Q32:13
wa‑law shiʾnā laātaynā kulla nafsin hudahā wa‑lākin ḥaqqa l‑qawlu minnī [ wa‑lākin ḥaqqa l‑qawlu minnī ] la‑amlaʾanna jahannama mina l‑jinnati wa‑l‑nāsi ajmaʿīna
zouden Wij aan iedere ziel
haar rechte leiding geven
maar Mijn uitspraak
is verwezenlijkt geworden:
Wij zullen Jahannam vullen
met de jinn* en de mensen altegader.
* De Demonen.
Clearity
The beginning and end of verse 32:13 seem perfectly clear: God could have given everyone sufficient guidance to understand that He exists, yet He will send people to Hell.
The middle part of the verse appears to offer some explanation for why He chose not to guide everyone, but it is closer to a statement that this is simply how things are than to an explanation of why they had to be this way. So let’s see whether commentators can make the reasoning clearer.
Commentators and discussion
Muhammad Asad says:
“We could indeed have given unto every being (nafs) his guidance, i.e., forcibly: but since this would have deprived man of his ability to choose between right and wrong - and, thus, of all moral responsibility - God does not ‘impose’ His guidance upon anyone (cf. 26:4 and the corresponding note).”
The reference is to Q26:4:
Asad comments:
“Inasmuch as the spiritual value of man’s faith depends on its being an outcome of free choice and not of compulsion, the visible or audible appearance of a ‘message from the skies’ would, by its very obviousness, nullify the element of free choice and, therefore deprive man’s faith in that message of all its moral significance.”
Let’s look at the context of verse 26:4 in Khattab’s translation:
Warning to the Disbelievers
1 Ṭâ-Sĩn-Mĩm. 2. These are the verses of the clear Book. 3. Perhaps you 〔O Prophet 〕 will grieve yourself to death over their disbelief. 4. If We willed, We could send down upon them a 〔compelling 〕 sign from the heavens, leaving their necks bent in 〔utter 〕 submission to it. 5. Whatever new reminder comes to them from the Most Compassionate, they always turn away from it. 6. They have certainly denied 〔the truth 〕, so they will soon face the consequences of their ridicule. 7. Have they failed to look at the earth, 〔to see 〕 how many types of fine plants We have caused to grow in it? 8. Surely in this is a sign. Yet most of them would not believe. 9. And your Lord is certainly the Almighty, Most Merciful. (The words between 〔 〕 have been added by the translator.)
It is interesting that Khattab felt the need to insert the word “compelling,” just as Asad inserted “be forced to.”
Other translations do not contain such an insertion. For example:
“But if We had so willed, We could have sent down to them a sign from the heavens so that their heads would be bowed down before it in utter humility.”
The reason for adding such words appears to be theological. They emphasize the idea that an unmistakable sign from God would make belief inevitable. Instead, people have to make do with the words preached by Muhammad and preserved in the Qur’an and other Islamic sources.
Lets look at another commentator, Yusuf Ali:
Could evil have been averted? Certainly everything is in Allah’s power. If it had been His Will and Plan, He could have created a world in which there would have been no choice or will in any of His creatures. But that was not His Will and Plan. In the world as we see it, man has a certain amount of choice and free will. That being so, He has provided Signs and means of instructions for man, in order that man’s will may be straight and pure. A necessary corollary will be Punishment for the infractions of His Law. That Punishment must come to pass, for Allah’s word is true and must be fulfilled (Cf. n. 30 and n. 3557).
(My emphasis.)
The argument offered by these commentators therefore seems to be that God cannot—or, more precisely, chooses not to—provide signs so unmistakable that disbelief becomes impossible, because doing so would deprive human beings of free will. Less “compelling” signs supposedly leave us free to choose between belief and disbelief and, consequently, between good and evil.
But this explanation has a fundamental problem. The Qur’anic passage itself says: “Whatever new reminder comes to them from the Most Compassionate, they always turn away from it.” Some people will remain unconvinced by what Muhammad preached. According to the text, their rejection makes them blameworthy. Yet it is not clear where the relevant act of “free will” occurs.
The difficulty is that belief itself does not seem to be something we can simply choose.
With respect to free will, there is therefore no obvious difference between a spectacular sign from heaven and subtler signs such as “look at the earth, 〔to see 〕 how many types of fine plants We have caused to grow in it,” or other words of scripture. The evidence may differ enormously in strength, but in neither case can a person simply decide whether to find it convincing. Either the available evidence convinces you, or it does not.
If the text of the Qur’an is unconvincing to some people, the obvious solution for an omnipotent God would seem to be to provide them with evidence that is convincing. Instead, according to the interpretation above, God deliberately refrains from providing such evidence in order to preserve their “free will,” while nevertheless punishing them for remaining unconvinced.
But how can anyone be “free” to understand or fail to understand something?
For some people, the existence of the “fine plants We have caused to grow” may be sufficient reason to conclude that there must be a God. Others may have different explanations. They may have been raised in another religion, they may have learned naturalistic explanations at school, or they may simply admit that they do not know why there is something rather than nothing.
Likewise, some people will say, “Surely the Qur’an is the word of God.” People from other religions will dispute that conclusion, while secular readers may regard it simply as an ancient religious text. None of them can simply decide, by an act of will, which proposition they genuinely find convincing.
This creates an apparent contradiction in the free-will defence. God supposedly withholds unmistakable evidence because such evidence would make people understand that He really exists and would therefore interfere with their freedom. Yet those who remain unconvinced by the less decisive evidence are treated as morally culpable for that failure to believe.
There are, of course, possible ways for believers to respond to this problem. The main ones seem to be these two:
- Accept that there is no relevant free will involved here, and regard earthly life as a process through which good and bad people are distinguished.
- Maintain that free will exists, but argue that willingness to believe on limited evidence is itself one of the characteristics by which good and bad people are distinguished.
The first option is difficult to reconcile with the common Islamic defence described above. Many interpreters tell us that God wants human beings to possess free will and that, as a consequence, some people will freely choose to follow wicked impulses. But this merely pushes the problem back one step: where did those impulses come from?
People cannot have chosen their own character, dispositions, cognitive abilities, upbringing, or initial circumstances before they were born. If God is their creator, then these characteristics ultimately exist because He created a world in which they would have them.
If acting according to one’s God-given dispositions constitutes “free will”, why could God not have given everyone dispositions that would enable them to freely choose what is good?
Simply saying that we cannot know God’s reasons does not resolve the moral problem. If God is both omnipotent and perfectly good, then the question is precisely why He would create people with characteristics and circumstances that He knows will lead them to disbelief and punishment when He could instead provide them with whatever they need to understand and choose correctly.
The second option creates a different problem. It seems to conflict with the idea that human beings were given reason in order to use it. A rational person should proportion their beliefs to the available evidence. If the evidence is insufficient, lack of belief cannot reasonably constitute a moral failure, because remaining unconvinced is precisely the rational response to insufficient evidence. At most, theologians could demand that one pretend to believe. However, pretending to believe is not the same as actually believing.
If God nevertheless rewards people for believing on evidence that others reasonably find insufficient, then faith functions as a test of credulity rather than morality.
And this brings us back to the central question.
If you find any of the arguments above either convincing or unconvincing, did you freely choose to find them convincing or unconvincing?