Introduction
The existence of evil is maybe the oldest and number one dilemma that makes believers question and many to lose their faith. Especially when we are stricken with a disaster, we feel like there is much more evil than good in the world. Death in various unimaginable forms is the mother of all evils yet compared to some of the horrors committed by human beings, even the death turns out to be a mercy. All of us taste the bitter side of this life in one way or another at some point in our lives. If nothing else, we get older, our health and our bodies deteriorate day by day, we lose our loved ones one by one. Maybe one of the saddest calamities is, some of us lose their child at an early age during their sweetest times to a terrible disease. Some of us endure a lifelong disability or charged with the burden of taking care of a disabled child throughout their lives. No matter what, as we speak millions of terrible deaths, accidents, cruelties, tortures, and natural disasters are happening somewhere around the world. However, for some reason when these personal calamities happen on a larger scale because of a natural disaster like earthquakes or tsunamis or caused by human cruelties such as tortures or genocides, it affects us more profoundly.
There is no question that there is a lot of suffering in this world. For those of us who are lucky (or rather blessed or spared by God), we can reconcile the pains and sufferings we endure in our lives with the blessings we are bestowed upon. Knowing the suffering we will have to endure, if we were given the choice of coming to this world or not, we would probably still choose to come to experience those blessings. That is because, the happiness we experience, overweighs the pains we suffer. On the other hand, for many people, if they were given the choice of being born or not, they would rather choose not to come to this world because their lives -sometimes short, sometimes long- pass in great agony. For a child who is abused and killed viciously or for a woman who spent her entire life in sex slavery, there is no worldly joy that can possibly compensate for their suffering.
So how can we explain the purpose of suffering that cannot be balanced with the blessings in the world? If God is so good, why does he let his creatures (including animals) to go through such horrific experiences which apparently seems not to serve any purpose? How can we reconcile the evil in this world with the God of Goodness and the pain with the God of Mercy? What might be the divine purpose behind the death of an innocent child to a painful death? In this paper, I will contemplate on the question of evil. I must say (maybe because I personally have not experienced or witnessed such unbearable pain in my life) this dilemma that costs many believers their faith has never been a problem for me. I will try to explain how Islamic theology views the evil and why I personally do not see any contradiction between the mercy of God and the evil in the world.
The Problem
Especially in Christian theology, because God is believed to be essentially good, many people are caught in a cleft stick. They cannot justify human cruelty and natural disasters with the concept of an omnibenevolent God. Generally named ‘the problem of evil’ which is also called ‘theodicy’ in Christian theology, has not been such a big issue in Islamic theology because ‘goodness’ is not one of the essential attributes of the Creator. He is believed to be good as mentioned countless times in the Quran; not because He must be good, but He chooses to be good. According to Ash’ari creed, evil is not inherently evil, but it is evil as much as God defines something to be evil. And according to Maturidi creed, God can create evil for the greater good with his ultimate wisdom, although we cannot perceive it with our limited minds. For Maturidis in His infinite wisdom, “God can sponsor evil, both on the popular understanding and on the more formal Mu’tazila definition of that which produces no benefit, averts no greater harm, nor serves as a justifiable recompense.”[1] On the other hand, Mu’tazila believed somewhat similar to Christians that God is ultimately good and He does create evil, rather it is humans who create evil.
In the history of philosophy, Epicurus (d. 270 BC) was the first to question the existence of evil.
“He was quoted by Lactantius (260-340 A.D.) as follows: ‘God either wishes to take away evils, and is unable; or He is able and is unwilling, or He is neither willing nor able; or he is both willing and able. If he is willing and is unable, He is feeble, which is not in accordance with the character of God; if He is able and unwilling, He is envious, which is equally at variance with God; if He is neither willing, nor able, He is both envious and feeble, and therefore not God; if He is both willing and able, which alone is suitable to God, from what source then are evils? Or why does He not remove them’”[2]
Indeed, Epicurus’ dilemma has its answer within the question where he asks, “if He is willing and able, then why does he not remove them?” Through inductive reasoning, if we come to the conclusion that there is a Creator, the proper question is supposed to be ‘why does He not remove the evil,’ rather than whether he is willing or able to. Because the statements of
- God is willing to stop evil, but unable to stop,
- He is neither willing nor able to stop,
are fallacies for they contradict with the fundamental definition of God. The third possibility,
- He is both willing and able,
is logically wrong as well because if He willed there would not be any evil in the world. So, the only other possibility,
- God is able to stop but does not want to stop,
can be understood in two ways;
- He is able to stop but does not stop because he wants His creatures to suffer for no reason, thus He is evil Himself.
- He is able to stop but does not stop, because there is a reason and purpose for the evil.
Ignoring the argument b, Hume paraphrased the same line of thought as “Is [God] willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is impotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Whence then is evil?”[3]
According to J. L. Mackie (d. 1981), the logical incompatibility between the omnibenevolent God and the evil goes like this;
“1. A wholly good being always eliminates evil as far as it can.
2. There are no limits to what an omnipotent and omniscient being
can do.
3. Therefore, based on 1 and 2, if a wholly good, omnipotent, and omniscient being exists, it eliminates evil completely.
4. Evil has not been eliminated completely.
5. Thus, following from 3 and 4, a wholly good, omnipotent, and omniscient being does not exist.”[4]
Atheists like Mackie generally raise the question of evil to deny the existence of God, yet their position is not any better than the theists in explaining it.[5] On the contrary, their position is worse because, if there were no God, the very notion of morality and the concepts of good and evil would be up in the air. Belief in God and the afterlife is the reference point for the concepts of good and evil and it is the very foundation of morality. “According to Peter Strawson, our commitment to moral responsibility is so deeply rooted that it is simply inconceivable that we could give it up, and thus the reality of moral responsibility sets a boundary condition for where rational argument can lead.”[6]
The concepts of good and evil are universal and they are inscribed to our souls. We do not acquire those concepts from our environment, rather we are born with them and they are known to us as a priori. We can observe this in the innocence of children. Therefore, it doesn’t make any sense to entail the non-existence of God to the existence of evil; on the contrary, the notions of good and evil only makes sense with the existence of God. Here, I must say Nietzsche’s attempts to explain the concepts of good and bad in the historical context such as ‘master morality’ and ‘slave morality’ is quite absurd. There is no proof for culture (or morality) infiltrating to the DNA and carried to the future generations.
Illusionism & Relativism
In theology, there are several theodicies that try to reconcile the existence of evil with the concept of omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent God. One of the defense arguments is ‘illusionism.’ According to illusionists, the apparent suffering, we feel and witness in this world is just an illusion. For example, in our nightmares, we feel pain and suffering sometimes as if it would never end, but once we wake up, we understand it was just a dream in a lesser reality than the actual life. So, is it possible that once we die, we will wake up to a higher reality, and all the pain and suffering we see and experience in this world will become insignificant, like a nightmare which we hardly remember?
According to Harbon “to attribute the illusionist’s universe to God is not to solve the problem of evil. It is simply to raise a more perverse version of it.”[7] He also argues the pain and suffering are undeniably real. He can be right about illusionism that once we start questioning the reality of suffering, then the very existence of the universe becomes questionable.
Maybe, instead of illusionism, we must introduce the argument of ‘relativity’ in terms of time and quality. For example, nobody can deny the pain mothers experience during delivery. Yet, in the end, nine months of toil and hours of intense pain is recompensed with lifelong joy and pride of having her child. That is why mothers willingly choose to have babies again and again in spite of several hours of dreadful pain they experience during the delivery. The blessing of a having child amply overweighs the troubles of making the child in terms of time and quality. In the same way, if our finite sufferings in this transient world will be compensated with eternal blessings of the hereafter, can we still say the sufferings are evil?
As I mentioned in the introduction, maybe rewards in the afterlife will be so magnificent that if they are given another chance, the unfortunate ones among us would like to come to the world to experience those sufferings again. The hadith about martyrs points out to this notion. “The Prophet said, “Nobody who enters Paradise likes to go back to the world even if he got everything on the Earth, except a Mujahid who wishes to return to the world so that he may be martyred ten times because of the dignity he receives (from Allah).”[8]
In the Quran, there are several verses that refer to the ‘relativity’ of worldly life versus the afterlife that this life is just an illusion and when we die, we will wake up from this illusion. For example the ayah “And on the Day when He will gather them, [it will be] as if they had not remained [in the world] but an hour of the day, [and] they will know each other”[9] tells us that compared to the hereafter, the world life is just a dream.
Skeptical Approach
The skeptical approach is another defense argument for the existence of evil. It is similar to illusionism that in the realm of this world our cognitive abilities are quite limited and there is no way for us to comprehend God’s plan. Basically, it is the premise of ‘God works in mysterious ways.’ “Skeptical theists argue that because many of God’s ways are inscrutable, we are in no position to judge as improbable the claim that there are great goods secured by God through the various evils that exist.”[10] Although skepticism explains the existence of evil by not explaining it, the skeptical theists make the gap between God’s infinite wisdom and our limited wisdom so wide that it opposes the vision of God in the religions. Yet, the story of Khidr and Moses in the Quran, explains some of the evils we see from a skeptical perspective.
Another aspect of the skeptical view might be that we can only be sure of the suffering we experience in our own bodies and souls. There is no way for us to be able to feel somebody else’s pain, (in the same way we experience the colors). So how can we be sure that a child’s pain is as big as it appears us to be? And also, humans have consciousness, so it is impossible to deny the pain humans feel or the evil humans create yet we cannot say the same thing for animals? How do we know that the pain animals feel is real and not merely automated response to physical damage in their bodies? I guess there is no way to know that.
The Free Will Defense
The most common theodicy that tries to explain evil is ‘The Free Will Defense’ which was formulated by St. Augustine (d. 430). According to St. Augustine God is good and everything He created is good and has a good purpose. The evil is not something God creates; it is the result of free will given to human beings, it is Godlessness. The original sin as the fall from the mercy of God was the mother of all moral and natural evils and humans need to return to God in order to be saved from evil.
The free will defense also includes the argument ‘b’ above that ‘The God is perfectly able to stop evil, but He does not stop because there is a reason and purpose for the evil.’ “The proponents of the free will defense suggest that free will is such a good – it is logically impossible for even God to give a creature free will and at the same time guarantee that it will always choose rightly, and yet free will is a very great good (or is necessary for the existence of great goods).”[11]
This line of thinking includes the premise of ‘even God cannot create something illogical’ which I believe is another fallacy because the logic as we know is also created by God and God is not bound to something He creates. This premise is no different than the questions such as ‘can God create a circular triangle or can He create another god.’ Maybe a better expression of this premise could be ‘in His infinite wisdom, God does not create anything illogical.’
However, the free will defense is not conclusive due to the fact that “no satisfactory account of the concept of libertarian free will is yet available.”[12] I think the nature of free will is much more problematic and hard to understand than the existence of evil. Does free will really exist or is it just a delusion? Our actions of free will come out as a result of the mental and emotional processes that take place within the faculties of our souls. Every soul/conscience is created with a certain set of emotional and cognitive toolkits in different degrees. For example, by creation we have an intelligence between the degrees of genius and dumb; we have sexual desires between the degrees of over-sexism and asexuality (total lack of sexual desire); we have sense/lack of mercy between the degrees of compassionate to psychopathy, etc. If these characteristic features in different degrees are given to us by God and we make our choices as a result of those cognitive/emotional faculties, do we really have a free-will?
Furthermore, how does art in an artist’s brain come to being? What is the source of artistic inspiration? We cannot say artistic talent is something that we acquire by choice and hard work; it more like a God-given capability. We clearly see this in prodigies. Aren’t psychopaths with their hallucinations and evil inspirations, narcissists with their self-image and lack of empathy, sex addicts and pedophiles with their illicit desires, in a sense, prodigies in the evil side of the spectrum? There is much to say about the essence of free will, but it would be out of the scope of this paper. I believe even though, we cannot comprehend it, we have to assume we have free will to some degree; and we are in charge of our actions; and we will be accountable for our actions; so that we can actualize the purpose in our creation. As Harrison argues “Nevertheless, there is near-unanimous agreement that free will is needed to ground moral responsibility. That is to say, free will is required if we are to deserve praise, blame, reward, or punishment for our deeds, and if a host of so-called “reactive attitudes” such as resentment, guilt, and forgiveness are appropriate.”[13]
The Soul-Making Theodicy
Another popular explanation for evil and suffering is ‘the soul-making theodicy.’ “Based on the work of Irenaeus (d. 202), John Hick (d. 2012) developed a theodicy that is, in some ways, in stark contrast to the Augustinian approach.”[14] As opposed to Augustinian free will defense, soul-making theodicy does not assume human beings were created in perfection, rather they were created simple and undeveloped and were sent to this world to grow cognitively and spiritually. So, all the evil and tribulations in this world are for the purpose of developing the human soul and prepare it for a higher reality in the hereafter. From the perspective of soul-making theodicy, God allows and creates evil to built us for paradise. In this perspective, soul-making theodicy also explains natural evil as opposed to free will theodicy.
One objection to the soul-making argument is the gratuitous suffering we see in nature. For example, what can be the purpose in the suffering of an animal that burns to death in a forest fire? Again, it can be argued that it indirectly serves the purpose of the soul-making process by awakening and growing compassion in human souls. In the time of natural disasters, humans set aside their hostilities and come together to help one another.
Another objection might be it doesn’t explain the suffering that breaks people’s spirits and draws them away from God and turns them towards evil. Here we can say the set-up of this world is not established in a way that everybody would and could deserve paradise. God is our owner; and we are His property; and the owner has any right on His property; and we have no right to question Him. Said Nursi explains this with an analogy.
“As quality is always far more important than quantity, we should consider only qualitative values in making our judgment. To cite an example: 100 date-stones are worth only 100 cents until they are planted and grow into palm trees. But if only 20 grow into trees and the remaining 80 rot because of over-watering, how can you say it is an evil to plant and water them? Everyone would agree that it is wholly good to have 20 trees at the expense of 80 date-stones since 20 trees will give 20,000 date-stones.”[15]
As opposed to free will theodicy (as understood in Christianity with the concept of original sin), the soul-making argument is compatible with Islamic theology. In the Quran, Allah states ‘And We will surely test you with something of fear and hunger and a loss of wealth and lives and fruits but give good tidings to the patient’ (Quran 2:155). Free will as a source of evil is also mentioned in the Quran as, ‘What comes to you of good is from Allah, but what comes to you of evil, [O man], is from yourself’ (Quran 4:79).
Conclusion
I think philosophy is the science of trying to figure out a very complicated labyrinth by trial and error. Very few make it to the other end, and many fail and perish in the dark alleys of this labyrinth of existence. On the other hand, the revelation provides us a map to this complicated labyrinth. Only in the light of the revelation, we can see the labyrinth from above as if we are using Google maps.
Trying to explain the secrets of the creation with pure reason is a delusion. Applying human reason to the wisdom of God and trying to figure out what in His mind (so to say), is another form of anthropomorphism. Finite cannot comprehend infinity. The problems of evil, free will, destiny, the essence of God, etc. are all beyond our cognitive capacity.
The concept of good/evil is God’s creation. We can only think within the boundaries He has driven for us. We cannot judge him with what he has created. Therefore, it is absurd to question Him for the evil He creates. Likewise, arguments such as ‘even God cannot create something illogical” are all fallacies for He has given us a sense of logic.
As Said Nursi mentions in his answer to the question of “Almighty God sends calamities and inflicts tribulations; isn’t this an injustice towards the innocent in particular, and animals even?”
“God forbid, sovereignty is His. He holds sway over His possessions as He wishes.”[16]
[1] Sherman A. Jackson, Islam and the Problem of Black Suffering (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009), 104-111.
[2] Peter T. Horban, God, Evil, and the Metaphysics of Freedom: An evaluation of The Free Will Defense of Alvin Plantinga (Ontario, ProQuest LLC, 1979), 3.
[3] Chad Meister, The problem of evil. In C. Taliaferro & C. Meister (Eds.), The Cambridge Companion to Christian Philosophical Theology, 152, accessed May 15, 2020. https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/cambridge-companion-to-christian-philosophical-theology/problem-of-evil/EF8AEFA349776D4D507BD9E06C3D6EEA
[4] Ibid, 154.
[5] Ibid, 168.
[6] Gerald Harrison, “An Argument for Free Will”, in Just the Arguments: 100 of the Most Important Arguments in Western Philosophy, ed. Michael Bruce & Steven Barbone, (Blackwell Publishing Ltd., 2011), accessed May 15, 2020, 120. https://onlinelibrary-wiley-com.dtl.idm.oclc.org/doi/book/10.1002/9781444344431
[7] Peter T. Horban, God, Evil, and the Metaphysics of Freedom: An evaluation of The Free Will Defense of Alvin Plantinga (Ontario, ProQuest LLC, 1979), 13.
[8] Sahih al-Bukhari, 4:52:54.
[9] Quran (10:45) and also see (17:52), (23:112-114), and (57:20).
[10] Ibid, 159.
[11] Grant Sterling, “The Free Will Defense to the Problem of Evil” in Just the Arguments: 100 of the Most Important Arguments in Western Philosophy, ed. Michael Bruce & Steven Barbone, (Blackwell Publishing Ltd., 2011), accessed May 15, 2020, https://onlinelibrary-wiley-com.dtl.idm.oclc.org/doi/book/10.1002/9781444344431
[12] “The Problem of Evil,” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, accessed May 20, 2020. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/evil/#FreWil
[13] Gerald Harrison, “An Argument for Free Will”, in Just the Arguments: 100 of the Most Important Arguments in Western Philosophy, ed. Michael Bruce & Steven Barbone, (Blackwell Publishing Ltd., 2011), accessed May 15, 2020, 119. https://onlinelibrary-wiley-com.dtl.idm.oclc.org/doi/book/10.1002/9781444344431
[14] Chad Meister, The problem of evil. In C. Taliaferro & C. Meister (Eds.), The Cambridge Companion to Christian Philosophical Theology, 152, accessed May 15, 2020. https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/cambridge-companion-to-christian-philosophical-theology/problem-of-evil/EF8AEFA349776D4D507BD9E06C3D6EEA
[15] Said Nursi, The Letters- Twelfth Letter, accessed May 20, 2020, https://risaleinur.com/risale-i-nur-collection/71-the-letters/4415-12-the-twelfth-letter.html
[16] Ibid. 24th Letter.
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