Do the different attributes of God constitute distinct aspects or persons in the Divine essence? Jewish philosophers were divided on this question, as were medieval thinkers in general. Saadia Gaon, a tenth-century Jewish philosopher whose works reflected the influence of the Islamic Mu'tazilite, set the stage for subsequent Jewish discussions. In his major philosophical work The Book of Doctrines and Beliefs, Saadia followed the tradition of Philo and the kalam thinkers in denying multiplicity to God: the three attributes of Life, Power, and Wisdom are implied in the very notion of God. It is due to the deficiency of human language that they cannot be expressed in one single term.
Maimonides’ Guide of the Perplexed is the most important work of medieval Jewish philosophy and exercised a profound influence upon all subsequent Jewish thought, as well as upon Christian scholasticism. His theory of divine predication followed the Neoplatonic tradition and was built primarily upon the distinction found in al-Farabi and Avicenna between essence and existence. This distinction implied that in the case of contingent beings existence is accidental to essence, whereas in God essence and existence are one. Hence God’s nature is totally unlike ours, and terms used to describe God must be used either in a homonymous way or as negative predicates. The four essential attributes of God - life, power, wisdom, and will - are of one simple essence; all other attributes are to be conceived either as descriptive of divine action, or as negative attributes. However, even these four attributes, when predicated of God, are used in a homonymous, or equivocal, sense (Maimonides 1963, 1.56.131). The difference between human and divine predicates is qualitative: since the terms are applied by way of perfect homonymity, they admit of no comparison between God and His creatures.
In chapters 1.58-60 of the Guide, Maimonides develops his celebrated theory of negative predication, arguing that ultimately negative predication alone brings the human mind closer to an understanding of God: ‘‘Know that the description of God, may he be cherished and exalted, by means of negations is the correct description’’ (Maimonides 1963, 1:58:136). This third piece of Maimonides’ theory of divine predication represents the logical culmination of his theory of language. Maimoni-des’ point in these chapters is that because every affirmation about God is to be understood as a negation, not as a privation, it follows that the negation of a weakness does not imply that its opposite power is indirectly attributed to God. Rather it implies that the term or its opposite does not apply to God at all. So God is said to be neither weak nor powerful, just as a wall is neither seeing nor blind. The term ‘‘power’’ is inapplicable to God; so are all other terms. God is simply the sort of being who neither has or fails to have any predicate we might to apply. To apply either privations or affirmative predicates of God is to be guilty of a category error. Maimonides presents an epistemological taxonomy according to which ‘‘with every increase in the negations regarding Him.. .you come nearer to that apprehension than he who does not negate with regard to Him that which, according to what has been demonstrated to you, must be negated’’ (Maimonides 1963, I:59:138). In other words, the individual who describes God in glowing, flowery language is epistemologically further away from God than the individual who recognizes that God cannot be described at all. Maimon-ides is explicit on this point: whenever a person affirms of God positive predicates, the said person recedes from God’s true reality. The implications of this doctrine with respect to prayer are striking. Ultimately silence is the only appropriate linguistic response to divine predication: ‘‘silence with regard to You is praise’’ (Maimonides 1963, I:59:139).
Gersonides, on the other hand, disagreed with Mai-monides’ theory of negative theology. In his major work
The Wars of the Lord, a sustained examination of the major philosophical issues of the day, Gersonides subjects Mai-monides’ theory to critique. He sides with Averroes who, rejecting the Avicennan distinction between essence and existence, argued that existence is not an accident of Being. In following Averroes, Gersonides paves the way for a positive theology, which permits of positive attributive ascription. Gersonides disagrees with Maimonides, claiming that divine predicates are to be understood as pros hen equivocals, or derivative equivocals, rather than absolute equivocals (as Maimonides had argued). That is, according to Gersonides, predicates applied to God represent the prime instance or meaning of the term, whereas human predicates are derivative or inferior instances. So, for example, knowledge when applied to God is perfect knowledge and constitutes the standard for human knowledge, which is less perfect than divine knowledge (Gersonides 1987, III.4:107-115). The implications of this discussion will become apparent when we turn shortly to the predicate of divine omniscience.
World History
