Is The Guide For The Perplexed Relevant To A Contemporary Jew?

I was directed by a friend to an excellent article by Rabbi Moshe Becker, The Timeless Message of Moreh Nevuchim .

Rabbi Becker first shows that the accepted understanding of the medieval readers of the Moreh as well as those who read him since was that Rambam’s goal in writing the Moreh was to synthesize Aristotelian science and philosophy with the Torah. That understanding led to a wide and diverse interpretation of Rambam. Some asserted that his “secret” or esoteric positions denied creation ab nihilo, accepted eternity of the universe, denied God’s involvement in the world and basically saw him as a heretic. Some of those who interpreted him this way claimed that the Moreh was a forgery attributed to Rambam of Mishne Torah or in the best of circumstances, parts of the Moreh were written by others. Others, who could not accept that Rambam could have such heretic beliefs, offered a convoluted and clearly forced interpretation. This led to the Moreh being ignored in Yeshivot and becoming the interest exclusively of academics and historians who ignore the evidence from all his writings, that Rambam was, first and foremost, a deeply religious and committed Jew.[1] This interpretation also makes the Moreh irrelevant to contemporary theological thinkers. Aristotelian science is archaic and has been replaced by modern science which has shown it to be wrong. How then can Rambam’s understanding, based on a disproven theory, be of any relevance to a contemporary Jew?

Rabbi Becker however points out that Rambam many times in the Moreh insists that he is not writing a philosophical but rather a theological treatise. Rambam therefore presents a theological position that we must accept as Jews, that God willed the universe into existence in time; He therefore has free will and acts freely as He wishes. This position is fundamentally the opposite of Aristotle who believed in an unchanging God who is eternally parallel with the universe. Please read Rabbi Becker’s article linked above, before going on.

I would like to add to this [2] that Rambam teaches in the Moreh that it is important to differentiate between what can be scientifically proven and what cannot, the how and whys of existence. Rambam spends many chapters at the end of the first part and at the beginning of the second part making that point. He dedicates chapter 2:15 to demonstrate that Aristotle could not prove[3] the eternity of the universe and that he, Aristotle, was well aware of it. It is a theory that can never be proven. Nor can the opposite theory, that God created the universe in time, be proven. Consequently, the idea that God has will is not provable as creation from nothingness is the strongest indication that He does have will[4]. The fact that these things are not provable has not changed since Aristotelian science has been debunked. Contemporary science has not changed this. We still do not know what preceded the Big Bang or what triggered the event.

In MN 1:50 Rambam teaches us that, “If in addition to this we are convinced that the thing cannot be different in any way from what we believe it to be, and that no reasonable argument can be found for the rejection of this belief or for the admission of any deviation from it, then the belief is true.” From a theological point of view, we cannot accept anything other than that God has free will. We cannot accept the deterministically bound God of Aristotle as that would negate religion. We therefore have to make sure and check that belief in a God with free will does not contradict any laws of science and consequently reality. If it does not, we must accept it as truth. Rambam teaches us this in Moreh Hanevuchim showing us how he dealt with the science of his times. The same applies to us and is extremely relevant to us. No matter how science evolves, the same will remain true. Science deals with the here and now while theology deals with the “before and after, the whys and the wherefores”.

I have written about this many times on my blog and I keep on coming back to it. I struggled with this immensely during many years having the notion that there must be a proof for God having created the world from nothingness. Without that, I thought that religion and its teachings stood on very shaky grounds. We have this notion because that is how science is viewed. It requires actual confirmation of any new theory[5]. Realizing that religion was not science, it only had to be compatible with science, was an eye opener to me. I believe that this is the underlying teaching of Rambam’s Moreh and makes his treatise as relevant to us as is his Mishne Torah.






[1] The conclusion in this last sentence is my own – not Rabbi Becker.
[2] and also modify some details in Rabbi Becker’s presentation
[3] Not as Rabbi Becker writes, “did not hold”.
[4] They are “ontological” explanations.
[5] For an interesting discussion of this subject, see Rabbi Dr. Dror Fixler’s article in the latest issue of BDD.