[Avodah] Rambam's naturalism

[Michael Makovi]

R' Micha asks,
>Where do you get this out of what the Rambam writes?

It's explicit in the Shemonah Perakim, chapter 8. Rambam says that
"hakol biydei shamayim hutz miyirat shamayim", means that G-d controls
our actions insofar as He created the natural laws in the first place.
So, as one of my rabbis put it, if your car crashes, it's because G-d
made black ice slippery.

R' Micha further asks,
> Where's the chiddush, that's Moreh III:18 explicitly!
> From Friedlander's translation:
> ... Divine influence, that reaches mankind through the human
> intellect...the greater the share is which a person has
> obtained of this Divine influence...the greater must also be the effect
> of Divine Providence upon him, for the action of Divine Providence is
> proportional to the endowment of intellect...The relation of Divine Providence is
> therefore not the same to all men; the greater the human perfection a person
> has attained, the greater the benefit he derives from Divine Providence.

This is a separate issue; Manekin deals with this issue elsewhere in
his book, summarizing four shitot on how this works:
1) Divine Providence is the information gained from the Active
Intellect, and the opportunity it proffers for more correct
(materially, not spiritually) living
2) Divine Providence is the spiritual, completely non-physical, reward
that is identical with overflow from the Active Intellect
3) Divine Providence is the CAUSE, not result, of connection with the
Active Intellect; since only physically and mentally perfected
individuals receive this intellectual overflow, they experience Divine
Providence insofar as they couldn't have received this overflow
without having already been physically and mentally perfected
4) Divine Providence is the de-corporealization of a person, that
results from his connection with the Active Intellect, rendering him
relatively protected from physical material accidents

What Manekin is proposing regarding the Divine Will, however, is
separate from intellectual Divine Providence. Manekin proposes a
distinction between Eternal Will and Novel Will. Eternal Will is that
which Rambam proposed in Shemonah Perakim and Avot, that G-d
pre-implanted miracles and governed via natural law, etc. Novel Will,
is G-d's eternally unchanging and consistent will, that nevertheless
produces novel miracles and such, just as a constant and unchanging
fire can produce different effects.

Manekin proposes that by the time of the Moreh, Rambam had realized
better the contradictions between Aristotle and the Torah, as shown by
the Moreh's emphasis of the fact that an eternal universe would negate
miracles, etc. Rambam in the Moreh emphasizes that G-d must be
volitional and willful, albeit while retaining the Aristotelian notion
that G-d's will cannot change, given the insinuation that His will
lacked perfection previously.

So according to Manekin, G-d's will caused Sodom to be destroyed, not
via anything intellectual like the Active Intellect, but just stam
because His will causes evil things to be destroyed, and good things
to prosper, stam, without anything involving the Active Intellect or
intellectual perfection.

Thus, Manekin says, his article was controversial for making Rambam too "frum".

Michael Makovi