Chovot HaLevavot - Contents and Message

Contents and Message

The essence of all spirituality being the recognition of God as the one maker and designer of all things, Bahya makes the "Sha'ar HaYihud" (Gate of the Divine Unity) the first and foremost section. Taking the Jewish Confession, "Hear, O Israel: the Lord is our God, the Lord is One," as a starting-point, the author emphasizes the fact that for religious life it is not so much a matter of the intellect to know God as it is a matter of the heart to own and to love Him.

The second section "Sha'ar HaBechina" ( The Gate of Reflection )deals with Aspects of Relection on the Creation and God's Abounding Goodness towards His Creatures.

The third section "Sha'ar Avodas HaElokim" ( The Gate of Serving God) is an explanation of the Multifaceted Obligation to Assume the Service of God.

Bahya held it is not sufficient to accept this belief without thinking, as the child does, or because the fathers have taught so, as do the blind believers in tradition, who have no opinion of their own and are led by others. Nor should the belief in God be such as might in any way be liable to be understood in a corporeal or anthropomorphic sense, but it should rest on conviction which is the result of the most comprehensive knowledge and research. Far from demanding blind belief, the Torah appeals to reason and knowledge as proofs of God's existence. It is therefore a duty incumbent upon every one to make God an object of speculative reason and knowledge, in order to arrive at true faith.

Without intending to give a compendium of metaphysics, Bahya furnishes in this first gate a system of religious philosophy that is not without merit. Unfamiliar with Avicenna's works, which replaced Neoplatonic mysticism by clear Aristotelian thought, Bahya, like many Arab philosophers before him, bases his arguments upon Creation. He starts from the following three premises:

• (1) Nothing creates itself, since the act of creating necessitates its existence (see also Saadia, "Emunot," i. 2)
• (2) the causes of things are necessarily limited in number, and lead to the presumption of a first cause which is necessarily self-existent, having neither beginning nor end, because everything that has an end must needs have a beginning
• (3) all composite beings have a beginning; and a cause must necessarily be created.

The world is beautifully arranged and furnished like a great house, of which the sky forms the ceiling, the earth the floor, the stars the lamps, and man is the proprietor, to whom the three kingdoms—the animal, the vegetable, and the mineral—are submitted for use, each of these being composed of the four elements. Nor does the celestial sphere, composed of a fifth element —"Quinta Essentia," according to Aristotle, and of fire, according to others—make an exception. These four elements themselves are composed of matter and form, of substance and accidental qualities, such as warmth and cold, state of motion and of rest, and so forth.

Consequently the universe, being a combination of many forces, must have a creative power as its cause. Nor can the existence of the world be due to mere chance. Where there is purpose manifested, there must have been wisdom at work. Ink spilled accidentally upon a sheet of paper can not produce legible writing.