32. Bereshit — Abarbanel on the Torah, Section 32

Three Principles of Creation Against the Philosophers

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The first approach is that the bet of bereshit serves in the sense of “with.”¹ Thus, the verse would mean: “the heavens and the earth, together with their beginning and their initial principle, were all created”—that is, brought into existence from absolute nothingness, as is indicated by the term bara (“created”), according to the first interpretation I have set forth. Elohim refers to the First Emanator, acting with absolute power.

The divine Torah found it necessary to establish this statement at its very beginning, because among those who denied the creation of the world, some rejected it entirely, claiming that the heavens and the earth are eternal, having no temporal beginning—this being the view of Aristotle and his followers. Others admitted that the heavens and the earth were brought into existence, but maintained that they were formed from pre-existing matter—this being the opinion of Plato and the earlier thinkers.

In order to refute both of these false positions, the Torah testifies: “In the beginning, God created…”—that is, together with their beginning and their very principle, which is their matter, God created both the higher and the lower realms, without there being any pre-existent reality whatsoever apart from Him. This is the first interpretation.

The second approach is that the divine Torah establishes in this verse three fundamental principles that overturn and destroy three erroneous doctrines held by the philosophers.

The first is their claim that time cannot have a beginning. For they argued that every “now” that might be designated as the beginning of future time is necessarily also the end of past time, and therefore it is impossible for there to be a “now” that is truly the beginning of time without also being the end of what preceded it².

But the Torah testifies that this is not so. Rather, there was indeed a “now” that constituted an absolute beginning of time, without being the end of any prior time. It is that “now” in which time itself began to exist, and in which the Blessed One created the heavens and the earth. Concerning this it is said: “In the beginning, God created…”—for reshit (beginning) refers to that first “now,” which is called a beginning because it alone is the beginning of future time, without being the end of any past time. This is not the case with all other moments, each of which is both a beginning and an end from different perspectives. It is as if the verse said: “At that moment which was a beginning and not an end, God created the heavens…” This is the first principle³.

The second principle concerns the nature and reality of creation itself. The philosophers were unable to conceive that something could come into being except from something else; in their view, the coming-into-being of something from nothing was false. But the divine Torah bears witness to the existence of such a reality in stating: “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth”—that is, although within the course of natural generation nothing comes into being except from something else, at the beginning of time and its origin, the Holy One, blessed be He, brought into existence not from anything, but after absolute non-being. This is what is indicated by the term bara, according to the interpretation I have given: that the higher and lower realms were all brought into existence by His absolute power, after complete non-existence⁴.

I have already explained in my work Mif‘alot Elohim⁵ that the coming-into-being of something from nothing, when considered philosophically, is not in itself impossible with respect to the divine Agent, blessed be He; and likewise, that it is not impossible for there to exist a first “now” that is the beginning of time without being its end. There, I have responded, on philosophical grounds, to the arguments advanced by the philosophers against these principles. This is the second principle.

The third principle is that the philosophers held that, since God is One, only one effect can proceed directly from Him. According to them, He produces only the first of the separate intellects, from which proceeds the second, then the sphere, and so on, such that beings multiply through a chain of emanation, as is reported in their name by Maimonides (Part II, chapter 2). Even according to the view found in Bereishit Rabbah, which distances itself somewhat from the strict path of emanation, there is no doubt that the Holy One, blessed be He, exercises providence and influence first in the world of the separate intellects, then secondarily—through them—in the celestial world, and thirdly—through all of these—in the lower world⁶.

(Parashat Bereshit — Genesis 1:2, Three Principles of Creation Against the Philosophers in the Commentary of Don Isaac Abarbanel)

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