Written 2-10-2023
To me this book has been pretty illuminating. Its combination of old testament law and Aristotelian metaphysics is illuminating, in that it explains both subject matters better by showing how they might and might not work together.
Here’s a brief outline of some of the sections I read and some thoughts about each of them:
1. First I read on creation. (Part 2 13-19, 23, 25) Maimonides presents 3 options: (1) Time was created by God, Maimonides opinion, (2) God and existence (time) are equally eternal but separate, (3) and creation was created by God, but has always existed since God does not change essence, Aristotle’s opinion. These are all introduced in one chapter and then the subsequent chapters analyze how the second and third choice are argued for but fail to account for the more complete solution of the first choice. Maimonides here, and throughout, continues to reference the Torah both as a source of inspiration and a divinely inspired work. He walks this line carefully, doing well to never downplay the extent of his belief but also explaining how it is, in his opinion, more reasonable than Aristotle, whom Maimonides is always teasing. The language holds nothing back but always remains clean and concise. Maimonides, first here but also later, is great at doing what I would now consider a Straussian reading of each author he looks at, looking to find hidden meanings and lapses in logic or reason which can be attributed to unmentioned but important sources. Maimonides also respects Plato’s position more than Aristotle’s in some ways. Lots of the discussion here is highly theological, but is always dipping into philosophy or at least contrasting with natural philosophy.
When giving reasons why his method, that time was created by God, Maimonides talks to a few interesting points that squelch some critique: - He talks about how God could act at once and not another time. - Why God can change, starting from nothing and going to something - and how we do not know God’s plans.
All of this culminates into the criticism of Aristotle which complains that Aristotle relies on proof by Necessity (necessity that the stars are eternal, species eternal, unmoved force, etc) in contrast to an appeal to purpose. I feel like Maimonides feels that nature is just a little too arbitrary to create any sort of true proof by our reason alone. Instead we need a higher order of reason, and a higher order of reason would not have reasoning intrinsic to our world and thus would need to work with an external purpose.
There’s also a lot here on just what it means to think about these things, what it means to change your mind, and how we, ourselves, need to approach interpretation.
2. The second section I read concerns prophecy. (Part 2 (32-40, 46-48) Similar to the first section, and to how Aristotle starts his treaties, Maimonides runs through what he sees to be an adequate range of opinions on philosophy. Most importantly he says that philosophers see that anyone can become a prophet with enough training and the correct disposition. And he says that the Jewish opinion is the same, however, in many cases the training is not enough as one must be chosen by God.
Maimonides then goes on to meditate on Moses and how he is the prophet of prophets and the 10 commandments are an eternal law.
“Know that the true reality and quiddity of prophecy consist in its being an overflow overflowing from God, may He be cherished and honored, through the intermediation of the Active Intellect, toward the rational faculty in the first place and thereafter toward the imaginative faculty. This is the highest degree of man and the ultimate term of perfection that can exist for his species.”
Prophecy is defined in relation to visions and dreams. This makes for some interesting conversation regarding lunacy or drugs. He talks on the need for steady emotions and the harm of material pleasures. There’s mention of the messiah, and his not being here yet. He talks about how only some prophets are moved to prophesying, and in those cases it is because of an overflow of what reaches the rational facility. Prophesying requires courage and divination/speculation.
Maimonides shifts in to the political realm and talks to three types of rules: (1) a ruler that doesn’t know what they’re doing but optimizes for happiness, though he doesn’t know what that is, (2) a ruler that plagiarized from a prophet, but reveals his plagiarism by relaxed nature toward bodily pleasures, and (3) the prophet ruler.
Finishing this section, Maimonides talks more about the Bible as a text and how we sometimes need to dig deeper to see if a story is a vision. In doing this we get a feeling for what a prophet is in a more general sense.
This section was something new to me. Nothing like anything I’ve ever read. It gives a feel for the kinds of conversations going on in the medieval period. Personally, the idea of a prophet seems entirely contingent on God’s existence, but I think I may be changing my opinion slightly after reading this. The legitimacy of prophets is something that you’ll have to accept if you’re to follow the Bible. Understanding their nature is a reasonable step in accepting this notion and I feel Maimonides does a pretty good job of creating a good job of explaining a “reasonable” stance you can take on the topic. Sometimes I feel the idea of overflowing is a little too vague. Perhaps he explains what exactly is overflowing here, but I just assumed it was God’s essence or perhaps a moment of clairvoyance which is coupled with a hyper-rational mind which is focused on God. There is also a very welcomed focus on imagination here. It reminds me of William Blake or some sci-fi authors. There’s something that hints at the divine in imagination and I think the prophets are a good starting point to understand this.
3. The third and last part is on providence. Maimonides starts by going through all the options. Interestingly enough, the jewish opinion doesn’t lie at an edge, but seems to be smack in the middle. On one side are the Epicureans, which believe in no providence. On the other side, we’ve got the Islamic sect, Ash’ariyya, who believe that God's hand is on everything, particular and universal. Maimonides own opinion is that the natural world is not governed by providence, but regarding humans, “all the circumstances of the individuals and the good and evil that befall them are consequent upon the deserts, just as it says: For all His ways are judgment.” This he goes on to say is linked with intellect. He uses this to explain my God cares less of the rest of creation and, in the most suspect section in the whole treaties, he talks on how it is less bad to harm humans of lower intellect
He does say some other things that are cool though. Like, he mentions how some of these concepts, like species, are just constructs of our mind but not expressed in the particular, something that Aristotle doesn’t like to ever go out and say outright.
He then shifts gears a little and discusses the nature of what we can know about God’s providence. This then gets into a discussion about what God knows. We know he knows everything, but does he know everything that is not a thing? How about the things that could never be a thing? Maimonides clears this up by saying that these qualities that we like to compare to God’s, since they have similar feelings to us, are actually quite different and don’t deserve our hangups. He talks about how the inventor knows so much more about the invented than the invented does, but he takes this a step further in saying that God is the inventor of the world which allows for invention, blowing apart any reasonable comparison we might further make with the metaphor.
The gears switch once again and Maimonides starts to apply some of these thoughts to the book of Job. This seems like a reasonable transition, but the treatment he gives is very much unorthodox compared to the modern mainline interpretation of Job that I know. Maimonides once again presents us with a much more Straussian reading here. He first entertains the notion that the book of Job might once again be an allegory (in fact he insists that the conversations with God, the angels, and Satan must be allegory). He brings in the above idea of greater knowledge equalling greater providence and attributes it to Job and his ignorance, describing Job as a layman. He then ties things together describing how each of Job’s friends entertain a different belief regarding providence. The twist here being that Job isn’t the hero here. Sure he gets his riches back, but he himself holds Aristotle's providence-less world theory. His friends in turn hold the other theories, but Elihu holds the most novel of theories and he speaks of the “intercession of an angel”. Things here are a little unclear to me (I’ve just finished reading this and should probably go back and read it again), but Maimonides says that this is the author's true message. After Elihu’s speech Job is restored. Elihu, unlike the other friends, touches on the unknowable nature of God, but not in a way to divert guilt or accountability, instead in a way which asks us to ascend to a higher wavelength of thought which a least considers the alien nature of God which is the One and holds things to gather justly. It’s unclear whether Maimonides agrees or disagrees here, but I think that he holds that the author of Job knows what he’s doing even if there is a subversion of traditional Jewish thought.