The twelfth-century Jewish philosopher Maimonides, for example, says that God ‘exists, but not through existence.’34 If you are frustrated by this deeply paradoxical form of words, I can understand; but do not succumb to the temptation to dismiss it. His point is an important one: that to predicate existence of God is to mistake the divine nature. God cannot be said to ‘exist’, a word which in its origins means to ‘stand forth’ (Latin, ex- out, + -sistere, reduplicative of stare, to stand) in the way that a thing stands forth for us against the ground of our already existing field of vision.
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