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
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 words, 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 Husain, in the deserts of Arafat,
before being martyred by the enemy, said: "O' 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 ability. 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 can not 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
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 drinks 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 can 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 any more. 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 quite 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 (AS), 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 only devotes 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!"
Wassalam.