Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-vfjqv Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-26T16:28:25.563Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Chapter 6 - His Existence Is Essentiality

Maimonides as Metaphysician

from Part III - The Creator

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 June 2021

Daniel Frank
Affiliation:
Purdue University, Indiana
Aaron Segal
Affiliation:
Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Get access

Summary

Maimonides famously says some rather radical things about God – radical even by philosophical standards – both about what God is like “in Himself” and about God’s relationship with the created universe. Maimonides’ most detailed and sustained presentation of these radical ideas is in his discussion of divine attributes in chapters 50–70 of the Guide. Indeed, it seems evident that Maimonides’ point in that section is to make plain these radical ideas. To put matters rather simply and straightforwardly, the radical ideas are these: Strictly speaking, God shares nothing substantive in common with created beings, neither existence nor life nor power nor knowledge. Indeed, strictly speaking, God has no intrinsic nature at all, no attributes at all, and stands in no relations whatsoever to the created universe – save for negative attributes and attributes of action. Even speaking strictly, God does have negative attributes and does stand in whatever relations to the created universe are entailed by His having attributes of action.

Type
Chapter
Information
Maimonides' Guide of the Perplexed
A Critical Guide
, pp. 102 - 124
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2021

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×