The thought of the twelfth century Spanish-Jewish philosopher Judah Halevi provides a good illustration of many of the issues involved in the notion of divine law. Halevi begins his magnum opus, the Kuzari with the following story: An angel appears to the pagan king of the Khazars, and informs him that his thoughts are pleasing to God but not his actions. The king is faced with the dilemma of discovering which actions are pleasing to God, and in his quest, he turns to various sages to ascertain the answer. In Halevi’s story, just as in the historical narrative upon which it is loosely based, the king ultimately chooses Judaism. Halevi takes poetic license in his retelling of the tale by having the king turn first to a philosopher to discover the desirable actions. Halevi’s ‘‘philosopher’’ responds to the king’s question by first summarizing many of the main points of the philosophers’ credo, which is essentially based on the thought of the tenth century Islamic philosopher al-FarabI: God is the source of emanation of the world and its order, an emanation that is without a beginning or an end. God is not cognizant of individuals and their acts, nor is God capable of volitional activity. The perfection of the individual lies in the perfection of the intellect, culminating in conjunction with the Active Intellect and immortality. Ethical character traits are necessary for bringing one’s intellectual potential to fruition by creating the proper external (social) and internal (psychological) state, which enables the individual to engage in the diligent search for truth leading to the attainment of conjunction. Halevi’s ‘‘philosopher’’ concludes (Kuzari 1:1):
> If you attain such a state of knowledge, do not be concerned with which religious law (shari'a) you follow in order to glorify God, or by what speech, language, and actions. You may also create for yourself your own law (dina), as well as for your family and the members of your state if they accept it, in order to glorify and praise God and to conduct yourself in an ethical manner. Or you may follow a law based on the rational nomoi laid down by the philosophers, and strive for purity of the soul. In conclusion, seek purity of the heart in any manner that you are able, after you acquire knowledge of all the sciences. Then you will reach your goal - conjunction with the spiritual being, that is to say, the Active Intellect. Perhaps it will then bestow upon you prophecy and inform you hidden matters by way of veridical dreams and truthful visions.
In this manner, the ‘‘philosopher’’ informs the king in a not so subtle manner that his dream is not a revelatory one at all; it is in fact a false one, the product of his own vain imaginings. True prophecy is attained as a result of achieving the state of conjunction with the Active Intellect. For the Aristotelian philosopher there is no divine law in the sense of a law whose immediate author is God. There exists no set of ritual acts that are preferable to any other, as long as the core of the religion is of an ethical nature and does not interfere with the pursuit of perfection, if not actively promote it. Halevi’s ‘‘philosopher’’ appreciates the positive role religion plays in society. It is important that the members of society glorify God in prayer and ritual acts, not because God derives any benefit or pleasure from these acts or is even aware of them, but because of their beneficial affect upon their practitioners. Therefore, Halevi’s ‘‘philosopher’’ is indifferent to the question whether one should choose an already existent religion or creates one’s own religion according to the principles laid down by the philosophers.
The answers the king receives to his quest on the part of the proponents of Christianity, Islam, and Judaism, on the other hand, share in common the notion ofa personal, volitional creator of the world who has the ability to communicate with humanity. The religion commanded by God by means of revelation is the one that is pleasing to God. The question that is raised by this approach is how to establish the truth of revelation and hence whether a particular religion is in fact divine. For Halevi the answer lies in the nature of the miracles accompanying the revelation. The grandeur of the miracles that defy any
Naturalistic explanation and the multitude of eyewitnesses to their occurrence attest to the truth of the message and the fact that God is the author. The most reliable sign for Halevi is the audible speech that God created and which conveys the divine message directly to the people. This view emerges explicitly from Halevi’s treatment of the revelation at Mount Sinai in which the Ten Commandments were given (Kuzari 1:87):
> Fire encircled Mount Sinai and remained there for forty days. The people saw it, and they saw Moses enter it and emerge from it. The people heard the pure speech in the [giving of the] Ten Commandments... The multitude did not receive the Ten Commandments from solitary individuals or from a prophet, but from God. However, they did not possess Moses' strength to behold that grand scene. Henceforth, the people believed that Moses was addressed by a speech that originated with God. It was not preceded by any thought or suggestion in Moses' mind. Prophecy is not, as the philosophers think, the conjunction of the soul whose thoughts are purified with the Active Intellect, also termed the Holy Spirit and Gabriel, and the apprehension of it. It is possible [according to the philosophers] that at that moment [of conjunction] the person would imagine in a vision, either while asleep or awake, that another person is speaking to him. He would hear imaginary speech in his soul, not by way of his ears. He would see this person in his imagination, and not by way of his eyes. He would then say that God spoke to him. These notions were negated by the great Gathering [at Sinai]. Accompanying the divine speech was the divine writing. God engraved these Ten Commandments on two tablets of precious stone, and gave them to Moses. The people saw the divine writing, just as they heard the divine speech.
The two different conceptions of God’s relation to the world, that of the philosopher and that of the Jewish sage (as well as the Christian and Moslem sages) lead to two very different conceptions of divine law. Halevi is well aware of the naturalistic explanation the philosophers offer for understanding the nature of revelation. From his perspective, the philosophers treat all religions essentially as human-made law. He knows that the philosophers draw a distinction between different laws by their content and their purpose, or by their material, formal and final causes - namely, by whether the law is based on rational-ethical nomoi and designed to contribute to human perfection or not. Moreover, they distinguish between the efficient cause of different laws in terms of the perfection of the legislator of each. For Halevi, however, divine law is precisely a law whose immediate efficient cause is God. He does not reject the view that divine law is distinguishable from all other legislations also by its content and purpose. He devotes much of his treatise to explore this issue and highlight the distinguishing characteristics of the divine law in these areas. Halevi’s God is a wise deity who does nothing in vain or in an arbitrary manner, hence everything commanded by God must have a purpose and is designed to promote it in an ideal manner. Nevertheless, what makes a law divine in his view is first and foremost that it is given directly by God; all the other distinctions follow from this fundamental one. That there are rational nomoi is not disputed by Halevi. Every society, even a band of thieves, realizes that they must be governed by certain ethical propositions in order to survive (Kuzari 2:48). Passages in the Kuzari reflect Aristotle’s distinction between natural and conventional/human law - namely law that consists of those general propositions that are binding everywhere and law that consists of particular practices and enactments that may vary from place to place (Nicomachean Ethics V.7, 1134b-1135a). For Halevi, while divine law contains laws that resemble natural law and human law, it is fundamentally different from both. In being commanded by God, it is ideal and completely obligatory not only in its general ethical directives but in all its particular commandments, whether they are of a social or ritual nature. Moreover, for him the divine law, as opposed to human law, remains forever constant in all its particulars just as human nature remains forever the same. The divine law molds the soul of the individual, and not only society at large, in a perfect manner that is known only to God (Kuzari 1:79; 2:48-50; 3:7-11, 23; 4:19). This is the view of divine law that Halevi develops in his rejection of the approach of the philosophers.
Al-Farilbl
Halevi’s “philosopher” belongs to the tradition of the great tenth century Islamic Aristotelian philosopher, al-FarabI, whose approach to law is anchored in Plato’s Republic, particularly in the notion of the philosopher-king, and in Aristotle’s Ethics. In many of his writings, al-Farabl dwells on the problem of the nature of the ideal polity, its lawgiver, and the characteristics of the law that he legislates. Following his Greek predecessors, al-FarabI thinks of law primarily in terms of its final and formal causes, or its purpose and the way it goes about in achieving it. He traces the differences in the purpose and content of each body of law to the character of its legislator. In the Book of Religion he writes:
> Religion (milla) is opinions and actions, determined and restricted with stipulations and prescribed for
A community by their first ruler, who seeks to obtain through their practicing it a specific purpose with respect to them or by means of them [...] If the first ruler is virtuous and his rulership truly virtuous, then in what he prescribes he seeks only to obtain, for himself and for everyone under his rulership, the ultimate happiness that is truly happiness, and that religion will be virtuous religion (Political Writings:93).
Al-FarabI goes on to deal with the nature of the opinions and actions prescribed in the virtuous religion. The opinions deal with God, the spiritual beings together with their ranks and functions, the generated material beings and how they are ordered, the nature of prophecy, and ultimate reward and punishment. These true opinions, al-Farabi clarifies in the continuation of his remarks, and in more detail in his other writings, are often presented in metaphorical or imaginative form, as befitting the state of society for which they are intended. The virtuous religion also presents tales of edification describing the prophets and virtuous rulers and well as the wicked and what became of them. The actions it prescribes are divided into those relating to the praise of God and the righteous, as well as condemnation of the wicked, and those concerning the mutual dealings of individuals with each other in society and how a person should conduct oneself. Al-Farabi sees the virtuous religion as similar to theoretical and practical philosophy, and subordinate to these two branches of philosophy - the first one dealing with the order of existence and the second with human governance.
Al-Farabi lives in an age in which society is governed by revelatory religion, a fact that he can hardly ignore. Yet it is interesting to note that he refrains from using the term ‘‘divine’’ (ilaht) in characterizing religion. He characterizes religion either as virtuous (/adlla) or errant (though some of the terms he uses for religion - sharl‘a, sunna, milla, dln - have the connotation of divine). He may have desired to sidestep the problem of dealing directly with Islam in developing his theoretical model, though he certainly thought that Islam should be understood in accordance with this model. Nevertheless, there is no suggestion in his model of a single virtuous religion - the contrary is true - or even of a virtuous religion that is the seal of all virtuous religions, as Islam is formally regarded by its adherents. This can be seen even more clearly from al-Farabl’s other political writings such as the Political Regime and the Opinions o/ the People o/ the Virtuous City. Al-Farabl’s model is a dynamic historical one in which one virtuous religion succeeds another, each with the appearance of a new ideal lawgiver, and each is framed in accordance with the changing conditions. Al-Farabl does not ignore the relation of virtuous religion to revelation. He draws an integral connection between the two, as can be seen from the following passage in the Book o/Religion:
> Now the craft of the virtuous first ruler is kingly and joined with revelation from God. Indeed, he determines the actions and opinions in the virtuous religion by means of revelation (wahiy). This occurs in one or both of two ways: one is that they are all revealed to him as determined; the second is that he determines them by means of the faculty he acquires from revelation and from the Revealer, may He be exalted, so that the stipulations with which he determines the virtuous opinions and actions are disclosed to him by means of it. Or some come about in the first way and some in the second way. It has already been explained in theoretical science how the revelation of God, may He be exalted, to the human being receiving the revelation comes about and how the faculty acquired from revelation and from the Revealer occurs in a human being (Political Writings:94).
Revelation for al-Farabl is a natural phenomenon that characterizes the reception of one who attains the state of conjunction with the Active Intellect, as seen from his description of the first ruler (The Political Regime:36). Al-Farabl certainly does not think that God is the immediate efficient cause of revelation, just as God is not the immediate efficient cause of any natural phenomenon. While al-Farabl’s depiction suggests that God is in some manner directly responsible for the law laid down by the first ruler, his reference to theoretical science in this context indicates that he views this phenomenon along the lines of the Greek philosophical tradition - a point that is confirmed by his other writings. The ‘‘faculty’’ the first ruler acquires in revelation is not a new faculty at all. It is essentially the understanding of how to translate his perfect knowledge of the order of existence and of the purpose of human beings into an ideal polity that directs its members to the attainment of human perfection and ultimate felicity. In his Selected Aphorisms, al-Farabl lists all the gifts possessed by the first ruler that enable him to accomplish this task - namely, perfect wisdom, prudence, rhetorical excellence, a perfect imagination, courage, and not possessing any physical impediments (Political Writ-ings:37). In other words, the virtuous religion is seen as the product of the conscious deliberations of the ruler who possesses all these qualifications. These deliberations may be said to be the result of ‘‘revelation,’’ which essentially is an emanation from the Active Intellect that strengthens the activity of the individual’s intellect and imagination, thereby enabling the individual to lay down a perfect law. Al-Farabi’s view that at times all the actions and opinions are revealed to the first ruler ‘‘as determined” should not be interpreted as indicating that God in this instance is more directly involved in laying down the virtuous religion. Al-Farabi alludes to the view that in this instance the faculties of the soul, particularly the intellect and the imaginative faculty, ascertain the opinions and actions to be laid down in the virtuous religion while the individual is in the prophetic state - that is to say, in the state of experiencing intellectual illumination - rather than his laying down the particulars of the religion on the basis of conscious deliberations while no longer in this state.
For al-Farabi then, the virtuous religion is a natural phenomenon from a number of perspectives. It is the product of revelation, which itself is a natural attainment by the individual of perfect intellect. Furthermore, it is designed to direct society to the natural perfection of humanity that results in ultimate eternal felicity, which is a natural consequence of the attainment of perfection. If we equate al-Farabl’s virtuous religion with divine religion or law, the line between the natural and the divine is completely blurred in his thought. Divine law not only incorporates natural law as known by reason and which provides the foundation for human or conventional law; it is also the ideal expression of natural and human law. What divine law is not, according to this conception, is a law that God directly legislates. It is the latter notion of divine law, as we have seen, which Halevi seeks to defend against al-Farabi’s approach. Halevi is not in principle averse to blurring at times the distinction between the natural and the divine. All natural phenomena, he notes, are from a certain perspective divine in that they are created by God (Kuzari 5:21). When it comes to understanding the divine law, however, he insists upon maintaining the distinction between the natural and the divine. The former reflects God’s governance by way of the fixed activities of His intermediaries while the latter is the product of God’s immediate, personal activity.
World History
