Article Review: Can God do Wrong? by Richard M. Frank
By: Hilman Fikri Azman
International Islamic University Malaysia, 2017
Introduction
One of the biggest flaws in our contemporary ustadh’s discourse is that our ustadhs are not able to address questions from the youths. We can see this in so many books and lectures. When they were being asked usuluddin type of question, they are not able to answer it. For example, “can an omnipotent being create a stone so heavy that even He could not lift it?” or “can God do wrong?” Instead of answering these questions, they would say something else, of what the Malays called “goreng.”
These questions, which revolve around God and metaphysics that were being asked by the people needed to be studied and understand. As a means of achieving this, philosophy and logics are deemed very important. Ibn Rushd once said that among necessary exercises is the exercise of the intellect. Al-Qaradawi in one of his works has elucidated that one of the mistakes of contemporary Muslims is that they prioritise the physical exercise over the exercise of the intellect.
Therefore, we concluded that it is necessary to address such questions. This article is written to address the specific classical question of ayaqdiru Allāh ‘alā al-ẓulm wa al-kadhb (Is God able to do injustice and to make a false statement?). The question has been raised by some Muslims, especially the mutakallimīn during the Abbasid era.
About the Author: Richard M. Frank
Richard MacDonough Frank was a professor emeritus at the Catholic University of America. He was regarded in the West as one of the leading Western authorities in Islamic theological reasoning, and exemplifying this accolade is the fact that the Variorum Collected Studies Series has dedicated three volumes to his published articles.
In his scholarly lifetime, he has produced a hugely significant corpus of works on the intellectual activity in Classical Islam of Kalām, which he argued should be rendered as ‘speculative theology.’ He also wrote on the Qur’an, on the Arabic and Syriac philosophical tradition, and argued vigorously for a new reading of the famous religious scholar and theologian al-Ghazali (d. 1111) as a devotee of the cosmology of Ibn Sina (d. 1037).
Exploration on the Thoughts of Basrian Mu‘tazili and al-Nazzam’s
The question of “is God able to do injustice and to make a false statement?” is a kind of theological question which also strucked not only the philosophers and theologians, but also the layman and non-philosophers alike. This question however, needs to be addressed carefully and critically as it deals with speculations and metaphysical arguments. The author has taken the liberty to explain the answer based on selected-two different point of view: the Basrian and al-Nazzam.
Al-Nazzam affirmed that God cannot do wrong because “to describe God as being able to do wrong involves a contradiction.” To the Mu‘tazili, to do injustice and to deceive are actions which are always and as such ethically wrong.
Semantically, the Mu‘tazili asserts that the word ‘qadara (is able to…) carries the connotation of capability, efficient power and productive competence. For them, the ‘is able to…’ is related with possible actions. Is essence is constituted by the ability of the agent to do it. This is in contrast with the notion that the agent do something by force (muḍṭarran) or unintentionally. He is able, either to do it or not to do it intentionally. It is the possible object of his choice (ikhtiyār) to do or not to do.
The Basrian Views and Analysis
A normal agent is able to cause the existence of an act x or not x (-x), but not simultaneously both. For human, classes are limited to several basic acts only. However in God’s case, the classes of objects (jins) of his ability to act are unrestricted and indefinite. The ṣifat jins that is dependent upon the action belong to it not by the virtue of its kind (li jinsihi) but because of the manner of its occurrence (li wajhi wuqū‘ihi) i.e. they depend for their acruality on states of the agent.
According to the Basrian Mu’tazili, action is an object of the agent’s ability to act by virtue of its being a member of a class of objects whose existence he is able to initiate. That the agent is able to act implies that he can cause the existence of the object of his ability to act. For example, an agent is able to speak i.e. to cause the existence of sounds and specifically sounds which are symbolically significant and so constitute sentences (kalām). Among the objects of the agents ability to act is the subclass of sentences, for example “John is sitting on a chair.” The significance of the sentence – that it is not mere noise but a sentence with particular meaning – depends not upon the ability of the agent to act, but on his intention (qaṣd) in uttering it.
If I am error regarding the facts, and my intention was to inform, and the statement is simply false, therefore I have uttered a false statement. But, if I know the facts right, but intend an erroneous reference, therefore it is a lie.
What depends on my ability to act is, according to Basrian analysis, simply the existence of the sounds. The statement being a false statement or a lie does not depend on my ability to act, but instead on my belief (i‘tiqād), that is whether I know about it or being error (jahl) concerning the facts with regard to the beings to which I referred. If it is false, then the act is ethically bad. If it is a lie, then the intention is ethically bad.
The Basrian Mu‘tazilah insist that God is able to make a false statement, they mean no more than to say that the class of all possible sounds and so all possible structured sentences of syllables are objects of his ability to act. That God is able to do something entails the absolute possibility of its occurrence, but does not entail the concrete possibility of his actually doing it in a particular manner.
According to basrians, an agent makes a false statement voluntarily either:
- Because he is in error (jahl) concerning the facts, or
- Because he is in error concerning the ethical value (hukm) of making false statements, thinking it to be good, or
- Because he expects to achieve some benefit or to avoid some harm by doing so
God, however, knows all that can be known (al-‘alīm), and therefore this denies the possibility of a and b. God is also complete in its perfection (ghanī) in such a way that it is impossible for him to gain benefit or to suffer harm/ since making a false statement cannot be desirable to God, the occurrence of a false statement on his part is concretely impossible (la yajūz).
Al-Nazzam Views and Analysis
Abū Isḥāq Ibrāhīm Ibn Sayyār Ibn Hāni‘ al-Naẓẓam (775 – 845CE) or simply known as al-Nazzam, was a Mu‘tazili theologian and poet. He was a nephew of the Mu‘tazili theologian Abu al-Hudhayl al-‘Allaf, and al-Jahiz was one of his students. His theological doctrines were not accepted by his contemporaries and his works are lost except for a few fragments.
In terms of good and bad, al-Nazzam has said, as reported by Ash‘ari:
- Whatever which is prohibited by God is bad by virtue of His prohibition.
- Whatever that is impossible that God permits it would be bad in itself (qabīḥat li nafsihā).
- Whatever which is commanded by God is good by virtue of His command.
- Whatever that is possible only that God command it would be good in itself (ḥasan li nafsihā).
This distinction shows that al-Nazzam distinguished between acts that are:
- Ethically good or bad in themselves
- Those which are only contingently so
Therefore, it is impossible for God to command men to do what is bad intrinsically (make false statements, act unjustly etc.) or that he fail to command those good acts that are ethically obligatory as such in themselves.
Al-Nazzam also distinguish two kinds of acts:
- Those whose being good or bad is contingently dependant on God’s revelation
- Those which, though commanded in revelation or forbidden in it, are good (obligatory) or bad as such in terms of what God cannot fail to command or not to command.
Al-Nazzam also stated that an agent chooses to do what is ethically wrong only because:
- He is in some way deficient (ḍu‘afā’) that is he has a need to achieve some benefit or to avoid harm
- He does not know the consequence of his act.
Therefore, the question of ‘is able to…’ of an agent only with respect to those actions which he can choose to do or not to do, actions which are ethically bad in themselves are excluded . God acts by choice and not by His nature. One who is able to do something is such that the occurrence through his agency is not impossible. In other word therefore, God is able to make a false statement is a self-contradictory statement.
Comments
The author has written a not-average reading article that provides the metaphysical insights regarding an important issue in theology. He managed to achieve his objective in writing this article by articulating the views of the Basrian philospphers and al-Nazzam particularly concerning the possibility of God of doing wrong. Overall content also satisfyingly reflects the title being put in the beginning of the essay.
Its strength lies in the ability of the author to put words nicely into order in describing the thoughts of al-Nazzam and the Basrian Mu‘tazili from Arabic sources. The philosophical arguments concerning the ability of God to do wrong are clear, put into step-by-step and well-presented. However, this is partly due to the systematic argument presented by al-Nazzam and the Basrian as well, making the next step taken by the author is only to refine their arguments.
The thoughts of both the Basrian and al-Nazzam in regards to the theological question of the possibility for God to do wrong and injustice reflect the high intensity of intellectual discourse in the Muslim world at that time. The Basrian Mu’tazili and al-Nazzam has managed to answer the question posed at that time, and the author has done a wonderful job by critically analyzing their arguments and comparing both views in regards to the problem.
It is also interesting to see the academic trend that whenever a problem is concern, scholars always return back to semantic discussion. In the light of previous discussion, when addressing the question, the first thing that al-Nazzam and the Basrian Mu’tazili attempt to do is to explain the semantic meaning of qādir. The philosophers pay a high attention to linguistic meaning of eveything. The famous rational tafsīr of al-Kashshāf written by a Mu‘tazili scholar, Abu al-Qasim Jar Allah Mahmud bin Umar al-Zamakhshari was built upon semantic discussion on Qur’anic terms.
In terms of similarities of ideas, it is worth to note that this argument from normative semantic meaning is being shared by a scholastic philosopher Thomas Aquinas, who emerged around 400 years later in medieval time. According to him, the phrase “God can do all things,” is rightly understood to mean that God can do all things that are possible; and for this reason He is said to be omnipotent. The Italian philosopher moved on by saying that, and I quote, “God is called omnipotent because He can do all things that are possible absolutely; which is the second way of saying a thing is possible. For a thing is said to be possible or impossible absolutely, according to the relation in which the very terms stand to one another, possible if the predicate is not incompatible with the subject, as that Socrates sits; and absolutely impossible when the predicate is altogether incompatible with the subject, as, for instance, that a man is a donkey.”[1]
The same goes to al-Nazzam’s analysis when he tried to categorise the classes of good and bad into two broad categories, namely things that are ethically good or bad in themselves, and those which are only contingently so. This reminds us of the classical meaningful dialogue between Socrates and Eutyphro in the year around 500BCE, where the dilemma posed by Socrates is whether pious loved by the Greek gods because it is pious, or is it pious because it is loved by the gods.
In a nutshell, the omnipotence of God can be describe in a formula as “x is omnipotent” means “if x wishes to do y then x can and does do y.” In other words, to simplify the whole discussion; is God able to do wrong? Yes. Will he do it? No.
Reference
[1] Thomas Aquinas. Summa Theologica, volume 1, (Maryland: Christian Classics, 1981), pp. 137-8.
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