prove this is derived from the superiority of the heavenly bodies to our own. Their size, their brightness and their
continued duration are all evidence of corporeal superiority. And it stands to reason that as the human body, which is the
highest in the sublunar world, has a soul that is nobler than that of plant or animal, so the heavenly bodies must be
endowed with souls as much superior to the human intellect as their bodies are to the human body. The Bible alludes to
this truth in the nineteenth Psalm, "The heavens declare the glory of God.... There is no speech nor language...." The
last expression signifies that they praise God with the intellect. There are other passages in the Bible besides, and
particularly the first chapter of Ezekiel, which make it clear that the heavenly bodies are living and intelligent beings; not,
to be sure, in the sense of taking nourishment and growing and reproducing their kind and making use of five senses, but
in the sense of performing voluntary motions and being endowed with intellect.[237]
We have now concluded our preliminary discussion of the scientific principles lying at the basis of Judaism. And our next
task is to study the fundamental doctrines of Jewish theology which form the highest object of knowledge, dealing as
they do with God and his attributes and his revelation. The first thing to prove then is the existence of God, since we
cannot define him. For definition means the designation of the genus or class to which the thing defined belongs,
whereas God cannot be put in a class. As the essence of a thing is revealed by its definition, we cannot know God's
essence and are limited to a knowledge of his existence.
The principles for this proof we have already given. They are that a thing cannot move itself, and that an actual infinite
series is impossible. The argument then proceeds as follows: Nothing can move itself, hence everything that moves is
moved by something other than itself. If this is also moving, it must be moved by a third, and so on ad infinitum. But an
actual infinite series of things moving and being moved is impossible, and unless we ultimately arrive at a first link in this
chain, all motion is impossible. Hence there must be a first to account for the motion we observe in the world. This first
must not itself be subject to motion, for it would then have to have another before it to make it move, and it would not be
the first we supposed it to be. We have thus proved, therefore, the existence of a primum movens immobile, a first
unmoved mover.
We must now show that this unmoved mover is incorporeal. This we can prove by means of another principle of physics,
made clear in the first part. We showed there that a finite body cannot have an infinite power. But God is infinite. For,
being immovable, his power is not affected by time. Hence God cannot be body.
This proof, as we said before, is new in Jewish philosophy. In Bahya we found a proof which bears a close resemblance
to this one (cf. above, p. 87); but the difference is that Bahya argues from being, Ibn Daud from motion. Bahya says if a
thing is, some cause must have made it to be, for a thing cannot make itself. As we cannot proceed ad infinitum, there
must be a first which is the cause of the existence of everything else. The objection here, of course, is that if a thing
cannot make itself, how did the first come to be.
The Aristotelian proof of Ibn Daud knows nothing about the origin of being. As far as Aristotle's own view is concerned
there is no temporal beginning either of being or of motion. Both are eternal, and so is matter, the basis of all genesis
and change. God is the eternal cause of the eternal motion of the world, and hence of the eternal genesis and
dissolution, which constitutes the life of the sublunar world. How to reconcile the idea of eternal time and eternal motion
with the doctrine that an actual infinite is impossible we shall see when we treat Maimondes (p. 251). Ibn Daud does not
adopt eternity of motion even hypothetically, as Maimonides does. But this merely removes the difficulty one step. For
the infinity which is regarded impossible in phenomena is placed in God. But another more serious objection is the
adoption of an Aristotelian argument where it does not suit. For the argument from motion does not give us a creator but
a first mover. For Aristotle there is no creator, and his proof is adequate. But for Ibn Daud it is decidedly inadequate. We
are so far minus a proof that God is a creator ex nihilo. Ibn Daud simply asserts that God created matter, but this
argument does not prove it. As to the incorporeality of God Aristotle can prove it adequately from the eternity of motion. If
a finite body (and there is no such thing as an infinite body) cannot have an infinite power, God, whose causing eternal
motion argues infinite power, is not a body. Ibn Daud's attempt to prove God's infinity without the theory of infinite motion
on the ground that time cannot affect what is immovable, is decidedly less satisfactory. On the whole then this adoption
of Aristotle's argument from motion is not helpful, as it leads to eternity of matter, and God as the mover rather than the
Creator. Gersonides was frank enough and bold enough to recognize this consequence and to adopt it. We shall see
Maimonides's attitude when we come to treat of his philosophy.
Ibn Daud may have been aware of the inadequacy of his argument from motion, and therefore he adds another, based
upon the distinction between the "possible existent" and the "necessary existent"—a distinction and an argument due to
Alfarabi and Avicenna. A possible existent is a thing whose existence depends upon another, and was preceded by non-
existence. It may exist or not, depending upon its cause; hence the name possible existent. A necessary existent is one
whose existence is in itself and not derived from elsewhere. It is a necessary existent because its own essence cannot
be thought without involving existence. Now the question is, Is there such a thing as a necessary existent, or are all
existents merely possible? If all existents are possible, we have an infinite series, every link of which is dependent for its
existence upon the link preceding it; and so long as there is no first there is nothing to explain the existence of any link in
the chain. We must therefore assume a first, which is itself not again dependent upon a cause prior to it. This is by
definition a necessary existent, which is the cause of the existence of everything else. This proof is compatible with God
as a Creator.
Having shown the existence and incorporeality of God we must now prove his unity. We shall base this proof upon the
idea of the necessary existent. Such an existent cannot have in it any multiplicity; for if it has, its own essence would not
be able to keep the elements together, and there would be need of an external agent to do this. But in this case the
object would be dependent upon something else, which is incompatible with the idea of a necessary existent.
Nor is it possible there should be two necessary existents; for the necessary existent, we have just shown, must be of the
utmost simplicity, and hence cannot have any attribute added to its essence. Now if there is a second, there must be
something by which the first differs from the second, or they are identical. Either the first or the second therefore would
not be completely simple, and hence not a necessary existent.
We have thus shown that God is one both in the sense of simple and in the sense of unique. To have a clear insight into
the nature of his unity, we must now show that nothing else outside of God is really one, though we apply the term one to
many things. No one will claim that a collective is one; but neither is an individual really one, for an individual man, for
example, consists of many organs. You might think that a homogeneous and continuous elementary mass like air or
water is one. But this is not true either, for everything that is corporeal is composed of matter and form. If then we set
aside corporeal objects and aim to find real unity in mathematical entities like line and surface, which are not corporeal,
we are met with the difficulty that line and surface are divisible, and hence potentially multiple. But neither are the simple
intellectual substances, like the angels, true ones; for they are composed of their own possible existence and the
necessary existence they acquire from another. The only being therefore that may be a true one is that which is not
corporeal and not dependent upon another for its existence.
Considering the question of unity from a different aspect, in its relation, namely, to the thing designated as one, we find
that unity never forms the essence of anything called by that name; but is in every case an accident. Thus if it were the
essence of man as man that he is one, there could not on the one hand be many men, and on the other there could not
also at the same time be one horse, one tree, one stone. In God his unity cannot be an accident, since as simple he has
no accidents. Hence his unity is his essence. And if we examine the matter carefully we find that it is a negative concept.
It involves two things. First, that every other unity involves plurality in some form or another. And second that being unlike
anything else, he cannot bear having other things associated with him to make the result many, as we can in the case of
man. A, for example, is one; and with B, C, and D he becomes many. This is not applicable to God.[238]
The divine attributes form the next topic we must consider. Here Ibn Daud offers little or nothing that is essentially new.
He admits neither essential nor accidental attributes, for either would bring plurality and composition in the nature of
God. The only attributes he admits are negative and relative. When we speak of God as cause we do not place any
special entity in his essence, but merely indicate the dependence of things upon him. The truest attributes are the
negative, such as that he is not body, that his existence is not dependent upon another, and so on; the only difficulty
being that negative attributes, though removing many doubts, do not give us any positive information. All the
anthropomorphic attributes in the Bible endowing God with human functions like sleeping and waking, or ascribing to him
human limbs, eyes, ears, hands, feet, etc., must be understood metaphorically. For the Bible itself warns us against
corporealizing God, "Take ye therefore good heed unto yourselves; for ye saw no manner of form on the day that the
Lord spake unto you in Horeb" (Deut. 4, 15). When the Bible speaks of God's anger and favor, the meaning is that good
deeds bring man near to God and cause happiness which is known as paradise ("Gan Eden"), and bad deeds remove
far away from God and lead to misfortune, called Gehenna. It is like the apparent motion of the trees and the mountains
to the traveller, when in reality it is he that is moving. So here God is said to approach and depart, to be angry with and
favor, when in reality it is man who by his deeds comes near to God or departs far from him. When we assign many
attributes to God we do not mean that there is any multiplicity in his nature. This cannot be. It is like the case of a man
whose eyes are not properly co-ordinated. He sees double when there is only one. So we too suffer from intellectual
squinting, when we seem to see many attributes in the one God.
The most common and most important attributes are the following eight: One, existent, true, eternal, living, knowing,
willing, able. It can be easily shown (and Ibn Daud does proceed to show, though we shall not follow him in his details)
that all these are at bottom negative. Unity means that there is nothing like him and that he is indivisible. Eternal means
he is not subject to change or motion. True means he will never cease existing and that his existence does not come
from another, and so on with the rest.
He closes his discussion of the attributes by intimating that he has more to say on this topic, but had better be content
with what has been said so far, for a more thorough discussion of these matters in a book might do harm to those who do
not understand and interpret the author's words incorrectly. This reminds us of Maimonides's adjuration of the reader to
keep what he finds in the "Guide of the Perplexed" to himself and not to spread it abroad. Philosophy clearly was a
delicate subject and not meant for intellectual babes, whose intellectual digestion might be seriously disturbed.[239]
We have now concluded our theory of God and his attributes; and in doing so we made use of principles of physics, such
as matter and form, potentiality and actuality, motion and infinity. The next step is to prove the existence and nature of
intermediate spiritual beings between God and the corporeal objects of the superlunar and sublunar worlds, called
angels in the Bible, and secondary causes by the philosophers. For this purpose we shall have to apply the principles we
have proved concerning the soul and the motions of the heavenly bodies. We have proved above that the human soul is
at first in the child intelligent potentially and then becomes intelligent actually. This requires an agent, in whom the end to
which the potential is proceeding is always actual. As the rational soul is neither body nor a corporeal power, this actual
agent cannot be either of these, hence it is neither a sphere nor the soul of a sphere, but it must be a simple substance
called Active Intellect. The prophets call it "Holy Spirit" ("Ruah Ha-Kodesh"). We thus have a proof of the existence of at
least one such simple intellectual substance, or angel, the relation of which to the human soul is as that of light to vision.
Without light vision is potential, light makes it actual. So the active intellect makes the potential soul actual and gives it
first the axioms, which are universally certain, and hence could not have originated by induction from experience.
Similarly we can prove the existence of other simple substances from the motions of the heavenly spheres. We have
already shown that the spheres are living beings and endowed with souls. But souls, while causing motion in their bodies
are at the same time themselves in a sort of psychic motion. This must be caused by unmoved movers, or intellects, who
are also the causes of the souls. To make this difficult matter somewhat clearer and more plausible, we may instance an
analogy from familiar experience. A ship is made by the shipbuilder, who is its corporeal cause. But there is also an
incorporeal cause, likewise a ship, viz., the ship in the mind of the shipbuilder. The analogy is imperfect, because the
incorporeal ship in the mind of the builder cannot produce an actual corporeal ship without the builder employing
material, such as wood, iron, etc., and in addition to that expending time and physical exertion on the material. But if he
had the power to give the form of a ship to the material as soon as the latter was prepared for it without time and physical
manipulation, we should have an instance of what we want to prove, namely, the existence of simple immaterial
substances causing forms to emanate upon corporeal existences. This is the nature of the active intellect in its relation to
the soul of man, and it is in the same way that the philosophers conceive of the motions of the heavenly spheres. God is
the first unmoved mover. The angels or simple substances stand next to him; and they, too, are always actual
intelligences, and move the heavenly bodies as the object of love and desire moves the object loving it without itself
being moved. The heavenly bodies move therefore because of a desire to perfect themselves, or to become like unto
their movers.
So far Ibn Daud agrees with the philosophers, because the doctrines so far expounded are not incompatible with the
Bible. But when the philosophers raise the question, How can the many originate from the One, the manifold universe
from the one God, and attempt to answer it by their theory of successive emanations, Ibn Daud calls a halt. The human
mind is not really so all-competent as to be able to answer all questions of the most difficult nature. The doctrine of
successive emanations is that elaborated by Alfarabi and Avicenna, which we have already seen quoted and criticized by
Judah Halevi (cf. above, p. 178 f.). It is slightly more complicated in Ibn Daud, who speaks of the treble nature of the
emanations after the first Intelligence—an intelligence, a soul and a sphere—whereas in Halevi's account there were
only two elements, the soul not being mentioned.[240]
We have so far dealt with the more theoretical part of theology and religion, so much of it as may be and is accepted by
nations and religions other than Jews. It remains now to approach the more practical and the more specifically Jewish
phases of religion; though in the purely ethical discussions and those relating to Providence we have once more a
subject of general application, and not exclusively Jewish.
As the introduction to this second part of the subject, Abraham Ibn Daud devotes a few words to the theoretical defence
of tradition, or rather of mediate knowledge. He does so by analyzing the various kinds of knowledge. Knowledge, he
says, is either intelligible or sensible. Sensible knowledge is either directly perceived by the subject or received by him
from another who perceived it directly, and whom he believes or not as the case may be. That is why some things
believed by some people are not believed by others. The ignorant may think that this weakness is inherent in matters
received from others. As a matter of fact such indirect knowledge is at the basis of civilization and makes it possible. If
every man were to judge only by what he sees with his own eyes, society could never get along; there would be no way
of obtaining justice in court, for the judge would not put credence in witnesses, and the parties would have to fight out
their differences, which would lead to bloodshed and the disruption of social life. The different attitude of different
persons to a given matter of belief is due not necessarily to the uncertainty of the thing itself, but to the manner in which
the object of the belief came down to us. If a thing rests upon the testimony of one man, its warrant is not very strong. But
if a whole nation witnessed an event, it is no longer doubtful, unless we suppose that the account itself is due to one
writer, and the event never happened. We shall discuss these matters in the sequel.[241]
Having justified in a general way the knowledge derived from the testimony of others by showing that society could not
exist without depending upon such knowledge; though admitting at the same time that caution should be exercised and
criticism in determining what traditional testimony is valid or not, we now take up one of these traditional phenomena
which plays perhaps the most important rôle in Jewish theology, namely, the phenomenon of prophecy. Before
discussing the traditional aspect of this institution and its purpose in the history of religion we must consider it from its
natural and psychological aspect.
The explanation of Ibn Daud—it was not original with him, as we have already seen the non-religious philosopher in
Halevi's Cusari giving utterance to the same idea, and in Jewish philosophy Israeli touches on it—the explanation of Ibn
Daud is grounded in his psychology, the Aristotelian psychology of Avicenna. The first degree of prophecy, he says, is
found in true dreams, which happen to many people. Just as waking is a state of the body in which it uses the external as
well as the internal senses, so sleeping is a state of the body in which the soul suppresses the external senses by
putting them to sleep, and exercises its "natural" powers only, such as the beating of the heart pulse, respiration, and so
on. The internal senses are also at work during sleep, or at least some of them. In particular the power of imagination is
active when the external senses are at rest. It then makes various combinations and separations and brings them to the
common sense. The result is a dream, true or false. When the senses are weak for one reason or another this power
becomes active and, when not controlled by the reason, produces a great many erroneous visions and ideas, as in the
delusions of the sick.
The Deity and the angels and the Active Intellect have a knowledge of the past, present and future, and we already know
that the soul, i. e., the rational soul, receives influence from the Active Intellect as a natural thing in every person. Now
just as it gets from it science and general ideas, so it may receive a knowledge of hidden things if the soul is adequately
prepared. The reason it cannot receive information of hidden things from the Active Intellect in its waking state, is
because the soul is then busy in acquiring knowledge through the senses. In sleep, too, it may be prevented by the thick
vapors rising from the food consumed during the day, or by anxiety due to want of food or drink. The imagination also
sometimes hinders this process by the constant presentation of its foolish combinations to the common sense. But
sometimes this power comes under the control of the reason, and then the rational soul is prepared to receive hidden
things from the Active Intellect. In those cases the imagination transforms these facts into images, which are true dreams.
If they concern an individual or a particular event, we do not call them prophecy, or at least the share of prophecy they
may have is very small. We call them prophetic dreams when they concern important matters and have reference to a
whole nation or nations, and come to pass in the distant future. An example of such a dream is that recorded in Daniel 7,
1.
Sometimes the information comes to the prophet without the aid of an image, when the reason prevails over the
imagination, like the dream of Abraham at the "covenant of the pieces" (Gen. 15, 12ff.). Sometimes, also, the activity of
the senses does not prevent the prophet from seeing the hidden things of the future, and he receives prophetic
inspirations while awake. The prophet sometimes faints as he is overcome by the unusual phenomenon, at other times
he succeeds in enduring it without swooning. All these cases can be illustrated from the Bible, and examples will readily
occur to the reader who is familiar with the various instances and descriptions of prophetic visions and activities in
Scripture.
The purpose of prophecy is to guide the people in the right way. With this end in view God inspires a proper man as a
prophet and gives him superior powers to perform miracles. Not every man is capable of prophecy, only one who has a
pure soul. For the most part the prophetic gift is innate, at the same time study and good associations help to develop
this power in him who has it. Witness the "company of prophets," whose example inspired Saul (1 Sam. 19, 20), and
Elisha as the disciple of Elijah.
While we thus see Ibn Daud, unlike Halevi, adopting the philosophical explanation of prophecy, which tries to bring it
within the class of natural psychological phenomena and relates it to dreams, he could not help recognizing that one
cannot ignore the supernatural character of Biblical prophecy without being untrue to the Bible. He accordingly adds to
the above naturalistic explanation a number of conditions which practically have the effect of taking the bottom out of the
psychological theory. If Judah Halevi insists that only Israelites in the land of Palestine and at the time of their political
independence had the privilege of the prophetic gift, we realize that such a belief is of the warp and woof of Halevi's
innermost sentiment and thinking, which is radically opposed to the shallow rationalism and superficial cosmopolitanism
of the "philosophers" of his day. But when the champion of Peripateticism, Abraham Ibn Daud, after explaining that
prophecy is of the nature of true dreams, and though in most cases innate, may be cultivated by a pure soul through
study and proper associations—repeats with Judah Halevi that the time and the place are essential conditions and that
Israelites alone are privileged in this respect, he is giving up, it seems to us, all that he previously attempted to explain.
This is only one of the many indications which point to the essential artificiality of all the mediæval attempts to harmonize
a given system of philosophy with a supernaturalistic standpoint, such as is that of the Bible. It is not in this way that the
Bible is to be saved if it needs saving.[242]
The next practical question Ibn Daud felt called upon to discuss was that of the possibility of the Law being repealed,
abrogated or altered. This he found it necessary to do in order to defend the Jewish standpoint against that of
Christianity in particular. How he will answer this question is of course a foregone conclusion. We are only interested in
his manner of argument. He adopts a classification of long standing of the Biblical laws into rational and traditional. The
first, he says, are accepted by all nations and can never be changed. Even a band of thieves, who disregard all laws of
right and wrong as they relate to outsiders, must observe them in their own midst or they cannot exist. These laws bring
people of different nationalities and beliefs together, and hence there can be no change in these. Nor can there be any
alteration in that part of the Law which is historical in content. An event of the past cannot be repealed.
It only remains therefore to see whether abrogation may possibly be compatible with the nature of the traditional or
ceremonial laws. Without arguing like the philosophers that change of a divine law is incompatible with the nature of
God, which is unchangeable, our sages nevertheless have a