The God We Worship by Wolterstorff Nicholas;

Author:Wolterstorff, Nicholas;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company
Published: 2015-01-06T22:08:39+00:00

Maimonides on Why God Cannot Listen

In his Guide of the Perplexed, Maimonides says the following:

Since . . . all these acts are only performed by means of bodily organs, all these organs are figuratively ascribed to [God]: those by means of which local motion takes place — I mean the feet and their soles; those by means of which hearing, seeing, and smelling come about — that is, the ear, the eye, and the nose; those by means of which speech and the matter of speech are produced — that is, the mouth, the tongue, and the voice. . . . To sum up all this: God, may He be exalted above every deficiency, has had bodily organs ascribed to Him in order that His acts should be indicated by this means. And those particular acts are figuratively ascribed to Him in order to indicate a certain perfection, which is not identical with the particular act mentioned. . . . Action and speech are ascribed to God so that an overflow proceeding from Him should thereby be indicated; . . . organs of speech [are] mentioned with a view to indicating the overflow of the intellect toward the prophets.1

Taking for granted that speaking is a bodily act, Maimonides argues that, since God has no mouth, tongue, or vocal chords, God cannot literally speak. His positive proposal is that we should understand ourselves as using language figuratively when we attribute speech to God. Since our use of language is figurative, we are not engaged in anthropomorphizing.

In the passage quoted, Maimonides does not say that God cannot literally listen. There can be no doubt, however, that that was his view. Taking for granted that listening is a bodily act, he would argue that, since God has no ears or eyes, God cannot listen. And so just as we should understand ourselves as using language figuratively when we attribute speech to God, so also we should understand ourselves as using language figuratively when we attribute listening to God.

Whatever is to be said about Maimonides’ positive proposal, speech-­act theory makes clear that his argument for the claim that God cannot literally speak or listen is unsound. Our address to God consists of the illocutionary acts that we perform with the aim or purpose that God attend to them, grasp them, and respond favorably. We perform these illocutionary acts by performing certain locutionary acts. But it’s not our utterance of a sentence with a certain meaning in mind that we address to God; it’s the illocutionary act of praising God, of thanking God, of interceding with God, and so forth, that we address to God. These are not bodily actions. We perform them by doing something with our bodies; but they are not themselves bodily actions. They are imperceptible particulars.

Listening to what was said to one — attending to and grasping the illocutionary act performed — is likewise not a bodily action. You and I attend to and grasp the speech acts of our fellows by employing our eyes or ears; we hear the uttered sentence or see the written sentence.

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