Maimonides’ Theology

doi:10.1017/9781108233705.006

6 - Maimonides’ Theology

from Part II - Medieval

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 03 December 2020

Daniel Rynhold

Edited by

Steven Kepnes

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Steven Kepnes: Affiliation:
Colgate University, New York

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Summary

Lauded in both the synagogue and the academy, Moses Maimonides remains the most influential philosopher to have emerged out of the Jewish tradition. Yet his radical conception of God’s unity and incorporeality informs a thoroughgoing rationalist reinterpretation of the language of Scripture that might be thought to denude God of his personal qualities. Framed around the first 5 of Maimonides' 13 principles of faith, we examine in this chapter Maimonides' views on God's unity and incorporeality, and the theory of divine attributes at the root of his radical biblical hermeneutic, explaining how, despite some pragmatic concessions to human frailty, Maimonides presents a biblical God who might easily be mistaken (though mistake it may not be) for the more rarefied and abstract God of Aristotle. In conclusion, we discuss, how in the face of such a view, Maimonides can nonetheless maintain a commitment to religious worship.

Keywords

Maimonides unity incorporeality Aristotelian attributes prophecy

Type: Chapter
Information: The Cambridge Companion to Jewish Theology , pp. 105 - 131

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108233705.006 [Opens in a new window]

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Print publication year: 2020

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References

Selected Further Reading

Buijs, J. ed., Maimonides: A Collection of Critical Essays. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1988.Google Scholar

Burrell, D. Knowing the Unknowable God: Ibn-Sina, Maimonides, Aquinas. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1986.Google Scholar

Davidson, H. Proofs for Eternity, Creation and the Existence of God in Medieval Islamic and Jewish Philosophy. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987.Google Scholar

Halbertal, M. Maimonides: Life and Thought. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2014.Google Scholar

Gutas, D. Greek Thought, Arabic Culture: The Graeco-Arabic Translation Movement in Baghdad and Early Society (2nd–4th/8th–10th centuries). New York: Routledge, 1998.CrossRef Google Scholar

Jospe, R. Jewish Philosophy in the Middle Ages. Brighton, MA: Academic Studies Press, 2009.Google Scholar

Kellner, M. Maimonides’ Confrontation with Mysticism. Oxford: The Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, 2006.Google Scholar

Maimonides, M. The Guide of the Perplexed. Translated by Shlomo Pines, 2 vols. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1963.Google Scholar

Pines, S. “The Limitations of Human Knowledge, According to al-Farabi, ibn Bajja, and Maimonides.” In Studies in Medieval Jewish History and Literature, 82–109. Edited by Twersky, I.. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1979.Google Scholar

Pines, S. and Yovel, Y., eds., Maimonides and Philosophy. Dordrecht: Martinus Nijhoff, 1985.Google Scholar

Rynhold, D. An Introduction to Medieval Jewish Philosophy. London: I. B. Tauris, 2009.Google Scholar

Seeskin, K. Searching for a Distant God: The Legacy of Maimonides. New York: Oxford University Press, 2000.Google Scholar

Shatz, D. “Divine Intervention and Religious Sensibilities,” 179–208. Reprinted in his Jewish Thought in Dialogue: Essays on Thinkers, Theologies, and Moral Theories. Boston, MA: Academic Studies Press, 2009.Google Scholar

Stern, J. The Matter and Form of Maimonides’ Guide. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2013.CrossRef Google Scholar

Twersky, I., ed. A Maimonides Reader. New York: Behrman House, 1972.Google Scholar