His idea of the purpose of prophecy he develops, as it seems, with an eye to the criticism of the Brahmins of India, whom he quotes as denying prophecy, though admitting Providence, on the ground that it can serve no purpose. The reason alone, they say, is sufficient to decide what is right and what is wrong. Accordingly Aaron ben Elijah meets their objection as follows: It is true that man might have gotten along without prophecy through the laws which his own reason established for right and wrong, good and evil. Those who followed these rational laws would have attained long life, and the others would have perished. But a good man living in a bad environment would have been involved in the downfall of the majority, which would not be just. Hence it was necessary that G.o.d should warn the man, that he might save himself. This is the first beginning of prophecy. Witness Noah and Lot. Abraham was a great advance on his predecessors. He endeavored to follow G.o.d"s will in respect to both body and soul. Hence G.o.d saved him from the danger to which he was exposed in Ur of the Chaldees, and wanted to benefit his descendants also that they should perfect their bodies and their souls.
This is impossible for a whole nation without special laws to guide them. This is particularly true of the "traditional" laws (ceremonial), which are not in themselves good or bad, but are disciplinary in their nature.
A prophet must have both intellectual and ethical perfection. For he must understand the nature of G.o.d in order to communicate his will; and this cannot be had without previous ethical perfection. Hence the twofold requirement. This is the reason, he says, why we do not believe in the religions of Jesus and Mohammed, because they were not possessed of intellectual perfection. And besides they tend to the extinction of the human species by reason of their monastic and celibate ideal. They were misled by the asceticism of the prophets, who meant it merely as a protest against the material self-indulgence of the time, and called attention to the higher life. But those people in their endeavor to imitate the prophets mistook the means for the end, with the result that they missed both, perfection of soul as well as of body, and merely mortified the flesh, thinking it the will of G.o.d. Hence, Aaron ben Elijah continues, we shall never accept a religion which does not preach the maintenance of this world as well as of the next. Not even miracles can authenticate a religion which preaches monasticism and celibacy.
Moses was superior to the other prophets. All the others received their messages in a vision or a dream, Moses had his inspiration while awake.
The others were inspired through the medium of an angel, _i. e._, through the imagination, hence their language abounds in allegories and parables. Moses did not use the imagination, hence the plain character of his speech. The others were overcome by the vision and physically exhausted, as we read in Daniel (10, 17), "There remained no strength in me, and no breath was left in me." Moses was free from this weakness--"And the Lord spoke unto Moses face to face, as a man speaketh unto his neighbor" (Exod. 33, 11). The others required preparation, Moses did not. Moses"s testimony, too, was stronger than that of all the rest. His authority in the end was made plain to all the people directly and openly, so that there remained not a shred of a doubt. This is why we accept his law and no other, because none is so well authenticated. The Law cannot change without implying that the standard of perfection has changed, or the world has changed, or G.o.d"s knowledge has changed. All this is impossible. The Law says besides, "Thou shalt not add thereto, and thou shalt not diminish therefrom" (Deut. 13, 1).
Therefore, concludes Aaron ben Elijah the Karaite, we do not believe in the oral or traditional law because of the additions to, and subtractions from, the written law which it contains.[378]
Aaron ben Elijah agrees with Maimonides that all the commandments of the Bible, including the ceremonial laws, have a purpose and are not due to the arbitrary will of G.o.d. The ceremonial laws are for the sake of the rational, serving a pedagogical and disciplinary purpose, and the Law as a whole is for the purpose of teaching the truth and inculcating the good. He goes further than Maimonides in vindicating the rational and ethical purpose of all the details of the various laws, and not merely of the several commandments as a whole (_cf._ above, p. 294).[379]
A problem that occupied the minds of the Mutakallimun, Arabs as well as Karaites, but which Maimonides does not discuss, is the purpose of G.o.d"s giving commandments to those who he knew would remain unbelievers, and refuse to obey. That G.o.d"s knowledge and man"s freedom co-exist and neither destroys the other, has already been shown.[380] If then G.o.d knows, as we must a.s.sume, that a given person will refuse to obey the commandments, what is the use of giving them to him? And granting that for some reason unknown to us they have been given, is it just to punish him for disobedience when the latter might have been spared by not giving the man in question any commandments?
Aaron ben Elijah answers these questions by citing the following parallel. A man prepares a meal for two guests and one does not come.
The absence of the guest does not make the preparation improper, for the character of the act does not depend upon the choice of the guest to do or not to do the desire of the host. The invitation was proper because the host meant the guest"s benefit. To be sure, the case is not quite parallel, and to make it so we must a.s.sume that the host expects that the guest will not come. His intention being good, the invitation is proper. In our problem knowledge takes the place of expectation. G.o.d does not merely expect, he knows that the man will not obey. But as G.o.d"s desire is to benefit mankind and arouse them to higher things, the command is proper, no matter what the person chooses to do.
To punish the man for disobedience is not unjust because G.o.d intended to benefit him by the command. If he disobeyed, that is his lookout. If the benefit could have been had without the command, then the punishment would be unjust, but not otherwise.
If only good men were commanded and the rest ignored, the danger would be that the former being thereby a.s.sured of reward, might be tempted to do wrong; and the others in despair might be worse than they would be under ordinary circ.u.mstances. G.o.d saw that man has evil tendencies, and needs warning and guidance from without. And just as he gave men understanding and ability to believe though he knew that a given person would not avail himself thereof, so he gave all men commandments, though he knew that some would not obey.[381]
The rest of the book is devoted to such questions as reward and punishment after death, immortality of the soul, the problem of the soul"s pre-existence, the nature of the future life, repentance--questions which Maimonides left untouched in the "Guide" on the ground that whatever religion and tradition may say about them, they are not strictly speaking scientific questions, and are not susceptible to philosophical demonstration.
Aaron ben Elijah proves that there must be reward and punishment after death. For as man is composed of body and soul, there must be reward for each according as man endeavors to maintain and perfect them. Thus if a man cares for his body alone, he will be rewarded in his body, _i. e._, in this world. The other man who looks out for both body and soul must have the same reward in this world as the other, since their physical efforts were similar. At the same time he must have something over and above the other in the nature of compensation for his soul, and this must be in the next world.
The prosperity of the wicked and the misery of the righteous are also to be explained in part, as we have seen (p. 376), by reference to their respective destinies in the next world, where the inequalities of this world will be adjusted.
Finally, material reward cannot be the consequence of intellectual and spiritual merit; it would mean doing the greater for the sake of the smaller. And besides the soul is not benefited by physical goods and pleasures, and would remain without reward. Hence there must be another kind of reward after death. In order to deserve such reward the soul must become wise. At the same time the common people, who observe the ceremonial commandments, are not excluded from a share in the world to come, because the purpose of these laws is also intellectual and spiritual, as we said before (p. 382), and hence their observance makes the soul wise, and gives it immortality. This last comment is clearly directed against the extreme intellectualism of Maimonides and Gersonides, according to whom rational activity alone confers immortality (p. 339).[382]
The considerations just adduced imply the immortality of the soul, to which they lend indirect proof. But Aaron ben Elijah endeavors besides to furnish direct proof of the soul"s continuance after the death of the body. And the first thing he does is to disarm the criticism of the philosophers, who deny immortality on the ground that the soul being the form of the body, it must like other material forms cease with the dissolution of the things of which they are the forms. He answers this by showing that the soul as the cause of knowledge and wisdom--immaterial faculties--is itself immaterial. Being also the cause of the body"s motion, it is not itself subject to motion, hence not to time, and therefore not destructible like a natural form. Besides the composition of body and soul is different from that of matter and form in the ordinary sense. For in the former case each of the const.i.tuent parts is already a composite of matter and form. The body has both matter and form, and the soul has likewise. For the acquired intellect is the form of the soul, which is the matter. Other proofs are as follows: The rational soul performs its functions without help from the body, hence it is independent in its existence. The proof of the last statement is that the power of the rational soul is not limited, and does not become weary, as a corporeal power does. Hence it can exist without the body. Again, as the corporeal powers grow stronger, the intellectual powers grow weaker, and _vice versa_ as the corporeal powers grow weaker in old age, the intellect grows stronger. Hence the soul is independent of the body, and when the physical powers cease entirely in death, the intellect is at its height.[383]
The question of the soul"s pre-existence before coming in contact with the body, Aaron ben Elijah answers in the affirmative, though his arguments in favor of the opposite view are stronger. His sole argument in favor of its pre-existence is that the soul, being a self-subsisting substance and not an accident, is not dependent upon the body, and must have existed before the body. The consequence which some have drawn from this supposition combined with the soul"s immortality, namely, that the soul is eternal, he refuses to adopt. The soul existed before the body, but like all things which are not G.o.d it was created in time.
Though we have thus seen that the soul existed before the body, it is mistaken to suppose that it was completely developed. For though the gradual progress in knowledge and understanding as the individual matures proves nothing for the soul"s original imperfection, as we may account for this progress by the gradual adaptation of the physical elements to the functions of the soul, there is a more valid objection.
If the soul was perfectly developed before entering the body, all souls should be alike when they leave it, which is not the case. We come to the conclusion therefore that the soul does acquire knowledge while in contact with the body. The human soul is a unit, and from its connection with the body arise the various powers, such as growth, life, reason.
When the soul is separated from the body, those powers which functioned with the aid of the body perish; the others remain.[384]
In the matter of eschatology Aaron ben Elijah gives a number of views without declaring himself definitely for any of them. The main difference among the three points of view quoted concerns the possibility of the resurrection of the body, and the meaning of the terms "revival of the dead" ("Tehiyat ha-metim") and "the world to come"
("Olam ha-ba"). Aaron ben Elijah seems to incline to the first, in favor of resurrection.
We must endeavor, he says, to get some notion of final reward and punishment. For without any idea of its nature a man"s hope or fear is taken away from him, and he has no motive for right conduct. To be sure it is not possible to get a clear understanding of the matter, but some idea we must have. The first view which he seems to favor is that _revival of the dead_ and _world to come_ are the same thing; that the end of man is the resurrection of the body and its reunion with the soul. This is the future life, and this is meant by reward and punishment. There is Biblical support for this view in such expressions as, "Thy dead shall live, thy dead bodies shall arise" (Isa. 26, 19).
"The Lord killeth, and maketh alive; he bringeth down to the grave and bringeth up" (1 Sam. 2, 6). There is nothing to object in this, he says, for the same G.o.d who made man of the dust can revive him after death.
Besides, there seems to be a logical propriety in bringing soul and body together for reward and punishment just as they were during conduct in life. When the soul is once reunited with the body in the resurrection, it is never separated again. The expression "_garden_ of Eden" for paradise is a figure of speech for eternal life free from pain.
The second opinion is expressed by those who do not believe in bodily resurrection. The end of man according to these is the return of the soul to the world of souls. This is the meaning of "world to come"; and "revival of the dead" means the same thing. For it is not possible that the soul should be reunited with the body, which is temporary in its nature and subject to dissolution. Besides, the body has organs, such as those of food and reproduction, which would be useless in the future life. The advocates of this theory also believe in transmigration of souls as a punishment. Aaron ben Elijah rejects metempsychosis on the ground that there is some relation between a soul and its body, and not every body can receive every soul.
Aaron ben Elijah also quotes without comment the cla.s.sification, already familiar to us (p. 119), of human souls into (1) dead, (2) alive, (3) healthy, and (4) sick. Death denotes evil deeds; life, good deeds; health, intellectual knowledge; disease, ignorance. This cla.s.sification is applied in determining the destiny of the soul after death. If one is alive and healthy, _i. e._, has knowledge and good deeds, he has a share in the world to come. If he is healthy and dead (knowledge + evil deeds), the soul is kept in an intermediate world forever. If he is alive and sick (good deeds + ignorance), the soul rises to the upper air, whence it returns again and again to the body until it acquires wisdom to be able to rise to the world of angels. If he is dead and sick (evil deeds + ignorance), the soul dies like an animal.
Finally, the third opinion is a combination of resurrection and "future world." Seeing that some of the functions of the soul are performed with the help of the body, while others are not, the advocates of this view maintain that the soul will be rewarded in both conditions--with the body, in resurrection, without the body, in the world to come.
If a man has merits and demerits, his good and evil deeds are balanced against each other, and the surplus determines his reward or punishment according to its nature.[385]
CHAPTER XVII
HASDAI BEN ABRAHAM CRESCAS (1340-1410)
The influence of Aristotle on Jewish thought, which began as early as Saadia and grew in intensity as the Aristotelian writings became better known, reached its high water mark in Ibn Daud, Maimonides and Gersonides. To Maimonides Aristotle was the indisputable authority for all matters pertaining to sublunar existence, but he reserved the right to differ with the Stagirite when the question concerned the heavenly spheres and the influences derived from them. Hence he denied the eternity of motion and the fundamental principle at the basis of this Aristotelian idea, that necessity rules all natural phenomena. In his doctrine of creation in time, Maimonides endeavored to defend G.o.d"s personality and voluntary and purposeful activity. For the same reason he defended the inst.i.tution of miracles. Gersonides went further in his rationalistic att.i.tude, carried the Aristotelian principles to their inevitable conclusions, and did not shrink from adopting to all intents and purposes the eternity of the world (strictly speaking the eternity of matter), and the limitation of G.o.d"s knowledge to universals.
Aristotle"s authority was now supreme, and the Bible had to yield to Aristotelian interpretations, as we have seen abundantly. Maimonides and Gersonides were the great peaks that stood out above the rest; but there was any number of lesser lights, some who wrote books and still more who did not write, taking the great men as their models and looking at Jewish literature and belief through Aristotelian spectacles.
Intellectualism is the term that best describes this att.i.tude. It had its basis in psychology, and from there succeeded in establishing itself as the ruling principle in ethics and metaphysics. As reason and intellect is the distinguishing trait of man--the part of man which raises him above the beast--and as the soul is the form of the living body, its essence and actuating principle, it was argued that the most important part of man is his rational soul or intellect, and immortality was made dependent upon theoretical ideas. Speculative study made the soul; and an intellect thus const.i.tuted was immortal, for it was immaterial. The heavenly world, consisting of the separate Intelligences and culminating in G.o.d, was also in its essence reason and intellect.
Hence thought and knowledge formed the essence of the universe. By thought is man saved, and through thought is he united with the Most High. All else that is not pure thought acquires what value it has from the relation it bears to thought. In this way were judged those divisions of Judaism that concerned ceremony and ethical practice. Their value consisted in their function of promoting the ends of the reason.
Judah Halevi, influenced by Al Gazali, had already before Maimonides protested against this intellectualistic att.i.tude in the name of a truer though more naive understanding of the Bible and Jewish history. But Judah Halevi"s nationalism and the expression of his poetical and religious feelings and ideas could not vie with the dominating personality of Maimonides, whose rationalistic and intellectualistic att.i.tude swept everything before it and became the dominant mode of thinking for his own and succeeding ages. It remained for Hasdai Crescas (born in Barcelona, in 1340), who flourished in Christian Spain two centuries after Maimonides and over a half century after Gersonides, to take up the cudgels again in behalf of a truer Judaism, a Judaism independent of Aristotle, and one that is based more upon the spiritual and emotional sides of man and less upon the purely intellectual, theoretical and speculative. Himself devoid of the literary power and poetic feeling of Judah Halevi, Crescas had this in common with the mediaeval national poet that he resented the domination of Jewish belief and thought by the alien Greek speculation. In a style free from rhetoric, and characterized rather by a severe brevity and precision, he undertakes to undermine the Aristotelian position by using the Stagirite"s own weapons, logical a.n.a.lysis and proof. His chief work is the "Or Adonai," Light of the Lord.[386]
Agreeing with all other Jewish writers that the existence of G.o.d is the basis of Judaism, he sees in this very fact a reason why this principle cannot be regarded as one of the six hundred and thirteen commandments.
For a commandment implies the existence of one who commands. Hence to regard the belief in the existence of G.o.d as a commandment implies the very thing which the commandment expresses. The existence of G.o.d therefore as the basis of all commandments cannot itself be a commandment. Besides only those things can form the objects of a command which can be controlled by the will. But a matter of belief like the existence of G.o.d is not subject to will, it is a matter of fact and of proof.[387]
Maimonides, as we know, based his proofs of the existence, unity and incorporeality of G.o.d upon twenty-six philosophical propositions taken from the works of Aristotle and his Arabian interpreters. As he was not writing a book on general philosophy, Maimonides simply enumerates twenty-five propositions, which he accepts as proved by Aristotle and his followers. To these he adds provisionally another proposition, number twenty-six, concerning the eternity of motion, upon which he bases his proof of the existence of G.o.d in order to be safe from all criticism. In the sequel he discusses this last proposition and shows that unlike the other twenty-five, it is not susceptible of rigid demonstration, and the arguments in favor of the origin of motion and the world in time are more plausible.
Crescas goes further than Maimonides, and controverts most of the other propositions as well, maintaining in particular against Aristotle and Maimonides that an infinite magnitude _is_ possible and exists actually; that there _is_ an infinite fulness or void outside of this world, and hence there _may_ be many worlds, and it need not follow that the elements would pour in from one world into the next, so that all earth should be together in the centre, all fire together in the outer circ.u.mference, and the intermediate elements, air and water, between these two. The elements may stay in their respective worlds in the places a.s.signed to them. It will not be worth our while to wade through all the technical and hair-splitting discussions of these points. The results will be sufficient for our purpose.
The proof of the existence of an unmoved mover in Aristotle and Maimonides is based upon the impossibility of a regress to infinity. If Hasdai Crescas admits the infinite, the Aristotelian proof fails.
Similarly G.o.d"s unity in Maimonides is among other things based upon the finiteness of the world and its unity. If infinite s.p.a.ce is possible outside of this world, and there may be many worlds, this proof fails for G.o.d"s unity. So Crescas takes up in detail all the Maimonidean proofs of the existence, unity and incorporeality of G.o.d and points out that they are not valid because in the first place they are based upon premises which Crescas has refuted, and secondly were the premises granted Maimonides"s results do not follow from them.[388] It remains then for Crescas to give his own views on this problem which, he says, the philosophers are unable to solve satisfactorily, and the Bible alone is to be relied upon. At the same time he does give a logical proof which in reality is not different from one of the proofs given by Maimonides himself. It is based upon the distinction insisted upon by Alfarabi and Avicenna between the "possible existent" and the "necessary existent." Whatever is an effect of a cause is in itself merely possible, and owes the necessity of its existence to its cause. Now, argues Crescas, whether the number of causes and effects is finite or infinite, there must be one cause of all of them which is not itself an effect. For if all things are effects they are "possible existents" as regards their own nature, and require a cause which will make them exist rather than not. This self-subsisting cause is G.o.d.[389]
He then endeavors to prove the unity of G.o.d in the two senses of the term; unity in the sense of simplicity, and unity in the sense of uniqueness. Unity as opposed to composition--the former sense of the term--is neither the same as the essence of a thing, nor is it an accident added to the essence. It cannot be essence, for in that case all things called one would have the same essence. Nor is it accident, for that which defines and separates the existing thing is truly called substance rather than accident; and this is what unity does. Accordingly Crescas defines unity as something essential to everything actually existing, denoting the absence of plurality. This being true, that existent which is before all others is most truly called one. Also that being which is most separated from other things is best called one.[390]
Crescas disagrees with Maimonides"s opinion that no positive attributes can be applied to G.o.d, such as indicate relation to his creatures, and so on. His arguments are that we cannot avoid relation to creatures even in the term "cause," which Maimonides admits; and in the attributes of action--the only kind of positive attributes allowed by Maimonides--it is implied that before a given time G.o.d did not do a particular thing, which he did later, a condition in G.o.d which Maimonides will not admit.
Besides, if there are no positive attributes, what could be the meaning of the tetragrammaton, about which Maimonides has so much to say? If it expressed a negative attribute, why was its meaning kept so secret?
Crescas"s own view is that there are positive attributes, and that there is a relation between G.o.d and his creatures, though not a similarity, as they are far apart, the one being a necessary existent, the other a possible existent; one being infinite, the other finite.[391]
We must now try to show that G.o.d is one in the sense that there are no other G.o.ds besides. We may proceed as follows: If there are two G.o.ds, one of them controls only part of the world or he does not control it at all. The first is impossible because the unitary world must be due to one agent. But there may be more than one world and hence more than one agent. This is, however, answered by the thought that being infinite in power one could control them all. There is still another alternative, _viz._, that one agent controls the whole world and the other does nothing. Here speculation can go no further, and we must have recourse to Scripture, which says, "Hear, O Israel, the Lord our G.o.d, the Lord is One."[392] We see here that Crescas is interested in discrediting the logic chopping of the philosophers. No merely logical argument, is his idea, can give us absolute certainty even in so fundamental a doctrine as the unity of G.o.d. Like Judah Halevi, Crescas took his inspiration from Algazali, whose point of view appealed to him more than that of Maimonides and Gersonides, who may be cla.s.sed with Alfarabi, Avicenna and Averroes.
Having discussed the fundamental principles of all religion and philosophy, namely, the existence and nature of G.o.d, Crescas next takes up the following six fundamental dogmas of Judaism, G.o.d"s knowledge of existing things, Providence, Power, Prophecy, Freedom, Purpose.
There are three things to be remembered in the matter of G.o.d"s knowledge. He knows the infinite, for he knows particulars. He knows the non-existent, as he knows the future; and his knowledge of the contingent does not remove its contingent character. Maimonides and Gersonides had difficulty with this problem and we know their respective solutions. Gersonides, for reasons metaphysical as well as ethical, does not scruple to limit G.o.d"s knowledge to universals. Maimonides endeavors to reconcile the dilemma by throwing the blame upon our limited understanding. In G.o.d"s knowledge which is _toto clo_ different from ours, and of which we have no conception, all oppositions and contradictions find their ultimate harmony. Crescas, as we might naturally expect, agrees with Maimonides in this matter rather than with Gersonides. To limit G.o.d"s knowledge is opposed to the Bible, and would involve us in greater difficulties than those we endeavor to escape.[393]
Related to the question of G.o.d"s knowledge is the problem of Providence.
For G.o.d must know the individual or thing for which he provides, and if G.o.d has no knowledge of particulars, there can be no such thing as special providence. This latter as we know is virtually the opinion of Gersonides (_cf._ p. 345). Crescas, we have seen, defends G.o.d"s knowledge of particulars, hence he sees no difficulty in special providence on this score. He takes, however, the term in a broad sense.
All evidence of design in nature, all powers in plant and animal which guide their growth, reproduction and conservation are due to G.o.d"s providence. Providence, he says, is sometimes exercised by G.o.d directly, without an intermediate voluntary agent, sometimes with such mediation.
G.o.d"s relations to Moses and to the Israelites in Egypt at the time of the tenth plague were without intermediate agency. In all other cases there is mediation of angels, or prophets, or wise men, or, according to some, the heavenly bodies, which are living and intelligent beings.
Providence itself is of different kinds. There is the most general and natural exhibited in the equipment of the various species of plant and animal life for their protection and growth and conservation. There are the more special powers found in the human race. These forms of providence have little to do with the person"s deserts. They are purely dependent upon the const.i.tution and influence of the stars. Then there is the more special providence of the Jewish nation, then of the male members of this nation, and of the priests and the levites. Finally comes the special providence of the individual, who is rewarded and punished according to his conduct. The reward and punishment of this world are not strictly controlled by conduct, the reward and punishment of the next world are. In this last remark Crescas cuts the knot which has been the cause of so much discussion in religious philosophy. If the real reward and punishment are in the next world, the prosperity of the wicked and the adversity of the righteous in this world do not form so great a problem. At the same time an explanation of this peculiar phenomenon is still wanting. For surely the righteous man does not deserve to _suffer_ for his righteousness, even though his good deeds will not go unrewarded in the next world. In this discussion also Crescas takes issue with the intellectualistic point of view of Maimonides and particularly Gersonides. The solution of these men that evil does not come from G.o.d directly but by accident and by reason of matter, and the corollary drawn therefrom that G.o.d does not punish the wicked directly, that he merely neglects them, leaving them to the accidents of nature and chance, Crescas does not approve. Nor is he more favorably inclined to the theory that the good man is provided for because the more he cultivates his mind, the more closely he comes in contact with G.o.d, in whom are contained actually all the ideas of which man has some potentially. His main criticism is that the theory is opposed to clear statements in the Bible, which imply special and individual reward and punishment in a miraculous and supernatural manner, which cannot be due to intellectual perfection, nor to the order of the heavenly bodies. Besides, if a man who is highly intellectual did much wrong, he should be punished in his soul, but on the intellectualist theory such a soul is immortal and cannot be destroyed.
Accordingly Crescas goes back to the religious doctrine of reward and punishment as ordinarily understood. G.o.d rewards and punishes because man obeys or disobeys his will and command. The complaint raised on account of the misery of the good and the prosperity of the wicked he answers by saying that real reward and punishment are in the next world.
The goods and evils of this world are also to be considered, and he gives the ordinary excuses for the apparent deviation from what ought to be, such as that evil is sometimes a good in disguise and _vice versa_; that one sometimes inherits evil and good from one"s parents; that the individual is sometimes involved in the destinies of the majority, and so on, and so on. Evil in the sense of moral evil, _i. e._, wrong, does not come from G.o.d, it is true, but punishment does come from G.o.d, and as its aim is justice, it is a good, not an evil. The providence extended to Israel is greatest. There is more Providence in Palestine than elsewhere, not because there is any difference in the relation on G.o.d"s side, but there is on the side of the man enjoying this providence. His character and disposition change with the place, and similarly with the time and the season. Hence certain seasons of the year, like that about the time of the Day of Atonement, are more propitious for receiving G.o.d"s providence.[394]
Another fundamental doctrine of Judaism is G.o.d"s omnipotence. Weakness would be a defect. Hence G.o.d can do everything except the contradictory.
His power is infinite not merely in duration, but also in intensity.