## 1. His life




Crescas was born in Barcelona to a revered family of merchants and
rabbis around 1340. In the first period of his life (i.e. before 1391)
Crescas lived in Aragon during a relatively quiet period for the Jews.
He learned in the yeshiva (Jewish academy) of the town, which was
headed by Rabbi Nissim of Gerondi. In this yeshiva, Crescas learned not
only the traditional Jewish corpus of Bible, Talmud, and the other
parts of the Oral Law, but also Kabbala, science, and philosophy,
including the Jewish philosophy of Maimonides and his followers as well
as classical philosophy and perhaps even Christian
 scholastics.[2]




We know that by the year 1370 Crescas was a proficient young
scholar, a Talmudist, and a judge in Barcelona. Following the death of
Rabbi Nissim of Gerondi, Crescas and his friend Rabbi Isaac bar Sheshet
(Ribash) became the main Jewish authorities of Aragon, and possibly of
all Spain. People from all over the occidental Jewish World would ask
them legalist questions (Harvey 2010, 20). In 1387, Pierre the Fourth
of Aragon died, and his son Juan became the new king. This king and his
French queen, Violant de Bar, loved culture, and their palace in
Saragossa became the center of culture and science. In this palace
Crescas could have met Bernard Matege, a humanist employed as the court
scribe. Through him, Crescas may have become aware of the humanist
movement in Italy, and indeed Warren Harvey has speculated that there
was a considerable amount of mutual influence between the
two
 intellectuals.[3]
In 1389, Crescas
left Barcelona and became the rabbi of the capital of the crown of
Aragon: Saragossa. A year later the King and Queen appointed him as the
highest judge of all the Jews in the crown, and bestowed him with a
high degree of authority over the Jewish community.




The pogroms of 1391 had a decisive influence on the life of Crescas
and on the entire Spanish Jewish
 community.[4]
In those pogroms thousands of Jews perished and
around a hundred fifty thousand converted to Christianity. The pogroms
began in Castilla, but the rioters crossed the Aragon border. Almost
half of the Jews of Spain after 1391 became Christian. Aragon's
major Jewish communities in Barcelona, Valencia and Gerona disappeared.
A son of Crescas died in Barcelona, and the yeshiva of Barcelona, one
of the most important in the Middle Ages, disappeared. In the Crown of
Aragon, the King and Queen tried to save the Jews and to prevent the
pogrom, but they were successful only in Aragon, whereas the
communities of Valencia, Catalonia and the Baleares Island were
destroyed. Amongst the reasons for the success of the pogrom in
Castilla was the fact that the king was a child at the time and the
Castilian government was inefficient.




After these events, Crescas became the leader of the Spanish
community in its fight to survive. With the help of the King and Queen
of Aragon, he tried to restore the Jewish community of Barcelona
(without success). He helped *converso* Jews who wanted to come
back to Judaism to leave Spain for Muslim countries in North Africa. He
ultimately wanted to find a safer place for the Spanish Jews, possibly
in the Kingdom of Navarre.




The turning point of 1391 influenced the literary activity of
Crescas. He probably wrote fewer philosophical works (and certainly
fewer Talmudic and legal works), while most likely writing more
polemical books against Christianity than he had planned to before the
pogrom.




Until his death late in 1410 or in January of 1411, Crescas remained
the spiritual head of Spanish Jewry. As a part of his role, he tried to
build a new generation of Jewish leaders. After the pogrom, Crescas
continued to teach Torah, Talmud, science, and philosophy. His star
pupil in philosophy was Rabbi Josef Albo, while his star pupil in
Talmudic studies and law was Rabbi Josef Ibn Haviva. Crescas also
influenced the polemical works of Profiat Duran (Efodi). Crescas
requested the translation from Arabic to Hebrew of the work of Abraham
Ibn-Dahoud *Ha-Emunah ha-Ramah* by Solomon ben Levi. The second
translation of this work under the title *Ha-Emunah
Nissa'ah* by Samuel ibn Motot is probably based on the first
one. The original Arabic text is now lost, so it is likely thanks to
Crescas that this important philosophical work has survived.


## 2. His works


### 2.1 Earlier work



There is a controversy about the attribution of a small commentary on
the secret of the Kaddish (a Jewish prayer praising God, recited
between sections of the daily prayer services and on behalf of
departed relatives)to Crescas. According to Harvey 2010 and Ofir 2001
Crescas wrote it when he was a young student in Rabbi Nissim of
Gerondi's yeshiva. In this first work we can see the influence of the
Kabbalistic school of Gerona. According to Ackerman 2013b, this text
is not from Crescas and so there is no indication that the Kabbalah
had any influence on Crescas.


### 2.2 Passover Sermon


In this short book, which is a based on a sermon that Crescas
probably gave on the night of Passover, he explores his opinion about
some philosophical questions regarding the subject of the basis of
belief in 
 miracles.[5]
 These questions arise because of the description
of the different miracles experienced by the Jews in Egypt. The first
question asksif belief is an act of free will, or if the miracle in
fact obliges the believer to believe in it (and in the idea that the
miracle worker wants to prove through the miracle). After this
question, Crescas addresses the subject of the essence of miracles,
the essence of free will, and the relation between free will and
reward and punishment. The sermon's conclusion is also the only
legalist work of Crescas in our possession.




In this book, Crescas deals with the subject of free will in a less
profound manner than in his philosophical magnus opum *Or
Hashem*, but his opinions here do not contradict his opinion in
*Or Hashem*. The difference between the two books on this
subject can be attributed to the development of the thought of
Crescas. According to one view, the sermon represents an anterior
stage of Crescas and *Or Hashem* a posterior one (*Sermon on
the Passover*, pp. 34-68). Another explanation of these
differences could be the difference of style between the two books (a
sermon versus a profound philosophical tract). The difference between
the two books is clearer with regard to the question of the essence of
miracles. Crescas's opinion in his sermon is that miracles by
themselves don't oblige people to believe in something (as opposed to
rational proofs that oblige belief). The reason for inherent doubt in
the validity of any given miracle is that the people cannot be sure
that God and not a human is the author of the miracle. In *Or
Hashem* (P. 312) Crescas asserts the opposite position. Humans
cannot do miracles by
 themselves.[6]
This is
the reason that Crescas claims that the miracle is the best way to
verify if a prophet is a true one or an
 impostor.[7]
This difference between the two works is a very good
argument for the opinion that the sermon is anterior to *Or
Hashem*. Ravitzky has said that in the sermon, Crescas followed the
ideas of Rabbi Nissim Girondi, his teacher who believed in the
possibility of men performing miracles, while years later, in *Or
Hashem*, Crescas retreated from this opinion and now held that only
God could perform miracles.


### 2.3 Refutation of Christian Principles


The book known by the name "Refutation of Christian
Principles" (we don't know the original name of this work). This
book was originally written in Catalan around 1397-1398, and is
available only in the medieval Hebrew translation of Rabbi Josef Ibn
Shem
 Tov[8]
and in modern English
and Spanish translations of the Hebrew. The target audience of
the Catalan work is probably the Jews of Aragon who didn't read
Hebrew, and the Jewish descendants of the conversos of 1391. In
his book, Crescas critiques ten principles of the Christian faith: 1.
Original sin. 2. The liberation from this sin. 3. The Trinity. 4.
Incarnation. 5. The virginity of Maria. 6. Transubstantiation. 7.
Baptism. 8. The coming of the Messiah. 9. The new laws. 10. Demons.




In these topics Crescas demonstrates a good understanding of the
Christian theology of his time. In the majority of these subjects he
uses philosophical and logical arguments against Christian dogma and
not quotations from the Bible. This book was probably one of the more
philosophical works of the Jewish critics of
 Christianity.[9]
Interestingly, Crescas utilizes
in his polemical book some of the very Aristotelian opinions that he
himself critiques in his philosophical oeuvre *Or Hashem.* The
reason for this contradiction is probably that the aim of Crescas in
his polemic works is to convince Jews not to convert to Christianity,
and Jewish apostates to return to Judaism. The most effective method of
attaining this goal was to utilize the most popular science in his
time, and not necessarily what he considered to be closest to the
truth. We can summarize that in his polemic works Crescas has a
polemical goal, and in his philosophical works he has a
philosophical
 goal.[10]
The Hebrew translator
explains that the reason for this divergence was that the philosophical
works were written before the polemical ones, but after writing *Or
Hashem*, Crescas returned to Aristotelian science. But this
explanation doesn't accord with the chronological order of the writing,
and we don't have any reason to suppose that Crescas retreated from his
anti-Aristotelian critiques.


### 2.4 *Or Hashem* (The Light of the Lord)



This is without a doubt the major philosophical work (and indeed the
magnum opus) of
 Crescas.[11]
 This book was supposed to be the first part
of a two-volume work that Crescas intended to write. The set was to be
named *Ner Elohim* (Candle of God). The second book was to have
been a work on Jewish law. The original aim of Crescas's project
was to counter the two major works of Maimonides by writing: I. A
philosophical book against Maimonides' *Guide of the
Perplexed*. II. A legal book against his *Mishneh Torah*,
in which Crescas would critique Maimonides' legal method, and
especially his lack of citations from earlier authorities. In fact,
probably in part because of his communal role after 1391, he only had
time to write the first book of the series, along with the general
introduction to both volumes.




We know that *Or Hashem* was written over a long period of
Crescas's life - no less than fifteen years, and perhaps
more. Because of his communal activity, Crescas didn't finish the final
edition of the book himself. Due to the extended period of
writing, we can see the development of his thought in the different
parts of the work. In some cases, as with the attributes of God, there
are some contradictions between the different layers of the
book's development. Additionally, the pupil who edited the last
edition of the book introduced some changes and additions with the goal
of unifying Crescas's seemingly opposing positions while
moderating his openly radical
 opinions.[12]
Examples of these kinds of additions are clearly
visible in the question of free will, and are found especially in the
Florence manuscript.




The structure of *Or Hashem* is based on a hierarchical
arrangement of Jewish dogma opposed to the Maimonides thirteen
principles of
 faith.[13]
Crescas
separates his book into four different essays: 


1. The existence of God (and relevant topics like his unity, his
attributes, etc.). This is the foundation of all religious
belief.[14]
2. The six foundations of the law, without which the existence of the
Torah (and in general of all revealed law) is impossible (*Or
Hashem*, 123). These six foundations are:
	1. God's knowledge of all things in existence (including all
	particulars)
	2. God's providence
	3. God's power
	4. Prophecy
	5. Free will
	6. The purpose of the Torah
3. Obligatory beliefs. The existence of the Torah is possible without
them, but if someone denies them he is a heretic. There are eight
general beliefs in the obligatory category:
	1. The creation of the world
	2. The survival of the soul after death
	3. Reward and Punishment (as per degree of conformity to the divine
	commandments)
	4. Resurrection
	5. The eternity of the Torah
	6. The prophetic stature of Moses
	7. The *Urim and Tumim* (a mystical tool of the High Priest through
	which he could ask God questions)
	8. The Messiah

There are three specific obligatory beliefs related to special
religious obligations:
	1. Prayer and the priestly benediction
	2. Repentance
	3. Rosh Hashana, The Fast of Kippur and the three pilgrimage
	festivals.
4. Fourteen beliefs for which the Torah does not clearly establish
what the correct opinions are. Regarding these beliefs Crescas
explores the different options and tries, using the interpretation of
the traditional Jewish sources together with philosophical enquiry, to
establish the correct view.


## 3. God's existence and attributes


### 3.1 God's existence:




In the introduction of the second part of the *Guide of the
Perplexed*, Maimonides summarizes twenty-five premises of
Aristotelian science (and one more that Maimonides attributes to the
philosopher: the eternity of the world). In the first chapter of the
second part, Maimonides gives philosophical (i.e., [neo-]Aristotelian)
proofs of the three principal beliefs relating to God: his existence;
his unity, and his immateriality. In the first part of the first essay,
Crescas explains these twenty-six premises and the six proofs offered
by Maimonides on behalf of the Aristotelians. In the second part of
this essay, Crescas critiques fourteen of the premises of Aristotelian
science. Afterwards he argues against Maimonides' six proofs of the
existence of God, his unity, and his immateriality.




In the third part of the second essay, Crescas analyzes the true
meaning of these three beliefs and asks whether we can prove them. He
comes to the conclusion that he can prove the existence of God. In his
opinion the only way to prove the existence of God is via the need for
a first cause. If every single thing in the universe is caused, their
existence is only possible (just as is their inexistence) and so we
need a first cause that necessitates their existence as opposed to
their
 non-existence.[15]




In Crescas's opinion, we can also prove the simplicity of God,
but we cannot prove the uniqueness of God. We can summarize this
philosophical enquiry by saying that Crescas thinks that philosophy can
prove the existence of a simple cause of the world, but it cannot
arrive at the uniqueness God of the Bible. On this point Crescas comes
to the conclusion that the only way to know the true essence of the
divinity is to learn it from the divine revelation (the Torah and the
tradition).




This philosophical development is very important for the
comprehension of the relation between philosophy and revelation in the
thought of Crescas. The major trend of Jewish philosophers, and chiefly
Maimonides, was to prove that people can come closest to the true
understanding of God through philosophy. These philosophers wanted to
put philosophy on the same level of truth as the Torah. In their
opinion, one must interpret the Torah according to science, and the
Torah does not teach anything that philosophy cannot access on its own.
In Crescas's opinion, the true meaning of the Torah (and the
tradition) cannot go against philosophy, but philosophy by itself
cannot reveal the entire truth that the Torah contains. One of the
goals of God's revelation is to give us some true beliefs that
philosophy (and human speculation alone) cannot discover. This
development elevated the Torah and the tradition to a higher level of
truth than that of philosophy. There are some questions in which
philosophy and revelation provide the same answers, but there are also
beliefs that pure philosophy cannot claim, such that only revelation
can tell us what the truth is.


### 3.2 God's attributes




In the early stage of his
 writing[16]
Crescas accepted the opinion of Maimonides that
the attributes of God do not have any relation to the attributes of
humans, and indeed Crescas defended this position against the arguments
of Gersonides. But in the later stage Crescas constructed a new
opinion. This final opinion serves as an exemplar of
Crescas's use of compilation from different sources with the goal
of constructing a new and original 
theory.[17]




The major elements of this synthesis are:


1. The opinion that human attributes and divine attributes are
common in essence but divergent in quantity. Crescas's most probable
source here is
 Gersonides.[18]
2. The infinity of the divine attributes
both in number and in strength. His source here is probably Duns
Scotus.
3. The differentiation between the indefinable essence of God
and the attributes that are related to that essence. His source for
this position is the apostate Abner of Burgos.




The three elements of this approach existed before Crescas in the
writings of different thinkers, but no one had put them all together.
In Crescas's opinion, humans cannot understand the true essence
of God, and nor can they speak of him but negatively (like the opinion
of Maimonides). But according to Crescas, there is another kind of
attribute: those that are relative to the divine essence. These
attributes do not describe the divine essence, but they do describe
things that always accompany the divine essence, in much the same way
a flame accompanies a live coal. These attributes have the same
essence as human attributes, but they are infinite in both number and
strength. With this position Crescas pulls together the Aristotelian
anti-Maimonidean opinion of Gersonides, Duns Scotus's Franciscan
critique of Aquinas's understanding of Aristotle, and the
Neo-Platonic opinion of Abner in his formulation of a new
anti-Aristotelian critique of Maimonides (Sadik 2011).


## 4. Critiques of Aristotelian science




One of the more important contributions of Crescas to the history of
philosophy is his critique of Aristotelian
 science.[19]
 This critique takes

place in the second part of the first essay in *Or Hashem*.
Crescas's opinions regarding natural science are influenced by the new
Christian physics of the 14th century, and especially by
thinkers like Ockham, Buridan, and Oresme (Pines 1967). Another
source of Crescas's science appears to be the lost book of
Abner, *The New Philosophy*. But in this case, as in others,
Crescas weaves together different sources and utilizes them freely in
his goal to build one unified opinion. This original thought
influenced occidental philosophy, finding its way via translation into
Pico della Mirandola's book *Examen Vanitas Doctrinae Gentium*,
and later into Spinoza. Some of his most well known opinions include
the existence of the void, the existence of infinitude of worlds, and
the existence of time without movement.




Now we will look at a few examples of the new physics of Crescas in
more detail.


### 4.1 The definition of infinite




In Aristotle's opinion, the infinite does not exist in
practice but only in potential (like the infinite potential division of
a fixed distance and the infinite number of people living throughout
history in an eternal world). Regarding the question of mathematics,
Aristotle denied the possibility of a distinction between different
kinds of infinite (some bigger than others) and of the possibility of
adjoining something to an infinite number. On the basis of this
definition (and other physics theories) the Greek philosopher denied
the existence of an infinite body in practice, and hence he denied
infinite voids and expansions as well.




Crescas holds three original opinions regarding the
 infinite:[20]


1. The possibility of adding something to the infinite
2. The possibility of including an infinite within another
infinite
3. Mathematical applications derived from the difference between an
infinite in potential and an infinite in practice.




In the philosophy of Crescas, two infinites are not automatically
the same. There are differences between various infinite things. We
know two very different categories of infinite: the infinite that is
limitless without qualification, and the infinite that is limitless in
one entire dimension but limited in other dimensions. For example, we
can imagine a line that is infinite in both directions (the first
category of infinite) and a line that is infinite in only one
direction, i.e. a ray (the second category of infinite). The
differences between the two categories are of course more apparent (and
more complex) in the case of spatial planes and volumes. Crescas
accepts the existence of the second category and draws the conclusion
that in such cases we can add something to an infinite. If we have two
distinct infinite rays starting at the same point, and I add some
dimension (A) to the finite end of one of them, the consequence of this
act is that I have now two infinite rays that are different in their
dimensions, for one is smaller (only infinite) and one bigger (infinite
+ A). The same is true regarding the question of an infinite that can
include another infinite. If, for example, we posit two infinitely long
rectangles before us, with one being 10-meters high and the other being
1-meter high, then in Crescas's opinion the first one is ten
times bigger than the second despite the fact that both squares are
infinite in area.




Another original definition of infinite in the thought of Crescas is
his utilization of the difference between the infinite in practice and
the infinite in potential. One of Aristotle's methods of
affirming the non-existence of the infinite was to claim that the
existence of an infinite dimension forbids some of the laws of
geometry. Crescas refutes this kind of argument by the differentiation
between the infinite in practice versus the infinite in potential. The
argument goes thus: Even if I have an infinite dimension, all the real
points in this dimension are a finite distance from one another. All of
Aristotle's arguments are based on the distance between different
points, and this response cancels these arguments. We have to note that
Crescas's explanation is only a development of Aristotle's
response to Zeno's paradox of the distance between two
points.




This treatment of the infinite by Crescas and the (metaphoric)
opinion that God is the place of the world, a point Crescas considered
as one of God's attributes, helped Spinoza build his original view that
extension is also an attribute of
 God.[21]


### 4.2 The definition of matter




In Aristotle's opinion, all actual matter exists with certain
properties like dimension, quality (cold, warm, humid and dry) and
weight. Crescas distinguishes between the different properties. In his
opinion there are three different levels of material
 existence.[22]
 Matter in and of itself has no properties. The body is the unification
of matter and dimensionality (i.e. matter in corporeal form). It is
possible that a pure body without any other quality has actual
existence. The third level of material existence is the unification of
the corporeal form (matter) with some other unique form. This latter
unification affords matter the additional properties of weight and
quality.




One example of the way that Crescas uses this new definition is to
refute the proofs of Aristotle against the existence of infinity. In
Aristotle's opinion, two bodies cannot share the same space
because of the property of dimension. The Greek philosopher concludes
from this observation the impossibility of the existence of a void. The
definition of a void is dimensional space without matter inside. Now if
matter can fill a void, and matter itself has dimensions, then it
follows that the dimensions of the matter can go inside the dimensions
of the void. Aristotle concludes that this cannot be, for if
dimensions can be shared, then we have to assume that two physical
bodies could be in the same place at the same time -- an absurdity
that would lead to other apparent absurdities, such as the entire world
fitting inside a grain of mustard.




Crescas refutes these proofs with his new definition of the different
levels of material existence. In his opinion, only the common
existence of matter and dimension cause the impermeability of the
body. A body (matter and dimension) can go inside a void (only
dimension), but not inside another body. In this argument we see
Crescas utilize the work of the Jewish apostate Abner. Abner explained
the birth of Jesus (and transubstantiation) by the argument that Jesus
is body without dimension and can go inside other bodies. Abner
separated the different properties of a body from the body itself for
both a philosophical goal (to prove that infinity exists) and a
theological goal (to strengthen certain Christian dogmas). Crescas
refutes this possibility by explaining the difference between a body
that has both matter and dimension and therefore cannot go inside
another such body and pure matter. Crescas distinguishes all
properties only from matter and not from bodies. In this way, Crescas
can utilize Abner's critiques of Aristotelian science without
accepting the theological implications. (See Sadik 2008 for Abner's
opinions.)


### 4.3 The definition of place




In the thought of Aristotle the definition of place is 'the
limit of the encompassing body'. In his opinion, place has an
important role in movement. The definition of a natural movement is
the movement of a body to its natural place in the world. Aristotle
explains that the natural place attracts the body, while the body
moves naturally to its natural place.




Crescas opposes this definition. In his opinion, place is the part
of dimension that a body occupies within the infinite expanse of the
universe; dimension without matter is only place in
 potential.[23] 
 Crescas also denies the influence of natural place on movement. In his
opinion, the movement of fire is caused by the diverse weights of the
different bodies that are aflame, and not by the existence of a
natural place.




It is important to note too that in the thought of Crescas,
the universe does not have any corporeal place. The universe is an
infinite void containing an infinite number of worlds separated from
one another by part of the void.


## 5. The question of choice and free will




Crescas devotes the sixth part of the second essay to the question of
free will.[24]
Crescas begins this sixth part by explaining why the lack of choice
can be so problematic for pious Jews: The Torah is based on the
commandments of God to man, yet these commandments do not seem to make
any sense if humans do not have control over their actions. After all,
why should God tell humans what to do if He knows that they have to
break the law? It would seem that a robust freedom of choice is
essential to maintaining the significance of God's commandments.
Nevertheless, the pious Crescas does not accept this reasoning. To
refute the above supposition while maintaining the relevance of the
commandments, Crescas uses the first four chapters of Part Six to
develop an uncompromising determinism that lives in harmony with human
choice and a system of reward and punishment that are restricted to
the realm of personal feelings and self-judgment. Ironically, in
developing his theory of choice, Crescas quotes frequently from
Abner's book *Ofrenda de Zelos* (without citing him by
name).




It is worth examining how Crescas develops his position in more
detail. After introducing the issue of free choice vis a vis the Torah,
Crescas in the first two chapters describes the different arguments
(both rational and theological) for and against freedom of choice.
Crescas then reaches the conclusion that the decision making process is
fundamentally deterministic, though people voluntarily choose the
attitudes and feelings behind their own actions. For example, if we
isolate a person hesitating between two options from the causes that
influence him, such as his education and the influence of society, then
we might think that this person truly chooses to do either of the two
options. But upon closer analysis, if we take in to account all of the
causes that influence his will, we reach the conclusion that these
causes determine his will to choose only one of the two options. In
Crescas's opinion, humans are like bronze. A piece of bronze can
be made into a lot of different things: a ball, a sword, etc. However,
someone (i.e. an external cause) fashions the bronze into one of these
options and so determines the present form of the bronze. The same is
true of people: they themselves can choose between different possible
options, but their relation to external causes determines their
choices. We can see how Crescas views strong determinism through the
way he likens human functioning to an inanimate object like bronze. It
is important to note too that Crescas defines the will of man as an
accord between the attractive force and the imagination -- two
forces that are common to humans and beasts.




Continuing into the middle chapters of Part Six, Crescas similarly
explains the notion of possibility and accident. Things are only
possible in their relation to themselves.




This deterministic description of the world (based on rational
arguments) resolves the theological problem of the contradiction
between the free will of man and the foreknowledge of God. In
Crescas's opinion, free will, in the sense of an originative cause
that is itself uncaused, to decide and act does not really exist. God
is the first cause and knows all the laws of the world. Therefore, He
knows the entirety of that which He has determined.




But this deterministic description leads to two theological
problems:


1. why God sent commandments to people that do not really have the
choice to observe or violate them
2. how people can receive reward and punishment for actions that they
cannot control


Crescas solves the second problem by saying that the forbidden
things are naturally bad. The punishment of the sinner is not a
special act of divine providence to punish him, but rather the natural
consequence of the sinner's bad actions. At this point we can
solve the first problem: according to Crescas, the goal of the Torah
is to influence people to do right. The only way to influence someone
to do something is to give him enough causes to do it. The Torah is
only another cause that tries to influence humans to do good. It is
also the reason why God punishes only the actions that are under
the control of one's choice and the will of humans. The aim of the
retribution is to guide people towards doing what is right. According
to this, aiming to punish other actions that are not under the
control of humans will be inappropriate.




Regarding the two latter chapters of Part Six, my opinion differs
from that of most scholars. In these chapters Crescas tries to answer
the question of whether there is a difference between people that sin
happily and those who are forced to sin and feel sad about doing their
evil actions. Crescas also addresses the question of the obligation of
various beliefs. These chapters are not based on the determinist book
of Abner, and Ravitzky thinks that they are anterior to the other
chapters and exist almost verbatim in the Passover
 sermon.[25]




Some scholars understand these chapters as a departure from the deterministic
opinion of Crescas.[26]
According to their interpretation, Crescas describes the true
conscience of man, wherein the inner self can observe the actions of
the deterministic external person and either be happy or unhappy with
his or her actions. If the external person does something bad and the
inner self is unhappy, it is not truly a sin because the true person
does not want to sin. Instead, a deterministic process has coerced the
external person into performing the act of sin against his conscience
and his true will. According to this interpretation, the inner will of
humans is under their control, but the regular will that decides their
actions is the conclusion of a deterministic psychological
process. Such is the usual interpretation, and in and of itself this
interpretation is accurate. However other scholars understand these
chapters as Crescas is that Crescas is not concerned here with finding
a morsel of free choice in a highly deterministic world, but is rather
addressing a very different problem: He only wants to answer the
question of external obligation and the parallel issue of
culpability. Back in the fifth chapter, Crescas had described
punishment as a natural consequence of sin. After this rational
assertion, it would seem that there is no logical difference between a
voluntary and involuntary sin in terms of
punishment.[27]
However, such a lack of moral distinction is unacceptable to
Crescas. Therefore, in these chapters he wants to tell us, indeed
reassure us, that an externally forced man doesn't have any punishment
for his sin (it is for certain that he is speaking to and about the
Jews that were forcibly converted in 1391). According to these
scholars in these chapters Crescas is not speaking about how man is
ultimately distinct and free of determinist processes of the soul, but
rather about how man through this determinist process wants to do
good, yet due to some cause, external to the determinist psychologist
processes, is forced to sin, and hence is not culpable -- if
indeed there was such a negative external cause that led to his
sinning. Crescas thinks that the retribution of humans is a function
of the interior psychological process of choice. If this process
exists the man can be reattributed for his act. However if this
process does not exist there is no retribution. The fact that choice
and will are entirely deterministic in the view of Crescas has nothing
to do with retribution. According to this opinion Crescas thinks that
the use of will and choice are the criteria for retribution but are
not free at all.




It is probable that the major sources of Crescas's determinism
are the writings of Muslim thinkers whom he interpreted according to
the understanding of the apostate Abner of Burgos. This deterministic
understanding of the world no doubt ultimately influenced Spinoza's
opinion.




Regarding the question of
 astrology,[28]
Crescas holds a very moderate opinion: On one
hand, the stars have a general influence on humanity, but on the other
hand, it is quite easy to free ourselves from their influences. Human
choice and divine providence are both superior to the influence of the
stars.


## 6. The essence of the soul and life after death




Crescas devotes an important portion of the sixth part of the second
essay to the question of the soul's
 essence.[29]
The general subject of this part is the goal of
the Torah, which is for Crescas also the goal of humanity and of the
entire world. In this discussion, Crescas speaks of the different goals
that the Torah fulfills. The Torah helps people to fulfill their
different worldly goals, such as their relation to themselves (health,
morality, etc.), to their family, and to their country. In this part of
the essay, Crescas's explanation is close to Maimonides'
rational explanation of the divine commandments. But the Torah also
helps humans to get a spiritual reward in the hereafter. On the subject
of the essence of the soul along with reward and punishment after
death, Crescas builds a philosophical critique of the
Maimonidean-Aristotelian opinion and proposes instead a more
traditional view.




Regarding the topic of soul's essence, Crescas holds a
platonic opinion: The soul naturally continues its life after its
separation from the body. The reason for this immortality of the soul
is that the soul is a spiritual substance with a potential for
knowledge. As a spiritual substance, the soul has no opponent between
its different parts and any causes of loss. In his proofs that this
definition of the soul is right, Crescas critiques the different
opinions of Aristotelianism. The main stream of the medieval Arab
Aristotelian opinion on this topic (apart from Ibn Sina) is that only
human knowledge can survive the death of the body. But there are very
different opinions in the Aristotelian school about this subject. An
example of this divergence is the opinion of Gersonides, who
understands that the knowledge of immaterial law accords the
possibility of life after death for the individual. In spite of
this, Averroes (as Crescas understand his view) claims that no
individual immortal existence is possible after death (all the
knowledge of all people returns to its source in the active intellect).
In his critique of the Aristotelian opinions, Crescas uses the
different
 arguments[30]
that
diverse Aristotelians attack each other with to ultimately refute all
Aristotelian opinions.




Crescas tries to prove that the soul and not the mind holds the
potential for knowledge. After this step he argues that the true goal
of the soul is not rational knowledge but the love of God. In this
argumentation, Crescas criticizes the opinion of Maimonides that love
of God is a function of knowledge. According to Crescas, love is
related to the will, which itself is the concordance of the appetitive
and imaginative parts of the soul and is not related to the mind
(itself an Aristotelian doctrine of animal volition, as mentioned
above). Moreover, the true essence and the true goal of the soul is not
to acquire knowledge but to delight in loving God. This opinion goes
together with the view that the principal attribute and motive of God
is not intellectual knowledge but love.




According to Crescas, the easiest way to express love for God is to
fulfill obligations to him and to do what He commands. It is the reason
why the Torah and particularly the commandments that are integral to it
are the best way to attain spiritual reward after death. The Torah
gives the easiest way to achieve our spiritual goals. After the
separation of the soul from the body, the soul stands by it and
naturally wants to express its true essence (loving God). If the soul
loves God in this world, it becomes joyous and can now love him more
(because the temptations of the body don't distract it). This
rapture is the reward of the just in the hereafter. But if a person
does not fulfill the love of God in this world, the soul becomes
despondent at his or her rebellion against God in the corporeal world,
an error that it plainly understands after the death of the body. This
profound sadness is equivalent to the fire of hell.




In his critique of the Aristotelian position on these subjects,
Crescas tries to construct a philosophical defense of what he considers
to be the traditional Jewish view. He first tries to prove that the
opinions of the Aristotelians are philosophically mistaken, and then
goes on to argue that what he considers to be the traditional view is
philosophically true. This critique of the Jewish Aristotelian opinion
is one of Crescas's more important . In the Jewish orthodox
community, fulfillment of the commandments is the most important aspect
of religious life. In the opinion of Maimonides, the majority of the
commandments (and all of the practical commandments) are only
intermediaries to achieving philosophical knowledge, which is the
supreme goal of human endeavor. This opinion is one of the more
problematic aspects of Maimonides from a traditional point of view.
Through his critique of the Aristotelian view, Crescas builds a defense
of what he considers to be the traditional view of the commandments as
the way to achieve the highest religious and spiritual goals.


## 7. Reception and influence




We can distinguish between the influence of Crescas on Jewish
philosophy and his influence on general occidental philosophy.




Jewish philosophy: As has been pointed out, Crescas was considered
the major leader of the Jewish community of Aragon and to a certain
extent all of Spanish Jewry (It should be noted that at the time, the
Spanish Jewish community was the biggest in the Jewish world.). He was
both the most important political leader and one of the major legal
authorities of his time. A significant proportion of the major rabbis
in Aragon in the generation following Crescas were in fact his
immediate pupils or people within his circle of
 scholars.[31]
Crescas was also one of the most
original Jewish philosophers in the Middle Ages. His critiques of
Aristotelian science and of the Maimonidean integration of
Aristotelianism into Judaism have an honored place in the history of
the disintegration of the influence of Aristotle - a
disintegration that laid the groundwork for the development of a new
science. These kinds of critiques were very popular in the Renaissance
and at the beginning of the modern period. Additionally, in the
majority of the subjects that Crescas deals with, his opinion is closer
to the traditional point of view than is Maimonides' opinion. But
contrary to what we might have expected from this situation, Crescas
did not create an important Jewish current of thought as did Maimonides
and the Kabbala. The majority of his direct students and of the people
in his circle came back to either a different kind of Aristotelian view
or else a regular traditional point of view, and did not continue
Crescas's philosophical project.




Modern scholars have given a number of explanations for this
phenomenon, most prominent of which is the disintegration of Spanish
Jewry caused by the pogrom of 1391 and the persecutions at the
beginning of the 15th century. Because of this
disintegration, the Spanish Jewish community did not integrate the new
and original mode of thinking of Crescas, and instead went back after
his death to different more traditional opinions. Another explanation
is that his opinions were ahead of their time, and people (including
his own pupils) did not completely understand them. Another explanation
attributes the general rejection of Crescas to his citation of
Christian scholars, and especially the apostate Abner of Burgos.
According to this opinion, the Jewish community knew Abner's
ideas and was dismayed by Crescas's utilization of the
apostate's
 views.[32]
 Some scholars also claim that the major goal of Crescas was to refute the
Aristotelian interpretation of Judaism, so following the collapse of
this interpretation, caused by the general fall of Aristotle, there was
simply no more need for Crescas's critiques. Perhaps the most
probable explanation is that Crescas did not realize his original
project of writing another legalistic book against the *Mishneh
Torah* of Maimonides. If Crescas had written this book, he probably
would have become not only one of the major Jewish philosophers, but
also one of the major legal authorities of both his generation and
succeeding generations. The combination of legal works, philosophical
tracts, and political leadership was undoubtedly of great help to the
philosophical reception of Maimonides within Judaism.




Yet another reason for the relative lack of influence of Crescas on
posterior Judaism is his intermediate position between philosophy and
tradition. Maimonides was not only the most important Jewish
philosopher, but also the Jewish philosopher par excellence, such that
the majority of orthodox Jewish philosophers see themselves as
continuators of Maimonides. For the majority of Jewish philosophers,
Crescas is too traditional, while for the majority of traditionalists
he is too philosophical. Ultimately, however, and in spite of all the
aforementioned factors, the influence of Crescas on Jewish thought is
palpable. *Or Hashem* is found today in a large
majority of the libraries of the different *yeshivot* (Jewish
academies), and rabbis from all the different streams of Judaism have
studied his book throughout the modern period. In universities and the
research world there is a relatively large amount of interest in his
original philosophy, and a substantial number of scholars of medieval
Jewish philosophy consider Crescas to be the second most important
medieval Jewish philosopher after Maimonides.


### 7.1 Influence on general occidental philosophy




Crescas is not a part of the very limited group of medieval Jewish
philosophers whose major philosophical works have been translated into
Latin (in particular Maimonides, Rabbi Isaac Israeli, and Rabbi Shlomo
Ibn Gabirol). The non-Jewish occidental philosopher had no possibility
of direct access to any of his works until the very recent translation
of Or Hashem into French. Despite this fact, his philosophical opinions
influenced occidental philosophy, especially through their adoption by
two important authors: Pico della Mirandola and Spinoza. Pico
translated some of Crescas's critiques on Aristotelian science in
his book *Examen Vanitas Doctrinae Gentium*, and it is possible
that Crescas may have influenced some of the Italian
philosopher's other opinions as well. The main influence of
Crescas on general occidental philosophy is undoubtedly via his
influence on Spinoza. Spinoza, himself Jewish, probably studied *Or
Hashem* as a young student, for Crescas's book had a profound
influence on his opinions. Indeed, Crescas is one the few medieval
philosophers that Spinoza quotes with
 sympathy.[33]
There is some controversy among Spinoza scholars
regarding the subject of the influence of Jewish thought on Spinoza's
opinions, but it is very probable that Crescas had a significant
influence on at least two of his most important views: the essence of
God and determinism. We can conclude that in spite of the lack of
direct influence, Crescas definitely had an important indirect
influence on occidental philosophy, especially via his influence on
Spinoza.