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Self-Cognizing Intellect and Negative Attributes in Maimonides' Theology

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 June 2011

Hannah Kasher
Hannah Kasher
Affiliation:
Bar-Ilan University
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Extract

In his introductory essay on the philosophical sources of The Guide of the Perplexed, Shlomo Pines points out a well-known contradiction between two conceptions of God in Maimonides' theology. On the one hand, Maimonides borrowed the Aristotelian definition of God as the intellect that cognizes itself; on the other, in line with Avicenna's Neoplatonic theory of attributes, Maimonides denied the possibility of saying anything positive about God. Pines proposes two possible solutions; first, that Maimonides was well aware of the contradiction, or, second, that he fell into the contradiction inadvertently. As Pines himself admits, however, neither solution is satisfactory.

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
Harvard Theological Review , Volume 87 , Issue 4 , October 1994, pp. 461 - 472
Copyright
Copyright © President and Fellows of Harvard College 1994

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References

1 Maimonides, Moses, The Guide of the Perplexed (trans. Pines, Shlomo; Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1963) xcvii–xcviiiGoogle Scholar.

2 Ibid., 1.18.

3 Ibid., xcviii.

4 Ibid., xvii.

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8 Ibid., 1.68.

9 Ibid., xcviii.

10 Ibid., lxix–lx, lxiii.

11 Ibid., xciii.

12 Ibid., 1.68.

13 Ibid.

14 Ibid.

15 Ibid.

16 Ibid., 1.56.

17 Ibid., 1.58.

18 Ibid., 1.1–49.

19 Ibid., 1.56–60.

20 See Schweid, Eliezer, Maimonides and the Scope of His Influence (Jerusalem: Akademon, 1968) 127Google Scholar [Hebrew]. Schweid calls the situation one of “tense synthesis,” not contradiction.

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33 Ibid., 3.32.

34 The thirteen principles are as follows: the existence of God; God's unity; God's incorporeality; that God is eternal; that God alone is to be worshipped; prophecy; the superiority of Moses; that the Torah is divine; that the Torah is unchanging; that God knows the deeds of humans; reward and punishment; the coming of the Messiah; and the resurrection of the dead. See Maimonides Commentary on the Mishnah on Sanhedrin 10 [Pereq Ḥeleq]; quotations are from Abelson, Joshua, “Maimonides on the Jewish Creed,” JQR 19 (1907) 47–49Google Scholar.

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39 Ibid.

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43 Ibid., 79.

44 Ibid., 59.