185
See also: From monolatry to monotheism 176–77 ■ Mysticism and the kabbalah
188 ■ The unity of divinity is necessary 280–81
JUDAISM
Jewish tenet of monotheism in
terms of the classical Greek
philosophical doctrine that God
is “simple”—that is, not composed
of parts or properties.
God’s oneness, according to
Maimonides, is different from the
oneness of any other being: he is a
single, unique, indivisible entity; he
is also beyond human understanding
and description, and therefore
cannot be given specific attributes.
God cannot be categorized
God, Maimonides argued, is not
“one of a species”—he is not a
member of a group of beings that
share certain characteristics.
Three different men, for example,
are each individuals, but they share
the attribute of maleness and
therefore belong to the category of
males. God, on the other hand, has
no attributes, and therefore cannot
belong to a category of beings,
divine or otherwise.
God’s oneness also differs from
that of a body, which is divisible.
This means that God is not like
According to Maimonides, God
existed before everything and is the
creator of all things. His existence is
independent of all other things but all
other things need him in order to exist.
Moses Maimonides
Moses Maimonides (also
known as Rambam) was born
in 1135 in Cordoba, Spain, into
a Jewish family. His childhood
was rich in cross-cultural
influences: he was educated in
both Hebrew and Arabic, and
his father, a rabbinic judge,
taught him Jewish law within
the context of Islamic Spain.
His family fled Spain when the
Berber Almohad dynasty came
to power in 1148, and lived
nomadically for 10 years until
they settled first in Fez (now
in Morocco) and then in Cairo.
Maimonides began training
as a physician due to his
family’s financial problems;
his skill led to a royal
appointment within only a
few years. He also worked
as a rabbinic judge, but this
was an activity for which he
thought it wrong to accept
any payment. He was
recognized as head of the
Jewish community of Cairo
in 1191. After his death in
1204 his tomb became a place
of Jewish pilgrimage.Key works1168 Commentary on
the Mishnah
1168 –78 Mishneh Torah
119 0 Guide for the Perplexeda physical object, which can be
broken into parts. But Maimonides
went further, and argued that God
is also intellectually indivisible:
he cannot have any attributes (as
defined by Aristotle), as he would
then consist of both his essence and
his attributes. If God were eternal,
for example, there would effectively
be two gods: God and God’s eternity.
Maimonides’ belief that God
has no attributes is a product of a
school of thought called negative
theology, which maintains that
it is inaccurate to characterize
God in any affirmative way. Given
the limits of human language, we
may describe God as eternal, but
in truth we can only affirm that
God is not non-eternal: that is, his
essence is beyond comprehension.
Maimonides included the doctrine
of God’s oneness among his 13
essential principles of Jewish faith,
which also include such concepts
as God’s antiquity and the belief
that the Torah comes from the
mouth of God. Many regard these
principles as the fundamental
elements of Jewish belief. ■God is not two or more
entities, but a single entity
of a oneness even more
single and unique than any
single thing in creation.
Maimonides