Evil and Providence in Maimonides’S Guide of the Perplexed

By Modestus Anyaegbu

Maimonidess rationalist rejection and interpretation of anthropomorphism play a major part in his reading of the problem of evil and providence in the guide of the perplexed. The debate has been on finding an explanation as to why the righteous suffer and the vicious prosper in a world under the providence of a divine Creator. The anthropomorphic bent given to the legendary case of the biblical Job has given us the concept of God as a personal agent. But confronted with the reality of his innocent suffering, this image of God leaves much to be desired. We shall argue that Maimonidess theory of providence as consequent upon the intellect and evil as consequent upon the absence of intellectual perfection are based on the concept of God as existence. It is the absence of intellectual perfection that marks man qua animal and leaves him open to chance occurrences and evil.

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The present work places before us the strange position and it must be saida little bit shocking to us, of the great Jewish thinker on the question of providence. Only the intelligent, that is to say, the human beings who have effectively actualized their intellects and have come to an accomplished knowledge, are considered and personally protected by the Eternal. In other words, the traditional piety that is usually asked of the believers by religious authorities is not sufficient. This piety is still marked by illusion and does not procure for man the true knowledge of God which is worthy of him. The individual ought to overcome pietistic representations in order to open himself to divine truth which is accessible only through knowledge. This is what the Book of Job illustrates . . . At the time when the actuality does not cease to present before us the question of the status of religion and the religious within modernity, the attempt by Maimonides to articulate these two styles carries an indisputable force of conviction as shown with abundant evidence in the work presented by Modestus Anyaegbu.

Jean-Michel Counet, president of the Institut Suprieur de Philosophie, Universit Catholique de Louvain, Belgium.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Nov 21, 2014
• ISBN: 9781503512443

Modestus Anyaegbu

Modestus Anyaegbu is a priest of the Diocese of Awka, Nigeria. After obtaining his bachelor’s degrees in both Philosophy (BPhil) and Theology (BTh) from Bigard Memorial Seminary, Enugu, Nigeria, he obtained both his licentiate and doctoral degree (PhD) in philosophy from the Université Catholique de Louvain, Belgium. He is interested in placing philosophy at the service of faith and making the ordinary believer come to a better understanding of the object of his belief. It is the special field of medieval philosophy that has provided him a springboard for that enriching interaction between faith and reason.

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Copyright © 2015 by Modestus Anyaegbu.

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CONTENTS

Dedication

Acknowledgements

Preface

General Introduction

Chapter 1 The Various Strands of Interpretation in the Guide

Chapter 2 Matter, Privation and Evil

2.1 Matter and the Problem of Origin

2.2 Matter as Source of Evil

2.3 Privation

2.4 Evil and its Types

2.4.1 Evils as a result of Matter

2.4.2 Social Evils (Evils Inflicted upon Others)

2.4.3 Moral Evils (Self-Inflicted Evils)

2.5 Summary

Chapter 3 The Metaphysical Foundations of His Theory of Providence

3.1 His Working Conception of God

3.1.1 The Necessarily Existent Being as the I AM THAT I AM of Exodus 3: 14

3.1.2 From the Attributes: What Concept of God?

3.2 On Cosmology

3.3 On the Active Intellect

3.3.4 Moses Maimonides

Chapter 4 Maimonides on Divine Providence

4.1 The Five Opinions on Providence

4.2 Maimonides’s View: Providence as Consequent upon the Intellect:

Chapter 5 Evil and Providence in the Book of Job

5.1 Examining Parables:

5.2 Identity and Origin of Job:

5.3 ‘Us’ as an Equivocal Word:

5.4 Satan: An Allegorical Figure

5.5 The Perfection of the First Job:

5.6 Job’s Friends and Providence:

5.7 Providence according to Elihu

5.8 The Recourse to Revelation and its Contents

5.9 Summary

Chapter 6 Job and Maimonides’s Four Perfections

6.1 Material Perfection:

6.2 Bodily Perfection:

6.3 Moral Perfection

6.4 Rational Perfection

6.4.1 Rational Perfection and Individual Immortality?

Chapter 7 The Supposed Contradictions in Maimonides’s Teaching on Providence?

7.1 Conclusion

Chapter 8 Adam’s Fall as Consequent upon The Absence of Providence

8.1 Intellect as the Medium of Divine Providence

8.2 Image and Likeness: Meaning and Implications

8.3 Garden of Eden: Original State of Perfection

8.4 Adam as an Equivocal Term

8.5 Equivocality of the term ‘Elohim:’

8.6 The Argument of the Objector

8.7 Maimonides’s Response to the Objector

8.8 Looking at Genesis 3 through Job 14:20 and Psalm 49:13

8.9 The Skeptical Interpretation of Genesis 3 through Job 14:20

Chapter 9 The Ambivalent Nature of Imagination in the Thought of Maimonides

General Conclusion

Selected Bibliography

Dedication

In loving memory of late Bishop Simon Akwali Okafor (+2014)

Acknowledgements

I wish to express my gratitude to Most Rev Valerian Okeke, who as my Rector at Bigard Memorial Seminary in 2001 recommended and got me a scholarship to study philosophy at the Université Catholique de Louvain, (UCL) Belgium. He opened the door of opportunities for me and since I walked through that door, it has been one enriching experience after another. I thank Most Rev Simon Akwali Okafor, the late Bishop of Awka Diocese, for granting me the permission to further my studies, and supporting me throughout the years of my studies. That permission and support were extended by my local ordinary, Most Rev Paulinus Ezeokafor. To him I express my immense gratitude. Kirche in Not is the organization that financed my stay and studies at the University. I remain immensely grateful to her for the privilege granted me.

At the University, I met a lot of professors but the one who made a big impression on me is Professor Jean-Michel Counet. His numerous and erudite lectures in medieval philosophy changed my perspective and opened my vision to a rich wealth of philosophical tradition that I would otherwise not have paid attention to. It is thanks to him that I discovered among others, the immense riches hidden in the thoughts of two medieval philosophy giants: St. Thomas Aquinas and Moses Maimonides. I thank him immensely for being my research promoter, for journeying with me throughout those long and hard years of intense research and writing of my doctoral thesis, and for writing the preface to this book. This book has without doubt profited immensely from his wealth of experience and suggestions.

In a special way, I reserve special thanks to Monseigneur André-Mutien LEONARD, who as the Bishop of Namur Diocese in Belgium granted me insertion into the pastoral service. The experience has been very enriching. To the various parishioners I have met in my various assignments, my special thanks to you all for helping me know more about the human person and the human family. I thank Benjamin Ezulike, Dr. Joseph Chudi Ibeanu for attentively reading through the original draft of this book and making constructive remarks. To my numerous friends and colleagues: Casmir Nnubia, Eusebius Onyeche, Martin Ichoku, Michael Olumba, Hyacinth Ibeh, Joseph Biyaga, Ignatius Nze, Patrick Okoye, Chike Uba, Samuel Ukeje I offer my gratitude for your encouragement and support through thick and thin.

My best gratitude goes to you my father: Chief Matthew C. Anyaegbu for the sacrifices you made to see me achieve my life’s dreams. My mother Lolo Angela Anyaegbu has been a pillar of support throughout the years. I remain eternally indebted to both of you. My siblings: Ifeoma Chukwuekezie, Ikechukwu Anyaegbu, Barr. Ogechukwu Ajah, Uche Ezeonyeka, Tochukwu and Uju Anyaegbu, Chidimma Onwuasoanya, Dr. Amara Anyaegbu; my numerous in-laws, nephews, nieces and cousins, I thank you all for your wonderful companionship and friendship that have provided a solid backbone for my life’s endeavors. To all others who I have at heart, but whose names have not been mentioned here, I remain ever appreciative of what you are and have been for me.

Preface

The work that Modestus Anyaegbu presents to us possesses some incontestable qualities.

Firstly, it concerns a very important author in philosophical tradition, who remains even today, outside of the circle of specialists in Jewish thought and in Arabic philosophy, mainly marginalized, though he has elicited a very important interest and even in some cases a real fascination among later authors. Among the Latin theologians of the Middle Age, Thomas Aquinas, Meister Eckhart and Nicholas of Cusa among others, held him in high esteem and profoundly dialogued with him. It is however, with the purpose of underlining this aspect that Modestus Anyaegbu cites frequently the Latin text of the Guide of the Perplexed, the form under which Maimonides’s master-piece has been accessible to non-Hebrew and non-Arabic speakers in the West.

The second quality consists in presenting on Maimonides, the state of today’s research on different fundamental questions such as the Art of Writing, the Knowledge of God, Providence, Evil, the relationship of faith to philosophy, etc. Thus an uninformed reader could get a fairly precise idea of important divergent opinions which are still relevant even today, between the principal commentators of the Eagle of the Synagogue.

The present work places before us the strange position and –it must be said—a little bit shocking to us, of the great Jewish thinker on the question of providence. While today we consider it as self evident,—assuming that we believe it—that God the Creator shows a particular attention to each of His creatures, especially to each human being created in His image, Maimonides rather recognizes for the totality of men only a specific (general) providence. The individual would have an interest before God only as a bearer of and representative of humanity. Only the intelligent, that is to say, the human beings who have effectively actualized their intellects and have come to an accomplished knowledge, are considered and personally protected by the Eternal. In other words, the traditional piety that is usually asked of the believers by religious authorities is not sufficient. This piety is still marked by illusion and does not procure for man the true knowledge of God which is worthy of him. The individual ought to overcome pietistic representations in order to open himself to divine truth which is accessible only through knowledge. This is what the Book of Job illustrates. At the beginning of his story, Job is only a pious-just man, who does not really know God and thus is not protected against (misfortune) evil and confusion. It is the revelation that God accords to Job in response to his questionings, which transforms the suffering-just man into a man of knowledge, this knowledge which protects him certainly against (misfortune) evil and adversity.

Maimonides interrogates us by his choice without complex in favor of salvation through knowledge. Nowadays, we shall hesitate to accord to science, and to knowledge in general, such a prerogative. But let us not forget that in the history of philosophy, this position has often been defended and has been the object of choice of life for some with a flawless resolution. Here it suffices to evoke Spinoza – on whom the influence of Maimonides has been considerable – and his famous third level knowledge according to which we realize (understand) that we are eternal. Leo Strauss spoke about Maimonides and the Arabic philosophers, of Medieval enlightenment, in order to make us understand that in the Middle Age, the hope of emancipation by reason was already present but confined to some little circles that were protecting their position from a dangerous dissemination in public through the art of writing. Even if his interpretation is contestable, it recalls to our intention the very high idea that these thinkers had of the exercise of thought and of philosophy. It is because they made the vocation of this intellectual discipline a particularly high idea that it could not in their conception of things avoid confronting philosophy with religious faith and the content of revelation.

At the time when the actuality does not cease to present before us the question of the status of religion and the religious within modernity, the attempt by Maimonides to articulate these two styles carries an indisputable force of conviction as shown with abundant evidence in the work presented by Modestus Anyaegbu.

Jean-Michel Counet, the President of the Institut Supérieur de Philosophie, UCL

General Introduction

This book is a part product of my doctoral thesis defended in 2012 at the Université Catholique de Louvain, Belgium. After the defence, I avoided rushing into immediate publication of the work, because I knew that it wasn’t yet a finished project. I had the impression that something was still missing until the successive appearance of three books which completely provided the missing link and confirmed the ideas I have defended in my thesis. The books are in the order of their publication, first Maimonides The Rationalist, second The Matter and Form of Maimonides’s Guide, and third Maimonides: Life and Thought. They seem to have set off a chain reaction that has helped in fine-tuning our ideas for a wider public consumption. In Maimonides The Rationalist, we found a work that seemingly has verified the claims Maimonides has made in the Guide attributing some of his philosophical ideas directly to Aristotle. The book disputes some of those claims. In the observation of Davidson, Maimonides "relies on secondary works rather than on Aristotle’s Metaphysics itself and unwittingly substitutes the metaphysics of the Arabic Aristotelians for that of Aristotle."¹ While it does doubt the veracity of Maimonides’s sources, it does not however doubt the correctness of his ideas especially those that insist on man’s ability to acquire metaphysical knowledge of God. What this has done for us, is to confirm the impression we have that some of the ideas Maimonides puts out in the name of Aristotle actually belong to others in the peripatetic tradition. Another thing it does is to provide a solid anchor for some of the philosophical interpretations we have given to Maimonides’s thoughts. The Matter and Form of Maimonides’s Guide written by Josef Stern² creates the impression of a thunder-bolt sent to dissipate the traditional interpretations (or dogmatic by Stern) that have become a common place with many of Maimonides’s interpreters. It has brilliantly provided a skeptical dimension to the Maimonidean scholarship. Among other things, it seems to be partly a response to the claims made in the earlier book by Davidson regarding man’s ability to attain the metaphysical knowledge of God. The third of our major choice, Maimonides: Life and Thought³ appears very biographical in nature, but it is a book which has provided in a summary but effective way, the general religious, philosophical, and metaphysical ideas of Maimonides throughout his academic life. This book has not only given us two concepts of God as Existence and as Person but also different views on various topics gleaned from Maimonides’s numerous texts. It has also provided us with the most recent classification of the various strands of interpretation in Maimonidean scholarship. This recognition does not by any means signify that we accept everything they say, and neither does it show these works as more important than numerous other works that we have consulted and used in this study. Each work has contributed immensely in shaping the ideas in this our study. We owe them a big gratitude.

The problem of evil and providence is one that rationalists have not shied away from. The debate has been on finding an answer as to why the righteous suffer and the vicious prosper. Has it anything to do with the obvious anthropomorphic bent given to the legendary case of the biblical Job who sees God as a personal agent? Or has the theory of temporal retribution based on the supposed God’s perfect justice anything to do with the problem? Maimonides’s rationalist rejection and interpretation of anthropomorphism plays a major part in his reading of evil and providence in the Guide of the Perplexed.

The debate in this book will finally crystallize into the examination of two concepts of God seen in Maimonides’s works: God as Existence and God as Person. In the supposed Aristotle’s argument for the eternity of the world, our major concern will be less in the scientific demonstration of that argument as in the examination of the concept of God that comes out of it. We do think that Aristotle is more concerned with the structure of the world than with its origin and that explains why his guiding principle is the nature of what exists. God will be seen as a Necessarily Existent Being whose existence explains the eternity of the world. The theory of the creation of the world ex nihilo described by Maimonides as the position of the Law, will present God as the Personal Sovereign who by the use of His will brings about from nonexistence, the world and all in it. By the same token, He reserves the right to interfere when and how He deems fit. But confronted with the reality of innocent suffering as described in the Book of Job, this image of God as Person leaves much to be desired. We shall argue that Maimonides’s theory of evil and providence in the Book of Job as interpreted in the Guide of the Perplexed is based on the concept of God as Existence. Our examination of the Exodus encounter between God and Moses, and Maimonides’s interpretation of that encounter coupled with the examination of his proofs of God’s existence will reinforce our argument on the concept of God. This is the concept behind his reinterpretation of evil and providence. Under this shadow, providence is no longer interpreted as God’s personal intervention in the affairs of men, but as consequent upon the intellect. The human intellect here serves as the means by which man connects to the perpetual and stable overflow of divine providence. Whoever fails to tap into this overflow, or cuts himself from this overflow by turning to material concerns of the body, becomes himself delivered to chance occurrences and is prone to evil. It is in this sense that we shall interpret evil in man’s case, in the sense of Maimonides’s real evil, as consequent upon the absence of intellectual apprehension. It is the absence of intellectual apprehension that marks man qua animal and leaves him prone to chance occurrence and evil.

It is worthwhile to remark that the breath of Maimonides’s thought is so elastic that whatever direction one’s interpretation chooses to go, finds its foundation and justification in his texts. This is the ground that unites the conservative, the mystical, the skeptical and the philosophical interpretations of Maimonides’s thoughts. The same could also be argued for the harmonist position which sees Maimonides as not rejecting of any contrary position, but taking the best of what is good in every position and making them his personal position. In its true sense, Maimonides is a multi-dimensional author whose thoughts have multi-dimensional significations.

We are very much aware of the task ahead of us, more so, when we are least qualified with the linguistic credentials necessary to understand a man who wrote his magnus opus— the Guide of the Perplexed in Arabic language but written in Hebrew letters. We acknowledge our ignorance of Arabic and Hebrew languages. However, if the mastery of original language is the exclusive criterion for the study of Maimonides, then, Maimonides would not have been known in the Western world where his work made inroads into the academic field, thanks to its Latin translations from the Hebrew translation of the Guide. The big exchange between Maimonides and St. Thomas Aquinas would not have taken place if not for the availability of Maimonides Latinus. In this our study, we shall make use of not only the Latin Maimonides but also the excellent translations from the Arabic original into English and French by Shlomo Pines and Salomon Munk respectively.⁴ The purpose is to show that the essence of Maimonides’s thoughts remains the same in whatever language he is studied.

Our field of study is centered on evil and providence in the biblical Book of Job but as read and interpreted by Moses Maimonides in his Guide of the Perplexed. Being part of the Western intellectual heritage, the Book of Job has been either a major myth or literary achievement, of the Western civilization.⁵ Maimonides does however pay much attention to the message of the book than to its nature as mythic. This book, depending on how you understand it, could be argued to be the locus classicus of the problem of evil in a world that is said to be under the providence of a divine Creator. In his interpretation of this book, Maimonides draws from Aristotelian sources or rather from a rich Arabic-peripatetic philosophical tradition, the major commentators of Aristotle. His admiration for the biblical book is hinged on the character of a certain man—Job—whose image has challenged every attempt to understand suffering and to justify God’s actions.⁶ Because of this perennial quest, the Book of Job has attained, in the language of David Tracy, the status of a religious classic. According to Tracy, every classic bears two distinguishing characteristics: permanence and the excess of meaning.⁷ The former is attested to by the innumerable texts that have emerged through the centuries and continue to emerge on the legend of Job; and the latter by the many fundamental dimensions of the human life and its relation to God, which the study of the Book of Job has revealed. It is the latter objective more so than the former, that is our major interest, as it is where Maimonides’s interpretation will show the multi-dimensional character and meaning of the Book of Job. This interpretation would involve in the language of Tracy, the back-and-forth movement of disclosure and concealment of a truth about life itself,⁸ a character very much evident in Maimonides.

Another dimension that could be read into the interpretation of the Book of Job is what scholars today describe as the problem of evil. The contemporary discussion of the multidimensional problem of evil generally centers on the compatibility of the existence of God and the existence of evil. This problem generally takes two major forms: the theoretical and the existential forms.⁹ Under the theoretical form of the problem are found logical and epistemic concerns involving God and evil. It questions how an all-powerful, all-knowing and perfectly-good God could allow the existence or the reality of evil. The argument goes that if God is all-powerful, then He should find a solution to evil that ravages His creation and creatures. Where He chooses not to eradicate evil, it could either be that He is not all-powerful as claimed, or He is not perfectly-good as He is presented. But if He is all that He is said to be, then, evil cannot exist. But the reality of evil, questions not only the existence of God, but creates a logical incompatibility between what we say that God is and the reality of evil. Two atheological scholars who are mostly credited with developing these bipod stands—God exists and evil exists—as a logical problem of evil are J.L. Mackie and H.J. McCloskey.¹⁰ As succinctly stated by McCloskey:

Evil is a problem, for the theist, in that a contradiction is involved in the fact of evil on the one hand and belief in the omnipotence and omniscience of God on the other. God cannot be both all-powerful and perfectly good if evil is real.¹¹

In its very elaborate form, Mackie and McCloskey are claiming that because of the logical inconsistency inherent in such proposition that God created a world containing evil, the statement that God exists is not credible. Perhaps, this is what led Hans Küng to describe the problem of evil as the rock of atheism.¹² The Book of Job is a classical example of the contradictions noted by Mackie and McCloskey and their associates and they have really made a point. What we are not very sure of is that they really succeeded in showing that the copula—God exists and evil exists—are logically incompatible. It is not also very clear that the presence of evil in the world denies and nullifies the existence of an all-powerful, all-knowing and perfectly-good God. An original line of defense has been charted by Nelson Pike in what he calls a morally sufficient reason.¹³ He gives an example of a parent who forces a child to take a spoonful of bitter medicine (which brings instance of suffering), in the interest of the child’s health and happiness. He argues that the fact the parent knowingly caused this suffering to the child is not sufficient to remove the parent from the class of perfectly good beings. If the parent fails to fit into this class, it is not because he caused this instance of suffering.’ The fact that a good and knowing parent permitted this suffering of his son, has not contradicted his state as a good and knowing parent who has the power to prevent his son’s suffering.

To say that there is a morally sufficient reason for his action is simply to say that there is a circumstance or condition which, when known, renders blame (though of course not responsibility) for the action inappropriate. As a general statement, a being who permits (or brings about) an instance of suffering might be perfectly good providing only that there is a morally sufficient reason for his action. Thus, it does not follow from the claim that God is perfectly good that he would prevent suffering if he could.¹⁴

A huge array of academic responses has since flooded the debate. And one man who has offered an advanced form of the morally sufficient reason, is Alvin Plantinga. Those interested in pursuing further this part of the defense can consult the references below.¹⁵

The other dimension of the theoretical form of the problem of evil, that is consistent with the facts exposed in the Book of Job, is what has been called the evidential¹⁶ or empirical¹⁷ problem of evil. It is a shift that probably resulted from the failure of the logical problem of evil, as shown above, to destroy theism. Rowe says that the world contains evils that render the existence of the theistic God unlikely.¹⁸ The argument here is no longer the consistency problem, but that the sheer evidence of evil in the world, count heavily against the existence of a benevolent, all-powerful and all-knowing God. The senseless suffering of the innocent Job plays perfectly into the hands of this line of thought. The various ways of presenting this argument yields the various dimensions of the same evidential problem of evil.¹⁹ It is the sheer amount of this evil, and the fact that so many of its victims are innocent, that count heavily as an evidence against theism.²⁰ Contrary to this, Richard Swinburne has argued that it is not impossible that evil serves some greater goods that constitute viable evidence for theism.

I accept that an omnipotent being can prevent any evil he chooses, but I deny that a perfectly good being will always try to do so. If a perfectly good being is to allow evil to occur, he must have the right to do so, and there must be some good which is brought about by allowing the evil to occur and could not be brought about by him in any better way, and so great that it is worth allowing the evil to occur.²¹

Another related argument is that of Alston. He argues that the fact that we do not or cannot see any divine sufficient reason that we can envisage for permitting evil, does not in any way justify the conclusion that there is no sufficient reason that would justify such a permission. It is as if we extrapolate and determine the boundaries of a realm beyond our intellectual ability. Surely an omniscient, omnipotent being is further removed from any of us in this respect than a brilliant physicist is from one innocent of physics, or a Mozart is from one innocent of music, or Karpov is from a neophyte (in chess). Surely the extent to which God can envisage reasons for permitting a given state of affairs exceeds our ability to do so by at least as much as Einstein’s ability to discern reason for a physical theory exceeds the ability of one ignorant of physics.²² Thus, in the Book of Job, it could even be said that God has a morally sufficient reason for allowing evil to ravage the affairs of man. Such reasons could range from His desire to let man realize how limited man’s understanding of reality is, and how unfathomable God’s ways are. But we could still argue that man does not need such quantity of evil to realize his limitedness and fragility. And neither does God need to justify His reasons for permitting such quantity of evil.

The existential form of the problem of evil, according to Peterson, pertains not simply to the abstract analysis of propositions but to one’s subjective experience, including a total sense of life or conscious attitude toward God.²³ This form of the problem of evil is not very popular among scholars but it has actually found scholarly backing in the writings of Hasker,²⁴ and Adams.²⁵ The experience of Job again fits in to this form of the problem of evil when, in spite of his goodness and justice, he comes face to face with suffering that makes him morally upset and outraged to the point that he would demand explanation from his God. In a way, our present inquiry on evil and providence, could be said to generally fit in well to this form of the problem of evil since in the final analysis, it redresses Job’s understanding of God and His relationship to man and to the world. In his experience, Job never doubted the existence of God nor the fact that He is all-present, all-good, and all-powerful. What his experience does for him is to let him understand God’s way of being present in his life and how this presence directs his actions.

However, purely seen from the perspective of Maimonides, the modern treatment of the problem of evil does not fit into his scheme since his idea or definition of God is totally different from the working definition accepted by the moderns. The image of an all-powerful, all-knowing, and benevolent God is to say the least, anthropomorphic when the human signification and real signification in God are taken to be univocal. It is on the basis of these human-inspired images that analytic philosophers have constructed the modern problem of evil. As stated by McCabe:

The problem of evil is stated by asking questions about God that can only intelligibly be asked about creatures. It derives its apparent force not from its intelligibility but from the exigencies of the imaginative picture that we inevitably have of God and the world.²⁶

This anthropomorphic way of describing God transfers upon Him our modus loquendi and our modus intelligendi with all the human categories and that is the problem with the modern discussion of the problem of evil. It is the problem of human language not finding the appropriate vocabulary to enter within the realms of the divine. More so is it the problem of man’s finite intelligence grasping with the unknowable essence of God. But Maimonides teaches the transcendence of God and by implication, accepts that God is beyond the world and the language in which the problem of evil can be stated.²⁷ Maimonides finds it crucial to have a right conception of God and it is this and his approach to the Book of Job that are quite different from a modern interest. He does not recognize that the sufferings of Job and his innocence call into question the nature of God as Good, nor even His existence. It is this that would explain the absence in Maimonides, of any topic concentrated on treating what is called the problem of evil in the sense that we have all along taken it. Rather his major interest is simply to understand and explain the workings of divine providence in a world brought about by an existent being that is God. It would be seen that our medieval inspired treatment of evil and providence, would be quite different from what the moderns would expect, not only in structure, essence and style, but also in the result. Because God does not and cannot exist in a direct relation with the world, there is no reason questioning why He does not interfere in the natural events of the world and save us from evil. The reasoning leads to conclude that God is not a personal agent or a moral being that we would require to justify His decisions and actions. Even Job in the legendary story understands this very well.

The approach we shall adopt in our examination of the Book of Job finds its interest and meaning within the context of faith and belief in the God who is considered as the Creator. We have chosen the Book of Job because it presents to us a classical example of the contradictions we find in a world that is said to be under the care and providence of an omniscient God, and the reality of evil being suffered by His creatures, albeit a just man named Job. Our second reason for choosing the Book of Job is because it provides a fitting base to showcase the practical thrust of Maimonides’s philosophy as exposed in The Guide of the Perplexed.²⁸ This practical thrust is particularly manifest in his discussion of the problem of evil and divine providence. Our reading of Maimonides’s interpretation of the Book of Job will show that divine providence and perfect happiness are dependent upon the intellectual perfection of each individual human being and not solely on moral righteousness. God is not to be conceived as a moral agent who rewards each individual with good and punishes the wicked with evil. It is man who has in himself, the ability to acquire the ever flowing divine providence and the ability to cut himself off from this overflow and thus be exposed to a greater chance of suffering evil.

Over and above historical sources and questions, this work also seeks whether there is a central theme around which the interpretation of Job revolves. Regardless of the diverse exegetical methods, philosophical and theological perspectives inherent in the various interpretations of the Book of Job, we shall still argue that the central theme that goes through the length and breadth of the interpretations is the concern with human understanding.²⁹ Why does Job suffer? Is Job, before his prophetic revelation, the victim of his attachment to the imagination and to his anthropomorphic conception of God? Is this conception behind the traditional idea of providence which sees God as personally intervening to reward and to protect the virtuous man while punishing the wicked? What does Job see or understand from the prophetic revelation that transforms him and changes his fortune? Are intellectual perfection and intellectual knowledge of God ideals that are metaphysically impossible for man given his attachment to matter? Is man capable of going beyond the hindrances of matter and claiming the privileged destiny that is his? For Maimonides, we shall see that Job’s transformation is as a result of his new intellectual vision of the nature of the cosmos, a rational understanding of the reality of God, and a proper grasp of the real meaning and working of providence. It is the acquisition of intellectual perfection that establishes one under the permanent flow of providence and assures that one is protected from evil. The examination of the fall of Adam will be used as a case study to corroborate the theory of providence as consequent upon the intellect and evil as consequent upon the absence of providence.

Chapter 1

The Various Strands of Interpretation in the Guide

The difficulty in reading Maimonides follows from the fact that he presents himself as a many-dimensional author.³⁰ He makes it clear in his Dux Neutrorum, that the book contains many layers of meaning—modum apertum et modum occultum—external and internal—addressed to different groups of people in the society with the goal of not revealing the secrets and the mystery of the Torah to those unprepared for their reception.

Their external meaning contains wisdom that is useful in many respects, among which is the welfare of human societies, as is shown by the external meaning of Proverbs and of similar sayings. Their internal meaning, on the other hand, contains wisdom that is useful for beliefs concerned with the truth as it is.³¹

To conceal these secrets, among which are the subjects of creation, God’s governance of the world and His providence, divine attributes and God’s knowledge, Maimonides says that he deliberately presents his work in a disjointed fashion, dropping occasional flashes of truth and immediately contradicting them by opposing arguments. He further describes seven sorts of contradictions to be found in any book and insists that two of such—the fifth and the seventh—are employed in the composition of the Guide to conceal truths that would perplex the philosophically untrained and could even lead to controversy. The fifth cause is pedagogic where the teacher tries by indirect means to let the student arrive at the correct answer, and the seventh cause is destined at protecting a secret from being discovered by the uninitiated while at the same time providing flash points that would lead the initiated to its discovery.³² With particular reference to the Account of the Beginning (maaseh bereshith) identified with natural science and the Account of the Chariot (maaseh merkabah) identified with divine science, Maimonides says that their exposition will be taught in "initia rationum—chapter headings and sunt dispersa, et immutata modis aliis—scattered and entangled with other subjects so that their truths may be glimpsed and then again concealed, so as not to oppose that divine purpose which one cannot possibly oppose and which has concealed from the vulgar among the people those truths especially requisite to his apprehension.³³ By concealing these truths, the vulgar, that is, the uneducated masses and the philosophically untrained reader will only understand the text at its surface level. An untrained reader could be a learned man, but one who engages in theoretical speculation using the first notions that may occur to him. The man, Job described as righteous and just will be shown to fall within this group of people described as vulgar." In the Mishnah, Maimonides defines the Vulgar as he who has certain moral dispositions but no intellectual disposition.³⁴ Maimonides compares the internal, esoteric meaning to apples of gold in settings of silver³⁵ and warns that one should not hasten to refute his arguments for that which he understood me to say might be contrary to my intention.³⁶

It is this explicit mention of secrets and layers of meaning in the Guide that has given rise to a plethora of interpretations, some mutually exclusive of each other, but all of which seem to find solid support in the texts of Maimonides. Of great importance is the sense in which these secrets are to be taken. Maimonides says that these secrets are not fully and completely known to anyone among us.³⁷ The truth of these secrets may be likened to the flashes of lightning appearing to someone in the darkness of the night, whose matter and habit prevent from grasping the full glow of the light. According to one’s visionary disposition, the lightning may flash time after time as to enclose one in a perpetual light. For some, the lightning flashes just once in their entire night; for some others, the lightning flashes at longer or shorter intervals; some others’ nights do not even get illumined by the lightening flash but by a reflection of a polished body or something of that kind. And last in the hierarchy are those who never even once see a light but grope about in total darkness. These never discover the truth even if it is manifested. (Guide I, Int. pp 7-8) Because of the nature of these secrets, they are only revealed in flashes and then again obscured to preserve the secrets and maintain social harmony. However, there is a long standing controversy as to how much importance is to be attached to Maimonides’s use of esotericism and whether there are actually esoteric teachings in the Guide of the Perplexed. The positions scholars have taken in this whole debate are determined by the meaning they attach to contradictions and the level of validity they accord to the presence or not of esotericism in the Dux Neutrorum. Would Maimonides’s explicit warning of the presence of contradictions