Maimonides: Jewish Theologian and Philosopher - Principles 1–5 and the nature of God

Maimonides and the principles

Moses Maimonides, also called Rambam, lived from 1138 to 1204 and worked as a philosopher, legal scholar and physician. His Commentary on the Mishnah, completed in 1168, sets out thirteen principles in the introduction to Sanhedrin chapter 10, the chapter concerning a share in the world to come. This context connects correct understanding, membership and ultimate destiny. The principles are not presented simply as optional interesting opinions.

Maimonides joins biblical and rabbinic commitments with philosophical reasoning about God and humanity. The first five concern God and worship; the next four prophecy and Torah; the final four divine knowledge, judgement and future hope. Later formulations such as Ani Ma'amin and the hymn Yigdal make them familiar in liturgical life, but their wording is not the full original philosophical explanation.

The Commentary is paraphrased here from Sefaria's Community Translation of Sanhedrin 10:1. Related explanations from the Mishneh Torah use Eliyahu Touger's translation. Biblical references identify roots and arguments rather than implying that a verse already states every philosophical conclusion. The thirteen principles can be individually explained while also forming a connected account of religious life.

Principle 1: divine existence

Principle 1 affirms God's existence as the ultimate cause on which everything else depends. God is independently real, while other beings depend on God; the relation cannot simply be reversed. The Commentary connects the principle with Exodus 20:2, God's self-identification as Israel's liberator. In Foundations of the Torah 1:1–6, Maimonides explains the dependence of all other existence on the first existent.

This develops a scriptural claim about the God of covenant into a metaphysical claim about reality's foundation. Necessary or independent existence differs from being an unusually powerful member of the world. The principle is not merely that God happened to be the earliest event in a temporal sequence. It concerns what makes dependent existence possible.

One philosophical strength is the connection between worship and reality: trust is directed towards an ultimate foundation rather than an invented local power. A difficulty is that establishing a first cause would not, without further reasoning, establish every claim about liberation, goodness or revelation. The biblical identity and philosophical account must be joined, not treated as identical proofs.

Orthodox reception commonly affirms the divine creator and sustainer. The Reform movement's 1999 principles also affirm God's reality, while acknowledging different understandings of divine presence. Shared affirmation of God therefore does not entail agreement on every detail of Maimonides' metaphysics. Contemporary reception can preserve a root commitment while interpreting its meaning differently.

Principle 2: divine unity

Principle 2 states God's incomparable unity. The biblical root is the Shema, Deuteronomy 6:4. Maimonides does more than count gods: God is not a composite assembled from parts and is not one member of a class of similar divine beings. In Foundations 1:7, unity is understood differently from the unity of an ordinary material object.

A body depends on parts and can be divided; a composite requires an explanation of its composition. For Maimonides that would conflict with the independent foundation of existence. Unity therefore develops principle 1: the ultimate cause cannot depend on a more fundamental arrangement.

The Shema continues to function in worship and identity across Jewish communities. This is a living expression of monotheism, although saying the Shema does not establish that every worshipper accepts Maimonides' full account of simplicity. A Progressive Jew may affirm one God while interpreting traditional language through personal or symbolic theology.

A critic can ask whether a God without distinct attributes remains sufficiently intelligible or personal. A defender distinguishes God's undivided reality from the many ways human beings encounter its effects. The challenge is to explain divine knowledge, goodness and relationship without turning those descriptions into separate parts of God.