A History of Mediaeval Jewish PhilosophyHusik, Isaac
ReligionJewish
A History of Mediaeval Jewish Philosophy
Husik, Isaac
Philosophy, Jewish; Philosophy, Medieval
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.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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