The Sharing Group Discussion: Is There Absolute Trust & Universal Laws?

بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ

Brother William Voller posted, on The Sharing Group, on the 29^th May2016, “Are there such a thing as absolute truths or universal laws in this universe?  Brother Colin Turner, I was reading ‘In the Name of the Rose’.  All those years of study could have been achieved by simply reading this book!  Paraphrasing the character, William, he poses the question I do, and answers that logic works only within a logical framework, since it presumes something to be true based on a logical truth not an actual one.  For example, this is a triangle because it has three sides, but God need only interrupt this with an angle to change ‘triangle’ from having the need of three sides and thus make the logic false once more.” 

Brother Abdul-halim Vaz: What does it mean for a triangle to not need three sides? 

Brother William Voller: The definition is changed.  Essentially a triangle is, when we give it the logical definition three sides, and then when we find a three sided simple shape call it a triangle because it has three sides, which is a circular argument due to the presumption of the initial premise.  There is no reason that “triangle” must have three sides: God can Do as He Pleases. 

Brother Abdul-halim Vaz: I would not call that a circular argument.  In mathematics, definitions are free, so I can define a triangle or parabola or a unicorn if I want.  The hard part is in finding a unicorn or showing that it exists, or that an object defined a certain way also possesses other properties which were not an explicit part of the definition. 

Brother William Voller: I am willing to accept any theory that can make unicorns found.  Assuming I explained it correctly, then I think the argument is rather like Imam Abu Hamid Muhammad ibn Muhammad al-Ghazali’s (r.a.): the flame burns because God Says so not because it intrinsically does in of itself.  So, whilst what you say is true, it is only so much as mathematics or logic is true; a mental construct of our own making.  But what is a thing in of itself?  It is what God Says it is; Be and it is.  So there are trends from which we observe patterns and then draw rules from, but there is no pattern should God make a miracle, such as the fire being cool for Abraham (a.s.), so there are no universal laws.  My use of triangles may have been incorrectly used, but it asks why?  Maybe, because of the mutual exclusivity of triangularity and quadrilaterality? 

All men are mortal. Socrates is a man. Therefore, Socrates is mortal.  But if God Makes one man immortal, like Khidhr (a.s.) or such like then this logical argument is false.  What do you think, Brother Colin Turner? 

Brother Colin Turner: “All men are mortal; Socrates is a man; therefore Socrates is mortal.”  This syllogism is both valid and sound.  If there is one immortal man, such as Khidhr (a.s.), then the syllogism, as it stands, is valid, but no longer sound.  To be sound, both premises have to be valid, and therefore “All men are mortal” would no longer be valid. 

Brother William Voller: The syllogism is useful no doubt, but is not universal; man is not mortal intrinsically but because God Says, generally, that they are, but He Can Make a man live forever if it so Pleased Him. 

Brother Colin Turner: If truly immortal men exist, then the major premise in the syllogism is untrue, thus rendering the syllogism unsound.  Not sure how it would be useful in that case. 

Brother William Voller: It has been rattling around my head; what you said before Brother Colin Turner concerning the question: what is at the core of “reprehensible” things?  Unless there is some subtle layer I am missing, I think it boils down to God Says so.  Of course, like we just said, it is not always true that a pattern can be extrapolated to all situations; this thing is reprehensible because God Says so, and this very similar thing is not because God Says so.  Perhaps like light, things are both discrete and continuous?  Stepping back and viewing the spectra yields a pattern, but zooming in on one photon yields randomness. 

Brother Colin Turner: This is not really problematic.  God can Decree that from tomorrow, all four-sided shapes are to be called triangles.  As has been said here, there is absolutely nothing essential about triangularity which means that it has to consist of three sides.  But - and it is a big but - it would be against Divine Hikmah for a three-sided shape to have four sides at the same time as having three.  That is the crux of the matter.  Of course, God Can Call a square a triangle, but He cannot create a four-sided figure that simultaneously has three sides.  It is irrational, illogical and, to be honest, totally insane.  I think I am saying what Brother Abdul-halim Vaz is saying. 

Brother William Voller: Whilst I think it true what you say, maybe I did not explain it quite right, perhaps the problem is I went for a definition rather than a law.  The argument was there are no universal laws: laws are a patterns, so is God limited by the pattern?  No.  So then, the law is not universal. 

Brother Colin Turner: I think you have hit the nail on the head, in a sense Brother William.  God does not act or create according to a law; laws are what we abstract from the way in which God Creates.  And the way in which God Creates precludes bringing into existence a four-sided object which has only three sides. God is al-Hakim, the All-Wise One, and if we see order and wisdom and balance in Creation, it is by virtue of His Hakimiyyah that we see them. 

Brother William Voller: Perhaps the story of Khidhr (a.s.) is an example?  He seems to break universal laws and appears a sinner, yet is righteous.  Maybe this is when some people go wrong: they use God’s Law to judge God’s actions, but this is paradoxical! 

Brother Colin Turner: Again, I think we may be talking slightly at cross-purposes.  There are no laws outside of the “patterns” which emerge as a result of God’s Creative Acts.  In that sense, yes, it is meaningless to think of God’s obeying some universal law, and that is what the Ash’arites thought would be the conclusion if the Mu’tazilite argument were accepted, namely that God does that which is Just.  But by the same token, the Ash’arite argument that things are just because God Decrees that they be considered just - well, that too is unacceptable, for reasons we have discussed previously.  I believe that there is a compromise position.  God is Truth - al-Haqq - and His hikmah dictates that all of His Utterances, both Verbal and Creational, partake of that truth.  Thus, when God Says that He will Forgive those who are penitent, His Utterance is Pure Truth and cannot be other than Pure Truth, for that is what is in keeping with His Wisdom.  In other words, to lie about forgiving the penitent is impossible for God, and it is not an issue of whether He can or cannot lie.  It is an issue of His being the All-True and the All-Wise: one who is Pure Truth cannot lie because lying does not behove His Godliness.  Lying is not something that befits Godliness because it is ‘adam, it is non-existence.  Thus, lying is inherently evil because it is ‘adam, and not simply because God Decrees that it is evil.  In fact, it is not even an issue of Divine Decree, for that which is ‘adam is, by default, evil and thus, by consequence, reprehensible. 

Brother William Voller: Ah yes, that may be my over simplification.  Lying definitely relates to non-existence, since by definition it is contradictory to what is.  So can we say truth and existence are necessarily one?  The more real it is the truer it is.  How does it relate to other things?  Let us say something that we would ordinarily call evil? 

Brother Colin Turner: Evil is a lack, a privation, and therefore it has no external existence whatsoever. 

Brother William Voller: A Thomist view is evil is the absence of good, it does not truly exist.  Hence why the argument “why does God let evil exist” is a folly.  I have certainly held this position.  But then how do we understand say murder, why is this evil?  The privation of life?  But then what of death?  For this is not evil. 

Brother Colin Turner: Murder is evil because of the intention of the murderer.  But the death of the one murdered is pure good.  God’s Name is al-Mumit, “the One Who Gives Death”.  But there is no Divine name al-Qatil, “the one who kills”.  Only human beings can murder. 

Brother William Voller: Very true.  Why then is the murderous intent “evil”?  Also, how is giving death different to taking life?  I am just trying to clarify some thoughts; it can be good to state the obvious at times. 

Brother Colin Turner: Giving death, taking life - are they not basically the same thing?  Murder is by default evil of intent, no?  To take someone’s life for no reason, or for no valid reason, surely that is pure evil, pure lack of all kinds of perfections: justice, compassion, harmony, and so forth. 

Brother William Voller: Yes, of course, and I agree.  My purpose for asking was simply to examine in more detail an “evil” in relation to non-existence.  I am not criticising or arguing, just exploring.  Yes, the giving death and taking life results in a cessation of life, so what is the difference?  The intent?  God’s Giving of death is Good because He Decrees it and it is Wise and True, whether we understand the wisdom or not.  A murderer’s taking of life still requires God’s Giving death, but the evil is not with God, because the death is Decreed as before, but in the intention of the murderer.  So, murder is evil because it is an act absent of Godly Attributes such as Justice. But then, if giving death is godly, since it is one of his names, why is murder not?  Because it contradicts other names such as the Just.  Which really brings us back to what you said before, okay God Decrees whether something is good or bad, but also due to wisdom, truth, mercy, justice, and so forth; not simply decreeing it so, such that we do not get the paradoxical God lying because it is nonsensical.  God Gives death but does not murder because murder is absent of justice, and God is Just.  I do not know if that summarises what you meant? 

Brother Colin Turner: Murder is the unjust attempt to deprive someone of life: that is evil enough for a whole cosmos.  God Takes Life because that is His Job.  Murder is proscribed, prohibited, condemned.  The two are very different.  It is all in the intent. 

Brother William Voller: Agreed.  Hence why stopping another from living may not always be evil. 

Brother Colin Turner: True, but it depends.  Stopping someone from living may be just, but then it would not be murder; it would be something like execution, I guess. 

Brother William Voller: True.  Hence why we have different words to describe the more subtle difference rather like I was saying lying is not simply something untrue.  It is not the untruth in of itself but the intent likewise with the cessation of life.  God made you and what you do.  So what happens, which is decreed, is not bad in of itself.  Rather the intent is. 

Brother Colin Turner: Yes.  The thing is, “what you do” is Created by Him.  In the case of the example we are discussing, however, it leaves X’s hand as murder and God’s Hand as death. 

Brother William Voller: Okay these were easy sins, but what of something less clear? 

Brother Colin Turner: Example? 

Brother William Voller: Whatever we like.  Let us choose something controversial?  Also what of the fact that God “Makes” our intention too? 

Brother J.E. Mikell: I can say, after briefly perusing the above, is that Reality is beyond language and concept.  Concepts of good and evil are attributed by men.  They may be supported by Revelation, but that too is conceptual.  We have, through the power of intellect attributed Divine Origin to the Qur’an, but this is our own human belief.  It is not Decree.  Decree is not known until it manifests, and attributing cause is totally a mental exercise that has no basis in anything other than conceptual attribution. 

Brother Colin Turner: You seem to be saying, Hajj Ahmad, that the Qur’an is only as Divine as we think it is.  I find that a profoundly disturbing idea, to be honest, and one which is capable not only of driving the right people away from Islam, but also of inviting to the faith the wrong people.  Wa Allahu a’alam.  Of course, I may have misunderstood you completely.  But I am at a loss as to what you could possibly be implying, other than good and evil are relative, and that absolute values are meaningless. 

Brother William Voller: I think Brother Colin Turner, that the syllogism is useful in the confines of logic, so in the story William explains the use of logic to uncover the truths of a labyrinth since a logical mind created it, so that logical patterns can be extrapolated to find the truth of labyrinth, but he still denies universal laws.  Clearly such logical syllogisms have no use to transcend logic and uncover a universal law.  How about we take something, that troubled thinkers for some time: the disabled.  Their function is inhibited and so it would appear are an evil of sorts or at least a corrupted human.  Is their existence a mistake?  Again I'm only asking to develop a discussion and explore a thought, I have some ideas also. 

Brother Colin Turner: Why do you think that the disabled are an evil of sorts? 

Brother William Voller: One could make the argument: Evil, or in this sense less good, is a lacking of something, since a disabled person lacks the use of their legs, for example, then they are a less good human. 

So, I was thinking a disabled person is fully human; a human is not measured by the number of limbs, and such like.  Exactly what is a human is an interesting question.  We might say rational, but a person in a coma is still fully human.  Of course if you measure against mobility then a person without legs is at a disadvantage.  God, through His Wisdom, has made the disabled just as He also has made the ugly, but they are fully human and only at a disadvantage due to some human invented yard stick, in fact they are no less a manifestation of Divine Beauty and Perfection than anyone else.  If we have an inability to see this fact that is our problem.  The study of the dark still yields truth about the light. 

Brother J.E. Mikell: In fact is only by the study and full understanding of the dark that we can discern the truth about the light, because the light is always present, obscured by the dark, and the dark is always present, obscured by the light, and both are merely mental concepts of conscious attribution that dissolves in the great silence of the Absolute where neither exist and both exist timelessly. 

Even the word “God” is a concept, a name that we use to mentally understand what is beyond our understanding.  So, we resort to religions and spiritual paths to help us understand.  This is fine and quite natural, but then, for those who really seek Reality, which is always present, the path becomes sacrosanct. rather than the One Source which is within us all.  Simple and persistent awareness of beingness, of the sense of pure “I”-ness without mental attribution, is the only way to find the goalless goal.  Until we fully unwind the knots of the mental ego, until we discern that our reality is not the psychosomatic apparatus that rules our consciousness which means the mind-body construct, we cannot apperceive Reality.  This is the meaning of “Only the one knows himself knows his Lord”.  Individual consciousness must be known in its totality, and then even it must be abandoned for the beyond.  The rest is dabbling in language and concept, philosophy and theology, which are enjoyable but will not yield Reality.  The best these mental discipline can do is show us our limitations and hopefully guide us to the source of ourselves. 

In “Spectrum of Reality”, Shaykh Fadhlullah Khayri said, “Human sanity is to think and interact through reason and the intellect.  Spiritual insanity is to be confined to that restricted state only.  The human spirit is eternally boundless.”