SOURCE: Feldman, Seymour. “Platonic Themes in Gersonides's Cosmology.” In Salo Wittmayer Baron: Jubilee Volume, On the Occasion of His Eightieth Birthday, English Section, Vol. 1, pp. 383-405. New York: Columbia University Press, 1974.

In the following essay, Feldman analyzes Gersonides's argument against the ex nihilo doctrine of creation and his defense of the idea of the incorruptibility of the universe.

In his opening presentation of the controversy concerning creation Maimonides cites three distinct cosmological theories, the second of which he attributes to Plato and some other Greek philosophers.¹ The chief characteristic that differentiates this theory from the Biblical and Aristotelian doctrines is that it asserts the creation of the universe from some eternal matter.² Since the Platonic theory, as understood by the medievals, asserted creation of some kind, it was more acceptable to the medieval world than the eternity hypothesis of Aristotle. But the Platonic notion of eternal matter bothered...