[Avodah] The Rambam and Eliyahu haNavi

[Micha Berger]

On Sun, Jul 03, 2011 at 10:12:27AM -0400, David Riceman wrote:
> They're not all coherent outside of the Aristotelian framework.  For  
> example, I don't know what the ikkar asserting God's simplicity means.   
> See, in Hilary Putnam's book "Ethics Without Ontology", the chapter  
> entitled "Objectivity Without Objects".

I tried reading that chapter and some background on Google books. I don't
see the relevence. Putnam is discussing the "creaping Platonism" of saying
that sentences on ethics describe reality -- and thus denies that they can
be deemed "true" or "false". For ethics to "exist", they would have to
be in something like Plato's realm of ideals, and from there the attack
continues. Putnam lost me when he distinguished between self-evident
tautologies and ones that one needs to be proven are necessarily true.

I'm with Kant on this one: a priori truths and synthetic ones; ie ones
that are necessarily true by rules of logic and definition vs those that
happen to be true by experiment.

I don't think a priori truths can be divided that way. And if they could,
the line would be subjective, depending on the age and IQ of the person
deciding the truth is too obvious to require an explained proof.

That said.... Theological statements (unlike ethical or mathematical
ones) /are/ ontological. G-d may not be within the realm of empricism,
but the question is whether He exists or not -- or in this case, how many?

Last, the Rambam doesn't understand what the iqar asserting Hashem's
simplicity means either. He has to place it in the realm of the
incomprehensible, since otherwise Yichud Hashem becomes an attribute.
>From the Moreh 1:57 (tr Friedlander):
    Consequently God exists without possessing the attribute of
    existence. Similarly He lives, without possessing the attribute
    of life; knows, without possessing the attribute of knowledge; is
    omnipotent without possessing the attribute of omnipotence; is wise,
    without possessing the attribute of wisdom: all this reduces itself
    to one and the same entity; there is no plurality in Him, as will be
    shown. It is further necessary to consider that unity and plurality
    are accidents supervening to an object according as it consists of
    many elements or of one. This is fully explained in the book called
    Metaphysics. In the same way as number is not the substance of the
    things numbered, so is unity not the substance of the thing which
    has the attribute of unity, for unity and plurality are accidents
    belonging to the category of discrete quantity, and supervening to
    such objects as are capable of receiving them.

That, BTW, is distinctly classical, and the basis for Anselm's Ontological
Argument for God. Today, few logicians would say that the existence
and quantity of an item is a predicate of the item. If anything, it's
a predicate of a set that includes that item. IOW, the uniqueness of
HQBH isn't so much an attribute of G-d as an attribute of the set of
real gods -- the size of that set is 1.

But to quote where the Rambam admits his ignorance, within his description
of the 2nd yesod ("iqar"), "ela Hu yis'aleh Echad, Achdus she'ein achdus
kamoha beshum panim..." G-d is one in a way that nothing else is signular,
unique and indivisible.

And continuing my previous quote from the Moreh:
    To that being, however, which has truly simple, absolute existence,
    and in which composition is inconceivable, the accident of unity
    is as inadmissible as the accident of plurality; that is to say,
    God's unity is not an element superadded, but He is One without
    possessing the attribute of unity. The investigation of this subject,
    which is almost too subtle for our understanding, must not be based
    on current expressions employed in describing it, for these are the
    great source of error. It would be extremely difficult for us to
    find, in any language whatsoever, words adequate to this subject,
    and we can only employ inadequate language. In our endeavour to show
    that God does not include a plurality, we can only say "He is one,"
    although "one" and "many" are both terms which serve to distinguish
    quantity. We therefore make the subject clearer, and show to the
    understanding the way of truth by saying He is one but does not
    possess the attribute of unity.

Although admittedly he calls it "almost too subtle for our undestanding",
only "almost", the Rambam does say that Divine Unity is beyond the reach
of language ("we can only employ inadequate language").

And in conclusion of that pereq in the Moreh:
    In short, all similar expressions are borrowed from the language
    commonly used among the people. In the same way we use "One" in
    reference to God, to express that there is nothing similar to Him,
    but we do not mean to say that an attribute of unity is added to
    His essence.

"One" is a borrowed term WRT Divine Unity.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             Our greatest fear is not that we're inadequate,
micha at aishdas.org        Our greatest fear is that we're powerful
http://www.aishdas.org   beyond measure
Fax: (270) 514-1507                        - Anonymous