Tuesday, July 29, 2025

Ramban on providence

Ramban


Ramban appears to limit God’s direct providence to the Jewish nation as a whole – and even then, only when they are “perfect” in their Torah observance. Other generations, it would seem, need not apply.

Again in this next passage, Ramban admits that there is special providence for the righteous (and for the truly evil), but that nature governs everyone else. Interestingly, he also appears to suggest that God directly interferes only within areas covered by His explicit Torah-based promises:


The reason that the Torah uses specifically this Divine name (“the God of Plenty”) in this context is because, through it He performs hidden miracles for the righteous, to save them from death, to sustain them through famine or to rescue them from war or violence. This occurred with the miracles performed for Abraham and our (other) forefathers, and through all that the Torah promises in the blessings and curses of Levit 26 and Deut. 28. For it isn’t natural that useful rain should consistently fall specifically when we are serving God, or that the heavens should withhold rain specifically when we ignore the agricultural rest of the seventh year (as the Torah explicitly promised would occur), or that all of the Torah’s other promises should consistently be fulfilled. Rather, they are all miracles in which the arrangement of the constellations (i.e., the course of nature) is overcome. (Gen. 17:1)

No comments: