A Study On Maimonides' Rationalization Of God-Man Relationship

Maimonides is both an orthodoxy Jew who inherits the Jewish traditional culture and is quite familiar with Jewish classics, such as Torah and Talmud, and a student of Aristotle, who is acquainted with philosophy through Islamic philosophers. So the confrontation of religion and philosophy is represented in front of Maimonides as follows:on the one hand, philosophy is deemed as personal pursuit of intellectual perfection and as a knowledge system of human intellect, on the other hand, the revelation of prophets in the Jewish tradition provides behavioral principles for the people and represents their goal in ethics and morality, with moral perfection as the utmost felicity. How to deal with the relationship between the two systems in order to meet the challenges posed by the philosophical system against the religious tradition and maintain the Jewish belief, is just what Maimonides has to face and tackle. Maimonides's option is to defend the religious tradition with the philosophic method, and bridge the relationship between Judaism and philosophy in order to avoid the attacks of philosophy against the Jewish concept of God and the historical sense of prophecy. He tries to justify the particularity of Judaism through emphasizing the importance of the legal and moral system of Judaism in the realization of the utmost goal of intellectual perfection.This dissertation intends to study how Maimonides deals with the relationship of God and man in Judaism by analyzing how he discusses the important issues concerning basic principles of Judaism with a rationalized, philosophical method. The theme of the dissertation is to analyze how Maimonides proves the truth of the most important principle of Judaism, existence of God, with philosophical methods, and on the basis of that, he attempts to establish a rationalized relationship between the transcendent God and people living in the material world.In interpreting Torah Maimonides tries to broaden the meanings of religious language with a rationalized way of metaphorical interpretation in order to bridge the relationship between the traditional religious truth and philosophical truth. He proposes that some texts of Torah should be read metaphorically so as to solve the problems concerning a personal God. In the first seventy chapters of Book One in The Guide of the Perplexed, Maimonides interprets the meanings of some specific words or sentences concerning a personal God and diversity of God metaphorically. He emphasizes the transcendence and incorporeality of God against the personality of God.The secret of revelation that Maimonides tries to explain is fiqh, the science of laws, which is linked with the foundation of Jewish laws. The common legislators study morality and the norms of social behaviour which are necessary for Jews, while the science of laws is related to the justification of the laws which involves philosophy. The study of fiqh requires intellectual capacity and preparatory knowledge of sciences, which means the secret of fiqh is not suitable to be instructed to all Jews. The purpose of his philosophical work is to help those perplexed students who stepped in the field of intellect in order to reinforce their belief. To avoid undermining the religious belief of the common Jews, Maimonides chooses to write esoterically in the philosophical work.Maimonides believes there is a limit to the scope of human intellection beyond which are things unknowable for people. He approached the problem of possibility of human knowledge in the transcendental field with a mild skepticism, insisting that the divine knowledge is still a true and accurate science for the limited intellect of human being though it is not capable enough to acquire knowledge of all existences. Though human being cannot grasp the essence of God and other Intelligences, Maimonides believes the existence of God, his Oneness and incorporeality can be justified by philosophy.Maimonides is aware of the importance of the theory of God for Judaism and the existence of Jewish people as a community. When facing threats of foreign traditions, he believes one of the most important things to do is to justify the basic Judaic principle of the existence of a Jewish God.On the basis of twenty-six philosophical principles Maimonides proposes four proofs of God's existence which are featured with cosmological argument. He proves the existence of the First Reason on the principle that infinite regress is impossible which leads to the argument that an infinite causal sequence is impossible. The final reason of motion in the world is regarded as the Unmoved Mover or God by Aristotle. Maimonides follows Aristotle in his argument and regards the Aristotelian God as the Jewish God.Concerning the attributes of God, Maimonides resorts to theories of Negative Attributes and Behavioral Attributes to help confused Jewish students of philosophy clarify the doubts concerning expressions of anthropomorphism in Torah, and warn readers not to speak of nature of God mistakenly. Maimonides emphasizes the importance of pursuit of knowledge of the natural world for the study of the nature and natural law is one important approach to knowledge of God.On the origin of the universe Maimonides points out that Aristotle's theory of eternal universe is not more convincing than the Jewish story of Creation. Aristotle attributes the order of the material world and the reason of different forms of materials in the universe to the heavens, the problem still remains unsolved, for even in the heavens material took different forms, which is demonstrated with the differences in speed and direction of movement of stars and heavens. This order in the heavens is beyond the understanding of human intellect and hence can only be attributed to the free will of God. Thus it is clear that Maimonides does not support the Aristotelian theory of eternity as Shlomo Pines proposed. At the same time he absorbs philosophical thought into his theory of Creation by God so as to guarantee the order and law the physical world against the possibility of absolute chaos.The relation between God and human is a two-way interaction, with men's worship and respect for God on the one hand, and God's providence and protection of his chosen people on the other. When Maimonides thinks about the challenges against Judaism form a rational perspective, his priority is the problem of God and his relation with the Jewish people.In the rationalized context of Maimonides, man's love for God means his intellectual apprehension of God, i.e. acquiring as much knowledge related to God as possible within the scope of human rational capacity. And that topic is related to concepts like human soul and intellect, prophecy, human perfection and utmost felicity, etc. Maimonides proposes a rationalized theory of human soul and intellect to expound the nature of human being, his felicity and spirituality. He elaborates a naturalism theory of prophecy to reveal how prophets receive messages from God and the mechanism of the development of prophecy. Facing common religionists he supports the Jewish belief of resurrection of the dead, but at the same time he emphasizes the spirituality of this concept, i.e. the immortality of souls.Concerning the relation from God to man, Maimonides discusses the problems of divine providence and knowledge of God, existence of evil and perfection of God, God's determination and human freedom, from a rationalist perspective.Maimonides'rationalist tendency in tackling problems related to religious principles led to diverse reactions inside Judaism. Controversies over his rationalized concept of God, resurrection of the dead, nature of prophecy and his interpretation of Torah continued long afterward. As representatives of his followers and opponents, ben Gershom and Crescas both critisized and inherited from Maimonides in some capacity.