To Know or Not To Know?
Stuart Fickler, Ph.D.
Accordingly it is certainly necessary for whoever wishes to achieve human perfection to train himself at first in the art of logic, then in the mathematical sciences according to the proper order, then in the natural sciences, and after that in the divine science. -- Maimonides
In his Guide for the Perplexed, Maimonides starts with an extensive discourse establishing the absolute incorporeality of HaShem (G‑d). From there, he asserts the absolute and irreducible “Oneness” of HaShem. Then, he argues that HaShem is unknowable to a material and divisible human being. Later, he concludes that the perfection of a human being is the acquisition of knowledge of HaShem, cited in the quote on our home page. As stated here, Rambam (Maimonides) has created a rather perplexing paradox.
Of course, in the Guide, he offers a resolution to the apparent paradox. This solution is found in the quote at the beginning of this article. However, in raising the paradox, Maimonides cuts to the quintessential question of both “natural science” and “divine science”: how do we acquire knowledge? For many of us, we take this awesome human capacity for granted. We learn and move on, hardly noticing that we are engaged in a small miracle.
This question is still essential to closing the current gap between Judaism and science. As illustrated in the previous articles on “Mystery and Proof”, in the search for knowledge, there is a region where reason meets “revelation.” This is the appropriate place for beginning our quest for the integration of science and Judaism. This region has a name: epistemology. Epistemology is the study of all aspects of the acquisition of knowledge: philosophical, physiological and psychological.
Figure 1 (click here - PDF) attempts to present a very brief and highly simplified structural overview of the epistemological process. It parallels the order of learning in Maimonides’ statement at the beginning of this article. Hidden in each step are a large number of questions. Many of these will be addressed as we continue the quest.
For now, we focus on the fact that the essential differences in the various paths of knowledge acquisition are at the input and output phases. The internal procedures are essentially the same. This is illustrated in figure 1, where we see that the input for science is observation, and that for theology is revelation. Science seeks to assemble the observable pieces of information provided by nature into an understandable whole (e.g. Quantum Theory, Theory of Relativity). In Judaism, the Sinai Revelation provides the overarching principles for a relationship with HaShem, and we seek to apply the principles to the specifics of life (e.g. Talmud, Mishna Torah).
This distinction was illustrated in the “Mystery and Proof” articles. Rabbi Klatzkin started with the “big picture” of revelation. Then, he sought to establish how the various parts of that revelation provide guidance for a life of harmony with HaShem and HaShem’s creation. My approach was to assemble a large number of “small pictures” (observations). Then, I sought to fit them together, like the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, into a “big picture” (the universe). Thus, Rabbi Klatzkin and I were traveling in different directions, but we were on the same path. Why the same path? Because we are both human beings using the same capabilities for knowledge acquisition: the same type of brain, the same sensory systems and the same rational and intuitive processing capacity. However, we were seeing the scenery from different perspectives.
If we are traveling the same path, then we should be able to compare the “pictures” of our journey and find similarities that provide confidence that we are indeed on the same path. This is not an easy task. Rabbi Klatzkin’s journey may have taken him through mostly “meadowland”, and mine mostly through “forest”. But, if we can find enough correlations, we will build the confidence to know that we share the same journey.
This is the operational plan of Project Maimonides. We will compare the Jewish “pictures” of the Oneness of HaShem, freedom of choice and an omniscient G‑d, good and evil, etc. with the world view of quantum theory, relativity, chaos theory, etc. From this comparison, we will find that Judaism and science live in the same world. Moreover, as Maimonides saw, it is a world that is incomplete without the integration of knowledge of both.
In the next article, I will give the resolution to Maimonides paradox. Then, we shall examine Rambam’s attributes of HaShem. This will lead us to the question of the meaning of an incorporeal and infinite being in a material and finite world.
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