Maimonides: The Guide for the Perplexed 

Background

Maimonides (1138–1204) was a Sephardic Jewish philosopher, jurist, and physician, who wrote influential works on Jewish law and ethics, such as the Mishneh Torah. He also served as the personal physician of Saladin, and was an expert in astronomy and logic. He was born in Cordoba in Spain, but also lived and worked in Morocco and Egypt. 

Influenced by Aristotle, Al-Farabi, Ibn Sina, and his contemporary Ibn Rushd, he became a prominent philosopher and polymath in both the Jewish and Islamic worlds.

One of his most famous works is The Guide for the Perplexed. It seeks to reconcile Aristotelianism with Rabbinical Jewish theology.

The first part

A page from a 14th-century manuscript of the Guide. The figure seated on the chair with Stars of David is thought to be Aristotle.

The part begins with Maimonides’ thesis of the unity, omnipresence, and incorporeality of God, explaining biblical anthropomorphism of divine attributes as homonymous or figurative. The first chapter explains the Genesis 1 description of Adam the first as in the "image of God", as referring to the intellectual perception of humankind rather than physical form. In the Bible, one can find many expressions that refer to God in human terms, for instance the “hand of God”. Maimonides strongly opposed what he believed to be a heresy present in unlearned Jews who then assume God to be corporeal (or even possessing positive characteristics).

To explain his belief that this is not the case, Maimonides devoted more than 20 chapters in the beginning (and middle) of the first part to analyzing Hebrew terms. Each chapter was about a term used to refer to God (such as “mighty”) and, in each case, Maimonides presented a case that the word is a homonym, whereby its usage when referring to a physical entity is completely different from when referring to God. This was done by close textual analysis of the word in the Tanakh in order to present what Maimonides saw as the proof that according to the Tanakh, God is completely incorporeal:

[The Rambam] set up the incorporeality of God as a dogma, and placed any person who denied this doctrine upon a level with an idolater; he devoted much of the first part of the Moreh Nevukhim to the interpretation of the Biblical anthropomorphisms, endeavoring to define the meaning of each and to identify it with some transcendental metaphysical expression. Some of them are explained by him as perfect homonyms, denoting two or more absolutely distinct things; others, as imperfect homonyms, employed in some instances figuratively and in others homonymously.”[6]

This leads to Maimonides’ notion that God cannot be described in any positive terms, but rather only in negative conceptions. The Jewish Encyclopedia notes his view that “As to His essence, the only way to describe it is negatively. For instance, He is not physical, nor bound by time, nor subject to change, etc. These assertions do not involve any incorrect notions or assume any deficiency, while if positive essential attributes are admitted it may be assumed that other things coexisted with Him from eternity.”[6]

Unrestrained anthropomorphism and perception of positive attributes is seen as a transgression as serious as idolatry, because both are fundamental errors in the metaphysics of God's role in the universe, and that is the most important aspect of the world.