Q&A: The Unity of God and Defining the Concepts of Matter and Soul
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The Unity of God and Defining the Concepts of Matter and Soul
Question
- How can we understand the world we know when we believe in the unity of God and His uniqueness? How can there be a world that is not God? How is this different from saying that there is God, and there is a world, and then, God forbid, there are two authorities?
- Following from that, how do we understand definitions within the world, such as what matter is, what life is, and what the soul is? From what I have learned, I understand that to say that the image of God is literally “a piece of God above” is heresy, and it is not far from the Christian belief that Jesus is some kind of half-man and half-god… I saw Saadia Gaon's interpretation of the image of God, that “God” here is in the sense of ruler and governor: “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness” — “and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the heavens…” So how can we speak about the difference between a living creature and matter to which life does not apply, while both are still within the framework of the “world,” which is seemingly outside of God in some sense?
Thank you in advance,
Abraham
Answer
- I have never understood this sophistical question, which leads people to hold the foolish view that the contraction is not to be understood literally. There is God, and there is a world that is not Him. What is the problem with that? It is not two authorities, but one authority that created something else.
- This too is just pointless pilpul. They mean to say that there is some similarity between man and God. That is all. In what way is there a similarity? Choose according to your own understanding (whether it is that we have free choice, or intellect, or the shape of our body corresponding to the worlds in Kabbalah, and the like). What is there to hairsplit about here?