The Wars of the Lord

The main philosophical work of Levi ben Gershom, known as Gersonides, a Provençal Jewish philosopher, astronomer and biblical commentator, completed in 1329 after about twelve years of work. Its title recalls a lost book mentioned in the Bible; the 'wars' are the hard questions on which earlier thinkers, including Maimonides, had in his view gone wrong. It has six books. The first argues that the human intellect gains a limited immortality through the knowledge it acquires. The second explains dreams, divination and prophecy. The third argues that God knows particulars only in their general order, not as contingent individuals, which leaves room for human choice. The fourth ties providence to intellectual perfection. The fifth contains a long technical treatise on astronomy, including his own observations and instruments. The sixth defends the creation of the world, not from nothing, but from a formless, eternally existing body, and denies that the world will ever end.

It is the boldest medieval Jewish attempt to follow reason wherever it leads, and its treatment of divine foreknowledge and human freedom anticipates modern debates in philosophy of religion.