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Updated: June 6, 2025
In his discussion of the unity of God, Bahya follows the same method as Saadia, and the Kalam generally, i. e., he first proves that the world must have been created; hence there must be a creator, and this is followed by a demonstration of God's unity. The particular arguments, too, are for the most part the same, as we shall see, though differently expressed and in a different order.
His task is therefore to harmonize the Bible with Aristotelian doctrine wherever possible. Aaron ben Elijah is still, in the fourteenth century, a follower of the Kalam, and believes the Muʿtazila are closer to Scripture than Aristotle. He is two centuries behind Maimonides philosophically, and yet he has the truer insight because less debauched by Aristotelian learning.
In the seventy-first chapter of his "Guide of the Perplexed," he says, "You will find that in the few works composed by the Geonim and the Karaites on the unity of God and on such matter as is connected with this doctrine, they followed the lead of the Mohammedan Mutakallimun.... It also happened, that at the time when the Mohammedans adopted this method of the Kalam, there arose among them a certain sect, called Muʿtazila.
Then Neo-Platonism and Kalam combined, or pure Neo-Platonism, in Bahya, Gabirol, Ibn Zaddik and the two Ibn Ezras, Abraham and Moses. In Judah Halevi, so far as philosophy is represented, we have Neo-Platonism and Aristotelianism. Finally in Ibn Daud and Maimonides, Neo-Platonism is reduced to the vanishing point, and Aristotelianism is in full view and in possession of the field.
Many others followed him habitually, and recognized him as their master a certain Philip of Bethsaida; Nathanael, son of Tolmai or Ptolemy, of Cana, perhaps a disciple of the first period; and Matthew, probably the one who was the Xenophon of the infant Christianity. The latter had been a publican, and, as such, doubtless handled the Kalam more easily than the others.
Having proved these doctrines we will then return to the problem of the origin of the world and say what can be said in favor of creation. This is a new contribution of Maimonides. All the Jewish writers before Halevi followed in their proofs of the existence of God the method designated by Maimonides as that of the Kalam.
In selecting the ten general and inclusive principles, Bahya lays down as the first and most fundamental the doctrine of the deity, or as it is called in the works of the Kalam, the Unity.
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