This post is a preview of a forthcoming online Davenant Hall class, “Maimonides and the Guide for the Perplexed”, running in the Winter Term 2025 (January to March), and convened by Ryan Hurd.
If you wish to register for the module you can do so here.
Are you perplexed? Perplexity in this case is the state of experiencing aporia, as Aristotle speaks of it in many places—literally “without passage”, when there is seemingly no way forward in one’s thinking and one is stuck. Particularly here, it is the state of someone caught in the conflict between holy Scripture and Aristotelian philosophy, whose apparent contradictions are as manifest as they are numerous.
Being perplexed thus is someone feeling troubled (as we would say in English) regarding how something is (quomodo sit). More precisely, it is the experience of being disturbed about how some scriptural saying is true, given an Aristotelian proposition is also true, namely when these together have one of two forms: the form of a contradiction (as e.g., that Socrates is and is not wise), or that of two contraries (as e.g., that Socrates is healthy and sick).
I say again that the apparent contradictions between these two sets of sayings are as manifest as they are numerous. Indeed, one could supply a large collection of such sayings and arrange them to underline the conflict: holy Scripture here says yes, but Aristotle there says no; holy Scripture says hot, Aristotle cold. Someone who has taken a course on Scripture and then one on philosophy immediately knows this. And it is exactly this person whom Maimonides (1138–1204), the great medieval rabbi and philosopher, wants to lead, in his Guide of Those Perplexed. Maimonides intends to lead someone from this initial perplexity (quomodo esse et non esse sit?; aliquid et contra sit?) to its ultimate resolution, where one has acquired understanding as to why. We might better say enlightenment, for one important point will be the firm perception that the vast majority of scriptural sayings were metaphors of various sorts, ones the ancient sages (“prophets”) devised to speak to simple people. Plato called them τά γενναῖα ψεύδη.
Are you perplexed about how holy Scripture says that God is seen, but Aristotle says he is invisible? Or how Scripture says that God himself sees, whereas Aristotle that he has no body (Guide 1, 4)? What about how Scripture reads that God is in various places (1, 8), on a throne (1, 9), filling the earth (1, 19), and so on, whereas–as every Aristotelian knows–God is illocal? How then does God descend and ascend, moving from place to place, if he is altogether immobile (1, 10)? How does he sit (1, 11), arise (1, 12), and finally stand (1, 13), all various bodily postures, when God alone is spirit? How is God merciful, angered, etc., when utterly impassible (1, 36)? The resolutions to all these perplexities–and very many more–are quite simple, and the terms needed for the cease-fire readily apparent: all the former sayings were mere metaphors. Maimonides will save you from beguilement and teach you to interpret. This will enable you to avoid what for him is far worse than physically bowing before idols: namely, holding that God is bodily.
Are you perplexed about how holy Scripture even says that God has knowledge, or love, and how it ascribes him many other attributes, when as every Aristotelian knows God is altogether simple? Are you disturbed about how Moses delivered us the thirteen Middot Rachamim (Exodus 34:6–7), when Ibn Sina shows in his commentary on Aristotle’s Metaphysics that God can have no positive attributes at all? The resolutions to all these troubles–and they are very mighty–is again straightforward. The answer is that all such sayings in holy Scripture–underneath the surface, mind you–were in fact pure negations, or periphrases for created effects. When holy Scripture says that God is good, this is to be interpreted either as that he is not evil, or that creatures made by him themselves are good. When we read that he loves, this is to be interpreted as that he hates nothing which has been made, or that creatures were not just created, but even given provisions to endure and also thrive. Faced with these scriptural sayings, Maimonides will in each case save you from being waylaid, and teach you to interpret. Again this will enable you to avoid what begets the second error: the stubborn refusal to hold that God is one only, because so many attributes holy Scripture has affirmed of him.
If such perplexities have animated you in the past, then I hope you will consider joining me as I teach, in careful detail, through Maimonides’s Guide next term at Davenant Hall. It is an inescapable and foundational text for all who would wrestle seriously with doctrine of God vis-a-vis holy Scripture. But be ye warned; not for nothing does Maimonides remind (Guide 1, 32) all students of the parable in the Talmud (Hagigah 14b), with which we close. Four rabbis entered the Garden of Paradise to study: one died; one went mad; one became apostate; and only one left unharmed. So too none can read the Guide and remain unchanged.
This Dogmatics course will be taught by Ryan Hurd. This course will run from January 13th 2025 through March 22nd The syllabus will be available soon. Register here.
Ryan Hurd is a systematic theologian whose area of expertise is doctrine of God, specifically the Trinity. He teaches at Davenant Hall.
*Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons
