In this chapter, Maimonides develops his theory of ‘emanation’ or fayd (فيض) by starting off with a discussion of the ‘efficient cause’ of things (sabab fa’il سبب فاعل). The efficient cause of any thing occuring in this world (Friedlander has ‘whenever a thing is produced’; Hussayn Attai has an kull hadis أن كل حادث) is either corporeal or incorporeal. A chain of efficient causes cannot be infinite, but must end in a First Cause, which is the true or ultimate cause.

Investigating these causes further, Maimonides notes that when a physical object affects another object, the affect must be transmitted by direct or indirect contact; fire transmits heat to air which transmits heat to the wax and melts; “the magnet attracts iron from a distance through a certain force communicated to the air round the iron”, and so on. Thus, “we find the causes of all changes in the Universe to be changes in the combination of the elements that act upon each other when one body approaches another or separates from it.”

What about changes which are not corporeal?

There are, however, changes which are not connected with the combination of the elements, but concern only the forms of the things; they require likewise an efficient cause: there must exist a force that produces the various forms. This cause is incorporeal, for that which produces form must itself be abstract form.

Eventually, Maimonides gets to the following dichotomy: physical/corporeal cause-effect pairs are characterized by a limited sphere of action: fire only heats up the air to a certain extent; the magnet only acts so far; and most cause-effect pairs are effected by simple contact. However, “in every case of change that does not originate in the mere combination of elements”, i.e., when the cause of a thing is not corporeal but incorporeal, there is no such limitation of distance or impact; and it is these actions which Maimonides calls fayd (فيض).

They are termed “influence” (or “emanation”), on account of their similarity to a water-spring. The latter sends forth water in all directions, has no peculiar side for receiving or spending its contents: it springs forth on all sides, and continually waters both neighbouring and distant places. In a similar manner incorporeal beings, in receiving power and imparting it to others, are not limited to a particular side, distance, or time. They act continually; and whenever an object is sufficiently prepared, it receives the effect of that continuous action, called “influence” (or “emanation”).

This has bearing both on the nature of God’s influence on the natural world, but also on Maimonides’ theory of Prophecy (or divine wisdom):

God being incorporeal, and everything being the work of Him as the efficient cause, we say that the Universe has been created by the Divine influence, and that all changes in the Universe emanate from Him. In the same sense we say that He caused wisdom to emanate from Him and to come upon the prophets. In all such cases we merely wish to express that an incorporeal Being, whose action we call “influence,” has produced a certain effect. The term “influence” has been considered applicable to the Creator on account of the similarity between His actions and those of a spring.

He wants to be careful to explain exactly what the incorporeality of God (and the incoproeality of his influence on the world) means and what it does not.

There are … persons who, on learning that God is incorporeal, or that He does not approach the object of His action, believe that He gives commands to angels, and that the latter carry them out by approach or direct contact, as is the case when we produce something. These persons thus imagine also the angels as bodies. Some of them, further, believe that God commands an action in words consisting, like ours, of letters and sound, and that thereby the action is done. All this is the work of the imagination, which is, in fact, identical with “evil inclination.”