“The question, "What is the purpose thereof?" cannot be asked about anything which is not the product of an agent; therefore we cannot ask what is the purpose of the existence of God.”
—
Maimónides
,
book
The Guide for the Perplexed
Source: Guide for the Perplexed (c. 1190), Part III, Ch.13
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Maimónides 180
rabbi, physician, philosopher 1138–1204Related quotes
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“What do I know about God and the purpose of life?
I know that this world exists.”
Ludwig Wittgenstein
(1889–1951) Austrian-British philosopher
Journal entry (11 June 1916), p. 72e and 73e
1910s, Notebooks 1914-1916
Context: What do I know about God and the purpose of life?
I know that this world exists.
That I am placed in it like my eye in its visual field.
That something about it is problematic, which we call its meaning.
This meaning does not lie in it but outside of it.
That life is the world.
That my will penetrates the world.
That my will is good or evil.
Therefore that good and evil are somehow connected with the meaning of the world.
The meaning of life, i. e. the meaning of the world, we can call God.
And connect with this the comparison of God to a father.
To pray is to think about the meaning of life.
Source: The Society of Mind (1987), Ch.2
Context: Questions about arts, traits, and styles of life are actually quite technical. They ask us to explain what happens among the agents of our minds. But this is a subject about which we have never learned very much... Such questions will be answered in time. But it will just prolong the wait if we keep using pseudo-explanation words like "holistic" and "gestalt." …It's harmful, when naming leads the mind to think that names alone bring meaning close.
“People are always asking, does God exist? Of course she does. The real question: what is she like?”
Source: Only Begotten Daughter (1990), Chapter 4 (p. 69)
“Pain serves a purpose. Without it you are in danger. What you cannot feel you cannot take care of.”
Source: The Faraway Nearby