caravia/philosophy

One of the Middle Ages most important scholars was Maimonides, born in Cordoba, Spain 1138. He settled down in Egypt and became the physician of the sultan Saladin. His work is of major importance to examine an age where Christianity, Islam and Jewish religion were still part of a common ideology and a common culture.

"The book begins with Maimonides' thesis against anthropomorphism. In the Bible, one can find many expressions which describe God in human terms, for instance the "hand of God". Maimonides was strongly against what he believed to be a heresy present in unlearned Jews who then assume God to be corporeal (or even possessing positive characteristics).

To explain his belief that this is not the case, Maimonides devoted more than 20 chapters in the beginning (and middle) of the first book to analysing Hebrew terms. Each chapter was about a term used to describe God (such as "mighty") and in each case, Maimonides presented a case that the word is a homonym, whereby its usage when describing a physical entity is completely different from when describing God. This was done by close textual analysis of the word in the Tanach in order to present what Maimonides saw as the proof that according to the Tanach, God is completely incorporeal: "[The Rambam] set up the incorporeality of God as a dogma, and placed any person who denied this doctrine upon a level with an idolater; he devoted much of the first part of the "Moreh Nebukim" to the interpretation of the Biblical anthropomorphisms, endeavoring to define the meaning of each and to identify it with some transcendental metaphysical expression. Some of them are explained by him as perfect homonyms, denoting two or more absolutely distinct things; others, as imperfect homonyms, employed in some instances figuratively and in others homonymously."[5]

This leads to Maimonides' notion that God cannot be described in any positive terms, but rather only in negative conceptions; see Negative theology: In the Jewish tradition. The Jewish Encyclopedia notes his view that "As to His essence, the only way to describe it is negatively. For instance, He is not physical, nor bound by time, nor subject to change, etc. These assertions do not involve any incorrect notions or assume any deficiency, while if positive essential attributes are admitted it may be assumed that other things coexisted with Him from eternity."[6] Unrestrained anthropomorphism and perception of positive attributes is seen as a transgression as serious as idolatry, because both are fundamental errors in the metaphysics of God's role in the universe, and that is the most important aspect of the world.

The first book also contains an analysis of the reasons why philosophy and mysticism are taught late in the Jewish tradition, and only to a few. Maimonides cites many examples of what he sees as the incapability of the masses of understanding these concepts. Thus, approaching them with a mind that is not yet learned in Torah and other Jewish texts can lead to heresy and the transgressions considered the most serious by Maimonides.

The book ends (Chapters 73-76) with Maimonides' protracted exposition and criticism of a number of principles and methods identified with the schools of Jewish Kalam and Islamic Kalam, including the argument for creation ex nihilo and the unity and incorporeality of God. While he accepts the conclusions of the Kalam school (because of their consistency with Judaism), he disagrees with their methods and points out many perceived flaws in their arguments: "Maimonides exposes the weakness of these propositions, which he regards as founded not on a basis of positive facts, but on mere fiction...Maimonides criticizes especially the tenth proposition of the Mutakallimīn, according to which everything that is conceivable by imagination is admissible: e.g., that the terres-trial globe should become the all-encompassing sphere, or that this sphere should become the terres-trial globe."[7]