Proofs for Eternity, Creation and the Existence of God in Medieval Islamic and Jewish Philosophy By Herbert A. Davidson

Abstract

This is a most welcome reissue of Davidson’s highly praised book, first published in 1987. The combination in a single book of arguments for the existence of God with arguments for or against the eternity of the universe is neither arbitrary nor a matter of convenience. As Davidson lucidly explains in his introduction, there was no ‘public atheism’ in the medieval period. All Jewish and Islamic thinkers accepted the existence of a deity. However, their conceptions of the deity differed, most critically with regard to the question, does the deity—in addition to other qualities—possess will? The answer hinges, as affirmed by Moses Maimonides—one of Davidson’s chief sources—on the question of the creation or eternity. A created universe is the product of a willful God. In kalām proofs for the existence of God, ‘the indispensable premise is creation’, a method that has been labeled Platonic (p. 2). Though distinguished from each other by a host of major disagreements, philosophy and kalām are coloured to some extent one by the other. From the perspective of both, an argument for creation is an argument for a willful deity.