Q&A: Providence in Maimonides
Providence in Maimonides
Question
I read Maimonides’ chapters in Guide of the Perplexed about providence, and I don’t really understand how some people concluded that Maimonides holds a view with no individual providence. In other words, they understood from Maimonides that he thinks about providence more or less like you do.
Answer
I have no idea. Ask them. But Maimonides does make contradictory statements on this issue. Among other things, he also cites the midrash that everything was determined from the six days of Creation, including the miracles. See the Maharal’s introduction to Gevurot Hashem.
Discussion on Answer
I read all the chapters on providence, and it doesn’t sound like Maimonides holds anything like that. It sounds more like some interpretation of Maimonides’ words, and I don’t know to what extent that is really Maimonides’ view or whether it is even the commentator’s view.
Maimonides writes almost explicitly that if a ceiling collapses on a person or if a person drowns in a ship, that is a direct result of his actions and not the hand of chance.
Just to sharpen the point:
On the other hand, Maimonides writes that all the evils in the world come from several causes… either evils that one person causes another, or… with most evils stemming from human choice, meaning things a person brings upon himself.
Evils of that sort, and the like, aren’t connected to providence. That’s explicit there. Any evil that comes from a person’s choice is not a matter of providence. It’s simple.
The whole question is whether there is a situation in which “nature” itself will arrange itself for the benefit of a particular person.
And again, in chapter 17 it really does imply that there is no such possibility.
Again, I recommend studying Rashba’s letter on providence.
https://wiki.jewishbooks.org.il/mediawiki/index.php?title=%D7%90%D7%92%D7%A8%D7%95%D7%AA_%D7%A8%D7%91%D7%99_%D7%A9%D7%9E%D7%95%D7%90%D7%9C_%D7%90%D7%91%D7%9F_%D7%AA%D7%91%D7%95%D7%9F_%D7%90%D7%9C_%D7%94%D7%A8%D7%9E%D7%91%22%D7%9D&mobileaction=toggle_view_desktop
Study Part III, chapter 17 better. It implies there that the rule of the “Satan” extends over everything that happens in the world. And providence deals only with the survival of the soul, as it says in Job, “Only spare his soul.”
Only in chapter 48 is the opposite stated explicitly.
Already in Maimonides’ own time, the translator of the Guide, Samuel ibn Tibbon, noted this. And he sent Maimonides a question about it. Unfortunately, that was in the year 1024, when Maimonides died, and we were not privileged to get a revelation and clarification of his position on this matter.
Search online for Samuel ibn Tibbon’s letter on providence (you can also find the letter of Samuel’s son, Moses ibn Tibbon, who leans toward a more traditional position).
For further reading, look up Aviezer Ravitzky’s doctoral dissertation, The Doctrine of Rabbi Zerahiah ben Isaac ben Shealtiel Hen and Maimonidean-Tibbonian Thought in the Thirteenth Century.
A book was also published by Magnes Press (the Hebrew University) on Samuel ibn Tibbon’s notes to Guide of the Perplexed. If I remember correctly, it deals with this too.