In this chapter, Maimonides undertakes to refute the commonly-held notion (خيال الجمهور, khayal al-jamhoor) that “evils in the world are more numerous than the good things”. The word he uses for evil is sharr شر and for good, khayr خير. He is, at the outset, very critical of this point of view , to the point of scornfulness, and castigates Al-Razi for his book on Metaphysics which, according to Maimonides, makes the same claim. I assume this is regarding Abu Bakr al-Razi and not Fakhr al-Din al-Razi.

Maimonides says that people fall into this error because they

judge the whole universe by examining one single person. For an ignorant man believes that the whole universe only exists for him; as if nothing else required any consideration. If, therefore, anything happens to him contrary to his expectation, he at once concludes that the whole universe is evil. If, however, he would take into consideration the whole universe, form an idea of it, and comprehend what a small portion he is of the Universe, he will find the truth. For it is clear that persons who have fallen into this widespread error as regards the multitude of evils in the world, do not find the evils among the angels, the spheres and stars, the elements, and that which is formed of them, viz., minerals and plants, or in the various species of living beings, but only in some individual instances of mankind.

He paints a rather petulant picture of those who complain that the world is more evil than it is good; he gives the example of someone who “became leprous in consequence of bad food”, or “was struck with blindndess” because he “indulges so much in sensuality”. These arguments seem to be leading toward the sort of resolution to the problem of evil which blames people for their own misfortunes. But before addressing the problem of evil head-on, Maimonides reminds the reader that “the whole mankind at present in existence, and a fortiori, every other species of animals, form an infinitesimal portion of the permanent universe”, and that we cannot complain about the entire universe being full of evil simply based on human experience. “It is of great advantage that man should know his station, and not erroneously imagine that the whole universe exists only for him. We hold that the universe exists because the Createor wills it so”, and not for our benefit.

Doubling down on the idea that God is good, and is not responsible for any evil, Maimonides says:

Man’s existence is nevertheless a great boon to him, and his distinction and perfection is a divine gift. The numerous evils to which individual persons are exposed are due to the defects existing in the persons themselves. We complain and seek relief from our own faults: we suffer from the evils which we, by our own free will, inflict on ourselves and ascribe them to God, who is far from being connected with them!

For Maimonides, evils are of three kinds, in increasing order of frequency of occurrence:

  1. Those “caused to man by the circumstance that he is subject to genesis and destruction, or that he possesses a body” (ما يصيب الأنسان من جهة طبيعة الكون والفساد ، أعني من حيث هو ذو مادة) — i.e., the occupational hazards of being a corporeal entity, e.g., being subject to old age and death, or to the occasional (less than one-thousandth, according to Maimonides) congenital defects, etc. These are an unavoidable part of being a living thing, and are due not to our form but due to matter, which is inherently subject to generation/destruction and therefore to ‘evils’ of this kind.
  2. Those which “people cause to each other”, and
  3. Those which “every one causes to himself by his own action”. “This class of evils originates in man’s vices, such as excessive desire for eating, drinking, and love; indulgence in these things in undue measure, or in improper manner, or partaking of bad food”

His explanation of the third type is far-reaching and tries to cover scenarios which one would not, necessarily, consider to be evils ‘of one’s own doing’. For example, he explains that if someone indulges in their vices habitually, the soul itself becomes afflicted, causing the person to make poor choices in life. Once again, he appears to be extremely harsh in his condemnation of those who feel that there is more evil in the world than there is good:

Those who are ignorant and perverse in their thought are constantly in trouble and pain, because they cannot get as much of superfluous things as a certain other person possesses. They as a rule expose themselves to great dangers, e.g., by sea-voyage, or service of kings, and all this for the purpose of obtaining that which is superfluous and not necessary. When they thus meet with the consequences of the course which they adopt, they complain of the decrees and judgments of God; they begin to blame the time, and wonder at the want of justice in its changes; that it has not enabled them to acquire great riches, with which they could buy large quantities of wine for the purpose of making themselves drunk, and numerous concubines adorned with various kind of ornaments of gold, embroidery, and jewels, for the purpose of driving themselves to voluptuousness beyond their capacities, as if the whole Universe existed exclusively for the purpose of giving pleasure to these low people.

In contrast,

those who observe the nature of the Universe and the commandments of the Law, and know their purpose, see clearly God’s mercy and truth in everything; they seek, therefore, that which the Creator intended to be the aim of man, viz., comprehension.

If only man would restrict himself to what he needs, and did not indulge in excessive desires, he would be in harmony with his true purpose, and evils would not befall him. He could then calmly go through life, observing both the natural precepts of the Universe and the divine precepts of the Law, desiring only that which is “necessary for the preservation of the individual [or] for that of the species”; his remaining energies would then be focused on “that which the Creator intended to be the aim of man, viz., comprehension.”

He uses an interesting analogy to “prove the correctness of this assertion”.

The more necessary a thing is for living beings, the more easily it is found and the cheaper it is; the less necessary it is, the rarer and clearer it is. E.g., air, water, and food are indispensable to man: air is most necessary, for if man is without air a short time he dies; whilst he can be without water a day or two. Air is also undoubtedly found more easily and cheaper [than water]. Water is more necessary than food; for some people can be four or five days without food, provided they have water; water also exists in every country in larger quantities than food, and is also cheaper. … No intelligent person, I think, considers musk, amber, rubies, and emerald as very necessary for man except as medicines: and they, as well as other like substances, can be replaced for this purpose by herbs and minerals

Committed to the idea of Divine Providence, he says that we should not mistake any inequality of material possessions, etc., to mean that God has unjustly favored some people over others:

There is no difference between individuals of a species in the due course of Nature; the difference originates in the various dispositions of their substances. This is the necessary consequence of the nature of the substance of that species: the nature of the species is not more favourable to one individual than to the other. It is no wrong or injustice that one has many bags of finest myrrh and garments embroidered with gold, while another has not those things, which are not necessary for our maintenance; he who has them has not thereby obtained control over anything that could be an essential addition to his nature, but has only obtained something illusory or deceptive. … In these … ways, you will see the mercy of God toward His creatures, how He has provided that which is required, in proper proportions, and treated all individual beings of the same species with perfect equality.

“All the paths of the Lord are mercy and truth (Ps. 25:10) … for it is an act of great and perfect foodness that He gave us existence”.