  Nonetheless, it should be noted that Ibn Daud’s thought contains a number of “loose ends”; the promised harmony between religion and philosophy is certainly not always achieved. Cases in point are his ambiguous position with regard to the origin and status of matter and the way in which he skirts around the issue of creation versus emanation. The inconsistencies and undetermined issues in ER are partly the result of the influence of neo-Platonism. The Aristotelianism of the Muslim peripatetics still contains an appreciable number of neo-Platonic notions that have made an impact on Ibn Daud. Arfa’s evaluation of Ibn Daud’s philosophic activity “at the point where it has rejected neo-Platonism but has not yet freed itself of many of its fundamental doctrines and thought habits, and on the other hand has espoused Aristotelianism but has not yet assimilated the full meaning of its world outlook” hits the nail right on the head (Arfa 1954: 4). For another part, the flaws in Ibn Daud’s thought are due to his conception of philosophical knowledge as the foundation on which religion should be built. For all the importance he attaches to the use of philosophical speculation, his bias is religious, which is why he prefers to remain vague about or to omit Aristotelian doctrines like the eternity of motion. When harmony between religion and philosophy seems to be impossible, Ibn Daud shrinks from accepting the consequences of Aristotle’s doctrines and instead chooses to seek refuge in the limitations of the human intellect, claiming that the philosophers tend to overreach themselves. The weaknesses in his thought notwithstanding, Ibn Daud’s significance for the development of Jewish philosophy can hardly be underestimated.