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Treatise One · Section One
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I was asked about the arguments I have at my disposal against those who differ from us — the philosophers and the followers of other religions — and then against the sectarians who dissent from the majority.
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I recalled what I had heard of the arguments of the rabbi who was with the king of the Khazars, the one who entered the religion of the Jews.
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According to what is attested and recorded in the book of chronicles, a dream recurred to him: an angel was addressing him, saying to him, 'Your intention is pleasing to God, but your deed is not pleasing.'
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He used to strive greatly in worship according to the religion of the Khazars, to the point that he himself would perform the service of the temple and the sacrifices with a pure, sincere intention.
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But whenever he exerted himself in those works, the angel would come at night and say to him: 'Your intention is pleasing, but your deed is not pleasing.'
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This led him to investigate the religions and the sects, and in the end he converted to Judaism, he and the multitude of the Khazars.
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Among the rabbi's arguments there was that which convinced me and accorded with my own belief, so I saw fit to set down that argumentation just as it occurred. And the discerning will understand.
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It is related that the king of the Khazars, when he saw in his dream that his intention was pleasing to God but his deed was not pleasing — and he was commanded in the dream to seek the deed pleasing to God — asked a philosopher about his belief.
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The philosopher said to him: There is with God neither favor nor displeasure, for He — exalted be He — is far removed from wishes and purposes.
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For a purpose indicates a deficiency in the one who has it: the fulfillment of his purpose would be a perfection for him, and whatever is not fulfilled is a deficiency.
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Likewise, according to the philosophers, He is far removed from the knowledge of particulars, since they change with the times, and there is no change in God's knowledge.
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So He does not perceive you at all — let alone know your intention and your deeds, let alone hear your prayer or see your movements.
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True — even if the philosophers say that He created you, this is only by way of metaphor, because He is the Cause of causes in the creation of every creature, not because you were intended by Him.
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Indeed, He never created any man at all, for the world is eternal: man has always come into being from a man before him.
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Combined in him are forms, a constitution, and traits of character from his father, his mother, and his kin; the qualities of the climates, the lands, the foods, and the waters; together with the powers of the spheres, the stars, and the constellations, according to the relations that arise from them.
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All of this goes back to the First Cause — not through any purpose of His, but as an emanation that flowed forth from Him: a second cause, then a third and a fourth; the causes and their effects became linked and formed a chain, just as you see them.
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Their linkage is eternal, just as the First Cause is eternal and has no beginning. Every individual among the individuals of the world has causes through which it is completed.
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One individual, whose causes were complete, came out perfect; another, whose causes were deficient, came out deficient.
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The philosopher, for whom predispositions have been prepared by which he receives the moral, intellectual, theoretical, and practical virtues, lacks nothing of perfection.
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But these perfections are only in potential; bringing them out into actuality requires instruction and training.
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To the perfect man there is joined, from the divine order, a light called the Active Intellect; his passive intellect is joined to it in a union so complete that the man sees himself to be that very Active Intellect, with no difference between the two.
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His instruments — I mean the limbs of that man — then act only in the most perfect deeds, at the most fitting times, and in the best of states, as though they were instruments of the Active Intellect rather than of the material, passive intellect.
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