[Avodah] Rambam's naturalism

[Micha Berger]

On Thu, Mar 05, 2009 at 04:58:35PM +0200, Michael Makovi wrote:
: 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.

That's looking at the background, not the figure. The Rambam is talking
about the chafshi nature of bechirah chafshi. It doesn't necessarily
mean natural law in distinction to other Divine Action. He is clearly
rebutting the notion of things being fated. To quote (Gorfinkle's
translation of Ibn Tibon):
    The statement found in the sayings of the Rabbis, "All is in
    the power of God except the fear of God" is, nevertheless, true,
    and in accord with what we have laid down here. Men are, however,
    very often prone to err in supposing that many of their actions,
    in reality the result of their own free will, are forced upon them,
    as, for instance, marrying a certain woman, or acquiring a certain
    amount of money. Such a supposition is untrue. If a man espouses
    and marry a woman legally, then she becomes his lawful wife, and by
    his marrying her he has fulfilled the divine command to increase
    and multiply. God, however, does not decree the fulfillment of a
    commandment. If, on the other hand, a man has consummated with a
    woman an unlawful marriage, he has committed a transgression. But
    God does not decree that a man shall sin....

(IOW, a talmid of the Rambam would not speak of his "bashert.)

Where do you see anything about other limitations on where natural
law applies?

: 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

Ralbag.
...

: 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.

That's a very hard position to support. Will is something Intellect has.
Basic Aristotilian physics: Intellect has Will, which imparts Impetus,
which then changes the Potential into the Actual -- it does things. An
overflow of Active Intellect includes events. See his discussion of
mal'akhim as sikhiliim nivdalim. It's as though there is a bucket brigade
handling this overflow until it reaches the level of gashmius.

: 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.

Look at the context of Moreh III:18. Ch 16 introduces "hakol tzafui
vehareshus nesunah." Ch 17 gives four theories about free will and
providence.

1- [Epicurus: -mb] There is no providence (Epicurus -mb)
2- Aristo: Providence only deals with things that don't change, the rest
   is chance
3- Ashariyah: Determinism
4- Chazal: Man has free will, and therefore subject to sechar va'onesh.

Then chapter 18 redefines this 4th opinion by saying the different
homosapiens are more or less in the class of "people" WRT hashgachah
peratis and sechar va'onesh.

And chap 18 includes: "For it is the intensity of the Divine
intellectual influence that has inspired the prophets, guided the good
in their actions, and perfected the wisdom of the pious."

Which makes sense only within light of what I wrote above, that saying
something was done by Divine Will *means* His Intellect willed it.

>From later in the pereq:
> Now consider how by this method of reasoning we have arrived at the
> truth taught by the Prophets, that every person has his individual
> share of Divine Providence in proportion to his perfection. For
> philosophical research leads to this conclusion, if we assume, as has
> been mentioned above, that Divine Providence is in each case
> proportional to the person's intellectual development. It is wrong to
> say that Divine Providence extends only to the species, and not to
> individual beings, as some of the philosophers teach. For only
> individual beings have real existence, and individual beings are
> endowed with Divine Intellect; Divine Providence acts, therefore, upon
> these individual beings.

Returning to RMM:
: 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.

Well, since Sedom was evil, then the Rambam's reasoning leads one to
conclude it was cast off to hashgachah kelalis because of a lack of
intellectual perfection. Therefore its destruction had to be part of a
general rule.

The alternative would be to assert that there was enough good in Sodom
to merit having their sin expiated through HP meting out onesh.

The example does not reflect reward as well, since there someone who
merits HP is getting rewarded through HP, and thus Novel.

-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             "'When Adar enters, we increase our joy'
micha at aishdas.org         'Joy is nothing but Torah.'
http://www.aishdas.org    'And whoever does more, he is praiseworthy.'"
Fax: (270) 514-1507                     - Rav Dovid Lifshitz zt"l