Introduction
Throughout the history of philosophy and theology the question of the relation between
reason and revelation as the two ways of leading to the recognition of truth has always
been discussed. Is human reason capable of recognizing and understanding the phenomena of
the physical world? Can it make any statements about the metaphysical realm (provided that
it exists at all)? Or may be man has to depend on religious truth, as in Christianity
e.g., which claims to be based on the concept of incarnation as truth? What is the
relation between reason and belief, between philosophy and theology? Does one exclude the
other, or do both have a function with a common concern? If so, perhaps one way is only of
an instrumental character while the other is actually expressing the aim itself? Many
answers have been given during the long history of philosophical and theological
endeavour. According to Anselm of Canterbury, both ways are important, but religion or
belief is dominant. Hegel, though agreeing with the necessity of both approaches,
emphasizes the decisive role of philosophy, because according to him the absolute spirit
reaches it's highest level only in the pure form of thought, while religion is the
presentation of spirit as mere feeling. As opposed to these two thinkers, who hold that
religion and philosophy are two independently legitimate ways of recognizing truth, there
are other philosophers (such as Thomas Aquinas), who are of the opinion that philosophy
can only prove certain principles while other principles can only be proven by revelation.
And finally there are those thinkers who espouse a complete dichotomy between the
theological and philosophical approches.
Theologians like Karl Barth, Schleiermacher and others speak about the priority of
belief, while philosophers like Kant and others speek about that of reason.(1)
Our main question is if reason is capable of making decisive statements in the mundus
sensibilis ac intelligibilis. Perhaps our faculty of reason can only be used in the realm
of the mundus sensibilis, as Kant holds, and as a result the metaphysical world is left to
our beliefs.(2) Or may be, we should leave this Kantian
notion after Feuerbach and Nietzsche and accept Wittgenstein's advice to keep silent about
matters which we cannot comprehend?
The Rationalistic School
In order to attempt at giving an answer to the aforementioned questions, I now turn to
the Jewish biblical-rabbinical-philosophical tradition. It has been correctly emphasized
that the differentia specifica of Judaism is the prohibition of making a graven image, as
it is expressed in the Decalogue. This means that Judaism is not a world-view, but rather
a world-understanding. It is not written "See, Israel, the Lord, our God, is
unique", rather "Hear" is written.(3)
According to Maimonides, and other Jewish philosophers, the Hebrew term for the word
"hear" has three meanings: to listen, to accept, and to understand.(4)
Hearing, as the most sophisticated of the five senses, needs to be developed in favor of
the intellectual approach of man to apprehend truth. This must be done in order to
understand the essence of life as best we can.(5) In
addition, the traditional explanation of the second verse of Psalm 1,(6)
which discusses the righteous man whose "delight is in the law of the Lord and on his
law he meditates day and night", reads the first part of the verse as the "law
of the Lord" and the second part as "law of man". This is done, in order to
emphasize the biblical dialectics between heteronomy and autonomy, between
suprarationalism and rationalism, or — according to the scholastic terminology —
between lumen supranaturale and lumen naturale. A third example of these dialectics is the
classical Jewish interpretation of Genesis 1,26: "Then God said 'Let us make man in
our image, after our likeness'".(8) Maimonides expounds
in the first chapter of his "Guide for the Perplexed" the Hebrew words for
"image" and "likeness" as referring to "the specific form of man,
viz., his intellectual perception" and he concludes this chapter saying: "On
this account, i.e., on account of the Divine intellect with which man has been endowed, he
is said to have been made in the form and likeness of the Almighty, but far from it be the
notion that the Supreme Being is corporal, having a material form.(9)
After having refered briefly to the rationalistic understanding of the biblical
tradition I now turn to the two main schools of thought which have been prevalent
throughout the history of Jewish philosophy. The rationalistic school is associated
especially with the aforementioned Maimonides, with Moses Mendelssohn and Hermann Cohen.
The so-called antirationalistic school has been associated mainly with the medieval
philosopher-theologian Judah Halevi and the nineteenth-century German theologian Salomon
Levi Steinheim (to mention only the most important representatives of these schools). I
would like to emphasize that the term "antirationalistic" should not be confused
with "irrationalistic", because, as it will become clear during the course of
this essay, Jewish sources do not permit an irrationalistic approach.
Maimonides (1135-1204) is recognized as one of the greatest physicians of his time,
practically and theoretically. His code serves as the most important systematic
arrangement of talmudic law and his philosophy has had enormous impact not only on Jewish
thought, but also on scholastic theology and European philosophy in modern times.(10)
Here I only refer to one theme of Maimonide's rationalistic approach, namely his
definition of prophecy and revelation, which is spelled out in his different legal works
and especially in his "Guide", part I, chapters 32-48. Contrary to the opinion
that revelation does not depend on the intellectual faculty of man, but has to be
understood as a divine act of grace, Maimonides holds the intellectual preparation of man
as a conditio sine qua non for reaching the truth. This highest level of human perfection
can only be reached after intensive studying: "Consequently he who wishes to attain
to human perfection, must therefore first study Logic, next the various branches of
Mathematics in their proper order, then Physics, and lastly Metaphysics."(11)
So it depends on man to transform his potential intellectual faculty into real action.
Then, and here Maimonides speaks the language of Aristotelian philosophy, the active
intellectual faculty of man can reach the lowest level of the mundus intelligibilis, i.e.
the "active intellect". Through this active intellect, divine emanation will
reach man after intensive study of all disciplines and thus man can reach the level of a
prophet. As a result he will be able to understand the divine attributes, which are
expressed in the mundus sensibilis as the laws of nature, without, and this must be
emphasized, knowing something positively about the essence of the Divine. This is because
all biblical divine attributes have to be understood in the sense of a negative theology.
Moses, as the "father" of all prophets, is distinguished, in this philosophy,
from all other levels of prophecy, in so far as he is a prophet-philosopher sui generis.
Maimonides goes on to claim that the people of Israel only heard the "sound of
words" on Sinai (with the exception of the two first commandments about the existence
and uniqueness of God).(12) Due to his extraordinary
intellectual faculties, Moses functioned as the instructor of the divine commandments.
This rationalsitic concept of revelation greatly influenced Moses Mendelssohn
(1729-1786). In the second part of his "Jerusalem or on religious power and on
Judaism" (1783), Mendelssohn, philosopher of European enlightenment, pupil of
Leibniz-Wolff, holds that the faith of Judaism is identical with universal truth and that
the metaphysical themes are common to all men and are universally true. He also claims
that divine legislation alone belongs to the sphere of revelation, whereas universal
religious truth does not. Here he bases his philosophy, by and large, on the
biblical-rabbinical Noachide theology according to which "the pious of all nations
have a share in the world to come."(13) One of the main
functions of Jewish legislation is to defend pure monotheism against the inroads of
idolatry in it's various forms, because only monotheism can guarantee the eternal truths
for the sake of mankind. These eternal truths can be achieved by intellectual endeavour.
Judaism, according to Mendelssohn, fulfills all the criteria of reason, unlike
Christianity with it's belief in incarnation. This is how Mendelssohn answers the question
of the Duke of Braunschweig-Wolfenbüttel who asked him why he, Mendelssohn, is able to
accept the Old, but not the New Testament. According to Mendelssohn, the essential
doctrines of Christianity, as the trinity, incarnation, the suffering of the Divine,
original sin, vicarious atonement etc., are opposed to the religion of reason: "On
the other hand, I do not find in the Old Testament anything which is equal to these
doctrines, which contradict, according to my understanding, good reason."(14)
The last great example of the rationalistic school is Hermann Cohen (1842-1918), the
founder and leader of the Neo-Kantian Marburg school. One of his main problems is the
relationship between ethics and religion. Should religion be added as a separate dimension
of consciousness? In his earlier works Cohen emphasizes the role of ethics, while the idea
of God only functions as the guarantee of the realization of the ethical idea. However, in
his later period, especially in his two books "Der Begriff der Religion im System der
Philosophy", 1915 (The Concept of Religion in the System of Philosophy) and
"Religion der Vernunft aus den Quellen des Judentums", 1919 (Religion of Reason
drawn from the Sources of Judaism), Cohen attempts to give religion an individual task,
though it is not independent. Man as an individual sinner, cannot be redeemed from his
guilt by the moral commandment alone. This is a religious problem, not a purely ethical
one.
Only the biblical concept of the correlation between man and God can solve this
problem. Nevertheless, unlike Christianity, man is the active partner in this correlation
in practicing the act of purification. Thus Cohen describes revelation not as a historical
event in the past, but as an eternal process of correlation between divine and human
reason. Like Maimonides and Mendelssohn, he understands Judaism to be the example par
excellence of the Religion of Reason. In his last work he does not intend to formulate a
Jewish Philosophy of Reason, but, as the title indicates, a Religion of Reason from the
sources of Judaism. As the result of the analysis of the Jewish Religion we attain the
Religion of Reason, which teaches the best ethical world order, which can only be
established by an imitation of the biblical divine attributes.(15)
The "antirationalistic" school
Almost all Jewish philosophers deny that the divine attributes teach us something
about the essence of the Divine. Concerning this theme there is no difference between the
representatives of the so-called rationalistic or antirationalistic schools. From the
latter school, the most imporant figures are Rabbi Judah Halevi in the Middle Ages and
Salomon Levi Steinheim in modern times. Judah Halevi (1085-1141), the author of "The
Kuzari"(16) tries (much like the Islamic theologian
al-Ghazali in his book "Destruction of Philosophy") to attack Aristotelian
philosophy (book I, 63-65 of the "Kuzari"), in order to free revelation from
philosophical inroads. According to Halevi (book III, 53) man cannot perceive theological
truths, but only knows of them through the tradition which has been handed down throughout
history. He goes on to show (IV, 25) that philosophical schools contradict one another,
which in his opinion shows the weakness of philosophical thinking. Philosophical questions
of great importance, like e.g. whether or not the world was created, cannot be answered on
purely philosophical ground. Even Maimonides, the great rationalist, concurs with the
above view and as a result he does not accept the Aristotelian view of eternity, rather he
accepts the biblical concept of creatio ex nihilo. For Halevi truth is revealed. Unlike
Maimonides, he is of the opinion that "the divine influence as well as the souls have
a secret which is not identical with" what the philosopher thinks.(17)
There are certain conditions which enable prophecy, which is restricted to the Jewish
People when they live in their Land and practice the divine law. If the rational moral law
is of universal character, the specific ceremonial law, like prayer, worship, diatery and
purity laws etc., qualifies the Jew to reach the divine influence gradually. Judah Halevi
deals at lenght with certain aspects of the Jewish law and through this we see his deep
knowledge of the talmudic-rabbinic sources, which are very rational indeed. Since learning
and understanding of the Talmud is an integral part of keeping the law, and since this is
one of the prerequisites for reaching the level of the prophetic divine influence, it is
clear that Judah Halevi, in spite of his antiphilosophical approach, cannot be called an
'irrationalist'.
I would like to mention another two Jewish theologians in modern times who, like Judah
Halevi, are of the opinion that the philosophical-dialectical thought process cannot lead
to the recognition of theological or metaphysical truths: these theologians are Salomon
Levi Steinheim (1789-1866) and Franz Rosenzweig (1886-1929). I will restrict myself to the
theology of Steinheim(18) as a sufficiant example in this
framework, because he had already anticipated certain ideas (especially with respect to
his criticism of German idealism), which Rosenzweig at the beginning of this century
spelled out in his "Star of Redemption".(19)
Steinheim, who also became known as a physician and as one who was involved in the
struggle for the emancipation of the Jews, developed in his magnum opus "Die
Offenbarung nach dem Lehrbegriffe der Synagoge" (Revelation according to the Doctrine
of the Synagogue)(20) his understanding of the relationship
between Reason and Revelation. Only in the last two generations has his epistemological
approach evoked interest, especially in Jewish circles, but also in the Christian
theological world. Karl Barth, e.g., whose 'word-theology' is very close to Steinheim's
approach, became interested in his books, as we see in his letter to the philosopher of
religion Hans-Joachim Schoeps (February 17, 1933).(21)
Steinheim, the scientist, writes at the beginning of the second volume of his magnum opus.
We intend to give the same recognition, which in our century natural science in all its
branches has gained, to religion. We hope that just as astrology, alchemy and magic have
evolved into the powerful disciplines of astronomy, chemistry and physics, so also will
theosophy and the 'Theology-of-Feeling' finally become elevated to Theology. Theology will
then assume an honorable place at the side of the other faculties and acquire a reputation
and rank which thus far it has not earned.(22)
On the one hand Steinheim opposes the rationalistic approach of the metaphysicians, and
on the other hand he fights against those theologians who only base revelation on feeling.
This position against German idealism and the theology of Schleiermacher resulted in
Steinheim's ostracism. As opposed to the thought of the aforementioned schools, Steinheim
emphasizes the important role that critical reason plays as one aspect of human
intellectual endeavour. The other endeavour that Steinheim emphasizes is dogmatic or
constructive reason. According to him the attempt of the philosophers to build their
systems by means of constructive reason has been unsuccessful. Steinheim, using Kantian
terminology, attributes this to the fact that:
Our reason is not only confused a priori in and of itself in these antonomies of
thinking, so that it has to give up trying to understand the 'thing-in-itself, (the
essence of things). Rather our reason even finds itself with that which it seems to have
understood (that which is construed a priori in an obvious contradiction to the facts.
Reason not only finds nothing through a priori demonstration and construing; on the
contrary, it suggests the very opposite of reality. Its certain 'knowledge' is the
opposite of, and in contradiction to, reality. Therefore, the discrepancy expands from the
sphere of pure thinking to exact cognition; from absolute thinking to inductive cognition.(23)
Steinheim expounds the 'inner' antinomy of Kant to an 'outer' one, saying that our
demonstrable thinking does not only lead to antinomies of theses and antitheses, but that
it also stands in contradiction to the phenomena of the world of senses which is
characterized by the wonderful character of non-contradiction. Only with the help of the
critical reason we can recognize the physical world. This scientific approach Steinheim
calls faith, which is identical with the latin fidere or the Aristotalian pistis. These
terms correspond to the hebrew word for faith (emunah), unlike the english 'belief', the
latin credere, or the french croyance which belong to the terminology of irrationalism. By
means of this inductive method, Steinheim shows that the more-mathematico- method of the
metaphysicians leads to unrealistic results. The example of water shows the distinction
between what is thinkable, but not real and what is recognizable and therefore real. Water
contracts at a temperature of 0° C, but when the cooling process continues further, it
suddenly begins to expand; and this, indeed, is a surprising phenomenon, thaumaston ti.
Water, having reached 0° C, subsides since it has a smaller volume. Thereafter it raises,
expands, and becomes lighter. Were nature to follow the law of continuing contradiction,
as a result of decreasing temperature, all northern oceans would turn into a massive ice
layer during one winter. Schleiden, whom Steinheim quotes, says that then only a small
strip alongside the equator would be habitable.(24) The
question is if we can also apply this inductive method to the mundus intelligibilis.
Steinheim agrees with Kant that our dogmatic reason cannot say anything about the
metaphysical world. But he, as a theologian, knows about truths like the uniqueness of
God, creatio ex nihilo, the freedom of man, etc., from revelation. Steinheim shows that
the mundus sensibilis ac intelligibilis constitute the same reality by which the same
method of thinking can be applied. Both realities are expressed by their wonder- and
event-character which is not bound to necessity and is free of antinomies. Therefore the
content of revelation is real, just as the phenomena of this physical world are existing
and not only ideas.
As Kant has shown, we can prove causality and freedom. These dual results of thinking
are opposed to one another, but are both, nevertheless, equally inevitable conclusions.(25)
They cannot exist together. However, the concept of creatio ex nihilo solves this
contradiction, because it guarantees on the one hand complete freedom (because the creator
is not bound to eternal matter) and on the other hand it does not deny causality after the
act of creation. Man, as part of the physical world, is therefore also part of the
causal-nexus. Nevertheless, as being created in the image of the creator, he also has the
power to decide, as a result of his participation in divine freedom. What follows from all
this, is that Steinheim, the theologian par excellence, who trusts in the reality of the
content of revelation, does not dethrone reason, since he uses the tools of critical
reason. Like the facta, the content of revelation is inconceivable, but nevertheless
requires scientific recognition. His theology therefore is not the credo quia absurdum of
Tertullian, but the trust in the credo quamquam sit absurdum, the trust in the reality of
the content of revelation though it is opposed to the rational axioms.
The rejection of irrationalism in Jewish thought
The above short depiction of the important representatives of the two main-schools of
Jewish thought, the 'rationalists' and the 'antirationalists', shows that despite their
many differences, all Jewish philosophies share rational characteristics. Even the
so-called antirationalists are not willing (unlike the irrationalists as Schleiermacher
and Kierkegaard) to give up reason in favor of a leap into the realm of religion or
belief. This has to be explained — as I have already mentioned — by the
importance of learning in Judaism. The studying of the written and oral law is a religious
duty, a kind of sacrament, as it is already expressed in the Hebrew Bible: "And these
words which
I command you this day shall be upon your heart; and you shall teach them diligently to
your children."(26) According to a talmudic dictum,
learning counterbalances all other duties(27), because an
ignorant person cannot be truly pious.(28) Therefore the
study-house, or the talmud-academy, is more important even than, the synagogue, which is
merely a place of prayer. Therefore a synagogue should also be a place of study. Comparing
this attitude with the general philosophical tradition, I would say that it contradicts
Plato's view as expressed in "Meno" according to which enquiry and learning are
impossible; they only are, or remembering. Aristotle's notion of potential knowledge, on
the other hand, is very close to the rational character of Jewish thought. I have tried to
outline in a few words some contributions of the Jewish tradition which might serve for
the promotion of advanced educational research.
I am aware of the fact that the task that this general philosophical-historical outline
has suggested, still has to be spelled out. I wish it only to serve as a theoretical base
on which educational projects can be built, provided that they take into consideration the
biblical view that man should use and develop his rational faculty, both to
"conquer"(29) the world and to be aware of his
being created.
|
