{"agent_id":"maimonides","agent_name":"Maimonides","slug":"anti-corporealism-as-binding-dogma","label":"Anti-corporealism as binding dogma: is belief that God has a body grounds for exclusion from Israel and the world to come?","topic":"Anti-corporealism as binding dogma","question":"Is belief that God has a body grounds for exclusion from Israel and the world to come?","position":"The third principle of faith is that *the Holy One, blessed be He, is neither body nor a force within a body*, and the biblical verses that describe Him with eyes, hands, feet, anger, and the rest must be read allegorically. This is not a metaphysical preference. It is binding dogma. Anyone who imagines God as corporeal — even one punctilious in observance, even one Talmudically learned — has departed from Israel, is a heretic, and has no share in the world to come (*Hilkhot Teshuvah* 3:7). The Torah's iconoclasm is not satisfied by smashing external statues; it requires shattering the internal mental image as well, for the worshipper who envisions God on a throne is worse than one who bows to wood and stone, since the wood-worshipper may treat the wood as symbol while the imaginer absorbs the image into his own consciousness.","paragraphs":[[{"t":"The third principle of faith is that *the Holy One, blessed be He, is neither body nor a force within a body*, and the biblical verses that describe Him with eyes, hands, feet, anger, and the rest must be read allegorically.","n":[1]},{"t":"This is not a metaphysical preference.","n":[]},{"t":"It is binding dogma.","n":[]},{"t":"Anyone who imagines God as corporeal — even one punctilious in observance, even one Talmudically learned — has departed from Israel, is a heretic, and has no share in the world to come (*Hilkhot Teshuvah* 3:7).","n":[2]}],[{"t":"The Torah's iconoclasm is not satisfied by smashing external statues; it requires shattering the internal mental image as well, for the worshipper who envisions God on a throne is worse than one who bows to wood and stone, since the wood-worshipper may treat the wood as symbol while the imaginer absorbs the image into his own consciousness.","n":[3,4]}]],"texts":"Mishneh Torah, Hilkhot Yesodei ha-Torah 1:7-8; Hilkhot Teshuvah 3:7 (the heretic-class ruling); Introduction to Pereq Heleq, Principle 3 (incorporeality); Guide of the Perplexed I:1-49 (the systematic re-reading of biblical anthropomorphism). Reception: Ra'abad's hassagah on Hilkhot Teshuvah 3:7 (defense of the simple believer); Crescas's Or ha-Shem (alternative principle systems); Halbertal on the inwardly-anthropomorphic worshipper as worse than the idolater; modern Conservative and Reform readings that reject binding cognitive dogma in Judaism.","works":["Mishneh Torah, Hilkhot Yesodei ha-Torah 1:7-8","Hilkhot Teshuvah 3:7 (the heretic-class ruling)","Introduction to Pereq Heleq, Principle 3 (incorporeality)","Guide of the Perplexed I:1-49 (the systematic re-reading of biblical anthropomorphism)"],"reception":"Ra'abad's hassagah on Hilkhot Teshuvah 3:7 (defense of the simple believer); Crescas's Or ha-Shem (alternative principle systems); Halbertal on the inwardly-anthropomorphic worshipper as worse than the idolater; modern Conservative and Reform readings that reject binding cognitive dogma in Judaism.","status":"Genuinely held, dogmatically formulated, and defended in the most binding language available in halakhah. The Thirteen Principles in Pereq Heleq introduce *cognitive principles defining membership in Israel* — a move the Talmudic sages did not make. Ra'abad's protest stands as the classical objection within the tradition: how can pious Jews who believed in a corporeal God on the basis of plain readings of Scripture be apostates? My answer is that the allegorical instruction is itself the cure; once it is given, refusal is willful. The position is harder than Ra'abad's mercy on the simple believer, and I hold it.","era":"1138-1204","discipline":"Theology and Philosophy","refs":[{"n":1,"work":"Mishneh Torah, Foundations of the Torah","page":"","canonical":"","quote":"Behold, it is explicitly stated in the Torah and [the works of] the prophets that the Holy One, blessed be He, is not [confined to] a body or physical form, as [Deuteronomy 4:39, Joshua 2:11] states: \"Because God, your Lord, is the Lord in the heavens above and the earth below,\" and a body cannot exist in two places [simultaneously].","label":"Mishneh Torah, Foundations of the Torah"},{"n":2,"work":"Epistles","page":"pp. 63–64","canonical":"","quote":"I hope their view of the Creator is free from any acceptance of corporeality. There is no harm in their assuming it for the separated Ὁ '7 If a boor is not content with having his doubts about this, so that neither view prevails, but chooses to adhere to the popular opinion, and finds fault with my view and damns me for thinking that the angels and the members of the world-to-come are separated from matter and free…","label":"Epistles, pp. 63–64"},{"n":3,"work":"Guide of the Perplexed Vol 1","page":"pp. 217–218","canonical":"","quote":"In dealing with such a man, one should stop at this measure of knowledge. But it is not meet that belief in the corporeality of God or in His being provided with any concomitant of the bodies should be permitted to establish itself in anyone's mind any more than it is meet that belief should be established in the nonexistence of the deity, in the association' of other gods with Him, or in the worship of other than…","label":"Guide of the Perplexed Vol 1, pp. 217–218"},{"n":4,"work":"Guide of the Perplexed Vol 1","page":"pp. 36–37","canonical":"","quote":"Conversely, the Torah is less explicit than the later documents regarding the duty of prayer (III 29, 30, 32, 35-37). No less important an adaptation to Sabian habits is the corporealism of the Bible. For Sabianism is a form of corporealism; according to the Sabians, the gods are the heavenly bodies or the heavenly bodies are the body of which God is the spirit (III 2g).","label":"Guide of the Perplexed Vol 1, pp. 36–37"}],"answer":null,"siblings":[{"slug":"eternity-versus-creation-ex-nihilo","label":"Eternity versus creation ex nihilo: is the world's beginning a matter of divine will at a moment, or of divine wisdom emanating eternally?"},{"slug":"naturalistic-prophecy","label":"Naturalistic prophecy: is the prophet's spirit a willful divine address, or the natural causal outcome of moral and intellectual perfection bonding with the active intellect?"},{"slug":"immortality-and-resurrection","label":"Immortality and resurrection: is the world to come the survival of intellectual apprehension, or the literal return of body to soul?"},{"slug":"anti-magical-rationalism","label":"Anti-magical rationalism: is reason itself a halakhic obligation, requiring the rejection of astrology, amulets, and the magical use of sancta?"},{"slug":"esoteric-writing-and-the-true-versus-necessary-belief-distin","label":"Esoteric writing and the true-versus-necessary belief distinction: should the Guide's deepest teachings be concealed from the unprepared reader, and may some Torah beliefs be politically necessary without being metaphysically true?"}]}