This means that what is produced by an intentional agent must be something good, something existing. God according to Maimonides produces being, and all being is good. God thus cannot be responsible for evil. In the Guide III, 10, p 439f, Maimonides clearly states that “it may in no way be said of God…that He produces evil in an essential act; I mean that He…has a primary intention to produce evil.” However, he concedes that because matter is concomitant with privation, God the maker of matter has become indirectly responsible for the existence of evil: namely, “through the fact that God has brought matter into existence provided with the nature it has—namely, a nature that consists in matter being a concomitant of privation, as is known.”
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It is in this sense that it can be called the accidental cause of evil since in matter is found this potentiality to destruction and the absence of good. Does Maimonides provide for this possibility in the plan of providence which he considers as consequent upon the intellect? It will be seen that his idea of general providence where nature has been set up to pursue its natural end, creates the possibility of corruption and destruction that is still under the guidance of divine providence. Everything is ordered to its end. Fire has been ordered by providence to its perfection which is to burn. Even if fire burns down a house in which a family is sleeping, it nevertheless achieves its natural perfection and goodness though it accidentally causes the death of a family. It is the same providence that will expose Job to a great suffering in the hope that a greater good will emerge from it. Thus to interpret Maimonides, we would actually say that God does not directly cause evil; He indirectly permits evil, since He puts in place, the possibility giving rise to destruction