This week, we are going to conclude chapter 17, the versions of providence. Just to refresh your memories (in case you delete old e-mails once read, as I do), I'm reprinting the first two options Rambam cites.

REVIEW OF THE FIRST THREE VIEWS OF PROVIDENCE

FIRST, there are those who believe that there is no governance of the world, no design, no method to its madness. Rambam connects this view to Epicurus (eat, drink, and be merry, etc.), and notes that Aristotle had already refuted it (from the argument from design-- that the world is too ordered for there not to have been a Mover who put it into place. More formally, Aristotle noted that everything on Earth has a cause, so that it would be necessary for there to have been a first cause.

SECOND, there is the view of Aristotle. Let us recall (from earlier in the third section) that Aristotle believed that some parts of the world—the celestial spheres—are eternal. What happens on Earth (which is referred to as the sublunar realm, because Aristotle believed that the spheres encompassed everything up until the moon) is ephemeral and transitory, but the celestial realm is eternal. For Aristotle, we should note, the notion of God is as Prime Mover rather than Creator per se. That is, for Aristotle, God did not put together those spheres, but God is the ultimate cause of their existence. Again, cause in that sentence does not mean what it ordinarily does. Aristotle proved the existence of God by noting that everything has a cause; he then asserted that there must be a prime cause, which he identified as God.

Aristotle’s views create all sorts of problems for believing Jews, although some contemporary scholars think Rambam secretly held Aristotle’s position, despite repeated claims on his part that he followed the traditional view of beriah yesh me-ayin, Creation of the world after absolute nothingness.

I reviewed these ideas because Aristotle’s view of providence is directly connected to his view of Creation. In Aristotle’s picture (and here Rambam more clearly rejects Aristotle’s ideas), God’s providence extends to all those parts of Creation that are eternal, with overflow to those parts of Creation that receive overflow from the eternal parts. So, just like all the celestial realm is eternal, so too, it receives God’s providence (here, at least as Rambam uses the term, providence might mean more than knowledge, it seems to mean receiving input and abundance from God).

Some parts of the sublunar world, however, also benefit from that abundance coming from God. Most specifically, the existence of species was generally believed to be eternal and that the individual members of a species displayed characteristics that were geared towards the survival of the species. In those realms where this was true, the members of the species were exhibiting the overflow of the providence from God to the celestial realm.

Rambam notes that this view really is summed up in the verse "Azav Hashem Et haAretz." In this view—close to the 18th century theory known as Deism—God is in some sense the Cause of the Universe’s existence, but mostly in terms of guaranteeing its continuity, in that all those parts of the Universe that are permanent (the celestial realm, and the species of the sublunar realm) benefit from His providence, but there is no interaction, no involvement of God in anything having to do with human affairs. Providence exists, but highly removed from anything we would experience.

The THIRD opinion goes to the other extreme of the first opinion. Remember that the first opinion was that there is no plan for the world, no design, etc. In the third opinion, everything in this world is determined by God, including human actions. In this view, when a butterfly flaps its wings, a leaf falls, a person stands up or sits down, God has decided that all those things should occur. (NOTE: I am skipping my thoughts on this view that I printed last week).

Rambam notes that those who adhere to this view simply say that that was the way God willed it. We will see, be-ezrat Hashem, another example of a view that says that God runs the world in ways that we cannot explain when we come to ta`amei hamitsvot, the reasons for the commandments, in about 8 chapters of the Moreh. In any case, that is the third view.

THE MUTAZILITE VIEW-- PROVIDENCE AND JUSTICE FOR ALL

Hundreds of years before Rambam, Islamic philosophers had worked to reconcile philosophy with religion, and they became known as the Mutakalimun, and their general worldview as the kalam. One influential group were the Mutazilites, whose views Rambam often cites, either to reject or partially accept. In this case, they articulated the FOURTH view of providence, according to which all of God's actions are just, man has freewill, and God has absolute knowledge. The problem is in combining all of these views.

For example, Rambam notes, they believed that whatever happens to people is for the best. Asked why some people are born blind and some not, they say that God's wisdom decreed it that way, that in some way it is better for the person to be blind. (The absurdities to which this view can be taken were the topic of Voltaire's novel, Candide, where he repeatedly mocked the notion of this world as "the best of all possible worlds," the position taken by Leibnitz and others; that was a pause for a Torah U-Madda moment, we now return to our regular programming).

Their belief in God's knowledge of everything led them to another problematic assertion, that God knows what happens to all the animals, too, and that the animals have freewill, and that they, too, get what they deserve. If we see an animal suffer in this world, we should expect that that animal will get a reward commensurate with it in the World to Come.

RAMBAM’S SYMPATHY WITH THE DIFFICULTY OF THE ISSUE

Rambam does not agree with any of these four views, nor does he believe that Jewish tradition does (we'll get to tradition in a moment). Interestingly, he takes a moment to say t hat we should not blame the proponents of any of these last three views, since they were struggling to reasonably construe the world and God's relationship to it. Aristotle was following what he saw (and there's no visible involvement of God in the world, day to day), the Asharites (that everything is commanded by God) were trying to uphold God's power and knowledge, the Mutazilites were trying to stress God's wisdom and justice. Nevertheless, all of them came up with flawed views.

JEWISH TRADITION—JUSTICE FOR PEOPLE, WITH FREEWILL

Now Rambam turns to the opinion of tradition. In his presentation, tradition upholds the notion of human freewill, so that people can act as they wish, but also the notion of just retribution. That is, Rambam believes that all that befalls people, good or bad, is a consequence of what that person has done. The example he gives is instructive, because it shows how far he takes this concept. He says that if a person pricks his finger on a thorn, that is a punishment for something he has done. He adds-- and this is the only thing that can make this position even remotely reasonable-- that we do not know the way of deserts, meaning that we don't know which sins get big punishments, which small, etc. Taken as is, that view says that when people suffer in this world, it's a punishment for things they have done. Now, it may be that we don't recognize what they have done, because we do not know the scales by which God evaluates sin.

Although Rambam doesn't mention it, other traditional thinkers also use the notion that God punishes some people in this World, to be able to give them only the reward for their good deeds in the World to Come. For others, God gives all of their reward in this World, so as to save only the punishments for their sins for the World to Come.

There's also one more piece to the puzzle, as Rambam points out. Hazal refer to the notion of yisurim shel ahavah, sufferings of love. That concept is the same as the Mutazilite one, where God may choose-- for reasons of His Wisdom-- to make a blameless person suffer in this world, so as to be able to give that person greater reward in the World to Come. Jewish tradition does not, however, extend this to animals, as did the Mutazilites.

RAMBAM'S VIEW—PROVIDENCE FOR HUMANS AND ANIMAL SPECIES

Rambam now appends his own view of providence, without elaborating how he believes it relates to the view he just presented. Rambam says that his view mixes that of Aristotle—in terms of everything other than humans—and the Mutazilites. That is, he believes that humans have direct providence, so that events that happen to humans are, in fact, some sort of reward and punishment, but for other things, the providence is simply an overflow of the providence going to the spheres, which guarantees the smooth workings of the world, the continuation of species, and so on. For example, he says, God may not decide whether a particular boat sinks, but providence will affect which people get on that boat and which do not.

Rambam defends his decision to exclude animals from Divine providence by pointing out that no verses in Scripture signal a Divine concern with animals, and that all those that do can easily be explained as referring to species rather than individual animals.

Rambam explains his reasoning for his view—that providence is a function of intellect, so that only beings with intellect can connect to the Divine Intellect and receive that Being’s providence. This also leads to Rambam’s well-known view that the more developed a person’s intellect, the greater the providence that person will enjoy.

PROBLEMS WITH RAMBAM’S VIEW

Rambam’s idea of providence ignores an issue he had noted in Hilkhot Teshuvah as an intractable problem—the seeming contradiction between God’s Knowledge and man’s freewill. Here the problem only arises in a minimal way—if my going on a boat or not is a function of Divine providence, doesn’t that mean I couldn’t really choose whether or not to go on that boat?

That’s really a relatively minor problem, and Rambam has already said that those kinds of contradictions are not ones we as humans are going to be able to understand, but Rambam’s notion of a split Divine providence runs up against an even bigger problem in modern times. Scientists have begun to notice the intricate interconnections among all the parts of the world, particularly in what is known as chaotic systems. In a chaotic system, the impact of each factor is so delicate that a seemingly small change can lead to drastic changes in the system as a whole. In the most common phrasing of this idea, scientists have shown that (theoretically) a butterfly flapping its wings at one end of the world can produce a hurricane at the other.

Without expecting such drastic effects, the interconnection of the world—particularly in terms of weather, but as the global economy advances, in other areas too—makes it difficult to believe that a general providence runs that world, and yet manages to assure that what happens to specific humans is a function of their actions.

Rambam’s presentation here also does not take note of his previously stated view that some bad things in this world are really a function of human being’s physicality, so that people taking ill, or going blind, etc., should not be seen as evil, but as a necessary concomitant of a physical world. Rambam does not work that into his calculations here, although it would seem to be important.

We will have to track how Rambam addresses any of these issues in chapters to come, but noting where Rambam’s theory does not quite solve the logical problems involved in providence can help us focus our own thoughts on this issue. My own thoughts on providence are not necessarily of interest to anybody, but I am soliciting views, because it is a topic we should all be considering, and I would be interested in hearing what people think about the issue