Monster Media 1993 #2/Image.iso/text/islamnfo.zip/JUSTEVIL

Text File | 1993-05-19 | 16KB | 312 lines

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* In the name of  "ALLAH",  the  most  Beneficent, the  most  Merciful  *

From: Javad Shayvard
Subj: Divine Justice and the Problem of Evil

                 Divine Justice and the Problem of Evil


Throughout the history of thought and action, the justice of God has
been a problem which has occupied the mind of nearly every
philosopher. The most important reason for this attention is that they
have been aware of deprivation, poverty, exploitation and tyranny
amongst human societies.  Being aware of these bitter facts, some have
been led to doubt the justice of God, or even doubt the existence of
God. Others have tried to somehow justify this seeming contradiction
between God being just and the above mentioned miseries.

This article is a small attempt to prove two points:

1. God's justice is a reality.
2. If God is just, it does not mean that individuals have to accept
their present social situations; but on the contrary, IT MEANS THAT
THEY SHOULD CHANGE IT.

A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE PROBLEM
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If there is just God why is there so much evil. There is death, war,
earthquake, hunger, bitter conditions of life .....etc. The argument
then follows that either there is no God or there is a cruel God, who,
like a monster, enjoys seeing us suffer!

This question has been answered in many ways in different ages. Some
of them are as follows and we shall have a brief look at them:

1. God is the Perfect Being, and justice is part of perfection.
Therefore, God is just. So whatever of injustice we see in the world,
will be rectified eventually. In other worlds, He has no needs, and
injustice is either from ignorance and fanaticism, or from need, and
none of these are conceivable for the Perfect Being. Imam Husayn, in
the deserts of Arafat, before being martyred by the enemy, said: "God,
you are so needless that you yourself can not benefit yourself. How
then, can we give anything to you?!"

2. Evil is necessary for the greater good. Refraining from thousand
goods for the sake of one evil, is itself a great evil.

3. Man's freedom is the cause of evil. Here freedom is not in
political sense. It means being able to do good or bad. It is only
mankind who has this responsibility. He can be kind or he can be
cruel. He can be a humanist or he can be an oppressive tyrant and
killer. Leibniz, the 17th century philosopher, is one of those who
believe that man's freedom is the cause of evil. He wrote: Free will
is a great good, but it was logically impossible for God to give
freedom and at the same time decree that there should be no sin. So
God decided to make man free although sin inevitably brought
punishment.

This view can explain wars and social injustices, but cannot explain
earthquakes, death, illness, etc.

4. Evil is a negative thing.

SUFFERING AND NOT EVIL
""""""""""""""""""""""

Now, let us go bit deeper in the problem. What we should say at this
point is that we commit a mistake by using the term evil. We should
rather use: suffering or hardship. By doing this we have not done
anything against reality or any logical necessity. In the term evil
there is a concept of injustice hidden. We shall avoid using it,
because it is a loaded word.

LIMITLESS DESIRES
"""""""""""""""""

Now, by looking at concrete experiences and the nature of things, and
also looking at our internal and external factors of life, we see that
they are not set in manner to always coincide with our desires and
wishes. The limitlessness of our desires from one hand, and the
mathematical nature of the universe on the other, is the cause of our
illegitimate annoyance. For example, we want to have absolute
knowledge. We want to possess absolute ownership of the world without
being disturbed. We do not want to get sick.  On the other hand,
neither does our existential factors give value to these desires, nor
do the natural elements abide to these wishes. And since our internal
nature and the world itself do not permit our limitless desires, we
raise our hands to the sky and say: O' God! what an evilful universe!

But, somebody who knows that the paraffin in his lamp is limited, will
not complain after its extinction. One who knows that this lamp which
he has lit, is not safe from winds, will not scream when the wind
blows it out.  The system of the natural world is the same, and one
who lives in it, can not come out of the flow of that system. So, we
are obliged to accept that there is suffering. The question to ask is
that, is it logical to say that these sufferings are against justice?
(Note that we are not talking about sufferings caused by human: wars,
torture, poverty...). The answer to the question is negative, since we
have to understand the various meanings of justice. There is
sentimental justice, like a mother offering all her love for her
child. There is legal justice. There is also moral and philosophical
justice. I will try to define the last two:

Philosophical Justice: Every subject and phenomenon should travel in
its appropriate line and flow towards its perfection.

Moral Justice: Do not inflict any suffering on anything else.

Philosophical justice means that even if the sick screams and
complains, we should give him the bitter medicine that he needs to
take, and do the surgery which is for his good.

VIEWERS AND PARTICIPANTS
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Those who have been in contact with mankind and nature from close-up,
and have not been mere viewers, have never doubted the justice of God.
Socrates (The Philosopher), in the time of his prosecution, takes the
cup of poison from the guard and drink it. Since he had a great
message for all people of all times, he drank the poison with no fear.

Prophet Muhammad, the best of mankind ever, said: "No prophet has been
suffered like me!"  If we also look at the life of Ali Ibn Abi Talib,
the Prophet Muhammad's miracle and his most beloved companion, we find
that his life was highly filled out with suffering and pain. One out
of many, is that he was the best in knowledge and action among his
society after the prophet, yet he remained silent for twenty five
years for the sake of the people's ideological unity at that time. He
accepted this psychological suffering for twenty five years.

Later, when the people realized who he was, and came to him and chose
him as their leader, he ruled the society with utmost justice, even
though he was continuously in war with so called Muslims during his
short period of ruling, and then he was killed shortly. Ali's justice
was a kind of justice which has made the eastern materialist, Shibli
Shumayyil, to say about him: "The leader Ali, greatest of all, is the
man who neither the West nor East, neither yesterday nor today, have
seen his example." (Ali, The voice of human justice, by George
Jordac).  Ali himself said: "If you give me all the world with
everything in it, with a condition that I take a husk of barley from
an ant's mouth, I will not do so!" (Nahjul Balaqah, by Imam Ali).

For the just, this world is most painful, but nevertheless, Ali never
said that this world is evil. He always said that it is the world of
suffering, be ready, be careful. He also said: This world is the best
place for one who understands it well.

In fact when we believe in the justice of God, we try to see the same
justice in the society. Because any injustice is against the will of
God and against the music of the universe. This is why belief in the
justice of God has always been a great threat to the ruling powers.

You might say that very well, but it does not follow that since some
people like Prophet Muhammad, Ali have said and done so, the problem
of evil does not exist. Very well, but where did the problem of evil
come from, anyway?  From the minds of some other people whose lives
were quite more comfortable than Prophet or Ali! Like Epicurus, Hume
or Mill or even me and you!

Looking at their biographies, none have suffered as much as the first
group. The latter in comparison with the former, were always viewers
of life rather than participants. So you can see how subjective and
relative the problem of evil and suffering is.

Let me repeat the question again. Why do we have to go through all
these difficulties, created by God, in order to reach the developed
stage?  To answer this question, we need to study the orders of
existence.

ORDERS OF EXISTENCE
"""""""""""""""""""

There are two orders in the beings of the world. We can call them the
longitudinal order and the transversal order. The longitudinal order
is the place of things in the cause and effect chain of creation. In
the language of religion, Angels, The Book(of Allah), The
Distributors, The pen and so on, all show of a certain order and
arrangement in existence. This order is not formal but necessary. In
this order, the flame of a match cannot compete with the Sun, and the
change of a possible thing into something necessary is not imaginable.
A cause cannot change its place with its own effect (at the same time
and place).

All the mistakes which we make that why 'this' couldn't have been in
the place of 'that' or why an imperfect being can't change its place
with a perfect being, is because we have not understood the necessary
and essential relations of things. We compare the existential order
with conventional orders and social stratifications. We think that
when we can replace a manager with his employee, or a landlord with
his tenant, then why could not have a sheep been a human being. It is
impossible, since the cause of being cause and the effect of being
effect are not conventional or formal. If 'A' is the cause of 'B', it
is because that there is something in the nature of 'A' that has made
it the cause. Also, the specification of 'B' has caused its relation
to 'A', and this specification is nothing but those attributes which
have made 'B' exist. Once you take those specifications away from 'B',
you are left with something else and not 'B'.  These specifications
are real and not conventional or transferable. Take the number '5'. It
comes after '4' and before '6'. You can not put '5' anywhere else
without loosing its identity. If you put it before '4', it will be
'3', even though you call it '5'. You can not change the reality of
'3', though you change its name.

There exists such a deep and existential order between all creatures
of the universe. If you take anything out of its existential place, it
will loose its substance and will no longer be the same thing. If you
give a triangle four vertices instead of three, it is not a triangle
anymore. In fact it is a square. Ibn Sina has a nice sentence here. He
said: "God did not make apricots into apricots, but He created
apricots." What he means is that there was no stage when all fruits
were equal and then God discriminated between them. Each fruit is
unique. This uniqueness applies to different beings and personalities
as well.

Allah said in Quran: "... Our Lord is He who gave every thing its
nature, then guided it aright." (Quran 20:50).

In another place He said: "Our word for something that we intend is
that to say to it: Be! and it will be." (Quran 16:40).

Now let us go over the transversal order. The transversal order
determines the temporal and material conditions of different
phenomena. It is with this order that history takes definite and
certain form.

Allah refers to this order of existence in this way: "..., and you
shall not find any change in the custom of Allah." (Quran 33:62)

Some of these deterministic laws are mentioned in Quran like the
following: "Allah does not change the situation of any group of
people, unless they change what is in themselves." (Quran 13:11).

Now to sum up this section:

1. The universe has orders and necessary laws, and every phenomenon is
within that system. For the universe to be in order, there should be
differences and stages in existence.

2. Differences are necessary attributes of creatures, and God has made
no discrimination between the creatures.

3. What is against the justice is discrimination and NOT difference.
In the universe, there are differences among the creatures and not
discriminations by Allah.

Now that we have understood this section, we can answer the previous
question by looking at the benefits of suffering for individuals.

BENEFITS OF SUFFERING
"""""""""""""""""""""

It is only through suffering and difficulties that one can attain true
happiness and true prosperity. Allah says: "Verily there is ease with
hardship. There is ease with hardship. So when you are relieved, still
toil, and strive to please your Lord." (Quran 94:5-8).

Hegel says: Disputes and evil ('suffering' to be precise) are not
imaginary. They are quit real and with open eyes they are steps of
evolution and goodness. Struggle is the law of progress. Human
attributes are evolved and made in the battlefield and riot of the
world. No one can reach high perfection except through hardship,
responsibility, and distress. Life is not for satisfaction, but for
evolution.

Ali, in one of his famous letters to Uthman ibn Hanif, his governor in
Basra, wrote: "living in comfort and delicateness, and avoidance of
difficulties ends up to weakness and debility. In contrary, living in
rough conditions makes human powerful and agile, and transfers his
existential essence towards refinement." He also denounced him in the
letter, for his having had a dinner with the rich who had allowed no
poor to enter in their party. He then gave the example of trees in
forests and compared it with the trees in gardens. "Although constant
care is given to the garden trees, yet the deprived trees of the
forest have better quality." (Nahjul Balaqah).

That is why when God is kind to somebody, he inflicts him or her with
difficulty and suffering. This is exactly the opposite side of what
most people think!  Imam Muhammad al-Baqir (the 5th Imam) said: "Allah
helps His believer and sends him hardships, like gifts that a man
sends for his family."  Imam Jafar al-Sadiq (the 6th Imam) said: "When
Allah loves His servant, He drowns him in the sea of suffering."

Like a swimming tutor who throws his new student into water, and makes
him struggle and learn swimming, Allah does the same to develop his
beloved servants. If one just devote his whole life time to read about
swimming, he will never learn how to swim. We have to go into water
and struggle with the danger of drowning to learn how to swim.

Imam Sadiq said in another tradition: "The most difficult lives are
possessed first by prophets, and then those who come after them in
virtue."

Rumi, the philosopher and poet of 13th century, has a good analogy:
"They threw the grain on the earth, then there came out branches.
Next, they crushed it in the mill, and it became more expensive and
useful in bread form. Next, the bread was grounded under the teeth,
and after digestion, it became mind, spirit and useful thought. Again,
when the mind was bewildered with love, what a surprise this
cultivation had been!"


Javad Shayvard.

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From: [e-mail] (Kazem Akbari)