Q&A: Idealism and God
Idealism and God
Question
Hello Rabbi,
I don’t understand the idealist approach in philosophy, according to which there is really no matter in the world and only spirit. That is, I understand that one can say that everything is invented in the mind, but the mind itself (or something else of some kind) has to exist. Or, to put it differently, can there be form without matter in the world?
Thank you.
Answer
You are conflating two completely different claims: 1. Everything is spirit. 2. Nothing exists. Spiritual things exist. Therefore there is no necessity for something physical to exist in order for us to conceive of something. Descartes’ cogito deals with the mind, not the body (see my column on this).
Angels and the Holy One, blessed be He, are forms without matter. And so is the soul.
Discussion on Answer
I don’t understand the Rabbi’s claim, “Angels and the Holy One, blessed be He, are forms without matter. And so is the soul.” After all, seemingly the question of whether they exist is not about their form but about the matter itself (that’s how I think the Rabbi writes in the book Two Carts and a Hot-Air Balloon).
Do you mean not physical matter but their essence? They exist, but not as matter. Like the Platonic ideas, which are forms that exist (and in a shifted sense they have an essence, which is sometimes called the “matter” of the thing).
See column 363