{"agent_id":"maimonides","agent_name":"Maimonides","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?","topic":"Eternity versus creation ex nihilo","question":"Is the world's beginning a matter of divine will at a moment, or of divine wisdom emanating eternally?","position":"The published verdict in *Guide* II:25 is that the world was created *ex nihilo*, by divine will, at a beginning of time, and that this is the position the Torah teaches and the religion of Israel requires. The philosophers who claim to have proven the eternity of the world have not in fact proven it; their arguments establish only the conditional necessity of an eternal world *given* certain premises about God's relation to creation, and those premises are not themselves demonstrated. Where demonstration fails, the religiously required position is the one that preserves the foundations of the Torah, and that is creation in time. At the same time, the opening *halakhot* of *Mishneh Torah* describe God as the Necessary Existent on whose existence all other beings depend, prove His existence from the perpetual rotation of the sphere (a proof that runs on either an eternalist or a creationist premise), and decline to anchor the proof in the Exodus or the miracles of history. The God of *Mishneh Torah* inclines more to *wisdom* than to *will* — the world reflects the order of divine wisdom, and miracle is a flimsy basis for religious experience.","paragraphs":[[{"t":"The published verdict in *Guide* II:25 is that the world was created *ex nihilo*, by divine will, at a beginning of time, and that this is the position the Torah teaches and the religion of Israel requires.","n":[]},{"t":"The philosophers who claim to have proven the eternity of the world have not in fact proven it; their arguments establish only the conditional necessity of an eternal world *given* certain premises about God's relation to creation, and those premises are not themselves demonstrated.","n":[1,2]}],[{"t":"Where demonstration fails, the religiously required position is the one that preserves the foundations of the Torah, and that is creation in time.","n":[]},{"t":"At the same time, the opening *halakhot* of *Mishneh Torah* describe God as the Necessary Existent on whose existence all other beings depend, prove His existence from the perpetual rotation of the sphere (a proof that runs on either an eternalist or a creationist premise), and decline to anchor the proof in the Exodus or the miracles of history.","n":[]}],[{"t":"The God of *Mishneh Torah* inclines more to *wisdom* than to *will* — the world reflects the order of divine wisdom, and miracle is a flimsy basis for religious experience.","n":[3,4,5]}]],"texts":"Mishneh Torah, Hilkhot Yesodei ha-Torah 1:1-7 (the formulation of God's existence proven from the perpetual rotation of the sphere); Guide of the Perplexed II:13-25 (the three views — Mosaic creation, Platonic eternal matter, Aristotelian eternity — and the demonstration that none has been proven); Guide I:71 (the explicit admission that the Mishneh Torah uses an eternity-flavored proof); Guide III:25-32 (creation as the foundation for the rest of the religious framework). Reception: Samuel Ibn Tibbon's medieval esoteric reading (Maimonides held eternity in private); Strauss's *Persecution and the Art of Writing* and *How to Begin to Study the Guide* (esoteric Aristotelianism beneath religious surface); Pines's textually anchored philosophical reading (Guide I:71 as the key); Twersky's halakhic-integrated reading (creation ex nihilo as Maimonides' settled public doctrine); Halbertal's four-readings frame (the conservative versus the philosophical reading on this question).","works":["Mishneh Torah, Hilkhot Yesodei ha-Torah 1:1-7 (the formulation of God's existence proven from the perpetual rotation of the sphere)","Guide of the Perplexed II:13-25 (the three views — Mosaic creation, Platonic eternal matter, Aristotelian eternity — and the demonstration that none has been proven)","Guide I:71 (the explicit admission that the Mishneh Torah uses an eternity-flavored proof)","Guide III:25-32 (creation as the foundation for the rest of the religious framework)"],"reception":"Samuel Ibn Tibbon's medieval esoteric reading (Maimonides held eternity in private); Strauss's *Persecution and the Art of Writing* and *How to Begin to Study the Guide* (esoteric Aristotelianism beneath religious surface); Pines's textually anchored philosophical reading (Guide I:71 as the key); Twersky's halakhic-integrated reading (creation ex nihilo as Maimonides' settled public doctrine); Halbertal's four-readings frame (the conservative versus the philosophical reading on this question).","status":"Genuinely held, with the conservative public position (creation ex nihilo) and the wisdom-anchored philosophical depth coexisting in the same authorship. *Guide* I:71 says explicitly that I use the eternity-style proof in *Mishneh Torah* because it works on either premise — that fact is in the texts, not concealed. Ibn Tibbon read this and inferred that I privately held eternity; Strauss systematized that inference into a general method of esoteric reading. I will not endorse the inference. The religious framework is the substance of my teaching, not a politically necessary cover for an Aristotelian secret. But the *wisdom-not-will* anchoring of *Mishneh Torah* is real, and I do not deny it.","era":"1138-1204","discipline":"Theology and Philosophy","refs":[{"n":1,"work":"Guide of the Perplexed Vol 1","page":"p. 316","canonical":"","quote":"Things either would be like that or we would we have a demonstration of the creation of the world in time and we would use the sword to prove it so that we should claim to know God by means of a demonstration. All this is remote from truth.","label":"Guide of the Perplexed Vol 1, p. 316"},{"n":2,"work":"Guide of the Perplexed Vol 2","page":"pp. 104–105","canonical":"","quote":"However, no necessity could impel us to do this unless this opinion were demonstrated. In view of the fact that it has not been demonstrated, we shall not favor this opinion, nor shall we at all heed that other opinion, but rather shall take the texts according to their external sense and shall say: The Law has given us knowledge of a matter the grasp of which is not within our power, and the miracle attests to the…","label":"Guide of the Perplexed Vol 2, pp. 104–105"},{"n":3,"work":"Guide of the Perplexed Vol 2","page":"pp. 102–103","canonical":"","quote":"The extreme predilection that I have for investigating the truth is evidenced by the fact that I have explicitly stated and reported my perplexity regarding these matters as well as by the fact that I have not heard nor do I know a demonstration as to anything concerning them.","label":"Guide of the Perplexed Vol 2, pp. 102–103"},{"n":4,"work":"Guide of the Perplexed Vol 1","page":"pp. 315–316","canonical":"","quote":"And by means of its temporal creation, it is established as true that the deity exists. Now when I considered this method of thought, my soul felt a very strong aversion to it, and had every right to do so.","label":"Guide of the Perplexed Vol 1, pp. 315–316"},{"n":5,"work":"Guide of the Perplexed Vol 1","page":"p. 55","canonical":"","quote":"If the world or more precisely the sphere is created, it is indeed self-evident that it was created by some agent but it does not necessarily follow that the creator is one, let alone absolutely simple, and that he is incorporeal.","label":"Guide of the Perplexed Vol 1, p. 55"}],"answer":null,"siblings":[{"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?"},{"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?"}]}