bes@tybalt.caltech.edu ( Behnam Sadeghi ) (11/02/90)
It seems to me that there are at least two views of the question of free will versus predestination which are logically consistent with God's omnipotence and omniscience. In the following, "we" refers to ALL human beings: ------ 1) God has *determined* all of our actions beforehand. Our "will" plays no role on what we do in life. God has also determined our reward and punishment in the hereafter for our conduct in life (which was itself predetermined by God). Clearly all that is done by us, good, bad, or otherwise, is "willed" by God because it is determined by God. This view doesn't contradict God's omniscience because obviously by having predetermined our actions, God is in full knowlede of our actions/reward/punishment. This view clearly doesn't contradict God`s omnipotence either. 2) God has endowed us with free will. This means that God has willed that our personal decisions play some role on what we do in life. This also means that God has willed that our reward and punishment in the hereafter depends on our conduct in life, which was influenced by our own will. Clearly all that is done by us, good, bad, or otherwise, is "willed" by God in the sense that it is by God's will that we have the freedom to make the choices that we make in life. However, these actions are not "willed" by God IF "willed" implies predestination and lack of any freedom by humans. Also, the fact that God wills all actions (in the sense just explained) doesn't imply that God approves of it if we sin. (This the ambiguity in the meaning of "will" that was pointed out by brother Iftikhar). This view doesn't contradict God's omniscience because the fact that God has given us the freedom to make choices in life doesn't imply that God is not aware of what choices we will make and what their outcome will be (reward/punishment/etc.). This view doesn't contradict God's omnipotence because, being omnipotent, God may have willed that we shouldn't have the freedom that He has given us. It was by God's will that we were given free will, and had God so wished, he would have deprived us of this freedom. Furthermore, it is God's will that our reward and punsihemnt (e.g. in the hereafter) is a function of our conduct. Therefore this doesn't contradict God's omnipotence either. --- I am not going to aruge here in favor of either of these views because I don't think my opinion matters. Both of the above views have been held by Moslems. The first view gained strenght under the Ummayyads and has been held by the Asharis. The 2nd view has been held by the "Adliyya" (which includes the Ja'fari school as a subset) and was held by the mu'tazila. Behnam Sadeghi
soudan@iitmax.iit.edu (Bassel Soudan) (11/04/90)
In article <1990Nov1.215418.20068@nntp-server.caltech.edu> bes@tybalt.caltech.edu ( Behnam Sadeghi ) writes: >------ >1) God has *determined* all of our actions beforehand. Our >"will" plays no role on what we do in life. God has also >determined our reward and punishment in the hereafter for our >conduct in life (which was itself predetermined by God). > >Clearly all that is done by us, good, >bad, or otherwise, is "willed" by God because it is determined >by God. > In this view, you are placing a lot of unfairness upon God by saying that he has "predetermined our actions and rewards. It sounds like He decided everything and then let us go through the motions. But there is nothing as fair as God. He did not predetermine our actions and deeds. He did not decide for us that you shall be muslim and you shall not. He left that to us. In the Quran God says that he has taken a vow from all the children of Adam that he is thier Lord. Then he showed every one of us the two paths and "WE CHOSE". The best way to think about this goes like this: God created us. He knows exactly what we are going to do because he is the one who created us and he is Omnisient. He knows what choices we will make because he created us and knows everything about us. We have all the freedom we want in doing what ever we want. But he still knows how we will excercise this freedom. He gave us the freedom to do what we want, then said: If you want me to be happy with you don't do this and do that. He asked us to limit our own freedom for his sake so that we may prove our belief in him. That is why he will reward us in the here after. For the limits that "WE" placed on "OUR" freedom following what he "ASKED" us to. I will give a simple example from our daily lives that may explain this better without having to go through all the Philosophic discussions. (Wa lillahu al mathalu ala'la.) (to those who don't speak Arabic this means that I don't give this example to mimic what God does, I am just doing so to explain a fact about him. Litrally it means that God has the better and higher example.) Any way. If you put together a computer program and you work on it for a long time perfecting it. (the idea of time is placed here because we humans can not better anything without spending a lot of time on it. It doesn't relate to God in any way or fashion.) Back to the example. You worked on the program and you know exactly what it will do. then you run it. The program will encounter many situations, but you know exactly how it will act in each one of them, because you are the one who put it together, so you know exactly how it should act and react. The example would probably explain the situation better if you think about in terms of an Artificial Intelligance program (a program thet learns from its experiences.) In that case you may not tell it how to react to every situation, but you tell it how to negotiate its way out. You know how it will do that, you know what kind of situations it will encounter, therefore you know how it will react and what it will do. I hope that this might shed some light on this age old question. All of this is my own opinion, I might be right and I might be wrong. May God forgive me if I am wrong. Responses are welcome. Bassel
jnawaz@skat.usc.edu (Jemshed Nawaz) (11/05/90)
In article <1990Nov3.214829.12588@nntp-server.caltech.edu> soudan@iitmax.iit.edu (Bassel Soudan) writes: > >In article <1990Nov1.215418.20068@nntp-server.caltech.edu> bes@tybalt.caltech.edu ( Behnam Sadeghi ) writes: >> >>Clearly all that is done by us, good, >>bad, or otherwise, is "willed" by God because it is determined >>by God. >> > > In this view, you are placing a lot of unfairness upon God by saying >that he has "predetermined our actions and rewards. It sounds like He >decided everything and then let us go through the motions. But there is >nothing as fair as God. He did not predetermine our actions and deeds. He >did not decide for us that you shall be muslim and you shall not. He left that >to us. In the Quran God says that he has taken a vow from all the children of >Adam that he is thier Lord. Then he showed every one of us the two paths and >"WE CHOSE". The best way to think about this goes like this: > > God created us. He knows exactly what we are going to do because he > is the one who created us and he is Omnisient. He knows what choices > we will make because he created us and knows everything about us. We > have all the freedom we want in doing what ever we want. But he still > knows how we will excercise this freedom. He gave us the freedom to do > what we want, then said: If you want me to be happy with you don't do > this and do that. He asked us to limit our own freedom for his sake so > that we may prove our belief in him. That is why he will reward us in > the here after. For the limits that "WE" placed on "OUR" freedom > following what he "ASKED" us to. > : > : > : >Bassel I agree with Bassel. However this how I best understood this subject: Consider two points in space, point A and point B and you connect the two points using different paths, so that if you start at pt A, no matter what path you take you end up at pt B. Now let pts A and B be two events and let the different paths represent your possible actions. The events are predetermined by Allah, whereas the actions are entirley upto you i.e. you can practise your free will to choose any action, but no matter what your choice is you cannot influence the events that will happen. In other words you are in total control of your actions(since it is on the basis of these actions that you will be judged in the Hereafter) but AllahSWT is in total control of the outcome of your actions. Jemshed Nawaz