Aaron Ben Elijah - Divine Providence

Divine Providence

In chapters 78–95 divine providence is then discussed with special reference to the existence of evil in its fourfold nature, physical and psychical, moral and non-moral. This had been a favorite topic of the older Karaite philosophers such as Joseph al-Bazir and Joshua, based upon the Aristotelian view, followed also by Maimonides, that evil is only a defect inherent in matter, and therefore not to be ascribed to God, unless — and this is well brought out by Aaron and his Karaite predecessors — God makes it the means of man's moral improvement. While Maimonides assumes an especial providence of God only for man and not for creatures without reason, Aaron extends divine providence over all beings, God's universal knowledge embracing, according to Karaite theology, also sympathy with all beings. The ruling principle of divine action he takes to be not His wisdom, as does Maimonides, but, with a far deeper theological insight, His justice.

Accentuating the superiority of the moral above the intellectual power, Aaron takes a higher view of the suffering of the righteous than do Maimonides and some of his Karaite predecessors, who speak of temurah (the law of compensation for grief, which also rules over animal life); and he postulates, with especial reference to Abraham and Job, goodness as a divine principle underlying all trials imposed upon man for his spiritual benefit. As to the purposes of the world, man can only comprehend his own sublunary world, of which he forms the highest end as God's servant. From chapter 95 to the end of the work, revelation and law, with the soul's perfection, its immortality and future bliss, are the subjects treated. The two trees in paradise are taken as symbols of the higher and the lower spheres of human life, man's fall from the one to the other necessitating the special commandments of God, until finally the Law becomes the means of man's full restoration to his twofold nature. This leads to a discussion of the nature of prophecy in general and of its highest degree attained by Moses; also of the object of the Law and its various commandments given for the purpose of the perfection of the individual as well as of the human race in general.

The Law of Moses was intended for and offered to all nations, and it can never be changed, improved, or (as the Rabbinites claim) augmented by an oral law. Essentially different from the attitude of Maimonides, and in fact from that of all Aristotelian thinkers, is Aaron's attitude toward immortality, which he bases chiefly upon moral grounds, the postulate of retribution; but for this very reason his eschatology is rather obscure, being half-rational and half-mystical, a blending of many beliefs. A call to repentance forms the conclusion of his work.