I. Joseph Al-Basir (11th century)[80]
Joseph ben Abraham, euphemistically surnamed on account of his blindness, al-Basir (the seer), was a Karaite and lived
in Babylonia or Persia in the beginning of the eleventh century. His philosophical work is closely modelled on the writings
of the Arabian Mutakallimun, the Muʿtazilites. Unlike Saadia, who tacitly accepts some of their methods and views, al-
Basir is an avowed follower of the Kalam and treats only of those questions which are common to Jew and
Mohammedan, avoiding, for example, so important an issue as whether it is possible that the law of God may be
abrogated—a question which meant so much to Saadia. The division of his investigation into the two parts, Unity and
Justice, is a serious matter with him; and he finds it necessary to tell us in several instances why he chose to treat a
given topic under the one or the other heading. In spirit and temperament he is a thoroughgoing rationalist. Brief and
succinct to the point of obscurity, he betrays neither partiality nor emotion, but fearlessly pushes the argument to its last
conclusion and reduces it to its lowest terms.
Saadia (above p. 28) puts revelation as a fourth source of truth parallel to sense, judgment and logical inference. To be
sure he, in one instance (p. 35), speaks of the reason as preceding the Bible even as tradition follows it, but this is only a
passing observation, and is properly corrected by the view expressed elsewhere (p. 28) that while a Jew is not forbidden
to speculate, he must not set the Bible aside and adopt opinions as they occur to him. Al-Basir does not leave the matter
in this unsettled condition. He definitely gives priority—logical priority, to reason. Knowledge, he says, must precede
revelation. The prophet as the messenger of God cannot be believed on his word, for the opponent may have the same
claim. Not only must the prophet authenticate his mission by the performance of a miracle which cannot be explained by
natural means, but we must know besides that he who sent him has our good at heart and would not deceive us. A
knowledge of the existence, power and wisdom of the creator must therefore precede our belief in the prophet's mission.
To take these truths from the words of the prophet and then give him credence because God sent him would be
reasoning in a circle. The minimum of knowledge therefore which is indispensable before we can make any appeal to the
words of the prophet is rational proof of the existence, power and wisdom of God. Having this minimum the person who is
not practiced in speculative investigation may rely for the rest of the creed, for example, the unity of God and his other
attributes, upon the words of the Bible. For if we know independently that God is Omnipotent and Omniscient, and the
prophet can substantiate his claim to be a divine messenger by the performance of genuine miracles, his reliability is
established and we are safe in accepting all that he has to say without proof; but the fundamental thing to do is to
establish the prophet's reliability, and for this an independent source of evidence is necessary. This is the reason.
Our problem therefore is to prove the power and wisdom of God, which will imply his existence. We cannot do this
directly, for we cannot see God. Hence the only method is to prove the existence of a powerful and wise creator through
his creation. We must prove his power in doing things which we cannot do, such as the ability to create our bodies. But
for this it is necessary to show that our bodies—and the same will apply to the other bodies of the world, and hence to
the world as a whole—were created, i. e., that there was a time when they were not. This leads us to an analysis of the
constituents of body. All bodies consist of atoms and their "accidents," or conditions and qualities. The primary accidents,
which are presupposed by all the rest, are the following four, combination, separation, motion and rest. Without these no
body can exist, for body is the result of a combination and separation of atoms at rest or in motion. But combination and
separation are the acts of a combiner and separater, as we can infer from the analogy of our own acts. Our acts have
ourselves as their creators, hence the acts visible in the combinations and separations of atoms to form bodies must also
have their creator.
The attributes of the creator we infer from the nature of his work. So we call God "Powerful," meaning that he had the
power to create the world. As creation denotes power, so the success and harmony of the product argues wisdom; and
this power and wisdom thus established are not disproved by an occasional production or event which is not perfect, a
monstrosity for example, or disease and suffering. We say in reference to these that God must have a deeper object in
view, to inspire mankind with the fear of God, and in order to increase their reward in the next world.
The attribute of Life follows from the other two, for life denotes the possession or capacity of power and knowledge.
Thus al-Basir has the same three essential attributes as Saadia. His proof of the existence of God is also identical with
one of the proofs of Saadia. But he shows himself a more loyal follower of the Kalam by frankly adopting the atomic
theory, whereas Saadia opposes it (p. 25).
Other predicates of God are perception, will, unity, incorporeality and eternity.
Perception is one of the most important expressions of life, but it must not be confused with knowledge or wisdom. The
latter embraces the non-existent as well as the existent, the former the existent only. It is in virtue of the former attribute
that we speak of God as "hearing" and "seeing."
"Willing" is another attribute of God, and those are wrong who identify God's will with his knowledge, and define God's
willing to mean that his works take place in accordance with his knowledge. God's will must be a special attribute since
we see in creation traces of free will. To be the will of God it must not reside in anything different from God, and yet it
cannot inhere in God as the subject, for only body is capable of being the subject of accidents. The only solution,
therefore, is that God exercises his voluntary activity through a will which he creates, a will not residing in any subject.
This discussion of the nature of God's will seems a case of hair splitting with a vengeance, and al-Basir is not the author
of it. As in his other doctrines so in this also he is a faithful follower of the Muʿtazila, and we shall see more of this method
in his discussion of the unity of God despite the plurality of his attributes.
But we shall first take up the attributes of incorporeality and eternity, which can be dismissed in a few words.
God is eternal because the only other alternative is that he is created. But if so there is a creator, and if the latter is again
created, he must likewise have a creator, and so we are led to infinity, which cannot be, the infinite regress being in all
cases an impossibility according to an axiom of the Kalam. We must, therefore, have an eternal creator somewhere, and
he is God.
From God's eternity follows his incorporeality, for we have shown before that all body is created, since it presupposes
combination and separation, and the latter a combiner and separater.
When we speak of the unity of God we mean first that there is no second God, and then that his own essence has no
composition or plurality in it. Two Gods is an absurdity, for the one might desire what the other does not, and he whose
will predominates is the real God. It is no objection to say that in their wisdom they would never disagree, because the
possibility is there, and this makes the above argument valid. Again, if there were two Gods they would have to be
completely alike in their essential attributes, and as space cannot hold them apart, since they are not bodies, what is
there to constitute them two?
The other problem, of God's simplicity, is more difficult. Does not the multiplicity of attributes make God's essence
multiple and composite? The form which this question took was this. Shall we say that God is omnipotent through Power,
omniscient through Knowledge, and so on? If so, this Power, Knowledge, etc., are created or eternal. If the Power, say,
is created, then God must have had power in order to create it, hence was powerful not through Power. If the Power is
eternal, we have more than one God, and "Power" as an eternal would also be Wise and Living, etc.; Wisdom would also
be powerful, living, etc., and so on with the other attributes, a doctrine closely bordering on Christianity and reminding
one of Augustine. The principle of monotheism could not allow such a conception as this. If Power is neither created nor
eternal, it follows that God is omnipotent not through Power as an external cause or a distinct entity, but through his own
essence. The attributes Power, Wisdom, Life, are not anything distinguishable from each other and from God's essence.
They are modes or conditions of God's essence, and are known along with it.
The same considerations which prompted us to conceive God as one and simple, make impossible the belief in the
eternity of God's word. This was a point much discussed in the Mohammedan schools, and was evidently directed
against Christianity, where the Word or Logos was identified with the second person in the Trinity. Eternity, Al-Basir
says, is incompatible with the idea and purpose of speech. God speaks with a word which he creates. This adds no new
predicate to God, but is implied in his Power. The attribute omnipotent implies that when he wills he can make himself
understood by us as we do through speech.
We notice that Al-Basir is more elaborate in his discussion of the attributes than Saadia, and like Al-Mukammas he
makes use of the formulæ of the Kalam, "omnipotent not with Power, omniscient not with Wisdom." Saadia does not
follow the Kalam so closely, but is just as emphatic in his endeavor to show that the three essential attributes are only
verbally three; conceptually and really they are one.
The doctrine of the attributes brings to a close the section on unity, and the second division of the investigation is entitled
Justice and Fairness. The main problems here are the nature of good and evil and the relation of God to them, the
question of free will and other subordinate topics, theological and eschatological.
With regard to the first question two extreme positions are possible, which were actually held by Mohammedan schools
of Al-Basir's day. One is that nothing is good or bad in itself, our reason not recognizing it as such; that the divine
command or prohibition makes the thing good or bad. Hence, the representatives of this opinion say, God, who stands
above his commands and prohibitions, is not bound by them. Good and bad hold for the subject, not for the author. The
acts of God do not come within the classification, and hence it is possible that God may do what we regard as injustice.
Some, in their endeavor to be consistent and to carry the argument to its last conclusion, did not even shrink from the
reductio ad absurdum that it is possible God may lie; for, said they, if I promise a boy sweetmeats and fail to keep my
promise, it is no worse than if I beat him.
For this school there is no problem of evil, because ethical distinctions do not apply to God's doings. Whatever God does
is good. The other school came under the influence of Greek thought and identified the idea of God with the idea of the
Good. They maintained that from the nature of God's essence it was not only his duty to do the good, but that it was
impossible for him to do anything else. Doing good is a necessity of his nature, and our good and evil are also his good
and evil. Ethical values are absolute and not relative.
Neither of these radical views can be maintained. The first is refuted by its own consequences which only very few of its
advocates were bold enough to adopt. The possibility of God telling a falsehood, which is implied in the purely human
validity of good and evil, is subversive of all religion. God would then cease to be trustworthy, and there would be no
reason for giving him obedience. Besides, if revelation alone determines right and wrong, it would follow that if God
chose to reverse his orders, our moral judgments would be turned the other way around, good would be evil, and evil
good. Finally, if good and bad are determined by the will of God only, those who do not believe in revelation would be
without an idea of right and wrong, but this is manifestly not true.
But the other opinion, that God is compelled by the necessity of his nature to do the good, is also erroneous. In the first
place it detracts from God's omnipotence to say he cannot do wrong. Besides, if he is compelled by an inner necessity to
do the good, he must always have done this, and the world would have existed from eternity. It is just as wrong to say
that it is the duty of God to do what is good and useful for man. For this is due to a confusion of the good or generous
with the obligatory. Any deed to which no blame attaches may be called good. If no praise attaches to it either, it is
indifferent. If it is deserving of praise and its omission does not call forth blame, it is a generous act. A duty is an act the
omission of which deserves blame.
Now the truth in the question under discussion is midway between the two extremes. God is able to do good as well as
evil, and is under no necessity. The notions of right and wrong are absolute and not merely relative. God never does
wrong because evil has no attractive power per se. Wrong is committed always as a means to an end, namely, to gain an
advantage or avoid an injury. God is not dependent upon anything; he needs no advantages and fears no injuries.
Hence there is nothing to prompt him to do wrong. The good on the other hand attracts us by its inherent goodness, not
for an ulterior end. If the good were done only for the sake of deriving some benefit external to the good itself, God, who
is self-sufficient, would not do anything either good or evil. God does the good always and not the bad, because in his
wisdom he sees the difference between them. It was a deed of generosity in God to have created the world and given life
to his creatures, but it was not a duty.
This conception of the nature of good and evil leaves on our hands the problem of evil. Why does a good God permit
disease and suffering to exist in the world? In particular, how explain the suffering and death of innocent children and
harmless animals?
The answer of Al-Basir is that infliction of pain may under certain circumstances be a good instead of an evil. In human
relations a person is permitted to inflict pain on another in self-defence, or to prevent the pain from becoming worse, as,
for example, when a finger is amputated to save the hand. The infliction of pain is not only permitted, it becomes a duty in
case of retribution, as in a court of justice; and finally it is permitted to inflict temporary pain if it will result in a greater
advantage in the future. The last two cases apply also to God's treatment of his creatures. Disease and suffering are
either punishment for offences committed, or are imposed with a view to later reward. In the case of children the last
explanation alone is applicable. They will be rewarded in the next world. At the same time the parents are admonished to
repentance and good conduct.
The most difficult question of the section on justice is that of free will and foreknowledge. Is man master of his actions? If
so, how can we reconcile this with God's omniscience, who knows beforehand how the person will act at a given
moment? Is man free to decide at the last moment in a manner contrary to God's knowledge? If so, we defend freedom at
the expense of God's omniscience. If man is bound to act as God foreknew he would act, divine knowledge is saved,
man's freedom lost. Al-Basir has no doubt man is free. Our own consciousness testifies to this. When we cut off our
finger bitten by a snake, we know that we ourselves did it for a purpose, and distinguish it from a case of our finger being
cut off by order of an official, before whom we have been accused or maligned. One and the same act can have only one
author and not two, and we know that we are the authors of our acts. There is a much closer connection between an
agent and his act than between a knower and his knowledge, which may be the common property of many, and no one
doubts that a man's knowledge is his own.
The dilemma above mentioned with its two horns, of which one denies God's knowledge, the other man's freedom, is
puzzling enough, to be sure. But we are not bound to answer it since it is purely hypothetical. We do not know of a real
instance in which a man's decision tended to be contrary to God's foreknowledge of its outcome. Just as we should
refuse to answer the question whether an actual case of injustice on the part of God would prove his ignorance or
dependence, because we know through irrefutable proofs that God is wise and without need; so here we say man has
freedom though God knows he will act thus and so, and refuse to say whether in case the unbeliever turned believer it
would prove God's ignorance or change in his knowledge.
God's creation was a pure act of grace. But once having done this and communicated to us a knowledge of himself and
his will, it is now his duty to guide us in the right path, by sending us his prophets. The commandments and prohibitions
must never be contrary to the knowledge of reason. We must see in the commandments means of guidance, in the
prohibitions a protection against destructive influences. If they had not this rational basis, we do not see why God should
have imposed them upon us.
Having given us reason to know his being, and having announced his truth through the prophets, it is his duty to reward
those who knew him and were obedient, eternally in the next world, and to punish eternally the unbeliever. If one has
merits and sins, they are balanced against each other. If the sinner repents of his evil deeds, it is the duty of God to
accept his repentance and remit his punishment.
2. Jeshua ben Judah[81]
Jeshua ben Judah or, as he is known by his Arabic name, Abu al-Faraj Furkan ibn Asad, was likewise a Karaite, a pupil
of Joseph Al-Basir, and flourished in Palestine in the second half of the eleventh century. His point of view is essentially
the same as that of his teacher, Al-Basir. He is also a follower of the Muʿtazilite Kalam and as strong a rationalist as his
master. He agrees with Al-Basir that we cannot get certain knowledge of the creation of the world and the existence of
God from the Bible. This information must come originally from rational speculation. It should then be applied to the
miracles of the prophets so as to prove the authenticity of their mission and the truth of their announcements.
He adopts the atomic theory, though he is opposed to the view that atoms are created ever anew by God from moment to
moment, and that there is no natural and necessary sequence or continuity in the phenomena of the world or qualities of
bodies, all being due to habit, and custom induced in us by God's uninterrupted creations. As in his philosophical
discussions he is a follower of the Kalam, so in his legalistic works he is indebted to the Mohammedan schools of
religious law.
Like Al-Basir, Jeshua ben Judah regards as the corner stone of his religious philosophy the proof that the world was
created, i. e., that it is not eternal. His arguments are in essence the same, though differently formulated. In their simplest
form they are somewhat as follows. The world and its bodies consist of atoms and their accidents. Taking a given atom
for the sake of argument we know that it is immaterial to it, so far as its own essence is concerned, whether it occupy one
place or another. As a fact, however, it does occupy a definite place at a given moment. This must be due to a cause.
And as the atom in question in the course of time changes its place, this shows that the cause which kept it in the former
place has disappeared and given way to a new cause, and so on. In other words, the successive causes which
determine the positions and motions of the atoms are not permanent, hence not eternal but created. The necessary
inference is that the atoms or the bodies, which cannot exist without these created causes (else they could not occupy
one place rather than another), must also be created.
Another form of the argument for creation is this. The eternal has no cause. It exists by virtue of its own essence, and is
not dependent on anything else. If now the atoms were eternal, they would have to persist in the same condition all the
time; for any change would imply a cause upon which the atom is dependent, and this is fatal to its eternity. But the
atoms do constantly change their condition and place. Hence they are created.
If the things of the world are created, someone must have created them. This is clear. But there may be room for the
supposition that this creative agency is a "cause," i. e., an impersonal entity, which by necessity produces other things
from itself. Hence we must hasten to say that this conception of the Creator is impossible because incompatible with our
results so far. A necessarily producing cause cannot be without creating, hence an eternal cause implies an eternal
effect—which contradicts our idea of a created world proved above. We say, therefore, that the Creator is not a "cause"
but an "agent," i. e., one acting with will and choice.
God is incorporeal because body consists of atoms, and atoms, we have shown, are created. Besides, if he were
corporeal, he could not create bodies any more than we can. He would furthermore be limited to a definite place, and the
same arguments cited above to prove that atoms are dependent on a cause would apply to him. Finally we as corporeal
beings cannot exert an influence on objects except by coming in contact with them. God causes the seed to grow without
being in contact with it. Hence he is not body, and the scriptural passages apparently teaching the contrary must be
explained otherwise.
Jeshua ben Judah likewise agrees with Al-Basir in regarding the nature of good and evil as absolute, not relative. Like
his master he opposes those who make God's command and prohibition the sole creators of good and evil respectively,
as on the other hand he refuses to agree with the view that God is bound by necessity to do the good. Our reason
distinguishes between good and evil as our senses between white and black.
Among other arguments in favor of the absolute character of right and wrong, which we have already found in Al-Basir,
appears the following. If good and evil mean simply that which God commands and prohibits respectively, and the
distinction holds only for us but not for God, it follows that God may do what we think is evil. If this be so, we have no
ground for believing in the good faith of the prophet—God might have sent him to deceive us—and the alleged basis of
right and wrong is removed.
We conclude therefore that good and evil are absolute and are binding upon God as well. God can do evil as well as
good, but being omnipotent he can accomplish his purpose just as easily by doing good as by doing evil, and hence
surely prefers to do good. Besides, all evil doing is the result of some need, but God has no needs, being self-sufficient,
hence he does not do evil.
It follows from the above that God had a purpose in creating the world. For an act without a purpose is vain and hence
bad. This purpose cannot have been egoistic, since God is without need, being above pleasure and pain. The purpose
must therefore have been the well-being of his creatures.