Israel and Humanity - Theory of divine attributes and cosmic forces

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IV.

Theory of divine attributes and cosmic forces.

That God is the supreme unity and that the pagan gods are somehow moments of its existence, it also proves that the doctrine of sarim , angels or spirits attendants by the supreme God government of each nation. In the oldest books of the Bible, this is what is meant by the Elohim that the Lord is God, hence the name of Eloh-ha- Elohim God of gods, we are now studying theology in Hebrew, they are ideal elements, attributes or factors in the idea of God which is the synthesis, the doctrine explicitly taught by the Kabbalah is implicit in the Bible.

There is a similar design to those vast monarchies where the vassal princes were led by a ruler who in name and fact, is really the king of kings, and not just first among equals, because he alone has all power and authority from him and his subordinates have the relative power they exercise. In terms of theology as the scientific perspective, we recognize the universal order, a hierarchy of causes and effects of laws general and secondary engender and complement. This was well expressed thought eminent entirely foreign to our faith: "The scale hierarchy of the gods is the personification of the hierarchy of principles, laws and ".

This, in our opinion, the way we mean all the biblical passages where God is represented as presiding at a meeting of higher beings sometimes called the host of heaven, zeba haschamaïm sometimes the seraphim or bene HaElohim , the son of God. This name shows us God in organic connection with these creatures so called because of the subordination in which they find themselves vis-à-vis the First Cause. The divine attributes are represented in the name of the son of God, as named specifically as centuries later claimed that the Logos incarnate. It was nothing more natural that to designate under the name of the Father in essence be the subject, and from that of son, his attributes. In this system the title of Eloh-ha-Elohim given to God becomes quite intelligible, and we understand also the correctness of the poetic name of "synagogue, Beth hakkeneceth , that Kabbalah gives the last emanation or aeon representing the finite universe, all created beings also called malkouth , kingdom. Is not this the same as the Gnostic aeon designated under the epithet of church ?

The divine hierarchy represented in the Bible as a political king, accompanied by his vassals, and then as a religious synagogue where God is the minister who officiated, is also under that of an army with a general Chief. Jacob said: "This is God's camp! and in the song of Moses, God is compared to a valiant warrior. Elsewhere the angel who appears to Joshua said: "I am the head of the army of the Lord! The image reaches its full development when it presents an organized meeting where the Lord presiding on his right and left all the multitude of Sebhaoth or celestial armies.

Would it be too rash to see these Sebhaoth , or armed, as the Zohar suggests, cosmic forces moving smoothly to the command of the Author of all things and all laws attraction and repulsion that govern the celestial and terrestrial bodies? The modern scientist in his lab has observed that within the atom prevail and act the same laws, the same movements, the same relations that act and prevail in interstellar space, in his view, the matter is that assembly centers and forces. John Tyndall takes and takes literally the word poetry from Emerson: "The atoms march in cadence," and another scientist, certainly without thinking anything theological, said the higher idea which governs the world can be compared to that of a commander in chief on the day of the battle: it seeps down to the last soldier obeys blindly.

This idea in our opinion, is developed in a manner quite opposite to that taught by Hegel. It does not start from nothing to rise to full consciousness is the opposite of mindfulness that God stands for spread in varying degrees even in the smallest atoms. The metaphysical concept that we express by saying that the divine in the world, Shekina , the immanent God is the focal point for all things scientific language is translated by modern scholars, when they ask if all circles, all the ellipses traced by the myriads of solar systems have a common center of attraction around which our own system with all the other stars and countless worlds.

It will be objected, perhaps, if so, it is no longer seen in the Elohim the personification of divine attributes, but a sort of deification of cosmic forces. The objection disappears if we consider that, according to the teachings of the Kabbalists, among the four successive shots, the last is the visible universe, the physical forces at the lower level ( asia ) are the divine attributes in the upper ( Yetsira ), and each other is between them in the same report that the life or physical force with soul or mind. This identity supreme among the divine attribute and the natural force balances the contemporary naturalist school with the metaphysical school.

Seeing in the pagan gods deified forces of the universe that God is unity and the supreme center, we say nothing than proven by modern science and, in terms of pagan antiquity, just Plutarch noted that, after Heraclitus and Plato, then several times Jupiter, Juno, Mars, as elements which compose the physical world.

We would not in any event that might exist in the minds of our readers the slightest doubt in our minds. Rather than concede to the pagan gods no real existence separate, do not we see instead that we are basing the ultimate unity which absorbs them conditional, at least as the parties shall be subject to all the various elements and to be they are? But to remove all doubts in this regard, we will show to what degree of boldness rose in Judaism, theological speculation and so if one considers the Mosaic monotheism really dig an abyss between God and lonely all things created, or whether, in the Hebrew conception, a continuous scale linking all levels of creation, from the most sublime manifestations of being far more fleeting forms of existence. We admit that if we can say in a sense that the charge against the monotheism of the Kabbalists to be tainted with polytheism is justified only because the Kabbalah alone, taking into account the need to explain plurality, harmonises, by means of the doctrine emanationist, the two aspects of religious genius, Semitic and Aryan.

We know that the first article of faith according to Maimonides includes the command to "worship any being other than God." To this the author of Ikkarim , Albo argues that we should not put this command among the articles of faith, because "although it is a precept of the law, depending on whether it is written: Thou shalt have no other God before me, however this is not a principle which all law depends, because those who believe that God, blessed be He, is that his law is real and which merely introduce between God and him a mediator, thereby contravening undoubtedly command: Thou shalt have no other God before me, but this precept and violated the Act does not subsist less whole, so that there no need to count the number of fundamental articles of faith. " Rabbi Isserles in its Thorat Aola , said that Maimonides is right cons Albo, because he said "in my humble opinion, all the law is undermined by the fact of introducing a mediator between God and us there is an excuse to deny God, saying that the mediator alone is sufficient, as was seen at the origin of polytheism. "

This controversy seems very interesting. If Joseph Albo have, while remaining faithful to the spirit of Judaism, challenging the doctrine of Maimonides, while it condemned the worship itself as mediator between God and the world, what can we find reprehensible that we recognize with the Kabbalah, but did not ignore the cult, the existence of divine attributes, even personified in a sense, or conscience related to a supreme consciousness that encompasses all? Note that the most rigid orthodoxy - we have seen with the opinion of R. Isserles - not that it rejects a precaution, so that it is not in danger of losing sight of the one true God. The Kabbalah also commands us to envisage ever in our worship only the Supreme Cause, at most covered this particular attribute to which we are addressing, that is to say all God in every aspect. It is precisely the view that the Indian scholars are in all parts of the Vedas which each special deity is in turn with the character of God supreme.

But here is another theory which shows high rabbinical tolerance and broad-mindedness of the doctors of the synagogue is the maxim by which the Noachide, that is to say all men excepting only Jews are not known sin, they associate any being to the supreme God, if they recognize it is this uniqueness that It remains stupefied Reading such words, there is, to speak again the language of the rabbis "a miracle Another miracle ie recognition of a legitimate church outside of Israel, religion of humanity independent of the Mosaic and, in this large church, the possibility of a creed so broad that it allows associate to the supreme God of minor deities.

Strange as this doctrine may seem at first glance, it is explained beautifully if we have given the true interpretation of Elohim , seeing in them the pagan deification made by cosmic forces corresponding to different divine attributes. How in this case non-Jews they could catch, or by combining the God of Israel to its various attributes personified in the gods of paganism, or bringing these attributes to each other? It is clear that contrary to our accepted theory, the pagan approach to more of the truth he manages to reach a more comprehensive synthesis, so that his idea of God thus becomes more and more perfect . Thus the name of God among the Jews of the gods, Eloh-ha-Elohim , is, in terms of theology, as the scientific point of view, fully justified and, far from being alleged against the antiquity of Mosaic monotheism, on the contrary it shows how high was high in early Judaism the concept of divinity.