Pearson Edexcel Level 3 Advanced GCE in Religious Studies – Anthology
266providenc e of t he wise and whose fulfillment , in knowledge of God, is immo rt alit y.
T his ult imat e goal of t he philosopher is visit ed on ot hers by prophet s, t hose rare
philosophers who are grac ed wit h c larit y of imaginat ion t o t ranslat e pure c onc ept s
int o images and inst it ut ions, laws and symbols, beliefs and prac t ic es t hat allow all
humanity to share in the fruits of philosophy....
Among the modern exponents of Jewish philosophy, few rank with those
already mentioned. Moses Mendelssohn (1729–86), grandfat her of t he c omposer, is
one. He was c alled the German Soc rates, in part for his original arguments for
immort alit y in his Phaedo or Phaidon. Academic entrée was out of the question for
a Jew in Mendelssohn’s time, and his outpouring of important public ations was
produc ed while he earned his living as managing direc t or of a silk fac t ory. Imbued
wit h t radit ional and philosophic al Jewish learning, he mast ered independently Wolff
and Leibniz, the c ulture and literary language of modern Europe, and won fame by
taking the prize in the Berlin Ac ademy c ompetition of 1763, in whic h Kant won
honourable ment ion... Mendelssohn was the first Jew to be accepted among modern
European int ellec t uals, he inspired his friend Got t hold Lessing’s play Nathan the
Wise, and his idea of immortality as unending moral progress bec ame that of Kant.
Pressed by c rit ic s t o just ify his loyalt y t o his anc ient fait h, Mendelssohn responded
in Jerusalem with a c omprehensive philosophy of Judaism, arguing that it was not
t heir religious beliefs t hat Israel had ac quired at Sinai, sinc e t hese were simply t he
natural religion they had already discovered by reason. What was revealed, and
et ernally valid, was a system of practices designed to sustain Israel’s loyalty to that
faith, making them “a light unto the nations.” Enforcement of these ceremonial
symbols had passed, with the destruc tion of the anc ient Hebrew c ommonwealth,
from that state to the hearts of individuals, where providence decreed it should
forever abide. Mendelssohn thus blunted ac c usations of illiberality and the
somewhat inc onsist ent c harges of dual loyalt ies t hat were already bec oming c lic hes
of anti-Semit ic modernis m, but only by forswearing t he soc ial aut horit y of Judaic
inst it ut ions and forest alling t he first modern glimme rings of Zionism. A founder of
the Jewish Enlightenment, the Haskalah, he worked to elevate his fellow Jews by
c hampioning German-Jewish educ ation, translating the Pentateuc h, Psalms, and
Song of Songs, and effec t ively c ombat ing suc h c ivil disabilit ies as t he infamous oat h
more Judaic o.
Hermann Cohen (1842–1918) was the son of a c antor and son-in -law of t he
splendid Hebrew liturgical composer Lewandowski. He became a major Kantian, an
early c rit ic of t he Ding an sic h and supplemented Kantian ethic s with Aristotelian
and Biblic al ideas of virtue and justic e. Cohen c hampioned the loyalty and authentic
Germanness of German Jews against attacks from the anti- Semit ic hist orian
Heinric h von Treitsc hke, by marking the affinities of Jewish values with Kantian
ethic s. In Religion of Reason out of the Sources of Judaism, he made God the moral
standard and guarantor of justic e and c harity that seek to c reate a c ommunity of
free individuals, a kingdom of ends t hat philosophy c annot prove t o be inevit able
but that personal c onvic tion must somehow uphold...
Franz Rosenzweig (1886–1929) nearly abandoned Judaism but discovered its
inner spirit ualit y at t he Y om Kippur servic es he attended in 1913, out of a desire to
enter Christianity not as a pagan but as a Jew. An important Hegel sc holar,
Rosenzweig unc overed a more liberal, less Mac hiavellian Hegel t han was familiar in
his t ime. His Star of Redemption, writ t en largely in post c ards h o me f ro m t h e
German t renc hes during World War I is a manifest o of spirit ual exist ent ialism t hat