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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.
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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.
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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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