Book of Doctrines and Beliefs

   by Saadia Gaon

(933)

   The most important work of the Jewish philosopher SAADIA GAON is his monumental Book of Doctrines and Beliefs. Writing at a time when many of his fellow Jews were questioning their own beliefs in the face of convincing rationalist Muslim treatises demonstrating the compatibility of Islam with classical Greek philosophy, Saadia wrote in Arabic aimed at his semi-assimilated contemporaries, defending Judaism in rational terms that demonstrated how the Torah could be defended by arguments compatible with Plato and Aristotle. Like his Arab contemporaries, Saadia’s method was to deal with individual scriptural problems through rational analysis, rather than to construct an elaborate philosophical system. Thus he borrows from Plato, Aristotle, the Stoics, and the Neoplatonists as seems appropriate to him.

   His book is divided into a section on the Divine Unity and a section on Divine Justice. The first part begins with four proofs demonstrating the Creation of the world, and asserts a distinction between the creator and the world created, leading to a conviction of Creation ex nihilo (i.e., out of nothing). He follows this by a refutation of 12 other theories of creation that differ from his own. From here Saadia begins his discussion of the creator, particularly stressing the unity of God and including a refutation of Dualism and of the Christian doctrine of the Trinity. Saadia completes the first section of his book with a discussion of Scripture and law. Here he underscores the authority of prophets and divides the commandments of the Torah into those of reason and of revelation, a distinction later rejected by other Jewish philosophers, most notably MAIMONIDES. The section on Divine Justice begins with a discussion of human free will. In contrast to his Muslim models whose system, called Kallah, ascribed all power to Allah and held human free will to be an illusion, Saadia argued that the law would mean nothing without free will, since one could not freely choose whether to follow it. God has freely chosen to grant human free will, and his foreknowledge does not cause human choice. Saadia goes on to discuss human merit and demerit, the nature of the soul (refuting other theories like the doctrine of metampsychosis), the resurrection of the dead, and the subsequent reward and punishment of the human soul in the afterlife. He also deals with the teachings concerning the Messiah and redemption, interpreting passages from the book of Daniel regarding the coming of the Messiah, and refuting Christian claims regarding Jesus as Messiah. The teachings regarding Messianic redemption are based almost entirely on statements of the Bible and the Talmud, the definite year of salvation being fixed by an interpretation of well-known passages in the book of Daniel. In the concluding portion the author refutes those who assume that the messianic prophecies refer to the time of the Second Temple; and he argues also against the Christian doctrine of the Messiah. The book concludes with an appendix presenting a system of ethics.

   Bibliography

   ■ Efros, Israel Isaac. Studies in Medieval Jewish Philosophy. New York: Columbia University Press, 1974.

   ■ Helm, Paul, ed. Referring to God: Jewish and Christian Philosophical and Theological Perspectives. New York: St.Martin’s Press, 2000.

   ■ Hyman,Arthur, and James J.Walsh, eds. Philosophy in the Middle Ages: The Christian, Islamic, and Jewish Traditions. 2nd ed. Indianapolis: Hackett, 1983.