The Essential Agus. Steven T. Katz
taught the Israelites to distinguish between the Primary Intention of God, reflecting His Purpose for mankind, and His Secondary Intention in providing the social institutions and rituals needed for the ultimate triumph of the Divine Will.
At this point, we note a most important distinction which M. draws between “True Beliefs” and “Necessary Beliefs”—the former are true in themselves, the latter, while strictly untrue, serve the cause of truth. (Ill, 28 & III, 32.) As an example of the latter, he cites the belief that God listens to the prayers of men, turning from the policy of Wrath to that of Compassion, and changing the course of events in response to the earnest petitions of people. (Ill, 28.) In the case of rituals, the elaborate ordinances regulating the sacrifices in the Temple were designed to wean the people away from dependence on animal offerings. Similarly, the laws regulating family life continued relics of barbarism which the contemporaries of Moses were not willing to abandon all at once. (Ill, 32 & III, 47.) So, too, in the case of ideas, the “Necessary Beliefs” were designed to establish a community dedicated to “True Beliefs.” Some popular beliefs are essential to the formation of a community that would become the bearer of great, liberating truths. That the Torah of Moses can never be replaced by other prophets is one of those “Necessary Beliefs,” that insure the continuity of the Jewish faith as against the claims of Christianity and Islam. In a larger sense, the entire dogmatic structure of Judaism, insofar as it reaches beyond the truths of philosophy, the impetus of prophecy and the messianic vision, belongs in this category of “Necessary Beliefs,” particularly the teachings about hell and the resurrection of the dead.
What is the content of revelation, in M.’s scheme?
If we ignore for a moment the Torah of Moses, revelation is an energetic thrust, rather than a rational proposition. It is so protean that it assumes in different minds, forms as diverse as the speculations of the philosopher, the insights of an inventor, the visions of a poet, the arts of the statesman. In every case, the intent of the divine inflow is directed not alone to the prophetic personality but to the society of which he is part. And the nobler the level of prophecy, the more it is oriented toward the entire community and ultimately toward all of humanity. Revelation contains a rational core; indeed, the Divine inflow affects reason primarily and imagination secondarily; but it is more than sheer reason, since the ideal prophet’s grasp exceeds the reach of the philosopher. What, then, is the plus of prophetic revelation?
To say, as does Franz Rosenzweig, that God reveals His own Being is beside the point. “The entire world reveals His Glory.” And in a more direct sense, God does not reveal Himself. The prophet receives a call, a command together with an intimation of God’s reality. To assert that God reveals His love is true in a general sense, but this answer does not capture the special nuance of the Maimonidean philosophy, or the genius of Hebraic prophecy. The prophet loves his people, but he is also their severest critic. It would be more correct to characterize revelation as a thrust toward messianic perfection of the individual and of society. The two goals are one in essence, for the closer one comes to God the more he is dedicated to the promotion within society of “steadfast love” (hesed), “righteousness” (zedakah) and “justice” (mishpat). (Ill, 54.) An anticipation of the building of God’s Kingdom on earth is implicit in the “inflow” from Active Reason, whether it occurs on the lowest, pre-civilization level, or on the highest, prophetic level. In each case, the recipient is impelled to bring some gift for the Kingdom; he is filled with “divine discontent,” he must destroy as well as build, he is charged with a mission. All things are judged by Him in the light of the future kingdom. So, he is hopeful when other’s are despairing and embittered when other’s are celebrating. His sole standard is the “nearness of God” and His Word. So, Job, who was not a prophet, came to realize that the highest good, “the knowledge of God,” is available to us, even when we are troubled in body and anguished in soul. (Ill, 23.)
In a word, revelation brings a dynamic unity of reassurance, discontent and the vision of the long road ahead; hence, it impels the prophets to bless even as they curse, to speak of the glories that are to come, even as they expose the moral failings of their contemporaries. Above all, revelation is a “quest,” a demand for creative action of one kind or another.
In our day, this concept of revelation is completely tenable, though our view of the world does not consist of Spheres and Active Reason. If we accept the world-view of what Hartshorne calls the “convergent philosophy,” we recognize that new creative energy may well enter into us. God is the Pole of whole-creation, but He also includes the Pole of resistance or raw matter, in His Being. He is eternal, but He also lives in time. He enters into human history, when hearts and minds are readied for Him. To paraphrase Matthew Arnold, “He is the Power, not ourselves, that makes for growth in Life, Mind and Spirit.” Is not the course of evolution, as analyzed by Morgan, Bergson, Alexander and Teilhard de Chardin, a demonstration of the continuing creativity of the Divine Being? Can we not discern an advance toward the emergence of creatures with greater measures of freedom?—If God is the Pole of wholeness building in the cosmos, then a series of pulsations toward ever greater wholes is precisely what we should expect.
Neo-Maimonism, then, accepts the principle of revelation as an incursion of supra-human energy into the soul’s of creative individual’s and into society. Along with M., we recognize the many-sidedness of revelation. It is by no means confined to the sphere of religion. It reinvigorates “the lines of growth” in the spirit of man. It is reflected in the realms of art, science, philosophy and statecraft. It ranges in power from everyday premonitions, that occur to most of us, to the creative ecstasies of geniuses.
Neo-Maimonism differs from the “life-philosophies” of Germany and the philosophy of Bergson, in the recognition that the fresh incursions of spiritual energy center on the expansion of the range of intelligence. The heart of reality is not the sheer impetus of a cosmic will, as in Schopenhauer and Nietzsche, nor is it a blind life-force, the elan vital, but spirit in the sense of the total outreach of man, including the disciplines of reason, ethics and esthetics. At the same time, Neo-Maimonism rejects the separation of religion from the other domains of culture. There is a goal and purpose to human history, and all efforts “to improve the world by the Kingdom of the Almighty” subserve that goal.
The essential characteristic of revelation is not the transmission of static information, but the confirmation of a direction. The recipient is powerfully oriented toward the achievement of “the nearness of God.” The content of revelation is a hunger and a thirst for more and more of the things of God. As a dynamic phenomenon, revelation consists of three elements—an affirmation, a negation, a drive toward action.
As an affirmation, revelation is basically the reorientation of man’s spirit toward the infinite goal of building God’s Kingdom on earth. One comes to feel part of that wondrous company of great men and women who dared dream of the ideal society of mankind. One is reassured that this infinite quest will come closer and closer to realization. None of us comes to the experience of revelation totally alone and naked. On the contrary, we are sustained in our quest for God’s “nearness,” by the “sacred tradition” of our community. And in the experience of revelation, we find the values of the past confirmed and reinvigorated, in so far as their intent is separable from the external forms which they assumed in the various contingencies of history. God’s Word at any one time cannot be in contradiction with His Eternal Will, as revealed to all men and women of good-will.
Neo-Maimonism applauds the principle of M. that the main road to true revelation is that of critical, objective rationality. Moses is praised for not daring to engage in metaphysical speculation before he has prepared himself fully for that task by means of mathematical and logical studies. And when the influx of Divine energy comes, it inspires man’s rational faculty primarily. We cannot attain the insights of revelation by means of emotional rhapsodies, or by withdrawing from the world. Kierkegaard’s slogan, “subjectivity is truth,” is only partially true, in the two senses—first, that the final fulcrum of truth is the mind of the individual; second, that all truth is inescapably filtered through the forms and limitations of our minds. Our formulation would be, “in all truth there is subjectivity,” since it is the individual’s hunger for truth and meaning that opens his mind to the influx of revelation. For this very reason,