Reason, Faith & Authority: a Shiite Perspective

Role of Reason in understanding Moral Values

Now let us study in more detail the role of reason in understanding moral good and bad or what is right and wrong. This has been an important issue for all religious traditions, especially Judaism, Christianity and Islam. According to “Divine Command Theory”, “good” or “morally right” means “Commanded by God”, and “bad” or “morally wrong” means forbidden by God.”11

On the other hand, there have also been some theologians who have argued for rational approach to ethics. They believed that there are independent criteria of good and bad that can be understood by our reason. God's commands are not arbitrary and we can exercise rational methods to discover moral norms. Among Muslim theologians, the Ash'arites held the former view and the Shi'a and the Mu'tazilites held the latter.12

According to the Ash'arites, all values are determined by the will of God and moral concepts such as 'good' and 'right' have no meaning other than 'that which God wills' or 'what is commanded by God'. These words have no objective meaning. According to the Shi’a and the Mu 'tazilites, values such as justice and goodness have a real existence, independent of anyone's will, even God's.

Values are objective. According to the Ash'arites, all values are determined by the will of God and moral concepts such as 'good' and 'right' have no meaning other than 'that which God wills' or 'what is commanded by God'. These words have no objective meaning. According to the Shi’a and the Mu 'tazilites, values such as justice and goodness have a real existence, independent of anyone's will, even God's. Values are objective. According to the Ash'arites, all values are determined by the will of God and moral concepts such as 'good' and 'right' have no meaning other than 'that which God wills' or 'what is commanded by God'. These words have no objective meaning. According to the Shi’a and the Mu 'tazilites, values such as justice and goodness have a real existence, independent of anyone's will, even God's. Values are objective.

Based on the above question, the other controversy concerns the question of whether good and evil are rational (al-husn wal qubh al-'aqliyyān ) or revealed. The Shi’a and the Mu 'tazilites believed that good and evil are objective and therefore can be known rationally. Allamah Hilli, a great Shi’a scholar, in his comments on Al-Yāqút by al-Nawbakhti writes:

The principle, on which the problems concerning justice depend is that God is the Wise, He never does an evil action and He never fails to perform any necessary (wājib ) action. When this principle is proved questions concerning justice, such as goodness of obligation (taklif ), necessity of Grace (lutf ) and the like are constructed upon. And since this principle depends on knowing good and evil and their rationality, the author started his discussion with these.13

Else where he writes:

Imamites and their followers, the Mu 'tazilites, believe that goodness and badness of some actions are known by reason evidently such as our knowledge of goodness of beneficial telling truth and badness of harmful lies, on which no reasonable person have doubt, and his certainty about this

is not weaker than his certainty about the need of a contingent being [in its existence] to a cause or about the equality of two things which are each equal to a third thing.

They believe that there are some actions, understanding of whose goodness or badness needs reflection such as goodness of harmful telling truth and badness of beneficial lies, and finally that there are some actions, on which reason is unable to make judgement and their goodness and badness is to be expressed by the religious law, Shar', such as [how to perform] worships.14

On the other hand, there are the Ash'arites who deny rationality of goodness and badness. Shahrestani in his Al-Milal wa al-Nihal describes the idea of Ash'arites as follows:

All obligations are to be learnt from the scriptures. Reason (al-'aql) does not make any thing obligatory and does not make anything deserve to be considered as good or bad. Thus, knowing God becomes possible by reason and becomes obligatory (wājib) by the scripture (sam'). God, the most High, says:

“We have never chastised unless we have despatched some messenger”. (The Qur'an, 17:15)

Similarly, gratitude to the blessing-giver, rewarding the obedient and punishing the disobedient all become obligatory (wājib ) by the revealed, and not reason. (Vol. 1, p. 115 )

In contrast, the Shi’a and the Mu 'tazilites have argued that if goodness and badness were just religious and not understandable by reason, unbelievers would not recognise them today or before they knew of revelations e.g. the Qur'an. But we know that there are many common values and moral principles among both theists and atheists. 'Abd al-Jabbar, a great Mu 'tazilite theologian, says: “any sane person knows his obligations even though he does not know that there is a commander and forbidder” (Al-Mughni, Vol. 1, p. 45 ).

The Qur'an in fact implies in many statements that knowledge of what is obligatory, good, and evil is accessible to everyone,

“Surely God bids to justice and good-doing and giving to kinsmen, and He forbids indecency, dishonour and insolence”. (16:92)

These virtues and vices must have been understood as such prior to revelation. The objectivity of ethical value is asserted or implied all through the Qur'an. For instance, the repeated commands of God to do what is right would be empty of force and spirit if they meant only “commands to do what He commands”. It is even harder to make sense of statements that God is always just to His servants on the supposition that “just” means “commanded by God”.

None of this means, of course, that humans are not in need of religious guidance. The argument is rather that in order to benefit fully from religious guidance, humans have been endowed with reason, and it is only when they are thoughtful and rational that they can comprehend revelation. The truth of religion and the principles of morality are understood by reason, but there is much more to be learnt from revelation. According to Shi’a thinkers,

religion can provide us with a fuller and more comprehensive account of morality, and moreover motivates us to observe moral requirements.