Jewish Philosophy in a Secular Age

2. The Positive Contribution of Negative Theology

Chapter Two The Positive Contribution of Negative Theology 1. The Attraction of Negative Theology This chapter does not purport to be a complete survey of negative theology in Judaism. Anyone who desires to read such a study is invited to consult the classic article by Alexander Altmann on the divine attributes.1 What I propose is a treatment of certain themes in negative theology as developed by three thinkers: Maimonides , Descartes, and Kant. In this way, I shall treat one thinker central to Jewish philosophy, one thinker clearly outside it, and one thinker who, though not Jewish by birth, had a decisive impact on it. All three claim there are important respects in which God is unknowable. The central claim of negative theology is that God is unlike anything in the world, that He is radically unique. According to Hermann Cohen, it is God's uniqueness more than His oneness that is at the root of monotheism.2 A worldview which replaced the pantheon of Mt. Olympus with a single god of limited power or knowledge, say Zeus or Poseidon, would not be monotheistic as Judaism understands the term. Monotheism properly so called requires not only a single deity but a deity who stands apart from everything else, thus the words of Isaiah 40.25: "To whom then will you liken Me, that I should be equal?" But to say that God cannot be compared to anything in the world is to raise a philosophic problem: how to characterize something that stands apart? Can the logical and metaphysical assumptions that pertain to created existence also pertain to the Creator? Aristotle maintains that words predicated of things in different categories cannot be predicated in the same sense (Topics 107a3-17).3 Thus clear means something different when predicated of a color and a musical note, sharp something different when predicated of a 31 32 JEWISH PHILOSOPHY IN A SECULAR AGE musical note and a knife. If we apply this claim to God, we arrive at the conclusion that words like wise, powerful, and living are not used univocally of God and His creatures. If they were, God would be in the same category as His creatures, which would destroy His uniqueness. Yet all Aristotle says is that these words cannot have the same meaning; he leaves open the possibility that there is some sort of analogy. In other words, Aristotle is not committed to the view that knowledge is applied to humans and God homonymously, having nothing in common except the name. For if there is nothing in common except the name, God would be beyond human comprehension and there would be no science that investigates Him. It is not surprising, then, that in the Metaphysics, Aristotle stresses divine perfection but not inscrutability. On the contrary, God is not only an existent thing but a cause or principle for the explanation of everything else. At Metaphysics 1026a23-32 (d. 1064a28 ff.), Aristotle distinguishes first philosophy, or theology, from both physics and mathematics. Mathematics investigates things that are immovable but that do not exist separately. Physics investigates things that exist separately but are not immovable. If there were not an immovable substance, physics would be first philosophy . If there is an immovable substance, the science that investigates it will be prior to all others. This science investigates one being, but owing to the unique character of this being as primary and as first principle (1064a35-7), it falls to this science to investigate being universally, that is, being qua being. Since Aristotle thinks he can demonstrate the existence of an immovable substance, the science which investigates this substance is the most universal science of all; in short, theology is first philosophy. Clearly the identification of theology with first philosophy assumes that the subject matter of theology is knowable. As Wolfson points out, Aristotle ascribes multiple predicates to God-thinking, living, being pleased, causing motion, lasting eternally-without ever suggesting that these predicates compromise the simplicity of the divine substance.4 On the other hand, Aristotle is aware that God does not live or think the way we do. So terms like lives or thinks cannot be synonyms . But if God is to be investigated scientifically, neither can they be homonyms. Aristotle needs something between the two extremes . The standard solution is to invoke "predication by reference " or what Aristotle calls predication pros hen.5 According to this doctrine, words like substance, unity, or thought have different meanings when applied to different things...