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HOW CAN DIVINE DESTINY AND HUMAN FREE WILL BE
RECONCILED?
The nature of human free will
Our free
will is not visible and does not have material existence.
However, such factors do not render its existence impossible.
Everyone has two (physical) eyes, but we also can see with our
third (spiritual) eye. We use the former to see things in this
world; we use the latter to see things beyond events and this
world. Our free will is like our third eye, which you may call
insight. It is an inclination or inner force by which we
prefer and decide.
Man wills
and God creates. A project or a building’s plan has no value
or use unless you start to construct the building according to
it, so that it becomes visible and serves many purposes. Our
free will resembles that plan, for we decide and act according
to it, and God creates our actions as a result of our
decisions. Creation and acting or doing something are
different things. God’s creation means that He gives actual
existence to our choices and actions in this world. Without
God’s creation, we can do nothing.
To
illuminate a magnificent palace, we must install a lighting
system. However, the palace cannot be illuminated until we
flick the switch that turns on the lights. Until we do so, the
palace will remain dark. Similarly, each man and woman is a
magnificent palace of God. We are illuminated by belief in
God, Who has supplied us with the necessary lighting system:
intellect, reason, sense, and the abilities to learn, compare,
and prefer.
Nature and
events, as well as Divinely revealed religions, are like the
source of electricity that illuminates this Divine palace of
the human individual. If we do not use our free will to flick
the switch, however, we will remain in darkness. Turning on
the light means petitioning God to illuminate us with belief.
In a manner befitting a servant at his lord’s door, we must
petition the Lord of the Universe to illuminate us and so make
us a “king” in the universe. When we do this, the Lord of the
Universe treats us in a way befitting Himself, and promotes us
to the rank of kingship over other realms of
creation.
God takes
our free will into account when dealing with us and our acts,
for He uses it to create our deeds. Thus we are never victims
of Destiny or wronged by Fate. However insignificant our free
will is when compared with God’s creative acts, it is still
the cause of our deeds. God makes large things out of minute
particles, and creates many important results from simple
means. For example, He makes a huge pine tree from a tiny
seed, and uses our inclinations or free choice to prepare our
eternal happiness or punishment.
To better
understand our part, and that of our will power, in our acts
and accomplishments, consider the food we consume. Without
soil and water, air and the sun’s heat, none of which we can
produce or create despite our advanced technology, we would
have no food. We cannot produce a single seed of corn. We did
not create our body and establish its relationship with food;
we cannot even control a single part of our body. For example,
if we had to wind our heart like a clock at a fixed time every
morning, how long would we survive?
Obviously,
almost all parts of the whole complex and harmonious universe,
which is a most developed organism, work together according to
the most delicate measures to produce a single morsel of food.
Thus, the price of a single morsel is almost as much as the
price of the whole universe. How can we possibly pay such a
price, when our part in producing that morsel is utterly
negligible, consisting of no more than our own
effort?
Can we ever
thank God enough for even a morsel of food? If only a picture
of grapes were shown to us, could all of us work together and
produce it? No. God nourishes us with His bounty, asking in
return very little. For example, if He told us to perform
1,000 rak‘as (units) of prayer for a bushel of wheat, we would
have to do so. If He sent a raindrop in return for one rak‘a,
we would have to spend our whole lives praying. If you were
left in the scorching heat of a desert, would you not give
anything for a single glass of water?
How can we
thank Him enough for each bodily limb? When we see sick and
crippled people in hospitals, or when we ourselves are ill, we
understand how valuable good health is. But can we ever thank
Him enough for this blessing? The worship God Almighty orders
us to perform is, in fact, for our personal benefit and
spiritual refinement, and well as for a good personal and
collective life. Furthermore, if we believe in and worship
God, He rewards us with infinite happiness and bounties in
Paradise.
In sum:
Almost everything we have is given to us for practically
nothing, and our part in the bounty we enjoy here is therefore
quite negligible. Similarly, our free will is equally
negligible when compared with what God Almighty creates from
our use of it. Despite our free will’s weakness and our own
inability to really understand its true nature, God creates
our actions according to the choices and decisions we make
through it.
Question
Is Islamic viewpoint of Destiny and human free will
compatible with fatalism?
Answer
Most Western
Orientalists accuse Islam of being fatalistic. Whereas, except
a small sect-Jabriya-no one in the history of Islam has
defended fatalism. Almost all the Western philosophies of
history and, to some extent, Christianity with all its sects,
are, by contrast, fatalistic and based on the irresistibility
of what they call historical laws. The outlines of those
philosophies of history may be summed up as
follows:
-
Mankind
are in a continuous progress towards the final happy
end.
-
This
progress depends on the fatalistic, irresistible laws of
history which are completely independent of humanity, so
humanity must, in any case, obey these laws, otherwise they
are certain to be eliminated.
-
All the
stages, primitive, feudal or capitalistic, through which
mankind inevitably pass in the course of time to the final
happy end should not be criticized, because mankind have
nothing to do other than passing through them.
What is
implied concerning the political conditions of time by all
such philosophies of history may be this: The present
socio-economic and even the political conditions of the world
are inevitable, because they were dictated by nature, which
decrees that only the able and the powerful can survive. If
the laws of history dictated by nature are in favor of the
West, the communities that choose to survive must concede to
the dominion of the West.
What
distinguishes the Quranic concept of history from other
philosophies is that, first of all, while philosophers of
history or sociologists build their conceptions on the
interpretation of past events and present situations, the
Quran deals with the matter from the perspective of unchanging
principles. Second, contrary to the fatalism of all other
philosophies, the Quran lays great emphasis on the free choice
and moral conduct of the individual and community. Although
Divine Will, emphasized by the Quran, could be regarded as, in
some respects, the counterpart of the ‘Geist’ in the Hegelian
philosophy and of absolute, irresistible laws of history in
other philosophies, the Quran never denies human free will.
God, according to the Quran, tests humanity in this life so
that humanity should sow the ‘field’ of the world to harvest
in the next life, which is eternal. For this reason, the
stream of events-successes and failures, victories and
defeats, prosperity and decay-all are the occasions which God
causes to follow one another for mankind, to the end that the
good may be distinguished from the evil. Testing must
evidently require that the one who is tested should possess
free will to choose between what is lawful and unlawful or
what is good and bad. Thus, according to the Quran, what makes
history is not a compelling Divine Will, rather it is
humanity’s own choice, the operation of which God Almighty has
made a simple condition for the coming into effect of His
universal will. If this point is understood well enough, then
it will be easy to see how groundless are the Western
philosophies of history especially with respect to their
conception of some “inevitable end.”
Destiny and human free will can be reconciled in
the following seven ways:
This subject
is quite difficult and has long been discussed by exacting
scholars who have attached to it great significance.The Divine
Destiny and man’s free will can be reconciled in seven
ways.
First
way
The absolute
order and harmony displayed by the whole of creation bear
witness that God is All-Wise and Just. Wisdom and Justice
demand that man should possess free will so that he may be
chastised or rewarded for his acts. Although we cannot know
the exact nature of this free will, and we may not be able to
reconcile it properly with Divine Destiny, this does not mean
that free will does not exist.
Second
way
Every person
feels himself to possess free will, and perceives it to exist.
Knowing the nature of something is different from knowing that
it exists. There are many things the existence of which is
obvious to us while their nature is not understood. Man’s free
will may be one of them. Also, existence is not restricted to
the number of the things of which we know, so our ignorance of
something does not indicate that it does not exist.
Third
way
Man’s free
will does not contradict Divine Destiny, rather, Destiny
confirms the existence of free will. Divine Destiny is in some
respects identical with Divine Knowledge, which goes parallel
with man’s free will, in determining his actions, thus it
confirms free will, and does not nullify it.
Fourth
way
Divine
Destiny is a kind of knowledge, and knowledge is dependent on
the thing known. That is, conceptual knowledge is not
fundamental to determine the external existence of what is
known. The known in its external existence is dependent upon
the Divine Power, acting through the Divine Will.
Also, past
eternity is not, as people imagine, just the starting-point of
‘time’ so that it becomes essential for the existence of
things. Past eternity is in fact like a mirror in which the
whole of time, past, present and future, is reflected. People
tend to, excluding themselves from the passage of time,
imagine a limit for past time which extends through a certain
chain of things, and they call it azel-past eternity. But to
reason according to such an imagining is not right and
acceptable. For better understanding of this subtle point, the
following example may help:
Imagine that
you are standing with a mirror in your hand, that everything
reflected on the right represents the past, while everything
reflected on the left represents the future. The mirror can
reflect one direction only since it cannot show both sides at
the same time as you are holding it. If you wish to reflect
both directions at the same time, it would be necessary to
rise high above your original position so that left and right
directions are united into one and nothing remains to be
called first or last, beginning or end. As already mentioned,
Divine Destiny is in some respects identical with Divine
Knowledge. It is described in a Prophetic saying as containing
all times and events in a single point, where first and last,
beginning and end, what has happened and what will happen, are
all united into one. And we are not excluded from it so that
our understanding of time and events could be like a mirror to
the space of the past.
Fifth
way
‘Cause and
effect’ are not separable in the view of Destiny, that is, it
is destined that this ‘cause’ will produce that ‘effect’. It
cannot therefore be argued that, for example, ‘killing a man
by shooting him’ should not be regarded as a crime because the
slain was destined to die at that time anyway so he would have
died even had he not been shot. Such an argument is baseless
since that man is actually destined to die as a result of
being shot. The argument that he would have died even if he
had not been shot would mean that he died without a cause, and
in this case we should not be able to explain how he died. It
should be remembered that there are not two kinds of
destiny-one for the cause, and the other for the effect.
Destiny is one. Having been deceived by such a paradox, the
Mu’tazili school of thought concluded that ‘the man would not
have died if he had not been shot’ (forgetting that it was his
destiny to be shot) while the Mujabbira (Fatalists) argued
that he would have died even if he had not been shot. The Ahl
al-Sunna wa’l-Jama‘a follow the correct view by judging that
‘we do not know whether he would have died or not if he had
not been shot’.
Sixth
way
The
followers of Imam al-Maturidi, one of the sub-schools of the
Ahl al-Sunna wa’l-Jama‘a, regarded man’s inclination upon
which his free will is based as having nominal value and
existence, and accordingly originating in man himself, while
the Ash‘arites do not ascribe that inclination to man because
they consider it to have a real existence. According to them,
man has, however, a nominal or theoretical disposal of that
inclination and, because of this, the inclination and man’s
disposal of it are a relative matter, not having a definite
external existence. Something of nominal and relative
existence does not require a perfect efficient cause which
would annul man’s free will in his actions; rather, when its
cause acquires the weight of preference, it might have an
actual existence. In which case, where the Qur’an says, ‘Do
not do this, because this is evil’, he may refrain from
committing it. If man were the creator of his own actions,
then he would himself be the ultimate cause of them, and his
will would be cancelled. According to the science of
established principles or methodology and logic, if a thing is
not necessary, it will not exist. That means there has to be a
real complete cause before something can exist, but a complete
cause makes the existence of something compulsory so there
will be no room for choice.
Question
Man’s actions are the result of his preference
between two alternatives, which is of nominal significance. If
a necessary cause does not exist which forces him to make a
preference, then this means that the act of preference takes
place without a necessary cause. Is it not a logical
impossibility which contradicts one of the most important
principles of theology?
Answer
It is not an
impossibility that man makes a preference without a necessary
cause, it is an attribute of his free will to do such things.
It is, however, an impossibility that something can be
preferable by itself without a necessary cause for its
preference.
Question
Since it is God Who creates the act of murder, why
is he who kills called a murderer?
Answer
According to
Arabic grammar, the active participle functioning as the
subject is derived from the infinitive, which denotes a
relative affair or deed, not from another word derived from
the infinitive which expresses an established fact. Therefore,
since it is man himself who does the deed denoted by the
infinitive, he is the murderer.
That is, man
wills to do something and accordingly does it, so he is the
doer or agent of his acts. It is the man himself who does the
act of killing, so he should be called the murderer. God
creates man’s acts in that He gives external existence to
them; He does not perform those acts. It would have been
meaningless for man to have free will if God had not created
the acts which are the outcome of that free will.
Seventh
way
Although
man’s free will is too inefficient to cause something to
happen, Almighty God, the absolutely Wise One, has made its
operation a simple condition for the coming into effect of His
universal Will. He guides man in whatever direction man wishes
by the use of his free will so that he remains responsible for
the consequences of his choice. As an example, if you were to
take a child upon your shoulders, and then leave him free to
decide where he would like to go and he elected for you to
take him up a high mountain, and in consequence he caught
cold, he would have no right to blame you for that. Indeed,
you might even punish him because he wanted to go up the
mountain. In like manner, Almighty God, the Most Just of
Judges, never coerces His servants into doing something, and
He has accordingly made His Will somewhat dependent on man’s
free will.
In sum: As
man, you do possess free will, which makes almost no
contribution to your good acts, although it can cause deadly
sins and destruction wherever it operates. Therefore, exploit
your free will for your own benefit by praying to God
continuously, so that you may enjoy the blessings of Paradise,
a fruit of the chain of good deeds, and attain to eternal
happiness. Further, you should always seek God‘s forgiveness
for your sins in order to refrain from evil deeds and to be
saved from the torments of Hell, a fruit of the accursed chain
of evil deeds. Prayer and putting one’s trust in God greatly
strengthen the inclination to good, and repentance and seeking
God’s forgiveness cut the inclination to evil and break its
transgressions.
We may
summarize the discussion so far in seven points:
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Divine
Destiny, also called Divine determination and arrangement,
dominates the universe but does not cancel our free
will.
-
Since God
is beyond time and space and everything is included in His
Knowledge, He encompasses the past, present and future as a
single, undivided point. For example: When you are in a
room, your view is restricted to the room. But if you look
from a higher point, you can see the whole city. As you rise
higher and higher, your vision continues to broaden. The
Earth, when seen from the moon, appears to be a small blue
marble. It is the same with time. So, all time and space are
encompassed by God as a single, undivided point, into which
the past, present and future are united.
-
Since all
time and space are included in God’s Knowledge as a single
point, God recorded everything that will happen until the
Day of Judgment. Angels use this record to prepare a smaller
record for each individual.
-
We do not
do something because God recorded it; God knew beforehand we
would do it and so recorded it.
-
There are
not two destinies: one for the cause, the other for the
effect. Destiny is one and relates to the cause and the
effect simultaneously. Our free will, which causes our acts,
is included in Destiny.
-
God guides
us to good things and actions, and allows and advises us to
use our willpower for good. In return, He promises us
eternal happiness in Paradise.
-
We have
free will, although we contribute almost nothing to our good
acts. Our free will, if not used properly, can destroy us.
Therefore we should use it to benefit ourselves by praying
to God, so that we may enjoy the blessings of Paradise, a
fruit of the chain of good deeds, and attain eternal
happiness. Furthermore, we should always seek God’s
forgiveness so that we might refrain from evil and be saved
from the torments of Hell, a fruit of the accursed chain of
evil deeds. Prayer and trusting in God greatly strengthen
our inclination toward good, and repentance and seeking
God’s forgiveness greatly weaken, even destroy, our
inclination toward evil and transgression.
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