Between Faith and Reason: Five Studies in Judaic Thought

By Dr. Martin Sicker

The studies in this volume discuss some of the issues implicit but not resolved in the Hebrew Scriptures including the problems inherent in the topics of theology and religious philosophy as discussed and argued by scholars for more than two millennia. The studies address the problem of philosophy, the troublesome issues of moral autonomy and divine omniscience and theodicy, from a Judaic perspective. In addition, it includes a study of the biblical story of the Golden Calf and it religious implications that are more complex than a cursory reading of the biblical text will suggest. Finally, it includes a discussion of the often misunderstood concepts of the prophet and prophecy as set forth in the biblical texts. Although this book does not and cannot resolve the philosophical and theological issues that have persisted through the millennia, it hopes to make clear how these issues have been wrestled with from a Judaic perspectives, which will have relevance with regard to the perspectives on these matters of other monotheistic faiths.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jul 13, 2020
• ISBN: 9781984587442

Dr. Martin Sicker

Dr. Martin Sicker is a writer and lecturer on the Middle Eastern geopolitical and cultural history, with a special focus on Jewish history and religion. He is the author of 62 previous books on these subjects as well as on geopolitics, political theory, and political economy.

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Contents

1.   The Problem of Theology

2.   Divine Omniscience and Moral Autonomy

3.   The Problem of Theodicy

4.   The Golden Calf

5.   The Prophet and Prophecy

References

Notes

The Problem of Theology

1

The Problem of Theology

Concerns about Speculation in Antiquity

It seems reasonable to assume that from the very moment of the revelation of the Decalogue on Mount Sinai, and the subsequent transmission by Moses of the Torah in accordance with which the children of Israel were to create a unique civilization, there were individuals who had questions about these revelations. Indeed, it would be surprising if this were not the case. After all, they had just undergone an exodus from the most advanced civilization in the Middle East, which maintained very different beliefs regarding the origins of the world and the divine powers that were to be worshipped. Moreover, the biblical narrative also relates that the Israelites were also accompanied by a mixed multitude (Ex. 12:38) of non-Israelites with different cultures and religions. Then, over the course of many centuries, the prophets struggled, often unsuccessfully, to keep the Israelites on the path set forth for them by Moses, as they clearly deviated from the ideas and ideals of the Torah.

Although Scripture does not dwell on the details of their dissonance, the sages of Israel in the post-biblical eras, fearful of the impact of Persian and then Greco-Roman ideas on the children of Israel exposed to their promulgation in the Jewish homeland, felt the need to take steps the alleviate the problem. They sought to stem the tide of such alien influences by limiting ready access to the ideas deemed most morally and intellectually problematic from the standpoint of Mosaic teachings. Accordingly, in the first published compendium of Rabbinic Law, compiled near the end of the second century in Roman Palestine, we find a series of concisely stated pedagogic constraints intended to deal with what was evidently considered of most immediate concern to the religious leaders of the time.¹

The first of these stipulated that the subject of forbidden conjugal relations [as spelled out in considerable detail in Leviticus 18:6-23 and 20:9-21], may not be expounded in the presence of three. Why three? As explained by later sages: It is a logical conclusion: when two sit before their master, one engages in discussion with his master and the other inclines his ear to the instruction; but [when there are] three, one engages with in discussion with his master, and the other two engage in discussion with one another and do not know what their master is saying, and may come to permit that which is prohibited in the matter of the forbidden relations.²

But, we may ask, why this concern about significantly limiting discussion of the prohibitions set forth in the biblical texts dealing with forbidden sexual relations? It may reasonably be assumed that the Torah went into such great detail regarding this subject because the relations it prohibited were commonly practiced both in Egypt and in the countries of the region in which the children of Israel were to found a new moral civilization, in which such practices were to be considered immoral and detrimental to that purpose. In this regard it is noteworthy that in ancient Egypt, both before and after the time of the Exodus, it was common among the elite, and most notably among the pharaohs, for the male or female heir to marry a sister or brother. Indeed, according to Egyptian mythology, such incest was practiced by their gods, Shu marrying Tefnut, Geb marrying Nut, and Isis marrying Osiris, among other brother-sister pairs. Nonetheless, the biblical rationale for the prohibition of such unions among the children of Israel remains a matter of conjecture. In any case, they are categorically forbidden and, given the vagaries of human sexual drives, considered a subject unsuitable for public discussion.

It should be noted that there is a suggestion in the Talmud that some of the children of Israel were deeply troubled by the new marriage prohibitions because they themselves had already engaged in them. The prooftext for this suggestion was the narrator’s assertion that Moses heard the people weeping, family by family, every man at the door of his tent (Num. 11:10). There was a school of thought that maintained that they were weeping, family by family because of the families [relations] with whom they were forbidden to have intercourse.³ That is, they were deeply concerned that compliance with the newly promulgated rules specifying with whom intimate relations were prohibited would in effect tear their families apart. As one sage put it, This teaches us that Israel was distressed when Moses told them to withdraw from forbidden marriages, and it teaches us that man married his sister, his father’s sister and his mother’s sister. Thus when Moses told them to withdraw from forbidden marriages they were distressed.⁴

Moreover, and perhaps even more discomfiting, there surely was little interest on the part of the sages in possibly needing to explain away the fact that Moses’ father Amram married his own aunt Jochebed (Ex. 6:20), a union also subsequently prohibited by the Torah, which might have cast a shadow over the legitimacy of their son, Moses, Israel’s primary prophet and lawgiver, as well as that of Aaron and Miriam as well. It has been pointed out that such a circumstance is not suppressed in regard to the family of the Lawgiver is eloquent testimony to the unsparing veracity of Scripture.⁵ Although it certainly would have been explained that these now forbidden unions took place before the revelation of the Torah, the sages evidently were at a loss to explain why they were now prohibited.

Nonetheless, a medieval commentator, seemingly grasping at straws, expressed the view that the purpose of these prohibitions was to bring about a decrease of sexual intercourse and to diminish the desire for mating as far as possible, so that it should not be taken as an end, as is done by the ignorant.⁶ It has been suggested by a modern commentator that, citing the opinion of another medieval scholar, the common denominator behind these laws is a social rationale, a clue for this to be found in the wording of the prohibition against marrying two sisters which states: thou shalt not take a woman to her sister, to be a rival to her (Lev. 18:18). The wording, to be a rival to her, suggests that the purpose of these laws is the prevention of family quarrels and the maintenance of household peace.⁷

Although not even hinted at by the sages, there likely was some concern about justifying the rationale for at least some of the stipulated restrictions. For example, it may be pointed out that, according to the biblical narrative, Abraham married his half-sister on his father’s side (Gen. 20:2, 12); Jacob later married two sisters, Leah and Rachel, while both were alive, unions that subsequently were specifically forbidden by the Torah. Given the intra-familial problems that resulted from the patriarch Jacob’s action, which later led to serious inter-tribal conflicts, it is understandable that the sages preferred not to have to deal with the question of Jacob’s allowing his emotions to override his better judgment.

Constraints on Discussions of Esoteric Ideas

A second pedagogic constraint concerns the mystery of the ‘work of creation’ of the universe, which the sages insisted should not be discussed in the presence of two. That is, one may inquire, but two may not inquire. The biblical narrative tells us that God created the heaven and the earth (Gen. 1:1), and then goes on to describe the primordial state of His creation and its transition from chaos to cosmos, to the universe as we know it, and, as the culmination of the creative process, God created man in His own image, in the image of God created He him; male and female created He them (Gen. 1:27). Why and how all this took place were questions that troubled a few inquisitive minds, who sought to unravel the mystery of the ‘work of creation’ and who allowed their imaginations free reign in attempting to explain the inexplicable. It seems rather clear that beginning in the first century there was a keen interest among some of the sages in the esoteric aspects of Scripture, particularly the story of Creation which seems utterly incomprehensible from a mundane perspective. The very notion of divine creatio ex nihilo is mind boggling, yet that is what the biblical text was understood to be asserting. Nonetheless, the sages were opposed to opening public discussion of the mysteries of esoteric aspects of divine creation, restricting study of the matter to individual exploration. The failure to heed their sanction has resulted in protracted argument over the creation narrative that has persisted to the present day.

The sages surely were also concerned about the vision reported by Isaiah of the Lord sitting upon a throne high and lifted up, and His train filled the Temple (Isa. 6:1), which contained an anthropomorphism that appears to have negated the traditional concept of God’s incorporeity, something that would be repeated more than once in mystic thought. However, of even greater concern than Isaiah’s vision was that of Ezekiel which described in great detail, in twenty-four verses, the host of heaven. And, in addition to the divine throne envisioned by Isaiah, Ezekiel describes a divine chariot mounted on wheels, and withersoever the spirit was to go, as the spirit was to go thither, so they went; and the wheels were lifted up beside them; for the spirit of the living creature was in the wheels (Ezek. 1:4-28). It has been suggested that the biblical allusion to a chariot that apparently links heaven and earth was seized on by mystics eager to draw ever closer to God, and they developed the notion that, through proper preparation the mystic might in a trance or in an ascent of soul after death ride on this chariot to the divine realm, at least to the chamber where the divine throne was set.⁸ The prophet’s vision in its entirety was subsequently known as the Maaseh Merkavah or the ‘Work of the Chariot.’

Of particular interest to the mystics of the tannaitic period was Ezekiel’s assertion that above the firmament that was over their heads was the likeness of a throne, as the appearance of a sapphire stone; and upon the likeness of the throne was a likeness as the appearance of a man upon it above (Ezek. 1:26). This inspired the development of an esoteric doctrine concerning the appearance of God in a quasi-bodily form, known as the Shi’ur Komah (lit. ‘the measure of the body), that was accessible to the mystic who had succeeded in attaining the vision of the supernal world and found himself standing before the throne described by the prophet. "Fragments of this doctrine have been preserved in several texts bearing the title Shi’ur Komah and in many allusions to it in midrashic literature. The fragments consist of a detailed description of the limbs of God in the figure of a man and this apparently deliberate and excessive indulgence in anthropomorphism proved shocking to later and more rationalistic Jewish thought. On the other hand, the kabbalists hailed it as a profound, symbolic expression of their own purely spiritual world."⁹

It has been suggested that the question of whether or not these gross anthropomorphisms constitute or imply a rejection of the principle of divine incorporeity in the mind of the author, or in the minds of his earliest readers, is not a question that can be decided with certainty. However if pressed for a response, the answer would have to be that it is not so, as evidenced by those gaonic and medieval scholars who praised the text and who accepted it as a valid text of Jewish mystic expression, and who, yet, are known to have held the doctrine of divine incorporeity as a cardinal element in their religious systems.¹⁰ In any case it seems abundantly clear that the mystics who evolved this concept of the divine figure did not intend to describe it in measurements that could be understood by human beings; quite to the contrary, they presented a picture which, in its time and place, was completely beyond human comprehension.¹¹

Accordingly, the third constraint proposed by the sages concerned the effort to comprehend the visions of the celestial throne and chariot in the writings of Isaiah and Ezekiel. Apparently acknowledging the involvement of prominent sages in esoteric contemplations, they maintained that the ‘work of the chariot’ should not even be discussed in the presence of one, unless he is a sage and understands of his own knowledge. Needless to point out, the latter two constraints have been completely ignored by Jewish savants as evidenced by the virtual mountain of mystic and kabbalistic literature on the ‘work of creation’ [Maaseh Bereshit] and the ‘work of the chariot’ [Maaseh Merkava] that continues to be produced to this very day.

Constraint on Philosophical Speculation

Their fourth and most general implicit constraint asserts: Whosoever speculates upon four things, a pity for him! He is as though he had not come into the world. [To wit], what is above, what is beneath, what before, what after. What the sages intended by this statement is by no means clear and has been understood in different ways. It has been suggested, in this regard, that what the sages were concerned with, and had difficulty in expressing in brief terms, was the nature of the interrelation between the spiritual world to which mankind does not have direct access, and the material world in which mankind exists. Thus, what is above, in outer space, being created, cannot be limitless; and what is beneath, the world of man, also created, must also have intended limits. What before, questions what preceded time, which also had a beginning, and what after, when time comes to its end, as do all created things. One who spends his time contemplating such questions, for which one will never find answers, is to be pitied for wasting his precious time in the world into which he was brought.¹²

Later sages asserted: Granted as regards what is above, what is beneath, and what [will be] after, that is well. Although they considered speculation on these questions a waste of time and effort, they had no objection to their study. However, as regards what was before—what happened, happened. As explained by two prominent sages, It is like a human king who said to his servants: Build for me a great palace upon the dunghill. They went and built it for him. It is not the king’s wish [thenceforth] to have the name of the dunghill mentioned. That is, as explained by commentators, the dunghill here represents the primordial chaos; the palace, ordered creation.¹³ In other words, it was acceptable to explore and speculate on the world as it is, but not on how it came into being, which involves speculation on the ‘work of creation,’ which, as pointed out above, should not be discussed in the presence of two, that is, such discussion might only be held between a master and an especially qualified disciple.

These dicta would appear to have closed down speculation in the intellectual world of Judaism on some fundamental philosophical issues concerning the origin and nature of the universe and mankind that were being pursued with vigor elsewhere. Such speculations engendered notions that tended to directly challenge the biblical narrative of the transition from primordial chaos to the orderly cosmos in which mankind built diverse civilizations. Although the sages of the Talmud propounded profound ideas in the field of moral and religious philosophy, they tended to avoid essentially metaphysical questions. Of course, it is reasonable to assume that individual speculation about some of the latter issues continued among some Jewish scholars, who could not close their minds to the intellectual currents that permeated the Greco-Roman world in which they were reluctant participants, their private thoughts on such metaphysical issues remained unrecorded in the literature of Judaism for many centuries. As a practical matter, the view of the sages cited above was taken as a caution against the study of philosophy in general.

It was not until the early part of the tenth century that the latter notion was openly challenged by Saadia Gaon, considered to be the first truly Judaic philosopher, a master of rabbinic Judaism as well as secular studies. Thus in reference to the citation from the Mishnah, and the argument, did not the foremost of the sages of the children of Israel forbid this sort of occupation, and especially speculation about the beginning of time and place, he responded, "it is inconceivable that they should have prohibited us from [engaging in genuine speculation]. For did not our Creator Himself enjoin us to do this very thing apropos of authentic tradition, as is evident from the declaration [of the prophet]: Know ye not? Hear ye not? Hath it not been told you from the beginning? Have ye not understood the foundations of the earth? (Isa. 40:21). Furthermore there is the remark made by the saints to each other: Let us choose for us that which is right; let us know among ourselves what is good (Job 34:4)." It would appear that the common term linking Saadia’s choice of proof texts is know.

In effect, the emphasis on know in these texts implies knowledge rather than mere belief. And as a modern commentator correctly noted: How can you transform mere belief into knowledge without subjecting that belief to the sort of scrutiny that comes with philosophizing? How can you transform mere belief into knowledge without subjecting that belief to the full interrogation of every secular science you have to hand? A full Jewish life is impossible, Saadia Gaon would argue, unless you are willing to embrace rational inquiry and to embrace wisdom from whichever mouth it is uttered, and from whoever’s pen it’s written.¹⁴

Saadia then proceeded to offer his own interpretation of the critical rabbinic text. What the sages forbade was only to lay the books of the prophets aside and accept any private notion that might occur to an individual about the beginning of place and time. For whoever speculated in this wise may either hit the mark or miss it … As for ourselves, the congregation of the children of Israel, we engage in research and speculation in a way other than this … we inquire into and speculate about the matters of our religion with two objectives in mind. One of these is to have verified in fact what we have learned from the prophets of God theoretically. The second is to refute him who argues against us in regard to anything pertaining to our religion.¹⁵

With the sages’ dictum understood in this manner, Moses’ assertion, Know this day, and lay it to thy heart, that the Lord, He is God in heaven above and upon the earth beneath; there is none else (Deut. 4:39), may be understood as implicitly adjuring the children of Israel to undertake to know with confidence, and not with mere belief, that there is only one God, Creator and Master of the universe.

Biblical Metaphysics

A consideration of the idea of God from a philosophic perspective necessarily leads us into the murky metarational intellectual realm of thought generally characterized as metaphysics. The term, derived from the Greek meta ta physika, was the name originally given by Andronicus of Rhodes (c. 70 B.C.E.) to a collection of writings by Aristotle that dealt with topics that transcended the tangible and quantifiable. Since then the term has been broadly understood as the study of ‘the science of being,’ science in this phrase referring to ‘knowledge by causes,’ or as the study of ‘first principles,’ that is, the highest and most comprehensive generalizations that man is capable of making by means of his own unaided intellect.¹⁶ Given the etymology of the term, it should come as no surprise to those familiar with biblical and later Judaic thought that there is no Hebrew original equivalent for it, notwithstanding that the subject matter of metaphysics had clearly been a matter of concern to thoughtful people even in remote antiquity.

Accordingly, a useful point of departure for a discussion concerning Judaic theology that might be categorized as metaphysical would be a consideration of how Judaic thinkers have dealt with the general notions of existence and being, and what these notions signify, especially when applied to God. However, the subject should be approached on a note of caution, bearing in mind that the subject matter is intrinsically metarational irrespective of attempts to master it through reason. It has been observed, in this regard, We can say the word ‘metaphysical,’ meaning that which exists outside the physical, but we cannot comprehend the metaphysical. It simply lies beyond the capacity of the human mind. And if the Bible is correct, then what created our universe, God, was and is metaphysical. How that metaphysical Creator interacts with the physical world need not in any manner conform to how we interact with the world, and may indeed relate to the world in ways that are humanly incomprehensible.¹⁷

Even a casual examination of the source texts of Judaism, beginning with the writings incorporated into the Hebrew Bible, will reveal a pervasive theme coursing through them that emphasizes, both explicitly and implicitly, the essential and central reality of the existence of a one and only true God. The God of the Bible is explicitly identified as the creator and sovereign master of the universe and all it contains, from whom all that exists derives its being. Moreover, because Scripture takes the existence of God for granted, it does not deal at all with any attempt to explain or justify belief in His existence; it is concerned solely with the revolutionary concept of His singularity and the mysteries surrounding His interactions with the universe He created, as well as to drawing the clearest possible distinction between God and the imaginary gods of the peoples among whom Abraham and Sarah and their descendants dwelt. As one writer astutely remarked, In biblical times, the world familiar to the Jew was not godless; it suffered from a surplus of gods. Therefore, the Bible had no compelling urge to speculate on God’s being, since such doubts were nonexistent.¹⁸ Indeed, it has been argued in this regard, It would never have occurred to the Biblical writers to attempt to prove God’s existence. They were aware of Him as experienced reality.¹⁹

The biblical focus on divine ‘existence’ is especially evident in several texts in which existence is asserted as a defining characteristic of the deity, where God is described as El Hai or the living God (Josh. 3:10; Hos. 2:1; Ps. 42:3; 84:3). A similar emphasis on existence may be seen in those passages in which man is described as a nefesh hayyah, a living soul or creature imbued by God with the nishmat hayyim or the breath of life (Gen. 2:7), whose proper place is be’eretz hayyim or in the land of the living (Ezek. 26:20; 32:23, 25, 26, 27, 32). These references, among the hundreds of other explicit and implicit statements found in the biblical writings, reflect a bedrock belief in the vital existence of God, from whom man derives his own existence, propositions that engender a host of related metaphysical issues. This is not to suggest that neither the diverse authors of the biblical writings nor the readers or listeners to whom their words were directed never questioned whether there was in fact a one and only God, such as that depicted and alluded to in Scripture, to whom they were held accountable for the manner and means by which they spent their lives. Indeed, a substantial amount of biblical text is devoted to pointing out repeated instances on the part of the Israelites, both individuals and groups, of demonstrated lack of belief, faith, and trust in God, and the efforts of Moses and the prophets that followed him to dispel any doubts that may have precipitated or contributed to such disbelief, lack of faith, and failure of trust.

Given the criticality of the fundamental premise of divine existence to the religion and culture predicated on the biblical teachings, it should not come as a surprise that the metaphysical thought reflected in the Judaic literature that has come down to us from the biblical and post-biblical periods does not appear to be at all concerned with the philosophical problem of rationally demonstrating or proving the existence of God. Indeed, consideration of the question, not only explicitly but also even implicitly, is entirely absent from what may be termed the classical literature of Judaism and first appears in any significant manner much later, especially in medieval times. At least two major reasons have been advanced to account for this conspicuous lack of Judaic interest in the matter.

First and perhaps foremost, the intellectual point of departure for the biblical and post-biblical writers was the monotheistic proposition, generally unstated but nonetheless treated by them as axiomatic, that there is in fact a one and only God who created the world as we know it and established its moral order. In view of this, the mere suggestion that this proposition required proof would have been considered both impertinent and absurd. As the psalmist wrote, The fool [naval] hath said in his heart: ‘There is no God’ (Ps. 14:1, 53:2). The term naval, translated here as fool, and as benighted in the new Jewish Publication Society translation, implies one who is morally degenerate, not one who is mentally deficient. Hence naval refers to one who denies the existence of a moral order by word or deed. The text is thus referring to a reprobate and not necessarily to an atheist in the modern sense of the term; atheism as such was not a particular concern in polytheistic antiquity, in which every society had a pantheon of gods. Accordingly, a demonstrable proof of divine existence was considered unnecessary and perhaps even undesirable; a flawed or weak supporting argument might cast doubt on the indisputable truth of the fundamental proposition of monotheism that there is but one and only one true God.

The monotheistic conception of God is considered by some to have been set forth, albeit implicitly, in the very first sentence of the biblical canon, bereshit bara Elohim et hashamayim ve’et haaretz, translated either as In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth (Gen. 1:1), or as some prefer, When God began to create heaven and earth. Putting aside the significant philosophical and theological implications of these alternate translations, in either case, it is an assertion in which the antecedent existence of God is clearly assumed as an indisputable fact. It has been argued, in this regard, Ontologically—as to the nature and being of our universe—the Bible teaches dualism. That is, before creation there was only God; after creation there is God and there is Universe—two realities. But, and this is the crucial point, it is God the non-material reality, who created the material reality, the universe.²⁰ Understood in this manner, it may be argued that Scripture teaches a dualistic metaphysics but a monistic theology predicated on the existence of a one and only God.

It has been observed in this regard, "the God of the Bible signifies in an unlikely manner the beyond of being, or transcendence. That is, the God of the Bible signifies without analogy to an idea subject to criteria, without analogy to an idea exposed to the summons to show itself true or false."²¹ In other words, transcendent God cannot be characterized as ‘existing’ in the common sense of the term. The transcendence of God can neither be said nor thought in terms of being, the element of philosophy behind which philosophy sees only night. But the rupture between philosophical intelligibility and what is beyond being, or the contradiction there would be in comprehending the infinite, does not exclude God from the significance that, although not ontological, does not amount to simple thoughts bearing on a being in decline, nor to views without necessity, nor to words that play.²² In short, philosophically, we essentially have nothing at all to say about God’s transcendence, a concept that philosophy cannot deal with, and must confine our speculations to comprehending His immanence, the divine interaction with the world of being, as we know it. As the philosopher remarks at the very end of his discussion of the matter, immanence always triumphs over transcendence.²³

A secondary reason for the lack of Judaic interest in the philosophical problem of God may stem from the sheer inability to define the subject of inquiry in comprehensible and logical terms. It has been argued in this regard: "God cannot be defined for definition is genus plus differentia." For example, if we define man as a ‘rational creature,’ we first specify the genus—the group to which he belongs—and then propose a statement of how man differs from other members of that group, which would provide the differentia. Accordingly, we would assert that generic man is a member of the group ‘creatures,’ and that by virtue of his possession of a rational faculty he can be shown to differ from all other members of that group. However, such definition cannot conceivably be applied to the one and only God spoken of in the Bible. God cannot belong to a group, for this would imply that the group to which He belongs is greater, i.e., more embracing than He.²⁴ This presents us with an apparently insoluble dilemma.

It has been pointed out that the discussion of any problematic issue must begin with definitions. But in the case of God, we cannot define without begging the question. Was it not pointed out long ago that every definition constitutes a delimitation in some way or another, while God is the Infinite and the Undeterminable. Thus, if we should launch our search for God with definition we should be compelled to follow Spinoza in assuming as our first axiom that which is the ultimate goal of our investigation.²⁵ If we cannot logically define God, how can we deal in a sensible manner with the problem of demonstrating God’s existence? It has been remarked in this regard, "The truth is, as I see it, no mortal can completely prove His existence. We can only assume it. We can only offer limited, finite, mortal arguments for an infinite, unlimited, immortal Ayn Sof."²⁶

Moreover, it is of little avail to attempt to describe God in de-personalized and abstract terms such as the eternal or the infinite, as some are inclined to do, because neither provides a comprehensible answer to a human mind that is by its nature both temporal and finite. It has been pointed out, with regard to such circumlocutions, "‘infinite’ is a negative, not a positive word. The same is true of ‘immaterial,’ ‘incorporeal,’ ‘non-physical,’ and even ‘supernatural,’ which is equivalent in meaning to ‘non-natural.’ In all these instances, our understanding consists solely in negating what we understand by the positive correlates of these words. To say that we must think of God as having an infinite existence is to say no more than we must think of God as not having a finite existence."²⁷ Accordingly, such contrived circumlocutions do not contribute to resolution of the philosophical problem of divine existence and the attribution of personality to God.

The essential truth of the implicit biblical assertion of divine existence has been accepted without equivocation by those who have acknowledged the authority of biblical teaching throughout history,