The Twenty-sixth Word

Divine Destiny and Decree and human free will

Second topic

What follows is a profound, scholarly discussion addressing scholars in particular. Divine Destiny and human free will can be reconciled in seven ways:

FIRST WAY: Creation’s order and harmony witness that God is All-Wise and All-Just. Wisdom and Justice demand that, even though we do

not know its exact nature, we possess free will so that we may be rewarded or punished for our acts. Just as we do not know many of the numerous aspects of the All-Just and Wise One’s wisdom, our ignorance of how human free will can be reconciled with Divine Destiny does not mean that it does not exist and is not reconcilable with Destiny.

SECOND WAY: Every person feels that he or she has free will and perceives its existence. Knowing something’s nature is different from knowing that it exists. The existence of many things is obvious to us, even though we do not understand their nature. Our free will may be one of them. Also, existence is not restricted to the number of things known to us, so our ignorance of something does not indicate its non-existence.

THIRD WAY: Human free will does not contradict Divine Destiny; rather, Destiny confirms its existence. For Divine Destiny is in some respects identical with Divine Knowledge, Which parallels our free will, in determining our actions. Thus It confirms free will.147

FOURTH WAY: Divine Destiny is a kind of knowledge, and knowledge is dependent on the thing known. In other words, conceptual knowledge is not fundamental to determining the external existence of what is known. In its external existence, the known depends upon the Divine Power acting through the Divine Will.

Past eternity (azal) is not, as people imagine, just the starting-point of time and therefore essential for a thing’s existence. In fact, past eternity is like a mirror that reflects the past, present, and future all at once. Excluding themselves from time’s passage, people tend to imagine a limit for past time that extends through a certain chain of things. They call this past eternity. Such a method of reasoning is neither right nor acceptable. The following subtle point may clarify this matter. Imagine that you are holding a mirror. Everything reflected on the right represents the past, while everything reflected on the left represents the future. The mirror can reflect only one direction, since it cannot show both sides simultaneously while you are holding it. For it to do so, you would have to rise so high above your original position that left and right become one and there is no longer any difference between first and last, beginning or end.

In some respects, Divine Destiny is identical with Divine Knowledge. It is described in a Prophetic Tradition as containing all times and events in a single point, where first and last, beginning and end, what has happened and what will happen are united into one. Neither we nor our view point and reasoning are excluded from It, so that we could imagine a final point for It in the past and think of It like a mirror containing and reflecting only the space of the past.

FIFTH WAY: In the view of Destiny, cause and effect cannot be separated. This means that a certain cause is destined to produce a certain effect. For this reason, it cannot be argued that killing someone with a gun is acceptable because the victim was destined to die at that time and would have died even if he or she had not been shot. Such an argument is baseless, for the victim actually is destined to die as a result of being shot. The argument that he or she would have died even without being shot means that the victim died without a cause. If this were so, we could not explain how he or she died.

There are not two kinds of Destiny—one for the cause and one for the effect. Destiny is one. Deceived by such a paradox, the Mu‘tazili school concluded that the victim would not have died if he or she had not been shot (forgetting that it was the victim’s destiny to be shot to death), while the Mujabbira (Fatalists) argued that he or she would have died even without being shot (ignoring the cause). The Ahlu’s-Sunna wal-Jama‘a (the broad majority of Muslims) follow the correct view: “We do not know whether or not the victim would have died if he or she had not been shot.”

SIXTH WAY: According to the followers of Imam al-Maturidi, a sub school of the Ahlu’s-Sunna wal-Jama‘a, human free will is based on inclinations. (An inclination is not something so forceful as to compel one to do something.) It has only a nominal and relative value and existence and therefore can be attributed to servants. The Ash‘aris, however, do not regard human free will as consisting of inclinations, for they consider inclinations to have a real or substantial existence. According to them, we have only a nominal or theoretical control of inclinations in the name of free will.

Something with nominal and relative existence does not require a perfect, efficient cause that would annul human free will in our actions. Rather, when its cause acquires the weight of preference, it might have an actual existence. In that case, the Qur’an commands us to do or avoid something. If we created our own actions, we would be their ultimate cause and our will would be cancelled. According to the science of established principles or methodology and logic, something will not exist if it is not necessary. In other words, there has to be a real complete, creative cause before something can exist. But as a complete cause makes the existence of something compulsory, there can be no room for choice.

Question: Our actions are the result of our preference between two alternatives, which is of nominal significance. If a necessary cause that would force a preference does not exist, the act of preference takes place without a necessary cause. Is this not a logical impossibility that contradicts one of the most important principles of theology?

Answer: We can make a preference without a necessary cause, for it is an attribute of our free will to do such things. However, something cannot be preferable by itself, nor can it make a choice out of alternatives by itself without an external agent.

Question: Since God creates the act of murder, why is one who kills called a murderer?

Answer: According to Arabic grammar, the active participle functioning as the subject is derived from the infinitive, which denotes a relative affair or deed, not from the word which denotes the result of the action done by the active participle and which expresses an established fact. Thus as the person denoted by the infinitive commits the murder, he or she is called the murderer. Since we want to do something and so do it, we are the doers or agents of our acts and so responsible for them. As we are the ones who kill, we should be called the murderer. God creates our acts by giving them external existence; He does not perform them. That is, He is the One Who creates death as the result of our act of murdering. If this were not the case, our free will would be meaningless.

SEVENTH WAY: Although our free will cannot cause something to happen, Almighty God, the absolutely Wise One, uses it to bring His will into effect and guides us in whatever direction we wish. He in effect says: “My servant! Whichever way you wish to take with your will, I will take you there. Therefore, the responsibility is yours!” For example, if a child riding on your shoulder asks you to take him up a high mountain, and you do so, he might catch a cold. How could he blame you for that cold, as he was the one who asked to go there? In fact, you might even punish him because of his choice. In a like manner, Almighty God, the Most Just of Judges, never coerces His servants into doing something, and so His Will considers our free will in our actions.

In sum, as human beings, we have a degree of free will. Although it is so limited that it makes almost no contribution to our good acts, it can cause deadly sins and destruction. So use your free will for your benefit by praying to God continuously. If you do so, you may enjoy the blessings of Paradise, a fruit of the chain of good deeds, and attain to eternal happiness, which a flower of them. In addition to praying, always seek God’s forgiveness so that you may refrain from evil and be saved from Hell’s torments, a fruit of the accursed chain of evil deeds. Prayer and trusting God greatly strengthen our inclination to do good, and repentance and seeking God’s forgiveness defeat our inclination to evil and break its transgressions.

Bediuzzaman Said Nursi

147 That is, God has pre-knowledge of everything, including our acts. However, we do not do something or act in some way because God has pre-knowledge of it. So God’s pre-knowledge of our acts and our acting in the way He knows confirms our free will and shows its reconcilability with Destiny. (Tr.)