Arama, Isaac ben Moses

« Arama, Isaac ben Moses (c.1420-94) Like many of his fifteenth-century Spanish contemporaries, Arama opposed the Aristotelianism of Maimonides.

His philosophical sermons and biblical commentaries attack Jewish Aristotelians on charges of subordinating revelation to reasoning, upholding an eternal universe whose necessity limits God's power, and excluding miracles and individual providence.

Yet while stressing the fallibility of human reason, Arama is no fideist.

An eclectic, he values reason and philosophy as ways of deepening the understanding of Scripture through allegorical interpretation.

He also develops striking philosophical theories of miracles, providence and the fundamentals of faith.

A leading rabbi of the generation that underwent expulsion from Spain in 1492, Isaac ben Moses Arama is best known for the philosophical sermons he composed to counter the conversionist Christian sermons which his congregants were compelled to attend.

Preserved in the chapters of his popular and influential biblical commentary, 'Aqedat Yitzhaq (The Binding of Isaac), each of these discourses has two parts, one addressing a philosophical or theological problem, the other, like the scholastic quaestiones and dubitationes, raising issues in the exegesis of a biblical passage, which is then interpreted in light of the earlier philosophical account.

Arama is most influenced by Halevi and Crescas among Jewish thinkers; and, among the Muslims, by al-Ghazali.

The essential beliefs of Judaism, he argues, transcend or contradict reason and must be accepted on faith.

Even beliefs that lie within the scope of reason should be accepted on faith and only then verified by reason.

Just as Abraham overcomes his reason when he determines to sacrifice his son, so the ideal religious person must seek out irresolvable paradoxes of reason, learning to subordinate intellect to faith, philosophy to revelation.

Arama harshly criticizes fourteenth-century Maimonists like Moses of Narbonne (Narboni) and Joseph ibn Caspi (see Averroism, Jewish §§3-4), charging that they favour philosophy over revelation.

He is especially sensitive to their use of allegorical exegesis.

He himself did much to revive and develop the allegorical method, which had fallen into decline after the 'Maimonidean controversy'; but he also defends the validity of the literal meaning, which is enriched by philosophical interpretation.

The Maimonists, by contrast, are charged with seeking to replace the literal sense with the Greek philosophical ideas which they claim to discover as the true meaning of Scripture.

Arama's position in the fifteenth-century debate over the foundational beliefs of Judaism shows the subtlety of his approach to the relations of philosophy and revelation.

His articles of faith are the principles essential not just to the idea of a divine law generically but to Judaism uniquely.

Connecting these principles with the Mosaic commandments, he argues with Halevi and against Maimonides that one achieves immortality not through intellectual perfection but by performance of the commandments, the one feature that truly distinguishes Judaism from other religions and from the generic theism of a philosopher.

The commandments are not themselves articles of faith.

Rather, Arama identifies the true principles as those that are embodied in and derived from specific commandments, as belief in creation is embedded in the Sabbath laws.

Creation is the most important of Arama's principles.

All the rest are derivable from it.

Like Maimonides, he locates the problem of the origin of universe beyond rational demonstration.

But creation for him is typical in this respect of all the essential truths of Judaism. Nonetheless, perhaps influenced by Nahmanides, he offers a quasi-Platonic account of the world's origin from preexistent matter, itself created ex nihilo by God.

Essential here is the commitment to God's unconstrained will: only if the world was created freely can there be providence, miracles, or divine omnipotence.

As evidence against eternity, Arama appeals not only to the diverse and irregular motions of the spheres (as Maimonides did) but also to the occurrence of miracles as, attested in Scripture.

Despite the centrality of miracles and omnipotence in his scheme, Arama does not wish to reject the idea of natural laws.

He therefore distinguishes between two coexisting natures: an unintelligent 'natural nature', whose laws apply without regard to human merit, and a 'supernatural nature' directed purposefully by an intelligence sensitive to human deserts.

Miracles violate natural nature; but, as instances of supernatural nature, they are fully natural.

Besides the observed violations of natural nature that we call miracles, Arama (recalling Nahmanides) argues that 'hidden' miracles occur constantly.

Their miraculousness usually goes unnoticed, but their true explanation lies in supernatural nature.

All miracles therefore fall under a nature.

Analogously, there is a 'natural' governance that does not attend to the moral perfection of individuals but only to preservation of species, and a second, 'providential', governance that is sensitive to the moral perfection of individuals.

In general the latter is limited to Israel.

Philosophers deny supernatural nature and providential governance, Arama reasons, only because they rank humanity beneath the celestial spheres and cannot understand why God would violate a higher order for a lower one.

Following Saadiah's premise that humankind is the final act of creation (see Saadiah Gaon), Arama argues that the spheres themselves were created for mankind's sake and can therefore be manipulated in our behalf.

Part of the original creation, moreover, gave man a special power over nature.

When the soul rules, establishing the 'divine image' in the microcosm of the human body, harmony results in the macrocosm as well; when sin disrupts the microcosmic harmony, the macrocosmic harmony is ruptured too, causing universal evils.

Human beings can ensure cosmic harmony only by living in harmony with nature - following the natural law, which is most fully realized in the Mosaic Torah.

Its commandments instill all moral and intellectual virtues, including those unknown to reason.

Only a life according to this revealed law brings the highest, spiritual happiness, the ultimate goal of philosophy.. »