The Seventh Premise – Privations as Things | Part I, Chapter 73 (10) | Guide for the Perplexed 165 (Auto Translated)

Seventh Premise of the Mutakallimun: Privations of Accidents as Existent Things

Connection to the Fourth Premise

We are holding on the seventh premise, the seventh premise of the Mutakallimun, yes? The truth is that the seventh premise is something that he already mentioned, more or less, in the fourth premise, yes, in the fourth premise. But let’s read here and see what this is connected to the fourth premise and how it is innovated here and there, yes?

After all, we already learned that all these premises in the end are very much joined to one conception, when he makes separate premises it’s only in order to emphasize a certain aspect of the same thing.

So the fourth premise was that accidents exist, and the Rambam there wrote that the fact that there are accidents in principle is agreed upon, but the way they understand accidents is not agreed upon, and one, and Shmuel said that what is not agreed upon is that they think that everything is accidents, and that every thing must have an opposite, yes? There must be either for example life or death and so on. And there he didn’t declare this explicitly, he didn’t enter into this explicit point, but it was actually based on this seventh premise, that according to the view of the Kalam, privations of accidents are also existent things, yes?

Text of the Seventh Premise

He says like this: The seventh premise is their statement that they believe that privations of accidents are existent matters in the body added to its essence. Yes, that accidents exist in the body in addition to its essence, to something, to its essence, this is true. But they think that the law of privation is the law of affirmation, yes, privations are also existent things.

The Difficulties Arising from the Premise

In the fourth premise, what he brought this to absurdity, that this means that from this it follows that within every stone there is an accident of stupidity, yes, an accident of ignorance, because otherwise why isn’t it wise and so on. And here he enters into the essence of this point, and he speaks about what is connected to exactly this question, and the Rambam here raises other difficulties on exactly this point, that privation must be a created thing.

And we remember that privation of an existent thing, this means that God creates all the time also the privations, yes? Because accidents are the thing that God creates, as we learned in the sixth premise. So it turns out that He creates also the privations.

And they are existent accidents as well, and they are existent matters in the body — meaning that this is the definition of accident — and they are also existent accidents, and behold, according to this it follows, they will always be created. Whenever a thing is lost, a thing will be created, yes? The moment something is lost, then He creates this privation all the time. Why? What is the matter?

Explanation of the View: Rest, Death and Blindness as Created Accidents

And the explanation of this, yes? This is the formulation of their statement, and he is going to explain what actually is the meaning in this.

The explanation is that they do not see that rest is the privation of motion, nor that death is the privation of life, nor blindness the privation of sight, nor all that is similar to this from the privations of accidents. Yes, accident is another word for accident, yes, something that is acquired by something else.

So they don’t think that rest is simply that there is no motion, or that death is simply no life, or blindness is simply not the power of sight, seeing.

But the law of motion and rest with them is the law of heat and cold. And just as heat and cold are two existent accidents in two subjects, heat and cold, so every motion is a created accident in the moving thing, and rest is an accident that God will create in the resting thing.

The Distinction Between Contraries and Contradictories

Yes, so I already noted this in the fourth premise, yes? According to Aristotle, according to the truth, that the Rambam at least thinks, there is a fundamental difference between heat and cold and between motion and rest, for example, yes?

Heat and Cold as Contraries

Heat and cold are contraries, one can call them contrast, I forgot the words now. What is the difference between contrary and contradictory? Contrary is a thing that the more there is of this thing, there is less of this thing, yes? Heat and cold, we would even say more sharply, heat and cold are places on the line of warmth, yes? Cold is simply another word for less heat, or heat is simply another word for less cold.

We can, they are not really things that contradict each other, yes? Every thing that is hot, unless it is hot in an absolute way, I don’t know if there is heat in an absolute way. Every thing that is a little hot, yes — physics today thinks that heat is motion of particles, so we won’t enter into this. We are speaking about heat in the sense that it is a quality in a thing, the old Aristotelian sense, not the new sense of heat as motion of molecules and so on.

So to be hot, every thing that is also, yes, this is not a contradiction, every thing that is hot is also a little cold, every thing that is cold is also a little hot, cold is simply less heat, and heat is less cold.

So therefore we think, we can say that heat and cold which are contrary, they are both existent accidents, yes? Not only are they both existent accidents, one can speak of them even as the same accident if one wants, yes? It is the same quality that includes heat and cold, we don’t have a word for this, so we say it is two accidents that exist in two subjects, the capacity, that which can contain warmth and that which can contain coldness, but it’s the same thing.

And therefore in heat and cold, in such accidents, white, black, all kinds of accidents that work in this way, it is true that the privation exists, or in other words, it is not really a privation. To be hot is not the opposite of being cold, it is the contrary of being cold and not the opposite of being cold. If someone says, I am both hot, both hot and cold, he is not saying a lie. He is not contradicting himself actually, because this, both exist.

Motion and Rest, Life and Death as Contradictories

So now, but the Kalam held that both things, that this is also regarding life and death. We think that life is simply that you have a property of living, but to die is not, there is no some thing that is to die. One can also say there is no more or less, yes? These are things that don’t have more or less.

Even if there is more or less, it still works in a way of contradiction. To be alive is not that you have a little death. Whoever is alive is completely not dead, and whoever is dead is completely not alive, or at least in the same relation, in the same aspect in which he is not alive, he is completely not alive, and therefore he is dead.

And therefore we don’t need in our worldview, we don’t need some explanation for death, we don’t need a thing called death, or a thing called blindness, or a thing called rest, there is no such thing as rest. Rest is the word we call an object that doesn’t have in it the accident of motion. But we don’t need, rest is not an existent thing, there is no such accident of rest. Rest is simply that there is no motion.

The Theological Motive of the Kalam System

So this is the system of what are they called? This is the system of Aristotle, but the system of the Kalam is that also rest is an accident. Because they have, one can say, they have a broader sense of the word accident, yes? Accident is simply every thing that we say about another thing, and not only existent things, or at least they think that also things of this type are existent in the sense that God does them, because this is what they always, their criterion for a thing is something that God does, yes, and they very much want God to do these things, this is actually how it worked.

Yes, let’s read, he says this explicitly, I think. And therefore, yes, because after all they want, after all we learned in the previous lesson, the whole tendency of the Kalam system is that we can say in a correct way that God creates everything, that God does everything, not only creates, does everything and He is responsible for all actions.

And because many things that exist in the world are losses, they are privations, blindness, it is written in a verse, God says who makes mute, who makes seeing or blind. So according to Aristotle, the Rambam translates this, God makes people seeing, and consequently in a secondary way He also makes blind people, because whoever He doesn’t give the power to see is blind, but God doesn’t directly make blind people.

Yes, this is also going to be his answer to the problem of evil, yes, in the end, in the third part. God doesn’t do evil things, because to be evil is to be a privation, and God doesn’t do privations, because privations are not things, a thing that is not, doesn’t need to be done.

But we can understand from here that this is something that is not comfortable for the Kalam theologians, they are all the time busy seeking the science that will enable them to say, God does everything. And because there is darkness in the world and there is death in the world and all kinds of such things, so we need to say, God makes death, yes?

Of course, when for example to say that God kills people is not a problem, because death is change, yes? To be to kill, the intention is, He causes some, He creates something that produces the opposite of life, yes? Or that He gives life, this has a limited time and in the end a person dies, in this sense God makes death.

But here actually the point is its most innovative, most important of the Kalam. Later when something dies, yes? Aristotle can say, or the Rambam can say, God killed someone, and now God…

Privative Accidents as Positive Accidents

But we remember that the Kalam theologians are more consistent than this, yes? They don’t agree to say that God, that any thing is because of yesterday, because yesterday is not God. So therefore they need to say that if someone died and he is still dead, it’s because God makes him still be dead. And after all to be dead is an accident of privation, it’s not a thing. And then if it’s not a thing, then God cannot do it. So they need to make that God makes all the dead dead and all the living alive, and it’s the same thing from His perspective. Because also to be dead is an accident. And therefore they say, and it will not stand two times also, and see as preceded in the premise before this.

After all the accident of death, if death is an accident, it’s not that death is simply that God stops making life and death remains, but rather that death is an accident, after all an accident doesn’t stand two times, as we learned.

The Example of Rest

Behold this resting body, so if we see something resting, with them God created rest in every part of its parts, every atom and atom, God all the time creates rest within the resting thing. And whenever rest is absent, yes, at every moment, at every second that passes the measure of the accident’s duration, then there is an absence of rest, and He will create another rest all the time that the resting thing rests. And this enables them to say that God makes the resting things be resting, yes?

The Example of Foolishness

And it is the same analogy with them regarding wisdom and foolishness. For foolishness with them is existent and it is an accident. Foolishness according to their view is an accident and it is existent. There is such a thing and what kind of thing is it an accident. And foolishness will not depart, foolishness will be lost and foolishness will be created always, will be created, yes? All the time, yes? The fools are fools all the time anew. God all the time makes them be fools. Whenever the fool continues, yes?

Yes, foolishness is not the word stupidity, yes, I all the time translate this as stupidity, but we don’t have a very good word in Hebrew to translate the word foolishness. Foolishness is lack of knowledge about something, yes? One can translate ignorance, but it’s not a type of person, he doesn’t mean a type of person, he means the opposite of knowledge, yes? Not the opposite, the contradictory of knowledge, yes? Wisdom can be something that is contrary, yes? A person can be less talented and more talented, less wise and more wise, and every wise person is really a little stupid in this sense, because human beings at least, no one is wise in an absolute sense, it’s something relative. But foolishness here is not to know something, yes?

And therefore, according to their view, that not this is also something, at every moment that something in the world doesn’t know something, God creates this foolishness anew. There is a lot of foolishness in the world, yes?

The Absurdity That Follows: God Creates Mainly Privations

Because in general, there is a lot, this all follows from wanting to make things, we can say that God does things all the time, and here follows some absurdity, I don’t know if this is an argument, but follows some absurdity, after all in the world there is much more not than yes, yes? There is much more foolishness than knowledge, than wisdom, yes? We all the time, all human beings and all the things in the world that can know, or even those that cannot know, according to their view, know a little and don’t know much more, yes?

Yes, and according to their view, that we don’t, it is forbidden to say that the not knowing is not God does, no, the not knowing like God does, so God all the time makes a lot of foolishness, yes, most of what He does is foolishness, yes, and rest, and death, yes, as if most things in the world are dead, and most things in the world are foolish, and most things in the world, so God all the time makes millions, billions of foolishnesses, and every moment anew, yes?

I think he means when he takes these examples of foolishness, because it sounds like this, that He makes, all the time makes foolishnesses, and all the time foolishnesses anew, yes? This is really most of what He does. Which doesn’t sound nice, yes? This is for people whose criterion is that theology should sound good, so the Rambam shows us that it doesn’t sound so good to say that God most of the time, all the time makes death and foolishness, and every moment anew millions of new ones. Yes?

And not only foolishness, and every person has a lot of foolishnesses, yes? Because foolishness is something that relates to knowledge, yes? I don’t know this and don’t know that, and each of these not knowings God creates every moment.

Life and Death as Accidents of Equal Status

And it is the same analogy regarding life and death, yes? The same analogy, yes? The same logic is regarding life and death, for both of them with them are accidents. And they will say in explanation that life will be lost and life will be created all the days that the living one lives, yes? After all according to their view also all the time that a person lives he has an accident of life and in the next moment these lives are lost and God creates anew life.

And when God wills his death, God wants someone to die, He will create in him the accident of death after the departure of the accident of life. Yes, this is not a contradiction, God doesn’t make a contradiction because the accident of life that passed was also only for a moment and in the next moment God already decided enough he lived enough already so He creates in him the accident of death after the departure of the accident of life, which will not stand two times, yes?

Actually God never kills anything, yes? This also, he also, I think, shows here something strange, according to their system, that according to their view, God never kills anyone, yes? Because to kill one can only what is alive. And according to their view there are no living things in the world, there are no living people in the world, there are only people who a moment ago were alive. But a moment ago doesn’t say anything about the next moment.

So one can say, it’s so easy for God, although easiness and difficulty he doesn’t say regarding God, according to all views, but it’s so easy for God to kill someone as to make him live, because it’s simply a binary choice, do I give him an accident of life or an accident of death? Okay, and in the next moment He gives an accident of death. There are no processes and so on, and yes, what seem to us processes are customs, as we will see later.

The Rambam’s Difficulty: Until When Does God Create Death in the Dead?

So this means the Rambam However, all of them say this in explanation, yes? Until here they say explicitly, you read the writings of the Kalam theologians, they say God all the time creates foolishness after foolishness, life after life, knowledge after knowledge. Presumably they don’t take the example of foolishness, but rather the example of knowledge, yes? They say that the knowledge you have, God creates it every moment anew, not the same, yes? He creates every moment anew a new knowledge, yes? To say God creates it every moment anew is also not accurate, because it’s not the same, there is no connection between the same of this moment and the same of the previous moment.

So until here they say in explanation, so one cannot come to them with complaints, as if to say that you are saying madness, although the Rambam a moment ago says that this is folly, as folly in man, yes, this is foolishness. In any case, they say this explicitly.

But, now says the Rambam, I am going to raise a difficulty against you, I don’t know if this is a difficulty, as I say, all these things are of the type of absurdities, it sounds very far, yes? I don’t know what the difficulty is. There is here some difficulty that he says, I will show you what follows from your assumptions, and you will see that there is here some problematic thing.

And it necessarily follows, according to this assumption, that the accident of death, yes, after all they say that no accident stands, so according to this also the accident of death which God will create, yes, they never continue too much time after death, this is what the Rambam is going to raise against them. After all they all the time say, okay, all the time that you are alive it’s simply that God created in you the accident of life within the living one, and the moment he dies, He created in him the accident of death, but says the Rambam, they are missing something. Why are they missing? They never tell us how much time He needs to continue and create the accident of death within the dead things, yes? After all every thing lasts only a moment.

So says the Rambam, it necessarily follows according to this assumption that the accident of death which God will create, it also will be absent in its time, and God will create another death, and without this death would not continue, yes? After all we can expect that maybe in another moment there is resurrection of the dead, this is not resurrection of the dead because it’s not the dead person, yes? But suddenly he is suddenly alive because God decided to make life. But just as life will be created after life so death will be created after death, yes? Just as they say that the living person all the time God creates in him the accident of life, so in the dead person they need to say that God creates in him the accident of death after death.

So they need to say, they don’t say this, because they like to speak about normal things, that a living person all the time receives vitality. It sounds strange indeed to say that a dead person receives all the time death. Why does this sound strange? Because it is very intuitive to understand that death is not a thing, death is not a thing. But this is not their view.

Until When Does the Creation of Death Continue?

And according to what says the Rambam, and I wonder, so I wonder about them, until when will God create the accident of death in the dead person? After all there is here some problem. But one must understand that according to their view this is not a problem, I think he is mainly making fun of them, I don’t know what he is doing here.

He says, because after all they don’t believe in forms, therefore I say, the Rambam asks like this, how long does God need to be occupied in creating the accident of death in the dead? All the days that his form stands? If all the time that the form of his body stands, after all the Rambam says, according to common sense, old bones of human beings are not human beings they are only some remnant of…

Continuation of the Discussion of the Accident of Death — The Problem of Physical Remains

So they don’t need to be dead, because why would they be alive? So maybe they will say, correct, God creates death all the time that the body is in the grave and it is still whole. Or maybe all the days that a bone of its bones stands, all the time that there is still a bone at all.

And this indeed, the Rambam here concludes, this is indeed what they need to say, because after all they don’t believe in the concept of form, yes? For the accidents of death which God will create, indeed will be created according to their will — according to their will? Strange, according to their view, according to His will, this is not according to their will, I don’t know what this according to their will is — in every individual atom of the atoms from them. Yes, after all here he says what was difficult for me, but after all we in our common sense say that even if there is such a thing as an accident of death, it is only in things to which death is relevant, like whole bodies of human beings — they can be dead, particles of bodies are not dead.

But according to their view, after all all accidents are always and only directly in individual atoms. And therefore there must be, so indeed there must be if they were to take consistently their conclusion, that God for all eternity, for all eternity creates the accident of death in the atoms of the dead all the time.

The Possibility of the Absence of the Atom Itself

And the Rambam says, and we, unless, there is perhaps an exception, if the substance itself is absent. We spoke about this, that there is some difficulty in understanding what it means that the substance is absent. If the substance itself is absent, that is, God, one could call it, God removes from the substance the accident of existence, then indeed it would be absent.

But the Rambam says, this doesn’t work that way, nature doesn’t work such that every person who dies, his substances are absent. Why? We find teeth of the dead that are thousands of years old. Yes, there was archaeology already a long time ago, already in the ancient world. And we can find teeth of the dead, yes, teeth are things that endure, actually also bones, bones but teeth especially live for thousands of years and this is proof that God did not make that substance absent. Yes, so the substance remains, something of the person, so one cannot say God made the substance of the person absent.

So it turns out that God has a lot of work. And if so, He creates in the accident of death all these thousands, every time death occurs He creates death all the time, as long as there is some substance or some teeth of the dead thousands of years old, still God creates in those substances and in those teeth the accident of death.

And the Rambam says this is the doctrine of their belief, this is the opinion of most of the Kalam, that indeed they say that most absences, most things that are not, God must constantly create them anew.

The Nature of the Argument — Reductio ad Absurdum Through Imagination

And the Rambam as it were raises a difficulty on this that… again, I don’t know if this is a difficulty, it’s simply something he infers, and the Rambam thinks this is strange. It’s strange because for the same reason, it’s not strange, yes, all the things we do are strange, yes, we intend in sum to say that as if you start from something non-intuitive, but I show you an example, some imaginary picture that from the perspective of logic there is no difference, but from the perspective of the picture it sounds even stranger.

To say that God constantly kills, yes, this is what I want, they must say that God is the one responsible for death. Here you have supposedly an imaginary claim, a claim that can be heard, yes, they come to the Aristotelians and say, you religious Aristotelians, you actually say that God never killed anyone, yes? He only stopped making them alive, and even that, it’s nature. But they stopped living, and then naturally they die, yes? People die on their own and God gives them life, that’s what you say.

And here one can hear, in normal language, that this sounds a bit strange, a religious person. After all, it is written, God kills and gives life, yes? Or as the Vilna Gaon says, it is written, God creates light, forms light and creates darkness, yes? According to your opinion, and they brought this, according to your opinion God does not create darkness, yes? God forms light, and if not, there is darkness.

The Rambam’s Response on the Creation of Darkness

The Rambam speaks explicitly about this, he says, yes, of course, darkness is the absence of light. And not only does the Rambam speak about this, it is also written in the Torah, yes? In the Torah it is not written that God created darkness, it is written that He created light, the darkness was there. Okay, Isaiah says that God creates darkness, but he doesn’t have to mean now in new physics where there is such a thing as darkness. He simply means that God is responsible also for the darkness, in that He gives a boundary to light, in that He creates light only in certain senses and so on.

But there were indeed children, like the Vilna Gaon, who indeed understood that there is here some strange language from a religious perspective, to say God does not create the darkness, yes? Of course this is not correct, no one says God does not create the darkness, but one can understand that there is here a claim.

So this is actually the claim of the Kalam in this sense. It’s strange to say that God does not kill, only gives life, or does not create darkness, only creates light. So they say, no, God creates darkness.

The Rambam’s Imaginary Response

But now, what does the Rambam do? He says, okay, you have an imaginary claim, a claim from this concrete picture of there is darkness and God does not create it. Okay, so I will now answer you with another imaginary claim, with another imaginary picture that comes out of your logic. Yes, after all according to your opinion, God creates darkness, but you have added and this is built on this, yes? If someone were to say God creates darkness, but not all the time, yes? Only once, and there is continuity — I don’t actually know what the Gaon thinks, if he believes in continuity, one should ask him. But if we remove this principle, then indeed it wouldn’t be so strange. He creates darkness, and then the darkness continues.

But the Kalam, because they were very consistent, they also didn’t believe in continuity. So they said, God creates darkness, and He must create it every moment all the time.

So the Rambam says, okay, so you are actually saying something new, and that sounds strange, even to religious ears it sounds strange to say, God continues to kill the people who died thousands of years ago. This sounds strange. Also a bit evil, yes? Not only strange, it also sounds evil. He’s such a murderer, He’s much more of a murderer than He is, yes?

The Connection to Part III — God Does Mainly Good

I’m inserting here a bit the Rambam’s claim in Part III, which I think also works with it, on the issue, this intuition. As if, it’s very religious to say that God does good things. It’s a bit less religious to say that He does bad things, although yes, of course, one must say that He also does bad things. But to say that He does mainly bad things, and all this time He is killing the dead, this sounds a bit strange.

But there is no argument here, yes? I’m only saying that there is no argument here, I don’t see an argument here. There is simply an expression of the absurdity of that imaginary picture that served them to say, you yourselves will admit here that it’s a bit strange to say that God kills everyone, and therefore why do you start, find a better theory from the beginning.

So until here was the opinion of the… yes, of course, there is the matter of resurrection of the dead, which can work with this.

The Opinion of the Mu’tazilites — Partial Compromise

This is the opinion of most of them, yes, and already in all these principles, in all these premises, the Rambam brings that there is a general system, and this is actually something, usually thought to be the more consistent system of the Mutakallimun, but there is always, because, yes, as we understood, precisely because there are very strange things to believe here, so there are always sects among them that tried to find compromises and other things.

And therefore they said thus, and some of the Mu’tazilites say, some of the absences of properties are not existent things, so some of the Mu’tazilites said that some of the absences, they are not really existing things. But they are things, they said that incapacity, yes, the inability, is the absence of capacity and foolishness the absence of wisdom, yes? They indeed understood that it sounds strange to say that there is foolishness or that there is lack of capacity, yes?

The Problem of Creating Weakness

God gives, all the time, yes, this, here there is another thing here, yes? God gives, there is capacity, this is say power, yes? Capacity to do things, there are certain things in the world that have power, most things don’t have power, or in most modes, so we must say that God all the time makes for all the weak things weakness, yes? Weakness is, we also call weakness only something that should have been strong, yes? A weak person, if he could have been healthy, now he is weak. We don’t say a person is weak in the sense that he cannot lift the entire mountain on his hands, yes? This is not weakness, this is incapacity, this is lack of ability.

But if lack is also something, then God all the time does this. And this indeed comes out something very strange. So they indeed said, some of the Mu’tazilites who had difficulty with this thing, so they indeed said, no, no, incapacity is simply absence, yes, it is not something separate from the absence of capacity, as according to the system of the Kalam, and foolishness is simply not wisdom and so on.

The Inconsistency of the Mu’tazilites

But the Rambam argues against them, as he is accustomed to argue here, that they are not consistent in this, yes, and this does not continue in every absence, they don’t continue to say this in every type of thing. They will not say that darkness is the absence of light, yes? After all they very much want to say that God makes the darkness. Nor that rest is the absence of motion, they also don’t do this.

Why? Perhaps because there is a verse that God creates darkness and there is no verse that God makes incapacity, yes?

Isaiah the Prophet — The Polemical Context

One must ask Isaiah the prophet, who wrote these verses, God forms light and creates darkness. Yes, of course he was in opposition to systems that say that there is, yes, one must remember, Isaiah speaks against those who say that whoever creates light does not create darkness, yes, the system of Zoroastrians or something like that. And indeed they also must believe that absence is an existing thing, yes? He is not speaking against the system of Aristotle, yes? He is speaking against the system of those who say that there is some power of darkness, yes, some power that darkens.

He says why? No, says Isaiah, no. It’s not that there is a god who makes darkness and does evil and another god who makes light and good. No, the same god makes both darkness and evil.

The truth is this very much fits the system of Aristotle, yes? Exactly, this is exactly the system of Aristotle. Not only is there no other god who makes darkness, there is no darkness at all, yes? This is even better, yes? Or we can say in generalization, the power of evil, the power of the Sitra Achra, the power of opposition to good. Not only is there no other god, but there isn’t any at all.

But if you say, the Kalam, the people say…

The Fundamental Claim of the Mutakallimun: Absence as Existing Entity

The fourth system, this is their system. And they say, but, they don’t say this about all things. And I think this is because of imagination, because in an imaginary way it is possible to describe this. About darkness, we can imagine that darkness is a thing, even though they think this, see that there is no such thing as darkness. But in other things, we yes, it’s the same thing rest, rest seems to us a thing.

But incapacity is altogether a word that in the end they invented, you never heard anyone, even Isaiah the prophet, because of this I started to speak about Isaiah, even Isaiah the prophet would not write a verse that says, God makes incapacity and capacity, lack of capacity and capacity. It sounds very strange to say God makes lack of capacity. No poet, I don’t know, maybe there is some strange poet.

The Linguistic and Intuitive Problem

And it could be that they will say that He takes from the heroes their power. This is true, but how does He take from the heroes their power? It could be that He gives them weakness, this is logical, because weakness, so this is opposition, He gives them, He weakens them, weakens heroes or something like that, fine. But He creates, creates incapacity, this sounds very strange, He creates foolishness. He makes the wise and the foolish, this is true, but He makes them at once, that is, He makes some people wise, and naturally the rest remain foolish and so on.

I’m only saying that intuitively, and also in terms of normal religious language, it is true that normal language says about certain absent things that God makes them, and not about all of them. It’s not that the Kalam, the whole interesting thing about Kalam is that it takes traditional religious language, as it were, and tries to make science from it. And it always takes the religious side, one must remember, these are poetry, one must remember that religious language also includes the other side.

Traditional Religious Language and the Preference for Good Over Evil

After all religious language traditionally tends to attribute to God more good things than bad things, for example. After all religious language says, as everyone asks, we thank God who heals us, healer of the sick. We of course also believe that He makes the illness, but then He doesn’t get any credit for the healing. There is something here.

The Aristotelian Idea and Classical Religious Language

The Aristotelian idea, I say this because people have difficulty with this. The Aristotelian idea that says, or as the Rambam is going to say in the third part, that God does not make the matter, only the form, because matter is not an existing thing, things like this, it also fits a certain part of classical religious language, traditional, the simpler one. Because there is something in traditional religious language that says, we say, no, God does not mention His name upon evil, upon evil. Things of this type. God does not do bad things, God is good, to say God is good is actually to say He does not do the bad things.

So of course we have a question who does them. So the simple answer is that religious language is not, sorry, religious language is not consistent, religious language is not trying to make science. Religious language is, its concern is to say religious things, to educate people, to give them good beliefs, not to give science.

The Kalam as an Attempt to Make Philosophy from Religion

The Kalam are those who, and therefore they are interesting rivals here. They want to make philosophy from religion, they want to make orderly theology, possessing order and so on. So therefore whoever does this, has all kinds of options.

The Aristotelian Option as a Religious Solution

The Aristotelian option is a very viable option, that is very religious also, because the Aristotelian option says, I also explain how God makes, both the absence and the affirmation, and I actually explain this with more unity than you explain. What you say, says the Rambam, one could argue, he doesn’t give this, that the Kalam can lead to a dualism worse than Aristotelianism. Because you actually say that God makes absences, from there the way is quite close to saying that not God does this but another, something like that.

Preventing Dualism Through Aristotelianism

Metaphysically, physically they have the possibility to say this, because they believe in every instant. The Rambam, not even, the question of dualism doesn’t even begin, because there is nothing at all for it to apply to. Because darkness does not exist. He has no temptation to say but another makes the darkness, because temptation is a strange style. He has no side to say thus, because darkness is simply the absence of light, and therefore it is more fitting to say that He makes the light and the darkness at once. He makes them at once, not separately.

The Example of Life and Death

The same thing as he shows, it is very normal to say that God gives life to the living and also kills the dead, but it is very strange to say that for the most part He kills things, and He kills the dead of thousands of years still and so on. This is only I say for this.

The Mu’tazilite Compromise: Selective Division of Absences

And therefore the Mu’tazilites, I return to the point of the Mu’tazilites. The Mu’tazilites, according to the Rambam’s claim, I haven’t read them, I haven’t yet returned to Wolfson’s book, which brings all the sources on this, but the Rambam, as he quotes here, here you said so they understood the problem here, they understood that it’s strange to say that He makes makes foolishness, on the other hand they do want to say that He makes darkness for example.

The Formula of the Compromise

And therefore they say thus, but some of these absences, some of them are existent and some of them are absence of property according to what is good for him in his belief. And I think what is good for him in his belief is partially in Quranic verses, there are verses that speak about making darkness and there are no verses that speak about making incapacity, I haven’t read the Quran but it’s hard for me to believe that there is a verse there that says Allah makes the incapacity. I think there are indeed many verses about making the darkness and things like that. Because these verses are in opposition to dualistic positions, but there is no dualistic position about incapacity.

The Rationale Behind the Compromise

Therefore if indeed, therefore I say that whoever believes that also darkness is incapacity, then he all the more fulfills this verse, he doesn’t need the verse at all. But or there is also, so wait, this is one reason, what is good for him in his belief, or there is here some something intuitive. It’s strange to say this and not strange to say this.

The Parallel to the Compromise Regarding the Persistence of Accidents

And he says, as they did with the persistence of accidents, also with the persistence of accidents, regarding the question of the persistence of accidents, the Rambam brings the same compromise, that there were some of the Mu’tazilites, who said that there are things that have continuity and there are things that don’t, and they said, some of them will persist a long time and some of them will not persist two moments.

The Rambam’s Fundamental Critique: Apologetics Instead of Investigation

And the Rambam concludes, for the intention of all, that is, all, all the Mutakallimun, this is what everyone agrees, this was already his critique in chapter seventy-one, one, a very sharp critique, and perhaps the most fundamental critique here on the opinion, the intention of all is to necessitate an existence whose nature agrees with our opinions and our belief. Everyone is simply looking for a reality that fits the belief.

The Demand for Consistent Logic

And the Rambam argued there in the name, well, in whose name? that the opinion, must be according to reality and not reality according to the opinion. I quote this in the name of a sage, in the name of a great sage, I forgot, I spaced on this. Anyways, and this is what he brings here, that this compromise, the Rambam argues that these compromises have no independent coherent logic. You all the time say, okay, there’s a problem, so I do, okay, maybe this is not, and maybe this is yes, and so on, and there is no, if we, the Rambam, he very much seeks the fundamental logic.

From the fundamental logic it comes out that either all things have persistence or all things have no persistence, all accidents. Or all absences are existent or all absences are not. Once you start making divisions, this type of absence yes, this type of absence no, you need some very fundamental difference between them, and there isn’t. The fundamental difference is beliefs and not opinions.

The Compromises as Expression of Apologetics

So therefore he doesn’t so much, he’s not interested in it, as if I think he brings this in order to show that this is absurd, because you remain with problems, and therefore you make compromises that have no existence, and this is all because you from the outset are not seeking reality but belief, that is, you are doing apologetics and not investigation. And therefore you, from your perspective this is not a problem. The Mu’tazilite, it’s not difficult for him that he says about this thus and about this thus, without sufficient necessary difference, because he says, I say here, this fits my belief.

The Precision of Rav Shem Tov: “Our Belief” or “Their Belief”?

But this is not, there is here a strange precision of the commentators that Rav Shem Tov brings, I think Abarbanel also said this, that the Rambam writes here, for the intention of all is to necessitate an existence whose nature agrees with our opinions and our belief. And what is our belief? One should see their belief. So he said, let’s look if this is, no, this is Rav Shem Tov brings this, I don’t know from whom he brings this, that he writes our belief, because actually the Rambam says, after all we also agree to this belief of the creation of the world and that God acts, but in sum we say, when we seek reality, we cannot seek thus.

Evaluation of the Precision

But I don’t think he is correct, I think he, this is a strange precision, this doesn’t seem to me a good precision. The Rambam simply means, that they disguise themselves, he speaks from their point of view. They seek a reality that agrees with their belief, with our belief. I don’t think he means here to hint that he also agrees with their belief, this doesn’t seem correct to me.

Evaluation of the Kalam as a Worthy Opponent

On the other hand, I must mention this, as I mentioned, that this is a good thing. Today we have worse religious people. There are religious people who don’t even seek to fit reality to their belief, they simply say belief without connection. The Kalam are a worthy opponent.

Presentation of the Seventh Premise

The seventh premise, is their belief that the absences of properties are existent things in the body, added to its substance. And they are also existent accidents, and behold they are always created, whenever a thing is lost a thing is created.

And the explanation of this, is that they do not see that rest is the absence of motion, nor that death is the absence of life, nor that blindness is the absence of sight, nor anything similar to this from the absences of properties. Rather the status of motion and rest according to them is the status of heat and cold, and just as heat and cold are two existent accidents in two subjects, heat and cold, so every motion is an accident created in the moving thing, and rest is an accident that God creates in the resting thing.

And it will not persist two moments also, as preceded in the premise before this. Behold this resting body according to them God created rest in every part of its parts, and whenever rest is absent He creates another rest, all the time that the resting thing rests.

The Example of Wisdom and Foolishness

Translation

And it is the same analogy they use with wisdom and foolishness, for foolishness according to them exists, and it is an accident. And foolishness does not cease to be destroyed and foolishness is continuously created, as long as the fool continues to be foolish in one thing.

The Example of Life and Death

And it is the same analogy with life and death, for both of them according to them are accidents. And they say explicitly that life is destroyed and life is created all the days that the living one lives, and when God wills his death, He creates in him the accident of death after the removal of the accident of life, which does not endure for two moments.

The Problem of Continuous Renewal of Death

However, all of this they say explicitly. And it necessarily follows according to this assumption that the accident of death which God creates, it too will cease at its time, and God will create another death, for otherwise death would not continue, but just as life is created after life, so death is created after death.

And I wonder until when does God create the accident of death in the dead person—all the days that his form endures, or all the days that some of his bones endure. For the accident of death which God creates, He only creates it according to their view in each individual substance of those substances. And we find teeth of the dead that are thousands of years old, and this is proof that God has not destroyed that substance. If so, He is creating in it the accident of death all those thousands [of years], each time death ceases He creates death. This is the opinion of their masses.

The More Moderate Position of the Mu’tazilites

And some of the Mu’tazilites say that some of the absences of properties are not existing things, but rather one should say that weariness is the absence of ability, and foolishness is the absence of wisdom. And this does not apply to every absence, and one should not say that darkness is the absence of light, nor that rest is the absence of motion, but rather they posit that some of these absences exist and some are the absence of a property, according to what suits them in their belief. Just as they did with the endurance of accidents—some endure for a long time and some do not endure for two moments. For the intention of all of this is to necessitate an existence whose nature agrees with our opinions and our beliefs.

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Summary: The Nature of the Rambam’s Critique of the Kalam

Clarifying the Nature of the Critique

If you can just say this without any connection, then you’re not wise at all. You’re not even making yourself wise, right? It’s not even that.

So I mean to say that the Rambam’s claim against the Mutakallimun is not just a claim that they’re doing apologetics. After all, they are indeed seeking to do science, but they, what? We also know they’re not right. Yes, the problem, the Rambam, there’s a claim here that their criterion for science is not reality, but rather belief. But they still, they care about science, they need science. They don’t need to say, we’re saying it without any connection. In the end they arrive at that, but that’s not, what he’s arguing with them about here is whether their scientific method, their physical method, right?

He’s not arguing with their beliefs. Therefore he argues with them, because physics is a basic thing, we need physics so that we can begin to speak about proofs for the existence of God and so on. But the Rambam claims that one cannot start from the existence of God and from that build the physics, because then the necessity doesn’t work, right.

Good, that’s the end of the seventh premise.

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The Sixth Premise as the Most Central Principle

The Centrality of Continuous Renewal

I think it seems to me that I’ve built this up a bit. What? If you didn’t have to say this thing that things are happening all the time, then yes we could say that God does everything. He takes the light, He brings the light and He takes it, like, only because they constantly need that everything, everything is renewed.

Yes, this thing that this sixth premise is the most fundamental thing, the most central ultimately in this system. It’s also the thing that most entangles them, so to speak. When bringing light it takes power. The Rambam causes this thing to entangle them the most.

The Problem of Continuity

But the reason, I think I explained, I need to think about this more, but it seems they’re right that once you have continuity, then you’re not really truly saying God does it. That is, continuity is nature after all. Yes, he just said that. It’s not really logical, it won’t really be coherent to say that God does and takes and then it just remains. Yes. There’s some real thing here.

Because I think, it’s true that this is the problem, here at least this is what entangles them. But it could be that there are also, need to check, it could be that there are also simpler proofs regarding the fact that not all things in the world are opposites, that there are contradictions and there are opposites, it’s not the same thing.

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The Problem of Absence: Why Are “Opposites” Needed?

The Question: Why Not Suffice with “Did Not Do”?

The truth is, even this doesn’t need to be said, right. He could have said that He first brings life, but like, what’s the connection? Why say that He first doesn’t bring death? Because why is there death? Like, where does it come from, because after all they don’t have, need to think about this, it’s not, there’s very fundamental physics here, where does this default come from, like?

No, with all the time He needs to, why? You can say, there’s a rock, and the rock is what God gave it, all the time He’s giving it, but the moment God gives it life, it will start to be a human being. Yes, but where from, why the rock? Yes, there’s a question here why, after all the person starts from the negative why?

Why doesn’t the rock live? That’s how God willed it, it doesn’t matter, you’re right. So what does it mean He willed? But not to say willed, it’s not enough. He didn’t will, okay, and why? What does willed mean? What does He do when He wills?

No, no, you’re saying the previous thing, that like, why is a person alive? Because all the time God is giving him life, all the time, not like before, okay. Yes, and why is a person dead? Why doesn’t a stone live? Because God gives it life. All the time, yes? Yes.

No, but okay. Again all the time, without all the time. So what, but He gave it not-life, that’s already a higher level. Why does He need to say that He gave it not-life? He didn’t give it life, that’s all.

The Problem: “Did Not Do” Is Not an Action

It’s a power that sometimes He only utilizes from His world. Ah, I think he mentioned this earlier. Because they also understand in some sense that not is not something. If they said God did not do in the most simple sense, that He didn’t do, not that He did to it, so He didn’t do, then one cannot truly say that God did not not-life that God does that it will die because to do not is not a thing yes that’s how it was written in the Arabic premise no where it’s not enough that it’s not enough this is exactly because at one point they also understood that to say did not do is not enough because did not do is not doing right He didn’t do many things that aren’t in the world like all kinds also didn’t do right, right.

The Example of the Creation of the World

So for example, if we believe in the creation of the world, God created the world five thousand and so many years ago, right? He also did not create the world in all the infinite time before that. So all the time they spoke about this, about the absence of the world. If God wants there not to be a world, then He needs to do that there not be a world. He cannot simply not do the world. In short, He wants to give Him more work. Okay, I understand, yes.

The Kalam’s Solution: Absence as a Positive Accident

Because there’s a problem here, because not to do is not a thing. We agree that not to do absolutely or not a thing. That’s why they need to invent that the specific not-doing is indeed a thing. And precisely so they can say that God does the not. Yes. I think that’s how it comes out.

He spoke about this, where did he speak about this, that the accident, yes, the absence here, what brought them to this, and that one should say this, that if you say he will die, yes, here, and if you say that God will remove, he spoke about this. And if you say that God will remove it when He wills, this is not possible according to their opinion, because the agent does not do absence, right?

The Rambam wrote this explicitly, you see here, right? I disappeared, but you see it here. Because they understand that absence is not from lack of an agent, therefore they say essentially that the absences of properties are not absolute absence, they are real absence, they are an accident. Yes, so that’s the reason.

Okay. Please.