A precocious Maimonides, at the age of sixteen, published his first work Milot Ha-Higayon (Logical Terms), later to become both a commentator on the Mishna (published at the age of 33 in Arabic) as well as a renowned physician. Editor translator Gilbert Rosenthal comments that even though religiously orthodox, that Maimonides had a phenomenal liberality of thought, finding religious faith and scientific knowledge compatible and mutually complimentary. The volume is divided into three sections: 1) Man and Himself; 2) Man and Man; and 3), Man and God. Some interesting catalogues in the first section includes: a) Five Different Types of Speech: i) sacred; ii) forbidden; iii) common [neither useful nor sinful, neutral in the moral sense]; vi) most desirable: those that exalt intellectual and ethical faculties and those that denigrate their deficits; and v) practical speech [useful, to distinguish from iii)]. It turns out that a certain economy of words is regarded as a virtue. b) Eight Degrees of Charity: i) The highest: To aid those in need by giving a loan, or forming a partnership with, or providing work to promote self-supporting life without assistance of welfare; and these are listed in increments of lower degrees, lower- ii) charity where both donor and recipients are anonymous; iii) charity where the donor knows the recipient but the recipient not the donor; iv) charity where the recipient knows the donor but the donor not the recipient; v) when the donor gives without being asked; vi) when the donor gives after being asked; vii) when the donor gives less than what is required by the poor person, but does so willingly; viii) The lowest degree: when one gives begrudgingly.
An interesting subsection titled "On Inter-Religious Relations" in Man and Man, is a curious acknowledgement of Jesus as being at par with Mohammed who have both in their missions "helped pave the way for the coming of the Messiah by improving the nature of mankind through the universal worship of God that has brought them near to His service." quoting Zephania: "Then will I turn to the peoples a pure language that they may all call upon the name of the Lord to serve Him in unity." He concludes this section dismissing Christians as Supersessionist, and Muslims as Mohammedan mystics. Maimonides maintains a messianic expectation. "But I believe that when the true Messiah rises among us and triumphs over all and is exalted and honored, then all religions acknowledge his teachings and will return to the source of their faith and correct the errors of their Prophets and ancestors." (p.43-44)
The final section "Man and God" has some very interesting apophatic theology that may have influenced Aquinas. Most notably, Maimonides' hamartiology stands at stark contrast against a deterministic interpretation of the fate of man which can be one of the central tenets in the theology of Apostle Paul and John Calvin (in fact contests "Reformed" Christian Theology in general) . In a subsection titled "Man: Master of His Fate," he states: "Man is the master of his fate and free will is given to us all... Do not, therefore, delude yourself with the nonsense spread by fools that states that the Holy One preordains from birth whether a man will be righteous or wicked. This is sheer nonsense:... For if God decreed whether man is to be a saint or a sinner,... then how could the Prophets commands us to act this way and not act another?" Maimonides holds fast to a fairly idealistic neutrality of human disposition except those that maybe hereditary, "Man is born without any innate merit or corruption. True, it is possible that he is born with certain dispositions based on biological factors. But, normally, man's actions are entirely up to him,... since free will is given to man. This must be so or else we arrive at an absurd position. For example, if Simeon killed Reuben, how can you hold Simeon guilty since he was predestined to ill reuben and Reuben was predestined to be killed?" (p.73) For Maimonides, his anticipation of the messiah is one who "rises among us and triumphs over all" but man himself is able to change his own character. The Christian dependence on God as the chief catalyst for character change is markedly void: "a man must accustom himself to virtuous deeds until they become part of his character. And he must abstain from sinful acts until he sheds his natural depravities. He must never say: 'I cannot change my ways and improve.' For a man can change his character from good to evil and from evil to good. Everything depends on his free choice and will." With a very interesting conclusion of this subsection: "When does man lose his free will? Only when God punishes him for his sinfulness by depriving him of his free will." I find that this last part has some definite Pauline echoes: (1Cor 5:5, 1Tim 1:20) I wonder how is it that it eluded Maimonides that it is all too conceivable, that the messiah did not "rise among" men but descended from heaven? This Christological difficulty seems to be maintained in the idea that God cannot become man and that the messiah of Jewish anticipations is limited to extraordinary human leadership. Couldn't hesed be personified? A window into the Jewish thought via Maimonides may allow Christians the relative magnitude of Christian claims. The highness of God is indwelling in each of us who believe. For Maimonides it seems, that moral excellence tempered by intellectual perfection is the point of departure while for Christians, the precise opposite: An awareness of our own moral failures in light of God's moral perfection is the first step to salvation. This imitable perfection, concretized in Jesus Christ.
