10 Questions About God: Justice & Free-Will
While many agnostics or atheists claim to be freethinkers, in reality most have been exposed to the same arguments, which they have prematurely accepted and internalised, without considering counter-arguments.
These arguments vary in their apparent persuasiveness.
However, with just a little reflection, each of these objections to God can easily to be demonstrated to be logically incoherent or weak.
In this post we will consider common questions about/challenges to, the concept of Divine Justice, as taught by Islam. In particular, how God’s justice relates to human free will.
QUESTIONS ABOUT GOD *1*: “Why would God test us if he knows the result already?”
If God was to punish us without giving us a chance to actually commit the sin, this would be against justice.
On the Day of Judgement, we could reasonably complain that we should have been allowed to actually do the sin, before being punished for it, simply based on divine foreknowledge.
Imagine if an teacher refused to let students who would fail, the opportunity to take the exam?
They would rightfully complain that they deserved the same chance to succeed or fail as everybody else. The same applies here.
QUESTIONS ABOUT GOD *2*: “If God knows the result it must be pre-determined, so how do we have any free will?”
Imagine a teacher has a time machine. She travels to the future and sees which of her pupils are successful and which fail their examinations.
Now, how does her foreknowledge affect the actual freedom of choice her pupils have?
They still freely choose to work hard, or play hard and their results follow from their own choices.
QUESTIONS ABOUT GOD *3* : “…But God is all-powerful. Nothing can happen without his will. So our bad deeds happen with his will, so why punish us?”
God does not MAKE us do bad things or do good deeds.
He gives us the opportunity to do so.
Giving the opportunity, means not STOPPING us from enacting our own choices, including sins.
This is what is meant by Free-will.
Divine Will allows us to sin if WE choose, however HIS command is for us to choose good.
The Qur’an is clear that we have complete freedom to choose good or evil and we get the rewards/punishments based on our own efforts: “And man will have nothing but what he strives for” (53:40).
QUESTIONS ABOUT GOD *4*: “I had no choice about being born, it is unfair to put me in a test that might result in me going to hell without asking me first! “
First of all, the Qur’an clearly implies that we human beings CHOSE to take the amanah or trust of free will, knowingly and intentionally (33:72). We did so knowing that we would be rewarded or punished accordingly.
In other words, we were given the choice and so cannot now complain.
Secondly, would anybody say that Hitler should not be punished for his freely committed crimes becauses he didn’t chose to be tested?
Would anyone say that Abdus Sattar Edhi deserves no reward for his goodness, if he was born without choice?
Even IF we were born without choice (and we did have choice) we are still responsible for our good and bad actions, since these are freely chosen.
QUESTIONS ABOUT GOD *5*:
“I cannot be held responsible for believing in God or passing the test of life, because of ‘promises’ made pre-life that I cannot remember. Anyone could claim that I owe them money, I would not be liable to pay them if I had no evidence or recollection that I had borrowed from them”
Firstly, the memory of our meeting with God where we testified to his existence ( Qur’an 7:172) and the agreement to be tested (33:72) could ONLY be valid if one could not consciously remember it.
If we did remember these events, it would make it pointless to be tested in this world, since we would undoubtedly act differently (having directly perceived God) and not reveal our true nature to the same extent.
So if you claim that ‘we should have been only tested after asking us’, equally you should accept that the memory of this should be erased or else the whole exercise of testing becomes moot.
It’s just like saying a double-blind placebo medical trial should reveal which medicine is real and which is the placebo! Of course this would be absurd.
Secondly, the memory of these pre-birth events has not been totally erased. It exists in our subconscious minds, and affects all aspects of our lives.
Thus, repeated studies have shown children naturally adhere to the concept of God regardless of their parents beliefs, showing belief in him is in fact innate and natural. This is what we call the fitrah in Islam.
Even in non-theistic cultures like Japan, children naturally believe in God as a creator, see research by Dr Olivera Petrovich and Justin L. Barett from the University of Birmingham.
In terms of good and bad, we have a conscience and at least some morals that are more or less universal. Equally, human beings generally want to have freedom of action and live as long as possible.
These traits of ours are indications of the choice we made hitherto, to live in this wold and have freewill.
These natural indications are enough for a person with a sound character, to seek out the existence of God earnestly and try to find a religious path acceptable to him or her.
That is all that is required from them. It is those who rebel against this fitrah, because they do not want to worship God, that are held to account.
QUESTIONS ABOUT GOD *6*: “But…why test us at all?”
When I was three my mother abondoned me with strangers…I looked everywhere for her, but could not find her. She obviously had deserted me, because she didn’t care…or did she?
As I discovered three hours later, she came back and took me home.
Apparently she had sent me to this place called ‘nursery’ and it was for my own good.
But how? How could it be good for me to be away from my Mummy for so long and with these strangers?…
Eventually I grew up and as my knowledge of the world expanded, I could see the purpose that hitherto had eluded me.
This is an important lesson that I expect will be repeated when we find answers to questions our puny little minds cannot yet fully comprehend, when God informs us of his reasons, in the life to come.
QUESTIONS ABOUT GOD *7*: “Did God create hell because he is sadistic?”
First: If God was sadistic, he could easily have just created us and thrown us into hell and enjoyed it….nothing was stopping him…
Second: God did not need to reward us with paradise for obedience to him. Even if he was not sadistic, it was his right to punish those who disobeyed him, without creating paradise at all.
The fact that he rewards as well as punishes, shows he is not sadistic, but just.
Third: Given the impossibility of true justice on earth, judgement, heaven and hell are necessary. Why?
Because humans beings have an innate desire for justice. They want serial killers to be punished.
But Jack-the-ripper was never caught….
They want mass murderers to pay for every life they destroyed, but hitler shot himself and got away….
They want the rich and powerful to be held to account …but Jimmy Saville enjoyed himself and died at a grand old age, while the police let him get away with abusing thousands of children, disabled people and dead bodies.
If true justice is impossible, and also not found in the natural world, why do we desire it so?
It clearly indicates to me, that we are born with an innate desire for justice that can only be fulfilled by a Day of Judgement when all deeds will be seen, rewarded and punished.
Thus hell is necessary, as is heaven.
QUESTIONS ABOUT GOD *8*: “If Free Will results in some people doing evil, and going to hell, why even give the choice to sin? Surely it would have been better to have a world of perfect good?”
As I have mentioned previously, with our limited knowledge it is logically problematic to be second-guessing the decisions of a Omniscient Being.
Moreover, God by his nature is the creator of all possibilities. He has already created a world of perfect obedience i.e. the world of the angels.
However, the inability to do wrong means many forms of goodness would go unrealised in that world.
For instance, the loving sacrifices parents make for their children.Or when a poor person shares their meagre meal with a hungry person.
Or when a teacher, stays after school giving extra help to their pupils to get them through exams.
Without choice, all acts of extraordinary goodness cannot exist and so something really important would be missing from God’s creation.
Humans would be not only be unable to choose bad, but also be unable to do any exemplary acts of goodness.
Equally, without pain, pleasure would be meaningless. All the heroic, courageous acts of resistance and bravery in history would have never happened.
The world would be a dull, robotic one without the joys of friendship, the heartbreak of love, the laughter of children.
QUESTIONS ABOUT GOD *9*: “Why does God punish us for not worshipping him, If he doesn’t need our worship? Why does he praise himself? Why not just punish those who harm others? Why would the creator of a vast Universe takes things so personally?”
If we don’t recognise God as our master, to whom obedience is due, why would we follow his rules? If we didn’t accept his rules, then each person can make up their own subjective morality.
In which case, good and the evil become totally irrelevant and the whole point of reward and punishment becomes moot.
It is only when we acknowledge that God is due obedience, that we can follow his guidelines upon which our eternal fate rests.
Following the current and evolving fashions in ‘morality’ that change every few decades, will not do in developing our character and making us worthy of eternal life.
The only reason one would obey God is if one realises how perfect, how great, how mighty he is. If a person does not develop a personal relationship with God, he cannot follow his guidance consistently and properly, and will thus fail.
How do we establish a personal relationship with him? How do we constantly remind ourselves of his presence, and the final judgement?
How do we avoid getting trapped in the distractions of daily life? By regular daily prayers, by reflecting on his perfect attributes and calling upon his holy names, and supplicating to him. Above all by reading his own revealed words.This is a symbolic expression of our relationship with him.
He is our first and foremost relationship. He is with us always, before this world, in this world and even hereafter. All our relatives, friends are from him and are given to us by him, for as long as he wills.
All the ‘praise’ God gives himself is just a description of himself. He keeps describing himself to us so we can ‘see him’ through his descriptions and feel his presence.
If God wanted praise, he could have achieved this simply by compelling us. Instead he allows people to insult him day and night, and oppose him, so that they still have the opportunity to turn to him out of their own free will.
QUESTIONS ABOUT GOD *10*: “Why punish for an infinite time, for sins committed in a short span of time i.e. a human lifetime?”
Firstly, there is no reason to believe all people in hell, will remain there forever.
Secondly, the Qur’an indicates the possibility that if Allah wills, hell might eventually cease to exist, while Paradise will continue eternally (6:128, 11:106-107)
Thirdly, if eternal paradise for limited good deeds is not ‘unjust’, why would the opposite be?
In this case, punishment and reward both would last as long as each person’s lifetime. However, this would prove a major disincentive to do good.
People would think, well I may as well enjoy myself now and get punishment later, after all I’ll soon be turned to dust, so why worry?
Equally, paradise would seem far less attractive, only being an extended holiday not an eternal home.
Finally, if people have the intention of doing bad eternally, and would never reform even if they lived for ever, then their souls cannot ever be purified.
God ensures each person receives the full opportunity to save themselves during their lifetime, but if they are irredeemable criminals who can never reform, they are not worthy of his forgiveness. As a British politician once said “Don’t do the crime, if you don’t want to do the time“!