Q&A: Chapter 2 of Guide for the Perplexed
Chapter 2 of Guide for the Perplexed
Question
I heard (in a lesson on the site) that the Rabbi interprets Maimonides in Chapter 2 of Part I of Guide for the Perplexed—which deals with Adam's sin and how through his sin he became one who knows good and evil—as meaning that the “accepted norms” are things that are not bad in themselves but are a matter of convention, whereas for immoral acts Maimonides uses the term “intelligibles.”
But in Part II, Chapter 33 (in Rabbi Kapach’s edition—near note 16), Maimonides writes that the Ten Commandments, aside from the first two commandments, belong to the category of accepted and received norms, not intelligibles.
A second question: do the proofs for the existence of God in Booklets 1–3 (aside from the physico-theological proof) prove that God is transcendent and not immanent (“the God of Spinoza”)?
And does this depend on the Big Bang—that is, on the fact that we have scientific knowledge that the universe is not eternal (at least not in its present form)?
Thank you very much.
Answer
See the discussion and sources in the talkbacks after column 177.
First, as I wrote there, every proof assumes a different definition of God. So there is no point in speaking in general terms. Beyond that, I do not think one can extract immanence or transcendence from any of them (and not transcendentality, as you wrote. That is a different concept belonging to Kantian philosophy).
I will only note that I am not at all sure this distinction has a sharp meaning. In my opinion it does not. The God of Spinoza is the vacuum, because pantheism is just atheism. When one identifies the totality of matter and calls it God, this is not belief in God but the use of that term to describe nature itself. The atheist too believes in the God of Spinoza, but he does not call it God; he calls it nature.
The Big Bang is not relevant to the ontological argument, nor to the “theological” arguments (in the fourth booklet). As for the other arguments, I wrote in the booklet that in my opinion this does not depend on the Big Bang. The principle of sufficient reason exists even with respect to an eternal world.
Discussion on Answer
Yoav,
As he said, see what was written in column 177 (your source, and another one, and I think there are more).
What makes Rabbi Michi’s words puzzling is that apparently this chapter occupies an important and fundamental place in Guide for the Perplexed, whereas according to Rabbi Michi it is just a side note that etiquette isn’t such a big deal.
Moshe,
This chapter opens Guide for the Perplexed because it explains what “seeing” means in the intellect’s view, which is the subject of the chapters there (they deal with all the meanings of “see,” “behold,” and so on). It has nothing to do with definitions of morality and/or manners and their importance in any way whatsoever. So leave considerations of importance out of it.
Yoav,
As for the terminology, that question came up there, and it is quite clear that he uses it in two senses and not entirely consistently. Sometimes everything that is not a simple fact but a norm is called “accepted notions,” and sometimes only matters of etiquette are called that. One thing is clear from all the contexts in Maimonides: on the essential level, morality belongs to the intellect and is not a convention (even if sometimes it too is called “accepted notions”), and in my opinion it is also clear that etiquette does not. So everything has to be interpreted according to context. When you come to contrast morality with facts, you call it “accepted notions”; and when you come to contrast it with etiquette, it is “intelligibles.”
Thank you very much.
1. I just now saw the response in column 177; I didn’t completely understand it.
It is clear that Maimonides uses one and the same term for “Do not murder” and for walking around naked. I do not know whether he thought both were conventions (apparently not), or whether he thought both were morality, but he included them in the same category.
2. I agree that pantheism is atheism, except that it assumes (can such an assumption be refuted?) that nature and its laws are eternal and necessary of existence, as we say about the Holy One, blessed be He, and therefore one cannot argue that there is someone who created the world, or that it has a cause and reason, just as God has no cause or reason. Am I mistaken?
The connection to the Big Bang is that today we assume that the world came into being at a certain point, and perhaps therefore one cannot say that the world is necessary of existence.