Religious Language (C): God's Knowledge as a Divine Perfection

Method and Metaphysics in Maimonides' Guide

for the Perplexed
Daniel Davies

Print publication date: 2011

Print ISBN-13: 9780199768738
Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: January 2012
DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199768738.001.0001

Religious Language (C): God's Knowledge as a

Divine Perfection
Daniel Davies

DOI:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199768738.003.0007

Abstract and Keywords

An essential part of the law's theology, as Maimonides explains it, is that God
knows all things as their creator. It is usually thought that this view opposes
Maimonides' negative theology. This chapter argues that Maimonides describes
God's knowledge in the same way as uncreated perfections were described in
chapter 5. It shows that Maimonides' presentation of God's knowledge can then
be squared with his negative theology and that he tries to meet philosophical
objections by emphasizing the absolute difference between God's knowledge and
human knowledge. As with creation, the law is opposed to Aristotle's view, and
neither can be demonstrated. The law can only be supported by dialectical levels
of authority. An appendix to the chapter considers the thorny issue of the
opposition between Maimonides' negative theology and his clear assertion that
God is an intellect. It argues that this difficulty might be solved in the same
fashion.

Keywords:   knowledge, Aristotle, dialectic, intellect, negative theology

One of the discussions that can throw light on Maimonides’ approach to

religious language revolves around what he has to say about God's knowledge.
His basic theological commitments include divine omniscience, but it is not
immediately apparent how his negative theology, which includes the claim that
“knowledge” can only be used equivocally to refer to both divine knowledge and
human knowledge, can be squared with this. In order to show that they are
compatible, then, I must consider some objections that have been raised to his

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Religious Language (C): God's Knowledge as a Divine Perfection

account. It is regularly asserted that there are inconsistencies between what

Maimonides says about God's knowledge and his doctrine of negative attributes,
which I examined in chapters 3 and 4.1 Such perceived inconsistencies have led
scholars to drive a wedge between the two doctrines and either to posit an
“esoteric” doctrine or to explain away the problems by neglecting some of
Maimonides’ claims. Close attention to Maimonides’ arguments shows that he
describes God's knowledge in such a way as to make it consistent with the idea
of uncreated perfections that I explained in chapter 6. This is because
Maimonides’ exposition of God's knowledge requires him to argue that
“knowledge” is used equivocally of God and of humans, consonant with his
general take on religious language. Therefore, positing knowledge in God does
not force Maimonides into simultaneously holding contradictory beliefs both to
be true. The examination will provide further evidence that the notion of
uncreated perfections is relevant to Maimonides’ treatment of divine attributes
in general.

6.1 God's Productive Knowledge

The law teaches that God knows all things. “Nothing is hidden in any way from
him, may he be exalted, but everything is revealed to his knowledge.”2 (p.86)
In Maimonides’ view, God knows all particulars in their particularity. He argues
that God knows all particulars because God's knowledge is prior to, and
somehow causative of, the things that it knows. This position appears to have
some serious philosophical difficulties. Maimonides deals with these in the Guide
when he replies to those philosophers who deny the law's opinion, and I will
come to his response below. Nevertheless, the variety of interpretations of
Maimonides’ view on the topic show that his own position is still unclear.

In order to explain how God can know particulars while the difference between
God's knowledge and human knowledge is preserved, Maimonides offers an
analogy that, although imperfect, helps to illustrate his point.3 He likens God's
knowledge to that of a human craftsman in that both are causative. However,
according to Maimonides, the fact that God's knowledge is causative ultimately
differentiates it from human knowledge. That difference, along with the
pervasiveness of God's causal activity, implies that God is omniscient.4

There is a great difference between the knowledge that a maker [‘ilm

al-ṣāni‘] has of a thing he has produced and the knowledge anyone else has
of the same thing. That is that if the thing made is made in accordance
with the knowledge of the maker, the thing that is made is a result of the
maker's knowledge. The knowledge of any other who thinks about the
thing made and comes to know it, on the other hand, is a result of the
made thing…. And such is the case in the generality of existence and its
relation to our knowledge and to his knowledge.5

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Religious Language (C): God's Knowledge as a Divine Perfection

There are two important differences between the knowledge that the creator of
an artifact has of that artifact and the knowledge of an onlooker. The first is that
a producer of an artifact is aware of the thing produced and understands all of
its workings intimately before and after producing it. A second difference is that
the artifact's form in its maker's mind acts as a cause in bringing the artifact
into existence. Neither of these conditions applies to someone who knows the
artifact by abstracting from experience and examining observations.

For the analogy, Maimonides uses the example of a water clock. The clockmaker
knows exactly what the clock will do through his or her own understanding of
the form of the clock. By contrast, a person examining the clock is unaware of
how it works before beginning to examine it. Instead, the observer needs to
investigate the workings of the clock and from them deduce what the clock will
do at all times in order to understand its functions and to know what will happen
in it. In this sense, the observer's knowledge of the clock is derivative of the
clock's existence. An onlooker is therefore at a disadvantage by learning about
the clock only from examining a limited number of its movements. Maimonides
explains that “if you suppose that the motions of this instrument are infinite, the
onlooker could never contain them in his (p.87) knowledge.”6 The observer
must make a judgment concerning the object's nature and the way it will always
behave from the limited number of actions experienced. But the observer can
never take into account all of the movements of the clock, so a judgment must
always be made to include all of the particulars that occur at all times inside the
clock by extrapolating from a limited number of the clock's movements.
Knowledge proceeding through induction and gained from observation cannot
have the same degree of certainty as that proceeding from a priori principles.
The difference between induction from physical effects and deduction from
metaphysical causes determines the epistemological status of the knowledge
acquired. Maimonides is prepared to accept that sense experience affords
undoubted premises. However, in principle, he is aware that more certainty can
be had through knowledge of the general, which is then applied to the
particular. The induction can become more certain the more cases are observed,
but it can never be considered to be absolutely certain without any reservation,
although it may be accepted as true.7

Maimonides is not alone in this but is building on a tradition of epistemology. He

is applying a principle that can be found in Aristotle, who discusses the
superiority of the properly scientific knowledge possessed by a scientist, techne,
to the knowledge someone has as a result of experience, empeirias.8 Aristotle
considers how humans come to make universal judgments and how “art”
subsequently comes into being. He explains that scientists extrapolate from their
individual experiences and apply the knowledge they gain from those events to
form a judgment about what occurs more generally. So, to use Aristotle's
example, a doctor can know from experience of Socrates or Callias that some
particular medicine will cure a certain ailment in those individuals. By making a
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Religious Language (C): God's Knowledge as a Divine Perfection

generalization based on this knowledge, a doctor arrives at the scientific

conclusion that the medicine in question cures the ailment when it is present in
any individual. So scientific knowledge is superior to particular knowledge
inasmuch as it is more general and therefore encompasses more things.9

Nevertheless, there is a respect in which experiential knowledge is superior to

universal knowledge: only through experience can a scientist understand how to
apply knowledge. This is because people who act do so through familiarity with
particulars, since it is particulars that they are acting on and particular actions
that they are performing: “all actions and processes of generation are concerned
with singulars.” One who possesses the universal knowledge required to heal
someone will not be able to apply it without knowledge of the particulars that
need curing. Although it remains the case that a scientist is considered wiser
than an artist, because science requires knowledge of causes, there is a certain
practical superiority possessed by one who has particular knowledge. For
example, someone may know all of the principles of guitar making but might not
be any good at building guitars. (p.88) By contrast, a skilled luthier would be
able to create an instrument through past experience and practice, without
knowing exactly why the properties of one piece of wood cause it to make a
different sound from another piece of a different species.

So the knowledge that a scientist has is superior to that had through experience:
universal knowledge is greater than particular knowledge, as it encompasses
more. God's knowledge is universal, since it is productive and is self-knowledge.
Maimonides likens the artificer's knowledge to God's, which is the cause of all
things. In the same way that an artificer's knowledge is the cause of the clock,
God's knowledge is the cause of the world.10 Furthermore, in the same way that
an artificer knows all of the actions that the artifact will undertake even before
they occur, presuming it is not interfered with, God knows all of the things that
happen in the cosmos at all times. This helps to bring out the difference between
universal knowledge as it exists in God and as it exists in humans. In humans,
particulars are apprehended through experience of those particulars, and
universal judgments are made through experience of particulars. By contrast,
God knows universals as their cause and so knows them through universals.
Because of this, God's knowledge of universals is more “scientific” than human
knowledge gained through observation.

In summary, the clockmaker's knowledge has two features that are absent from
the knowledge of the clock's observer. The first is that it is prior to the artifact
and causes the artifact, whereas the knowledge of an observer is posterior to the
artifact and is caused by it. The second, which is consequent on the first, is that
the maker's knowledge is more encompassing and, as such, enjoys a superior
status. It can know all of the actions that the clock will perform without having
to observe it. In the case of God, the type of superiority that knowledge of a

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Religious Language (C): God's Knowledge as a Divine Perfection

particular affords is not lacking. God knows particulars as their cause.

Therefore, God's knowledge does not lack at all in the ability to apply it.

To return to the question with which this chapter began, given that Maimonides
seems to go to great lengths to deny that words can be used univocally of God
and anything created, the fact that on this occasion he draws such a close
parallel between God and a member of creation requires explanation.

6.2 An Inconsistency in Maimonides’ Account of Divine Knowledge?

Maimonides argues in favor of God's knowing particulars, and he illustrates the
superiority of God's knowledge by likening it to that of an artisan. Many scholars
believe that this is an illegitimate move on his part. They claim that because he
has put so much effort into distancing God from (p.89) anthropomorphism, he
is not entitled to use the analogy of an artisan's knowledge. Doing so is a
flagrant abuse of his own extreme version of negative theology.11 On the one
hand, he stresses the inability of the human intellect to gain any grasp of God.
On the other hand, when he draws a close parallel between God's knowledge
and that of a human artificer, he seems to be positing a genuine similarity
between God and humans.

Since the two streams in Maimonides’ thought are thought to be in conflict with
each other, it is thought that they represent two irreconcilable views. Therefore,
Maimonides’ real opinion must be sought in one or the other or perhaps in
neither. So the conflict between Maimonides’ negative theology in part one of
the Guide and his theological assertions in part three are considered a sign of
esotericism.12

If this is indeed an instance of esotericism, the conflict seems to be far more

obvious than has been made out, because there is no need even to connect parts
one and three in order to discover it. Maimonides points out that “knowledge”
must be used equivocally of God and of humans in the middle of his discussion of
God's knowledge in part three. That is, in the same place as he predicates
knowledge of God, he reiterates the very doctrine that is said to be inconsistent
with that predication: “this knowledge is not of the same species [naw‘] as ours
so that we can draw an analogy with regard to it, but [it is] a totally different
thing.”13 So great is the difference that there is no similarity at all between the
two types of knowledge, and the word is used equivocally (ištarāk). “There is a
community only in the terms whereas in the true reality of the thing there is a
difference.”14 There is no need to connect diverse chapters of the Guide in order
to discover the inconsistency, as Maimonides instructs those who would
understand him properly to do; it does not seem to be a well-hidden secret.

In light of the distinction between uncreated and created perfections and

Maimonides’ claims that “absolute perfections” can be predicated of God, a
possible solution opens up. If Maimonides’ statements about God's thinking
describe an uncreated instance of knowledge, he can preserve sufficient
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Religious Language (C): God's Knowledge as a Divine Perfection

similarity between God's thought and human thought to warrant using the term
while still insisting that it must be used equivocally. A more detailed examination
of the chapters that Maimonides dedicates to the issue of the divine knowledge
will show that Maimonides does, in fact, take God's knowledge to be a limitless,
uncreated perfection. In the end, the apparent anthropomorphism is exactly
what saves Maimonides from the charge of acting against his negative theology.
His account does preserve the absolute difference between God's knowledge and
human knowledge. He is able to posit knowledge in God as something that
cannot be understood by humans or likened to human knowledge in much the
same way that he was able to deny perfections of God, while simultaneously
affirming that they exist in God in a completely different way.

(p.90) 6.3 The Structure of Maimonides’ Arguments for Knowledge in God

To argue that the conflict between the two positions is apparent rather than real,
I now turn in greater detail to the chapters in which Maimonides treats the
differences between divine and human knowledge. The idea that God's
knowledge is causative occurs, in different forms, in chapters 19 and 21 of part
three.15 Chapter 20 appears to be an interlude, but it is actually part of a
progression. I will follow Maimonides’ progression and begin with chapter 19.

6.3.1 Chapter 19: God's Knowledge and Providence

Chapter nineteen connects the previous section on providence, comprising
chapters eight to seventeen, with the discussion of God's knowledge of
particulars. One of the issues Maimonides considers when he addresses
providence is evil.16 Chapter 19 is not only about God's knowledge; it is also a
continuation of the discussion of providence and evil. Maimonides’ purpose now
is to point out that the presence of evil in the world does not prove that God is
ignorant of human affairs. He uses rhetorical means in order to persuade the
reader that God does, in fact, have knowledge. Toward the end of the chapter, he
writes:

My entire aim in this chapter was to make it clear that this speculation is
very ancient; I refer to the notion that God lacks apprehension [idrāk],
which has occurred to the ignorant in view of the fact that the
circumstances of individual humans, which by their nature are contingent,
are not well ordered.17

Maimonides explains that some deny God's knowledge of individual events

because what happens to humans seems to be disordered; joy and suffering do
not seem to be a result of righteousness or evildoing. He writes that the
objection was formulated in ancient times, and a response can be found in the
Bible. The author of the Psalms, traditionally David, asks of those who deny that
God knows their sinful actions, “he that formed the eye, shall he not see?”
Maimonides explains that the verse means that someone is able to make an
instrument only if he or she has some idea of how that instrument is to be used.

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Religious Language (C): God's Knowledge as a Divine Perfection

The argument is based on the premise that in order to make an object, the agent
must know that object. Since God is the maker of the world, God must know the
world.

Rather than a complete argument for divine omniscience, this argument is a

response to those who argue against God's knowledge on the basis of the
presence of evil. It is not as sophisticated an argument as that which
Maimonides presents in chapter 21, and it is not a response to the philosophers.
(p.91) What the philosophers say about God's knowledge of particulars is
outlined later on. He does not intend by the argument in chapter 19 alone to
respond to the arguments of the philosophers who deny that God knows
particulars but only to convince the less sophisticated that God has knowledge.
The argument has a rhetorical aim, since it is intended to persuade people. It
does not prove that God knows particulars in their particularity, although
Maimonides does not openly say so. Only those who do not understand the
difference between knowledge of individuals and knowledge of universals would
be convinced. That is, the argument would only persuade people who do not
understand that the intellect deals with universals.18

A brief consideration of the analogy suffices to show that Maimonides cannot

use it to show that God knows all particulars. He writes that “unless a smith had
a conception and an understanding of the meaning of sewing he would not make
a needle in that form which alone permits the act of sewing.”19 Maimonides says
that in the same way, God must know what it is to see in order to create an eye.
God must also understand the workings of all of the other created things in
order to create them in such a way that they function correctly, as, in
Maimonides’ opinion, they manifestly do.20 Therefore, God must have a
knowledge of the things in the world. So in Maimonides’ view, the order in the
universe indicates the existence of an intelligence ordering it. That intelligence
cannot be nature itself, since “nature is not endowed with intellect.”21 There
must therefore be some intellect ordering nature.

This argument purports to show that God must possess some knowledge.
However, it leaves the nature of that knowledge open to question. To use
Maimonides’ own example, a smith needs to know how a needle is to be used
and what is involved in sewing but need not know all of the individual occasions
on which that needle is used. It is enough to understand what sewing is.
Furthermore, the smith does not need to be any good at sewing. God's
knowledge could likewise be a general knowledge in which God knows and
understands exactly what must be created in order for the world to run in a
smooth, orderly manner. The analogy does not show, nor does it attempt to show,
that God knows individuals.22

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Religious Language (C): God's Knowledge as a Divine Perfection

Maimonides has refuted the claim that there is no knowledge in God. However,
he has not yet explained all that he himself affirms about the matter. Since the
belief that God knows individuals as individuals is what is described as the law's
position, Maimonides has not yet argued in favor of the law. The proper subject
of chapter 19 is not the details of God's knowledge but the problem of evil and a
defense of providence. Maimonides distinguishes God's providence from God's
knowledge, since he argues that God has knowledge of all particulars, but he
claims that God does not have providence over the particulars of any species
other than humans.23 Accordingly, Maimonides finishes this chapter with the
following comment:

(p.92) As for what should be said concerning his knowledge, may he be

exalted, of all things, I shall inform you of my opinion concerning this after
I have made known to you the matters about which there is general
consensus and that no one endowed with intellect can contradict in any
point.24

First, then, Maimonides writes about something on which he agrees with the
philosophers. He then proceeds to inform the reader of the part of his opinion
that goes beyond what he argues in chapter 19 and beyond the opinions of the
philosophers.

6.3.2 Chapter 20: The Five Differences between Divine Knowledge and Human
Knowledge
In chapter 20 of the Guide, Maimonides explains why the philosophers think that
the law's opinion is false. In doing so, he outlines the philosophical difficulties to
which he must respond in order to defend the law's position. He then argues
that the philosophers are wrong to dismiss the law's view. As with the treatment
of creation, there is a distinction between what has been demonstrated and what
is asserted as the opinion of the law without demonstration.25 As with creation,
God's omniscience is defended from the attacks of the philosophers who have
not succeeded in demonstrating their own position. Then it is asserted as the
position of the law and the true meaning of scripture. Maimonides defends its
possibility rather than its certainty.

Chapter 20 begins with the statement that it is generally agreed that God does
not acquire knowledge at one time that was previously absent. This is a
consequence of God's being simple and unchanging and therefore totally actual.
These principles are asserted by both the philosophers and the law, since they
are demonstrably true. This, then, is that “about which there is general
consensus.”

A matter concerning which there is a general consensus is that it is not

true that new knowledge should come to him, may he be exalted, so that
he would know now what he did not know before. And it is not true, even

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Religious Language (C): God's Knowledge as a Divine Perfection

according to the opinion of those who believe in the attributes, that he

should have many and numerous insights.26

Maimonides mentions that it has already been demonstrated that God's

knowledge cannot change, because God's knowledge is God, and God does not
change. He then proceeds to introduce a further opinion, which he describes as
that of “the community of those who adhere to the law.”27 The community of the
law asserts that God's knowledge has multiple objects but that it remains simple.
Although the point is not made in such a way in this statement, the (p.93) law's
opinion amounts to the belief that God knows particulars. Combining the
demonstrated position and the position of the law results in an assertion of God's
omniscience. Maimonides expresses this in the form of differences that,
according to the law, obtain between human knowledge and divine knowledge.
As a result of God's knowing all things, five differences obtain. According to
Maimonides’ theory of divine predication, they show that “knowledge” must be
used in an equivocal manner of God and of humans. So Maimonides avoids
anthropomorphism by asserting that God's knowledge does not possess certain
properties that human knowledge does. The five differences are as follows:

1. God knows multiple things of differing species, while God's knowledge

remains simple.
2. God's knowledge encompasses nonexistent things.
3. God knows infinites.
4. God's knowledge does not change when things God knows change.
5. God's knowledge of a thing does not make that thing necessary.

The first difference was mentioned above as the law's position. The second
difference is that God's knowledge encompasses that which does not exist.
Humans cannot know that which does not exist, since the nature of human
knowledge is that it is abstracted from things that do exist. If a thing does not
exist, knowledge cannot be abstracted from it. However, Maimonides says that
something that never exists is not an object for God's knowledge.28 The second
difference, then, must mean that the things that do not exist must be things that
have not yet come to exist: future contingents. The third difference is that God's
knowledge includes that which is infinite. This difference is entailed by God's
knowing particulars. Humans can only know particulars through experience, and
experience of an infinite number of particulars is impossible. Furthermore, such
knowledge differs qualitatively from universal knowledge. Infinite particulars
can only be known indirectly, that is, inasmuch as they fall under a universal.
When Maimonides states that God's knowledge encompasses all individual
things, he expresses a difference in the way in which God knows. God knows
particulars with a more direct knowledge than humans do. He also expresses a
difference in the number of things known, which in the case of God is unending.
This is required by the possibility that the world is eternal a parte post. As
explained above, Maimonides believes that such a kind of eternity is compatible

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Religious Language (C): God's Knowledge as a Divine Perfection

with the law. He even thinks that believing in this notion is more in keeping with
the law's view than disbelieving in it.29 The fourth difference is that God's
knowledge does not change when things come into being and pass away, even
though God knows things as they exist. The fifth difference is that God's knowing
that something is the case does not make it necessary. In the case of humans,
this would not hold, since then they (p.94) would possess not “knowledge” but
“opinion.” Human knowledge is not causative, so it cannot necessitate
consequences; God's knowledge is causative but still does not make the
consequences necessary.

Given these differences, there may be reason to think that God's knowledge
should not be referred to as knowledge at all. It seems to be nonsense to say
that God has knowledge because what is being affirmed is not relevant to any
instance of knowledge. However, chapter 21 indicates that God's knowledge is
an uncreated knowledge like the absolute, unlimited perfections I discussed
above. So Maimonides is still able to refer to it as “knowledge” even though the
word is used equivocally, since God's knowledge is not a bounded instance of
knowledge.30 Predicating knowledge of God does not compromise divine
simplicity but, rather, preserves Maimonides’ claim that the word is used totally
equivocally of God and humans.

The five differences must be recognized if one is to assert the law's position on
God's knowledge, and they entail that any use of “knowledge” has to be
equivocal if it is to encompass both divine and human knowledge. The reason
people confuse the issue of God's knowledge, Maimonides says, is that they fail
to acknowledge the equivocation when they discuss the divine knowledge.
Presuming that knowledge is used in the same way in both cases, the
philosophers ignore the five differences and apply what they know about human
knowledge to God's knowledge and thus conclude that God cannot know
particulars. Maimonides blames the “philosophers” more than he blames others.
They should be perfectly aware of the equivocation, since they have
demonstrated that God is simple. Since the philosophers are aware that humans
cannot understand God's essence and since God's essence is the same as all of
God's attributes, including God's knowledge, they should understand that
humans cannot grasp God's knowledge. Furthermore, they should then
understand that the conditions that apply to human knowledge do not apply to
God's.31 So if God has “knowledge” and knows particulars in their particularity
by virtue of that knowledge, “knowledge” must be used equivocally. That is
because humans do not know particulars by virtue of their intellect but by virtue
of their senses.

Although the equivocality of “knowledge” is shown by these five differences,

there must be enough similarity between the two to warrant Maimonides’
discussion in chapter 21. If there is a contradiction between the two positions,
Maimonides would probably not put them so close together and be so open

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Religious Language (C): God's Knowledge as a Divine Perfection

about them. So something about the kind of equivocation Maimonides intends

when he claims that attributes are totally equivocal when used of God on the one
hand and humans on the other can be learned from this discussion.32 He cannot
mean that there is no relationship whatsoever, so that God's knowledge cannot
be compared to that of an artisan in the relevant sense. Rather, it is precisely
because that comparison is possible that the five differences obtain. Since it is
those five differences that justify considering the (p.95) term equivocal, it is
because God's knowledge can be likened to that of an artisan that the term is
equivocal. This is not to say that God's knowledge is really like that of an artisan.
It is an analogy and so will break down. But the analogy is useful, because it
illustrates the five differences between God's knowledge and human knowledge
that make the two totally unlike each other. The analogy shows that God's
knowledge is nothing like human knowledge; ontologically, it is not even like that
of an artisan.

So Maimonides is able to predicate knowledge of God because he makes the

qualification that the word is predicated equivocally (bi-ištirāk).33 This is his
strategy with other perfections as well, which he considers “absolute,”
uncreated, limitless perfections. If the specific feature of knowledge is in the
abstraction, knowledge is not necessary for God, since the divine intellect is
prior to what is abstracted. Another way of expressing this is that knowledge
always needs to be brought out of potential by a cause. If it is accepted that the
characteristic of knowledge is that it is derivative and that it abstracts universals
from particulars, it follows that God's productive intellect is the unlimited,
absolute perfection of created intellects; it is the divine limit of the created
perfection, an unlimited instance of knowledge. The way in which Maimonides
explains God's knowledge in chapter 21 indicates that this is exactly how he saw
the issue. If the Guide is understood in such a way, the five differences, and
thereby the equivocality of “knowledge,” are explained.

6.3.3 Chapter 21: Explaining the Differences—God's Creative Knowledge

Maimonides has now explained in chapter 19 why he feels able to assert that
God has knowledge and in chapter 20 that the divine knowledge is different from
human knowledge in certain respects. However, he has not explained how he
can hold that God knows all things without violating the rule that “knowledge”
must be used equivocally. In chapter 21, Maimonides solves this problem by
attributing a limitless instance of knowledge to God. He is thereby saved from
inconsistency. Maimonides can predicate knowledge of God without
compromising his doctrine of negative attributes because knowledge is an
“absolute perfection” in God. It is therefore justified to understand his
presentation of the law's position to be a presentation of a coherent set of
doctrines.

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Religious Language (C): God's Knowledge as a Divine Perfection

In this context, it is significant that the image of the water clock explained above
appears in the chapter immediately following that which contains Maimonides’
explanation of the five differences. The chapter's purpose is to explain how
Maimonides thinks it is possible to assert those differences; because God's
knowledge is causative, like that of an artisan, Maimonides is able to assert that
God's knowledge is different from human knowledge in (p.96) four of the above
five ways. The analogy shows several things about God's knowledge: it
encompasses multiple things while remaining simple; it can encompass future
things; it has no limit; it is changeless. Maimonides reiterates these after the
analogy and explains that they obtain because God's knowledge is causative. The
fifth difference is missing from this list; there is good reason for excluding it
here.34 In chapter 20, Maimonides stated that God's knowledge of a thing does
not necessitate that thing. He does not repeat this difference after the water
clock analogy, because, unlike the other four differences, it does not follow from
the position that God's knowledge is causative. Rather, Maimonides specifies
that he came to the belief that God's knowledge does not compromise human
freedom from the texts of scripture, not through philosophical reasoning.35 As
with the view that God knows particulars in their particularity, the compatibility
of human freedom and divine omniscience is something taught by the law but
not demonstrated by reason. Unlike the other four differences, though,
explaining that God's knowledge is causative does not explain how this fifth
difference is possible.

To explain how viewing God's knowledge as causative solves the apparent

contradiction, I return to the conclusions of chapter 5. There I argued that
Maimonides accepts that perfections exist in God and also that those perfections
may be thought of as unlimited perfections. Such an assessment allows
Maimonides to assert that perfections exist in God but that the words describing
those perfections must be used equivocally. To recap, an unlimited perfection is
a perfection of a particular scale of things but is not circumscribed by the
features of the scale. Members of the scale are all of the same species, but some
of them possess a greater intensity of the specific difference of that species. The
unlimited perfection occurs when the specific difference is made so great, or so
perfect, as to be totally unlike anything that is on the scale. The unlimited
perfection occurs when the perfection cannot be limited to any created being or
the definition thereof.36

If the specific difference that characterizes human knowledge is that it abstracts

from particulars given to the senses and is able to form an intellectual idea of
those particulars, that is, to turn them into universals, an absolute perfection of
knowledge would be a knowledge with no need to abstract anything from
particulars, because it already knows all of them.37 A knowledge that is not
abstracted from preexistent things and is not bound by them, as it knows all of
them, would be a causative knowledge. Hence an unlimited and uncreated
perfection of knowledge would be a knowledge that contains knowledge of all
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Religious Language (C): God's Knowledge as a Divine Perfection

things but is causative rather than derivative. And that is exactly how
Maimonides explains the way in which the law's position should be understood
when he uses the analogy of an artisan to characterize God's knowledge.
Furthermore, if God's knowledge is causative, it is not bound by time. So
Maimonides might be appealing to something like the notion that God's
knowledge is eternal.38 The five differences would then be explained in (p.97)
much the same way as they are when the problem is solved by considering God's
knowledge to be causative and therefore not influenced by anything in the
created order of things.

Maimonides uses another analogy to describe God's creating the world, which
may support the view that God's causative knowledge entails the notion that it is
eternal. In this analogy, Maimonides states that all things are created at once,
but they are individuated at different times. That is to say that from God's
eternal vantage point, there is no difference in the time the act was carried out,
but from the vantage point of time, there is:

Everything was created simultaneously; then gradually all things became

differentiated. [The sages] have compared this to what happens when an
agricultural laborer sows various kinds of grain in the soil at the same
moment. Some of them sprout within a day, others within two days, others
again within three days, though everything was sowed at the same hour.39

Time is measured according to the created order rather than in God's eternal
mode of being, because time is created. Extrapolating from this to the idea of
God's causative knowledge of particulars entails the belief that God can know all
things in the eternal moment.40

Ehud Benor argues that the notion of eternity is implied by Maimonides’

discussion of God's knowledge of future contingents. He argues that Maimonides
asserts that God can know particulars and that such a view is intelligible when it
is considered as deriving from an understanding of the eternal nature of God's
knowledge. His approach is justified, so Benor writes, because it “offers the
most coherent interpretation of Maimonides’ pronouncements on the subject of
divine knowledge.”41 I wish to make a bolder claim and argue that eternity
should be used not only because of the coherence it brings to Maimonides’
discussion but also because it is in accord with his explicit statement that God's
creation of particulars occurs in a single moment from God's point of view. They
are differentiated by time only from the point of view of created things, since
time is dependent on creation. In light of the notion that God's knowledge is
creative, the two may be linked, and God's knowledge of particulars can be
explained in the same manner.

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Religious Language (C): God's Knowledge as a Divine Perfection

6.4 That Knowledge Is a Divine Perfection: Predicating Divine Perfection by

Negating the Privation
So the conflict between Maimonides’ two positions is only apparent. This can be
taken as evidence that Maimonides predicates knowledge of God as an
uncreated, and therefore divine, perfection. Further evidence can be seen in the
fact that he explicitly refers to God's knowledge as a divine perfection.
Maimonides’ (p.98) arguments for knowledge in God include one in which he
predicates an “absolute perfection” of God by negating the privation of the
perfection of knowledge. This is because such kinds of negative attributes
indicate the presence of absolute perfections in God. No instances of the
perfections or their lack can be predicated of God, but a perfection that is not
limited through instantiation can be.

At the beginning of part three, chapter 19, Maimonides presents an argument

that God knows all things; he appears to acknowledge enough similarity
between human knowledge and divine knowledge to use “knowledge” with the
same meaning in respect to both:

No doubt it is a primary notion that all perfections [kamālāt] must exist in

God and that with regard to him all deficiencies must be denied. It is
almost a primary notion that ignorance with regard to anything whatever
is a deficiency and that he, may he be exalted, is ignorant of nothing.42

The argument can be broken down as follows:

1. All perfections exist in God, so all deficiencies must be denied of God.

2. Ignorance with regard to anything is a deficiency.
3. God is ignorant of nothing.

As do the comments about God's knowledge and intellect examined above, this
argument appears to conflict with Maimonides’ negative theology. Gersonides
uses it as evidence that Maimonides is inconsistent in his application of the
doctrines.43 The reason it appears to be inconsistent is that if Maimonides were
to maintain that “knowledge” is predicated of God and humans by way of pure
equivocation, he could not advance this argument without falling afoul of the
fallacy of the equivocated middle. Maimonides has to be using “ignorance” in the
same way in both the second and third statements. Clearly, in the second he uses
“ignorance” in a way in which it refers to ignorance possessed by humans. If
there is no similarity at all between the perfection as it exists in humans and as
it exists in God, then the argument does not work. It can only be a valid
argument if the “ignorance” of the minor is used in the conclusion.

Although a full examination of Gersonides’ use of religious language is not the

purpose of the present work, a response to his assertion that Maimonides is
guilty of inconsistency will help clarify Maimonides’ intention when he negates
the privations of perfections. Gersonides’ criticisms are based on the notion that

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Religious Language (C): God's Knowledge as a Divine Perfection

in order for Maimonides to conclude that God has knowledge, the ignorance that
is denied of God must fall under the same category as the knowledge that would
be predicated of God. Consequently, by denying ignorance of God, Maimonides
would be able to assert that God is omniscient. On this interpretation, the
argument could also take the following form, used by Harry Wolfson when he
explains Gersonides’ critique of Maimonides:

(p.99) If knowledge is a perfection in man, God has knowledge.

But knowledge is a perfection in man.

Therefore, God has knowledge.44

But Maimonides does not express the argument in such a way. At no point does
he attribute the human perfection of knowledge to God. Rather, he follows his
own interpretation of negative attributes in this passage. His affirmation of a
particular perfection does not involve him clearly attributing a perfection to God.
Instead, he negates the privation of the perfection. The privation can be of the
same type, so the argument remains valid. Nevertheless, the perfection in
question is, despite the required similarity, not the same as that denoted by the
human word. A divine perfection, then, must be differentiated from human
perfections, since the divine perfections are limitless and “absolute.”

In reply to Gersonides, then, Maimonides does not understand the perfection

that he attributes to God to be of the same species as the privation. So the
perfection is not attributed. Rather, what is said to exist in God is the limitless,
causative perfection. Gersonides argues that perfection terms are used properly
of God and derivatively of humans. Maimonides’ position differs from that of
Gersonides concerning the question of prior and posterior, because in
Maimonides’ view, the first applications of words indicating perfections are
always created perfections. That is why negations of perfections are denied but
perfections themselves are not denied. For Maimonides, it is genuinely less
correct to use perfections: a deficiency can be used univocally of what is
described in the created world and denied of God; a divine perfection can only
be described by words used equivocally of creatures and God. There can
therefore be a middle term if the privation is used in the argument. Instances of
perfections, or perfections in a form susceptible to being instantiated, must be
denied of God, but “absolute perfections” cannot be so denied.

In summary, Maimonides does not make any positive attribution. His statements
only appear to be positive if the difference between an uncreated perfection and
a created perfection is not taken into account. If it is, Maimonides is able to
attribute the “absolute perfection” of knowledge to God without compromising
his doctrine of negative attributes. So the conclusion follows that, at least in the

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Religious Language (C): God's Knowledge as a Divine Perfection

case of “knowledge,” Maimonides attempts to signify an absolute, or limitless,

perfection when he negates the privation of a perfection.

6.5 Summary
This chapter has suggested an interpretation of the position on God's knowledge
that Maimonides presents as that of the law. It is possible to understand his
pronouncements on the subject if his explanations of God's knowledge and
intellect are understood to be unlimited perfections of those characteristics in
(p.100) creatures. Statements about God's knowledge illustrate how he thinks
negations of privations should be predicated of God. Since chapter 5 established
that Maimonides only allows words to be used of uncreated perfections and
created perfections equivocally, this chapter has offered a solution to difficulties
raised in the secondary literature concerning the overall coherence of
Maimonides’ position. I have argued that there is a single coherent position that
is openly presented in the Guide, although not necessarily clearly presented.

The law's position on God's knowledge also complements Maimonides’

presentation of the law's position on creation. In chapter 3, I argued that in
order to explain the importance Maimonides gives to God's purpose, it is
necessary to assert that God knows particulars. Maimonides offers a coherent,
unified metaphysical position as that of the law. Creation and God's knowledge
are two connected issues. If God knows particulars in their particularity, as the
law teaches, the miracles are possible, because God is able to build them into
creation. Similarly, if the world is created ex nihilo, in the manner that the law
teaches, the miracles are possible. The reason creation allows for miracles while
Aristotle's view does not is that creation allows for God's knowledge of
particulars. If God knows particulars, the miracles become possible, and the
law's view of creation is implicitly true. Maimonides writes that he accepts this
position himself. Perceived contradictions within his own account do not
necessitate the conclusion that there is a hidden doctrine that represents
Maimonides’ true belief. I have argued that they are not contradictions at all,
once Maimonides’ philosophical assumptions are taken into account. In any
case, the supposed contradiction between God as knower and negative theology
would not result from the seventh cause of contradictions, because it simply
does not fit the description.

6.6 Appendix: The Question of the Divine Intellect

Until this point, I have focused on a problem raised in relation to the third part
of the Guide. There is another, possibly related problem, however, which has
been discussed in connection with a chapter in the first part of the Guide: the
depiction of God as intellect. As with the case explained in the body of this
chapter, it is claimed that Maimonides appears to be compromising his negative
theology by positing attributes in God and by describing God in an
anthropomorphic manner.

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Religious Language (C): God's Knowledge as a Divine Perfection

In the first part, Maimonides makes the following statement:

You already know that the following dictum of the philosophers with
reference to God is generally admitted: the dictum being that he is the
intellect [‘aql] as well as the intellectual apprehender [‘āqil] and the
intelligible [ma‘qūl], and that those three notions form in him, may he be
exalted one single notion in which there is no multiplicity.45

(p.101) If no anthropomorphic attributes are applicable to God, it would seem

wrong to assert that God shares the substance of intellect with humans.
However, Maimonides asserts that he is describing something common to God
and to those humans who actualize their intellect. He states clearly that his
comments about the divine intellect would be understood only by one who has
studied works on the intellect. These works apply not only to God's intellect but
to intellect in general.46 That means that the intellect in question must be
common to both God and humans.

It is accordingly also clear that the numerical unity of the intellect, the
intellectual apprehender, and the intelligible does not hold good with
reference to the creator only but also with reference to every intellect.
Thus, in us, too, the intellectual apprehender, the intellect, and the
intelligible are one and the same thing whenever we have an intellect. We,
however, pass intellectually from potentiality to actuality only from time to
time.47

To evade the problem, Maimonides claims that the difference between God's
intellect, which is permanently in act, and human intellect, which passes from
potency to act, is such a vast one that it sufficiently expresses the absolute
difference between God and people. I will return to this below, as it may support
the idea that the divine intellect is a divine, unlimited perfection. First, however,
I will discuss some previous responses to the problem.

6.6.1 Responses to the Problem

The apparent inconsistency has been pointed out by a number of Maimonides’
interpreters. Pines argues that there are two incompatible concepts of God in
the Guide: the completely transcendent, ineffable God and the concept of God as
intellect:

It is evident that the statement that God cognises and the consequent
assertions that He cognises Himself, or Himself and the forms or essences
assimilated to Himself, are positive statements and as such in contradiction
with the spirit and tendency of negative theology.48

According to Pines, it is possible but highly unlikely that Maimonides was not
aware of the inconsistency: “in this particular case this point of view would
amount to a grave and, in my opinion, very implausible accusation of muddle-

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Religious Language (C): God's Knowledge as a Divine Perfection

headedness directed against Maimonides.” In this essay, Pines refrains from

asserting which of the two he believed Maimonides to hold, since “prima facie
either of them is admissible.”49

(p.102) This assessment of the incompatibility of the two doctrines has been
accepted by many. Indeed, that there is a real contradiction resulting from the
seventh cause seems to have assumed an almost dogmatic status in some circles
of Maimonidean studies. Shoey Raz goes so far as to identify it as the major
secret of the Guide and to connect it with Maimonides’ interpretation of
Ezekiel's chariot, a subject to which I will return later in this book.50

But if there is really an opposition and Maimonides is trying to hide one of the
two positions, which is the one that he accepts? On this, scholars disagree. For
example, Alexander Even-Chen, who describes the opposition between the two
positions as “essential and indubitable,” argues that Maimonides’ true position is
that God is an intellect. The reason for concealing his belief is that, according to
Even-Chen, it implies that God knows only universals, and this is a position
opposed by the law.51 Alvin Reines argues that the idea that God has knowledge
is Maimonides’ expression of a God who is not absolutely transcendent. In
Reines's opinion, transcendence is the concept that would be more difficult for
the masses to accept and indeed most damaging to them. He therefore
concludes that the position that God is an intellect must be the smokescreen.52
Hannah Kasher argues that Maimonides accepted both of them, even though
they cannot be reconciled logically. On this reading, Maimonides possessed a
nuanced understanding of religious belief, one that allowed contradictory
statements to be held simultaneously, thus expressing the nature both of
religious belief and of human beings.53

It is plausible that this conflict is an instance of the fifth cause of contradiction,

and some recent interpretations could fit this scheme. For example, Diana Lobel
mentions that when Maimonides refers to God as intellect, he may be talking
about one of the intelligences rather than the unknowable God.54 Ehud Benor
argues that intellect is “symbolic” of God's immaterial mode of being and of
divine unity. It is part of Maimonides’ advanced theory of how language can be
used symbolically to point toward a reality that cannot be understood. On this
account, Maimonides accepts the inadequacy of such symbols but holds that
they provide a content for religious thought. Intellectual and ethical perfection
are the two symbols he deems important, since humans imitate God through
them.55 “Both are employed as self-transcending conceptions; invoking a notion
of perfection yet made transparent by their ever-apparent inadequacy, they point
beyond themselves towards the inconceivable divine being.”56 Ultimately,
according to Benor, “Maimonides uses the notion of the human intellect as a
symbol for God's mode of being. Thinking of God as an intellect makes it easier
for our mind to accept the reality of God's immaterial modes of being.”57
According to Benor, Maimonides could not have held that God is really an

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Religious Language (C): God's Knowledge as a Divine Perfection

intellect. The reason one needs, on his account, to consider the depiction of God
as intellect as symbolic is that it is opposed to Maimonides’ “extreme version of
negative theology.”58 So the purpose of stating that God is an intellect must be
didactic: God is not really an intellect, but (p.103) the student is taught that
God is an intellect as part of an educational program. Once the student is ready
to progress, a new opinion that seems to be opposed to the first can be
introduced.

If this is indeed Maimonides’ position, there would be precedents. First of all,

Benor's position might be supported by the fact that Avicenna writes that
immaterial substances are considered to be intellects inasmuch as they are
immaterial.59 So it could make sense for Maimonides to use intellect as a symbol
of God's incorporeality as well. Furthermore, Ġazālī also argues that the
philosophers’ God is the first created being, arguing that Avicenna's God is an
intermediary between the true God and creation.60 Although Avicenna
distinguished God from the first intelligence, which moves the outermost sphere,
Maimonides could certainly have followed Ġazālī's take on the philosophers’
God.61 He could then have considered the depiction of God as intellect as the
position “generally accepted” by the philosophers but one that just misses the
mark. I would like to raise another possible solution, which is that the divine
intellect described in 1:68 is an uncreated, limitless instance of intellect and that
it is therefore compatible with Maimonides’ negative theology.

6.6.2 How Would an Uncreated Instance of Intellect Be Indicated?

I argued above that Maimonides’ account of God's knowledge should be seen as
an account of the unlimited perfection of knowledge. The argument may be
extended to include the chapter in the first part of the Guide as well, thereby
defending Maimonides from the charge that he compromised his negative
theology by describing God as an intellect or compromised his radical
“intellectualization” of God with a more orthodox position of divine
unknowability. As in the case of chapter 21 of part three of the Guide, chapter 68
in part one points toward the notion of an uncreated perfection. The implication
is that Maimonides is able to consider God to be an intellect without
compromising his explanations of religious language; both can be held in tandem
and in harmony.

An uncreated perfection of knowledge would be causative rather than derivative,

an interpretation that explains the five differences between the divine
knowledge and human knowledge in part three. Throughout the chapter in the
first part of the Guide, Maimonides insists on a similarity between the divine
intellect and human intellect. That similarity is that both intellects are the same
as that which they possess in abstract: both intellects have knowledge.
Nevertheless, human intellect differs from the divine intellect, since human

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Religious Language (C): God's Knowledge as a Divine Perfection

intellect passes from potency to act on a regular basis, whereas the divine
intellect is permanently in act.

Maimonides mentions another difference between divine and human intellects,

which is a corollary:

(p.104) That which pertains solely to him, may he be exalted, and which
is specific to him is his being constantly in act and that there is no
impediment either proceeding from his essence or from another that might
hinder his apprehending.62

Since God's intellect is permanently in act, there is never any impediment to its
act. That is entailed by the fact that God's intellect is not at all derivative but is
causative, and therefore nothing external to God can act on it. This seems to fit
with a limitless intellect, which would be causative and would not have anything
acting on it but would be permanently in act. It would not be ignorant and would
thus constitute an intellect. The fact that it is permanently in act would mean
that no matter, which is the source of passivity, attaches to it. That would be
another reason to consider it an intellect, since the intellect is that which is
immaterial and actual.

A totally actual knowledge will be permanently acting. It could not be derivative

at all but would be causative. The doctrine of God as intellect would thus provide
further evidence that a permanently active, causative knowledge can be
considered an uncreated perfection and can therefore be ascribed to God. On
Maimonides’ account of divine predication, such ascription will have to be
equivocal, as argued above. Maimonides is thus able to discuss God's knowledge
and intellect without contradicting the statement that knowledge is predicated
of God and of humans equivocally. Since God's knowledge is causative and since
it causes everything, it is unfettered by any presupposed or preexistent thing.
God's knowledge is therefore, like God, totally free.

There are, then, a number of possible solutions to this particular problem.

Maimonides’ description of God as intellect is intelligible if the description is a
description of an uncreated perfection of intellect. A wholly causative intellect is
not acted on but only acts on other things. The problems raised by this chapter
of the Guide might therefore be solved in the same way as other limitless
perfections. Solving the difficulty in this way would mean that there is no real
contradiction when the two ideas are understood properly, although if they are
not, it may seem that there is a contradiction. This response needs the reader to
heed Maimonides’ advice by undertaking much of the necessary work and
thought without his direct guidance. It is, however, germane to what
Maimonides writes, and it does not require the belief that he, apparently alone
among his peers, considered negative theology to be built of contradictory
premises to those that result in calling God an intellect. If there is opposition

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Religious Language (C): God's Knowledge as a Divine Perfection

between the two doctrines, Maimonides might not have realized it. However, if
such opposition is posited, and he is assumed to be aware of it, another solution
is called for. One of those might be that of Benor, who argues that intellect is
ultimately a symbolic way to refer to God's incorporeality. The contradiction
would then be a result of the fifth cause, which Maimonides outlines in his
introduction.63 (p.105) Negative theology would constitute a stage beyond
characterizing God as intellect. Alternatively, one might follow what seems to be
Pines's lead and put it down to something like the seventh cause. Then the two
ought not to be reconciled at all. However, an advocation of such a position
would require detailed support and a theory that interprets the nature of the
seventh contradiction in an appropriate manner. Although I shall not consider
this issue in light of the seventh contradiction, as it does not seem to me to fit, I
shall show how Maimonides uses the seventh contradiction in the next two
chapters.

Notes:
(1.) Introduction; M3 (14–17); P7; S12; A11 (6–8).

(1.) Good biographies of Maimonides have appeared in recent years. See Joel
Kraemer, Maimonides: The Life and World of One of Civilization's Greatest
Minds (New York: Doubleday, 2008). The first part of Herbert Davidson's Moses
Maimonides: The Man and His Works (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004) is
dedicated to biographical details.

(2.) The statement appears in some of the earliest sources with the number
“forty-nine.” It is better known in the form used by Abraham ibn Ezra, which I
quote here. For an example, see his commentary on Num. 10: 29.

(2.) Mishnah with Commentary by Maimonides, Arabic text with Hebrew

translation by Yosef Kafiḥ, 7 vols. (Jerusalem: Mossad Harav Kook, 1963–1968).

(3.) For an examination of the medieval discussion, see Menachem Kellner,

Dogma in Medieval Jewish Thought: From Maimonides to Abravanel (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 1986); and Marc Shapiro, The Limits of Orthodoxy
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004).

(4.) For an account of the aims of MT, see Isadore Twersky, Introduction to The
Code of Maimonides (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1980), 61–81.

(5.) Sefer ha-Madda‘ (Jerusalem: Mossad Harav Kook, 1976).

(6.) An autograph of a fragment from a rough draft of the Guide was discovered
as recently as 2004 by Ben Outhwaite and Freidrich Niessen. See their “A Newly
Discovered Autograph Fragment of Maimonides’ ‘Guide for the Perplexed’ from
the Cairo Genizah,” Journal of Jewish Studies 2 (2006): 287–297.

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(7.) An example of Shneur Zalman's use of Maimonides can be seen in his

exposition of ḥasidic thought, Liqqutey Amarim (London: Soncino, 1973), 6.
Moshe Idel examines Maimonides’ influence on some later kabbalistic thinkers
in “Maimonides’ ‘Guide of the Perplexed’ and the Kabbalah,” Jewish History 18
(2004): 197–226. For Mendelssohn's debt to Maimonides, see Alexander
Altmann, Moses Mendelssohn: A Biographical Study (London: Routledge and
Kegan Paul, 1973), 12.

(8.) Menachem Kellner's Maimonides on the Decline of the Generations and the
Nature of Rabbinic Authority (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1996)
is a response to one such attempt to appropriate Maimonides, as the epilogue
makes clear.

(9.) Daniel Lasker, “The Interpretation of Maimonides—Past and Present” [Heb.],

Alei Sefer 19 (2001): 209–213.

(10.) Michael Shmidman, “On Maimonides’ Conversion to Kabbalah,” in Studies

in Medieval Jewish History and Literature, ed. Isadore Twersky (Cambridge,
Mass: Harvard University Press, 1984), 379–384.

(11.) See, for example, The Zohar, vol. 1, translated with a commentary by
Daniel Matt (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2004), 119, n. 80.

(12.) See Menachem Kellner, Maimonides’ Confrontation with Mysticism (Oxford:

Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, 2006).

(13.) See Abraham Halkin and David Hartman, Epistles of Maimonides: Crisis
and Leadership (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1993), 211–292, for a
translation of the “Epistle on Resurrection” and a commentary.

(14.) For an example, see Efodi's commentary on the Guide 1: 42, which is
included in More Nebuchim (Doctor Perplexorum), 2 vols., ex versione Samuelis
Tibbonidae cum commentariis Ephodaei, Schemtob, Ibn Crescas, nec non Don
Isaci Abravanel adjectis summariis et indicibus (Berlin: Adolf Cohn, 1875).

(15.) See Daniel Silver, Maimonidean Criticism and the Maimonidean

Controversy, 1180–1240 (Leiden: Brill, 1965), 16, for an account of the burning;
and 109–135, for an examination of the controversy over resurrection.

(16.) Joseph Karo defends Maimonides from this attack. See R. J. Zwi
Werblowsky, Joseph Karo: Lawyer and Mystic (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
1962), 31.

(17.) See Aryeh Motzkin, “On the Interpretation of Maimonides,” Independent

Journal of Philosophy 2 (1978): 42–44. For further details on the reception of the
Guide, see Davidson, Moses Maimonides, 402–428.

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(18.) See Warren Zev Harvey, “How Leo Strauss Straightjacketed Research on
the Guide in the Twentieth Century” [Heb.], Iyyun 50 (2001): 388. Strauss points
out that Maimonides was an adherent of the law and opposed those he called
“the philosophers” in Persecution and the Art of Writing (Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 1988), 43. For an excellent account of Strauss's take on Arabic
thought, see Joel Kraemer, “The Medieval Arabic Enlightenment,” in The
Cambridge Companion to Leo Strauss, ed. Steven B. Smith (Cambridge, U.K.:
Cambridge University Press, 2009), 137–170.

(19.) An example of this approach can be seen in Alvin Reines, “Maimonides’

Concepts of Providence and Theodicy,” Hebrew Union College Annual 43 (1972):
169–206.

(20.) Dimitri Gutas identifies Straussian interpretations of Arabic philosophy as

one of the enlightenment relics of twentieth-century scholarship in “The Study of
Arabic Philosophy in the Twentieth Century,” British Journal of Middle Eastern
Studies 29 (2002), 19.

(21.) Aviezer Ravitsky explores some similarities between the medieval

commentators and modern scholars in “The Secrets of Maimonides: Between the
Thirteenth and Twentieth Centuries,” in Studies in Maimonides, ed. Isadore
Twersky (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1990), 159–207.

(22.) See Menachem Kellner, “The Literary Character of the Mishneh Torah: On
the Art of Writing in Maimonides’ Halakhic Works,” in Me’ah She‘arim: Studies
in Medieval Jewish Spiritual Life, ed. E. Fleischer et al. (Jerusalem: Magnes,
2001), 29–45.

(23.) There are many questions concerning the details of this relationship. An
instance of the debate about the relationship between CM and the Guide is the
question of the connection between the thirteen principles and the structure of
the Guide, in which they are never mentioned. See, for example, Menachem
Kellner, “Maimonides’ Thirteen Principles and the Structure of the ‘Guide of the
Perplexed,’” Journal of the History of Philosophy 20 (1982): 76–84. A question
raised about MT concerns the relationship between the fourteen books of MT
and the fourteen classes of commandments in the Guide. Marvin Fox highlights
this issue in Interpreting Maimonides: Studies in Methodology, Metaphysics, and
Moral Philosophy (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990), 14. Josef Stern's
discussion of the commandment of circumcision attempts to explain the different
classification of that duty in Problems and Parables of Law: Maimonides and
Nahmanides on Reasons for the Commandments (Ta‘amei ha-Mitzvot) (Albany:
State University of New York Press, 1998), 87–107.

(24.) Shlomo Pines, “The Philosophic Purport of Halachic Works and the Purport
of the Guide of the Perplexed,” in Maimonides and Philosophy, ed. Shlomo Pines
and Yirmiahu Yovel (Dordrecht: Martinus Nijhoff, 1986), 5.
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Religious Language (C): God's Knowledge as a Divine Perfection

(25.) For further on this, see Warren Zev Harvey, “The Mishneh Torah as a Key to
the Secrets of the Guide,” in Me’ah She‘arim: Studies in Medieval Jewish
Spiritual Life, ed. E. Fleischer et al. (Jerusalem: Magnes, 2001), 11–28. In the
Guide, Maimonides states that he uses the premise of eternity in MT not because
he accepts it but because it is most appropriate; 1:71; M125 (23–27); P182;
S192; A188 (19–22). This issue will be dealt with below in chapters 2 and 3.

(26.) Heidi Ravven, “Some Thoughts on What Spinoza Learned from

Maimonides about the Prophetic Imagination: Part 1. Maimonides on Prophecy
and the Imagination,” Journal of the History of Philosophy 39 (2001): 193–214.

(27.) Lawrence Berman, “Maimonides, the Disciple of Alfarabi,” Israel Oriental

Studies 4 (1974): 154–178. For Alfarabi's text, see Book of Letters, Arabic text,
ed. Muhsin Mahdi (Beirut: Dar el-Mashreq, 1969), 150–157.

(28.) See Alexander Marx, “Texts by and about Maimonides,” Jewish Quarterly
Review 25 (1934–35): 374–381.

(29.) See, for example, Shlomo Pines, “The Limitations of Human Knowledge
according to al-Farabi, ibn Bajja, and Maimonides,” in Studies in Medieval
Jewish History and Literature, ed. Isadore Twersky (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard
University Press, 1979), 82–109, in which this principle is applied.

(30.) Alvin Reines, “Maimonides’ True Belief concerning God,” in Maimonides

and Philosophy, ed. Shlomo Pines and Yirmiahu Yovel (Dordrecht: Martinus
Nijhoff, 1986), 31.

(31.) For an account of Alfarabi's theory of demonstration, see Miriam Galston,

“Al-Fārābī̄ on Aristotle's Theory of Demonstration,” in Islamic Philosophy and
Mysticism, ed. Parviz Morewedge (New York: Caravan, 1981), 23–34. She points
out that dialectical discussions are important precursors to demonstrations.

(32.) Hans Daiber has recently argued that Pines's hermeneutic presents a
distorted picture of Alfarabi. He points out that those who argue on the basis of
Maimonides’ Farabian framework that Maimonides hides philosophical truths
from the masses turn Maimonides into an unfaithful disciple of Alfarabi. “Das
Fārābī-Bild des Maimonides: Ideentransfer als hermeneutischer Weg zu
Maimonides’ Philosophie,” in The Trias of Maimonides/Die Trias des
Maimonides, ed. Georges Tamer (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2005), 119–209.

(33.) See, for example, Warren Zev Harvey, “Why Maimonides Was Not a
Mutakallim,” in Perpectives on Maimonides, ed. Joel Kraemer (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1991), 104–114.

(34.) For an example of this, see Sandra Walker-Ramisch, “Between the Lines:
Maimonides on Providence,” Studies in Religion 21 (1992): 29–42. It is an
application of Strauss's observation in Persecution, 83.
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(35.) See section 1.3.3 below for more on the relevance of contradictions in the
Guide. Leonard Kravitz applies this hermeneutic throughout his reading of the
Guide in The Hidden Doctrine of Maimonides’ Guide for the Perplexed:
Philosophical and Religious God-language in Tension (Lewiston: Mellen, 1988).
Again, this approach can be traced to Strauss, as is made clear by Joel Kraemer
in “How (Not) to Read the Guide of the Perplexed,” Jerusalem Studies in Arabic
and Islam 32 (2006): 381.

(36.) Kravitz, Hidden Doctrine, 25.

(37.) Many of Abraham Nuriel's papers have been collected in Concealed and
Revealed in Medieval Jewish Philosophy [Heb.] (Jerusalem: Magnes, 2000). See
also Warren Zev Harvey, “Nuriel's Method for Deciphering the Secrets of the
Guide” [Heb.], Da‘at 32–33 (1994): 67–71. Harvey points out the similarity
between Nuriel's approach and Strauss's but also stresses that Nuriel disagrees
with Strauss's assertion of an incompatibility between religion and philosophy.

(38.) 1: Introduction; M9 (28); P15; S19; A20 (22–23).

(39.) This point is made by Aviezer Ravitsky in “Creation or Eternity according to

Maimonides” [Heb.], Tarbiẕ 35 (1966): 333–348. He responds to Nuriel's
arguments concerning Maimonides’ view of creation and also to his method in
general.

(40.) Harvey, “Why Maimonides Was Not a Mutakallim,” 111.

(41.) Joel Kraemer, “On the Philosophic Sciences in Maimonides’ Treatise on the
Art of Logic,” in Perspectives on Maimonides: Philosophical and Historical
Studies, ed. Joel Kraemer (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991), 102.

(42.) Joel Kraemer, “Maimonides’ Use of (Aristotelian) Dialectic,” in Maimonides

and the Sciences, ed. Robert S. Cohen and Hillel Levine (Dordrecht: Kluwer
Academic, 2000), 124.

(43.) Aristotle, Topics 100a31.

(44.) Maimonides recognizes four sources of authority for beliefs in general. Two
of these, primary intelligibles and sense experience, he considers undoubtedly
reliable, providing premises for demonstrative arguments. Maimonides mentions
them in 1: 51; M75 (25); P112; S115; A120 (2). For his use of tradition as an
authority, see 1:33; M48 (12); P71; S76; A77 (19). For generally accepted
opinions, see 3:8; M312 (21); P434; S444; A491 (12). These are usually
described as Maimonides’ authorities on the basis of the “Treatise on Logic,”
chapter 8, in Proceedings of the American Academy for Jewish Research 34
(1966) [Heb. section]: 21–24. The relationship between that work and
Maimonides’ later thought is uncertain. Davidson, in Moses Maimonides, 314,
has argued that the “Treatise” was not even written by Maimonides. Sarah
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Stroumsa suggests that it is a summary written by Maimonides of something by

another philosopher; see Maimonides in His World: Portrait of a Mediterranean
Thinker (Princeton, N.J., and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2009), 127.

(45.) For an account of assent (tasdīq) on the basis of less than demonstrative
premises in the Arabic tradition, see Deborah Black, Logic and Aristotle's
Rhetoric and Poetics in Medieval Arabic Philosophy (Leiden: Brill, 1990), 94–
102.

(46.) This supports Arthur Hyman's position in “Demonstrative, Dialectical and

Sophistic Arguments,” in Moses Maimonides and His Time, ed. Eric L. Ormsby
(Washington: Catholic University of America Press, 1989), 51.

(47.) 1: Introduction; M1; P3–4; S5–8; A7–8.

(48.) Kraemer, “Maimonides’ Use,” 123.

(49.) 1: Introduction; M2 (11–12); P5; S10; A9 (12–13).

(50.) 1: Introduction; M2 (13–14); P5; S10; A9 (13–14). A adds a negative in

square brackets resulting in the meaning “the purpose … is [not] the science of
the law.” Although this addition may seem to make the sentence accord with
what follows in the Arabic text, it is not in other versions and is thus an
unnecessary addition. Furthermore, it does not affect my argument as long as it
is accepted that the purpose of the Guide includes dealing with some of the
“science of the law in its true sense.”

(51.) Menachem Kellner, “The Conception of the Torah as a Deductive Science in

Medieval Jewish Thought,” Revue des Etudes Juives 146 (1987): 270. See
Kellner's essay for a number of convincing arguments.

(52.) 1: Introduction; M11 (2–6); P16; S20; A22 (8–12).

(53.) 1: Introduction; M9 (26–27); P15; S19; A20 (19–20).

(54.) 1: Introduction; M10 (3–4); P15; S19; A21 (2–3).

(55.) By practicing methods of withholding knowledge, Maimonides does not

diverge from the philosophical tradition. See Gutas, Avicenna and the
Aristotelian Tradition: Introduction to Reading Avicenna's Philosophical Works
(Leiden: Brill, 1988), 225–236.

(56.) Aristotle, Topics 159a18–21.

(57.) See, for example, section 3.2 below.

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(58.) 1: Introduction; M13 (13–14); P20; S24; A25 (18–19). Some manuscripts
mistakenly include the sixth among those he uses. See Davidson, Moses
Maimonides, 389.

(59.) 1: Introduction; M13 (9); P19; S23; A25 (14). S includes the seventh in this
statement. It does not appear in the other editions, and there is no indication of
why it is added. Lorberbaum follows S in “Changes in Maimonides’ Approach to
Aggadah” [Heb.], Tarbiẕ 78 (2008): 108.

(60.) In “Maimonides’ Use,” 123, Kraemer lists the “dialectical” process of

learning as among the indications that the Guide is essentially a book of kalām.

(61.) 1: Introduction; M11 (19–26); P17; S21; A23 (6–12).

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