Читать книгу The Essential Agus - Steven T. Katz - Страница 46

M.’s conception of God is the most misunderstood part of his system. It is taken to be “The Unmoved Mover,” Who can only be described in negations. He is not this and not that. While we may think of Him as being One, Living, Almighty, All-knowing, we have to bear in mind that His unity is unlike that of all other forms of unity, that His Life, His Power and His Wisdom are totally unique, in no way comparable to the meaning that those adjectives normally convey. We seem to be left with a vacuous Naught. Since M. takes pains to hammer home the principle that “the end of our knowledge of God is to know that we don’t know” (I, 59), many scholars in medieval and modern times have concluded that his God-idea was really devoid of religious content. At least one contemporary scholar even went so far as to infer that logically M. was a naturalist.

Actually, when the “Guide” is seen as a whole, the positive aspects of M.’s conception become clear. Existentially, M. confronted the Divine Being in times of meditation as the Ground of all being, the Purpose of all existence, the ultimate object of man’s total devotion and affection. Intellectually, M. identifies the Divine with the marvelous wisdom that is apparent in living things, reserving the term, “nature,” for the mechanical laws that prevail in the inanimate world. (I, 69; III, 19; III, 23.) In the designs of plants and animals, the reality of purposiveness is apparent. The whole is far more than the sum of its parts—one spirit dominates and controls the functioning of myriad components. Furthermore, certain species depend for their existence on other forms of living beings. A Wise, All-powerful Will is at work, over and above the unvarying mechanism of nature.⁸

This blend of Wisdom and Will is manifested on a still higher level in the creation of humanity. Even in its most primitive stages, mankind received inflows of Divine Power and Wisdom from God. (II, 40.) These upward thrusts led to the development of skills needed for survival and of social customs that provided a modicum of order and justice. Among the Greeks and other cultured peoples, there have arisen statesmen, scientists, inventors and poets, who have contributed mightily to the formation of a civilized society. Yet, the laws of the Greeks (nomoi) did not meet the spiritual needs of their people. The only perfect law is the Torah, which addresses itself to the ethical and religious concerns of the individual as well as the economic and political interests of society. “So, the Torah, which is not a natural product is led up to by natural developments.” (Ibid.) The Torah was given to the Israelites, but in the course of time the “Torah of Truth” will govern the lives of all men and women. (Code, “Hilchot Melochim,” end.) “For all of existence is like one living individual.” (I, 72; Pines, p. 117.) The thrusts of God, manifested in the biblical prophets and less perfectly in statesmen, poets and philosophers will ultimately redeem all mankind.

Here, then, is a holistic and evolutionary conception of God’s work in history. The vistas of the contemporary theory of evolution were of course not open to M. But, he conceived of God as being actively at work, creating the ideal human society of the future. Having postulated the doctrine of creatio ex nihilo, M. insisted that the Divine Flow from the sphere of Active Reason amounted to a series of additional creative acts, which transpired in the domain of history. While the material laws of nature have been fixed at creation, the spiritual horizons of mankind remained open, and the help of God is extended to the diverse builders of the ideal society of the future—to scientists, investors, statesmen, poets, but above all to those who prepare themselves in mind and heart for prophecy. The perfect God must have designed “the best of all possible worlds,” but only as a potentiality, revealed to prophets. And He is working in the dimension of time along with the elite of Israel and the nations in order to achieve this goal.⁹

The revival of prophecy is an indispensable step on the road to messianic perfection. The Messiah of the House of David will inaugurate the glorious era, but it will continue to grow in perfection for a long time, as the Messiah and his successors proceed to convert all of mankind “to the religion of truth.” The laws of physical nature will remain unchanged, but man’s productivity and prosperity will increase marvelously, so that people will be able to devote most of their time to Torah and religious meditation. (M.’s Code, “Hilchot Melochim.” Ch. XII.) In M.’s view, then, progress is many-sided, economic as well as spiritual, secular as well as religious. And the ultimate source of this ceaseless advance toward perfection in time is the Supreme Being, Who is also the Purpose of all purposiveness in nature and in history, and the Ground of all that exists.

The important thing to remember is that M. combined a rationalistic version of the biblical philosophy of history with his philosophic system. Thereby, he resolved the contradiction between the Perfect God, Who is the Cause of an imperfect but steadily improving world. To be sure, M. considered that goodness far outweighed all forms of evil in human life. The residual evil is due to the resistance of matter, and in the course of time, this resistance will be gradually overcome.

What is the contemporary religious import of this concept of God?—It does not allow us to think of God either as a loving Father or as a stern King, Who is placated by sacrifices, rituals and prayers. (Ill, 28.) It does not console us with the assurance that we can win His magical intervention, whereby the laws of nature will be changed in our behalf. Neither repentance, in the popular meaning of the word, nor the recitation of prescribed prayers, nor the distribution of our possessions for charity will change the course of events.¹⁰ We can speak of God as Compassionate only in the sense that He ordered the world in such a way as to provide for the needs of every living species.¹¹ But the concerns of the majority of mankind are, after all, self-centered. The truly religious personality will love God, without presuming that God must love him in return, as Spinoza later put it. Furthermore, our awareness of the Divine Being generates supreme joy within our souls.¹² The more we learn of His majesty, the more we yearn in love for His Presence, and this love is itself joy unalloyed. Indeed, God’s love and concern is directed toward us, to the extent to which we prepare ourselves to receive His overflowing, creative energy. Providence is proportional to the readiness of our personality to serve as His vessel in behalf of the uplift of mankind.¹³

In M.’s philosophy, the only true miracles are those of the human spirit, when it is touched by the Divine Power.¹⁴ The miracles of Scripture were built into the structure of natural law at creation. (II, 29.) Thereafter, we can look forward to the inflow of fresh freedom-generating creative power into the minds and hearts of creative men and women. All inventions, all the mighty achievements of the human spirit in every field of endeavor are the products of divine inspiration. (II, 45.) Man is not a passive victim of blind fate. On the contrary, God permeates the world only through the cooperation of great men and cooperative societies. (II, 40.) He achieves human progress not by suddenly interrupting the chains of causality but by inspiring men to utilize the opportunities available to them. And the goal of this divine-human cooperation is certain to be the ever more perfect society of the future.

This concept of God is thoroughly in harmony with the modern spirit. We know the tremendous potential of the human spirit for the improvement of the living condition of mankind, where M. could only hope and trust. The parallels between M.’s philosophy, stripped of its medieval picture of the cosmos, and the views of such modernists as Bergson, Alexander and Whitehead are obvious. God is the unifying, integrating, perfecting Pole of the di-polar universe, but matter, the source of perpetual resistance and negation, is also His creation. The ultimate triumph of Freedom and Purpose is asserted in the doctrine of creatio ex nihilo.

M.’s philosophy could be described as panentheistic, in that God includes the world, but the world does not include God. While He is eternal, He works within time. God is both personal and non-personal, for personality is a blend of freedom with purposiveness, and God is at once the Purpose of all purposes in the cosmos and the Free Creator, “who renews the world daily by His goodness.” He is immanent in the noblest momentary outreaches of the human spirit, but also transcendent, for we can affirm of Him only by negative attributes.

In sum, God is not only static perfection, but also a dynamic force, acting within history. Charles Hartshorne wrote, “Modern philosophy differs from most previous philosophy by the strength of its conviction that becoming in the more inclusive category [than, being].” (Ch. Hartshorne in “Philosophers speak about God,” U. of Chicago Press, 1953, p. 9.) Also, reflecting the Kabbalistic tradition, A. J. Kook wrote of the two forms of perfection, attributable to God, though he hesitated to apply any potentiality to God in Himself.

“We say that Absolute Perfection is necessarily existent and there is nothing potential in it. The Absolute is all actual. But there is a kind of perfection which consists in the process of being perfected; this type of perfection cannot be applied to the Deity, since Infinite, Absolute Perfection leaves no room for any additional increments of perfection. In order that Being shall not be devoid of growth in perfection, there must be a Becoming, a process beginning from the lowest depths, the levels of absolute privation, and rising therefrom steadily toward the Absolute Height. Thus existence was so constituted that it could never cease from progressing upward. This is its infinite dynamics.” (“Orot Hakodesh,” (Jerusalem, 1938), p. 549; “Banner of Jerusalem,” by J. B. Agus, p. 172.)

The Kabbalistic solution is to distinguish the Pure Being of God, as En Sof from His Becoming in the Pleroma of Sefirot. Modern philosophers feel no such compulsion—“there is no law of logic against attributing contrasting predicates to the same individual, provided they apply to diverse aspects of this individual.” (Hartshorne, op. cit., p. 15.)