Ibn Daud, Abraham Halevi

Ibn Daud, Abraham Halevi 

(also known as Rabad-Rabbi Abraham ben Daud Rabad). Born circa 1100 in Toledo: died circa 1180 in Cordoba. Jewish philosopher and theologian; Aristotelian, follower of the philosophers Farabi and Avicenna.

Ibn Daud attacked the Neoplatonism of the medieval Jewish philosopher Ibn Gabirol. His main work, The Sub-lime Faith (1168), written in Arabic, has survived only in two translations into Hebrew. In synthesizing the ideas of rabbinical Judaic theology with the ideas of Aristotle, Ibn Daud was apparently the first Jewish philosopher to maintain that god is only the first cause of being. Free will is a means of realizing one of the possibilities of action that god left undetermined so that man could exhibit his energy. The gift of prophecy is the highest stage of man’s intellectual development. Ibn Daud’s teaching had an influence on the subsequent development of philosophy in the Middle Ages.

REFERENCES

Guttmann, J. Die Religionsphilosophie des Abraham ibn Daud aus Toledo. Göttingen, 1879.
Husik, I. A History of Mediaeval Jewish Philosophy. New York, 1958.