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Maimonides on the Great Tautology Exodus 3, 14

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 January 2009

Alexander Broadie
Alexander Broadie
Affiliation:
The UniversityPhilosophy Department Glasgow G12 8QQ
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Extract

In Exodus 3, 14 a concept of the God of Israel is hinted at, and the hint is taken up by Moses Maimonides in his Guide of the Perplexed and developed in a way that should hold our metaphysical gaze. In particular, on the basis of the Great Tautology Ehyeh-Asher-Ehyeh contained in that verse, he presents an account of God in terms of a distinctive application of the categories of agent and act, and I shall follow Maimonides through the crucial moves he makes in his application of those categories to God. Yet the Maimonidean system presents us with reasons for being suspicious of the application of any categories at all to God, and my approach to Maimonides' discussion of the Great Tautology will be by way of a consideration of those reasons, all of which relate to the most famous feature of the Guide of the Perplexed, the unremitting application of the via negativa. There are large problems concerning the correct way to understand Maimonides' use of that via. But we cannot afford here to be deterred from attending to that aspect of his system, for he uses it in his discussion of the Great Tautology. Indeed he has barely started his journey along the Via Negativa when he is confronted by the concept of divine existence and has to decide on an appropriate response. Hence in our investigation of Maimonides' concept of divine existence, we must take into account the way in which his apophatic route determines his perspective.

Type
Research Article
Information
Scottish Journal of Theology , Volume 47 , Issue 4 , November 1994 , pp. 473 - 488
Copyright
Copyright © Scottish Journal of Theology Ltd 1994

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References

1 Cf. Aquinas Summa Theologiae 1, 13, 5 ad 3: ‘Deus non est mensura proportionata mensuratis, unde non oportet quod Deus et creaturae sub uno genere contineantur.’

2 Guide I 6, 33. All translated passages from the Guide are taken from The Guide of the Perplexed, trans. S. Pines with Introductory Essay by Leo Strauss, Chicago 1963. My references to the Guide will be to Part, chapter, and page in the Pines translation.

3 I 26, 56

4 I 37, 86

5 I 56, 131

6 I 46, 97

7 Summa Theologiae 1, 2, 2 ad 2: ‘Quia ad probandum aliquid esse necesse est accipere pro medio quid significet nomen, non autem quod quid est (quia quaestio quid est sequitur ad quaestionem an est).’ And the preface to S.T. 1, 3 (that is, the question which follows immediately upon the Quinque Viae) opens with the words: ‘Cognito de aliquo an sit inquirendum restat quomodo sit ut sciatur de eo quid sit.’

8 I 52, 115–16

9 I 52, 119

10 I 53, 120

11 I 57, 132

12 I 53, 121

13 I 61, 147

14 II 18, 299–300

15 III 21, 484–5

16 II 12, 279.

17 The JPS Torah Commentary: Exodus, Commentary by Sarna, Nahum M., Jewish Publication Society, Philadelphia, New York, 1991, p. 17.Google Scholar

18 For the wide range of uses of the imperfect see Gesenius, W., Hebrew Grammar, Second English Edition, rev. by Cowley, A. E., Oxford 1910, pp. 313–319.Google Scholar Gesenius writes: ‘The imperfect, as opposed to the perfect, represents actions, events, or states which are regarded by the speaker at any moment as still continuing, or in the process of accomplishment, or even as just taking place’ (p.313). He then lists five pages of examples of verbs in the imperfect which are used to refer to acts or events past, present, or future. The greatest of the medieval Jewish Bible commentators, Rashi (Rabbi Solomon ben Isaac of Troyes, 1040–1105), gave a future-oriented interpretation. He commented that the Name was an abbreviated form of ‘I am (or, “will be”) with them in this sorrow who will be with them in their bondage to other kingdoms’. Apart from showing that the Name does not have to be taken as present-tensed, Rashi's gloss illustrates the fact that not all the medieval Jewish writers thought that the Name in Ex. 3, 14 is a tautology.

19 Sarna, pp. 17–18

20 I 63, 154

21 The first Ehyeh and the second are not a subject and a predicate in the usual sense, since the coupling device is an unchangeable relative particle and not a part of the verb ‘to be’ and therefore not a copula in the usual sense. Maimonides is here diverging from his account of subject, predicate and copula which he presented in his early treatise on logic. See the Arabic edition with three Hebrew translations and an English translation, published as Maimonides Treatise on Logicby Israel Efros, New York, American Academy for Jewish Research, 1938. Espch.3: ‘…these words which connect the predicate with the subject in a definite time, past, present or future, we call copulas’.

22 In speaking of the existence of every caused thing as an accident superadded to the essence of the thing, Maimonides displays his indebtedness to Avicenna. The influence has often been commented on. See the classic essay by A. Altmann, ‘Essence and existence in Maimonides’ in Altmann, A.Studies in Religious Philosophy and Mysticism, Ithaca, N.Y., 1969, pp. 108–127Google Scholar, reprinted in Maimonides: A Collection of Critical Essays, ed. Buijs, J. A., Notre Dame, Indiana 1988, pp. 148–165.Google Scholar

23 I 57, 132

24 See ‘Maimonides on the Jewish Creed’ trans. Abelson, J., Jewish Quarterly Review, o.s. XIX, 1907, pp. 24–58Google Scholar; translated from the text in Holzer, J., Mose Maimuni's Einleitung zu Chelek, Berlin, 1901.Google Scholar

25 The Ani Ma'amin version is: ‘I believe with perfect faith that the Creator, blessed be His name, is the author and guide of everything that has been created, and that He alone has made, does make, and will make all things’, quoted from the The Authorised Daily Prayer Book, ed. Singer, S., London 1962, p. 93.Google Scholar The Yigdal version is: ‘Magnified and praised be the living God: He is, and there is no limit in time to His being’, quoted from The Authorised Daily Prayer Book, ed. Singer, S., London, 1962, p. 3.Google Scholar

26 Jewish Quarterly Review 19, p.47.

27 Mishneh Torah, Hilkhot De'ot, ch.I.Maimonides' formulation of the imitatio Dei is already found, at least in germ, in Tannaitic sources. See Sifrei Deuteronomy on ûldabqâh-bô [‘and to cleave to Him’] ch. II, v.22. The Rabbinic treatment is innocent of philosophical insights; it is Maimonides' achievement to insert the ‘is called’.

28 III 54, 635

29 Ibid.

30 Jer. 9, 23–24; Guide III 54, 636.

31 I am grateful to Dr Christopher F.J. Martin and Professor Raphael Loewe for helpful criticism of this paper. An early draft was read at a symposium ‘The Great Tautology’, held at Robinson College, Cambridge, in May 1992.Jewish, Christian and Muslim scholars addressed interpretations, especially interpretations formulated in the Middle Ages, of the name in Exodus 3, 14, and demonstrated that it is possible in these troubled times to recreate the medieval practice of respectful debate between Jewish, Christian and Muslim philosophers and theologians.