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Evil In The Absence Of Good
Sister, could you explain your reasoning. From what I gather evil is simply the wrong use of our freewill
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18 Replies
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Evil In The Absence Of Good
updated 3 years, 4 months ago
3 Members
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18
Replies
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Of course!! Your insight is always a delight!
Okay so, evil is the wrong use of our freewill. Great. But regardless of what it is and why it exists, it all goes back to God. I mean, nothing could exist in isolation from His existence. Does that mean God also has the potential for both good and evil? The same way that He has shown us the two ways of Fujur and Taqwa?
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Or – this problem could basically be explained in layers. Like evil not being anything in Real. The layers of ghayb (unseen) create this ‘illusion’ of evil which in reality is also Khayr?
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This is exactly the same as my lying question. God has the power to actualise all possibilities.
The kalaam answer would be God’s actions are of a specific type. They are based on justice. And justice is goodness. So God can’t be have some actions good and some bad. Because his actions must be of a specific type to remain unchanging and to remain necessary.
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Is He showing us that He ‘could’ but He ‘wouldn’t’? But that also doesn’t suffice as I cannot simply accept a God who has these potential evils in Him otherwise.
But, if me, being His creation, cant accept this notion of God having the ‘potential’ only of evil (with fully knowing He wouldn’t exercise it from how much I know Him). Then, how could He who created me have the potential? Like, i can’t accept the idea so how could He host the potential?
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If you take the kalaam answer the necessary beings actions can be only good or bad. We have seen some good perhaps so that must mean all goodness.
But it comes back to lying. If he lied about his just dealings.
My question is better 😂😂
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Therefore, you win a water cooler!! (im pretty sure you wouldn’t get the joke since you’re not a desi kid). 😉
On a serious note, what you say about him lying regarding His just dealings. Could you elaborate a bit? (Considering our above conversation)
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I unfortunately don’t get it 😢
So a necessary being can only be one way. Because if he could change that means that the way he is is not necessary. So if some of his dealings are just then all must be just since if some were unjust then that would mean there is change in the essence of his actions therefore he is not necessary.
So, we haven’t seen God deal with any nation directly. But he has told us about some of his dealings with his rusul and said he always dealt with justice. If he is telling us the truth then he is not only always truthful but always just (being the necessary being).
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No this part I get. Cause you explained this part earlier as well. What I want to say is, you want to know something based on what is. And that’s easier. Like basing the probability of His future dealings/actions on His past and present actions/dealings.
Now lets say we establish somehow that He is going to be just always. For a while lets assume this. Then all the other opposites (which would also include this thought of yours of questioning His ability to lie about this principle of justice). Why do these even exist? In other words, how could opposites exist in a necessary being? He could only have shades of goodness. But good AND evil. No chance
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‘Why do these even exist? In other words, how could opposites exist in a necessary being?’
Sorry I don’t get it- The evil exists in my wrong use of freewill. Not him
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But nonetheless it exists! I’ll rephrase it. Isn’t God only Good? Then why do the IDEAS of good and evil both exist? Why doesn’t only good exist? In both idea and in principle
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Because the potentiality of evil always existed and God never actualised it.
But when he created beings with freewill they actualised this potential with it
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My existence is not in isolation from His existence, right? He encompasses my existence. So lets say i uses my freewill to become evil. Now an evil is ‘existing’
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Are you trying to say you are somehow a part of God?
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Im a part of God’s creation. And evil is a corollary of my existence. But evil can’t exist in any way if God exists
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Why not? If we follow the same reasoning imperfection can’t exist if a perfect God exists. The POSSIBILITY for all actions exists. Only when creatures of freewill came was this possibility actualised
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No the possibility of evil can’t exist in God. I came up with something. Like what I had in mind was confirmed by me reading a bit of Ibn Arabi and Mulla Sadra yesterday. I would go with that same argument of mine regarding layers and layers of ghayb. Both horizontally and vertically. And so basically, it is these layers thar make evil appear evil to us. (I also have to add on something. Issues like these are not for the عوام الناس. Now arguing with someone regarding sharr being non existent could lead to the same old reasoning of ‘then if Everything happens by Allah’s will, what is my fault?’). The reason why im mentioning this is directly related to the Ilm e Kalam part that you mentioned. Ilm e Kalam frankly, could be a bit dangerous to handle. What you say, could go off at a tangent very easily). And then one could name it ‘imagination’ as obviously you don’t have conclusive proofs to support your theory/philosophy. Nonetheless like they say ‘absence of proof is not the evidence of absence.’ But to reduce ilm e kalam down to imagination only is very degrading (in my humble opinion).
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The possibility exists- it is no entity or physical thing. It is simply a possibility.
Things can either be
Possible
Necessary
Impossible.
It is possible for me to be called Ahmad or Shoaib
It is necessary for there to be a prime mover
It is impossible to have a Karrie bachelor.
The existence of evil is simply a possibility.
I don’t think there is any kalaam to prove God is all good.
That’s why my question remains that does God lie- I have made a new conversation since I frankly don’t understand what Ghamidi sahab meant snd don’t buy what he said
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Folks, we can solve this problem by defining “good” and “evil” in a different way.
Any thing thats constructive is “good” and anything that’s destructive is “evil”.
When God creates something it constructs a new state and destroys the old state. Since he is the owner he can choose to destroy and construct as he wills.
When it comes to us as people who are his salves — we have to stay within our domains. We can destroy our house to reconstruct it that is not evil but we cannot destroy our neighbor’s house as that would be an evil act.
Trust the above helps.
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