This philosopher divided the mitzvot into “laws of reason” that humans could arrive at independently and “laws of revelation” such as kashrut. For 10 points each:
[10h] Name this philosopher whose Book of Beliefs and Opinions critiques Karaism. This philosopher was the most prominent Jewish thinker that a 12th-century work attacked for adopting the insufficiently rational methods of Mu‘tazilite Kalam.
ANSWER: Sa‘adia Ga‘on [or Sa‘adya ben Yosef, or Sa‘id ‘ibn Yusuf al-Fayyûmî]
[10e] Maimonides critiqued Sa‘adia Ga‘on and other practitioners of Jewish Kalam in this work that sought to reconcile Aristotelianism with Jewish theology.
ANSWER: The Guide for the Perplexed [or The Guide to the Perplexed; or Dalālat al-ḥā'irīn, or Moreh HaNevukhim]
[10m] Description acceptable. Contra Kalam, Maimonides argued that the falsity of this Aristotelian position cannot be determined by reason alone. John Philoponus influenced thinkers like Al-Ghazali by arguing that this position implies the existence of an actual infinity.
ANSWER: the eternity of the world [accept the pre-eternity of the world; or creatio ex materia; accept creation in time; accept descriptions of the view that the world wasn’t created; accept descriptions of the world having no beginning or end; accept descriptions of creation not ex nihilo; prompt on emanationism; reject “creation ex nihilo” or “creation out of time”]
<MB, Philosophy>