[Avodah] Rambam's naturalism

[Micha Berger]

Beqitzur, I see two differences in language. The first is that you're
using Providence and HP interchangably. I am positing multiple kinds of
hashgachah, such that nature can be providential -- if a set of events
will always have the same consequence as determined by laws that express
Hashem's Wisdom.

The second is that we differ on our usage of the word "random". I am
using random to mean something not fully determined by its causes. Those
causes could be human, could be HP, could be nature.

On Mon, Mar 23, 2009 at 12:34:17PM -0400, David Riceman wrote:
: Me:
:>: As far as I know, there are two models which describe God running each 
:>: detail of the world.  One is the model the Rambam attributes to the 
:>: Kalam, which is that each thing that happens in an individual expression 
:>: of God's will....    The other is the model of the world as a clockwork 
:>: mechanism, which I think is due to Descartes, and certainly was 
:>: advocated by no Rishon (I don't know whether it remains tenable after 
:>: quantum mechanics).

: RMB:
: >I believe RDR's is a false dichomoty.

: >The most common amongst the rishonim is actually a mixture of the two:
: >HP for humans or only for deserving humans, and hashgachah kellalis
: >(HK; Divine Wisdom as expressed in nature) for everything else. The line
: >between HP ("an individual expression of G-d's will") and the clockwork
: >(HK) therefore shifts with the person, baasher hu sham.

: I tried to avoid discussing hashgaha in that post.  In the Rambam's 
: model hashgaha works via prophecy, and hence is irrelevant to how God 
: runs the world.

I don't think you can avoid a discussion of hashgachah when discussing
"G-d running each detail of the world"; you can only avoid the word.

Second, if by "hashgachah" you mean HP in particular, RMM made a similar
claim about the Rambam a couple of weeks ago, and I don't think it's
tenable. While the Ralbag says something along these lines, the Rambam
doesn't. (And while the Ralbag gets condemned for it, the Rambam doesn't;
it would seem that later baalei mesorah saw the Rambam's position as I
did.)

Look at Moreh III ch 17-18. In ch. 17, he brings theories about
providence. (All quotes taken from Friedlander's translation, since it's
in the public domain and available on the web for easy cut-n-paste.)

1- There is none (Epicurus, although the Rambam doesn't name names)

2- Aristotle: Part is subject to Providence, part is abandoned and left
   to chance. "Providence sends forth [from the spheres to the earth]
   sufficient influence to secure the immortality and constancy of the
   species, without securing at the same time permanence for the
   individual beings of the species." What I've been calling HK -- a
   teva that is Providencial. "The portion of the materia prima which is
   still more refined, and is endowed with the intellectual faculty,
   possesses a special property by which each individual, according to
   the degree of his perfection, is enabled to manage, to calculate, and
   to discover what is conducive both to the temporary existence of the
   individual and to the preservation of the species. All other
   movements, however, which are made by the individual members of each
   species are due to accident; they are not, according to Aristotle,
   the result of rule and management; e.g., when a storm or gale blows,
   it causes undoubtedly some leaves of a tree to drop, breaks off some
   branches of another tree, tears away a stone from a heap of stones,
   raises dust over herbs and spoils them, and stirs up the sea so that
   a ship goes down with the whole or part of her contents."

3- Ashariyah: Determinism and EVERYTHING is caused by G-d. No bechirah.

4- Mu'tazilah: There is HP and bechirah only. All tragedy is for the
   sake of future reward. (All tragedy -- both human and animal.)

5- Torah: People get HP, others get HK and the individual animals,
   plants or objects are subject to chance.

Then in chapter 18 he presents 

5b- While all people get HP, a homo sapien can be more or less a
    "person" in this respect based on his knowledge of G-d.

Given that the Rambam is refining a position on how Hashem conducts
events (although it really looks like he's shoehorning his own position
into the words of Chazal), it's hard to say that the earned HP in ch 18
is anything but in contrast to the other positions in ch 17 -- planned
vs random events.

Also the Rambam's prooftexts aren't limited to Hashem offering
information. Such as one person being protected from a plague, and
another not.

The nearest I could find was (from about 1/5th of the way into pereq 18):
> This benefit is very great in the case of prophets, and varies
> according to the degree of their prophetic faculty: as it varies in
> the case of pious and good men according to their piety and
> uprightness.

But notice he's saying that HP is in proportion to their nevu'ah (or to
chassidus and tzidqus), not that it actually is their nevu'ah.

: I was unclear in my opening sentence in the cited paragraph: what I 
: meant to convey was that most rishonim reject the idea that God runs 
: each detail of the world (henceforth "determinism")....

I understand. I'm saying that there are multiple kinds of hashgachah. It
could well be that HK is the clockwork universe, to the extent that
Aristo's physics is compatable with such an idea. And if most events are
caused by the sikhiliim nivdalim we call mal'akhim and they have no free
will, it is pretty deterministic based on pre-established rules.

However, the fate of a bird isn't a product of what's most appropriate
for that particular bird. Unlike the case of events that occur to people,
or at least to those who get HP. It's hashgachah minis or hashgachah
kelalis, depending on whether the rishon is looking to the fate of the
species (HM) or to the Divine Wisdom inherent in natural law (HK) --
but it's still hashgachah. (In reality the two terms when used at all
appear to be used interchangably.)

...
: >However, one needn't add miqreh or bechirah and still have a mixture, not
: >either extreme. This one-or-the-other that RDR presents is false. Second,
: >even with only bechirah chafshi added to the mix, we still have a universe
: >without randomness.

: I don't understand this paragraph.  I was using "randomness" to mean 
: "not predetermined by God", which is how its used by rishonim.  Clearly 
: RMB has another definition, but I don't know what it is.  Behirah 
: requires mikreh (actually Spinoza tried to be machria, but he was after 
: Descartes).

I was using randomness to mean not determined by anything previous to
itself. Causeless. Thus, something that happens because I decided to do
it isn't "random", as I think of the word.

:>I'm not sure, therefore that *every* rishon believes in a random
:>element. It could be that everything is either clockwork, HP or another's
:>bechirah.

: No! Clockwork is an anachronism.  It's not that rishonim considered it 
: and rejected it.  It is a concept which had not yet been formulated.  In 
: the middle ages intermediaries (laws of nature) implied randomness, and 
: determinism implied the absence of intermediaries.

Whereas I'm arguing that the debate between Epicurus and Aristotle
was about this exact point. Epicurus thought that there were events
that "just happened", whereas Aristotle believed that events come
from intellects turning the potential into the actual, and therefore
everything can ultimately be traced back to Divine Wisdom. The only
thing is, that Wisdom usually is that there should be a rule, and not
that this particular case should have this particular outcome.

E.g. from the Internet Encylopedia of Philosophy (@ Georgia State U)
<http://www.iep.utm.edu/e/epicur.htm#SH3d>:
> One important aspect of Epicurus' philosophy is his desire to replace
> teleological (goal-based) explanations of natural phenomena with
> mechanistic ones. His main target is mythological explanations of
> meteorological occurrences and the like in terms of the will of the
> gods. Because Epicurus wishes to banish the fear of the gods, he insists
> that occurrences like earthquakes and lightning can be explained
> entirely in atomic terms and are not due to the will of the gods.
> Epicurus is also against the intrinsic teleology of philosophers like
> Aristotle. Teeth appear to be well-designed for the purpose of chewing.
> Aristotle thinks that this apparent purposiveness in nature cannot be
> eliminated, and that the functioning of the parts of organisms must
> be explained by appealing to how they contribute to the functioning of
> the organism as a whole. Other philosophers, such as the Stoics, took
> this apparent design as evidence for the intelligence and benevolence
> of God. Epicurus, however, following Empedocles, tries to explain away
> this apparent purposiveness in nature in a proto-Darwinian way, as the
> result of a process of natural selection.

When seen in contrast to Epicurus, because Aristo believed in teleological
causes (things happening for a purpose), he did have a non-random
universe. All of nature was the product of someone's will. It's not quite
clockwork, since that presumes that intellect doesn't change things
once the "clock" was built. Which is why I said "clockwork ... or"
in my earlier post.

In Aristo's worldview, natural events are the product of Divine Purpose
on the species or constant-law scale. Which is why I spoke of it in
Hebrew as HM or HK. Such events aren't random, in the sense of their
being deterministic. But they aren't HP, in the sense of being what's
appropriate for this perat.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             Man is capable of changing the world for the
micha at aishdas.org        better if possible, and of changing himself for
http://www.aishdas.org   the better if necessary.
Fax: (270) 514-1507            - Victor Frankl, Man's search for Meaning