“I firmly believe that the Creator, blessed be His name, alone is
worthy of being worshipped, and that no other being is worthy of our
worship.”
The Omnipotence of God is also implied in the first article, which
declares Him the Creator and the Ruler of the universe. That Maimonides
does not directly make omnipotence, like unity, incorporeality, &c.,
the subject of a separate article has its good reason, and is not “the
result of mere chance.” Silly questions were frequently asked; e.g.,
how far the omnipotence of God extended, whether it implied the power
of making twice two equal to three, or the whole of a magnitude larger
than the sum of its parts, and similar logical impossibilities. To
avoid misunderstanding, Maimonides did not express our belief in the
omnipotence of God in a separate article, but the first and the fifth
articles imply it.
We believe of God that He is immutable or unchangeable. It is, however,
not necessary to express this in a separate article. By declaring the
Unity of God we proclaim also His Immutability, since unity, in the
sense in which we conceive it, is incompatible with any kind of change.
Whatever the change might be that we assumed in God, it would destroy
the idea of His unity.
There are other qualities which we ascribe to God. We call Him perfect,
all-wise, good, kind, merciful, long-suffering, and the like; in short,
whatever we find in our own person good and noble we believe to be
present in God in a higher degree, in the most perfect form. But these
attributes approach very closely anthropomorphisms, which Maimonides
rigidly excludes from the Creed. They express rather the impressions
produced in our soul by the different acts of God’s Providence, and do
not describe God Himself.
Of this class of attributes are the thirteen divine attributes, שלש
עשרה מדות (Exod. xxxiv. 6). They describe in thirteen terms the
goodness and mercy of God towards man in his various conditions of
innocence, guilt, and repentance. These are not distinctly mentioned in
our Creed, but when we declare that He is the only Being whom we can
address in our prayers, we are certainly conscious and convinced that
He, being good, kind, and merciful, listens to our supplications.