Maimonides: Belief in God is not a prerequisite

Anyone who accepts upon himself the fulfillment of these seven [commandments -DD] and is precise in their observance is considered one of ‘the pious among the gentiles’ and will merit a share in the world to come. This applies only when he accepts them and fulfills them because the Holy One, blessed be He, commanded them in the Torah and informed us through Moses, our teacher, that Noah’s descendants had been commanded to fulfill them previously. However, if he fulfills them out of intellectual conviction, he is not a resident alien, nor of ‘the pious among the gentiles,’ nor of their wise men. (from chabad.org agreeing with editions altered/censored by christians, emphasis mine) Anyone who accepts upon himself and carefully observes the Seven Commandments is of the Righteous of the Nations of the World and has a portion in the World to Come. This is as long as he accepts and performs them because (he truly believes that) it was the Holy One, Blessed Be He, Who commanded them in the Torah, and that is was through Moses our Teacher we were informed that the Sons of Noah had already been commanded to observe them. But if he observes them because he convinced himself logically [By his own intellect and conscience, but he does not agree that they were commanded by G-d]., then he is not considered a Resident Convert and is not of the of the Righteous of the World, but merely one of their wise. (from sefaria.org agreeing with uncensored editions, emphasis mine)

Based on this statement from Maimonides’ Mishneh Torah, Laws of Kings, chapter 8, law 11, there are those that teach that in order to truly keep the seven laws, a Gentile must accept not only God’s existence, but that he commanded them in the Torah and that Moses let us know that the children of Noah, Gentiles, had been commanded them previously. Maybe due to the sort of people who become cognizant of divine laws imposed on humanity – namely, theists and (ex-?)religionists – this sort of teaching is just accepted: you must believe in God to keep the Gentile law.

Now I’m not going to deal with rabbi Weiner’s erroneous teaching about a positive command to know God (to do something) being smuggled amongst the seven prohibitions (things you mustn’t do). I don’t know if I’m gonna deal with that or if I’ve dealt with it sufficiently before. But that’s not part of this article.

First I just want to look at Maimonides’ words and then what the seven laws are.

What is the subject of this “law,” section 11 of chapter 8 of laws of Kings? Is it who a child of Noah is? Is it what a person must do to keep the seven laws? Is it teaching what the law of idolatry is? Absolutely not!

About what does it inform me? Let me look at it bit by bit.

Anyone who accepts upon himself and carefully observes the Seven Commandments is of the Righteous of the Nations of the World and has a portion in the World to Come.

So the first part is informing me about what causes someone to become one of the righteous of the nations of the world: accepting the seven laws and observing them carefully, or being precise in observing them. It also lets me know that accepting the commandments and diligently keeping them gains one a place in the coming world, the hereafter, the afterlife.

So, up to this point I’ve been informed about how I get a place in the world to come, what I need to do to be considered righteous.

So what’s next?

This is as long as he accepts and performs them because (he truly believes that) it was the Holy One, Blessed Be He, Who commanded them in the Torah, and that is was through Moses our Teacher we were informed that the Sons of Noah had already been commanded to observe them.

So here we have a limitation. The righteous Gentile getting a place in the afterlife, in order to be so, must accept the seven laws and do them on the basis that

God commanded them in the Torah;

God let the Jews know, by the hand of Moses, that, the children of Noah, Gentiles, had previously been commanded to do them.

Again, Maimonides is only informing me on the necessary prerequisite for a Gentile to become one of the righteous of the nations of the world and how to get a place in the afterlife.

So far it has not told me the prerequisite for being a child of Noah, although the Talmud and commentaries, Sefer HaChinnuch, and so many other resources and the necessary implications of what Maimonides says later makes it blindingly clear that the children of Noah refers to Gentiles on a whole, people not Jewish. And the next sentence Maimonides writes will show me that he is also not informing me who really observes or fulfils the seven.

I’ll quote it now, but I’m telling you from now that I’ll use the version based on texts not altered by christians.

But if he observes them because he convinced himself logically [By his own intellect and conscience, but he does not agree that they were commanded by G-d], then he is not considered a Resident Convert and is not of the of the Righteous of the World, but merely one of their wise.

That is the version by sefaria.org and includes their commentary. So what is this telling me?

This section tells me that a person observing the seven laws without accepting that God commanded them, thus from his own internal inclinations and reasonings is not seen as the righteous of the nations, the one who gets a place in the world to come. He’s also not seen as a … a what? A “resident convert?” Excuse me if I change that to “resident alien.” So he’s not accepted or acknowledged as a foreign resident among the Jews. Instead, he’s regarded as a smart person, a wise man.

So let me see what I glean from that last bit. So Maimonides says that there is a person who does the seven laws out of something other than knowledge of God. It would only be arbitrary and baseless reasoning that would lead me to conclude that the person he describes here is purely hypothetical, totally fictional, having no basis in reality. I believe Maimonides wrote this (and much of his book, if not all of it) to inform the readers about actual and real incidents that can happen. I also know that once a person knows that the seven laws only describe actions that bring a liability of death, not the ideals and beliefs discussed by and written about by rabbis and too many of their religious Gentile following, then that factual knowledge will reveal that a person not doing the forbidden acts fulfils the seven obligations, and that is very possible without the knowledge of God for various reasons. I wrote about that here. The article is called, Why would a person who doesn’t accept Israel’s God keep the seven laws?

So to be more concise, Maimonides informs me that the seven laws can be kept for non-theistic reasons, and the person doing that is called one of the smart people.

Reading it shows me that although it’s a good thing to be considered one of the righteous, being called wise or smart is not a put-down, not even disrespectful or offensive.

Anyway, reading all this, some things are clear. Maimonides does not command acceptance of God and Torah at all. He doesn’t even claim that God commanded the knowledge of God upon Gentiles. Not at all! He only highlights two ways of keeping the seven laws and the benefit of keeping them because of the Torah origin and their divine origin and the Mosaic and Jews transmission. That’s it.

So does Maimonides teach that the only (proper) prerequisite for keeping the seven laws is belief in God? Absolutely not. In fact, he’s not even detailing the seven laws yet since that starts in the next chapter. This section covering two ways of observing the seven is not one of the details of the seven.

So, there is no basis for such a belief that Gentiles must believe in God to keep the seven in the words of Maimonides.

But I should add something here that came to mind. According to Maimonides, a righteous Gentile both accepts the seven laws and does them. A smart Gentile only does them. I find that distinction interesting. That lends credence to the position that a person can do the seven laws without accepting them ! That is, of course, according to Maimonides.

Let me once again recount the seven laws according to the Mishneh Torah, Laws of Kings, Chapter 9, according to the words of Maimonides. I’ll therefore use his ordering of the seven.

Prohibition against idolatry: actively worshipping an idol according to its custom, and in any manner for which a Jew would get the death penalty.

Prohibition against cursing God’s name: cursing God’s name using a name for him in any language.

Prohibition against murder: murdering anyone, even a fetus, directly or indirectly.

Prohibition against having sex with forbidden partners: a man having sex with his own biological mother, his own biological father’s wife, another man’s wife, his own maternal sister, another man or an animal.

Prohibition against theft: taking someone else’s property without permission by force or stealthily.

Prohibition against eating the limb of a living animal: eating meat taken from a land animal while it was still alive.

Command to set up courts and judges: Gentiles on a whole to set up courts and judges who uphold the seven laws.

Those are the seven laws according to Maimonides. He mentions no liability about the seventh law as he only leaves it as a positive command, a different stance to the Talmud and Nachmanides. So, for Maimonides, a Gentile individual has to be careful about six laws to avoid punishment. And I’ll put it bluntly now, and I believe this to be a fact: not a single one of Maimonides’ recounted details of the seven laws includes a law to know God or believe in him. Now this highlights the consistency of Maimonides as he taught that a Gentile can do the laws without God.

As a little aside: for me, Maimonides statement about the prerequisites for a Gentile to get a place in the afterlife is questionable. It, the prerequisite, has no source in the Talmud. And rabbi Jonathan Sacks threw doubt on the source I was pointed to. I’ll link to where I wrote about it before. You can find here in an article called Saved by faith.

But, anyway, at least I believe that Maimonides’ depiction of the seven laws with its surrounding discussion lends no support to the notion that Gentiles must acknowledge God, Torah and the Jews in order to observe the seven laws, that belief in God is a prerequisite to fulfilling them.