Solomon Ibn Gabirol - Reconciling Neoplatonism With Jewish Theology

Reconciling Neoplatonism With Jewish Theology

It is held by some scholars that Ibn Gabirol set out to reconcile Neoplatonism with Jewish theology. Geiger finds complete harmony between Gabirol's conception of the Deity and the historical Jewish conception of God; and Guttmann and Eisler hold that in Gabirol's doctrine of the will there is a departure from the pantheistic emanation doctrine of Neoplatonism and an attempted approach to the Biblical doctrine of creation.

A suggestion of Judaic monotheism is found in Gabirol's doctrine of the oneness of the "materia universalis." The Neoplatonic doctrine that the Godhead is unknowable naturally appealed to Jewish rationalists, who, while positing the existence of God, studiously refrained from ascribing definite qualities or positive attributes to God.

Ibn Gabirol strived to keep "his philosophical speculation free from every theological admixture." In this respect Gabirol is unique. The "Fons Vitæ" shows an independence of Jewish religious dogma; not a verse of the Bible nor a line from the Rabbis is cited. For this reason Gabirol exercised comparatively little influence upon his Jewish successors, and was accepted by the scholastics as a non-Jew, as an Arab or a Christian. The suspicion of heresy which once clung to him prevented Ibn Gabirol from exercising a great influence upon Jewish thought. His theory of emanation was held by many to be irreconcilable with the Jewish doctrine of creation; and the tide of Aristotelianism turned back the slight current of Gabirol's Neoplatonism.

Read more about this topic:  Solomon Ibn Gabirol

Famous quotes containing the words reconciling, jewish and/or theology:

    My problem lies in reconciling my gross habits with my net income.
    Errol Flynn (1909–1959)

    For every nineteenth-century middle-class family that protected its wife and child within the family circle, there was an Irish or a German girl scrubbing floors in that home, a Welsh boy mining coal to keep the home-baked goodies warm, a black girl doing the family laundry, a black mother and child picking cotton to be made into clothes for the family, and a Jewish or an Italian daughter in a sweatshop making “ladies” dresses or artificial flowers for the family to purchase.
    Stephanie Coontz (20th century)

    Only men of moral and mental force, of a patriotic regard for the relationship of the two races, can be of real service as ministers in the South. Less theology and more of human brotherhood, less declamation and more common sense and love for truth, must be the qualifications of the new ministry that shall yet save the race from the evils of false teaching.
    Fannie Barrier Williams (1855–1944)