Levi ben Gershon (Ralbag)
1288–1344 · Jewish Thought · Known
Gersonides was a Provencal Jewish polymath and the boldest Aristotelian rationalist after Maimonides. When scripture and reason disagree, he held, reason wins and the verse gets reread. God can be described rather than only denied, and God knows the order of things without knowing how your free choice will fall. Creation happened in time and shaped a formless matter that had always been there.
Signature
The position Gersonides is most identified with in the Profiler:
- The Divine
- strongly leans Describable
- Agency
- Libertarian Free Will
Positions on the 12 axes the sources answer
- Natural Processes
- strongly leans Purposeful (100 on a 0–100 scale from Mechanistic to Purposeful)
- Mind
- leans Beyond Brain (75 on a 0–100 scale from Brain Only to Beyond Brain)
- The Divine
- strongly leans Describable (0 on a 0–100 scale from Describable to Indescribable)
- Universals
- leans Realism (19 on a 0–100 scale from Realism to Nominalism)
- Meaning
- strongly leans Inherent (94 on a 0–100 scale from Constructed to Inherent)
- Order
- leans Vertical (16 on a 0–100 scale from Vertical to Horizontal)
- Nature of Reality
- leans Multiplicity (75 on a 0–100 scale from Unity to Multiplicity)
- Ground of Being
- leans Transcendence (78 on a 0–100 scale from Immanence to Transcendence)
- Truth
- strongly leans Objective (100 on a 0–100 scale from Subjective to Objective)
- Opposition
- leans Concurrence (75 on a 0–100 scale from Sublation to Concurrence)
- Ethics
- leans Means (75 on a 0–100 scale from Ends to Means)
- Conviction
- mildly leans Uncertain (32 on a 0–100 scale from Uncertain to Certain)
8 of 20 axes are left blank: the sources do not answer them, or Gersonides refused the framing. Nothing is imputed; a blank is not a middling score.
Foundational questions
- Theology
- Non-Trinitarian Monotheism
What is your position on the existence and nature of God or gods? - Highest Good
- Knowledge / Union with God
What is the highest good? - Good and Evil
- Good Real, Evil Privative
What is the fundamental nature of good and evil? - End of Things
- Apocalyptic Renewal
What is the ultimate end of all things? - Knowledge
- Pure Reason / Receptive Intellect
What is the ultimate foundation of knowledge? - Ethics Basis
- Divine Command / Virtue
What is the ultimate basis of ethics? - Agency
- Libertarian Free Will
What is the nature of human agency and freedom? - Beginning of Things
- Demiurgic
What is the origin of reality? - Time
- Linear Progressive / Eschatological
What is the fundamental shape of time? - Authority
- Divine Revelation / Wisdom
What is the legitimate source of authority? - Law
- Divine Law
What is the ultimate source of legitimate law? - Death
- Ascent of the Soul / Conditional Immortality
What happens at death? - Human Nature
- Imago Dei
What is human nature? - Primary Bond
- The Divine
What is your primary bond and loyalty?