[Avodah] "God who knows the future"

[Lampel]

> RDC:
<The Ramban is particularly hard to decipher because he is not a full 
blown adherent of the Kalam - - he does think that nature exists as more 
than a delusion, but he also thinks that God regularly overrules nature 
(in fact, he thinks that the overruling itself follows laws).>

--only in the same way the Rambam does: that Hashem makes nature react 
favorably or unfavorably in response to man's actions.

*The Rambam* in /Ma'amar Techiass HaMeisim/, citing /pesukim/ and 
/Chazal/, distinguishes between miracles that involve the change of the 
nature of things, and those that merely manipulate natural possibilities 
without making changes in the intrinsic make-up of things. (E.g., they 
either intensify natural events, make natural processes uniquely effect 
specific locales or peoples, or make different natural phenomena 
coincide.) The former, alone, are "inherently non-natural." And the 
Rambam insists that such "changes-of-nature" type miracles last only 
temporarily, and that those things whose nature changed must eventually 
revert to their former nature ---the same point he made in the /Moreh. 
/(He adds that this serves to strengthen their status as miracles). On 
these grounds, he rejects a literal understanding of "the lion living 
peacefully with the lamb" in messianic times, because that entails a 
non-reverting and forwardly ongoing change, for an indefinite time, in 
the nature of beasts.

(2) *The Ramban, *concerning this rejection of the literal meaning of 
"the lion living peacefully with the lamb" in messianic times, raises 
two objections, one based on authority, and one based on logic:

(a)A /braissa/ has talmudic authorities taking the peaceful lion 
/pesukim/ literally

(b)The Rambam, as stated above, admits that some miracles can last 
permanently once initiated, such as that of nature reacting to man's 
behavior in a pattern of reward and punishment. The Ramban asks: Since 
the Rambam so admits that //some// phenomena that are miracles can last 
permanently, and that temporariness is not necessarily a factor for a 
miracle to exist, why not allow that to be so for /all /kinds of 
miracles across the board? Why create a distinction in durability 
between two types of miracles? The Ramban is not pointing out a shift in 
the Rambam's position. He is pointing out what he believes to be an 
unnecessary factor in the Rambam's formula: namely, that according to 
the Rambam's consistent view regarding the "/efshar/" (feasible) type of 
miracles, explicated in /Ma'amar Techiyas HaMeisim/, the Rambam admits 
that miracles don't //by definition// have to be temporary. That 
admission, according to the Ramban, leaves it unnecessary to posit 
imposed temporariness on /any/ miracles, including the "non-/efshar/" 
type. The Ramban, /contra/ Rambam, does not accept that the /pesukim/ 
and /Chazal/ saying that nothing is new under the sun, and that the 
world runs according to nature, compels one to make an unbreakable rule 
that Hashem will never enact permanent changes in the natures of things. 
There is therefore no reason, the Ramban says, for the Rambam to deny 
the literal interpretation of the /pesukim/ describing a permanent 
change in the nature of beasts in the messianic era.

Zvi Lampel
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