Philosophy for Everyman from Socrates to Sartre by Dagobert D. Runes

Author:Dagobert D. Runes [Runes, Dagobert D.]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: Philosophical Library
Published: 2015-05-26T00:00:00+00:00

SAADIA BEN JOSEPH

The philosophy of the Arabic Jews was likewise little more than religious exegesis. The same Aristotelianism and Neoplatonism served them in explaining the texts of the prophets and in rationalizing religious dogmas.

Not merely their principles of faith, but the smallest of their precepts, every utterance of the Toraic writings, every act and miracle of their holy ones, must be proved to be philosophic truth. The Gospels may deny what the Torah asserts, the Koran may condemn what the Gospels sanction, the prophets may contradict each other but philosophy proves them true.

Rabbi Saddia ben Joseph of Fayun (892-942) was the first of a series of Jewish philosophers to feel the influence of Arab orthodoxy. Among his writings, all of which treated Biblical subjects, his chief work, Faiths and Philosophies, gained a wide audience.

In the very introduction of Teachings of the Faith Saadia makes it clear that the book is dedicated to the philosophic justification of the Torah. His arguments are taken from both philosophy and the Torah: one assumption is proved by another. Saadia was convinced of the literal truth of every sentence in the Torah. He believes in corporeal resurrection, stating that the soul floats above and around the corpse until the time it rejoins it. He believes in bodily hell and paradise and in the judgment day, when the pious will rise up out of their graves upon the arrival of the Messiah. He believes in two kinds of angels: momentary ones, created for a single act, such as those created for the persuasion of a prophet; and eternal ones, who have constant contact with God. The body of an angel is made of such fine matter that it is invisible to the human eye, though the angel of death may appear as a green fire shot through with fearful eyes, the sight of which brings instant destruction.154

The sole task of philosophy is to prove this celestial world. Philosophy must substantiate what we know already from the teachings of the prophets. For instance, it is written that in the beginning God created heaven and earth. The philosophic proof of this is: Earth is infinite, therefore it must have been created by God out of nought; it is finite because it is in the center of the universe, encircled by the heavens.155 Likewise, the proof of the immortality of the soul: The Torah teaches that God is just; but since adequate reward is not received on earth, life must be prolonged in a hereafter where, by means of heaven and hell, justice can be achieved. Immanuel Kant repeated this philosophic proof verbatim, as a postulate.156

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