Islamic Philosophy and the Problem of Evil; a Philosophical Theodicy

Solutions of the Problem of Evil

As I noted before, we may distinguish between several versions of "the problem of evil". In other words, we face a cluster of problems collected under this title. So, it would be natural that these different problems must be considered and solved separately. In Islamic philosophy, we find a lot of theories and discussions which after all can serve as philosophical materials for constructing solutions for these problems. Nevertheless, we rarely find Islamic philosophers who undertook some efforts to distinguish between different solutions.21 Thus, we have to link each of those theories to an appropriate solution as far as possible.

The Negative Nature of Evils

As we saw before, almost all Muslim philosophers advocateTNNE . This theory about the negative nature of evils, can help us to face one of the versions of the problem of evil which I already called "the creation-dualistic problem". The problem is that it is impossible that God, as the absolute good and benevolent, brings about the evils in our world. So, there must be another creator who creates the evil against God's will. But, according to philosophical principles as well as Islamic teachings about the monotheism, it is impossible for the universe to have two first efficient causes or two ultimate creators.

According toTNNE , we can make a short and conclusive reply: Evil, as something which is of non-existential entity, does not need to any cause or creator at all. For Muslim philosophers, the cause and its effect are two existents so that the latter is dependent on the former in its existence.22 So, a nonexistent entity could neither be a cause nor an effect. At most, we can say (almost in a metaphoric sense) that a nonexistent entity is the effect of the nonexistence of its cause. In short, a non-existential entity cannot have an existential cause.

Assuming the above view on causation, we can conclude that evil, given its non-existential nature, does not really have any cause.

Consequently, evils are created neither by God nor by any other being; in fact, they are not created at all. Sadra refers to this solution in a short passage: "And you have known that evil is nonexistence or a non-existential thing and nonexistence surely does not require any cause…and so is the non-existential entity inasmuch as it is non-existential." (Mulla Sadra, 1963, pp. 293-294)

The Minor Evil is Necessary for the Major

Good Muslim Philosophers in their study of the problem of evil commonly appeal to a classification which they historically traced to Aristotle. According to this classification the situation of any given creature, in virtue of being good or evil, could not exceed five possibilities: 1) being totally good; 2) being good in the majority of cases and evil in the minority of cases; 3) being equally good and evil; 4) being good in the minority of cases and evil in the majority of cases; and 5) being totally evil.

Avicenna explores these five possible situations as follows:

Things in the [faculty of] estimation are either [(a)] things which, if [reckond in the] estimation as exiting, cannot but be absolutely evil; [(b)]

things whose existence [consist] in being good, it impossible for them to be evil and deficient;[(c)] things in which goodness predominates if their existence comes to be, anything but this being impossible for their natures; [(d)] things in which evilness predominates; or [(e)] things in which the two states are equal. (Avicenna, 2005, pp. 345-346)

Considering each of these possibilities separately, Muslim philosophers come to conclude that only the first and the second possibilities could be actualized by God. This claim seems enough clear as to the first kind. In their view, the incorporeal intellects (al-oqul almujarradah ) are instances of the first kind; they are pure good (al-khayr al-mahdh ) without any evil aspects and God do create these intellects.

As to the second kind, it is argued that God, in spite of its minor evilness, should create it.

The reason is that if God refrain from creating this kind of existents, then the result is that a major good will be prevented just because of its minor evil and this seems not to be a wise act.

Since God is absolutely wise, He should permit the realization of the second kind too. The corporeal objects in the natural world are usually classified within this kind of beings.

Fire is a very common example; in the most cases it has valuable benefits for human beings and even for other beings, but it happens in a few cases that leads to some privation and in effect, it becomes an (accidental) evil.

But what should we say about the remainder possibilities? According to Islamic philosophy, God is wholly good and absolutely wise and benevolent and it sounds reasonable that such a God never creates a totally or mostly evil thing.

God even does not permit the existence of a thing with equal good and evil aspects, since this seems far from being a wise creation.

It seems that the most controversial part of the above theory is its claim about the second kind. One crucial question may be that why God, being omnipotent, cannot create such things like corporeal objects so that they never (even not in the minor cases) result in evil.

In order to answer the above question, Muslim philosophers insist on the necessary relation between major good and minor evil aspects in this kind of beings. To clarify this claim they frequently call our attention to the necessary characteristics of our material world.

First, in the whole hierarchical order of the universe, the material sensory word lies in a lower level than that of the nonmaterial world which is the world of the incorporeal intellects.

The latter, as I indicted before, is void of any kind of evil. But, if the former is to be without evil, it cannot still remain as the material world but will change into the higher world; i.e., the world of intellects. In short, it is impossible for the material world to be without evil since, in this given case, the material world comes to be not the material world, which is absurd!

Avicenna puts the question and his proposed answer in this way:

If [however] it is said, "Why is evilness not prevented from it to begin with so that it would be entirely good?" one would then say:[If evilness was prevented from it] then [these things] would not be what they are, …

[[and]] 23 their existence would [no longer] be the existence which is theirs, but the existence of other things that have come to be which are other than they are and which have been realized. [By this] I mean what is created in such a way that evil have not follow from it primarily. (Avicenna, 2005, p. 346)

Second, we consider that motion, change and other limitations, as the essential aspects of the material world, necessarily lead, though in the minor cases, to some clashes and contrasts among corporeal beings, which in their turn bring about some minor evils.

Suhravardi claims:

Adversity and evil only are the requirements [of things] in the world of glooms [originating] from motions. (Suhrawardi, 1373, p. 235)

Since the material world receives all these properties through its matter and hyle, the hyle is originally responsible for evils. Matter and hyle, however, are essential aspects of the material world:

And such a corporeal being is not void of clash and contrast which cause division and plurality and the source of plurality is matter…Thus, hyle is the origin of evils and imperfections and, as you have not, it must be realized. (Mulla Sadra, 1981 , p. 74)

Another notable question concerning Muslim philosophers' claim about the minor evil may be this: Is the so-called minor evil really minor and, to put it in other words, are the evil aspects of material objects truly less than their good aspects?

In order to answer this question, Muslim philosophers usually appeal to a couple of considerations. First, they call our attention to recognize the difference between "being great in number" and "being more and numerically greater than" (It is obvious that the latter notion is, in contrary to the former, a relative one).

Philosophers' claim is not that the number of evils in the material is not great; instead that their quantity is not more than that of goods.

Avicenna makes this point in the following passage:

If someone said,"Evil is not something rare or numerically the lesser but numerically the greater," [we answer that] this is not the case. Rather, evil is numerous but not the numerically greater; for there is a difference between the numerous and the numerically greater - for example, maladies. (Avicenna, 2005, p. 347)

Secondly, they explore several material things, like fire, water, air and so on, to show that in these things the good aspects are much more than the evil ones. Mulla Sadra writes:

…like fire whose perfection lies in the faculty of [producing] heat and burning and by means of which great advantages and plentiful benefits are obtained, but it happens sometimes for it to burn the house of a holy man or the garment of a prophet.

And like water whose perfection lies in [its] coldness and moisture, but it happens for it sometimes to drown the [inhabitants of] towns and to kill God's servants. And so is the earth, the air, the rain, the cloud etc. (Mulla Sadra, 1981, p. 69)

Thirdly, we may insist on the fact that, while comprising evils to goods, we should employ the qualitative criteria too. The idea is that at least in some cases, a particular good, though less great than a certain evil in quantity, may be greater in quality. For example, a very short pleasure might be so great that would be superior to a long pain in a manner that one is ready to endure that pain in order to receive the pleasure.

At any rate, if we accept the aforementioned points, we will be ready to make a solution for what I earlier called "the problem of Divine providence and evil". If the minor evil, in the material world, is a necessary partner of the major good, then it will impossible for one of them to be realized without the other.

Consequently, even God, though omnipotent and all-powerful, cannot (in a particular sense) bring about the reality of the major good free of evil. On the other hand, as we saw before, to refrain from creating the major good in order to prevent the minor evil is reasonably not a wise action. And since God is the absolute Wise, He should permit the major good to be realized in the world of nature. Thus, God creates the major good which inevitably implies the minor evil.

One may claim that the main question still remains without answer: How does evil enter the realm of Divine decree and predetermination. In order to make a direct answer, Muslim philosophers once again appeal to the essential/accidental dichotomy. The minor evil inasmuch as it is a necessary condition of the major good, enters into Divine decree accidentally. God wills essentially just the realization of goods, but the minor evil comes to be willed accidentally. Avicenna writes:

God, exalted be He, wills [all] things, and evil was also willed in the way of what is accidental. 24 Since He knew that it exists by necessity, He paid it no heed. (Avicenna, 2005, p. 345)

Another version of the problem of evil for Muslim philosophers which I noted before originates from apparent inconsistency between Divine wisdom and the realty of evils as far as they are signs of disorder and futility.

Confronting this problem, Muslim philosophers commonly make two claims:

  1. our actual world must be the best possible world which could be created by God; it is on the best possible order (al-nizam al-ahsan) and
  2. there is no evil in the world which lacks a wise and reasonable objective. In the reminder of this article, I shall explain these two claims briefly.

The best possible world

As we considered before, Divine providence, in the Islamic philosophical thought, requires His knowledge of the best possible order of the world, His being the cause of it and His being satisfied with its coming to existence. Thus, our world can not be but the best possible world. In order to support this claim, Muslim philosophers proceed in two main ways; a priori and a posteriori. In the a priori approach it is argued that, appealing to the statements about God's attributes (such as His omnipotence, omniscience and so on) as premises, we can construct pure rational proofs for the claim that our world is the best possible one. In the a posteriori approach, they

explore several actual state of affairs in our world to show that all of them are totally wise and in the best conceivable order.25

Evils and Reasonable Ends

Another attempt to solve the problem in question is to show that so-called evils in the world have reasonable ends. Here the whole procedure is once again inductive. We are invited to contemplate on various kinds of evil in order to discover Divine purposes in them.

Of course, we should not forget our cognitive limitations and shortcomings. Nevertheless, even our bounded knowledge would suffice to disclose many of these reasonable purposes. It is helpful to note that what is usually meant here is a kind of universal, and not particular, purpose. A universal purpose or end of an evil is what belongs to the whole order of the world while a particular one relates to the very person who is harmed by that evil.26 To have an example we may consider some natural evils:

The death by which the people are usually feared, if its real nature is grasped, it will be known that its purpose is nothing but the transmission of the soul from a lower world to an upper one and it refers to one of the natural perfections… and in the same manner God created the sun and the moon and the rains for the universal benefit and interest, though sometimes they may harm some people and animals and plants. (Mulla Sadra, 1981, p. 92 and 99) Sadra continues to disclose Divine ends for the natural process of some animals' being eaten by others.