CHAPTER XII
ABRAHAM IBN BAUD
What was poison to Judah Halevi is meat to Abraham Ibn Daud. We must, he says, investigate the principles of the Jewish religion and seek to harmonize them with true philosophy. And in order to do these things properly a preliminary study of science is necessary. Nowadays all this is neglected and the result is confusion in fundamental principles, for a superficial and literal reading of the Bible leads to contradictory views, not to speak of anthropomorphic conceptions of God which cannot be the truth. Many of our day think that the study of philosophy is injurious. This is because it frequently happens in our time that a person who takes up the study of philosophy neglects religion. In ancient times also this happened in the person of Elisha ben Abuya, known by the name of Aher. Nevertheless science was diligently studied in Rabbinic times. Witness what was said concerning Rabbi Yohanan ben Zakkai, Samuel and the Synhedrin.221 It cannot be that God meant us to abstain from philosophical study, for many statements in the Bible, such as those relating to freedom of the will, to the nature of God and the divine attributes, to the creation of the world, and so on, are a direct stimulus to such investigation. Surely mental confusion cannot be the purpose God had in mind for us. If he preferred our ignorance he would not have called our attention to these matters at all.222
This, as we see, is decidedly a different point of view from that of Judah Halevi. The difference between them is not due to a difference in their age and environment, but solely to personal taste and temperament. Toledo was the birthplace of Ibn Daud as it was of Halevi. And the period in which they lived was practically the same. Judah Halevi's birth took place in the last quarter of the eleventh century, whereas Ibn Daud is supposed to have been born about 1110, a difference of some twenty-five or thirty years. The philosopher whom Judah Halevi presents to us as the typical representative of his time
