Part 11 (2/2)
2. According to the Biblical conception, the spirit of G.o.d endows men with all their differing capacities; it gives to one man wisdom by which he penetrates into the causes of existence and orders facts into a scientific system; to another the seeing eye by which he captures the secret of beauty and creates works of art; and to a third the genius to perceive the ways of G.o.d, the laws of virtue, that he may become a teacher of ethical truth. In other words, the spirit of G.o.d is ”the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord.”(692) It works upon the scientific interest of the investigator, the imagination of the artist and poet, the ethical and social sense of the prophet, teacher, statesman, and lawgiver. Thus their high and holy vision of the divine is brought home to the people and implanted within them under the inspiration of G.o.d. In commenting upon the Biblical verse, ”Wisdom and might are His ... He giveth wisdom to the wise, and knowledge to them that know understanding,”(693) the sages wisely remark, ”G.o.d carefully selects those who possess wisdom for His gift of wisdom.” Even as a musical instrument must be attuned for the finer notes that it may have a clear, resonant tone, so the human soul must be made especially susceptible to the gifts of the spirit in order to be capable of unfolding them. Thus the Talmud records an interesting dialogue on this very pa.s.sage between a Roman matron familiar with the Scripture, and Rabbi Jose ben Halafta. She asked sarcastically, ”Would it not have been more generous of your G.o.d to have given wisdom to those that are unwise than to those that already possess it?” Thereupon the Jewish master replied, ”If you were to lend a precious ornament, would you not lend it to one who was able to make use of it? So G.o.d gives the treasure of wisdom to the wise, who know how to appreciate and develop it, not to the unwise, who do not know its value.”(694)
3. Thus the diverse gifts of the divine spirit are distributed differently among the various cla.s.ses and tribes of men, according to their capacity and the corresponding task which is a.s.signed them by Providence. The divine spark is set aglow in each human soul, sometimes feebly, sometimes brightly, but it blazes high only in the privileged personality or group.
The mutual relations.h.i.+p between G.o.d and man is recognized by the Synagogue in the Eighteen Benedictions, where the one directly following the three praises of G.o.d is devoted to wisdom and knowledge: ”Thou favorest man with knowledge, and teachest mortals understanding. So favor us with knowledge, understanding, and discernment from Thee. Blessed art Thou, O Lord, gracious Giver of knowledge.”(695) This pet.i.tion, remarks Jehuda ha Levi,(696) deserves its position as first among these prayers, because wisdom brings us nearer to G.o.d. It is also noteworthy that the Synagogue prescribes a special benediction at the sight of a renowned sage, even if he is not a Jew, reading, ”Praised be He who has imparted of His wisdom to flesh and blood.”(697)
4. Maimonides holds that in the same degree as a man studies the works of G.o.d in nature, he will be filled with longing for direct knowledge of G.o.d and true love of Him.(698) ”Not only religion, but also the sciences emanate from G.o.d, both being the outcome of the wisdom which G.o.d imparts to all nations,”-thus wrote a sixteenth-century rabbi, Loewe ben Bezalel of Prague, known usually as ”the eminent Rabbi Loewe.”(699) The men of the Talmud also accord the palm in certain types of knowledge to heathen sages, and did not hesitate to ascribe to some heathens the highest knowledge of G.o.d in their time.(700) As a mystic of the thirteenth century, Isaac ben Latif, says: ”That faith is the most perfect which perceives truth most fully, since G.o.d is the source of all truth.”(701) Of the two heads of the Babylonian academies, Rab and Samuel, one a.s.serted that Moses through his prophetic genius reached forty-nine of the fifty degrees of the divine understanding (as the fiftieth is reserved for G.o.d alone), while the other claimed the same distinction for King Solomon as the result of his wisdom.(702)
5. Thus the spirit of G.o.d creates in man both consciously and unconsciously a world of ideas, which proves him a being of a higher order in creation. This impulse may work actively, searching, investigating, and creating, or pa.s.sively as an instrument of a higher power. At first it is a dim, uncertain groping of the spirit; then the mind acquires greater lucidity by which it illumines the dark world; and, as one question calls for the other and one thought suggests another, the world of ideas opens up as a well-connected whole. Thus man creates by slow steps his languages, the arts and sciences, ethics, law and all the religions with their varying practices and doctrines. At times this spirit bursts forth with greater vehemence in great men, geniuses who lift the race with one stroke to a higher level. Such men may say, in the words of David, the holy singer: ”The spirit of the Lord spoke by me, and His word was upon my tongue.”(703) They may repeat the experience of Eliphaz the friend of Job:
”Now a word was secretly brought to me, And mine ear received a whisper thereof.
In thoughts from the visions of the night, When deep sleep falleth on men, Fear came upon me, and trembling, And all my bones were made to shake.
Then a spirit pa.s.sed before my face, That made the hair of my flesh to stand up.
It stood still, but I could not discern the appearance thereof; A form was before mine eyes; I heard a still voice.”(704)
In such manner men of former ages received a religious revelation, a divine message.
6. The divine spirit always selects as its instruments individuals with special endowments. Still, insight into history shows that these men must needs have grown from the very heart of their own people and their own age, in order that they might hold a lofty position among them and command attention for their message. However far the people or the age may be from the man chosen by G.o.d, the mult.i.tude must feel at least that the divine spirit speaks through him, or works within him. Or, if not his own time, then a later generation must respond to his message, lest it be lost entirely to the world.
The rabbis, who knew nothing of laws of development for the human mind, a.s.sumed that the first man, made by G.o.d Himself, must have known every branch of knowledge and skill, that the spirit of G.o.d must have been most vigorous in him.(705) They therefore believed in a primeval revelation, coeval with the first man. Our age, with its tremendous emphasis on the historical view, sees the divine spirit manifested most clearly in the very development and growth of all life, social, intellectual, moral and spiritual, proceeding steadily toward the highest of all goals. With this emphasis, however, on process, we must lay stress equally on the origin, on the divine impulse or initiative in this historical development, the spirit which gives direction and value to the whole.
Chapter x.x.xVII. Free Will and Moral Responsibility
1. Judaism has ever emphasized the freedom of the will as one of its chief doctrines. The dignity and greatness of man depends largely upon his freedom, his power of self-determination. He differs from the lower animals in his independence of instinct as the dictator of his actions. He acts from free choice and conscious design, and is able to change his mind at any moment, at any new evidence or even through whim. He is therefore responsible for his every act or omission, even for his every intention.
This alone renders him a moral being, a child of G.o.d; thus the moral sense rests upon freedom of the will.(706)
2. The idea of moral freedom is expressed as early as the first pages of the Bible, in the words which G.o.d spoke to Cain while he was planning the murder of his brother Abel: ”Whether or not, thou offerest an acceptable gift,” (New Bible translation: ”If thou doest well, shall it not be lifted up? and if thou doest not well,”) ”sin coucheth at the door; and unto thee is its desire, but thou mayest rule over it.”(707) Here, without any reference to the sin of Adam in the first generation, the man of the second generation is told that he is free to choose between good and evil, that he alone is responsible before G.o.d for what he does or omits to do.
This certainly indicates that the moral freedom of man is not impaired by hereditary sin, or by any evil power outside of man himself. This principle is established in the words of Moses spoken in the name of G.o.d: ”I have set before thee life and death, the blessing and the curse; therefore choose life, that thou mayest live, thou and thy seed.”(708) In like manner Jeremiah proclaims in G.o.d's name: ”Behold I set before you the way of life and the way of death.”(709)
3. From these pa.s.sages and many similar ones the sages derived their oft-repeated idea that man stands ever at the parting of the ways, to choose either the good or the evil path.(710) Thus the words spoken by G.o.d to the angels when Adam and Eve were to be expelled from Paradise: ”Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil,” are interpreted by R. Akiba: ”He was given the choice to go the way of life or the way of death, but he chose the way of death by eating of the forbidden fruit.”(711) R. Akiba emphasizes the principle of the freedom of the will again in the terse saying: ”All things are foreseen (by G.o.d), but free will is granted (to man).”(712)
4. At the first encounter of Judaism with those philosophical schools of h.e.l.las which denied the freedom of the human will, the Jewish teachers insisted strongly on this principle. The first reference is found in Ben Sira, who refutes the arguments of the Determinists that G.o.d could make man sin, and then goes on: ”G.o.d created man at the beginning, endowing him with the power of self-determination, saying to him: If thou but willest, thou canst observe My commandments; to practice faithfulness is a matter of free will.... As when fire and water are put before thee, so that thou mayest reach forth thy hand to that which thou desirest, so are life and death placed before man, and whatever he chooses of his own desire will be given to him.”(713) The Book of Enoch voices this truth also in the forceful sentences: ”Sin has not been sent upon the earth (from above), but men have produced it out of themselves; therefore they who commit sin are condemned.”(714) We read similar sentiments in the Psalms of Solomon, a Pharisean work of the first pre-Christian century:(715) ”Our actions are the outcome of the free choice and power of our own soul; to practice justice or injustice lies in the work of our own hands.”
The Apocalypse of Ezra is especially instructive in the great stress which it lays on freedom, in connection with its chief theme, the sinfulness of the children of Adam. ”This is the condition of the contest which man who is born on earth must wage, that, if he be conquered by the evil inclination, he must suffer that of which thou hast spoken (the tortures of h.e.l.l), but if he be victorious, he shall receive (the reward) which I (the angel) have mentioned. For this is the way whereof Moses spoke when he lived, saying unto the people, 'Choose life, that thou mayest live!'...
For all who knew Me not in life when they received My benefits, who despised My law when they yet had freedom, and did not heed the door of repentance while it was still open before them, but disregarded it, after death they shall come to know it!”(716)
5. h.e.l.lenistic Judaism also, particularly Philo,(717) considered the truly divine in man to be his free will, which distinguishes him from the beast.
Yet h.e.l.lenistic naturalism could not grasp the fact that man's power to do evil in opposition to G.o.d, the Source of the good, is the greatest reminder of his moral responsibility. Josephus likewise mentions frequently as a characteristic teaching of the Pharisees that man's free will determines his acts without any compulsion of destiny.(718) Only we must not accept too easily the words of this Jewish historian, who wrote for his Roman masters and, therefore, represented the Jewish parties as so many philosophical schools after the Greek pattern. The Pharisean doctrine is presented most tersely in the Talmudic maxim: ”Everything is in the hands of G.o.d except the fear of G.o.d.”(719) Like the quotation from R.
Akiba above, this contains the great truth that man's destiny is determined by Providence, but his character depends upon his own free decision. This idea recurs frequently in such Talmudic sayings as these: ”The wicked are in the power of their desires; the righteous have their desires in their own power;”(720) ”The eye, the ear, and the nostrils are not in man's power, but the mouth, the hand, and the feet are.”(721) That is, the impressions we receive from the world without us come involuntarily, but our acts, our steps, and our words arise from our own volition.
<script>