  Ibn Daud’s own position, however, is far from clear. There is no doubt that he accepts the notion of a hierarchical causal chain of heavenly souls and intelligences that have an influence on the heavenly world. However, he leaves his reader in the dark as to how they proceed from God, claiming that the human intellect is too limited to grasp this and that the philosophers err when they assume that the intellect can know everything. More generally, he does never address the issue of (eternal) emanation versus creation. Although he equates the God of the philosophers with the Biblical Creator, he offers no arguments in favour of creation. All that we hear is that “grand things”, such as the Ten Commandments, come directly from God. However, he fails to explain how this should be reconciled with the theory of emanation, according to which only one thing proceeds from God directly and other things indirectly. Likewise, Ibn Daud tells us in one passage that matter does not proceed from God directly; whereas in another he bluntly states that matter is God’s creation without offering any argumentation for this last statement.