Moses Mendelssohn: Writings on Judaism, Christianity, and the Bible

III. Miscellany

III | Miscellany 233 Prefatory Note to Selections 19. On the Religious Legitimacy of Studying Logic; 20. An Ontological Proof for God’s Existence; 21. A Cosmological Proof for God’s Existence; 22. A Proof for the Immortality of the Soul; 23. A Rational Foundation for Ethics; 24. On the Possibility of Miracles; and 25. On the Reliability of Miracles Mendelssohn’s first Hebrew commentary was his 1761 Elucidation of [Maimo­ nides’s] “Logical Terms.” The introduction to the commentary (selection 19) can be understood as the flip side of Mendelssohn’s project in Jerusalem. Whereas in his German Jerusalem, Mendelssohn seeks to justify Judaism before the skeptical tribunal of philosophy, in his Hebrew introduction to Maimonides’s Logical Terms, he seeks to justify the study of logic before the skeptical tribunal of Jewish tradition. I next present four examples of Mendelssohn’s rationalist metaphysics. His 1763 “Treatise on Evidence,” known as the “Prize Essay,” includes philosophical demonstrations for God’s existence and the first principles of ethics. Mendelssohn ’s main demonstration of God’s existence in this work is an ontological argument based on Leibniz’s refinement of Descartes’s proof (selection 20). This proof is severely criticized by Jacobi in his On the Doctrine of Spinoza and by Kant in his Critique of Pure Reason (1781). Mendelssohn’s proof of the general principles of ethics in the “Treatise on Evidence” derives ethical obligation from the universal desire for perfection (selection 23). Mendelssohn offers an original, intriguing proof for the immortality of the soul in his 1767 Phädon, which anticipates Kant’s postulates of practical reason in important ways (selection 22). The proof also provides an eloquent expression of why Mendelssohn regards religious belief as indispensable for happiness. In his 1785 Morning Hours, Mendelssohn offers a new version of the cosmological proof for God’s existence that argues for the existence of a perfect mind from the imperfection of human knowledge (selection 21). Kant was greatly intrigued by this proof. In a letter to Gottfried Schütz dated November 1785, he called it “an extremely penetrating pursuit of our chain of concepts” that “provides us with a splendid opportunity as well as a challenge to subject our capacity of pure reason to a total critique.” Thefinaltwoselectionsdealwithmiracles.AlthoughinJerusalem,Mendelssohn asserts that performing miracles can enhance a prophet’s trustworthiness, he 234 does not explains his grounds for believing in the possibility of miracles. Nor does he explain why he accepts the miracles of the Old Testament as enhancing the authority of Old Testament prophets, but does not accept the miracles of the New Testament, which Christians take as evidence that God brokered a new covenant with humanity that supersedes the old covenant between God and the people of Israel. An important passage from Mendelssohn’s “CounterReflections to Bonnet’s Palingenesis” (selection 24) helps clarify his view of the possibility of miracles, while a passage from his 1770 letter to Bonnet (selection 25) explains why Mendelssohn only accepts the authority bestowed by Old Testament miracles. Sources Selection 19. On the Religious Legitimacy of Studying Logic, JubA 14:27–30 (in Hebrew). Selection 20. An Ontological Proof for God’s Existence, JubA 2:300–301 (in German). Selection 21. A Cosmological Proof for God’s Existence, JubA vol. 3, pt. 2: 141–43 (in German). Selection 22. A Proof for the Immortality of the Soul, JubA vol. 3, pt. 1:115–18 (in German). Selection 23. A Rational Foundation for Ethics, JubA 2:315–17 (in German). Selection 24. On the Possibility of Miracles, JubA 7:77–79 (in German). Selection 25. On the Reliability of Miracles, JubA 7:324–25 (in German). ...