specific modes of being), and this is the true essence of God. Finally, he inveighs against the Kabbalists, who invented a huge number of holy names that have no meaning, believing that they would be able to produce miracles with them.² “The fool,” Maimonides says, “believes everything!”³ [60]

In the sixty-fifth section, he explains the term speaking, when used in reference to God, as an expression of divine will or of His wisdom. “God spoke to Moses” means Moses had ideas that corresponded to God’s will or wisdom.⁴

The following section begins with a passage from the Second Book of Moses, in which we read: “The tablets are God’s work.”⁵ This means, Maimonides says, they are the work of nature.⁶ Having enumerated many natural phenomena, the astonished Psalmist exclaims: “How great Your works are, Jehova!”⁷ Similarly, we also read: “the pine trees of Lebanon that He planted,”⁸ i.e., that didn’t come about through human industriousness, but rather through nature. The expression: “the writing is God’s writing”9 should be explained the same way.

Because this expression is rather murky, I will cite a passage from an old commentary on the work, that of Rabbi Mosis [61] Narboniensis, which will help me explain it.¹⁰

Let us note (says this fine rabbi), that according to the testimony of ancient travelers, one could see the image of a thorn bush (seneh) on every stone near Mount Sinai. For this reason, the mountain is called Sinai. An excellent man from Barcelona, one of the children of Ben Chesdai, traveled there and brought back several of these stones. I saw the thorn bush quite clearly, and when I broke a stone into small pieces, I noticed the image on even the smallest ones. I was puzzled by this but at the same time happy, for it shed light on a passage by our Maimonides.”¹¹

The writing on the tablets was etched into them in the same way when the tablets were created.—¹²

In the sixty-eighth section, Maimonides demonstrates quite trenchantly a proposition asserted by the philosophers: God as a representing subject, His representation, and the represented object are one and the same. Maimonides [62] does so in the following way. Before a person has formed a representation of something, he has (in relation to the object) merely the capacity to represent. For its part, this something has, before I have formed a representation of it, merely the ability to be the object of a representation. Yet with the actual representation, the capacity for representing ceases (with respect to the object), for it goes over into the actuality of the representation; and the same goes for the ability of the object, when the object is actually represented. The actual representing is at once the capacity for representing that has been actualized, and the actualized capacity of the object to be represented. Thus, all three are one.¹³ Since there is no potentiality in God, but rather everything (possibly) conceivable is actually represented by Him, it follows that God as a representing subject, His representation, and the represented object (which is only conceived by analogy with a finite capacity for represention) are one and the same.14

In the following section, Maimonides says, philosophers call God the first ground or the first cause.¹⁶ The dialecticians,¹⁷ however, reject these appellations, and prefer to call God the master craftsman,¹⁸ because they believe that there is an important difference between these concepts. More specifically, they say that a cause cannot as a cause precede its effect. If we call God the cause of the world, we have to see the world as being as eternal as He is. But the master craftsman can in fact precede his effect.

This mistake arises from the dialecticians’ lack of attention to the difference between mere capacity and actuality. The cause in mere capacity—just as with the master craftsman—precedes the effects; and the reverse is also true: In actuality the master craftsman can precede his work just as little as the cause can precede the effect. And so, there is in fact no difference between the two appellations.

That the philosophers prefer to call God a cause rather than a master craftsman, even though the two appellations are the same, as has been shown,[64] happens not because the philosophers are trying in this way express their view about the eternity of the world, but rather because the term cause encompasses all four types of causes: matter, form, efficient cause, and final cause. By contrast, the master craftsman signifies only one cause.¹⁹ Drawing on all four meanings, philosophers conceive God as the cause of the world.

Nor do I need to give intelligent readers a comprehensive explanation of the consequences of this proposition.—²⁰

The vast knowledge and sciences our nation once possessed have been lost due to the expanse of time that has passed and the pressure exerted by barbaric nations, and especially because these treasures, which were for the most part not preserved in writing, didn’t stand open for all to use. According to a principle our nation adopted: what belongs to an oral tradition should not be set down in writing.²² Even the Talmud couldn’t be written down at first. Here, however, our jurisprudence revealed its greatest wisdom, [65] for we wanted to avoid what we would eventually fall into: diversity of opinion, doubts about the meaning of Scripture, battles among scholars, sectarianism, and so forth, which led inevitably to confusion in the execution of laws. The Great Court²³ was thus given sole legislative authority. Even more caution was needed with respect to religious secrets, which were imparted to only a select few.²⁴

This withholding is the reason why so many truths important for our nation have been lost almost completely, with the exception of some hints, which one can find here and there in the Talmud, like a few grains scattered among many empty shells. Most busy themselves with the shells without finding the few grains hidden among them. Indeed, the little bit that one finds about these truths among some Geonim (the rabbis who came directly after the Talmudists) and the Karaites, who wrote about the unity of God, was [66] taken from Arab dialecticians, who wrote much more on this matter. Our brothers also took many principles and views from the sect of the Methusleh [Muatazila], which emerged among the Arabs. They took nothing, however, from the newer sect of the Asserieh [Ashariyya], which likewise emerged among the Arabs, only somewhat later.

It isn’t the case that our brothers made a deliberative choice, electing in the end to follow the principles of the former over the latter. They simply adopted these principles as if they were demonstrably true and defended them without deviating from them.

The Sefardi, particularly the Andalusians of our nation, held to the methods of Greek philosophy and eagerly adopted their systems (as long as they weren’t in conflict with our religion). And thus, their positions are often in agreement with those taken in this work.

All the assertions of the Arabian sects, namely, the Methusleh and the Asserieh, are built on premises and principles taken from the writings of the (Christian) [67] Greeks and Armenians,25 whose entire striving had the goal of challenging the views of the peripatetic school.

Because the Christian religion spread among these nations, within which philosophical thinking had established roots, and the Christian theologians saw that their principles weren’t compatible with such thought, they invented dialectics. This was meant to be a means of establishing views that would undermine the opinions of the philosophers and at the same time reinforce the Christian religion.

The Arabs later came by the views of the philosophers and, simultaneously, refutations of them,²⁶ and they believed that here they had gained something important.

The dialecticians took from the views of ancient philosophers what they deemed useful for their purposes, even if more recent philosophers had refuted it, for example, the reality of atoms and of empty space, and they saw what they had borrowed as indispensible for every religion. [68]

Things subsequently became even worse. The religion of Mohammed also needed new principles, and because it, too, was quickly divided into sects, each sect had to seek to establish such principles that would serve it well.

There are without a doubt certain doctrines of faith that are equally necessary for Jews, Christians, and Arabs, for example, the proposition of the creation of the world out of nothing and the belief in miracles that depends on it.

In short, the first dialecticians, among baptized Greeks and Arabs, took their principles not from nature, but rather constructed a nature that conformed to principles that were indispensible for them. Yet they acted as though pure speculation, free of preconceived opinion, had led them to their notion of nature. Nature, however, isn’t arranged according to accepted views, as Tamastius [Themistius] correctly claims; rather, all true ideas must conform to nature. In studying the writings [69] of the dialecticians and the philosophers, I found the methods of the former to be everywhere the same. Their chief tenet is: The nature of things doesn’t yield a criterion of truth, for the intellect can always conceive of it otherwise, and what is even worse, they often confuse intellect with the power of imagination. (The immortal dialectic! Our more recent dogmatic metaphysicians, too, know how to make use of it. Whatever contains no contradiction is possible. Therefore: the world is accidental. Therefore: an ens realissimum is possible. And therefore also: an ens realissimum is also necessary, and so forth.)27 In accordance with their premises, they marshal evidence to show that the world came to be, and from that it naturally follows that the world has a cause. They proceed to show that this cause is both a unity and non-corporeal. Thus, they base the existence of God on the contingency of the world.

I rejected this method, and I am justified in having done so, I believe, for everything that these men present as proof for the creation of the world [70] is subject to many doubts and will have purchase only among those who do not know the difference between rigorous demonstration and sophistry.²⁸ But whoever understands the difference will find that their proof is uncertain and that their premises are arrived at through tricks.

The best thing a truth-loving theologian can do in this situation is to undermine, where possible, the philosophers’ proof for the eternity of the world. Every unbiased thinker, every thinker who doesn’t want to hide from the light, must allow that the question of whether the world is eternal or created cannot be resolved through proofs. (Kant showed that when we aren’t merely talking about the world as an appearance, but rather as a thing in itself, it’s not only the case that there is no one definitive proof, but opposing proofs, antinomies, are possible.)²⁹ Philosophers have been fighting about this for three thousand years.

Now given that this is so, how can we ground the proof of God’s existence in the questionable idea [71] of the creation of the world, since then, God’s existence can only be conceded hypothetically?

The best approach here is, in my estimation, to prove the existence of God, His unity, and non-corporeality through the philosophical method. It takes as its ground the eternity of the world, though, to be sure, I don’t accept this view. Once I have rigorously proven these important truths without reference to the question of the eternity of the world, I will then take up this question myself, and I will cite as much evidence as I can in support of the idea of the newness of the world.

If you want to content yourself with the dialecticians’ proofs, that’s fine by me. If you want to dispense with proofs and evidence, and if, instead, you accept the testimony of the prophetic scriptures, that can’t hurt either. But you must not ask me: “If we presuppose the eternity of the world, how can the divination take place?” (What a subtle point!)³⁰ For we shall be speaking of this below. [72]

If, however, the world is eternal, it follows from a rigorous demonstration that there is a single non-corporeal Being that has no cause beyond itself.31 This Being is God. Thus, a rigorous proof of God’s existence, unity, and non-corporeality must be grounded in the presupposition that the world is eternal, yet without accepting this latter view. I will base this proof on the manifest nature of things; the dialecticians’ proofs, by contrast, rest on things that are contrary to nature, which is why they were forced in the end to assert also that there is no nature. I will offer some proofs of the genesis of the world and, in this way, achieve the dialecticians’ goal without denying the existence of nature. [73]

I have already noted that there is nothing beyond God and the world, and that a proper concept of the world is our sole means of knowing God. Thus in the following chapter, I will be seeking to set forth the correct concept of the world, namely, as an ordered whole. Afterward, I will lay out the methods of the dialecticians and, finally, the principles and argumentative techniques of the philosophers. (The idea of the world as an ordered whole, the reciprocal effects of its parts on each other, the parallel between the world and every single organized body—all this is magnificent. But because the supporting data have been taken from Aristotelian physics, which is severely lacking, I will leave this section untranslated. As to Maimonides’ way of revealing the shortcomings in the views of the dialecticians, I have remarked in my commentary on this work that the majority of these views can be defended using the most recent developments in metaphysics, and I have shown how it is possible to do this.³² However, the present text is the right place neither for translating the whole critical reckoning [74] with the dialecticians nor for presenting my commentary on the debate. It is only the following wonderful passage that I cannot help but translate.)

Dearest Reader! If you have correct ideas about the soul and its powers, you will know that most animals have the power of imagination, and that humans don’t distinguish themselves from other animals through having this faculty, and that, finally, the actions of the imagination and of the intellect aren’t the same; rather, they are of opposing types.³³

Thus the second book of mathematical figures (presumably, Apollonius’ book of conic sections is meant here 34) also [77] proves that there can be two lines (one straight and one curved) that originate at points a limited distance from each other, and that come, the further they are extended, progressively closer to each other without ever meeting, even if one extends them into infinity.(a) This, too, the faculty of imagination cannot imagine. The impossibility of the imagination’s representation of God as a body or as a corporeal force—that has been shown as well, for the imagination cannot conceive of something existing that has no body. [78]

¹ Guide 1:61–63.

² Maimonides criticizes the writers of amulets (Guide 1:61 | Pines 1:149 and Guide 1:62| Pines 1:152), but, of course, makes no reference to “the Kabbalists,” with whom he was not, strictly speaking, familiar, since the efflourescence of classical Kabbalah came in the following century. Kabbalistic amulets were, however, common in eighteenth-century Ashkenaz.

³ Prov. 14:15. Cf. Guide 1:62 | Pines 1:152.

⁴ Guide 1:65 | Pines 1:159.

⁵ Exod. 32:12.

⁶ Guide 1:66 | Pines 1:160.

⁷ Ps. 104:24.

⁸ Ps. 104:16.

⁹ Exod. 32:16.

¹⁰ Moses Narboni was a radical Averroist interpreter of Maimonides who flourished in the fourteenth century. Maimon discusses this naturalistic interpretation in his own commentary to the first part of the Guide of the Perplexed, Give’at ha-Moreh, which appeared side by side with Narboni’s commentary. This 1791 edition of the Guide was the first time the commentary of Narboni appeared in print. For discussion of the origin and paradoxical later reception of Narboni’s naturalistic remark about the tablets, see Abraham Socher, “Gershom Scholem, Walter Benjamin, and the Stones of Sinai,” Times Literary Supplement (TLS), March 2008.

¹¹ More Nebuchim [Guide of the Perplexed] (1791), 62a.

¹² That is to say, in a natural rather than supernatural way. The dash Maimon places here suggests that he could say more but the philosophically astute reader will understand his radical point.

¹³ Guide 1:68 | Pines 1:163–64.

¹⁴ Guide 1:68 | Pines 1:165.

¹⁵ That is, in the direction of what he called “acosmism” in his discussion of Hasidic theology, above. The intelligent reader may also wish to consult Spinoza’s Ethics, pt. 2, proposition 7, scholium. Cf. Melamed, “Salomon Maimon and the Rise of Spinozism,” 84.

¹⁶ Guide 1:69 | Pines 1:166.

¹⁷ Namely, the Kalamists.

¹⁸ “Der Werkmeister.” “The maker” in Pines’ translation of the Guide.

¹⁹ Namely, the efficient cause.

²⁰ The “philosophers” cited by Maimonides in Guide 1:69 (Pines 1:167) in fact consider God to be the efficient, formal, and final cause of the world, but not the world’s material cause. It is Maimon who adds the crcucial assertation that God is also the material cause of the world, a move he made in his early work the Hesheq Shelomo as well. For the Spinozist implication of this view, see Melamed, “Salomon Maimon and the Rise of Spinozism,” 79–85.

²¹ This is another typographical error. The reference should be to Guide 1:71.

²² Babylonian Talmud, Tractate Gittin, 60b, and Tractate Temura, 14b.

²³ Namely, the Great Sanhedrin, the highest Rabbinic court during the second temple era.

²⁴ Guide 1:71 | Pines 1:176.

²⁵ In Ibn-Tibbon: “Aramim,” i.e., Syrians.

²⁶ Here Maimonides refers specifically to John Philoponus (Guide 1:71 | Pines 1:177).

²⁷ The target of Maimon’s criticism here seems to be Wolff’s and Baumgarten’s proofs of the existence of God relying on a variant of the Principle of Sufficient Reason.

²⁸ Maimon here continues translating (and summarizing) Maimonides.

²⁹ For Kant’s First Antinomy, see his Critique of Pure Reason, A427/B455.

³⁰ This is Maimon own interpolation in his translation/summary of Maimonides’ claims in Guide 1:71 | Pines 1:181.

³¹ Maimonides’ text here reads simply “who has no cause” (Pines 1:181). By slightly modifying Maimonides’ words to “has no cause beyond [auser] itself,” Maimon is inserting a Spinozist twist, as he makes God causa sui.

³² See Maimon’s Give’at ha-Moreh, 81a–99a.

³³ Guide 1:73 | Pines 1:209.

³⁴ The note in parentheses is Maimon’s. Maimonides refers here to theorem 13 of the second book of Apolonius’ Conic Sections.

^a [Maimon] Maimonides is speaking here of the asymptotes of the curve. In my commentary on this work [Give’at ha-Moreh in More Nebuchim (Guide of the Perplexed) (1791), 94a–b—Eds.], I carried out a proof of this proposition independently of the theorem of the curve.