Muslims have engaged in some extremely curious debates over the centuries. What has been even stranger than the issues disputed is how much time and needless acrimony, sometimes outright violence (and worse) it took before they could be brought near any sort of resolution. And they continue to make occasional reappearances to this day.
The disputes I am referring to are not the games played by the atheists on the believers: ‘Can God make a spherical square?’, ‘Can God make an object so heavy that He cannot lift?’ or ‘Can God make another God like himself?’ – word salads that do not mean anything. Neither am I talking about the inter-faith debates between Muslims and Christians on the nature of divinity, say. Nor yet silly Muslim equivalents of how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. The disputes I am referring to started when the Muslims first came to know of Greek philosophy and logic as translations of Greek texts became available. What made these issues so elusive to any sort of settlement for such long periods of time is the fact that the diametrically opposite positions of the disputing parties in all these debates were backed up alike by verses of the Quran.
They were backed up by verses of the Quran when the latter were torn loose from their contexts and were considered in isolation, that is. Which is a pity because if they are considered in their contexts, and all verses on a given subject are considered together as a whole (not individually and selectively), and sufficient thought is given to them, there remains no insurmountable difficulty in settling these issues. In all these debates then, there was much more controversy than there needed to be.
Extreme, superficial and hasty answers to all these questions are generally either due to focusing on one attribute of God (to the exclusion – sometimes negation – of all others) or to placing God inside the framework of time and space (and therefore considering him subject to them), which is a negation of his quality of being Absolute (One who is dependent on nothing).
The first debate was the same old problem of evil in new packaging. Is God the Creator of our actions? This has obvious implications for the free-will/predestination controversy. If God is the Creator of man’s actions, then He must ultimately be responsible for the evil that men do, which has serious implications for the concept of life as a fair test of man. If, on the other hand, we are the creators our own actions, we are independent of God’s Will, which puts limitations on the power of God. The answer of course is simply this: God creates our actions but does not perform them for us. He allows man to choose his course of action and within limits he gives him freedom to act on his choices too, but he also gives him guidance regarding what is right and what is wrong. The resulting responsibility is the basis for man’s test. But because everything that the human being does still depends on the laws of the universe (another name for God’s Will), so there is no question of being independent of God or outsmarting Him.
Another epic debate revolved around whether the speech of God (the Quran) was God’s creation. The Mutazilites answered it in the affirmative and thus started the unfortunate persecution of anybody who did not openly agree with them. Present-day Muslims often wonder what difference it made one way or the other but there was a time when some people thought that an affirmative answer was the only way to refute the divinity of Jesus. (Go figure!) The answer to this riddle is that divine speech is an attribute of God and is therefore Eternal like Him; but, dictated at a particular time, the Quran is a manifestation of that attribute at a specific point of time. God’s Creativity is Eternal, but each of His creations (including the Quran) came into being at some given moment in time.
Next, we come to whether God can hold man responsible for things beyond his power. No, vehemently maintained one side on the ground that God is Just and Merciful. Yes, said the other, equally vehemently, on the ground that He is the Almighty and there is no stopping him from doing whatever he pleases. Either side quoted verses of the Quran to support their stances. Quite obviously, either side was focusing on different aspects of reality (being blind to the other). The solution becomes apparent as soon as one sees the complete picture. The verses that say God guides whom he pleases and causes to go astray whom he pleases (by sealing his heart and putting a veil on his eyes) is by no means talking about a capricious deity acting arbitrarily. According to the Quran, the characteristic behaviour of God (His Sunnat) never changes. Whether He helps somebody to advance in the positive or in the negative direction depends on what the man has done with whatever part of guidance he has received earlier. If he accepts the truth without letting vested interests get in his way, he progressively receives more guidance from God, and vice versa. Man, then, plays a part in whether God guides him or causes him to go astray. That God is All-Powerful is true; but what is also true is that He is All-knowing and Wise. And he has these qualities all at the same time. Contemplating God with all his qualities simultaneously solves other similar debates as well: ‘Can God lie?’ for example, which believe it or not, was once a hot topic of discussion. While there is nothing that is too difficult for God, God only does Godly things.
Extreme, superficial and hasty answers to all these questions are generally either due to focusing on one attribute of God (to the exclusion – sometimes negation – of all others) or to placing God inside the framework of time and space (and therefore considering him subject to them), which is a negation of his quality of being Absolute (One who is dependent on nothing). To avoid getting entangled in unsolvable riddles it is imperative to have a worldview in which God is beyond space and time and where He is considered with all His qualities at the same time. The above debates may be old, but even today many Muslims find it hard to resist reading Quranic verses out of context and in isolation. Add to it the reluctance to give sufficient thought to any given issue and there is plenty to learn from these forgotten chapters of history.
