A History of Mediaeval Jewish Philosophy Part 14

The world is perfect. For we have repeatedly shown that its creation is due entirely to G.o.d's goodness. If then it were not perfect, this would argue in G.o.d either ignorance or n.i.g.g.ardliness or weakness.[175]

Most of the ancients avoided giving G.o.d attributes for fear of making him the bearer of qualities, which would introduce plurality and composition in his essence. The proper view, however, is this. As G.o.d's essence is different from all other essences, so are his attributes different from all other attributes. His attributes are not different from him; his knowledge and his truth and his power are his essence. The way man arrives at the divine attributes is this. Men have examined his works and learned from them G.o.d's existence. They then reflected on this existent and found that he was not weak; so they called him strong. They found his works perfect, and they called him wise. They perceived that he was self-sufficient, without need of anything, and hence without any motives for doing wrong. Hence they called him righteous. And so on with the other attributes. All this they did in order that people may learn from him and imitate his ways. But we must not forget that all these expressions of G.o.d's attributes are figurative. No one must suppose that if we do not say he has life, it means he is dead. What we mean is that we cannot apply the term living to G.o.d literally, in the sense in which we apply it to other living things. When the Bible does speak of G.o.d as alive and living, the meaning is that he exists forever. The philosopher is right when he says that it is more proper to apply negative attributes to G.o.d than positive.[176]

Taking a glance at Ibn Zaddik's theology just discussed in its essential outlines, we notice that while he opposes vigorously certain aspects of Kalamistic thought, as he found them in al-Basir, the Karaite, his own method and doctrine are not far removed from the Kalam. His proof of the creation of the world from its composite character (substance and accident) is the same as one of Saadia, which Maimonides cites as a Kalamistic proof. We have already spoken of the fact that the method of basing one's theology upon the creation of the world is one that is distinctive of the Kalam, as Maimonides himself tells us. And this method is common to Saadia, Bahya and Ibn Zaddik. In his discussion of the attributes Ibn Zaddik offers little if anything that is new. His att.i.tude is that in the literal and positive sense no attribute can be applied to G.o.d. We can speak of G.o.d negatively without running the risk of misunderstanding. But the moment we say anything positive we do become thus liable to comparing G.o.d with other things; and such circ.u.mlocutions as the Kalamistic "Living without life," and so on, do not help matters, for they are contradictory, and take away with one hand what they give with the other. The Biblical expressions must be taken figuratively; and the most important point to remember is that G.o.d's essence cannot be known at all. The manner in which we arrive at the divine attributes is by transferring them from G.o.d's effects in nature to his own essence. All this we have already found in Bahya much better expressed, and Bahya is also without doubt the source of Ibn Zaddik's discussion of G.o.d's unity.

We must now review briefly the practical part of Ibn Zaddik's philosophy as it is found in the fourth part of the "Microcosm." In the manner of Bahya he points out the importance of divine service and obedience to the commandments of G.o.d, viewing man's duties to his maker as an expression of grat.i.tude, which everyone owes to his benefactor. Like Bahya he compares G.o.d's benefactions with those of one man to another to show the infinite superiority of the former, and the greater duty which follows therefrom.

The commandments which G.o.d gave us like the act of our creation are for our own good, that we may enjoy true happiness in the world to come. As it would not be proper to reward a person for what he has not done, G.o.d gave man commandments. The righteous as well as the wicked are free to determine their own conduct, hence reward and punishment are just.

Like Saadia and Bahya before him, Ibn Zaddik makes use of the distinction (or rather takes it for granted) between rational and traditional commandments; pointing out that the latter also have a cause and explanation in the mind of G.o.d even though we may not know it. In some cases we can see the explanation ourselves. Take for instance the observance of the Sabbath. Its rational signification is two-fold. It teaches us that the world was created, and hence has a Creator whom we wors.h.i.+p. And in the second place the Sabbath symbolizes the future world. As one has nothing to eat on the Sabbath day unless he has prepared food the day before, so the enjoyment of the future world depends upon spiritual preparation in this world.

In his conduct a man must imitate G.o.d's actions by doing good and mercy and kindness. Without the knowledge of G.o.d a person's good deeds are of no account and no better than the work of idolaters. In fact it is not possible to do good deeds without a knowledge of G.o.d, for he is the source of all good, and there is no true good without him. When a fool is seen with good qualities such as mercy and benevolence, they are due to the weakness of his animal soul, the spirited part of his nature.

Similarly if this fool abstains from pleasures, it is because of the weakness of his appet.i.tive soul.

Thus we see that knowledge comes first in importance; for knowledge leads to practice, and practice brings reward in the world to come. As the purpose of man's creation is that he may enjoy the future life, wisdom or knowledge is the first requisite to this great end.

The four princ.i.p.al qualities const.i.tuting goodness or virtue are (1) knowledge of G.o.d's attributes; (2) righteousness or justice; (3) hope; (4) humility. All other good qualities are derived from these. Jeremiah names some of them when he says (9, 23), "I am the Lord who exercise kindness, justice and righteousness on the earth; for in these things I delight, saith the Lord." Similarly Zephaniah (2, 3) bids us, "Seek ye the Lord, all ye meek of the earth, who have fulfilled his ordinances; seek righteousness, seek meekness."

The four qualities of wisdom or knowledge, righteousness, hope and humility are without doubt modified descendants of the four Platonic virtues, wisdom, courage, temperance and justice, which we still find in their original form and in their Platonic derivation and psychological origin in Pseudo-Bahya (_cf._ above p. 111).

Reward and punishment of the real kind, Ibn Zaddik thinks, are not in this world but in the next. In this way he accounts for the fact of the prosperity of the wicked and the sufferings of the righteous. Another proof that this world cannot be the place of final reward and punishment is that pleasure in this world is not a real good, but only a temporary respite from disease. Pain and pleasure are correlative, as we saw before (p. 136). In fact pleasure is not a good at all; for if it were, then the greater the pleasure, the greater the good, which is not true.

Reward in the next world is not a corporeal pleasure at all.

The evil which happens to the righteous in this world is often a natural occurrence without reference to reward and punishment, and may be compared to the natural pleasures which men derive from the sense of sight and the other senses, and which have nothing to do with reward and punishment. Sometimes, too, this evil is inflicted upon the good man to forgive his sins. Real reward and punishment are in the future life, and as that life is spiritual, the reward as well as the punishment is timeless.

The Mutakallimun think that animals and little children are also rewarded in the next world for ill treatment, suffering and death which are inflicted upon them in this world. So we find in Joseph al Basir's Mansuri. But this is absurd. If the killing of animals is a wrong, G.o.d would not have commanded us to do it, any more than he ordered us to kill human beings in order that he may reward them later. Moreover, we should then deserve punishment for killing animals if that is wrong, and there would follow the absurdity that G.o.d commanded us to do that for which we deserve punishment. Besides, if the animals deserve reward and punishment, they should have been given commandments and laws like ourselves. If this was not done because animals are not rational, reward and punishment are equally out of place for the same reason.

When the soul leaves the body in death, if she exercised her reason in the pursuit of knowledge, she will continue her existence forever in the upper world. This is her happiness, her reward and her paradise, namely, to cleave to her own world, and to s.h.i.+ne with the true light emanating from G.o.d directly. This is the end of the human soul. But if she did not exercise her reason and did not pursue right conduct, she will not be able to return to the spiritual world, for she will have lost her own spirituality. She will be similar to the body, desiring this world and its pleasures. Her fate will be to revolve forever with the sphere in the world of fire, without being able to return to her world. Thus she will be forever in pain, and homeless.

When the Messiah comes, the pious men of our nation, the Prophets, the Patriarchs and those who died for the sanctification of the name, _i. e._, the martyrs, will be brought back to life in the body, and will never die again. There will be no eating and drinking, but they will live like Moses on the mountain basking in the divine light. The wicked will also be joined to their bodies and burned with fire.[177]

CHAPTER X

JUDAH HALEVI

In Judah Halevi the poet got the better of the rationalist. Not that Judah Halevi was not familiar with philosophical thinking and did not absorb the current philosophical terminology as well as the ideas contained therein. Quite the contrary. He shows a better knowledge of Aristotelian ideas than his predecessors, and is well versed in Neo-Platonism. While he attacks all those views of philosophers which are inconsistent to his mind with the religion of Judaism, he speaks in other respects the philosophic language, and even makes concessions to the philosophers. If the reason should really demand it, he tells us, one might adopt the doctrine of the eternity of matter without doing any harm to the essence of Judaism.[178] As for the claims of reason to rule our beliefs, he similarly admits that that which is really proved in the same absolute manner as the propositions in mathematics and logic cannot be controverted. But this opinion need cause one no difficulty as there is nothing in the Bible which opposes the unequivocal demands of the reason.[179] He cannot consistently oppose all philosophy and science, for he maintains that the sciences were originally in the hands of the Jews, and that it was from them that the Chaldeans borrowed them and handed them over to the Persians, who in turn transferred them to Greece and Rome, their origin being forgotten.[180] At the same time he insists that philosophy and reason are not adequate means for the solution of all problems, and that the actual solutions as found in the writings of the Aristotelians of his day are in many cases devoid of all demonstrative value. Then there are certain matters in theory as well as in practice which do not at all come within the domain of reason, and the philosophers are bound to be wrong because they apply the wrong method. Revelation alone can make us wise as to certain aspects of G.o.d's nature and as to certain details in human conduct; and in these philosophy must fail because as philosophy it has no revelation. With all due respect therefore to the philosophers, who are the most reliable guides in matters not conflicting with revelation, we must leave them if we wish to learn the truth concerning those matters in which they are incompetent to judge.

This characterization of Judah Halevi's att.i.tude is brief and inadequate. But before proceeding to elaborate it with more detail and greater concreteness, it will be well to sketch very briefly the little we know of his life.[181]

Judah Halevi was born in Toledo in the last quarter of the eleventh century. This is about the time when the city was taken from the Mohammedans by the emperor Alphonso VI, king of Leon, Castile, Galicia and Navarre. At the same time Toledo remained Arabic in culture and language for a long while after this, and even exerted a great influence upon the civilization of Christendom. The Jews were equally well treated in Toledo by Mohammedan emir and Christian king. The youth of Halevi was therefore not embittered or saddened by Jewish persecutions. It seems that he was sent to Lucena, a Jewish centre, where he studied the Talmud with the famous Alfasi, and made friends with Joseph ibn Migash, Alfasi's successor, and Baruh Albalia, the philosopher. A poet by nature, he began to write Hebrew verses early, and soon became famous as a poet of the first order in no manner inferior to Gabirol. His living he made not from his verses, but like many others of his day by practicing the art of medicine. Later in life he visited Cordova, already in its decline through the illiberal government of the Almoravid dynasty. The rulers were strict religionists, implicit followers of the "f.u.kaha," the men devoted to the study of Mohammedan religion and law; and scientific learning and philosophy were proscribed in their domains.

Men of another faith were not in favor, and the Jews who, unlike the Christians, had no powerful emperor anywhere to take their part, had to buy their lives and comparative freedom with their hard earned wealth.

Here Halevi spent some time as a physician. He was admitted in court circles, but his personal good fortune could not reconcile him to the sufferings of his brethren, and his letters give expression to his dissatisfaction. He wrote a variety of poems on subjects secular and religious; but what made him famous above all else was his strong nationalism, and those of his poems will live longest which give expression to his intense love for his people and the land which was once their own. That it was not mere sentiment with Judah Halevi he proved late in life when he decided to leave his many friends and his birthplace and go to Palestine to end his life on the soil of his ancestors. It was after 1140 that he left Spain for the East.

Unfavorable winds drove him out of course to Egypt, and he landed at Alexandria. From there he went to Cairo at the invitation of his admirers and friends. Everywhere he was received with great honor, his fame preceding him, and he was urged to remain in Egypt. But no dissuasion could keep him from his pious resolve. We find him later in Damietta; we follow him to Tyre and Damascus, but beyond the last city all trace of him is lost. We know not whether he reached Jerusalem or not. Legend picks up the thread where history drops it, and tells of Judah Halevi meeting his death at the gates of the holy city as with tears he was singing his famous ode to Zion. An Arab horseman, the story goes, pierced him through with his spear.

This sketch of Halevi's life and character, brief and inadequate as it is, will prepare us to understand better his att.i.tude to philosophy and to Judaism. His was not a critical intellect whose curiosity is not satisfied until the matter in dispute is proved in logical form. Reason is good enough in mathematics and physics where the objects of our investigation are accessible to us and the knowledge of their nature exhausts their significance. It is not so with the truths of Judaism and the nature of G.o.d. These cannot be known adequately by the reason alone, and mere knowledge is not enough. G.o.d and the Jewish religion are not simply facts to be known and understood like the laws of science. They are living ent.i.ties to be acquainted with, to be devoted to, to love.

Hence quite a different way of approach is necessary. And not everyone has access to this way. The method of acquaintance is open only to those who by birth and tradition belong to the family of the prophets, who had a personal knowledge of G.o.d, and to the land of Palestine where G.o.d revealed himself.[182]

We see here the nationalist speaking, the lover of his people and of their land and language and inst.i.tutions. David Kaufmann has shown that Judah Halevi's anti-philosophical att.i.tude has much in common with that of the great Arab writer Al Gazali, from whom there is no doubt that he borrowed his inspiration.[183] Gazali began as a philosopher, then lost confidence in the logical method of proof, pointed to the contradictions of the philosophers, to their disagreements among themselves, and went over to the Sufis, the pietists and mystics of the Mohammedan faith.

There are a number of resemblances between Gazali and Halevi as Kaufmann has shown, and there is no doubt that skepticism in respect of the powers of the human reason on the one hand, and a deep religious sense on the other are responsible for the point of view of Gazali as well as Halevi. But there is this additional motive in Halevi that he was defending a persecuted race and a despised faith against not merely the philosophers but against the more powerful and more fortunate professors of other religions. He is the loyal son of his race and his religion, and he will show that they are above all criticism, that they are the best and the truest there are. Maimonides, too, found it necessary to defend Judaism against the attacks of philosophy. But in his case it was the Jew in him who had to be defended against the philosopher in him. It was no external enemy but an internal who must be made harmless, and the method was one of reconciliation and harmonization. It is still truer to say that with Maimonides both Judaism and philosophy were his friends, neither was an enemy. He was attached to one quite as much as to the other. And it was his privilege to reconcile their differences, to the great gain, as he thought, of both. Judah Halevi takes the stand of one who fights for his hearth and home against the attacks of foreign foes.

He will not yield an inch to the adversary. He will maintain his own.

The enemy cannot approach.

Thus Halevi begins his famous work "Kusari": "I was asked what I have to say in answer to the arguments of philosophers, unbelievers and professors of other religions against our own." Instead of working out his ideas systematically, he wanted to give his subject dramatic interest by clothing it in dialogue form. And he was fortunate in finding a historical event which suited his purpose admirably.

Some three or four centuries before his time, the king of the Chazars, a people of Turkish origin living in the Caucasus, together with his courtiers and many of his subjects embraced Judaism. Hasdai ibn Shaprut, the Jewish minister and patron of learning of Cordova, in the tenth century corresponded with the then king of the Chazars, and received an account of the circ.u.mstances of the conversion. In brief it was that the king wis.h.i.+ng to know which was the true religion invited representatives of the three dominant creeds, Judaism, Christianity and Mohammedanism, and questioned them concerning the tenets of their respective faiths.

Seeing that the Christian as well as the Mohammedan appealed in their arguments to the truth of the Hebrew Bible, the king concluded that Judaism must be the true religion, which he accordingly adopted. This story gave Halevi the background and framework for his composition. He works out his own ideas in the form of a dialogue between the Jewish Rabbi and the king of the Chazars, in which the former explains to the king the essentials of the Jewish religion, and answers the king's questions and criticisms, taking occasion to discuss a variety of topics, religious, philosophical and scientific, all tending to show the truth of Judaism and its superiority to other religions, to philosophy, Kalam, and also to Karaism.

The story is, Halevi tells us, in the introduction to his book, that the king of the Chazars had repeated dreams in which an angel said to him, "Your intentions are acceptable to G.o.d, but not your practice." His endeavors to be faithful to his religion, and to take part in the services and perform the sacrifices in the temple in person only led to the repet.i.tion of the dream. He therefore consulted a philosopher about his belief, and the latter said to him, "In G.o.d there is neither favor nor hatred, for he is above all desire and purpose. Purpose and intention argue defect and want, which the fulfilment of the intention satisfies. But G.o.d is free from want. Hence there is no purpose or intention in his nature.

"G.o.d does not know the particular or individual, for the individual constantly changes, whereas G.o.d's knowledge never changes. Hence G.o.d does not know the individual man and, needless to say, he does not hear his prayer. When the philosophers say G.o.d created man, they use the word created metaphorically, in the sense that G.o.d is the cause of all causes, but not that he made man with purpose and intention.

"The world is eternal, and so is the existence of man. The character and ability of a person depend upon the causes antecedent to him. If these are of the right sort, we have a person who has the potentialities of a philosopher. To realize them he must develop his intellect by study, and his character through moral discipline. Then he will receive the influence of the 'Active Intellect,' with which he becomes identified so that his limbs and faculties do only what is right, and are wholly in the service of the active Intellect.

"This union with the active Intellect is the highest goal of man; and he becomes like one of the angels, and joins the ranks of Hermes, aesculapius, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle. This is the meaning of the expression 'favor of G.o.d.' The important thing is to study the sciences in order to know the truth, and to practice the ethical virtues. If one does this, it matters not what religion he professes, or whether he professes any religion at all. He can make his own religion in order to discipline himself in humility, and to govern his relations to society and country. Or he can choose one of the philosophical religions. Purity of heart is the important thing, and knowledge of the sciences. Then the desired result will come, namely, union with the active intellect, which may also result in the power of prophecy through true dreams and visions."

The king was not satisfied with the statement of the philosopher, which seemed to him inadequate because he felt that he himself had the necessary purity of heart, and yet he was told that his practice was not satisfactory, proving that there is something in practice as such apart from intention. Besides, the great conflict between Christianity and Islam, who kill one another, is due to the difference in religious practice, and not in purity of heart. Moreover, if the view of the philosophers were true, there should be prophecy among them, whereas in reality prophecy is found among those who did not study the sciences rather than among those who did.

The king then said, I will ask the Christians and the Mohammedans. I need not inquire of the Jews, for their low condition is sufficient proof that the truth cannot be with them. So he sent for a Christian sage, who explained to him the essentials of his belief, saying among other things, We believe in the creation of the world in six days, in the descent of all men from Adam, in revelation and Providence, in short, in all that is found in the law of Moses and in the other Israelitish Scriptures, which cannot be doubted because of the publicity which was given to the events recorded therein. He also quoted the words of the gospel, I did not come to destroy any of the commandments of Israel and of Moses their teacher; I came to confirm them.

The king was not convinced by the Christian belief, and called a Mohammedan doctor, who in describing the specific tenets of Mohammedanism also mentioned the fact that in the Koran are quoted the Pentateuch and Moses and the other leaders, and the wonderful things they did. These, he said, cannot be denied; for they are well known.

Seeing that both Christian and Mohammedan referred to the law of Moses as true, and as evidence that G.o.d spoke to man, the king determined to call a Jewish sage also, and hear what he had to say.

The Jewish "Haber," as Judah Halevi calls him, began his discourse by saying, We Jews believe in the G.o.d of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, who took the children of Israel out of Egypt, supported them in the wilderness, gave them the land of Canaan, and so on.

The king was disappointed and said, I had determined not to consult the Jews in this matter at all, because their abject condition in the world did not leave them any good quality. You should have said, he told the Jew, that you believe in him who created the world and governs it; who made man and provides for him. Every religionist defends his belief in this way.

The Jew replied, The religion to which you refer is a rational religion, established by speculation and argument, which are full of doubt, and about which there is no agreement among philosophers, because not all the arguments are valid or even plausible. This pleased the king, and he expressed a wish to continue the discourse. The Rabbi then said, The proper way to define one's religion is by reference to that which is more certain, namely, actual experience. Jews have this actual experience. The G.o.d of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob spoke to Moses and delivered the Israelites out of Egypt. This is well known. G.o.d gave Israel the Torah. To be sure, all others not of Israel who accept the Law will be rewarded, but they cannot be equal to Israel. There is a peculiar relation between G.o.d and Israel in which the other peoples do not share. As the plant is distinguished from the mineral, the animal from the plant, and man from the irrational animal, so is the prophetic individual distinguished above other men. He const.i.tutes a higher species. It is through him that the ma.s.ses became aware of G.o.d's existence and care for them. It was he who told them things unknown to them; who gave them an account of the world's creation and its history.

We count now forty-five hundred years from the creation. This was handed down from Adam through Seth and Enos to Noah, to Shem and Eber, to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, to Moses, and finally to us. Moses came only four hundred years after Abraham in a world which was full of knowledge of heavenly and earthly things. It is impossible that he should have given them a false account of the division of languages and the relations of nations without being found out and exposed.

The philosophers, it is true, oppose us by maintaining that the world is eternal. But the philosophers are Greeks, descended from j.a.pheth, who did not inherit either wisdom or Torah. Divine wisdom is found only in the family of Shem. The Greeks had philosophy among them only during the short time of their power. They borrowed it from the Persians, who had it in turn from the Chaldeans. But neither before nor after did they have any philosophers among them.

Aristotle, not having any inherited tradition concerning the origin of the world, endeavored to reason it all out of his own head. Eternity was just as hard to believe in as creation. But as he had no true and reliable tradition, his arguments in favor of eternity seemed to him to be the stronger. Had he lived among a people who had reliable traditions on the other side, he would have found arguments in favor of creation, which is more plausible than eternity. Real demonstration cannot be controverted; and there is nothing in the Bible which opposes what the reason unequivocally demands. But the matter of eternity or creation is very difficult. The arguments on one side are as good as those on the other. And tradition from Adam to Noah and Moses, which is better than argument, lends its additional weight to the doctrine of creation. If the believer in the Torah were obliged to hold that there is a primitive eternal matter from which the world was made, and that there were many worlds before this one, there would be no great harm, as long as he believes that this world is of recent origin and Adam was the first man.[184]

We see now the standpoint of Judah Halevi, for the "Haber" is of course his spokesman. Philosophy and independent reasoning on such difficult matters as G.o.d and creation are after all more or less guess work, and cannot be made the bases of religion except for those who have nothing better. The Jews fortunately have a surer foundation all their own. They have a genuine and indisputable tradition. History is the only true science and the source of truth; not speculation, which is subjective, and can be employed with equal plausibility in favor of opposite doctrines. True history and tradition in the case of the Jews goes back ultimately to first hand knowledge from the very source of all truth.

The prophets of Israel const.i.tute a higher species, as much superior to the ordinary man as the ordinary man is to the lower animal, and these prophets received their knowledge direct from G.o.d. In principle Judah Halevi agrees with the other Jewish philosophers that true reason cannot be controverted. He differs with them in the concrete application of this abstract principle. He has not the same respect as Maimonides for the actual achievements of the unaided human reason, and an infinitely greater respect for the traditional beliefs of Judaism and the Biblical expressions taken in their obvious meaning. Hence he does not feel the same necessity as Maimonides to twist the meaning of Scriptural pa.s.sages to make them agree with philosophical theories.

According to this view Judah Halevi does not find it necessary with the philosophers and the Mutakallimun painfully to prove the existence of G.o.d. The existence of the Jewish people and the facts of their wonderful history are more eloquent demonstrations than any that logic or metaphysics can muster. But more than this. The philosophical view of G.o.d is inadequate in more ways than one. It is inaccurate in content and incorrect in motive. In the first place, they lay a great deal of stress on nature as the principle by which objects move. If a stone naturally moves to the centre of the world, they say this is due to a cause called nature. And the tendency is to attribute intelligence and creative power to this new ent.i.ty as an a.s.sociate of G.o.d. This is misleading. The real Intelligence is G.o.d alone. It is true that the elements, and the sun and moon, and the stars exert certain influences, producing heat and cold, and various other effects in things material, by virtue of which these latter are prepared for the reception of higher forms. And there is no harm in calling these agencies Nature. But we must regard these as devoid of intelligence, and as mere effects of G.o.d's wisdom and purpose.[185]

The philosopher denies will in G.o.d on the ground that this would argue defect and want. This reduces G.o.d to an impersonal force. We Jews believe G.o.d has will. The word we use does not matter. I ask the philosopher what is it that makes the heavens revolve continually, and the outer sphere carry everything in uniform motion, the earth standing immovable in the centre? Call it what you please, will or command; it is the same thing that made the air shape itself to produce the sounds of the ten commandments which were heard, and that caused the characters to form on the Tables of Stone.[186]

The motive of the philosopher is also different from that of the believer. The philosopher seeks knowledge only. He desires to know G.o.d as he desires to know the exact position and form of the earth.

Ignorance in respect to G.o.d is no more harmful in his mind than ignorance respecting a fact in nature. His main object is to have true knowledge in order to become like unto the Active Intellect and to be identified with it. As long as he is a philosopher it makes no difference to him what he believes in other respects and whether he observes the practices of religion or not.[187]

The true belief in G.o.d is different in scope and aim. What G.o.d is must be understood not by means of rational proofs, but by prophetic and spiritual insight. Rational proofs are misleading, and the heretics and unbelievers also use rational proofs--those for example who believe in two original causes, in the eternity of the world, or in the divinity of the sun and fire. The most subtle proofs are those used by the philosophers, and they maintain that G.o.d is not concerned about us, and pays no attention to our prayers and sacrifices; that the world is eternal. It is different with us, who heard his words, his commands and prohibitions, and felt his reward and his punishment. We have a proper name of G.o.d, Jhvh, representative of the communications he made to us, and we have a conviction that he created the world. The first was Adam, who knew G.o.d through actual communication and the creation of Eve from one of his ribs. Cain and Abel came next, then Noah and Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and so on to Moses and the Prophets, who came after him. All these called him Jhvh by reason of their insight. The people who received the teaching of the Prophets, in whom they believed, also called him Jhvh, because he was in communication with men; and the select among them saw him through an intermediate agency, called variously, Form, Image, Cloud, Fire, Kingdom, Shekinah, Glory, Rainbow, and so on, proving that he spoke to them.[188]