That the God of the Philosophers is Not the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob1

N Samuelson - Harvard Theological Review, 1972 - cambridge.org
N Samuelson
Harvard Theological Review, 1972cambridge.org
How can we decide if in fact Judah Halevi, Pascal, and Martin Buber were right when they
asserted that the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is not the God of the Philosophers? First
we must clarify what they were asserting. What they meant was that the purported entity
which the Biblical-Judaic-Christian-Moslem tradition identifies as “God” is not the same
entity as the purported entity which the Jewish-Moslem-Christian traditions of philosophy
identify as “God.” Presupposed in this assertion is that it is possible to say some things about …
How can we decide if in fact Judah Halevi, Pascal, and Martin Buber were right when they asserted that the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is not the God of the Philosophers? First we must clarify what they were asserting. What they meant was that the purported entity which the Biblical-Judaic-Christian-Moslem tradition identifies as “God” is not the same entity as the purported entity which the Jewish-Moslem-Christian traditions of philosophy identify as “God.” Presupposed in this assertion is that it is possible to say some things about each entity and on the basis of what is said about each it can be determined that they are not the same entity. It should be noted that if we claim that either entity is in every respect unknowable, there would be no way to make the assertion in question. Also it should be noted that the assertion in question does not entail that either or both entities exist. “A unicorn is not a centaur” entails some knowledge of both but it does not entail that either exists. The same is the case with the claim that Zeus is not Marduk.
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