CHARACTER AND CONTENT OF JEWISH PHILOSOPHY One characteristic is common to both schools of Jewish philosophy which distinguishes them from the classical Greek philosophy to which in part they owed their existence. It is an attribute which Jewish philosophy shares with all religious philo sophy, hence with Christian and Mohammedan scholasticism. All the Jewish philosophers believed in a twofold source of truth, revelation and reason. We derive our knowledge, so the theory runs, partly from our own efforts, sense-perception and reason, and partly from Divine revelation, which is recorded in the Bible. This view does not necessarily vitiate the scientific char acter of religious philosophy if a rational attempt is made to show that God does reveal Himself to mankind and that this revelation is recorded in the sacred books. And though the attempts in this direction, made by the mediaeval philosophers, seem to us crude and naïve, we must judge them from their point of view and not from our own. Literary criticism did not exist in those days, and tradition enjoyed greater authority than it does now. Philo logical and critical interpretation was in its infancy, and texts were as clay in the hands of exegetes.
The idea of a twofold source of truth necessarily suggested it self by the presence of two series of literary documents, the one appealing to reason, the other to revelation. This dualism raised the problem of the relation between the two sources, and the so lution was that there is no conflict between them. They supple ment each other, and properly so, since reason alone is inade quate in matters transcendental, requires maturity and time and effort in all matters, and is fallible at best. Conduct cannot wait upon reason, hence must rely upon revelation until reason comes limpingly after to confirm the data of revelation. Opinion and be
lief are also a matter of great moment, both in themselves as neces sary to salvation and as bases of conduct. Here, too, therefore revelation is necessary until reason comes to confirm it.
This is satisfactory enough as theory, but does not apparently square with the facts. The two sources sometimes seem to conflict. Revelation teaches creation of the world in time, reason suggests to Aristotle that the world is eternal. Revelation teaches free will, reason suggests to certain philosophers that human acts are de termined by past causes. Revelation speaks of God in anthropo morphic terms, reason proves that God is incorporeal. The greater part of Jewish philosophy is devoted to reconciling these apparent conflicts. And the solutions always take one of two forms. Either so-called reason is at fault, and for apparent reason is substituted a better reason which does agree with revelation, or the current interpretation of the revealed documents is at fault, and for ap parent revelation is substituted true revelation which does agree with reason. Hence Biblical exegesis played a very important role in Jewish philosophy, and it was not an insuperable task for a Jewish philosopher in the middle ages to adopt the greater part of the philosophy of the day, because exegesis had much greater lati tude in those days. Particularly the Bible, since it was not an or dinary book, and was intended for young and old, the learned and the unlearned, must have more than one meaning, and each person sees in the Bible as much as he is capable of seeing.