39. What Divine Providence Isn't
Historically, there are four positions that people have held regarding God's divine providence. [III, 17] They are as follows:
1) There is no providence. The universe is the result of a freak accident and everything that happens in it is random, with neither rhyme nor reason. The Rambam tells us that this was the position subscribed to by the philosopher Epicurus, as well as by Jewish atheists in the time of Jeremiah, as seen in Jeremiah 5:12, "They have slandered God and said He is not; evil will not come upon us, nor will we see sword or famine."
2) Part of the universe is subject to providence but another part of it is random. This is the position of Aristotle. According to this ideology, God created and maintains the heavenly bodies. These bodies are responsible for the existence of other things but providence only extends to these other things in the most general sense, not to each member individually. For example, when a storm blows, a tree loses a branch and a ship is sunk. According to proponents of this position, there's no difference between the broken branch and the lives lost. The universe is managed but only the heavenly bodies are maintained per se. An anthill being stepped on and a town being wiped out are equally the result of random chance and not providence. This is the belief of those cited in Ezekiel 9:9, "...they say God has forsaken the land and God does not see."
3) The third philosophy is the opposite of the second. This position maintains that absolutely nothing in the universe is left to chance. Absolutely everything that happens is the result of God's specific intention. This was the opinion of certain early Muslim philosophers called Ash'ari. Like Aristotle, they would say that the wind blowing leaves off a tree carries the same weight as the people killed in the sunken ship. Unlike Aristotle, they would not say that the loss of human life was random; rather, they would say that the leaves were specifically blown off at that time and in that place by God's will. The Rambam finds several flaws in this theory. For example, according to this philosophy, nothing is "possible" - everything either must be or cannot be. This renders the entire idea of commandments moot, as no one can do anything of his own volition. Accordingly, we would find that prophets deliver rebuke because it is God's will that they do so, but man possesses no capacity to do other than that which is preordained for him. Reward and punishment would be completely unrelated to man's deeds, rendering God's actions in setting a moral code pointless. Therefore, the Rambam concludes that this concept is untenable.
4) Man possesses free will so it makes sense for God to command us to do some things and to prohibit us from doing others. The attendant reward and punishment also makes sense. Everything God does is just and He doesn't afflict good people. The Islamic sect called the Mu'tazila professed this belief, though they did not believe that man's free will is absolute and they did believe that God oversees such minutiae as falling leaves and stepped-on anthills. The Rambam finds this position rife with contradictions as well. According to this theory, some people are born with defects not because they sinned but because God's wisdom says that it's better that way, even though we can't understand why. It's therefore not a punishment, it's a sign of God's goodness. The same is true when righteous people are slaughtered; it increases their reward. This seems reasonable enough but in response to the question of why is God only just to man and not to other species, things fall apart. Why is a deer or a cow slaughtered? The Mu'tazila would answer that it is good for the animal, which receives reward. What about the flea killed by a person, or the mouse killed by a cat? They, too, are rewarded. The concept of reward for animals is too ridiculous for the Rambam to entertain.
The Rambam does not find it appropriate to blame the proponents of theories #2-4 for their misguided views. Aristotle was guided to his conclusions by his observations. The Ash'ari preferred a theory with logical flaws to suggesting some limitation on the part of God. The Mu'tazila refused to accept that anything God does wasn't based on justice, but they also insisted that inflicting suffering on the innocent is wrong, leading to some necessary mental gymnastics on their part. Well-meaning as these positions may be, they are all flawed to one degree or another.