Rambam on Providence: A contradiction?

I would like to pose a question and ask readers if they would be so kind and suggest an answer. Reading MN 3:17 would be very helpful as I am laying out a contradiction within the same chapter, and we know Rambam told us in his introduction that only a fool contradicts himself in his writings.

Having established that natural disasters or calamities, whether personal or universal, cannot be seen as evil, how do we address the suffering of the victim(s)?

Aristotle according to Rambam saw that too as a random natural event and nature has no ethics. Isn’t man just another component of the whole universe? If the earthquake is necessary for the maintenance of the planet, the fact that the inhabitants, whether vegetable, animal or human, that happen to be in its vicinity suffer, is irrelevant. As Rambam in MN 3:17 explains Aristotle’s position:

“All other movements, however, which are made by the individual members of each species are due to accident; they are not, according to Aristotle, the result of rule and management; e.g.

when a storm or gale blows, it causes undoubtedly some leaves of a tree to drop, breaks off some branches of another tree, tears away a stone from a heap of stones, raises dust over herbs and spoils them, and stirs up the sea so that a ship goes down with the whole or part of her contents.

Aristotle sees no difference between

The falling of a leaf or a stone and the death of the good and noble people in the ship;

Nor does he distinguish between

the destruction of a multitude of ants caused by an ox depositing on them his excrement and the death of worshippers killed by the fall of the house when its foundations give way;

Nor does he discriminate between the case of a cat killing a mouse that happens to come in her way, or that of a spider catching a fly, and that of a hungry lion meeting a prophet and tearing him.”

Rambam on the other hand agrees that as far as non-sentient beings, defined as everything except humans, there is no providence (Hashgacha). However humans have freedom of choice. That quality is a result of man’s ability to think independently, his intellectual capacity. Man can therefore choose to act within the parameters of divine providence or not.

“Divine Providence is connected with Divine intellectual influence, and the same beings which are benefited by the latter so as to become intellectual, and to comprehend things comprehensible to rational beings, are also accompanied by Divine Providence, which examines all their deeds from the point of view of reward and punishment.”

How do we explain the same events, the strong wind and its consequences, the spittle and the dung?

“For I do not believe that it is through the interference of Divine Providence that a certain leaf drops [from a tree],

Nor do I hold that when a certain spider catches a certain fly, that this is the direct result of a special decree and will of God in that moment;

It is not by a particular Divine decree that the spittle of a certain person moved, fell on a certain gnat in a certain place, and killed it;

Nor is it by the direct will of God that a certain fish catches and swallows a certain worm on the surface of the water.

In all these cases the action is, according to my opinion, entirely due to chance, as taught by Aristotle.”

Now comes the tough part:

“It may be by mere chance that a ship goes down with all her contents, as in the above-mentioned instance, or the roof of a house falls upon those within; but it is not due to chance, according to our view, that in the one instance the men went into the ship, or remained in the house in the other instance: it is due to the will of God, and is in accordance with the justice of His judgments, the method of which our mind is incapable of understanding.”

If the method that God decides whether this is right or wrong is incomprehensible, what does it have to do with our intellect and freedom of choice? What exactly does the will of God mean in this context? Is the fact that he is in that collapsing building or sinking ship by his choice or God’s? To me this last statement is at first blush confusing.