The True Belief that God Acts and the Folly of Anthropomorphism | Part I Chapter 73 (9) – Sixth Introduction B | Guide for the Perplexed 164 (Auto Translated)

Sixth Premise: “The Accident Does Not Endure for Two Moments” — Its Central Position in the Kalam System

The Position of the Sixth Premise in the System of Premises

We are standing here at the sixth premise, right? The description of this premise is that the accident does not endure for two moments. And we explained that this premise, this assumption, is perhaps the most important theological assumption for the Kalam, and it tries to give, how shall we say, a physical basis for what they want as a theological belief, right? That’s the main point.

And of course all the other premises until now, meaning, that there is substance, right? Meaning, the atom, and that there are accidents, and how the accidents work, that everything is an accident and so on, they are all needed in order to arrive at this, right? So in a certain sense it is the goal of all the premises, at least of all the premises until now, and there are still several more premises that we need for this, but they are all additional details and branches that accompany this. But this is also the premise that brings us most directly to the theological conclusion that they need, right?

The Rambam’s Critique: Choosing the Physical System According to Theological Conclusions

And we remember that one of our great claims against this entire system is that they tailor the assumptions according to the conclusions. It’s not exactly tailoring, right? Yes, it’s more that they choose a certain physical system, which is a complete system, coherent in a certain sense, but they choose the system according to what they need to come out theologically.

And one could say that the theology also changes in a certain sense because of how it is interpreted according to the physical assumptions, right, because if we look at it this way, if we read this premise, right, the Rambam brings the premise, and then he says, that which brought them to this opinion, right? What brought them to this opinion? And it is the belief that God does everything, right?

And now we officially arrive at the end of this premise, where he returns to this, saying that here there is a dispute or there is the result that allows us to say that God is the one who does everything.

The Fundamental Theological Problem: What Does “God Acts” Mean?

So if I start from the end, I’ll say this. They want, and this is literally the end of this premise, to say, how shall I put it, that this is the true belief, right, at the very very end of the premise, and they said that this is the true belief that God acts. Yes, because everyone who is religious, everyone who believes in God, believes that God is the actor, and not only the actor who once acted, right, this is agreed upon, and the Rambam also agrees with this.

He performs all actions, right? And therefore now, this is actually an agreed-upon assumption, the Rambam himself agrees with this that God is the actor. We had on this Chapter 69, if I remember correctly, which gave his explanation of how one can say, right? The three causes, how these are the cause and the agent and the purpose.

Example from the Laws of Blessings: “Who Brings Forth Bread from the Earth”

But they, they have this assumption, what is the meaning that God acts, right? For example, I spoke today about the laws of blessings, right? Yesterday, today, we say a blessing, who brings forth bread from the earth, right? This is a Jewish formulation, and there are Muslim formulations and other opinions that parallel this, right? We take a piece of bread and say, God brought forth the bread from the earth.

Now, there is a question, what is the meaning of these words, right? What do we mean when we say, God brings forth bread from the earth? After all, anyone can see, apparently, that human beings bring forth bread from the earth, right? Yes, and human beings have ways of how to produce bread from wheat and so on, and to sow it, and to harvest it, this whole process. But we say, and all religious people always say that God acts.

The Severity of the Question: A Fundamental Perplexity of Religion

So there is, this is a question, I think this is a fundamental perplexity. I, everyone always talks about all kinds of fundamental perplexities of, how shall we say, of religion, right, yes, I know knowledge and choice, and I know providence, today we all think I know, well, what’s it called, evolution and creation, all kinds of such things, which are all very small questions.

This question of what is the meaning of the words God acts, which is the belief of every believer, right? There are those who think there is supposedly another option, right, that one can call it deism, which says that God does not act, but rather that He started the whole system, but everyone understands that this is not a religious belief, right? Every religious belief must say that God is the actor.

And now, there is a real question, what is the meaning of the words God acts?

The Problem: Natural Causes Competing with Divine Action

Now, the Kalam thought, how can one make sense, how can one explain this word, God acts? Especially since we see that there are causes in the world, there are all kinds of causes, there are two types of causes that he will speak about particularly now.

First Type: Natural Causes (Natural Science)

One is natural causes, what we call natural science, nature is simply what things are, and as I already emphasized in the previous lesson, it is not enough to speak only about movements and changes in this sense.

When I ask the question who caused something to happen, then I can say God did it, or I can say, I know why trees grow? Because rain fell, this is already a different answer to the question who did this. The rain made the trees grow and not God did it.

Second Type: Essential Natures (Forms)

But there are indeed, as the Kalam correctly noticed, and they are right, also more basic things, like the question why is a stone heavy while paper is not heavy, right? And why is the large stone large and the small stone small? And then you answer, because the stone is made of stone material and it is heavy material. And then he says, okay, so who did this? The material of the stone, this is no longer God.

This is the same question, who acts, God or the nature of the stone, which is called the form of the stone in Aristotelian terms and so on. So this is a question.

The Kalam’s Solution: Creation of Accidents

So in order to solve this question, they said, we have a solution. Let us translate the words God acts into something a bit more precise in a physical sense. We will say, God creates the accidents. This is what can be seen, called the creation of accidents, what they said.

They say that God’s action translates to this word, the creation of accidents.

What Does Creation of Accidents Mean?

Creation of accidents, the meaning, first of all we remember that what they are, all things in the world, all things in the world are made of atoms, which is nothing, it is almost nothing, right? It is almost only a logical concept. And the properties of all things, what they are and how they are and their size and their weight and so on, these are their accidents, these are all accidents of the atoms.

So we say, God creates all the accidents in the world. Therefore the answer to the question why is this stone hard and heavy and large and so on, must always be, God made it heavy, God made it large and so on and so on, which in this precise physical language, God creates the accidents, right?

Why This Is Not Enough: The Problem of Time

Of course this is not enough, because this is mainly the point of the sixth premise, that this is not enough. Why is it not enough? Because for the same reason that as I said, deism is not good. Or as anyone, one can say this also in religious language.

If we say, God created everything in the six days of creation. He does at the beginning of creation that there will be trees and there will be stones, and trees will have such and such a nature, and stones will have such and such a nature. Meaning, so He made it that the trees are in a certain color and certain size, while the stones are in a different weight and a different color and so on. And then we still have a problem.

We ask the question, why today, there is a question that exists within time, why is the stone heavy today? You say, it is heavy because yesterday it was heavy. Okay, so again, you had a question, who is the actor? Why? And the answer was not God, already heresy. You don’t believe that God acts, you believe that yesterday acts.

True that if I go back to the first moment then I arrive at God, but this is not enough for the simple belief written in the Quran, written in the Torah, written in all our blessings, right, who brings forth bread from the earth, what, He brought forth the bread in that in the six days of creation He made there be bread? This is very strange, this doesn’t fit very well with the religious language of this statement.

The Complete Solution: Continuous Creation of Accidents

And therefore the Kalam said, we have a solution. After all, what does it mean to make things, to make their accidents? And then we have a rule, and it is a rule, it is perhaps even a bit logical in a certain sense, or they thought it was logical, that the accident does not endure for two moments.

The accident is something that exists, right, we remember that time is also some kind of unit of time, and every accident applies only to one unit of time, and therefore accidents require continuous creation.

There Is No Natural Continuity of Properties

There is no reason that requires that the white tree or my white table remain white because it was white yesterday. Why? Because whiteness is an accident, and an accident is not something that endures more than a second or more than one unit of time, and therefore who made the tree of my table remain white today?

One cannot say the word remain, right? Because there is no continuity really. God, but God acts at every moment all the accidents in the world, and this is the only physical way that one can fit the simple religious language that says that God acts.

So this, this is the system of the Kalam. The Kalam has here a dispute—

Negation of Causality According to the Mutakallimun

The Eleventh Premise: The Senses Are Not Correct

Now, again, we remember, there are all kinds of types of things that seem not like this in the world, right? Of course, for all this we need the 11th premise, if I remember correctly, which is that the senses are not correct. Because of course, in our senses there is indeed causality, one doesn’t need much philosophy to see causality, although one can discuss this — David Hume says that we don’t see causality, only thought.

Okay, in any case, we, it seems to us that we do things, it seems to us that there is causality in the world. So they had an excuse for this, which is David Hume’s excuse too, but from the other point of view.

Habit: Regularity in the World as Divine Custom

Their excuse was that what we see, one can say regularity in the world, because we see regularity, we see that the same thing happens all the time, right? Usually all stones are always heavy and all pieces of paper are always light and so on.

So apparently it seems that there is indeed a different answer to the question why is the stone heavy, which is not the answer that God makes it heavy. The answer is that in truth God does every moment, makes heaviness in every atom of the stone, right? But why don’t we want — so actually in a logical sense, right, so they say, in a logical sense, in a true sense, God can in another second make the air heavy like the stone. There is no necessary reason, there is no true answer to the question why does the stone fall down and the air rise up.

It is simply, God does every moment that the air will have the property of lightness and the stone will have the property of heaviness. But there is a custom, God has customs. Customs, meaning He usually does the same thing according to the same order. Perhaps literally always, perhaps usually, except that there are miracles, which are actually this — miracles are not a breaking of something, but simply God today does something else. But usually He does that it goes in the same, there is continuity, there is causality, all these things are customs, right?

The Parable of the Sultan

As I told you, the parable of the sultan who never walks in the street on his feet, it’s not that he cannot, it’s a custom, right?

Three Types of Causality That Are Negated

And now, there is, so this is regarding all the natural things that we see continuity in them, right? We see in them, the white thing today usually remains white tomorrow, this is simply a custom, God is accustomed usually to continue, not to continue, to make anew whiteness in things that were white yesterday. But this is not true.

Yes, now there is something more complicated, right, and here we are actually holding. Yes, so there are three things, which are very similar things, the first two.

First Type: Continuity as Causality

Yes, there is continuity in general, which we usually don’t identify as causality, right, one must remember this. We are usually accustomed to think about causality only when things change, right. Yes, why was there no house here yesterday and suddenly there is a house? Because someone built a house here. But that there is a house here today, and the answer is because there was a house here yesterday, this is also causality, right, a type of causality.

The nature of the house is that it will remain for some time, right, until it falls for natural reasons that suddenly arrive, there are all kinds of ways that the house falls in the end. But this is also nature, right, so therefore these are two things, but they are the same thing.

But, so there are supposedly two things here, but in their style this is indeed divided. Meaning, they do understand correctly that continuity is a type of causality, or one can say a type of nature, right? This word, nature, is simply a word that says what things are, right? White things are white, therefore they remain white.

Second Type: Transfer of Accidents Between Bodies

And there are also things that do things to other things, right? This is another type of causality, or a slightly more complicated type, right? More detailed, right? If I say, that it was white today, this is not because it was white yesterday, this is one thing. And then here, when it is written according to this premise, they actually continue from this to the more complicated thing.

And therefore, if the very simple thing is not causality all the more so this, but this sounds to people sometimes more novel, I don’t know, perhaps the first is more novel, but this all flows from the same physical conception, when there are things that cause other things, right?

Example of Dyeing: White Wool and Indigo

We have all kinds of examples of things that cause other things. For example, and I, I will take the second example, because in a moment we will see that the first example is more complicated, because it is a third type of causality, or there is a third division here.

But the second thing is that we see that things receive accidents from other things, right? This is something very clear that we can see. There are accidents, for example color, right? Color is a good example of an accident, because except for the interpretation of accident it is very easy to imagine the same thing colored in a different color, right? So this is not what defines the thing, this was the Aristotelian definition of accident. In their opinion this does indeed define the thing, because there is nothing more than substance, because there are no forms, there are only accidents.

In any case, in any case, one can see that there are things that have a certain color, and then we put them into a vessel of color, right? Not of color of something, color of some liquid or something that has the ability to transfer the color, and then it transfers the color to something else.

Yes, he brings an example of indigo, indigo, some black thing, in which one puts white wool, and it comes out black, it comes out blue, comes out some color that the color — so we all normal people say, this is how it appears to the eyes apparently, this color that was previously in this pot of dye, it has now passed to the wool that we dyed.

So this is another type of accident, another type of causality, causality in which a certain body causes through some kind of transfer of accident, one can call it, to the second body to receive a certain property, right? There are of course more details here, someone needs to put the wool in the pot and so on, but we are not now speaking about this point. Now we are speaking about the very fact that putting the color, putting the wool into the pot of the liquid of color, or whatever it may be, causes the color of the liquid to pass also to the wool. Which is a certain type of causality, a very normal type, right? Yes, I, a certain body does something to another body.

The Principle: The Accident Does Not Pass Its Subject

But they said, this cannot be. Okay, again, either God does this, or this happens through the color, how can it be that color does things? Therefore one must say that the red color does not color the red things at all, or the black color, whatever it may be, but rather God all the time makes color in all things, and He has customs.

God has customs, He has a custom that usually when one puts white wool into a pot of indigo, black, it receives black color, but there is no connection between these things. Especially they had such a rule that says, the accident does not pass its subject. The accident does not pass, the accident is something that is always created directly by God on a certain atom, it never, even God doesn’t do it as if, even God never takes an accident, because this is not logical, because one needs for continuity of time, and after all there is no continuity of time.

So there is no such thing that one accident is taken from something else and goes to a second thing, right? This is normal, right? Even if I move something, then as if the movement that is in my hand passes to the thing that I am moving. They say no. The accident is directly in each thing.

The Answer: Divine Custom

If so, why does it seem to the eyes, why do we always see that when one dyes something it is dyed? This is a custom. God does not act in a random manner from the perspective of what is seen, the truth is that He acts in a random manner, in the sense that He acts in a direct manner each thing, He acts, He does in a direct manner each thing, but He has a custom that He usually does not blacken things unless they put them into black dye and so on.

But even then, right, this is something important, even then we do not say God did this by means of, right? Yes, it is false to say, the black color caused the blackening.

Internal Dispute: Can One Say “By Means Of”?

There were those, as he says, some of them said with a cause and they condemned, there were those who said, here one can accommodate both these sides, and say, to say, God does this by means of the cause, and this is not a problem.

No, they say no. Most of them say that one does not say at all that if one puts wood into fire, the fire does not burn the wood, right? There is simply color, custom, not nature, and the custom, divine custom, right, God has a custom that when one puts a piece of wood into something called fire, that the wood becomes ash, right, but there is no connection between the things. They explicitly took these examples, one can read in…

Third Type: Causality in Human Actions

Complex Causality and Transfer Between Accidents

This is already a type of more complicated causality, meaning causality in which one accident apparently passes to the second, and they say that this is not correct.

Then there is a case or type of cases a bit more complicated, which are human actions. Now, human actions have this additional difficulty, which is called, we call it choice, or I don’t like the word choice so much because choice is something else, but the matter of human authority, according to the language of the Rambam in the Laws of Repentance, the authority of human beings that is given to actions. That actions, and here there is also a religious contradiction. Here arrives the contradiction of choice, what they called necessity and justice in Muslim theology indeed.

The Theological Problem of Free Choice

Because, and then we will see, or we already saw in other chapters, that they had a perplexity about this. One sees that at this point, exactly here is the perplexity. Why? Because we, the idea of choice, the idea of human actions, the idea of human authority or human responsibility for their actions, say something causal. There is choice. One can know, there is in today’s science, ultimately, if there is another question, how is it possible that human beings have will, where does this will begin, all kinds of such questions.

But if we, before this there is something more basic. That my action, my will, or my decision, or whatever it may be, caused something to happen. I take a pen and write something with it on the Sabbath, so they take me and do stoning because I desecrate the Sabbath, because I wrote with a pen on the Sabbath. This means, this law assumes that I am the one who wrote with the pen on the Sabbath.

And now we have another difficulty: Do I — once again, Mr. Kalam comes and says that I’m a heretic. Why? Because I say that a person did something, a person is not God, and only God does things. So it’s impossible that if a person takes a pen and writes with it, that he is the one who took the pen and wrote with it. It’s impossible.

The Strange Solution of the Mu’tazilah

So of course this is a difficulty for responsibility that religion also needs, but the Kalam system, and therefore they had all kinds of strange formulations, to say that it belongs to me. The Rambam brings in chapter 51 or 52 this idea, as an example of something illogical, that people say it’s possible to say this in words but it has no meaning. He brought the system of the Mu’tazilah or others, who said that a person has acquisition but not action. Somehow this event of writing belongs to me, I have acquisition in it, but I’m not the one who did it, because God, Hashem, Allah, does everything. So that’s what they said.

And therefore they said that actually this isn’t correct, as he already brought in the previous example, and now where we’re holding today he’s going to detail more explicitly this type.

The Example of Hand Movement and the Pen

So this type of person, he gives an example: the movement, the movement of the hand that moves the pen in our thought, because we think that we move a hand, move a pen by our hand. Since this movement is an accident, it turns out that everything is incorrect, there is an accident, the pen doesn’t move, my hand doesn’t move the pen. There’s simply an accident of movement in my hand, and there’s also movement in the pen, and there’s a custom, a custom that coincidentally usually Hashem does, when I — not I, we’ll see later that it’s not I — but when my hand moves near a pen, Hashem also makes the pen move, and then it writes on the paper and so on, all these things, but there’s no real connection. That’s what they said.

The Problem with Human Actions Themselves

And afterwards, and therefore, as we now see, and indeed the actions of man, there’s a problem here. Because we do want to say that okay, true, before this he didn’t speak about actions of man, therefore he didn’t contradict himself, didn’t duplicate himself, because afterwards, before this he spoke about my hand movement moving the pen. And now he’s speaking about me supposedly moving my hand.

So also about this type, which is truly, physically there isn’t much difference. Because if there is nature to things, this needs to be mentioned.

Choice as Nature — The System of Aristotle and the Rambam

Choice, according to Aristotle, according to the Rambam, that people are responsible for their actions is not something special. Very important. In today’s philosophy it seems like something special. All things work according to natural causes, but human actions are something miraculous, something that deviates from all natural order, therefore there’s the whole question of determinism which is the simple causality of nature, and suddenly we say here that there’s something without a cause, because my will supposedly, in order to say that I’m responsible for my actions, in my will I need to think that my will is without any cause.

This is not the conception of Aristotle and the Rambam. Their conception is, as the Rambam says in Hilchot Teshuvah about this very question, he asks this question, how do we say that man has control over his actions if Hashem does everything, and he gives the answer of nature.

Choice as a Type of Nature

That is, according to their view, there’s really no difference between saying, my table holds my computer, because the nature of the table is that it can hold a computer, like saying, a person can choose something in action. There are all kinds of conditions and there are causes, everything has causes.

In the end, and this is the real answer for the Rambam, how do we say that Hashem acts — because we also say about physical things that Hashem acts them. Like “who brings forth bread from the earth.” We make blessings every day on things that people do and say that Hashem does them. Not that we deny choice, but that we have a different interpretation of these words, Hashem acts.

But to say that a person has ability over his actions, has control over his actions, this is simply to say that there are all kinds of types of nature. My table has such a nature that it can hold a computer, and a person has such a nature that he can choose. This doesn’t mean he can choose without a cause, by the way, and choice is with a cause, but it’s just some kind of power, exactly as we understand that there is essence, there is naturalness in the table, that it holds the table, this belongs to the table, even though about this too there’s a question who gave the table, right, in the end the answer is God.

The Remote Cause and the Intermediate Cause

And therefore the Rambam calls God the final or first cause of all things, the remote cause, which is truly the cause responsible in a true theological way. The true form, the final form, the final cause and so on, but in a direct way, we can call this the intermediate cause, the nature of the table does this. Exactly so we can say about man that he has a certain nature.

But, so this is from the Rambam’s point of view, from their point of view, this too is true that there’s the same problem in saying that man does something, as there is a problem in saying that anything does something. But they simply have a problem. Why? Because there are also religious reasons to say that man does something, so therefore they entered into perplexity. But in the end, usually, most of them simply said that actually man doesn’t do anything.

The Theological Problem of Reward and Punishment

And what do they do with the problem of justice, the problem of reward and punishment? Muslims don’t have a problem with all these kinds of things, Kalam doesn’t have a problem, because they say, no problem, this is a contradiction and we don’t understand and don’t need to understand things.

The Rambam Against Accepting Contradictions

Therefore it’s necessary to remember that what the Rambam says in every answer, that we don’t understand God’s knowledge, is exactly the opposite of this. The Rambam very much opposes such systems that say, we’re supposed to say there is reward and punishment for man, but we also say that Hashem does everything and don’t ask the questions. Hashem can make contradictions.

The Rambam doesn’t believe that Hashem can make contradictions, and he certainly doesn’t believe that there’s a crime in saying things we don’t understand. All the chapters on attributes, that I mention all the time, against Kalam, the Kalam system in attributes, is exactly against this. It’s exactly against saying things about God’s greatness and so on, and then saying, as the Muslims are accustomed to say, bila kayf, without interpretation. That’s how they say it and don’t interpret.

Chovot HaLevavot Versus the Rambam

Chovot HaLevavot says explicitly this answer to the question of necessity and justice. He says, yes, Hashem does everything, and yes, people are responsible for their actions, and yes, this is a contradiction, and yes, we say both of them.

The Rambam explicitly doesn’t say this, and when he says, and this is an answer that we don’t understand knowledge, he essentially, what in the most simple way, what comes out there is that we say people choose, and what we say that God knows is something deep, it’s not literal. This is essentially the answer. But he blurs it a bit, because he doesn’t want everyone to understand.

But how did I get to all this? In any case, this is what’s important to understand, that the question of human choice is the same question as nature. And therefore the Rambam says there, if there is nature, exactly as you understand that there is nature, understand that the nature of people is to choose, there’s no problem.

The Kalam System on Human Actions

But those who deny nature, who need to say that Hashem does everything, and therefore the actions of man they disagree about them. There’s an internal dispute among the Kalam how to translate, how to interpret human actions.

The opinion of most of them, and also the masses of the Shari’ah, most of the Shari’ah or their masses, is that actually man has no action, but they — so they have a precise way to say this.

The Four Accidents that God Creates

Because in moving the pen, when I move the pen, returning to his example, of the pen that writes, God created four accidents. Hashem, that is, when I, it seems to me, as he says, in my thought, it seems to me, or even the law says, and if we don’t raise difficulties about the law, then there’s no problem.

But when I, we say a person moves a pen, this is simply a very short way to say that Hashem creates at that time four accidents, none of them an accident that is the cause of another. As we said, also in general, Hashem also, how much Hashem doesn’t create something that is a cause.

The first accident — my will to move the pen. And the second accident — my ability to move it. And the third accident — the body of human movement, I mean the movement of the hand. And the fourth accident — the movement of the pen.

So Hashem creates four separate accidents, and there’s no causal connection between them. They simply happen together, because this is the divine custom.

The Four Accidents in Human Action

The Real Connection Versus the Logical Connection

That is, accidentally, in reality, not logically — there’s no logical connection between them, there’s simply a real connection between them. This is the interpretation of “no connection only in reality.” Only in reality means, yes, it’s on the same day, and it relates to the same objects etc., but it’s not a logical connection, there’s no connection, there’s no logical connection between them.

The Four Accidents in Moving the Pen

Yes, so there are four accidents here.

The first accident — my will to move the pen. Yes, we, they don’t deny that man has will, yes, there’s some kind of feeling that we call will, or even there’s this that it seems I could have chosen otherwise, that it could have been otherwise, which is called will. So this too, this is an accident — Hashem created a person who is from a certain aggregate of atoms, yes, and within part of these atoms or another of them, yes, this is a problem of the soul, but within him there’s an accident which is will to move a pen, Hashem creates this.

And He makes a second accident which is my ability to move it, yes? After all we understand that there is, it seems, the word ability is a bit strange, because ability is more or less nature. And I don’t know why they need to say I have ability at all, yes? Ability is exactly the thing that supposedly they deny. I don’t know why he says there’s also an accident that Hashem creates in me, which is my ability to move it, yes?

The Problematic Nature of the Concept “Ability”

Ability is what we call in the Aristotelian sense power, yes? The potential, that I have such a nature that I can move, but supposedly there isn’t this. I don’t know why he says, but maybe because we see that people have power, something like this, there’s something here that we need to justify what seems, something like this, because otherwise I don’t understand why they speak about ability at all.

So when I move a pen by my will and by my ability, because we say this, so this is essentially in a true faithful sense. We need to say, Hashem created at exactly that moment both will and also ability, and also the third accident — the body of human movement, the movement itself, meaning, the movement of the hand, the movement that isn’t human, because man isn’t responsible for it, but this is the movement of the hand of the man. And the fourth accident — the movement of the pen, and now we can continue to the third movement, which is the ink that the pen moves with this etc.

The Dispute Between the Streams: The Will, the Ability and the Action

When they thought, this is what actually happens, that when man wills something and does it in his thought, that is it seems to him, he thinks that he wants and does something, already created for him — this isn’t correct, this is simply an incoherent or untrue story to what really happens which is, already created for him the will and created for him the ability to do what he wants.

So again I’m speaking about him being able to do what he will want, apparently because this is a condition, I don’t know, apparently this is a condition in justice, yes? We can’t judge people for what they don’t have the ability to do, something like this. But this ability is also simply an accident created in man at that time, and created for him the action, yes? That is, the action, the movement of the hand, which is not done, which he is not done by the ability created here, yes? And there is no action for it in the action, yes? Here he says, the ability doesn’t do anything. Man doesn’t do by ability. To do by ability is to say to do by nature that enables him both to choose and also to do in action etc. No, simply Hashem creates at that time, and what we call ability, maybe we do speak about ability and will, these are simply more accidents of the person created at the same time as the accident of the movement of the pen or the movement of the hand.

The Opinion of Most of the Ash’ariyyah: Ability Does Not Act

So this is the system of most of them, of what he calls the opinion of most of them, and also the masses of the Ash’ariyyah, we spoke that there are all kinds of sects, also most of the Ash’ariyyah think this way.

The Opinion of the Mu’tazilah: Man Acts by Ability

And what did the Mu’tazilah say? They said that he will act by the ability created here, yes? This we already spoke about, that this is one of the things the Rambam laughs at, that has no meaning. But the Mu’tazilah said that even though God creates everything, maybe even the will, they admit that Hashem creates, but ability, they left for themselves the ability somehow. They said that man, when Hashem wants people to do something, He makes for them will, and then they act by the ability created in him. That is, there is indeed a connection between the ability and the action, yes, this is the most necessary thing really, yes, what we really call human action, that he acts by the ability made for him, even if we say he has no will, that he’s not the one responsible, still there is ability.

So there are Mu’tazilah, this was their system, one of the foundations, one of the main reasons that the Mu’tazilah separated from what was before, that is, Mu’tazilah is a word for separatists, yes, they separated. Mainly, at least one of the reasons, was because of exactly this thing, that they said it’s absurd to say that man doesn’t act by ability. So they claimed that yes there is ability, even though they too think that Hashem is responsible for everything and Hashem is the one with will.

The Opinion of a Minority of the Ash’ariyyah: The Compromise Position

And then also some of the Ash’ariyyah said, this is all the Mu’tazilah, their system that man acts by ability, and some of the Ash’ariyyah said that the ability created in action has some action and it has the problem of dependence. So they tried to make a certain compromise, it acts a little and there’s some kind of dependence, there’s some logical connection between my ability and my action. It’s not clear if this has any meaning at all, the Rambam at least thinks it has no meaning. But most of them condemned this opinion, they said this is reprehensible, it’s against faith.

What All Agree Upon: The Accidents Do Not Endure

But in any case, and this will that is created, according to the opinion of all, yes? So all, even the others, admit that man’s will is created, and the ability created, and also the action created according to the opinion of some of them, yes? According to the opinion of some there’s also ability that is created, yes? This problem is the dispute. Some say there is ability, some say there is no ability. All admit, they have no endurance. This all admit, yes?

So let’s return to what all admit. The Rambam, as he mentioned in the introduction, he very much wants to emphasize what is common to all the Kalam sects, even though there are internal disputes among them, that actually, the truth is, these internal disputes, one of the reasons that bring them is that they expose the fundamental problems in the system, yes? The disputes are always about the perplexities that arise from their assumptions, yes?

After all here this assumption that the accident doesn’t endure two times, and that it’s what enables them to say that Hashem does everything and nothing follows from anything else, nothing is the cause of anything else, it encounters, it makes a perplexity with the faith and with the thing both logical and also religious of saying that man is responsible for his actions, and therefore they split into sects exactly how to resolve this. Some went in one direction, some in another direction, some made certain compromises, but what’s agreed upon by all is that there’s no continuity, yes? That this action is only for a moment. All are accidents, they have no endurance, yes? They don’t endure, they don’t endure more than one moment.

Continuous Creation: Movement and Rest

Indeed the Creator will create in this pen movement after movement, and so continuously as long as the pen is moving, all the time that the pen is moving, that it’s writing or doing something, Hashem creates every moment anew all this, and of course, according to those who say that also the will is, also all the time He creates will, also all the time creates ability, this is agreed.

This sixth assumption, that there’s no accident that endures more than one time, this is agreed upon by all, only that some say that within this time there is some kind of connection between the ability and the action, and others deny even this.

Rest as a Created Accident

And also when it will be at rest, yes, this the Rambam also, this after all also follows, yes, after all rest is also an accident, yes, even though it’s not doing, and about this will be explicitly, the seventh premise will make this point explicitly, that they think that also absences of not doing or not being are also a type of accident.

But also rest, also it doesn’t continue a long time, doesn’t continue more than one moment, it won’t rest until He creates in it also rest, yes? So it’s not that Hashem creates movement in the pen and then He stops creating the movement and then the pen sits, no. He creates all the time, He does all the things all the time, so either He creates movement in the pen or He creates rest. So the pen doesn’t rest until Hashem will create in it also rest, as an accident, in the atoms of the pen directly, and He won’t cease creating in it rest after rest as long as the pen is at rest. So all the time, every time you see a pen at rest, the answer is that Hashem all the time creates every moment new rest.

The Overall Conclusion: Continuous Creation in All Existents

So up to here what they said, and now he concludes. They said, and he says, behold they yes, so what emerges from all this, in every time of those times, yes, in every time of the… in all these what… how do you say this? Of the times, these are the time periods, yes, the atoms of time. Meaning to… yes, and he translates, yes, therefore it’s necessary to translate here of those times, meaning of the separate times, yes, the moments.

The Creator will create an accident in every individual of the existents, in every particular of the particulars of existents, in every individual, the Creator all the time creates an accident, from an angel, yes, yes, among the angels and a sphere and others, yes, always at every moment.

The Rambam all the time brings out, yes, he brings out the conclusions that follow from this system, that says also angels and spheres, even though maybe there’s even doubt if they believed in these things or if this is logical. In any case, the Rambam, yes, and in the previous chapter, chapter 70-2, he spoke about spheres and maybe also about angels, and assumed that these are essentially agreed upon things.

The Rambam’s Critique of Kalam: The Belief that God Acts Does Not Require Denial of Causality

Summary of the Kalam Position: “Whoever Does Not Believe That God Does Thus”

And they said, and thus the conclusion, and they said that this is the true faith and that God acts. This is the only way possible to describe that Hashem does all things, and whoever does not believe that God does thus, yes, after all, again, if to say that Hashem acts through nature, and they say this is just, they claim this is just words, yes?

Here they are the ones who claimed there are just words here, because they said, what, you need to answer me, either Hashem does this, or nature does this, or man does. It’s impossible, it’s impossible for them to understand something third. Therefore they said, whoever does not believe that God does thus, and therefore, and therefore, yes, and from this follows a law, a certain halachah, or a certain conclusion of how the world works, yes? This needs to be understood.

Religious Belief Requires a Certain Physics

There’s here not only, for example, we’re accustomed to say that we, that is, the Rambam, yes, those who say this, this follows from this philosophical conception, yes? There is, religious philosophers are accustomed to say that religious faith, that the most important part of it is that Hashem acts, cannot tell us how Hashem acts, yes?

For example, there are all kinds of scientific investigations, right? Whether there are four elements or thirty elements, I don’t know, all kinds of things like that. So we’re very accustomed to understanding why this would be a problem. God does everything, that’s religious faith. Now, there’s a scientific question, how does He do it? Does He create the world in six days or in six million days? That’s a question of details of how He does it, right? This is possible according to the Rambam’s approach.

According to the Kalam: Only in a Certain Way Can It Be True That God Acts

According to the approach of the Kalam, which I think, others also think this way, and therefore they arrive at these conclusions, this is not correct. Because only in a certain way can this statement, this aggadah, that God acts, be true. If there were forms in the world, if there were more than atoms and accidents, then it wouldn’t be correct, the statement that says God does everything wouldn’t be true.

When you would say the blessing “shehakol nihyeh bidvaro” (by whose word all came to be), “hamotzi lechem min ha’aretz” (who brings forth bread from the earth), you would be saying a falsehood. Because you’re saying there’s continuity, there’s causality. If there’s causality, then God doesn’t act. And therefore, this belief that God acts, if you take it literally, of course… I mean, I don’t even know if this is literal, if you take it this way, it necessitates a certain science, right? It necessitates saying that the world has no things in it, right? That the world has nothing more than atoms and accidents. At least that’s the logic of the Kalam.

And whoever does not believe that God acts thus, right? That’s the point. Whoever doesn’t believe that God acts in this way, meaning, meaning, without the mediation of any nature and without any, how do you say it, without any continuity and causality, behold this is God acting, and this according to their view, this is their belief, right?

The Rambam’s Theological Claim: “If You Mock a Human, You Mock Him”

And to them the Rambam responds and says, yes, and what is the Rambam’s first argument against this? That you can’t work this way, you can’t start from religious faith and according to that make science, you need to look at how the world is, and based on that see if there is a God, right? After all, you’re starting in general from some belief that where did you arrive at this from.

You’re Telling God What to Do

But the Rambam here says a more theological claim, right? He says, and like these beliefs, whoever believes this way, meaning that God acts in such a way, right? And now the Rambam has a theological claim, right? And we can say this in our own language. You’ve decided that God must act in a certain way, right? You’re telling Him what to do.

So that’s one claim. Maybe God makes an Aristotelian world, and you have a difficulty what does it mean God acts? That was a difficulty for you, not for God. But they don’t think that way. And the Rambam says, not only are you telling God how to act, right? Their belief that God acts, it causes them also to say how He acts, right? Or what kind of things He created, right? Therefore their religion has yes a statement about nature, about physics.

“According to Me and According to Every Person of Understanding” — What Is a Person of Understanding?

But the Rambam claims something else, the Rambam claims, and like these beliefs, according to me and according to every person of understanding, yes, according to their view, this is the only way to say that God acts. According to my view, and not only according to my view, anyone who has intellect, the Rambam believes that anyone who has understanding, right? And I’ll explain why, right? This isn’t just the Rambam’s arrogance that someone of understanding agrees with me. After all, there’s a deeper intention here.

He says, what is a person of understanding? A person of understanding is someone who thinks you can understand the world, right? That’s called a person of understanding, a maskil, right? The world is ordered in a way that you can understand it. And now, order, or at least one of the basic orders is causality. Order to say, I can answer the question why is the world this way. And therefore you can’t really be a person of understanding without believing that the world works in an intelligible way.

Not only can you also say sensible, because senses, as we’ll see later in the introduction explicitly about this, senses are also a type of understanding. It’s not even necessarily intellect, he could have said according to me and according to every person with senses, because senses basically also, after all we’re children, we grow up, we learn that there’s some causal order in our senses. If you see something, then you assume that tomorrow it will be there. Even to look, you need to see whole things, we’ve never seen atoms and so on.

So anyone who is a person of understanding, meaning a person of intellect, must assume, this is what understanding is. The assumption that the world is intelligible, that you can understand it. And therefore this is according to every person of understanding, and not only according to everyone who agrees with me, because whoever disagrees with me is foolish. Whoever disagrees with me disagrees with the possibility of understanding.

“For This Is the Essence of Mockery Indeed”

And therefore every person of understanding says about this theology, as if about this belief, not just about the physics, the physics, okay, it’s illogical. But here there’s a theological claim. He says that this, about this it is said, “if you mock a human, you mock Him”, yes, you’re making a mockery of God. Why? Because you’re telling God what to do, and you’re telling Him that He must act in a very ridiculous way, right? He must act in a foolish way.

The Parallel to the Reasons for Commandments in Part Three

As he said in Part Three, when speaking about the reasons for commandments, he says that there is, this parallels that same question here, right? He says that there’s an approach that says the commandments are by will alone and have no purpose, right? Meaning, there’s no continuity, right? There’s never a commandment for the sake of something, or from something, because of something, for this is just another type of cause, right? A final cause.

And the Rambam says, you’re saying that God is more insane than a human being. Right? Because a human being always acts with a reason. Someone who acts without a reason is insane. But you think it’s praise to say about God that He always acts without a reason, but rather by will. Of course someone could say more complex things, that God acts and then His purpose is always in the thing itself, all kinds of things like that, that’s not insane. But whoever says as a matter of principle that there cannot be a reason for God’s action, then he mocks Him, as if he mocks a human.

Meaning, if you want to mock a human being, you say about a human being that he acts without reason, yes, that there’s no continuity to his actions, that he’s insane, one day he does this, and tomorrow he does that, and there’s no connection between these things, because he’s really a Kalamiist, yes, he really lives that way, in a non-causal way, but to say this about God that this is the essence of mockery indeed, meaning, they think the opposite, they think you’re a heretic, that you’re saying there’s nature. He says, no, you’re a heretic, you’re not a heretic, you’re something worse, you’re a blasphemer. Because you’re making God a mockery, and you’re even obligating Him to be the most ridiculous thing, or the most disordered, the most insane, the most without this.

So this is the Rambam’s claim against, a theological claim, right? This is his theological claim against their theology.

The Solution: The Word “Acts” Has More Meanings Than the Kalam Thinks

And of course, the real answer to the question what does it mean that God acts, is that the word acts has more meanings than they think, right? But this was discussed in Chapter 69 explicitly, because they didn’t understand that the word acts they’re corporealizing, they think that the word acts is always like human action, that human action is always in such a way that really, if I do something, right?

Human Action Versus Divine Action

This is true about human action, if I do, true to a certain extent, if I do something and then it just continues, then in some real sense it’s true that I’m not the actor, this is called in halacha koach kocho (power of his power), or things like that, it’s no longer my power, it’s no longer my action.

But regarding God’s action, that God really doesn’t act in the form of contact, after all when we say that God acts, we don’t mean that God pushes the first heaven, He acts in an intellectual way, that the Rambam will say in Part Two, is called emanation (shefa). We call this emanation.

The Crucial Distinction: Intellectual Action Is Not Weakened Through Intermediaries

And action in an intellectual way is not action that is weakened by having intermediaries, right? That’s the important distinction. This is never written explicitly enough in the Rambam, in Chapter 69 is the place where it’s written, and a few other places, but it follows from his words, and it’s true. In Chassidic books they explain this more explicitly, but, because they’re more stuck on this problem, but the conclusion is the same conclusion, right?

Yes, that God acts, the belief that God acts is not by analogy to human action. Human action is indeed interrupted. And if God were to act as the Kalam imagines He acts, as human action, and indeed the Rambam claims about them that they don’t understand at all the concept of Aristotle’s four causes, that there are all kinds of different ways to do something, it’s not just one form.

The Conclusion: Causality Does Not Contradict God’s Action

So indeed in order for God to be, in order for us to be able to say “hamotzi lechem min ha’aretz,” we would really need to negate causality. And because God acts in an abstract way, in an intellectual way,

The Qualitative Difference Between the First Cause and the Rest of the Causes — And Its Significance for Understanding God’s Action

The Problem with Perceiving Causality as a Receding Chain

After all, you can say it this way, in other words, you can say: The difference between the first cause and the second is not just a quantitative difference, right? We often think that if we say God is the First Cause, as He is also the distant cause, the correct one, they say, okay, true, there’s nature, but God made nature. Of course this is a very big shortcut, right? To say why did the sun rise today? Because the sun has such a power, I don’t know, we say with gravitational force that rotates the world. And why is there gravitational force? And why does it have mass? After a thousand and a half things we’ll arrive at this, and God made it be this way, right?

And then people will ask, justifiably, so it turns out that God is very distant from the action. It’s really very strange to say about this “hamotzi lechem min ha’aretz”, right? Yes, and there are blessings we say like this, yes, I know, God gladdens groom and bride, what does it mean gladdens groom and bride? Yes, we have an actual blessing, gladdens groom and bride, yes, in the seven blessings we say that we’re now arriving at the wedding, and the Kalamist will say, it seems to us that we gladden the groom and bride, or that they gladden each other, I don’t know. The answer is, says the blessing, no, God gladdens.

The Kalamist will say, how can you explain this? Unless we say that joy is a psychic accident, yes, yes, it’s an accident within human beings, and God is the one who makes the joy. He doesn’t even do it because they’re getting married, right? It’s just an accident, by custom, He has a custom to gladden groom and bride when they’re groom and bride.

The Strange Interpretation: Imitation of Imitation of Imitation

Or there are other commentators who will say, and there is in the style of the seven blessings, they say this, but the Rambam will say this is also what’s there. They say, what does it mean that God gladdened groom and bride? Says Rashi or someone, after all God created the first human, and the first human, he won’t have parents to arrange a wedding for him, right? So they need to say that God and the angels, or whoever it wasn’t, he’s the one who sang at the wedding of the first human, right? He danced there. Because after all there was no wedding, Adam and Eve, who danced at the wedding? God danced.

So when we say God gladdens groom and bride, we actually mean the first groom and bride, there Adam and Eve. At that wedding there were no human dancers, there was only God who danced there. And in memory of this, or as if, and He started the custom, you could say, and then we imitate Him, so imitation of imitation of imitation, cause of cause of cause, God gladdens every groom and bride today, right?

This is a strange approach. Why? Because then each generation is less, God is a bit less gladdening groom and bride, because it’s getting more distant, right?

The Error in Understanding Causality

But someone who understands a bit of philosophy says this is nonsense. Why? Because it depends what kind of causality you’re talking about, or how you understand causality, and the truth is that even in this world you can see examples of this type, right?

We for example imagine this weakened causality, like say color, right? If I color something with black color, and then I take that colored thing and color something second from it, then usually it’s already weakened, right? It’s already a photocopy of a photocopy, so each time there’s some imperfection, right? Each time more weaknesses enter because of the nature of matter and so on, so it becomes weaker each time.

Which is fine, when we’re talking about accidental action, yes, action that they really think that God creates the accidents, that not action that makes the thing, right, that this, all human actions are of this type, that don’t really do anything.

The Parable of the Train: The Qualitative Difference Between the First Cause and the Rest

But if you’re talking about action that really makes the thing, and I even have a human parable, right, if there’s a train that… how do you say? The first one, yes, its engine is in the first one, and then you say, he says, okay, and who moves the second? The connection of the first to the second. And who moves the third? The second.

This is nonsense, right? The second doesn’t do anything. It transmits the emanation, it transmits the movement of the locomotive, of the engine at the front, to the second. That’s true, we need the second. Without the second, the third won’t move. But someone who stands in the last car of the train and says, ah, I know the mover of this car, it’s the intermediary, then he simply didn’t understand how the train works. He’s very crude, right?

If we’re talking about some sound that passes, then it’s true, because indeed there are things that weaken. But in that the whole action of the train exists at all, then there’s only one responsible for this, which is the train, the first car, the one that has the engine.

Application to God’s Action

And like this at least, or much more than this, is what we say that God acts. We mean, He gives existence, and therefore also all types of existence, all the particular forms and so on, to the whole world, and this is the form that we call Him the Form and Cause and Purpose in Chapter 69.

And action of this type is not weakened when it passes through causes. Why? Because the difference, you can say it this way, the difference between the first and the second, like for example of my train, right? It’s true in a very weak sense that the eleventh car receives power from the tenth car, and therefore the more you go up the chain you have more power. This is true relatively, right? Meaning the last one needs all those before it, and the one in the middle doesn’t need those after it, only those before it. In this sense indeed there is a descent of power as you go down through the chain of causes.

The Qualitative, Not Quantitative, Difference

But the difference between all the other principles and the First Principle is qualitative, it’s another type, because this, it has power of motion at all, and all these don’t have power of motion at all, or they have, you can say they have power or they have secondary power, they don’t have independent or primary power at all, to act and move.

And when we understand this, we understand, when we say that God is the First or Last Cause, if we start from below, that His firstness is not that each time you go up the chain of causes He becomes more distant, because the firstness is more than all the rest, right? The first from the second is of a different quality than the second and third. It’s not a quantitative difference, it’s a qualitative difference.

The Distinction Between Corporeal Action and Intellectual Action

And therefore we actually need to say that God is the Last Cause, and He acts, He made an insane world just so He could be its micro-manager all the time, right? I think people who believe in this God, they tend to be micro-managers. Because they think that the only way I can, yes, if I’m the manager of the company, the only way that I’m responsible for everything is that I’m really doing it all the time, or at least commanding all the time on every last detail.

The Parable of the Intellectual Leader Versus the Coercive Leader

But if he’s a leader with intellect, right, it’s exactly that same difference between, you can say, for example, someone who leads, I have, if you have a community or enterprise, I don’t know, anyone who leads human beings, who is a kind of god, of that thing, right, the last cause of that thing, so indeed, human beings without intellect, they only understand coercion, so indeed he needs to command everything. They say, oh, the chief manager, he made the last rule of exactly how to put the box into this, so he’s considered, so he has responsibility. If not, if he just gave the general direction or the idea or something like that, then they say, ah, you’re not responsible at all, the last worker did it.

But this isn’t true. And therefore leaders who want, yes, their stamp to be on everything, so they become very dictatorial, they lead everything by coercion, because they only understand corporeal action, which is always forced motion, motion of, I force, like I force the tree that I move to move.

Intellectual Action: Persuasion Not Coercion

But if you understand a type of intellectual action, and a type of emanation it’s always more persuasion, right? For human beings and also in the world, right? God doesn’t create the world. This is a parable, but you can say that God persuades the world to exist and doesn’t force it to exist. Which is called the world works on love and will and not on compulsion.

And then you understand the opposite, that also the last cause does the will, or you can do, it acts from the power of the first cause, not because the first power moves it, but because it gives it intellectual existence, it explains to it what it’s doing, and then it does as it understands, it doesn’t need, the first doesn’t even need to know and understand exactly all the details, but it still more does it than the last.

The Conclusion: The Rambam Does Not Compromise — The Kalam Disgrace God

This is all parables to understand why the Kalam are wrong at all in that they say, yes, we, we have no compromise here, and this is what’s important for the Rambam to emphasize. It’s not that the Rambam is compromising, it’s not that he’s saying, what can I do that I see that Aristotle is right, that there is yes nature in the world, what can I do that I say that God acts, and it’s true that according to the simple meaning they’re right that this, this is how you say about the actor. No, they’re making a mockery of God.

Mockery of a Human

This is called to mock, to mock a human. About a human being it wouldn’t be, you say, such praise. If you say about a human being that he’s the Rebbe of the whole community, and how is he responsible for all the Torah learning of every smallest child? Because he forces them, because he yells at them, because he, then it would be mockery, it wouldn’t be praise.

Even about a human being who understands well how to be a rabbi, you say, he invites everyone, gives them inspiration, gives them emanation, he gives them explanation of what they’re doing, and therefore he’s responsible for the last detail. And all the more so for God, that we don’t need and don’t want, the Rambam can even say the opposite, even if I didn’t have a physical problem, the opposite, even if it tended to be true from a physical perspective, okay, I would be forced, I would say, that’s how the world is.

Preference for the Aristotelian World Over the Kalamist World

But as it were, still because of my belief in God’s greatness, I would want an Aristotelian world and not a Kalamist world.

Okay, that’s the end of this lesson.