Why Human Philosophy Fails to Define God – The Jewish Perspective

Many people give far too much credit to philosophy, but very few realize the fundamental error of the misguided human attempt of philosophers to explain what God is.

The Torah rejects the entire basis of philosophy in one sentence: “For My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways, says the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts” (Yeshayahu 55:8–9).

In the very first of the Ten Commandments, we are warned not to imagine or depict God in any form familiar to human experience: “I am the Lord your God… you shall not make for yourself a carved image, nor any likeness of what is in the heavens above, or on the earth below, or in the waters under the earth” (Shemot 20:2–5).

When Moses asks God for His name, God replies: “Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh” – “I Am Who I Am” (Shemot 3:14). This verse has countless deep interpretations, but even at its simplest level, it implies that God cannot be described in human terms. “I Am Who I Am” – meaning: I simply am. I am what I have always been. No name can capture My essence.

A “name” always points to something definable, recognizable, or bounded, but God cannot be compared to anything in existence, nor pointed to as being confined by space or time. He simply is. Eternal. The Infinite One.

“Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh” sounds like a declaration of the indescribable: the only thing we can say is that He exists – always has and always will. As the commentary Kli Yakar explains, the name Ehyeh is derived from “existence” itself, signifying God’s timeless, unchanging being: He was, He is, and He will be.

The Greek Philosophers’ Mistake

The Greek philosophers thought they could understand God through mathematics and logic. They called God the Logos (reason), portraying Him as an impersonal cosmic force or “form” that shapes the world, like a law of nature. They imagined God as the rational blueprint behind matter.

They erred by reducing God to an abstract force within human reason, rather than the transcendent Creator beyond it. From this mistake, they concluded the world was eternal — unable to grasp the supernatural possibility that a spiritual God created matter ex nihilo (from nothing). By confining God within logic, they “decided” what God could or could not do.

Maimonides fought against this false philosophy. The entire first section of his Guide for the Perplexed is dedicated to removing human attributes from God, in what he called the “negation of attributes.”

History proved the philosophers wrong: science itself now testifies that the universe had a beginning. The expansion of galaxies shows creation had a starting point — precisely as the Torah declared: “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth” (Bereishit 1:1).

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Why Philosophy Fails

The philosophers made intellect their idol. They dismissed spiritual emotions like love, prayer, and yearning for God, because such experiences cannot be measured by reason. Judaism insists that true connection to God involves both mind and heart: “Know today and place it upon your heart that the Lord is God… there is none else” (Devarim 4:39).

Knowledge (“know today”) is rational, but faith and closeness (“place it upon your heart”) involve love, awe, and compassion — truths that surpass logic. Judaism unites both. Too much reliance on reason alone leads to arrogance, while too much surrender to emotion alone leads to chaos.

God is greater than intellect, greater than emotion, and greater than any human description. Yet He has given us “eyes of reason” and “eyes of the heart” to grasp a faint but real recognition of His presence.

The key is humility and to know our limits. Philosophers erred by trying to define God logically, and mystics sometimes erred by abandoning reason altogether. With the combination of reason and heart, we glimpse a higher truth.

Thus, the closest we can come to “understanding” God is to recognize that He is beyond all definition, yet present in all life. As King David said: “One thing I ask of the Lord, that I seek: to dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord, and to visit His sanctuary” (Psalms 27:4).