Moses Maimonides

Moses Maimonides was born in Cordoba, Spain. He, too, was a polymath who was a rabbi, philosopher, a social commentator, a teacher, and a Talmudic expositor. He had contributed to Jewish philosophy and added mystic elements to it. Maimonides was part of the Arab revival of Aristotelianism in Andalusia, along with names like Ibn Tufayl and Ibn Rushd. He was an outstanding figure who was influenced by the Ismaili cosmological philosophy. I find his logical and epistemological arguments for apophatic theology to be interesting. Also known as negative theology, apophatic theology is the approach in which believers approach God by speaking in terms of what he may not be; because He is the divine perfection, human understanding and language is not capable enough to define and explain God. Moses Maimonides proposes two arguments to support this view.. His logical objection:

1. He says, when we say God is X

2. We subsume God under a broader category.

His epistemological objection: He says when one tries to define God, and defines Him by an attribute, this person commits two mistakes.

1. Although one thinks he’s saying a positive thing, the definition given will only be

2. Since God does not possess anything but His essence, it would be a mistake to describe Him by human terms. Because the words one chooses are one’s understanding of it, in reference to oneself.

This approach was also favored by the Ismailis and mystics.  For Maimonides, because God is transcendent, beyond human comprehension, one should not attempt to describe God. Because no predication is possible; God is absolute unicity and that is it.