The fifth opinion is our opinion, I mean the opinion of our Law. I shall let you know about it what has been literally stated in the books of our prophets and is believed by the multitude of our scholars 5 I shall also inform you of what is believed by some13 of our latter-day scholars; and I shall also let you know what I myself believe about this. I say then: It is a funda¬ mental principle of the Law of Moses our Master, peace be on him, and of all those who follow it that man has an absolute ability to act; I mean to say that in virtue of his nature, his choice, and his will, he may do everything that it is within the capacity of man to do, and this without there being created for his benefit in any way any newly produced thing. Similarly all the species of animals move in virtue of their own will. And He has willed it so; I mean to say that it comes from His eternal volition in the eternity a parte ante that all animals should move in virtue of their will and that man should have the ability to do whatever he wills or chooses among the things concerning which he has the ability to act. This is a fundamental principle about which — praise be to God! — no disagreement has ever been heard within our religious community. It is likewise one of the fundamental principles of the Law of Moses our Master that it is in no way possible that He, may He be exalted, should be unjust, and that all the calamities that befall men and the good things that come to men, be it a single individual or a group, are all of them determined according to the deserts of the men concerned through equitable judgment in which there is no injustice what¬ ever. Thus if some individual were wounded in the hand by a thorn, which he would take out immediately, this would be a punishment for him, and if he received | the slightest pleasure, this would be a reward for him — all this being according to his deserts. Thus He, may He be exalted, says: For all His ways are judgment., and so on}* But we are ignorant of the various modes of deserts.
I have summed up these opinions for you as follows: All the various circumstances of the individuals among the Adamites are considered by Aristotle as due to pure chance, by the Ashcarite as consequent on will alone,15 by the Muctazila as consequent on wisdom,16 and by us as conse¬ quent on the individual’s deserts, according to his actions. For this reason the 13. Or: one. 14. Deut. 32:4. ig. I. e., the divine will.
16. I.e., the divine wisdom.
The Guide of the Perplexed III • 17 [ 35 b Ashcarite considers it as permissible that God should punish17 an excellent and good man in this world and make him subsist eternally in that fire which is said to be in the other world. One merely says: He willed it so. The Muctazila consider that this is injustice 5 and that one that has been punished, be it even an ant, as I have mentioned to you, receives a compensation; and that the fact that the being in question was punished in order to receive a compensation is consequent on His wisdom. As for us, we believe that all the human circumstances are according to the deserts, that He is exalted above injustice, and that among us only those deserving punishment are punished. This is what is stated literally in the Torah of Moses our Master, namely, that everything is consequent upon the deserts; and the multitude of our scholars also speak in accordance with this opinion. For you will find them saying explicitly: There is no death without sin, and no sufferings without transgression,18 And they also say: A man is measured with the measure he uses himself f this is the text of the Mishnah. And in every pas¬ sage they state clearly that for Him, may He be exalted, justice is necessary and obligatory; namely, that an obedient individual receives compensation for all the pious and righteous actions he has accomplished, even if he was not ordered by a prophet to do them, and that he is punished for all evil acts committed by him, even if he was not forbidden by a prophet to do them; this being forbidden | by the inborn disposition — I refer to the prohibition against wrongdoing and injustice. Thus they say: The Holy One, blessed be He, does not withhold from any creature that which it has deserved.20 They also say: Everyone that says that the Holy One, blessed be He, is indul¬ gent [in forgiving ] should have his bowels torn. Rather is He long-suffering, but He exacts what is due to Him.21 And: He who does [a thing] having been commanded [to do it] does not resemble him who does [it] without having been commanded 22 Thus they have made it clear that even he who has not been charged with a commandment is given his reward. All their discourse con¬ sistently conforms to this principle. However, in the discourse of the Sages, there occurs something additional over and above what is to be found in the text of the Torah, namely, the dictum of some of them regarding the 17. Unjustly, according to human judgment. 18. B.T., Shabbath, 55a.
ao. B.T., Baba Qamma, 38b; B.T., Pesahim, 118a.
21. Genesis Kabbah, LXVII; B.T., Baba Qamma, 50a.
22. B.T., Qiddushin, 31a; B.T., Baba Qamma, 87a; B.T., cAbodah Zarah, 3a. The talmudic text that has come down to us differs somewhat from Maimonides’ quotation. It may be translated: He who has been commanded [to do a thing ] and does Tit] is greater than he who does without having been commanded.
5 6a ] The Guide of the Perplexed III • 17 ^7/ sufferings of love.2S For according to this opinion, sometimes misfortunes befall an individual not because of his having sinned before, but in order that his reward should be greater. This is also the teaching of the Muhazila. But there is no text in the Torah expressing this notion. For you should not be led into error by what is said about putting to trial, as when God put Abraham to a trial,24 and as when it says: And He afflicted thee, and suffered thee to hunger, and so on 25 You shall hear the discourse about this later on.26 Our Law is exclusively concerned with the circumstances of human individuals; and in ancient times the story of this compensation accorded to animals has never been heard in our religious community;27 nor was it ever mentioned by one of the Sages. But some28 of the latter-day Gaonim, may their memory be blessed, have heard it from the Muctazila and have approved of it and believed it.
As for my own belief with regard to this fundamental principle, I mean divine providence, it is as I shall set it forth to you. In this belief that I shall set forth, I am not relying upon the conclusion to which demonstration has led me, but upon what has clearly appeared as the intention of the book of God and of the books of our prophets. This opinion, which I believe, is less disgraceful than the preceding opinions and nearer than they to intellectual reasoning. For I for one believe that j in this lowly world — I mean that which is beneath the sphere of the moon — divine providence watches only over the individuals belonging to the human species and that in this species alone all the circumstances of the individuals and the good and evil that befall them are consequent upon the deserts, just as it says: For all His ways are judg¬ ment,29 But regarding all the other animals and, all the more, the plants and other things, my opinion is that of Aristotle. For I do not by any means believe that this particular leaf has fallen because of a providence watching over it 5 nor that this spider has devoured this fly because God has now decreed and willed something concerning individuals; nor that the spittle spat by Zayd has moved till it came down in one particular place upon a gnat and killed it by a divine decree and judgment; nor that when this fish snatched this worm from the face of the water, this happened in virtue of a divine volition concerning individuals. For all this is in my opinion due to pure chance, just as Aristotle holds. According to me, as I consider the matter, divine providence is consequent upon the divine overflow; and the species 27. milla. 28. Or: one. 29. Deut. 32:4.
The Guide of the Perplexed III • 17 [ 366 with which this intellectual overflow is united, so that it became endowed with intellect and so that everything that is disclosed to a being en¬ dowed with the intellect was disclosed to it, is the one accompanied by divine providence, which appraises30 all its actions31 from the point of view of reward and punishment. If, as he32 states, the foundering of a ship and the drowning of those who were in it and the falling-down of a roof upon those who were in the house, are due to pure chance, the fact that the people in the ship went on board and that the people in the house were sitting in it is, according to our opinion, not due to chance, but to divine will in accor¬ dance with the deserts of those people as determined in His judgments, the rule of which cannot be attained by our intellects.
I was impelled to adopt this | belief by the fact that I never found in the book of a prophet a text mentioning that God has a providence watching over one of the animal individuals, but only over a human individual. The prophets are even sometimes astonished because providence watches over human individuals — man being too insignificant for providence to watch over him — and all the more, over the other animals. Thus it says: What is man, that Thou takest knowledge of him, and so on.55 What is man, that Thou art mindful of him, and so on.34 Sometimes, however, there are clear texts concerning providence watching over all the human individuals and exercising a surveillance over all their actions. Thus: He that fashioneth the hearts of them all, that consider eth all their works. 35 It says: For Thine eyes are open upon all the ways of the sons of man, to give every one according to his ways.56 It is also said: For His eyes are upon the ways of man, and He seeth all his goings.51 The Torah too sometimes makes explicit statements concerning providence watching over human individuals and exercising a surveillance over their actions. Thus it says: Nevertheless in the day when I visit, I will visit their sin upon them.56 And: Whosoever hath sinned against Me, him will I blot out of My book.59 And: That same soul will I destroy.*0 And: I will even set My face against that soul.*5 Such statements occur frequently. And all the stories figuring [in Scripture] concerning Abraham and Isaac and Jacob are an absolute proof of there being an individual pro¬ vidence. As for the other individuals of animals, the position with regard to them is indubitably as Aristotle sees it. For this reason killing them and 30. qaddarat. The word also means “determines”; it is possible that it was this latter sense that Maimonides had in view in this passage.
31. I.e., those of the individuals belonging to this species.
37a ] The Guide of the Perplexed III • 17 employing them usefully, as we wish, has been permitted and even en¬ joined. A proof that there is no providence watching over the animals other than man, except the kind of providence mentioned by Aristotle, may be found in the dictum of the prophet when he saw Nebuchadnezzar's tyranny and his great massacres of people. For the prophet says: 0 Lord, it is as if men were neglected and abandoned like fishes and insects of the earth 5 he indicates by this dictum that these species are neglected. For this is what he says: And makest man as the fishes of the sea, as the creeping things, that have no | ruler over them. They take up all of them with the angle, and so on A2 Thereupon,43 however, the prophet explains that this is not so 5 that what happened was not due to neglect and the withdrawal of providence, but was a punishment for those men because they deserved what befell them. For he says: O Lord, thou hast ordained them for judgment, and Thou, O Rock, hast established them for correction,44 Do not think that this opinion may be refuted in opposition to me by means of its dicta: He giveth to the beast his food, and so on;*5 The young lions roar after their prey, and so on;*6 Thou openest Thy hand, and satisfiest every living thing with favor;*1 and also by means of the dictum of the Sages: He is seated and feeds all things from the horns of buffaloes to the eggs of lice.*6 You will find many such texts; but there is nothing in them that disproves this opinion of mine. For all these texts refer to providence watch¬ ing over the species and not to individual providence. It is as if they described His bounty, may He be exalted, which prepares for every species the food necessary for it and the matter for its subsistence. This is clear and manifest. Aristotle likewise holds that this kind of providence is necessary and exists. Alexander49 too mentions this concerning Aristotle, namely, the preparation of the existence of the food required by every species for its individuals. Were it not for this, the species would indubitably perish. This is clear upon the slightest consideration. As for their dictum: [ To avoid causing ] suffering to animals is [an injunction to be found ] in the Torah50 — in which they refer to its dictum: Wherefore hast thou smitten thine she-ass 51 — it is set down with a view to perfecting us so that we should not acquire moral habits of cruelty and should not inflict pain gratuitously without any utility, but that we should intend to be kind and merciful even with a chance animal individual, 42. Hab. 1:14-15.
45. Actually Maimonides here refers to verses preceding those he has just quoted.
46. Ps. 104:21. The verse continues: and seek their food from God. 47. Ps. 145:16.
51. Num. 22:32, 20 The Guide of the Perplexed III • 18 [ 37 b except in case of need — Because thy soul desireth to eat flesh 52 — for we must not kill out of cruelty or for sport. It does not follow for me that by virtue of this opinion, one may pose to me the following question, namely: Why does He watch over the human individuals, and does not watch in the same way over the individuals | belonging to the other species of animals? For he who propounds this question ought to ask himself: Why did He give intellect to man and not to the other species of animals? The answer to this last question is: He willed it so; or, His wisdom has required this to be so; or, nature has required this to be so — all according to which of the three preceding opinions one adopts. Now the selfsame answers may be given to the first question.
Grasp my opinion up to its last implications. I do not believe that any¬ thing is hidden from Him, may He be exalted, nor do I attribute to Him a lack of power. But I believe that providence is consequent upon the intel¬ lect and attached to it. For providence can only come from an intelligent being, from One who is an intellect perfect with a supreme perfection, than which there is no higher. Accordingly everyone with whom something of this overflow is united, will be reached by providence to the extent to which he is reached by the intellect. This is the opinion that to my mind corre¬ sponds to the intelligible and to the texts of the Law. As for the three preced¬ ing opinions, they either are excessive or they fall short. Those that are excessive lead to an absolute confusion and to contesting the intelligible and to opposing what is perceived by the senses; whereas the others that greatly fall short entail most vicious beliefs concerning the deity, as well as the ruin of order in human existence and the obliteration of all good qualities of man, both the moral and the rational. I am referring to the opinion of those who abolish providence with respect to human individuals, putting the latter on a par with the individuals of the other species of animals.
CHAPTER 18 After what I have stated before about providence singling out the human XJL species | alone among all the species of animals, I say that it is known that no species exists outside the mind, but that the species and the other universals are, as you know, mental notions and that every existent outside the mind is an individual or a group of individuals. This being known, it is 52. Deut. 12: 20.
3 86] The Guide of the Perplexed III -18 also known that the divine overflow that exists united to the human species, I mean the human intellect, is merely what exists as individual intellects — that is, what has overflowed toward Zayd, cUmar, Khalid, and Bakr. Now if this is so, it follows necessarily according to what I have mentioned in the preceding chapter that when any human individual has obtained, because of the disposition of his matter and his training, a greater portion of this overflow than others, providence will of necessity watch more carefully over him than over others — if, that is to say, providence is, as I have mentioned, consequent upon the intellect. Accordingly divine providence does not watch in an equal manner over all the individuals of the human species, but providence is graded as their human perfection is graded. In accordance with this speculation it follows necessarily that His providence, may He be exalted, that watches over the prophets is very great and proportionate to their degree in prophecy and that His providence that watches over excel¬ lent and righteous men is proportionate to their excellence and righteous¬ ness. For it is this measure of the overflow of the divine intellect that makes the prophets speak, guides the actions of righteous men, and perfects the knowledge of excellent men with regard to what they know. As for the ignorant and disobedient, their state is despicable proportionately to their lack of this overflow, and they have been relegated to the rank of the indi¬ viduals of all the other species of animals: He is like the beasts that speak not? For this reason it is a light thing to kill them, and has been even enjoined because of its utility. This matter is one of the fundamental principles of the Law, which is built upon it, I mean to say upon the principle that providence watches over [ each human individual in the manner proper to him.
Consider in what way the texts [of Scripture] speak of providence watching over the details of the circumstances of the Patriarchs in their various activities and even in their acquisition of property, and what they were promised in consequence of providence accompanying them. It was said to Abraham: I am thy shield.2 And to Isaac: And I will be with thee, and will bless thee? And to Jacob: And, behold, I am with thee, and will keep thee whithersoever thou goest? And to the Master of the prophets: Certainly I will be with thee? And to Joshua: As I was with Moses, so I will be with thee? All these are explicit affirmations of providence watching over them according to the measure of their perfection. With regard to providence watching over excellent men and neglecting the ignorant, it is said: He will keep the 476 The Guide of the Perplexed III ■ 18 [ 39a feet of His holy ones, but the wicked shall be put to silence in darkness; for not by strength shall man prevail.'1 It says thereby that the fact that some individuals are preserved from calamities, whereas those befall others, is due not to their bodily forces and their natural dispositions — this being the meaning of the dictum, For not by strength shall man prevail — but to their perfection and deficiency, I mean their nearness to, or remoteness from, God. For this reason, those who are near to Him are exceedingly well pro¬ tected: He will keep the feet of His holy ones; whereas those who are far from Him are given over to whatever may happen to befall them. For there is nothing to protect them against whatever may occur; for they are like one walking in darkness, whose destruction is assured. With regard to providence watching over the excellent ones, it is also said: He keepeth all his bones, and so on;8 The eyes of the Lord are toward the righteous, and so on;9 He shall call upon Me, and I will answer him, and so on.10 The texts that occur with regard to this notion are so numerous that they cannot be counted; I refer to the notion of providence watching over human individuals according to the measure of their perfection and excellence. The philosophers too men¬ tion this notion. Abu Nasr [al-Farabl] says in the Introduction to his Com¬ mentary on Aristotle’s “Nicomachean [Ethics]”:11 | Those who have the capacity of making their soul pass from one moral quality to another are those of whom Plato has said that God’s providence watches over them to a higher degree.
Consider how this kind of consideration has conducted us to the knowl¬ edge of the correctness of what all the prophets, may peace be on them, have said concerning individual providence watching over each individual in particular according to the measure of his perfection, and how this con¬ sideration follows necessarily from the point of view of speculation, provided that, as we have mentioned, providence is consequent upon the intellect. It would not be proper for us to say that providence watches over the species and not the individuals, as is the well-known opinion of some philosophic schools. For outside the mind nothing exists except the individuals; it is to these individuals that the divine intellect is united. Consequently providence watches only over these individuals. Consider this chapter as it ought to be considered; for through it all the fundamental principles of the Law will become safe for you and conformable for you to speculative philosophic opinions; disgraceful views will be abolished; and the form of providence, as it is, will become clear to you.
10. Ps. 91:15. 11. This commentary seems to be lost.
39^] The Guide of the Perplexed III • 19 477 After we have mentioned the opinion of people engaged in speculation concerning providence and the manner in which God governs the world, I shall also sum up for you the opinion of the people of our religious com¬ munity concerning knowledge12 and a discourse of mine about this.
CHAPTER 19 No doubt it is a primary notion that all good things must exist in God and that with regard to Him all deficiencies must be denied. It is almost a primary notion that ignorance with regard to anything whatever is a deficiency and that He, may He be exalted, is ignorant of nothing. However what incited, as I have mentioned to you, some 1 of the people of speculation to have the temerity to say, He knows thus and not otherwise, was what they imagined as to the lack of order in the circumstances of the human individuals. Yet most of these circumstances are not merely natural, but also consequent upon the fact that man is endowed with the ability to act and with reflection. The prophets have already mentioned that the ignorant infer that the deity has no knowledge of our actions merely from the fact that they see wicked people living in prosperity and abundance. For this impels the excellent man to think that his inclination toward the good and the hard¬ ships due to the opposition of others that he endures because of that, are useless. Thereupon the prophet has mentioned that he had let his thought wander freely with regard to this subject until it had become clear to him that things should be considered as they are in their final outcome and not in their beginnings. This is how he describes the order of all these thoughts. He says: And they say: How doth God know? And is there knowledge in the Most High? Behold, such are the wicked ) and they that are always at ease increase riches. Surely in vain have I cleansed my heart, and washed my hands in innocency.2 Then he says: And when I pondered how I might know this, it was wearisome in mine eyes,■ until I entered into the sanctuary of God, and considered their end. Surely in slippery places, and so on.3 How are they a desolation in a moment, and so on* These same thoughts are mentioned by