Afrnosticism
THE JEWISH ENCYCLOPEDLV
Ag-ram
ninu must resort to the picture langunpe, evokes response from the liiinmii iniiul. (oiifusion ill the useof tlie term kiiowUdiie 1ms lent cmlenlions of Aga senibliuice of cojrency to the nosticism. AVhnt we know, we know ns human heinps: tlint is to sny. in its relations to our conscious self. Sensiitions. the immediate material of our consciousness, we know in no mannerdifferent from the way in which we know the tuiities lieyond and underneath these sensjitions. In their relations to us we know the thinirs in themselves, the Knowledge existence of which need not be estabof God and lished for us by a process of tliou^rht. the World, but the knovvledtreof which isan original dfitiun, which is i)resupposed in every act of thinking. Our own personal identity self-consciousness are of things in themselves. and As we know ourselves, we know them. The knowledge of our Ego. which is the consciousness of o>ir unity, leads to the knowledge of the ultimate unity underlying all that is. While we may never know what God is in Himself, we do know what He is for us. As we are a part of the All. that which we are must also be in .some degree of the essence and nature of the All. The All can not be less than we, a part niituri' to
which iiloiK"
(
thereof.
Judaism has little to learn, and still less to fear, from modern Agnosticism. Conceiving of man as created in the image of God, it bases its Godknowlcdge on the self-knowledge of man. By looking into himself, man learns to know his God; and it is in terms of this self-cognition that Judaism expresses its God-consciousness. The early Biblical writings are naively anthro|)omorphic and anthropopathic. The iihilosophers of Judaism, beginJewish ning with Piiii.o. prefer to hy posta.size Views. divine manifestationsaiid powers, such as wisdom, grace, justice, prescience, to descriptions of His entity in human terms. This tendency finds expression in the nomenclature which borrows designations of si)ace and locality to connote the Deity. "Being," "lie who is," seem to sutlice to name Him adc(juately. Beyond this ascription of Being, the pious disinclination to associate with Him other and less comprehensive connotations woiild not venture. The hazan who exhausted a rich vocabulary of attributive descri|ition in his zeal to magnify God was censured for his presumption (Bab. Ber" 336). "'The Name" is the favorite
sj'nonym for God. Funfiamental to the theology of most of the philosophic writers among the Jews is the thesis that,
we may
predicate existence of (Jod, we can not attain imto the knowledge of His (luality (Maimonjosejih Albo reports the anides, "Moreh," i. US), swer given by a " wise man " to the (|uery, whether he knew the ir/mf of the Godhead: "Did I possess this knowledge, I myself would be God" ("'Ikkarim." ii. 30). The controversy concerning the ascription of attributes to the Deity was fanned intoa high blaze in conseipicnce of dogmatic disputi'S in the camp of Mohammedan theologians. Saadia devotesa series of chapters ("Emuuot we-De'ot," ii. -1-9) to the discussion of the problem, and comes to the conclusion that attributes, in the strict sense of the word, can not be ijredicated of God. Those found in the Bible may be divided into such as inilicate essence and such as connote action the former are comprehended in God's imity and are a mere accommodation to the necessities of language, while those of activity are mere designations of God's power in nature and history. Saadia was succeeded by a long series of thinkers, who contend that the attributes have in reality only a
while
238
negative implication. bvit do not allirin of
Qualiflcation by
Negation,
They exclude their contraries, God a i)ositive reality, not in-
cludcMl before in His Ii<ing. Jlaimonides, in his ".Moreh Nebukim " (i, ,">()(id), on the whole is inclined to accept this theory. To attribute ipialities to
(iod would amoimt to limiting Him. and thus would degrade His Being. The attributes life, power, knowledge, and will constitute only a seeming exception. But while in man life and knowledge, thtuight anil ]iower are se]ianili' and divided, in (iod, the One and Indivisible, they are one. (ioil's thought isnolof the order of human thought. It is spontaneous. Why, then, adds Mainionides, in view
of the es.sential dilTerence of implication in the terms, use them in connection with GodV From the very beginning, he adds, Jews had a dread of ju-onouncing the name of the Deity. The i)riests alone at certain times anil in holy places could jjresiune to utter the Ineffable Appellatiun. Others had to paraphrase it. Adonai and Klohim designate God as cognized from His works. .Still JIaimonides' thesis has also its jiositive side. The more we know what God is not, the nearer, says he, we draw by this road of negation to the perception of what is involved in the concept of the Deitv as the (Jne and Indivisible Unity, In all essentials, modern Judaism shares the i)osition of Mainionides. It regards all attempts at descriptive connotations of the Godhead Modern asanthropomorphic makeshifts to find Jewish words for a thought which in reality Views. is beyond the power of human tongue
adequately to convey.
(Joil
is.
In
He is uid<Mowable. In so far as He is in reto our own self, the life of Israel, the human
Himself, lation
and the world. Heisknown. I'p toaci-rtain Judaism is a.gnostic. It parts cornpany with Agnosticism at the point where the certitude of our own immediate consciousness of the reality beyond the limiteil range of sensational experience family,
point, then,
is
By
called into doubt.
the light of thisconsciou.s-
ness, which is an immediate datum, by the facts of his own identity and persistency as a conscious entity in time and space yet w ithal above time and
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space, and constituted into a moral iiersonality by the aililitional data of Israel's history and the guiilance of the world and humaidty the Jew, in accordance with .Judaism's doctrine, draws the warrant for predicating in his faltering human language the existence of that " ))ower not our.selves making for righteousness," iiaraphriising attributes which agnostic metaidiysics, in its confusion of the imjilications and the linntations of knowledge, refuses to admit. The I'nknowable God, through the medium of human cognition, is apprehended as the God who is, and, as existing, is known by analogy and brought nearer to man by symbolism rooted in human experience and human self-consciousness. See also
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ANTIIIU)POM<)RrilISM.
E. G.
tj,
^4ll;
Bishop of Lyons; born 779; died was one of the principal opponents of
Judaism in the ninth century. In his lime the .Tews of Lyons inhabited a special (piarter, situated at the foot of the
hill
of Foiu-viere.
They obtained
—
from King Louis the Debonair, of France the son and successor of Charlemagne a special ma.gistratc (iiiiiffis/i r Jiidwitruui) nameil Eberard a ]>rominent man of the court to defend them against the intolerance of the clergy. This arotised the indignation of Agobard, which heexpressed in four epistles one to Louis, one to the priests of the palace, one to Bishop Hilduin, and one to Nibridius, bishop of Xarbouue.
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II.
AGOBARD: .Tune
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