The purpose of the soul as we showed is to love God. This object the Bible attains by the commandments, which may be classified with reference to their significance in seven groups. They exalt God; they show his great kindness to us; they give us true ideas concerning the nature of God; they call our attention to his providence; they give us promises of corporeal and spiritual reward; they call our attention to God's miracles in order to keep our attention from flagging; and finally they command love of God and union with him as the final aim of man.[399]
In addition to the six fundamental doctrines of Judaism mentioned above (p. [392]), there are true beliefs which are essential to Judaism, and the denial of which constitutes heresy; though they are not as fundamental as the other six, in the sense that the Law would continue to exist without them. They are (1) Creation, (2) Immortality, (3) Reward and Punishment, (4) Resurrection, (5) Eternity of the Law, (6) The superiority of Moses to the other prophets, (7) The priest's learning the future through the Urim and Tumim, (8) Belief in the Messiah. The list of thirteen articles of the creed given by Maimonides (cf. below, p. [409]) is open to criticism. If he meant fundamental dogmas, there are not as many as thirteen; there are no more than seven or eight—the six mentioned before (p. [392]), and, if one chooses, the existence of God, making seven, and revelation as the eighth. On the other hand, if Maimonides meant to include "true beliefs," there are more than fifteen, the six enumerated above (p. [392]), existence of God and revelation, and the eight "true beliefs" named at the head of this section, not counting a great many specific commandments.[400]
Having made this criticism of Maimonides's thirteen articles, Crescas proceeds to discuss every one of the eight true beliefs named at the beginning of the last paragraph. For our purpose it will not be necessary to reproduce the minute arguments here. We will select a few of the more important topics and state briefly Crescas's attitude.
The doctrine of creation formed the central theme in Maimonides and Gersonides. It was here, as we have seen, that Maimonides stopped short in his devotion to Aristotle and took pains to show that the arguments of the latter in favor of eternity are not valid, and that Aristotle knew it. He endeavored to show, moreover, that the doctrine of creation can be made more plausible than its opposite, and hence since creation is essential to Judaism, it must be regarded as a fundamental dogma. Gersonides could not see his way clear to accepting creation ex nihilo, among other things because as matter cannot come from form, the material world cannot come from God. Accordingly he compromised by saying that while the present world as it is is not eternal, it came from a primitive "hyle" or matter, which was eternal. Thus our world is dependent for its forms upon God, for its matter upon the prime and eternal "hyle."
Here Crescas takes up the problem and points out that whether we accept or not an eternal "hyle," everything that exists must be dependent upon God as the only necessary existent. Everything outside of him, be it eternal matter or not, is only a possible existent and owes its existence to God. Creation ex nihilo means no more. To be sure, if we assume that the existence of the world and its emanation from God is eternal, because his relation to his product is the same at all times, it will follow that the emanation of the world from God is a necessary process. But necessity in this case does not exclude will, nay it implies it. For the only way in which anything can come from a rational cause is by way of conception. The rational cause forms a conception of the world order and of himself as giving existence to this world order as a whole and in its parts. Will means no more than this. This will also solve the old philosophic difficulty, how can the many come from the One. Our answer is that the good God created a good world. The goodness of the world is its unity, i. e., the parts contribute to making a whole which is good. On the other hand, an agent is perfectly good when he acts with will. God's will also makes miracles possible. Moreover, eternal creation is not inconsistent with continued creation, and we have creation ex nihilo every moment. Maimonides is wrong therefore when he thinks that eternity would upset Judaism and make miracles impossible. Creation in time is therefore not a fundamental dogma with which Judaism stands and falls. At the same time it is a true belief as taught in the first verse of Genesis.[401]
Another of the true beliefs is reward and punishment. This consists of two kinds, corporeal and spiritual. Corporeal is spoken of in the Bible and is not opposed to reason. For as the purpose of creation is to do man good and enable him to achieve perfection, it stands to reason that God would remove any obstacles in the way of man's perfecting himself, and this is the kind of reward mentioned first, "All the diseases which I put upon the Egyptians I shall not put upon thee, for I the Lord am thy healer" (Exod. 15, 26). Punishment is primarily for the same purpose.
As for spiritual reward and punishment, they are not mentioned specifically in the Bible, but the Talmud is full of it. Rationally they can be explained as follows. As the soul is spiritual and intellectual, it enjoys great pleasure from being in contact with the world of spirit and apprehending of the nature of God what it could not apprehend while in the body. On the other hand, being restrained from the world of spirit and kept in darkness gives it pain; and this may lead to its ultimate destruction. The essence of the soul, as was said above, is not intellectuality, but love and desire; hence pain may destroy it.
The reason spiritual reward and punishment, which is the more important of the two, is not mentioned in the Bible, is because it was taken as a matter of fact. Corporeal reward and punishment was not so regarded, hence the need of specifying it.
A difficulty that presents itself is, How is it consistent with justice to punish the soul by itself, when it was the composite of body and soul that sinned? This may be answered by saying that the soul is the form of the body and does not change when separated. Hence, being the more important of the two elements composing man, it receives the more important punishment, namely, spiritual.
Besides, it is true that the composite also receives compensation. And this is the purpose of resurrection.[402]