Negative Attributes, Lecture 1

So what I wanted to claim is that “do not deviate” is really “offenders will be punished.” “Do not deviate” basically means: you have to obey the Sages; that is what “do not deviate” means. The Sages have authority. Now, if there were no prohibition against eating poultry with milk when not done out of rebellion against their authority, then there would also be no meaning to the prohibition against eating poultry with milk when done out of rebellion against their authority. Because as long as you don’t tell me over what they have authority, you can’t define authority. It’s like “offenders will be punished” without saying who an offender is—that is, what you have to do to count as an offender. So what I wanted to claim there is that “do not deviate” basically says that the Sages have authority, but from that I learn indirectly that apparently it is also forbidden to violate the content of their words, even if I’m not doing it out of rebellion against their authority. But that is not a direct consequence of “do not deviate,” and therefore it is a rabbinic prohibition. I learn it only indirectly from the fact that the Torah says that the Sages have authority, so clearly what they say must be done, because otherwise what sense is there to the determination that the Sages have authority? Therefore, if I rebel against their authority, then I simply violated “do not deviate”; that is Torah-level. But if I simply eat poultry with milk without rebelling against their authority, then here I am violating that same system of prohibitions, which I learn only by implication; the commandment does not command it directly. All right?

So also with “offenders will be punished”: that really means that apparently there is some list of offenses that defines who is an offender and who is not. Otherwise this sentence has no content: “Offenders will be punished.” Now in the same way, “I believe in the Holy One, blessed be He” sounds like “offenders will be punished.” As long as there is no content to the concept of the Holy One, blessed be He, in what sense have I said anything? Is that even a meaningful sentence? Is there any difference between believing in the Holy One, blessed be He, and not believing in the Holy One, blessed be He, when you can’t say anything about Him at all? So there is some philosophical problem here, but in the opposite direction. The theological problem is understandable: why the philosophers thought that the Holy One, blessed be He, cannot be described in any way. But on the other hand, if you accept that the way they propose, then you land in the opposite problem.

So here, it seems to me, two qualifications need to be presented. A first qualification—maybe I’ll give some introduction before the qualifications. Already in Aristotle’s philosophy there is a distinction between the matter of a thing, or its essence, and its form, where every property of a thing is really part of its form. If I say that this table is white, or rectangular, or rigid, or flexible, or whatever—that is all statements about its properties, about the characteristics of the table. The whole collection of characteristics is its form. Now these characteristics are divided into two parts. One part is the essential characteristics, meaning those without which it is not a table, and the other part is accidental characteristics. Meaning, there are characteristics—the fact that this table happens to be white. If it were not white, it would still be a table. So that is an accidental characteristic. So it has accidental and essential characteristics. The definition of the table, or the idea of the table in Platonic language, is the collection of essential characteristics. All right? That is basically the set of characteristics without which it is not a table. But these are all distinctions and discussions that deal with the form of the table.

But what can be said about the essence of the table? The table in itself—not how I perceive it. Everything I can think to say about the table is some characteristic of it, some property of it. What can be said about the table itself? Or basically, in Kantian language many years later, Kant distinguishes between the thing-in-itself and the thing as I perceive it, the noumenon and the phenomenon. Now his claim is that everything we talk about—including of course the laws of science—everything we say about the world is really a statement about things as they are perceived by us, not about things as they are in themselves. And that is just another way of saying the same thing I said earlier. Meaning, things as they are perceived by us—that is the form of things, the collection of characteristics. And the question is whether any statement at all can be made about the thing itself.

Here, I think I also talked about this in some context—I spoke about the ontological proof of the existence of God. I don’t remember whether it was this year; I don’t remember. And perhaps even before the ontological proof there is Leibniz’s principle. Leibniz talks about the identity of indiscernibles, and he wants to say that any two entities that have exactly the same set of properties or characteristics are the same entity. Not two—one entity. That is his claim. Now he has a proof by contradiction. Let us say they are not the same entity, that there are two. Then entity A has the property that it is not B, and B has the property that it is not A. So they do not have the same characteristics. One has a property the other lacks, and therefore this contradicts the claim. Exactly. But we talked about this in the logic year, several years ago, that once you have a proof whose conclusion you don’t accept, look for where it begs the question. Clearly he begs the question. Why? Because what is the antithesis against which he is arguing? Meaning, what does someone who disagrees with the identity of indiscernibles claim? He is basically saying that there can be two different entities that have the same set of properties. Again—not different in the sense that they have different properties, but that they are two and not one. Yes, that is what I mean to say: different not in the sense that it is easy to distinguish them, that they look different or are perceived differently, but that they are two and not one. What does that really mean? It means that apparently the object is not the sum of its properties. Leibniz assumes that the object is the sum of the properties, the sum of its characteristics—that is the object. There is nothing in the object beyond the sum of its characteristics, and therefore he says: if the sum of characteristics is identical in two objects, then they are not two objects but one object. But the antithesis against which he is struggling is an antithesis that says not so. It says that there is something in the thing beyond the sum of its characteristics. And when I say there are two objects that have the same set of characteristics, there is no internal contradiction according to that view, because those two are two—they are two essences, two entities, each of which bears or is characterized by the same set of properties or characteristics. Okay? And the claim is that the essence of the thing is something else in it, besides all its characteristics. That is really the bearer of the characteristics, the one described by these characteristics—that is the thing itself.

Now if I say that, then when I have two entities that have exactly the same property, exactly the same set of properties, let’s now go over Leibniz’s proof and see where he begs the question. So what did he say? Suppose they are two. If they are two, then A has the property that it is not B. So that contradicts the assumption that A and B have exactly the same set of properties. The only way out of this—and this should be obvious immediately—is that the fact that A is not B is not a property. Being not-B is not a property. Being not-B is a statement about your essence, not about one of your properties. A statement about one of your properties could be that you are unlike B in taste, kindness, height, fine. But the mere fact that you are simply not B but another entity—that is precisely the idea, because the entity is something beyond the properties; it is something else there in the thing besides the properties. So to say that you are an entity different from that entity—not different again, not different in properties but another entity from that entity—that is precisely not to speak about properties, but to speak about the entity. And that is what Leibniz forgot, and then what he says is not correct. Exactly, because he begs the question. He assumes that in the entity there is nothing except the sum of its properties, and of course from that he reaches the conclusion that two entities with the same set of properties are identical. But if you do not accept the basic assumption, then his proof of course collapses. Okay, so it begs the question.

Wait, just for definition’s sake: what can be said about the entity itself? So now that’s exactly why I’m saying all this—to say what can be said about the entity itself. For example, that it is not another entity. Exactly—that’s it, that’s the result, right? And that’s what I showed. Because if even that could not be said about the entity, if that too were a property, then Leibniz would be right, then there would be no such thing as an entity. Meaning, if I say that there is such a thing as an entity, the meaning is that to say entity A is not entity B is a statement about the entity and not about the properties. But that is a negative statement? For example, yes, that is a negative statement—perhaps that will also connect to our issue later on. But perhaps a positive statement can also be made about it: to say that it exists. To say that something exists is a statement about its essence, not about properties. Is that necessary existence? Necessary existence is something more. I’m talking just about the fact that it exists, even before necessary existence. To say that this book exists is not to say anything about one of its properties; it is simply to say that there is such an entity. But if there are two such books? Then there are two. No, this book is one. This book exists. And that’s another book—it may resemble it in every respect, but it’s not the same entity? It is not the same entity? No, no, it is not the same entity. Those are two different entities that have the same set of properties, except for location in this case. All right?

So the claim that entity A is not B is, for example, a claim that deals with the entity and not the properties, and the claim that a certain entity exists is also a claim about the entity and not the properties. I talked about this in the year when I spoke about proofs for the existence of God, one of those years, several years ago, because there the ontological proof of the existence of God basically argues as follows: I define the Holy One, blessed be He, as an entity possessing all perfections. Yes? Anselm—we read the Proslogion. So I define the Holy One, blessed be He, as an entity possessing all perfections. Now I say: the entity, or the most perfect entity that can be conceived. Okay? Now let us assume that He does not exist and derive a contradiction; we will prove by contradiction that He exists. I will assume He does not exist. Now I say: if He does not exist, I can conceive of that same entity, with all those properties, but which also exists. That would be a more perfect entity than that entity which does not exist. So this means that that entity which does not exist cannot be the most perfect one I can conceive, and therefore He must exist. Okay?

Bertrand Russell was an atheist. He said it is much easier to say that this proof is mistaken than to point out where. Meaning, this really is not trivial at all. We had a fairly long discussion about it then. It is not at all trivial to see where the problem is here. But there are Kant’s objections to it, there are various formulations. Most of the formulations—maybe even all of them, but most, it seems to me—revolve around the point I mentioned earlier. That is why I bring this example. To claim that this entity exists, the most perfect entity I can conceive—the meaning is the entity with all perfect properties. The most perfect in terms of its properties—that is what is called the entity. Now if I claim that it exists, that is not a perfection, because being existent is not a property. We said that being existent is a statement about the entity and not about one of its properties. Therefore the fact that it exists cannot count as one of its perfections; it does not make it more perfect, because perfections are defined through descriptions. Therefore existent or non-existent is the same thing. And if you want to say that existence too is a property, like Leibniz or without Leibniz, doesn’t matter, then again this proof is worthless. Because then it means that the moment you said that it has all perfections, you already said that it also exists, because existence too is one of the perfections. That’s no great feat—you are again begging the question.

So then also non-existence? Hm? Then it also has a deficiency, because it is also not non-existent. What deficiency? It is not a deficiency to be not non-existent. Because if existence is a perfection, then non-existence is a deficiency, so it lacks that thing and therefore it is not perfect in that respect. No, it lacks a deficiency; that’s fine. To lack a deficiency is fine. So therefore I’m saying that there—there exactly is the point that shows us, from Leibniz we learn one sentence that can be said about the entity: that it is not another entity. All right? From Anselm in this proof we learn another sentence that can be said about the entity: that it exists. And the claim is that this is a statement about the entity and not about its properties. Okay?

Once in class… But what does “exists” mean? What? What does “exists” mean? The book exists—so you can say, I don’t know, that the collection of molecules composing it occupies volume… “occupies volume” is a property. What is it? What does “exists” mean? No, so that’s what I’m saying. No, in my opinion that is the same mistake as the question itself. What does “exists” mean? Because the moment you try to define for me what it means that the book exists, you won’t succeed. You’ll define it in terms of properties. Right? You’ll define it for me: it has molecules, it occupies space—that is all properties. It can occupy this place, it can occupy another place, but all that is properties. But I’m asking what “exists” means. If existence is not a property, then by definition you cannot expect an answer. But you’re talking in terms that you don’t define. If you don’t know… I can’t define them. What does “exists” mean? If you don’t… There, you defined it—no, you didn’t manage to explain, that’s a property. No, exactly, that is the point. Not that it is basic, but I can say “sea” instead of “exists,” I can say, I don’t know, “sea.” No, so I’ll tell you why I think not. Because when you ask why I don’t define the concept “exists,” it means—after all, definition, I already said what a definition is: the collection of essential properties, right? Without which the concept of existence doesn’t hold, doesn’t apply, right? That means it’s properties. But existence is a statement about the entity. So to ask for a definition of existence is not only because it is a basic concept that cannot be defined—that too is a possible answer—here there is something much more fundamental. Because existence does not speak on the plane of properties; you cannot give properties of existence.

More than that: try to think of all the objects you think of as existing, and you won’t find a common property—even without the Holy One, blessed be He, you won’t find a common property. No, in the material world you can. No. What in the material world? Light exists. What is common to it and to this book? In what sense do they exist? They exist in the same sense. What is common to both? Light creates, for example, pressure, light creates… So what? So everything that exists creates pressure? Everything that exists creates pressure? I didn’t understand. What is the definition? I’m looking for a definition that is essential. A definition means the collection of essential properties of the concept “exists,” without which there is no concept of existence. I see nothing common. Is it in the category of intuition? Hm? Is it intuition? So I’m saying: we understand what “exists” means, but we cannot define what “exists” means. Therefore I say that if you do not understand what “exists” means, then indeed one could say “exists” and one could say “sea.” But my assumption—maybe I’m wrong—is that we all understand what “exists” means, even though we don’t know how to give an explicit definition of it.

What does that mean—is it a convention? No, no, not a convention. No, no. A convention is something arbitrary. A convention would have to start from a definition—quite the opposite. “Exists,” precisely because it does not start from a definition, because this understanding is present in all of us without anyone ever defining it, means that it is not a convention. Because if it were a convention, then one would have to present a definition and teach everyone the definition. That is exactly the point. And because of that, there is some immediate apprehension here: I understand what “exists” means without defining it. Not everything I understand can I define. And therefore—again—if you tell me, “Look, I don’t understand what you’re talking about,” fine, then apparently we won’t be able to communicate here. But if you do understand, then you shouldn’t be troubled by the fact that I can’t offer you a definition. Without a definition, we understand what it is. Okay?

So when I talk about existence, that is really talk about the entity and not about its properties. I spoke… What? And not about the form, yes. I spoke about the issue of ostension. I wanted to say earlier that you once had—I wanted to say… What? That you had… Ah yes, yes. I once met… right. There was some woman in class—once I spoke about this—and she asked: is loving someone loving their properties, or loving them, their essence? A very interesting question. The Sages say: “Any love that depends on something—when the thing ceases, the love ceases.” And if we love properties, properties are something that in principle can also change. Then indeed it could be—it could be—that we love properties, and then indeed the love would fade. But if there is a love that does not depend on anything, such that when the thing ceases the love does not cease, then that means that the relation of love too is directed toward the essence and not toward its properties.

Now of course we encounter the essence through the properties. That is what we see; that is what we encounter. But through the properties we can apparently form a connection with the thing itself, with the essence. And then some bond is formed with the thing itself, even though that bond is formed through the mediation—through the medium by which the bond is formed—which is the properties. But it does not stop at the properties. It is directed toward the thing itself. Maybe. Again, I don’t know whether this is right or not. Maybe there are two people who have the same properties, and nevertheless you love this one and not the other? It could be that with one you fall in love and with the other you don’t. It could be, yes. I really don’t know.

That reminded me a bit of this in the context of returning lost property—no, with visual recognition, didn’t I talk about that? In the Talmud, the Talmud says that for a Torah scholar, a lost object is returned based on visual recognition. Meaning, if he says, say, he lost a book—then from an ordinary person you need to ask for identifying marks. Right? If he doesn’t know the identifying marks, he says, show me the book, I’ll look and tell you whether it’s mine or not; I recognize it. So if he is a Torah scholar who does not lie, whom we trust not to lie, then it is possible to show it to him and return the lost object based on identifying signs. Okay? Based on visual recognition, sorry—without signs. Yes. By the way, that also doesn’t mean that only a Torah scholar has visual recognition, as people always think—quite the opposite. There the Talmud says that every person has visual recognition. It’s just that with an ordinary person we are concerned that he might lie, and therefore we do not return it to him—not because he lacks the capacity for visual recognition, but because we are concerned that he might lie. And regarding a Torah scholar we are not concerned that he might lie, so the lost object is returned to him based on visual recognition. Okay? The Talmud is also quite clear about that; maybe in the medieval authorities (Rishonim) I saw some implication that perhaps a Torah scholar really does have greater visual recognition than someone else, but the plain sense of the Talmud is really the opposite of what people usually make of it.

But in any case, what is this return based on visual recognition? That is an interesting question. Does the Torah scholar, when he sees the object, basically—there are all kinds of tiny signs in it that he doesn’t know how to define? Say, I don’t remember that there really was a little stripe here and a triangle of a certain shape there, but I don’t know, I wouldn’t have known how to define that without seeing the object. But when I see the object… that whole complex I understand is mine. That is one possibility. A second possibility is that there is perhaps something here beyond outward signs. This is already a little mystical. It could be that you have some ability to identify this object not through some signs, through things you see. Through what? I don’t know. Through the collection of—perhaps the same thing as love. Meaning, when I say that love is directed toward the object, then why not say that my bond to the thing I lost… The bond yes, but identification? No, no—identification. Since, for example, if I were now to encounter the woman I love without any of the characteristics, in principle I ought to continue to feel love specifically for her and not for another woman, right? So that means I manage to identify that this is she without signs. It’s the same logic. No. Why? I love the woman not because of the signs. But the signs enable me to identify that it’s her. But the relation of love does not depend on the signs. Correct. So that means that if we remove the signs, it would still remain? Maybe yes, but I wouldn’t know how to identify her. What does it mean you wouldn’t know how to identify her? Then you don’t love. Why? What? And this woman already did it like this, she has it in memory, but what? I didn’t understand. This woman who arranged all the healers—it was published in Science. Didn’t you hear? She did it with two holes there, the healer put in his hand and she put in her hand. They didn’t have to tell her under which of his hands she put her hand, and they only knew at fifty percent. Same thing if we put the woman he loves under this hand—which hand would he know contains the woman he loves? So I’m saying: if I accept that the relation of love is directed toward the essence, that means I have some ability to connect with the essence, not only through the properties. It doesn’t depend on the properties. So the question is whether that perhaps does not also make it possible—again, as a possibility—to identify an object through the bond.

There is a confusion here between love and identity. What do you mean? Identification—you mean identification. Sorry, identification. No, obviously it’s not the same thing. I only mean that from the standpoint of the logic, if I accept the identification, then it… There is nothing to it. Why? If I feel that the love awakens in me toward this object, then I identify that this is him. Without the properties. After all, the love does not depend on the properties. So I identify that this is him. Again, this is a possibility I’m raising, but it’s not… tell you what. But which properties? If in two closed cells they tell you, “Your wife is here in this cell,” you will feel love in this cell, but you won’t be able to identify that it’s her. Ah, so you will know that you love the woman in this cell, but you won’t be able to identify. So the question is whether identification takes place only through… only through the senses. It’s simple; no one knows how it works. Because on the first night it was Leah and he didn’t notice. Fine. He relied on signs. Maybe the connection hadn’t yet been formed. Maybe the connection hadn’t yet been formed. Okay. Anyway, I’m saying: of course I only raised a possibility; it isn’t important for our purposes.

For our purposes, the statement that a thing exists is a statement about the essence. The statement that it is not something else is also a statement about the essence. For example, the statement that there are two things here, or how many things there are here, is also a statement about entities and not about properties. Whether I say there are two entities here, three entities, or one entity. All right? That too is a statement that touches the entity and not its properties. Okay? So here there is a set of statements that do not concern properties but the thing itself.

Now, one thing is that if so, even in the pre-Maimonidean period, when it still wasn’t possible—when people thought that nothing at all could be said about the Holy One, blessed be He—it still seems to me that one could say that He exists. Because in order to say that He exists, you don’t need to grasp Him—grasp in the sensory sense—or create any interaction with Him. Rather, you can say that He exists. In that sense, at least philosophically, that can be said. You can ask, “How do you know that He exists?”—which is the kind of question Yossi is asking. If you have no sensory interaction with Him, how can you know that He exists? Maybe. But the statement that He exists is at least a legitimate statement. One can ask where you derive it from, but Descartes says, “I think, therefore I am.” No, no—I didn’t say that is a proof. I didn’t say anything about a proof. I’m talking about the question whether the sentence “the Holy One, blessed be He, exists” has meaning. Not whether it has meaning—sorry—whether I can say the sentence that God exists. Since that sentence is a sentence about His essence, once it is a sentence about His essence there is no reason to include it in the problem of the inability to describe Him. I cannot describe Him because I have no way at all to interact with Him, but to say that He exists is not a statement about any property of His, but a statement that He exists, that there is such a thing, without needing to know what His properties are. I cannot say anything about His properties. True, you can still ask how you know that He exists. If there is nothing about Him with which you can interact, then how do you know that He exists? Fine, good question. But the sentence itself is now a sentence that can at least be possible. Meaning, one can say such a sentence. Okay? That is the first limitation or first qualification. I mean, I am speaking still pre-Maimonides. All right?

The second qualification is that one can talk about God’s action-attributes. Action-attributes are exactly “compassionate and gracious.” Or even before “compassionate and gracious”: that He created the world, that He gave the Torah, that He took us out of Egypt, all kinds of things of that sort. Aren’t these attributes? No, these are not attributes. That is why I say: these are called action-attributes, or things related to His actions. But “compassionate and gracious” is an attribute. Wait—that is why I said I’m not yet with “compassionate and gracious,” but first of all these things—I can say these about Him. I can say of Him that He created the world, that there exists an object called the Holy One, blessed be He, and He created the world. That is a meaningful sentence. I’m not getting into the question of how you know it—that is, what the proofs are—that is another question. I’m asking whether this sentence has meaning at all. After all, that was the problem I raised in the pre-Maimonidean context. Now I’m saying yes, it has meaning. I can say that there exists such an object, about whose properties I cannot say anything, but He created the world. Or He took us out of Egypt, gave the Torah, or whatever you want.

In this matter it connects to another discussion regarding proofs of the existence of God. Yesterday we spoke about the ontological proof; now I’m moving to the cosmological proof. The cosmological proof, in Kant’s classification—we discussed this in the year of the proofs—the cosmological proof is based on the idea that if something exists, then everything that exists must have something or someone that created it. Okay? If the world exists, and certainly if the world exists, then there also must be something or someone that created it. Let’s say that’s the simple formulation of the cosmological proof, and of course there are all kinds of objections to it. We spoke about that in the year we dealt with the proofs.

But one of the arguments against that proof—a very common one, by the way, in online debates and the like—is that to say that the Holy One, blessed be He, created the world, without identifying Him in some sense, you haven’t said anything. What do you mean by saying that He created the world? How is that any different from saying that there is a world? Meaning, as long as you haven’t identified the object in some way, you haven’t said anything about Him beyond the simple fact that He created the world. So in effect you added no information by saying that the Holy One, blessed be He, created the world. Unless you tell me that the Holy One, blessed be He, is such-and-such, and He is also the one who created the world. Then you have said something with content; you’ve added information. But if you can’t say anything at all about the Holy One, blessed be He, then when you tell me He created the world, you are simply repeating the sentence that the world exists. You have added no information beyond that. That is the claim.

Why? He has the ability to create the world. What do you mean by ability? Ability—just as a builder has the ability to build a building, so the Holy… As a statement about Him? But if it’s a statement about Him, then we return to the point that it isn’t legitimate to make statements about Him. I’m talking pre-Maimonides. There is something problematic here. Unless you say: no, that I actually can say about Him. But then you are already talking about something that is not about His essence, but something that is one of His properties—someone who has such an ability, such a power—that is already saying something about Him. So I agree that you can say that, and it solves the problem, but if you go pre-Maimonides, then apparently not.

Now I don’t agree with that claim. Even without that, I don’t agree with that claim. I’ll tell you why. Because that claim basically says: there exists another object, one that is not the world. So meanwhile I said that He exists and that He is other than the world—two statements that are legitimate even in that period, in the pre-Maimonidean period—and He created the world. So I spoke about the entity and said that it did something. Everything in between—His properties, what characterizes this entity—I cannot say anything about. But I know that such an entity exists, such an object exists, and it created the world. A completely meaningful sentence—what is the problem? Why not?

An alien, it doesn’t matter, you can call it whatever you want. That object is the God of the cosmological proof. We spoke then about how every proof proves the existence of a different God, because each proof defines who the God is whose existence it proves. The ontological proof defines the most perfect object; the cosmological proof defines the object that created the world; the physico-theological proof defines the wisest object or the most complex one, the planner, the greatest architect; the moral proof defines the object that is the source of moral validity, or whatever. Each one of these proofs speaks about a different kind of object—of course one can identify them, one can say that it is the same object, which also created the world, is also the source of validity, also the brilliant architect, and so on—but in principle each proof assumes some image of God whose existence it proves. All right?

So in that sense the cosmological proof simply claims: there exists an object that is not me and not anyone else and not the world, and it created the world. A completely legitimate sentence. Notice—this is very interesting—because to reject that sentence is in some sense to fall into the fallacy of the ontological proof. It is to say that the statement that it is not the world is a property. Because you are basically telling me: you haven’t said anything if you haven’t stated His properties. I say: not true. It’s not a property of His. To say that He exists and that He is not the world are properties of the essence. Now if you are Leibniz, who does not accept essence beyond properties, then I will attack you from the ontological proof. I never noticed this before; just now the penny drops. The ontological proof and the cosmological proof are a kind of “whichever way you turn” attack on the atheist. If you reject the cosmological proof by thereby adopting Leibniz’s conception, you won’t be able to reject the ontological proof, because the refutation of the ontological proof is to say that there is an essence and that the essence is not a property. Okay? Just interesting—I never thought about that before.

But I’m saying that in this sense, the two qualifications I mentioned—that even before the possibility of speaking about or describing the Holy One, blessed be He, the fact that I can say that He exists and that He is not something else, meaning that I can talk about His essence and not His properties—seem to me sufficient to pour content into the cosmological proof. You don’t need more than that, and it is certainly something meaningful.

Many times we spoke about this in the context of evolution. We spoke about that article by Elia Leibowitz with Yechezkel there—with Yechezkel the fisherman there, yes, with his money in the bank. I thought now to quote it properly, yes yes, Pishon. Wait, why did I remember him? Ah yes, because there he holds that—never mind, I won’t go through the whole thing now—but he holds that explanation is always reduction to the familiar. When you explain something, you explain it by means of principles that you understand. When we want to explain some natural phenomenon, I say that because there was such pressure and such heat and so on, therefore this happened, okay? So we understand what pressure is, what heat is, what they do, and we explain the phenomenon using laws we know. But the progress of science is always made in terms of reduction to the unfamiliar. Every new theory? Yes. When you discover a new theory, you are basically explaining a set of phenomena very familiar to you, and you explain them by means of a law that is precisely unfamiliar—a new law that you are now discovering. The progress of science is always by reduction to the unfamiliar. After you establish the general law, now explanations are in terms of reduction to the familiar, because the law is already familiar and you can use it to explain other things. But at the base there is always some reduction to the unfamiliar, because otherwise—understand—otherwise it would be impossible to learn anything; we would die as we were born. It would be impossible to learn anything if we were always reducing only to the familiar; that can’t be. We need some steps that expand our acquaintance so that afterward we can reduce to the familiar. Okay?

So I remembered this because that is exactly what happens in the cosmological proof. The claim of the cosmological proof is basically that you are reducing the world, the existence of the world, to the unfamiliar—to some object about which you know nothing. Right? Exactly like a new scientific law—that is the move. The unfamiliar. I come to the conclusion that there is some object unfamiliar to me; perhaps I can’t say anything about it, but there is such a thing, which is not the world, and it made the world. There is no problem with that. Therefore that really is reduction to the unfamiliar.

So if so, we essentially have two exceptions to the inability to speak about the Holy One, blessed be He, to speak about God. The first exception is talk about His essence—somewhat against intuitions. There is no problem speaking about His essence. Descriptions of Him are more problematic. Usually it is perceived that His essence is something much more remote from us, but that is not true. Exactly, exactly, because since very little can be said, that little can be said even about His essence. By the way, in this respect it is no different from any other entity in the world. What can I say about the essence of the table? Everything I say about the table concerns its descriptions, right? What can I say about its essence? I can say nothing except that it exists and that it is not this table but another. So these minimal things I can also say about the essence of the Holy One, blessed be He. The difference between the table and Him is specifically on the plane of properties, not on the plane of essence. On the plane of essence it is the same thing. On the plane of properties, the properties of the Holy One, blessed be He, are something beyond our capacity to grasp; the table’s are not. Okay? Because we do not have the ability to create direct interaction with Him, no image arises for us in our consciousness—an image of the Holy One, blessed be He—that would give us His properties. Okay?

So that is one qualification: that one can speak about His essence. And the second qualification is that one can speak about His actions: that He created the world, that He took us out of Egypt, and the like. This already existed before Maimonides. That is obvious.

What do we do with things like “compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abundant in kindness and truth,” and things of that sort? Even that could still be explained in terms of action-attributes. And one could basically say—again, Sefer Ha-Ikkarim in chapter 22 and also in chapter 8 there in Essay 2 speaks about this—that those too are action-attributes. They are action-attributes, and they are not like the way we use them with regard to human beings. When I say about a person that he is compassionate, I am describing him—his properties, I mean—not only how he behaves. When I see him behaving compassionately, that is my indication that he is compassionate. But the claim that he is compassionate is a claim about him; it is not a claim about his behavior. Okay? About him—again, a property, not necessarily essence, but a property. Okay.

Now when I say of the Holy One, blessed be He, that He is compassionate, Sefer Ha-Ikkarim wants to claim that this is an attribute meaning that He behaves with compassion. Exactly—that He behaves with compassion. Not that He is compassionate, because you can’t say anything about Him. Okay? So even the descriptions that appear in the Torah can be translated—at least in borrowed language—into action-attributes and not attributes of essence.

And indeed, I think we once talked about Rabbi Chaim Vital’s question. Sorry, but why is this different from a human being, where from his actions you determine that he is compassionate? But regarding a human being you can also determine his nature, that he is compassionate. From actions you can infer a conclusion about him. Regarding the Holy One, blessed be He, you cannot infer a conclusion about Him; He has no heart, so how can you say He has a compassionate heart? He doesn’t speak in those terms at all. His actions here look like the actions of someone compassionate. That is true. It’s compassion; it’s the principle of compassion. “Principle,” I don’t know. The actions look like the actions of someone who is compassionate—that much I can say. But I cannot say that He is compassionate, because that concept is simply not relevant with regard to Him, or at least I think I don’t know whether it is relevant regarding Him. Okay? So I can—that is speech in a borrowed language. I say “compassionate,” but in fact I don’t mean to speak about Him, only about the practical expressions.

Rabbi Chaim Vital asks: why does the Torah not command us concerning refinement of character traits—being humble, doing kindness, and so on? Why does the Torah not command us concerning refinement of character traits? “And you shall be holy”? “And you shall be holy” means acting beyond the letter of the law according to Nachmanides; that’s not character traits. Maybe because it’s something the public couldn’t withstand? To work on character traits maybe one can; reaching the result is already a question of process versus state.

In any case, when we discussed this—more than once, maybe—I asked: I don’t understand that question. It’s a question people keep repeating; Rabbi Kook also speaks about it. The Torah does command it. After all, one must cleave to His attributes: just as He is compassionate, so you too be compassionate; just as He is gracious, so you too be gracious. What do you mean? It is an enumerated commandment. Every list of the commandments includes this commandment. It is codified Jewish law. So what does it mean that the Torah does not command us concerning character traits? “And you shall walk in His ways”—that is cleaving to His attributes. It commands conduct. Meaning, it commands actions—that the compassionate person should act with compassion. But that doesn’t mean that this is the trait. It can really be exactly the opposite. Even if your trait is that you are naturally cruel, nevertheless overcome that and behave with compassion. That doesn’t mean you are compassionate. Exactly.

So what I thought one could answer, really, is what Shmuel says here: after all, even with regard to the Holy One, blessed be He, when we say that He is compassionate, we do not mean that He has a compassionate heart. He has no heart, and therefore He also cannot have a compassionate heart. Rather, He behaves compassionately. So what is required of me is to walk in His ways—that is learned from “and you shall walk in His ways.” All right? Not according to His properties. What? Exactly. Not according to His properties, according to His actions.

And then, essentially, this commandment is a commandment telling me how to behave. But what Rabbi Chaim Vital asks is: from where do we know that one must refine one’s character traits? Refining character traits is inner spiritual work, not how to behave. That indeed does not appear in Jewish law. No, that’s the way to do it, but why at all? Why do I need to refine my character traits? That is what Rabbi Chaim Vital asks. After all, we are not commanded. So I asked, what do you mean? We are commanded. He says: no, what we are commanded is behavior. Refining the character traits we are not commanded, but we are expected to do it. Okay? And then he asks why we are not commanded—that is another discussion. But I think the question is probably based on this: when he reads “to walk in His ways,” he means that we should do exactly what He does. Just as with Him, when we say that He is compassionate and gracious, we mean only how He behaves, not who He is. So also with us, when we walk in His ways, it refers to how we behave and not who we are.

If indeed, with human beings, “the heart is drawn after actions,” then there is no meaning in speaking of expecting refinement of character traits. How do you refine traits? You do the practical things, the actions, that you are commanded to do. And that will bring refinement of character traits; there is no meaning to saying “refine character traits.” Yes, but “the heart is drawn after actions”—you’re taking that too far. It’s not some mathematical rule. Obviously, you need intention when you work on character traits, and to accompany it with some inner work. Simply forcing yourself all the time to give charity—I’m not sure that will change your character. I don’t know, but I’m not sure at all. It also requires some inner work that says: I want to change, I reflect on what I do, and then maybe that too will change. True, I also need the practical element in order to transform the heart, but I don’t think it’s that mechanical. No, it could be that the Torah tells us that that is the mechanism. That is, in order to improve character traits… If that’s true, then Rabbi Chaim Vital… that’s the mechanism. If that’s true, then Rabbi Chaim Vital apparently didn’t learn it that way. I mean, I seem to be trying to explain him.

But every time I pass by that shawarma place with the meat, I always feel like taking a bite. I never did it. And I don’t… Fine, but that’s not character traits. “I desire it, and I desire it, but what can I do? My Father in Heaven has decreed it upon me.” There is compassion and so on. There is a difference between behaviorism and… No, there is a difference because Maimonides himself, in the sixth chapter of Eight Chapters, writes that when the Sages said, “I desire it, and I desire it, but what can I do? My Father in Heaven has decreed it upon me,” they said that regarding eating pork—exactly that is the example he gives. And why? Because there there is really no issue of internalizing it, because those are not moral traits. It is a commandment; you have to do it because the Holy One, blessed be He, said so. But here faithfulness—here this is a moral trait. What? I didn’t understand. After all, “I desire it” applies to forbidden sexual relations. Yes, but all faithfulness to one’s wife… No, forbidden sexual relations are not about faithfulness. Even if you’re single. No, it has nothing to do with faithfulness. Forbidden sexual relations are forbidden not because of faithfulness. It’s like with his sister—a man and his sister, both single. So the problem of forbidden sexual relations is not a problem of faithfulness. The question whether forbidden sexual relations belongs to the realm of morality or not—that is an interesting question. The question whether sexual prohibitions belong to the realm of morality—you can see it this way or that way.

The question is what the meaning is of refining character traits. What? Exactly. To become a better person, inwardly. When I give charity, is there a difference whether I give it because of compassion and not because of the commandment that God commanded me to give? No. Those are two different things. Meaning, first of all, the question whether the commandment thereby becomes a better commandment—not sure. But that you become a better person, independently—the commandment is the same commandment; if you did it, then you did the commandment. But if you are a person who is supposed to do the commandment properly… So that is what Rabbi Chaim Vital says: after all, this is not included among the commandments. So in any event it will not be part of the commandment. He claims that it is not part of the commandments, but clearly one still has to do it. Meaning, even if the commandment does not become a better commandment, still one is expected to work on the soul so as to become a better person. Even though perhaps this has nothing to do with the quality of performing the commandment or… Exactly. In the halakhic sense it won’t earn points. In the moral, spiritual sense it will earn you points; not in the halakhic sense. All right?

If so, this distinction between the mode of behavior and the inner character traits that generate that behavior also exists with regard to the Holy One, blessed be He. And in light of that we can understand what Rabbi Chaim Vital says with regard to human beings as well. The commandment to us to walk in His ways is precisely because what we know about His ways is only His ways—how He goes, how He conducts Himself, how He acts. We know nothing about Him. So in what sense is that cleaving to Him? “And to cleave to Him.” “Can one really cleave?” Yes, that is what the Talmud asks. So therefore the question of where we know from—or why the Torah did not command refinement of character traits—is indeed a valid question, because the Torah really did not command refinement of character traits. The Torah expects us to refine our character traits—that is what he assumes. But the Torah did not command it. Okay, so this can definitely be understood in parallel to that description of the Holy One, blessed be He.

So then, also “compassionate and gracious” and these more problematic examples, which do already look a bit like descriptions, unlike “Creator of the world” and “the One who brought us out of Egypt”—even there we can still remain in this pre-Maimonidean period of not speaking about the Holy One, blessed be He, at all, but either about His essence or about what He does. Okay? These are the two things we can say about Him.

So up to here, we have really been dealing with the question of what happened before Maimonides. Now the author of Sefer Ha-Ikkarim tells us that Maimonides innovated the matter of negative attributes. Maimonides wants to take us a bit further in the direction of describing the Holy One, blessed be He. We can, in some sense, speak about Him and not only about what He does or about His essence, but describe Him in some sense, and this is the matter of negative attributes.

Now on the face of it, negative attributes look like a very problematic thesis. What is usually accepted as Maimonides’ doctrine in this matter is this: when we say that He is compassionate—say, if I do not see this as an action-attribute but as an attribute of the Holy One, blessed be He—we basically mean to say that it is not true that He is not compassionate. Since we can’t really say anything about Him, the meaning of the statement “He is compassionate” is that it is not true that He is not compassionate. But this approach, in its plain sense, is very problematic. It is very problematic because to say “it is not true that He is not compassionate” is to say that He is compassionate. What’s the difference? It’s a double negation. What’s the difference? More than that: what is the difference between an attribute—if instead of “not compassionate” I coined the attribute “cruel.” Fine? Now the word “not” does not appear in the term “cruel.” So is it forbidden to say that the Holy One, blessed be He, is cruel? Or can one say that He is cruel? Meaning, if the intention is that it is not true that He is not cruel—basically, double negation cannot change the situation. And the fact that before a certain attribute the word “not” appears does not make it essentially different from something I say without the word “not.” To say about the Holy One, blessed be He, that it is not true that He is not compassionate is to say that it is not true that He is cruel, okay? That is basically to say that it is not true that He is not compassionate. So what is the difference between saying it positively and saying it negatively? What’s the difference?

No, negative attributes are “He has no body,” “He has no likeness of a body,” and so on. There is a real need for understanding that the Master of the Universe is not something material. Okay, so that is a real need—I mean, a need for those negative attributes. But if I were to say that the Holy One, blessed be He, is spiritual? Not that He is not material. Spiritual means not material. “He has no body and no likeness of a body” is much more, as it were… That is usually what we call spiritual, no? Spiritual means something that has no body and no likeness of a body. No? That’s what “spiritual” means. So what difference does it make whether I say it in positive language—He is spiritual—or say it is not true that He has a body? Why do I need to be negative? Let’s be positive. Say that He is spiritual; the meaning of spiritual is that He is not corporeal. But he wanted to say that He is only spiritual. Yes, well of course He is only spiritual—what else? That’s what I’m saying. Human beings have a body and a soul. Right, and a human being has spiritual dimensions, and the Holy One, blessed be He, is wholly spiritual; He is only spiritual. Why can’t I say that? What is the difference between saying that and saying He is not corporeal? He wanted to be more precise. Why? What’s the difference? Spiritual means not corporeal, no?

Yes, because in the pagan world they had such gods—Asherahs and all that. It was very, very defined. A person could describe it. And here this approach is an entirely airy approach, as though everything is in the air. God has no form, no shape, no nothing—you can’t describe Him. But am I allowed to say about Him that He is spiritual, or is that forbidden? You’re allowed to say anything. Not “allowed”—is it correct to say about Him that He is spiritual? No, but would that explanation be more correct or less correct? No, not more correct or less correct; it’s the same thing. But that is what Maimonides said. No—I’m saying it’s the same thing. That is acceptable in understanding, right? Spiritual and not corporeal is not the same thing. Not necessarily, Rabbi. It could be that saying something is not red does not mean it is black. No, obviously, because black and red are not the only two possibilities. I am only saying that the purpose of negation is so that you won’t stick on Him some label that He is something positive. And that is not called sticking a label on Him? The question is whether there are only two possibilities. If there are only two possibilities and you say it is not possibility A, then it is possibility B. There is something here that is not necessary. It is not necessary. Are there only two possibilities? Again, the question is whether for everything there are only two possibilities. There are many things.

Within what you are saying, a few points have already come up that will come up afterward when we read Maimonides from the inside, and I see that we won’t get to do that today. But the basic logical difficulty really is that when we are in a dichotomous world, a world divided simply into attributes such that one is the opposite of the other, Maimonides’ negative attributes have no meaning. It changes nothing. If you say He is spiritual or you say He is not corporeal, that is the same thing. Why is saying He is not corporeal not a statement about Him? It is a statement about Him, since I could have phrased it as “He is spiritual.” It is the same thing, assuming that spiritual means not corporeal.

Unless I assume a different logic, in which spiritual and corporeal are not all the possibilities. Maybe there is something else in between that can also enter. Then maybe I can speak of a negation that is not identical with affirming the opposite. All right? No, but even if there are seventeen possibilities and you negate one possibility, then you have said that He is one of the sixteen possibilities, so you have still said something. I haven’t said something positive. Correct. And therefore that is the second qualification. The second qualification says that perhaps “spiritual” really does not describe anything. It only describes that it is not corporeal. You know nothing positive about it. All you know is that it is not what you pointed to earlier—it is not corporeal. Therefore I can say of Him that He is spiritual, but that is just a linguistic trick. Because instead of saying “not corporeal” I replaced it with the word “spiritual.” But I do not understand the word “spiritual” in itself. Meaning, the question is whether I don’t understand it because there are several shades there besides the corporeal, and then there is a third possibility here, not just two. I don’t think that is the situation here. Rather, the situation is that I have no grasp at all of things that are not corporeal. Meaning this is relevant only when there really is not—there is only one possibility. Exactly. Yes, but then there cannot be only one possibility if it isn’t that one. There is only one possibility that I know, that I am familiar with, or only one possibility with which I can interact. Yes, and I’m saying: it is not that possibility with which I can interact. That says nothing about what it is.

Now for example, in this sense one has to understand that when I say that I could also have said that the Holy One, blessed be He, is cruel, because it is not true that He is not cruel—for you can’t say that He is not cruel about Him—so if so, it is not true that He is not cruel. This is now a second problem I’m raising here. Meaning, it turns out that Maimonides did not advance anything at all beyond the stage I described up to now. I said that before Maimonides one could say nothing about the Holy One, blessed be He. After Maimonides, in effect, either you can say everything about Him—but then that basically means that you can say nothing about Him. Because if you say that it is not true that He is not compassionate, then all at once it is also not true that He is not cruel. Meaning, nothing is true regarding Him. So what preference is there for the attribute “compassionate” over the attribute “cruel”? If all you are saying is: I know nothing about Him. And indeed one of the questions asked against Maimonides—and he himself felt this, he himself asks it—is why the wise man is considered to attain more in divinity than the fool. If even the wise man, all he knows is simply: He is not the Holy One, blessed be He. Fine? That too the fool can know. You say that it’s impossible to grasp. You say that as though it’s impossible to grasp. Yes—the wise man, exactly. All I say is that all I know is that whatever I know doesn’t apply to the Holy One, blessed be He. Okay, that too the fool can know. What’s the problem? That I know nothing about Him—that is what the wise man says. So to say “I know nothing about Him”—the fool can say that too. So what advantage is there to wisdom? Yes. Why does the wise man know more of God than the fool? He only says—and I know, know that you can’t say anything about Him—and the fool thinks you can, and he says that okay, he knows that he does not know.

In any case, I think these two questions are two sides of the same coin. And this is really the basic difficulty in Maimonides’ doctrine of attributes. And now that I reread this in preparation for the class, I suddenly realize that Maimonides means something else, it seems to me. And this connects to the previous classes, but we’ll do that next time. I just want to remind you of these two difficulties so they remain in our heads. One difficulty is the question in what sense I can say about Him that He is compassionate but not say about Him that He is cruel. To the same degree I could say that about Him, since all I know is that whatever I know doesn’t apply to Him. What difference does it make? After all, He is no more compassionate than cruel, and no less. So why nevertheless do we use “compassionate,” “gracious,” “slow to anger,” and the like? Why not “cruel,” “wicked,” “executioner,” and “murderer”? Same thing—what difference does it make? And the second question is: what is the advantage of the wise man over the fool in knowledge of God? And we’ll see later that these are two sides of the same coin.