This fight between the existentialists and the determinists has entered the scientific field now. In fact a lot of work is being done on genetics to determine the issue from this point of view and it has entered the field of morality and religion already. Those who believe in determinism they have inferred from this study that there is no room for punishment because crime as such does not exist. To be criminal or to be good is not one’s own folly. If they are not born out of one’s own consciousness, people are born in circumstances that is the the first step towards determinism.
But then they go further and say that certain qualities which are imparted into you through your environments do not die with you but they are carried down to genes and coded into genes and to a certain degree they remain superficial for a few generations. Then they become a regular part of the genes and a character is born. So out of millions of years of such inheritance the child that is born is both helpless in his career, a. by the long inheritance of these characters on which he has no control and b. he is born into an environment of which he has no control and the genes of the father and the genes of the mother are also playing their role and so of their brothers and sisters, his brothers and sisters and the relatives and the whole atmosphere around him, the school where he goes to and the company he sits in.
So everything contributes towards making the man he would be. That is determinism. So that is in fact, look at it from a different angle. This is exactly the concept of those who believed in taqdeer and said that it was not for man to be anything. It was entirely in the hands of God. He had created him as such and he’s helpless. So determinism of the modern science is in fact the concept of taqdeer of the olden religious views and they are one and the same thing. Existentialism on the other hand again is built on the same pattern and a new term is given to those who believe that man is responsible for his acts. He can change his course, he’s responsible for what he believes and what he does and he’s fully capable of carving a path for himself as he pleases. So this fight is a time-old fight, it’s not a new addition to the man’s knowledge.
Right from the time of philosophy, the first concept of philosophical concept that we hear of, this debate is going on. But in reality if you consider both the sides you will find that according to religion the truth lies in between, halfway between the two concepts. In principle there are certain things in which the mankind and the animal life and all existence is helpless. They are born like this but within the four walls of a given circumstances there is still room for the elbow to play, to move about and make its own decisions. So that space available within a certain dimensions is where you are responsible for yourself.
For instance once a professor of something, I don’t remember he was quite a learned fellow, he came to see me in Hyderabad, Sindh and he was an old gentleman and quite scholarly and he came to see me particularly for this purpose because he had attended a question-answer session and after that he had decided now I put this question to him and he made a very long introduction as to his seeing so and so scholars and this and that and saying that ultimately I couldn’t decide. Why should we be punished if somebody is born into evil circumstances? Why should he be punished for his evil because he has inherited and if he’s born in good circumstances why should he be rewarded for that for which he has no, in which he has no part to play in reality? So that was the question and he, I don’t repeat all what he said but in essence this was it. So I told him as a matter of fact I said first of all you be subjective about it.
See for yourself if daily, every time in your life the moments of decision come or not, where you find yourself capable of taking this course or that course and where you find well poised, you can easily take a course or another course, one would be bad and the other would be good. So daily in your life you make decisions which you know more than anybody else that you are responsible. So he said yes, now come to think of it this is correct. Right from the morning till I go to sleep I take decisions and I know better than anybody else that I could take right decisions and wrong decisions both and those moments were not predetermined for me. The second thing I pointed out was this that you don’t believe that God is just a mechanical machine, a machine like thing in which you put things and the outcome would be just a mechanical outcome.
As if you feed a computer and the result is pre-known to you in fact. If you are a good mathematician you can calculate even without computer and that is going to be the result. Allah is not like that. Allah has a real existence and a constant interest in the human life and he has a plan of things which he executes through us and in that plan of thing both the determinism and existentialism play their part. Some people see this and some the other side. If the existentialism did not exist nobody could have taken notice of it. If determinism was not to be observed nobody could have fought for this. So both are in existence partly here and partly there. So Allah interplays them to create what we find ourselves to be and when he sees that somebody is born into an evil background it is the same God before determining his fate who has said in the Holy Quran la yukallifu allahu nafsan illa wusaha. It’s not a mechanical approach at all. It is a made-to-measure approach for each individual. la yukallifu allahu nafsan illa wusaha. Not a single soul will be treated beyond its capacity.
So because the platform of capacity differs so the treatment would differ. What are you worried about? If somebody is born with a certain genetic influence that will go into his capacity. If he is born into an evil family that also will go into his capacity. If he then moves in those moments which I mentioned earlier even so slightly to the right direction that perhaps would be counted as a very big goodness in his account. On the contrary if somebody has inherited genetic tendency to do good also he’s born among the righteous people and has all the influences to help and promote that natural tendencies with which he was born. Yet in those moments of decision where he has something some some part to play he chooses the evil side rather than the right side then obviously that even if that evil is very small that would be counted as a very big evil in his account. To this is referred when we read in the Holy Quran that Oh wives of the Holy Prophet if you do good you will be rewarded twice as much and if you do bad then naturally you should accept the same treatment. Why this differential treatment? Because Allah took into account that to live with the Holy Prophet was such a big advantage that if they make a mistake they should suffer twice.
But because Allah is also the proprietor so to compensate for this he said all right we’ll reward you although they did not deserve that in the same sense mechanically speaking but because he was the proprietor of all things he could say all right I’ll increase your reward as well two-folds. So that is in nutshell the situation. As far as the debate is concerned it has ever been and will ever go on and will never end.
