Jewish Kalam

Jewish Kalam is an early-medieval style of Jewish philosophy that evolved in response to the Islamic Kalam, which in turn was a reaction against Aristotelian philosophy. (The term "Jewish Kalam" is used by historians, but is not a term by which Jewish kalamic thinkers designated themselves.) Its best known practitioner was Saadia Gaon, and Jewish Kalam represented the philosophical battlefield upon which Saadia attacked his Karaitic opponents. Maimonides in The Guide frequently references and disputes positions of the metukalimun — the Kalam practitioners — both Jewish and Islamic, and in general conveys an opinion of Kalam thought which is highly uncomplimentary. It may be suggested, though, that mainstream Jewish theology has always been closer to Jewish Kalam than to Rambam's conception of the radically unknowable Deity.

Principles

Some of the basic principles of the Jewish Kalam are as follow (Stroumsa 2003). See also Rambam's characterization of the principles below.

• Observation of the natural world reveals the existence of a Creator
• The world/universe must have been created ex nihilo rather than from preexisting matter
• The Creator is absolutely different (opposite) from anything in the created world
• The Creator is a perfect unity, with no division
• Human moral criteria can be applied to God. To say God is "wise" or God is "good" is to apply those terms meaningfully, and their meaning is related to the mundane meaning of those terms (cf. Rambam)

Rambam's characterization

Rambam refers repeatedly to the metukalimun in his Guide to the Perplexed. Some examples of his characterization of Kalamic thought can be found in Book I Chapter 71, see also Wolfson (1967). The translation which follows is from the Pines edition:

As for that scanty bit of argument (kalam) regarding the notion of the unity of God and regarding what depends on this notion, which you will find in the writings of some Gaonim and in those of the Qaraites, it should be noted that the subject matter of this argument was taken over by them from the Mutakallimūn of Islam and that this bit is very scanty indeed if compared to what Islam has compiled on this subject. Also it has so happened that Islam first began to take this road owing to a certain sect, namely, the Mutazila, from whom our co-religionists took over certain things walking upon the road the Mutazila had taken. After a certain time another sect arose in Islam, namely, the Ashariyya, among whom other opinions arose. You will not find any of these latter opinions among our co-religionists. This was not because they preferred the first opinion to the second, but because it so happened that they had taken over and adopted the first opinion and considered it a matter proven by demonstration...

Rambam continues in that section to provide a history of Kalamic thought, its sources and subsequent development, and then proceeds to condemn a certain laxity of thought to be found in this philosophical school. In particular, Rambam takes string issue with the Kalamic proof of God's existence and unity from the Creation of the World in time. While Rambam himself does regard the world as having been created (rather than eternal, as Aristotle would have it, see GP, Book II Chapter 25, for example), he regards this as being far from obvious, and in all likelihood not susceptible to proof. He thus regards the Kalamic approach as being starting from a position of convinience rather than from an irrefutable premise, and their methodology as being entirely tainted by their eagerness to produce certain results which supported with their prior beliefs. Additionally he considers their premises to "run counter to the nature of existence that is perceived": "For every one of their premises, with few exceptions, is contradicted by what is perceived of the nature of that which exists, so that doubts come up with regard to them."

Principles and Arguments of Kalam according to Rambam

In Book I Chapter 73, Rambam presents the 12 premises of the Mutakallimūn, and disputes most of them. The premises are, in brief, as follow:

1. Existence of atoms: The world is composed of small particles which are not divisible, and which have no identifying essential properties (only accidents).
2. Existence of vacuum: There exist certain spaces which are devoid of all substance and material.
3. Time is discrete: Time is made up of fundamental instants which are not themselves subject to further division.
4. Every body is subject to accidents: Any body must have either an accident (non-essential feature) or it's opposite. A body cannot be without accidents.
5. These accidents exist in the atom.
6. An atom has one-instant duration: An atom does not persist (its accidents do not persist) more than one moment of time. God must repeatedly create these accidents at each time instant, or they permanently go out of existence.
7. Accidents in bodies also do not persist and must be recreated.
8. Only substance and accident exist: Bodies differ only in regard to their accidents.
9. Accidents subsist in a common substratum: An accident cannot subsist in another accident.
10. Any state of affairs which can be imagined is admissible in intellectual argument
11. All kinds of infinity are impossible
12. The senses may be in error: The senses should not be trusted in matters of demonstration

Personalities

Among the personalities associate with the Jewish kalam are the following, many of whom were Karaites:

• Saadia Gaon
• Daniel al-Qumisi
• David Ibn Merwan Al-Mukammas
• Yaqub al-Qirqisani
• Yefet ben Eli
• Yeshua ben Yehuda
• Samuel ben Hofni

Legacy

Jewish Kalamic thought had influences on many later Jewish philosophers including Judah HaLevi, Joseph ibn Zaddik, and Rambam, who criticized it vigorously. Many of the works of the Jewish kalamists were not translated from Arabic into Hebrew, and so their influence greatly diminished as the Golden Age of Arabic-language Jewish scholarship drew to a close (Stroumsa 2003).

References

• Stroumsa, Sarah (2003), "Saadya and Jewish kalam", in Frank, Daniel H.; Leaman, Oliver (eds.), The Cambridge Companion to Medieval Jewish Philosophy, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 71–90, ISBN 978-0521652070

• Wolfson, Harry A. (1967), "The Jewish Kalam", The Jewish Quarterly Review, Seventy-Fifth Anniversary Volume, 57: 544–573