Was Maimonides a Skeptical Agnostic or a Secret Mystic?

Seekers of Unity

There’s one final question to ask when examining Maimonides mysticism and that is, did Maimonides believe that the human could actually reach, know and experience God? Getting down to the fine print in the debate about Maimonides mysticism: Did Maimonides believe that one could know and unite with something metaphysical? And if so, which metaphysical entity does he believe the aspiring seeker can know and unite with, is it an entity which can be considered divine, God, or ultimate reality, making this union properly mystical in nature, a unio mystica? Can one, according to Maimonides, unite with God or only with the Active Intellect? And if it’s the later, does he believe that the Active Intellect is divine, and if so in what way, and what does that mean for his mysticism?

Sources and Further Reading: • Adam Afterman “And They Shall Be One Flesh”: On the Language of Mystical Union in Judaism, 2016, pp. 105-119 • Alexander Altmann, "Maimonides on the Intellect and the Scope of Metaphysics," 1987, 60-129. • Alfred L. Ivry, “Maimonides and Neoplatonism” in Neoplatonism and Jewish Thought, 1992 • Aviezer Ravitzky, “The Secrets of the “Guide to the Perplexed,” Studies in Maimonides, 1990, 159–207. • Barry Kogan, "What Can We Know and When Can We Know It?," in Moses Maimonides and His Time, 1989, 130-7 • David Fried, Mysticism and its Alternatives: Rethinking Maimonides, 2018 • Diana Lobel, “Silence Is Praise to You” Maimonides on Negative Theology, Looseness of Expression, and Religious Experience, in American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly vol. 76, no. 1, 2002. • Gideon Freudenthal, “The Philosophical Mysticism of Maimonides and Maimon,” in Maimonides and his Heritage, 2009, 117-118. • Hannah Kasher, “Self-Cognizing Intellect and Negative Attributes in Maimonides’ Theology.” • Herbert A. Davidson, Alfarabi, Avicenna, and Averroes on Intellect: Their Cosmologies, Theories of the Active Intellect, and Theories of Human Intellect, 1992, 197-207. • Herbert Davidson, "Maimonides on Metaphysical Knowledge," Maimonidean Studies 3 (1992-93): 79-87. • Idit Dobbs-Weinstein, Maimonides and St. Thomas on the Limits of Reason, 1995 • Josef Stern, “Maimonides’ Demonstrations: Principles and Practice,” Medieval Philosophy and Theology 10 (2001): 80. • Joseph Citron, Maimonides and Mysticism, unpublished • Julius Guttmann, “Introduction” in Maimonides, The Guide of The Perplexed, 1947 • Julius Guttmann, Religion and Knowledge, 103–118, especially 111. [Hebrew] • Michah Gottlieb, “Two Paradigms of the Nexus Between Philosophy and Mysticism Judah Halevi and Moses Maimonides” in Faith, Reason, Politics, 2013 • Moshe Idel, Studies in Ecstatic Kabbalah (NY: SUNY Press, 1988), p. 4 • Philip Merlan, Monopsychism, Mysticism, Metaconsciousness: Problems of the Soul in the Neoaristotelian and Neoplatonic Tradition, 1963 • Sarah Pessin, The Influence of Islamic Thought on Maimonides • Shlomo Pines, "The Limits of Human Knowledge According to Alfarabi, Ibn Bajja, and Maimonides," Studies in Medieval Jewish History and Literature, vol. 1, ed. I. Twersky, 1979, p. 94-100 • Shlomo Pines, “The Philosophical Purport of Maimonides Halachic Works and the Purport of the Guide of the Perplexed,” in Maimonides and Philosophy, 1986, 1-14.