Islamic Determinism
This is part 7 of a continuing series comparing Christian and Islamic worldviews.
In addition to the ethical problems discussed in my last post, another problem with the Islamic view of God and his relation to man is the extreme determinism which Islamic teachings support. God relates to human beings as the supreme sovereign and human beings are seen as obedient slaves. Geisler and Saleeb explain:
Despite protests to the contrary, orthodox Islam teaches the absolute predestination of both good and evil, that all our thoughts, words, and deeds, whether good or evil, were foreseen, foreordained, determined, and decreed from all eternity, and that everything that happens takes place according to what has been written for it. This is because God ‘is the Irresistible’.
This extreme determinism leads to the logical problem of God performing contradictory actions. He guides, yet at the same time, leads astray. Additionally, it is quite difficult to maintain any semblance of human responsibility while holding to this teaching. The Qur’an, itself, admits that God could have saved all, but chose not to do so.
Islam also makes God the author of evil. God wills unbelief and irreligion. Unbelief exists only because God willed it to be so. All one does, he does by God’s will. A metaphysical problem which results from this extreme determinism is that there is really only one agent in the universe. There are no other acting beings, only God. One Muslim scholar writes:
Not only can He (God) do anything, He actually is the only One Who does anything. When a man writes, it is Allah who has created in his mind the will to write. Allah at the same time gives power to write, then brings about the motion of the hand and the pen and the appearance upon paper. All other things are passive, Allah alone is active.
Islamic creedal statements echo the same teachings:
God Most High is the Creator of all actions of His creatures whether of unbelief or belief, of obedience or of rebellion: all of them are by the Will of God and His sentence and His conclusion and His decreeing.
God’s one possible quality is His power to create good or evil at any time He wishes, i.e. His decree… Both good things and evil things are the result of God’s decree. It is the duty of every Muslim to believe this… It is He who causes harm and good. Rather the good works of some and the evil of others are signs that God wishes to punish some and to reward others… God creates all things, good and evil.
Muslim determinism seems to lead to a pantheistic conception of the universe, in which God is all there is. In my next, and last, post in this series…a brief look at salvation in Islam.