Islamic Philosophy and the Problem of Evil; a Philosophical Theodicy

Apprehensional Evil: a challenge for TNNE

So far we saw that Muslim philosophers generally endorsedTNNE and tried to provide on behalf of it some intuitional, evidential and philosophical grounds. It seems that according to some philosophical principles (almost accepted by them) a certain type of evils, namely pain and suffering, can challengeTNNE in a serious and considerable way. Given that pain and suffering are real evils, many philosophers find that they are certain kinds of apprehension (idrak) and knowledge (ilm) (in its broad sense). For example, Avicenna writes:

Surely, pleasure is the apprehension of the realization of something which counts perfection for the apprehender inasmuch as it is perfection and good. And pain is the apprehension of the realization of something which is calamity and evil for the apprehender inasmuch as it is so. (Avicenna, 1403, p. 337)

Moreover, Muslim philosophers commonly think that apprehension is an existential quality.

Therefore, we apparently discover an obvious counterexample forTNNE ; pains and sufferings are evils which have existential nature! In other words, there is an essential difference between pains and sufferings, on the one hand, and, evils like blindness and diseases, on the other. The former, in contrary to the latter, are not mere privations, but as mental qualities they are as existent as other qualities. Let's call the evils in question "apprehensional evil".18

Regarding the previous distinction between essential and accidental evil, this challenge, in order to be a serious one, should presuppose that apprehensional evil is an essential evil since, as we saw, there is no problem to call some beings "accidental evils" inasmuch as they cause some kinds of privation. Thus, we may formulate the "apprehensional evil challenge" (henceforth: AEC) as follows: (for the sake of simplicity, I restrict myself to the case of pain):

  1. Pain is an evil.

  2. Pain is an essential evil, not an accidental evil.

  3. Pain is a kind of apprehension.

  4. All kinds of apprehension are existential entities.

  5. Pain is an existential entity. [from (3) and (4)]

  6. Therefore, there are essential evils which are existential entities. [the conclusion: from (2) and (5)]

But this conclusion obviously contradictsTNNE .

Some philosophers, like Fackr Al-Din Al-Razi and Mulla Jalal Al-Din Al-Dawani, have objectedTNNE by means of AEC. Al-Razi puts the challenge shortly and in conclusive voice:

It is self-evident that pain is an existential entity and there is no disagreement among wise people about this. (Al_Razi and al-Tusi, 1404, Part 2, p. 80)

The adherents ofTNNE meet this challenge in several ways.

Response to the Challenge

We may classify the main responses to AEC into three types:

I) Some philosophers reject the premise (2) which says that pain is an essential evil. Al-Tusi, for instance, says:

And the case is similar with the pains, since they are not evils inasmuch as they are apprehensions of things or in terms of their existence in themselves or their coming into existence by their causes. Instead, they are evils just in relation to the person who is in pain and lacks the connectedness of an organ which deserves connectedness. (Avicenna, 1404, p. 331)

According to a passage cited before, it seems that Avicenna supports this view when he suggests that pains, "even though their meanings are existential, not privative, follow [from] to privation and deficiency." (Avicenna, 2005, 331)19

II) The second response is to reject premise (3); a universal statement which says that all kinds of apprehension are existential entity.

Mulla Sadra's response to AEC, in my opinion, could be viewed as a challenge for (3). He provides a complicated argument its main steps can be formulated in the following way:

  1. Pain involves a kind of apprehension which is an item of "Knowledge by presence" (ilm al-hudhuri) and not of acquired knowledge (ilm al-husuli).20

  2. In the case of the knowledge by presence, the apprehension is identical with the very object which becomes apprehended.

  3. The realization of privation and nonexistence is itself a kind of privation and nonexistence, as the realization of a human being is identical with him.

  4. Thus, in the case of pain, the apprehension involved is of the kind of privation and nonexistence.

  5. Therefore, pains really have non-existential nature in spite of being a mode of apprehension.

According to this line of argumentation, Mulla Sadra concludes that "the pain as an essential evil is one of instances of nonexistence." (Mulla Sadra, 1981, p. 66)

III) After Mulla Sadra, some of his commentators criticized his argument and provided a third response which seemingly rejects premise (1) of AEC. In their views, pain, though a kind of apprehension and thus an existential entity, is not a real evil. In order to justify this claim, we are invited to contemplate on various benefits of pains for human beings as human beings. For example, suffering from pains helps us to gain some moral virtues such as patience, satisfaction and so on. In other words, this view insists on the distinction between what is really evil and what only does not fit to our bodily desires and dispositions.

Tabatabaii puts this distinction in another way:

The apprehended idea by which someone suffers is not evil or pain inasmuch as one makes oneself by means of it more perfect. And it is an existential entity. But inasmuch as it is a thing in the external world, like the cut of an organ and the disappearance of the connectedness, it is a nonexistent thing and here lies the [real] evil and pain. (Mulla Sadra, 1981, p. 66)

We may summarize Tabatabaii's claim in this way: pain and suffering, in its mental (and internal) realization is an existent entity but not a real evil and in its external realization is evil but a non-existential entity. Consequently, AEC fails.