Question about the first lesson (audio) on the topic of negative adjectives
peace
I hope I’m asking in the right place.
In this lesson, you describe what can be said about God in the philosophical method that preceded the Rambam and the Teshuva – nothing, with two exceptions:
1. Statements referring to the essence of God – this is clear to me.
2. Statements describing God’s actions – He created the world, gave the Torah, etc. Here I understand less.
As I understand it, a statement of this type is not a statement about God’s essence, but about His attributes – a statement that He created the world means that He has the ability to create and He exercised it.
Later on, it sounds like you are somewhat qualifying the matter, regarding the cosmological proof, and claiming that the statement is that He exists and that He is separate from the world. These are indeed statements about His essence, but the difficulty regarding statements about His actions still remains.
I would be happy to explain as much as possible, and thank you in advance.
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The question is within the framework of the philosophical approach that preceded the Rambam, as you described it, according to which nothing can be said about the attributes of God. Then you qualified and said that in fact statements about God's actions are statements that refer to His essence and not statements that refer to His attributes, and this is not clear to me.
After all, as I wrote, a statement that God created the world on its face attributes to Him an attribute – the ability to create. Just as the ability to support the body of the person sitting is an attribute of the chair, and not a statement that refers to His essence.
Of course, it is always possible to say everything, but the question is why a statement about God's actions is a “legitimate” statement within the framework of the above method.
I don't remember what I said there and the context. There's no problem saying something about his actions, and you can draw conclusions about him and his abilities or not. By the way, the fact that he can create isn't really a statement about him either.
Thank you very much.
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