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In these domains the discussion within the scientific and philosophic folds is still going on. But in inanimate nature modern science has succeeded in justifying its method by the ever increasing number of phenomena that yield to its treatment. Maimonides fought an obsolete philosophy and obsolete scientific principles.
If Maimonides intended to admit strict principles only without which Judaism cannot exist, we understand why he named , , , , , which are general principles of any divine religion, and and as special principles of Judaism. But we cannot see why he included and . For while they are true, and every Jew should believe them, Judaism can be conceived as existing without them.
On the other hand, if God does know everything in the future as well as in the past, man is no longer free to act in a manner contrary to God's foreknowledge. This difficulty was recognized by Maimonides as well as by Gersonides, and they solved it in different ways.
Rabbi Maimonides: "It is written: 'The wicked will be destroyed and there will not rest anything of him." Ecclesiastes: "Men die as the beasts and their fate is the same. They have all one breath." The soul was at first conceived in very material ways. The idealistic movement in Greek philosophy is responsible for the concept of an immaterial substance.
Every morning, as the Court physician, Maimonides went to the palace, situated half a mile away from his dwelling, and if any of the many officials and dependents that then, as now, were at Oriental courts, were ill, he stayed there for some time. As a rule he could only get back to his own home in the afternoon, and then he was, as he says himself, "almost dying with hunger."
That the Pentateuchal law is solely concerned with practical conduct, religious, ceremonial and moral, needs not saying. It is so absolutely clear and evident that one wonders how so clear-sighted a thinker like Maimonides could have been misled by the authority of Aristotle and the intellectual atmosphere of the day to imagine otherwise.
In their own views, however, Aaron ben Elijah and Maimonides differ; the latter approaching the view of Aristotle, the former that of the Muʿtazila. In the case of the lower animals, the species alone are protected by divine providence, hence they will continue forever, whereas the individual animals are subject to chance. Man, as a rational animal, is an exception.
One has to wade through pages upon pages of bare syllogisms, one more flimsy than another. Finally, the point of view of Gabirol was that of a philosophy that was rapidly becoming obsolete, and Maimonides, the ground having been made ready by Ibn Daud, gave this philosophy its death-blow by substituting for it the philosophy of Aristotle.
Of a sudden this lynx-eyed bully espied a Hebrew Logic by Maimonides, annotated by Mendelssohn. "Yes! yes!" he shrieked; "that's the sort of books for me!" and, glaring threateningly at the philosopher, "Pack," he said. "Pack out of Berlin as quick as you can, if you don't wish to be led out with all the honors." Maimon was once more in desperate case.
Besides, the assumption of the world's eternity with its corollary of the necessity and immutability of its phenomena saps the foundation of all religion, makes miracles impossible, and reduces the world to a machine. Gersonides is on the whole agreed with Maimonides. He admits that Aristotle's arguments are the best yet advanced in the problem, but that they are not convincing.
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