Thursday, April 26, 2007
Excerpt from Maimonides' Guide for the Perplexed
Moses Maimonides is among the greatest of Jewish thinkers.
(M. FRIEDLÄNDER translation)
|
(M. FRIEDLÄNDER translation)
Book III, Chapter LI
My son, so long as you are engaged in studying the Mathematical Sciences and Logic, you belong to those who go round about the palace in search of the gate. Thus our Sages figuratively use the phrase: “Ben-zoma is still outside.” When you understand Physics, you have entered the hall; and when, after completing the study of Natural Philosophy, you master Metaphysics, you have entered the innermost court, and are with the king in the same palace. You have attained the degree of the wise men, who include men of different grades of perfection. There are some who direct all their mind toward the attainment of perfection in Metaphysics, devote themselves entirely to God, exclude from their thought every other thing, and employ all their intellectual faculties in the study of the Universe, in order to derive therefrom a proof for the existence of God, and to learn in every possible way how God rules all things; they form the class of those who have entered the palace, namely, the class of prophets.
Labels: God, mathematics, philosophy, theology
# posted by O'Brien @ 4/26/2007 11:29:00 PM 
