What is God?

An analysis of Maimonides'views on the subject(s)
and knowledge of Gcd and the Intellect
in the Guide to the Perplexed

Outline of Argument(s)

I. Introduction    
     A. Method and idea(s)
     B. Pines on the contradiction between I:58 and I:68
     C. The alternative of unknowing
     D. Via negativa in I:54 and I:58

II. Chapters I:68 and I:69  vs.  Chapter I:58
     A. Chapter I:69
          1. Gcd as three causes, two of which unknown 
          2. Two possible solutions for the formal cause
               a. Forms not known
               b. The third cause = formal = intellect
          3. Problem of I:69 reducible to I:68
     B. Chapter I:68 in the light of I:54 and I:58
          1. Contradiction theories
          2. The Intellect: the term
               a. Not equivocal term
               b. As analogical term
                     i.  Chapter I:1, image of Gcd
                     ii. Digression: Cain and Abel
               c. Difference of causality
          3. The kuzari is irrelevant
          4. The Intellect: the thing
               a. Intellect nothing but what is known
                     i. The case of Gcd, x=x
               b. The via negativa and the intellect   
          5. Chapter I:68 does not contradict principle of I:58 
     C. Chapter I:58 and 'being'
          1. I:58 on the disjuncture between intellect and Gcd
               a. Reading the metziut vs. davar passage
                      in various languages
               b. Question of metziut vs. mahut and identity in Gcd
               c. Analogy returns
          2. I:58 does not disallow I:68

III. Chapters III:51-2, II:12, and II:37
     A. Intellect as overflow and Chapter II:37
          1. Can something flow from something totally different?
               a. Flow as a medium and as an action
          2. Flow as sustenance/vehicle for providence/intellect?
     B. Overflow, intellects, Gcd, and Chapter II:12
          1. Separate intellects, chain of command
          2. Continuity and superglue
          3. Limits of metaphorical language
          4. Overflow and the efficient cause
          5. Overflow as action from nonbody, relation to creation
     C. Chapter III:51
          1. Union via/with Gcd's intellect = union with Gcd
               a. Via negativa + Aristotelianism
          2. The limits of Maimonides' knowledge
     D. Ramifications and conclusion
          1. Kabbalah and esoteric knowledge
          2. Kiss as grace or necessary providence?
          3. Kavod
               a. Chapter III:52 and light
               b. Its relation to/identity with? intellect
          4. Konclusion: Uncertainty and unknowing

The edition of the Guide used here is the Pines translation (the introduction to which is herein referred to as 'Pines'), University of Chicago, 1963. The Hebrew/ Ibn Tibbon edition is that of Mosad Rav Kook, Jerusalem: 1947

Note to HTML edition: Unfortunately, the Hebrew quotations upon which parts of the argument rely are not yet available online. They will be scanned in as graphics when time permits. -JM

What is God? (for Maimonides)

The question of what kinds of contradictions (if any) there are between these chapters is largely a question of the relationship between Gcd, man, and the intellect. Beginning with chapter I:1 and looking in more detail at chapters I:68-9, I will try to suggest that the intellect is (like Gcd) indescribable and thus to some degree indistinguishable from that to which it is analogically related, Gcd. From there I will examine what that relationship is, by means of a close textual reading of the (I believe unresolvable) ambiguities of chapter I:58, in Hebrew and in English (I will not deal with the Arabic here). Third, I will turn to chapter III:51, and try to understand what Maimonides means by intellect "overflowing" (shafa) from Gcd, and how it acts as a "bond" (davuk) between the human and the Divine. And finally, I will conclude with a brief treatment of some ramifications for the problem of knowledge of and/or union with the Divine, for both Maimonides and some of his would-be interpreters.

The starting point for this discussion is to recognize, as Pines did (twice), that there seems to be a contradiction between chapters I:54, 58, and 59, which claim Gcd is utterly ineffable, and chapters I:68 and 69, which give a description of Him. Pines' notorious change-of-mind (itself perhaps a contradiction of the fifth or seventh kind, intended to throw off careless readers or train careful ones) as to which set of chapters is Maimonides' 'real' view is less important here than his theory of what type of contradiction is represented. Pines writes that Maimonides, after suggesting that Gcd is "the system of the sciences," sets out a strong via negativa to erase such a view, and yet almost immediately contradicts himself. (Pines 115)

The discussion of Maimonides' negativetheology can be fittingly
followed by a reference to his conception of Gcd's intellectual
activity, not because the two are complementary, but because they
appear to be contradictory.
                                    (Pines 97)

I believe that the contradiction is all-too-deceptively simple. Chapter I:68 presents the classic Aristotelian conception of Gcd, "generally admitted" by philosophers, that "He is the intellect as well as the intellectually cognizing subject and the intellectually cognized object." (Maim. 163) Yet in chapter I:54, Maimonides writes that Gcd "let him [Moses] know all His attributes, making it known to him that they are His actions, and teaching him that His essence cannot be grasped as it really is." (Maim. 123) So Gcd is unknowable, but Maimonides claims to know what he is. The contradiction seems simple, and Pines states that I:68 "obviously... goes counter to negative theology," reminding us that "it may be recalled that in his Introduction to the Guide Maimonides states that.. he deliberately inserted into this work contradictory theses." (Pines 1963, 98) Pines then implies that, in fact, Maimonides really believes the Aristotelian view, and the via negativa is for the vulgar reader, but as noted above, he changes his mind several years later and decides the reverse. (Luckily, Pines wrote in 1963 that "Prima facia either [opinion] is admissable" as representing Maimonides true view. [Ibid.]) Which Pines, and which Maimonides, do we believe?

Chapter I:54 is the highlight of a string of chapters which propose a clever interpretation of the Divine attributes, which in short holds that the attributes describe states of affairs in the world which, were the world created and supported by a being of whom we could speak, would indicate that that being was possessed of lovingkindness, compassion, etc. Maimonides states clearly in I:54 that such attributive-syllogistic knowledge is all that Moses, who knew Gcd more than anyone else, could have known, because Gcd is ultimately unknowable. The "more obscure" chapter 58 puts it even more directly, albeit linguistically difficult: "we are only able to apprehend the fact that He is [ania] and cannot apprehend His quiddity [mahut]." (Maim. 135) Of course, the term 'ania' has been interpreted as meaning many different things, but for our purposes, they are roughly equivalent: even the most liberal (and it is liberal) reading of 'ania' states only that we know that Gcd exists. Maimonides goes on in the next chapter to describe a rigorous via negativa, wherein he states that one should learn as much as possible about the world in order to know more and more things that are not Gcd. If, as I will show, there exists something that we cannot know, we cannot in principle say that Gcd is not it.

In the theologically 'Aristotelian' chapters of the Guide, I:68 and I:69, Maimonides presents a loyal analysis of Gcd as the knower, knowing, and known, and as the efficient, formal, and final causes of the world. These are not idle statements: Maimonides predicates one of his central arguments for Gcd's existence on His being the formal cause of the world; without this definition, the if-Gcd-didn't-exist- the-world-wouldn't-exist argument is somewhat empty. However, is stating that something is the cause of something else really saying anything about it? One can easily state that Zenith is the efficient cause of the computer I am now using without having said anything about Zenith except insofar as regards its actions, namely, that it creates computers. And Maimonides allows in I:59 that we can speak of Gcd's actions, one of which is certainly creating (Genesis 1:1). Likewise, we do not know what the telos of the world is, only Gcd himself does (and it is in I:68 that Gcd knows himself) so if we say that it is Gcd, we have not said anything about Gcd's essence, only his relation to the world, and even then in no way implying nontranscendence. The problem in I:69 arises from the formal-cause definition, because it suggests that Gcd is the form of the world, and so, contrary to the science qua via negativa in I:59, we can learn something about Gcd by learning about the world, just as we learn something about the form of a chair by examining several thousand chairs. Two ways out of this conundrum are possible, without resorting to the cop-out that Maimonides doesn't really mean it. First, we can make the claim that one cannot know the essence of forms, that form without matter is unknowable. Although in the wood example in I:68, Maimonides says that "the form of the piece of wood [can be] realized as intellectually cognized," this formulation still leaves us an out that the form itself is not apprehended, only the form-as-cognized is apprehended, and the situation might be different in the case of the whole world. If this argument works, it dispenses with the I:58 vs. I:69 contradiction, because if saying Gcd is the form of the world is equivalent to saying Gcd is unknowable, we haven't contravened the via negativa by doing so. If it is unsatisfactory, however, we can take a second route out and follow R. Shemtov ibn R. Isaac ben Shem Tov, (and others) who in his commentary on the Guide mapped the formal cause onto cognition, or the intellect. This would allow us to move to I:68, because the only 'aspect' of G-d-as-causes left unknowable from I:69 is the intellect, itself the problem of I:68. The problem of I:69 for the via-negativist reduces to that of I:68.

It would thus makes sense to move to the more difficult contradiction between chapters I:68 (Gcd is described as the intellectual subject, the intellect, and the object of the intellect) and I:54-58-59 (Gcd cannot be described), which posed for Pines the larger problem. It would seem that Maimonides has contradicted himself, either as a ruse for vulgar students one way or the other (Pines) or for pedagogical reasons (Harvey), to get the reader of the guide to contemplate the intellect as a means to contemplating Gcd, since intellect forms a bridge between them (Harvey). Both theories, however, rest on the proposition that saying Gcd is intellect is really saying something about Gcd.

I will not argue that Gcd's intellect is wholly Other than man's (i.e. that 'intellect' is an equivocal term), because Maimonides is fairly clear that the term is at most analogical: a variety of properties "hold good with reference to the Creator only [and] also with reference to every intellect." (Maim. 165) Again setting aside the participation in Divine Intellect (III:51)for now, the intellectual process does seem to represent an analogical relationship between the human and G-d; it is the interpretation Maimonides gives for "b'tzelem elohim" in Book I, chapter 1. (As a digression, this interpretation gives Maimonides a response to critics, such as Nachmanides and R. Todros haLevi Abulafia. who attack his view of sacrifices, citing the fact that Cain and Abel gave sacrifices when there was no idolatry present for them to be weaned from. Although I have not seen such a statement by a Maimonidean apologist, one could well respond that, following chapter I:7, which interprets the two accounts of Seth's birth, Cain and Abel were not created in the image of G-d/Adam, i.e. with intellectual apprehension, and thus offered sacrifices because of their imagination. So Cain was the source of idolatry, and the subsequent need to be weaned from it, because he (and his brother, who gets an ill treatment perhaps befitting his name) followed his imagination, and was perhaps even a creature of pure imagination.) In I:1, Maimonides is fairly clear on the analogical nature of Gcd's and man's intellects: "Now man possesses as his proprium... intellectual apprehension. In exercise of this, no sense, no part of the body, none of the extremities are used; and therefore this apprehension was likened unto the apprehension of the Deity, which does not require an instrument, although in reality it is not like the latter apprehension, but only appears so to the first stirrings of opinion." (Maim 23) I do not understand Pines' translation of the last sentence. The Hebrew reads: [HEBREW TEXT UNAVAILABLE]

So, unless the Hebrew is itself liberally interpreting the Arabic, something seems strange. A literal translation of the Hebrew would be "and [even] if there is no resemblance actually/in truth, it looks that way from the first opinion." The important word is the 'if.' This is significant, because I am trying to suggest that, perhaps, there can be no knowledge of this 'truth', or as Pines renders it, no 'latter apprehension,' and thus whether the divine intellect which the human intellect resembles (or participates in, as discussed towards the end) is a link in a chain between man and Gcd or whether it is Gcd becomes an unanswerable question: it is the last link we can know about. What I do want to argue is that Maimonides says that either the intellect is nothing, or it's something that he doesn't comprehend.

As an aside, I do not intend to develop the similarities between this view, expounded by Maimonides, and Judah haLevi's opinion in Book IV of the Kuzari. First, any possible causal connection is not relevant if Maimonides is clear on the matter himself. Second, it appears that haLevy wishes to undermine our claim to understand the essence of anything, not just intellect, and the philosophical can of worms this opens with regard to Maimonides would be a bigger problem than identifying their views on the intellect. Instead, I will try to show that Maimonides takes his position on intellect without such additional baggage.

In Chapter I:68, Maimonides writes that "intellect is nothing but the thing that is intellectually cognized," even in the human example with the thinker and the wood (Maim. 164). If what is cognized is wood, then intellect is wood (or perhaps wood-ness). What about when the 'thing' that is cognized is intellect itself? It becomes like the cat chasing its tail: intellect is nothing but intellect, which in Gcd (since he is always in actu and always cognizing cognition, i.e. Himself) is is never anything except intellect, which in general is nothing but what is cognized, which in this case is intellect, which is not`ing but intellect, and so on. If we let intellect=x, and what is cognized=y (the intellectual subject being "indubitably identical with the intellect realized in actu"=x [Ibid.]), then the formula reads x = 0 + y. In Gcd, y=x, so x = 0 + x. Even if Gcd is "thinking," which is suggested in III:51-2 to be something outside of man but in which man participates (discussed below), we don't really know what thinking is when all it's thinking about is thinking. Either intellect is nothing, or we just don't know what it is, or the definition of the former is the latter. Both terms are equivalent for our purpose, because it seems that saying Gcd is intellect is no description at all, because we don't know what intellect IS in Gcd's case at all. Perhaps we could try to apprehend apprehension, but if we succeeded, we would be Gcd.

While such union will be discussed below, it would seem that there is no necessary contradiction between saying we can know nothing about Gcd and saying that Gcd is something we know nothing about. Even the relational properties attendant to intellect lose coherence, as in the above cat and its tail, and Maimonides explicitly denies essential properties of intellect in actu. It is possible that saying the latter statement (Gcd is something we know nothing about) is to say that Gcd is something, but that would be a misreading of the language: it is not that Gcd is some thing. It is that he is X about which we know nothing. If the statement "he is X" is too problematic, Maimonides deals with the problem in the chapters on what we mean when we say Gcd exists, I:58 itself and I:56 for instance, applying the via negativa to the (equivoval) term.

This account ties in with the way Maimonides says we can have knowledge of what Gcd isn't, discussed above. In chapter I:59, having explained that we can know nothing of what He is, Maimonides is forced to explain why we should study anything, including science, and "in what respect can there be superiority or inferiority between those who apprehend Him? If... there is not, then Moses and Solomon did not apprehend anything different from what a single individual among the pupils apprehends." (Maim. 137-8) So Maimonides lays down his via negativa account of scientific knowledge and the difference between Solomon and myself: "you come nearer to the apprehension of Him... with every increase in the negations regarding him." (Ibid.) The naive person may believe that Gcd is a body, the philosopher knows He is not; neither know what Gcd is, but the philosopher defines the boundaries clearer. So too would someone looking at the stars wonder at them, and think they might be Gcd, but an astronomer would have precise knowledge of them and know they are not.

In the case of the intellect, we do not know what it is, so we cannot say for certain that Gcd is not intellect. In the first place, the intellect is possessed of the same ineffability about which Maimonides discourses in I:58, and has the same sort of attributes-only-as-actions as does Gcd. Yet secondly, we would have no way of knowing that Gcd is not the intellect unless we know what the intellect is, and, as described above, we have no knowledge of it: it is "nothing" but what is cognized, the troubles of the case of Gcd having been belabored enough already. I am forced to admit, however, the one time in I:58-59 that Maimonides appears to directly state that Gcd is in fact not the intellect: "We apprehend further that this being is not like the being of the intellect, which is neither a body nor dead, but caused." (Maim. 135) Although it may seem a cop-out, I believe that the uncertainty is still preserved, because this statement refers to a quality of Gcd's existence, his being, and not his essence--noting of course, that Maimonides claims His essence is His existence. The language here, particularly in English, is misleading. Does Maimonides mean the being (participle) of Gcd, or the being (noun) of Gcd? As I do not have the Arabic here, I must look at the Hebrew; the context of the sentence is the English is inconclusive. The Ibn Tibbon Hebrew is somewhat more precise, however. Below are the lines in question in the Hebrew and in Pines' translation: [HEBREW TEXT UNAVAILABLE]

For instance, it has been demonstrated to us that it is necessary
that something exists other than those essences
apprehended by means of the senses and whose knowledge is
encompassed by meansof the intellect.  Of this thing we say that it
exists, the meaning being that its nonexistence is impossible.  We
apprehend further that this being is not like the 
being of the elements, for example, which are dead bodies. 
We saw accordingly that this being is living...
We apprehend further that this being is not like the
being of the intellect, which is neither a body nor
dead, but is caused.
                                   (Maim 135, lines x-x)

 ...some being must exist besides those things that can be
perceived by the senses, or be apprehended by the mind. When we say
of this being, that it exists, we mean that its nonexistence is
impossible. We then perceive that such a being is not, for
instance, like the four elements...)

The word rendered 'being' (because the word is also used in the Pines English--and we will set aside the Friedlander here--in a different sense, I have bolded the instances in question) and 'exists' (which would more precisely be translated 'the existence of a thing') is m'tziut, which would correspond not with the noun 'being' but with the participle: the term is elsewhere rendered 'existence' (as in [] translated by Pines "whose existence is necessary", p. 137, line 9). Setting aside the quirks of the translation, some ambiguities become clarified. It is the 'essences'-- [] --whose knowledge is encompassed by the intellect, as we would expect: ' ' refers to the plural. What remains unclear is to what the term [] refers to: the m'tziut or the davar. The davar is Gcd in Himself, apparently, the m'tziut is Gcd's existence. The unresolved pronoun reference continues through the parallel structure, through the phrase which interests us here, [] . I would like to be able to present what I consider to be a definitive translation, and thus prove my point that Maimonides is not here claiming that Gcd and the intellect are two different things, that only their ontological status is dissimilar. But I cannot. The most literal translation of the phrase would be "that 'this' which exists is not like the existence of the intellect," the difference being clearly specified by Maimonides--that the existence of the intellect is contingent, and that of Gcd is not. This has not said whether or not Gcd is an/The Intellect, and even if--as I think makes more grammatical sense--the 'zeh' refers to 'davar' and not to 'metziut'--the contingent/noncontingent statement seems to clearly be the meaning of the passage, and this statement does not bear on the isomorphic or even identity relationship between Gcd and the intellect (this relationship will be discussed further below, in connection with the concept of 'overflow'). This reading is well in line with Aristotelianism provides; our intellects are caused, the Divine (Intellect, subject, object) is uncaused. The difference, as per Aristotle and Guide I:1, is not in mahut but in m'tziut.

What does of course complicate things is that for Gcd, whose essence is His existence, a difference in existential characteristics is a difference in essential characteristics. So even if m'tziut is acting as a participle here (the Hebrew form, of course, is a participle which can act as a noun, so that gets us nowhere), my reading may still be in trouble. At the end of the day, I think this passage in I:58 supports any reading one would like. It can be read as a clear statement, either sincere or misleading, that Gcd and the intellect are different animals, or it can be read as saying that they are in at the very least an analogical relationship with the sole exception that the Intellect/Gcd is necessary, and the human intellect is caused.

This discussion has of necessity taken us somewhat afield, but it is important to at least try to understand what Maimonides is saying before he contradicts himself. What I believe Maimonides is effectively setting up is an analogy,and in this case also a disanalogy, between the caused human intellect and the uncaused Divine maybe-intellect. Throughout, 'intellect' itself has been used in an analogical fashion by Maimonides, and given the nature of his discussion here it is not surprising that he would do so. Both the statement discussed above and the statement that implies 'intellect' is not purely equivocal ("...holds good with reference to the Creator only, [and] with reference to every intellect" [Maim. 165]) imply that the relation between Gcd's intellect and human intellect is analogical. However, the matter is at once clarified and complicated in chapter III:51, which cannot be postponed much longer.

Amidst the vaguely mystical language of chapter III:51, Maimonides seems to come clean on the matter of the intellect: it is "the bond between us and Him." (Maim 621) Thus is the pedagogical explanation for the alleged contradiction between I:58 and I:68 borne out; if a young philosopher cannot contemplate nothingness (=something utterly ineffable), then he can use contemplation on the Intellect as a means to get to Gcd. While this will be discussed below, what allows us to continue questioning whether there is in fact a contradiction in this question is Maimonides' terminology. As Maimonides prescribes meditation and a proto-devekut (the word for 'bond' above is itself davuk), and claims that bad things happen to wise people only when they are distracted, he describes the intellect in terms of "overflowing" from Gcd. The immediate question is how something can overflow from a place where it isn't. If Gcd is not intellect, how can intellect overflow from Him?

The matter is not so simple as the English rendition would suggest, however. The Hebrew for overflow is shafa', which I note in Modern Hebrew means simply 'flow.' Maimonides does not state that intellect can overflow from something that is not intellect. From several statements on overflow scattered across Book II of the Guide, we begin to get an idea what he means by the word.

He says in II:36 that "the true reality and quiddity of prophecy consist in its being an overflow overflowing from Gcd." (Maim 369) II:37 states that the philosopher should be interested in "the nature of that which exists in the divine overflow coming toward us, through which we have intellectual cognition and through which there is a difference of rank between our intellects." (Maim 373) That the difference is due to something not inherently human allows Maimonides to say later that cognition as an action is a form of participation in Gcd, that to some extent our intellects are not our own, and so in union with Gcd there can be apprehension of Gcd. One wonders then, to what extent man is actually IN the image of Gcd and not (using) PART of Gcd in intellectual apprehension. This line of reasoning will be developed below, in conjunction with Divine union.

We have still not answered what overflow actually is as an action, however. Maimonides uses the term frequently in chapters II:11 and II:12 in connection with providence. Maimonides writes that "governance overflows from the deity, may He be exalted, to the intellects according to their rank... from the benefits received by the intellects, good things and lights overflow to the bodies of the spheres... from the spheres... forces and good things overflow to this body subject to generation and corruption." (Maim 275) We know from elsewhere in the guide that 'governance' or providence is in fact intellect, or at least inextricably tied to it, and so this agrees with what Maimonides says in III:51. Maimonides also states that "the overflow coming from Him, may He be exalted, for the bringing into being of separate intellects overflows likewise from these intellects, so that one of them brings another one into being and this continues up to the Active Intellect." (Ibid.) Gcd's overflow is the sustenance of the angels, and subsequently the world.

In chapter II:12, Maimonides states that "the action of the separate intellect is always designated as an overflow, being likened to a source of water that overflows in all directions and does not have one particular direction from which it draws... Similarly the intellect in question may not be reached by a force coming from a certain direction," and vice versa. (Maim 279) It would seem from this statement that intellect (not the 'separate intellect,' but rather intellect itself, which is the overflow, as per III:51) is less a link in a chain between humans and Gcd than the substance of that chain, actually a continuum. The Intellect is omnipresent, while the intellects (angels) exist at points along the conduit; the overflow is the medium. Further, the 'overflow' is continuous: Maimonides went out of his way in II:11 to say that each intellect only overflows because it was flowed into. And in the 'through' language of chapter II:37, he implies that it is a medium. Insofar as the intellect is a bond, it is useful to note that the term 'davak' is commonly defined not as a linkage or intermediary but, on the contrary, what brings two entities into 'cleaving.' It is not like string or a mediating agent but rather like superglue, oozing out of Gcd and allowing humans to bond with Him. Before we get carried away with the analogies, though, Maimonides disclaimer about his figurative language is a useful restriction; he apologetically writes that "nothing is more fitting as a simile to the action of one that is separate from matter than this expression, I mean 'overflow'. For we are not capable of finding the true reality of a term that would correspond to the true reality of the notion. For the mental representation of the action of one who is separate from matter is very difficult." (Maim 279)

Chapter II:12 then continues in a way that either confirms my earlier statement that being an efficient cause and being indescribable are not contradictory, or throws a wrench into the pedagogical explanation for the contradiction. Maimonides says that

For its [the separate intellect's] action is constant as long as
something has been prepared so that it is receptive of the
permanently existing action, which has been interpreted as an
overflow.  Similarly with regard to the Creator, may His name be
sublime; inasmuch as it had been demonstrated that He is not a body
and had been established that the universe is an act of His and
that He is its efficient cause... it has been said that the world
derives from the overflow of Gcd and that He has caused to overflow
to it everything in it that is produced in time.... The meaning of
all this is that these actions are the action of one who is not a
body.  And it is His action that is called overflow.
                                        (Maim 279)

The passage lends itself, once again, to several interpretations. One would be that, whatever else we may say, Maimonides seems to believe that Gcd is the efficient cause of the world, whether that is to say anything or not. Another view would be that he is lying here, while still another could claim that he doesn't believe Gcd to be the efficient cause and hints at this belief in the 'inasmuch as it has been demonstrated' phrase. This last view would have to postulate a very subtle contradiction indeed, because I think there can be little doubt that the first two 'demonstrations', that Gcd is not a body and that the universe is an act of his, are true in Maimonides' opinion. The efficient cause question aside, Maimonides here seems to reduce the 'overflow' metaphor to the nature of an action taken by something which is not a body. This would seem to be all he means.

The question of whether something can overflow from something else might thus be inappropriate. In any case, it is answerable both ways. Either intellect can overflow from non-intellect just as the intellects overflow Divine providence, which does not originate from them--and the term is metaphorical anyway, so our intuitive notion of what overflowing means is not relevant. Or, on the other side, one can recall that providence is equivalent to intellect, and there is certainly a close relationship betweent the intellect generally and the intellects/angels. Moreover, there is a logical-semantic problem: Why does Maimonides state that intellect is overflowed (a concept quite similar, of course, to the neo-Platonic emanation) and not created by Gcd? Where did it come from? This could be answered that overflow and creation are not two different things, that overflow is a particular kind of creation in which there is no spatial direction from which the overflowed comes, and towards which it might return. Chapter III:51 clarifies the point (it is in turn problematized by III:52) in its discussion of union with Gcd.

What seems to me to drive home both the small point of overflow necessitating some sort of analogical relationship between the flowed and the flower, and the larger point of the intellect being indistinguishable (whether or not it is identical) from Gcd, is that Maimonides identifies "union with Gcd" with "apprehension of Him and love of Him," in III:51. (Maim 624) Maimonides speaks of one who "achieves a state in which... his intellect is wholly turned toward Him, may He be exalted, so that in his heart he is always in His presence." (Maim 679) He says Moses attained this state, and also that

This was also the rank of the Patriarchs, the result of whose
nearness to Him, may He be exalted, was that His name became known
to the world through them... [Exod 3:15] Because of the union of
their intellects through apprehension of Him, it came about that he
made a lasting covenant with each of them... Four in those four, I
mean the Patriarchs and Moses our Master, union with Gcd -- I mean
apprehension of Him and love of Him -- became manifest, as the
texts testify.
                                             (Maim 623-4)

I believe 'their' intellects must refer to each patriarch's and Gcd's, not the patriarchs' with each other. In that case, apprehension of Gcd = union of human's intellect and Gcd's = union with Gcd. (QED?) In apprehension of Gcd, which Maimonides claims has only happened four times, it is possible to unify with Gcd. Now one can say that this is only by means of the intellect, but I think the above passage suggests that the union takes place between the intellects, and since we cannot allow under Maimonides differentiation within the Divine, the Divine intellect is the Divine, at least insofar as it is united with. It is also interesting that apprehension of Gcd here does not violate the via negativa if viewed in the light of I:68's Aristotelianism, because Gcd (and only Gcd) apprehends Gcd, and if you are one with Gcd, you are in that state Gcd, so there is no problem. And since Maimonides absolutely identifies apprehension with union, there can be no apprehension without union, so the via negativa is preserved--ironically, only if the Aristotelian model is as well. It's been remarked that what is noteworthy in Maimonides is that true union can only come via apprehension, but, in order for III:51 not to contradict (nearly) everything in Book I, what is more important is that true apprehension can only come via union.

In the light of this apparently workable conclusion, I want to state here my opinion that Maimonides is so cagey on this subject (even the above passage comes in the context of a discussion of how to divide one's time between Gcd and worldly concerns) not for his usual reason, that he wants to hide the truth from those who aren't ready for it, but because he does not know exactly what the truth is, because he has not reached the level of direct, full apprehension of Gcd (despite the 'from Moses to Moses'saying). In fact, he has not apprehended what the intellect is, if such a thing is possible, and so he cannot know (even) that it is not Gcd. And yet, intellectual apprehension is the only way to Gcd. As a result, I think Maimonides is hedging his bets.

There are a variety of ramifications Maimonides' position would have, if he took one. His doubt itself can be interpreted as a gentle departure from the Aristotelian tradition. True, the knower-knowing-known account is "generally accepted," and Maimonides does not refute it in principle. But he does suggest that it cannot be proven either. So the door is open for critiques of philosophy generally, and in particular a Kabbalistic reading of the Guide which could claim that Maimonides happened to be ignorant of the way to gain unmediated knowledge of Divine Truth--as well as for the legend that Maimonides became a Kabbalist later in life, a progression strengthened by Maimonides' description of the increasing apprehension of Gcd that comes with age, and finally dying with a kiss. (This account would seem to undermine the method of checking the earlier-written Mishnah Torah for Maimonides' true opinion.) Interestingly, the story leads to a possible remedy for how Maimonides can conclude the Guide with the epigraph "He is found by every seeker who searches for Him" with the partially agnostic reading given above: that perhaps this 'finding' depends to some extent on grace/providence/intellectual overflow, that a 'kiss' is still needed from Gcd for Aaron and Miriam, and that, as Maimonides wrote in III:51, even if union is not possible for all but exceptional cases, extreme closeness--'finding'?--is. Yet, Maimonides' explicit swipes against the esoteric tradition (such as the Sefer Yetzira being due to the evil impulse in II:12) aside, accounts of mystical union are themselves problematized by the possibility that union is possible with the intellect, and that intellect may not be Gcd (cf. Idel's studies of Maimonides as read by Abulafia).

Another interesting complexity in Maimonides' discussion of the intellect and Gcd is the intellect's participation in the created light of the divine Glory, earlier equated with the Shechinah (Book I, chapter 28). "This king who cleaves to him [a 'man of Gcd'] and accompanies him is the intellect that overflows toward us and is the bond between us and Him, may He be exalted. Just as we apprehend Him by means of that light which He caused to overflow toward us... so does he by means of this selfsame light examine us." (Maim 629) The telescreen image is linked with the kavod explicitly when Maimonides cites Isaiah 6:3 ("the whole earth is full of His glory") as proof for his opinion five lines later. The above passage would be a non-sequitor were the 'light' not either related to or connected with the intellect, and Maimonides had earlier claimed that the kavod is a vehicle for prophecy (I:64), much as the intellectual overflow is. Might they be identical? The obscurely-placed quote in III:51 could suggest it. "The apprehension of their intellects becomes stronger at the separation [of soul from body], just as it is said: 'And thy rightousness shall go before thee; the glory of the Lord shall be at thy rear.'" (Maim 628; Isaiah 58:8) If kavod and intellect were identical, then, since the kavod is created, intellect can not be Gcd. But Gcd can still intellectualize, as in I:68. In any event, Maimonides references here seem to me unclear; the III:52 passage speaks of apprehension of Gcd by means of the light, which would seem to fit the kavod into the position I had said was unsuited for the intellect, as a mediator. Moreover, the light carries out functions more associated with judgment [mishpat] and hesed [lovingkindness] as interpreted immediately following the above statement, in III:53, than with the intellect. However, even if the intellect is to be seen as related to the kavod, we have both the analogical interpretation of the term 'intellect' advanced earlier, and the series of overflows, which do not allow the intellect-kavod identity to ipso facto preclude the possibility of Gcd being the knower, knowing, and known. Throughout the Guide, I believe the ambiguity is deliberately maintained, even when Maimonides speaks of the attainment of his highest goal--the intellectual apprehension of/union with the Divine.

For Maimonides, then, I believe Gcd is surrounded by a cloud of unknowing, which at first constitutes everything in the world, then reduces bit by bit as one gains in knowledge, and finally, for Maimonides himself, is reduced to the intellect. The intellect is the bond between Gcd and Man because it is the closest Man can come to knowing Gcd--to know what overflows from Gcd--and is the last thing that cannot be distinguished from Gcd. For this reason I have not taken a stand as to whether Maimonides thinks Gcd is the intellect or not. My stand is that he does not know.

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