Some Answers for those Perplexed by Maimonides’ Guide

Negative Theology and Apophatic Theology are two, very impressive, two-word phrases giving the impression that they – especially Apophatic Theology – are esoteric phrases describing esoteric knowledge.

Apophatic Theology is, however, another way of describing Negative Theology though the reader would, I am sure, agree, more bedazzling.

Though a Jew may balk at the use of a Greek word – Greek philosophy and theology being the cornerstones of their Christian successor fields of thought – the word apophatic must have been used by Philo, a Jewish philosopher who lived during a period spanning the first century BCE and the first century CE. It may, though, be pointed out that the early Christian Fathers were greatly influenced by Philo’s ideas and propositions.

Yet Maimonides – though not the earliest Jewish philosopher certainly one of Jewish philosophy’s most prominent and seminal thinkers – was also influenced by Philo and, it should be added, Islamic thought.

It is therefore no surprise that Maimonides, surrounded as he was by the works of Islamic and Chrisian thinkers, as well as those of Rabbinical Jews who held their own set of beliefs, conceded the view that one had to say something about God.

Maimonides, having advised that it was best not to say anything when it came to God, then must have thought that he had hit upon a clever solution by asserting that God could only be described in the negative. So, Maimonides proceeded and declared, God is not corporeal, God does not occupy space, etc, etc.

Does the reader now agree that Negative, or Apophatic, Theology is not at all for the knowing few? If he or she doesn’t, I ask him or her to read on, so that he or she will see that the two phrases are anything but.

The author cannot accept that Maimonides thought that he could say anything he liked about God. It would seem, however, that this is exactly what he did – with his negative propositions, set out in the Guide of the Perplexed and his 13 Attributes of God in a later work.

The author’s position is that it may be that anyone can say anything about God – and that it may be that Maimonides was right when he said what he did in his Guide.

In layman’s terms; in a direct approach to the reader who is not familiar with such language and its implications: God allows human beings to say anything about Him.

In the language of the author – it was Maimonides’ belief that God exists; as such, it may be be possible to say anything about God, just as it may be possible that nothing can be said about God.

Having convinced himself of the good attributes of God, Maimonides believed that the only form of good government was the system of government called Theocracy.

The Orthodox Jews who have allied themselves to Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud – do they want a theocratic Israel?

Do they, the Orthodox parties’ leaders believe, as Maimonides did, that governance by priests can only be good?

What do these leaders think of the Iranian theocracy? Is it always good?

Should the Iranian theocracy provide an example here?

Democracy itself, it may be pointed out, is not always a good system.

But which is the better ststem when the two are compared?

That, however, is a question that can only be answered in a separate weblog.