What Does the Euthyphro Dilemma Reveal about the Moral System of Islam? Part 2

Part 1

A second example about divine subjectivity in Islam is the story of Zaynab bent Jahsh. Zaynab was prophet Mohammad’s first cousin. He wanted her to marry his adopted son, Zayd bin Haritha. In the beginning, Zaynab and her family refused this marriage because of the low social status of Zayd. Allah had to interfere to defend Zayd by giving Mohammad Surah 33:36 “It is not for a believer, man or woman, when Allah and His Messenger have decreed a matter that they should have any option in their decision. And whoever disobeys Allah and His Messenger, he has indeed strayed into a plain error.” This verse gives Mohammad a great authority—similar to the authority of Allah himself. Zaynab finally accepts and marries Zayd.

According to Islamic sources, after some time, prophet Mohammad sees Zaynab and is captivated by her beauty. Zayd takes notice and asks Mohammad if he should divorce her. Ibn Ishaq writes Zayd’s question: “Should I divorce her for you, O Prophet of Allah? The Prophet says no, then Surah 33:37 came down and Allah’s command was accomplished.”[1] This is to say that after Zayd had married Zaynab, Allah issued another command to allow prophet Mohammad to marry Zaynab. “But when Zayd had accomplished his want of her, We [Allah] gave her to you [Mohammad] as a wife, so that there should be no difficulty for the believers in respect of the wives of their adopted sons, when they have accomplished their want of them; and Allah's command shall be performed.” In other words, Allah issues a command for Zayd to marry Zaynab, then he changes it by issuing another command having Zayd to divorce her and allowing Mohammad to marry her.

 This incident might have several social and psychological implications for Muslim women; however, for present purposes, we will concentrate on Allah’s command. This story shows that Allah’s truth is not objective or final. His commands alter to accommodate a private situation. At one point he instructs Zaynab to marry Zayd, and at a later time, he orders her to marry the prophet himself. It seems as if Allah is accommodating the preference of his prophet (playing favoritism), or he is changing his mind and commands based on new circumstances.

Allah’s command changed regarding adoption as well. Both Sunni and Shi’ite scholars agree that adoption is prohibited in Islam. They rely on Surah 33:5 in their legislation, “Nor has He (Allâh) made your adopted sons your sons. Such is (only) your (manner of) speech by your mouths. But God tells the truth, and He shows the way. Call them by (the names of) their fathers, that is better in the sight of God.”[2] Zayd was Mohammad’s adopted son until Mohammad fell in love with Zaynab and asked her to marry him. At that point, Allah changed his decree and declared adoption is wrong.

This is another example which shows morality is subjective in Islam because it is completely dependent on Allah’s commands. His discretion changes with time, and also his decree. While morality is due to Allah’s fiat, it is grounded in his mutable nature. Thus, it is subjective, and Allah’s commands seem to benefit some [the prophet] and dismiss others [like Zaynab].

The Divine Command Theory reveals a great weakness in Allah’s moral character because his commands look arbitrary. There is no reason to think that Allah will not issue an abhorrent command simply because he can make right and good bad or vice versa. In the example of adoption, Mohammad adopted Zayd because adoption was good, but then Allah changed his discretion and made adoption bad. Consequently, Mohammad forbids it. The Judeo-Christian worldview, on the other hand, believes that “the moral truth in question would be a reflection of his [God] very nature, upheld by his faithfulness to it in this and all possible circumstances. It’s potentially a veridical window of insight into an aspect of his own holy and loving character. To issue a command at variance with it would be to deny himself, which God simply can’t do.”[3] God in Christianity cannot deny himself; he is restrained by his ultimate goodness because he is the Good. God does not change his mind; whatever he pronounces as good and right remains unchanging because of the immutable good nature of God.

In the Judeo-Christian faith, morality is based on the good nature of God, not on “no reason” for God’s command nor for the benefit of certain people. God has reasons for each command and the reasons are based on his loving nature. The command “to love your neighbor as yourself” resonates with God’s relational character. God in the Judeo-Christian faith wants to establish a relationship with all humanity, not only certain people—who obey him blindly.

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[1] Muhammad Ibn Ishaq Al-Matlbi, Kitab al-Siyar wa-l-Maghazi (Damascus, Syria: Dar al-Fikir, 1978), 262.

[2] Sayyid Muhammad Rizvi, "Dear Maulana Questions" section of Shama newsletter (Vancouver, B.C., Canada) 1990, accessed January 24, 2021. URL: https://www.al-islam.org/articles/adoption-islam-sayyid-muhammad-rizvi. Dar al-Ifta Al-Missiyyah, “Is it permissible for an unmarried woman adopt a child?,” accessed January 24, 2021. URL: https://www.dar-alifta.org/Foreign/ViewFatwa.aspx?ID=4845.

[3] David Baggett & Jerry Walls, Good God: The Theistic Foundations of Morality (Oxford University Press, 2011), 131.

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Sherene Khouri was born into a religiously diverse family in Damascus, Syria. She became a believer when she was 11 years old. Sherene and her husband were missionaries in Saudi Arabia. Their house was open for meetings and they were involved with the locals until the government knew about their ministry and gave them three days’ notice to leave the country. In 2006, they went back to Syria and started serving the Lord with RZIM International ministry. They travel around the Middle Eastern region—Turkey, Jordan, Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, and United Arab Emirates. Sherene was also involved in her local church among the young youth, young adults, and women’s ministry. In 2013, the civil war broke out in Syria. Sherene and her husband’s car was vandalized 3 times and they had to immigrate to the United States of America. In 2019, Shere became an American citizen.

Sherene holds a Ph.D. candidate in Apologetics and Theology at Liberty University. She holds a Master of Art in Christian Apologetics from Liberty University and a Bachelor of Science in Biblical Studies from Moody Bible Institute. She is also working on a Master of Theology in Global Studies at Liberty University. Her specialty is answering Islamic objections to the Christian faith.

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What Does the Euthyphro Dilemma Reveal about the Moral System of Islam? Part 1

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Many people believe that all religions are the same, that they all have the same goal, and they all aim at the same end, namely, to encourage their followers to do what is good. Islam as a religion has a unique ethical system, which relies mainly on Allah’s commands. This article will link Divine Command Theory (one horn of the Euthyphro Dilemma), particularly a strong version of voluntarism, to the Islamic understanding of morality.

The Euthyphro Dilemma, in contemporary terms, asks this question? Is something moral because God commands it, or does God command what is moral?

In other words, who defines the standard of goodness/rightness? Is it God because he is higher and above the standard of goodness and rightness—making goodness a function of divine caprice? Or is the standard of goodness/rightness above God— making Him submissive to it?

Most Muslims will likely agree with the first horn of the dilemma, the Divine Command Theory. God is above all standards, He has the complete freedom to mandate any law, and every ethical norm is defined by His will and command. He does not succumb to any condition or standard because he defines the specifications and the guidelines of goodness/rightness. In other words, the difference between right and wrong, and good and evil for that matter, is a function of God’s discretion.  

Confining our attention for the moment to axiological matters, the first horn of the dilemma makes goodness arbitrary if God does not have a good nature. If good and bad are due to God’s mandate, can God’s fiat render theft and adultery to be good things? Shifting our focus to deontic questions, can God simply make torturing children for fun to be right? The Islamic literature, taken at face value, reveals that analogously abhorrent commands are not only possible under the Islamic worldview, but real. 

Since goodness is defined by Allah, on a strongly voluntarist reading, then he can command adultery and thereby make it good. It is known in Islam that polygamy is permissible. Not only permissible, but it is also ordered to prevent evil. Allah tells Muslims, “if you fear that you shall not be able to deal justly with the orphan-girls then marry (other) women of your choice, two or three, or four; but if you fear that you shall not be able to deal justly (with them), then only one or (the slaves) that your right hands possess. That is nearer to prevent you from doing injustice” (Surah 4:3 Al-Hilali & Khan). In the Qur’an Polygamy is given to Muslim men to prevent adultery. Polygamy is ordered in the Qur’an; therefore, it is not considered bad or wrong (Surah 4:3). Most Muslims do not discuss whether marrying four wives is considered an adulterous act because Allah commands it. Whatever Allah commands is halal (permissible).

The conversation about this topic seems like a dead-end. Many female TV anchors have broached this topic with various Arab Imams in interviews. They asked the Imams, “Does not God care about my feelings?” The answers of the Imams were, “Do you know better than Allah? Do you dare to question Allah?” Allah is the ultimate authority in the world, and he knows what is best and right for humanity. Therefore, women should obey the Qur’an without questioning Allah’s decree. “O you who believe! do not put questions about things which if declared to you may trouble you” (Surah 5:101). Asking Muslims not to question Allah and just obey him blindly is a great weakness in Islamic theology because God created human beings with the faculty of thinking. So, to create them with rational capacity and ask them not to use it is a contradictory matter.

Polygamy in Islam shows favoritism to men against women. It is true that this decree was given in a male dominating culture; however, it implies divine subjectivity because It dismisses women’s human’s worth, rights, and dignity. It is still the official practice in all Islamic majority countries, and is allowed under Shari’a law. Divine favoritism displays subjective morality in Islam because permitting polygamy for men and dismissing women’s feelings and rights is completely dependent on Allah’s commands.

In the Judeo-Christian faith, morality is objective because it is based on the immutable character of God. God does not change his mind. He did not order monogamy, then changed his mind and allowed polygyny/polygamy. Monogamy was and is the official practice in Christianity. God did not approve polygamy despite the fact that it was practiced in the Old Testament. He created one man and one woman as his suitable helper (Gen 2:18), but things changed after the fall. Lamech, for instance, was the first man who started practicing polygyny (Gen 4:19). It was not God who intended it, neither included it in his original design. Moreover, Lamech was a criminal, he killed a man for wounding him and a young man for injuring him. This is to say that the first person who originated this act was a violent selfish killer who did not care about his wives’ feelings, thus following his model is morally imprudent. Additionally, Moses’s law never encouraged polygamy. On the contrary, polygyny was detestable (Deut 17:17). Patriarchs and kings who practiced polygyny did it according to their own discretions, and not according to God’s commands or design.

Part 2

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Sherene Khouri was born into a religiously diverse family in Damascus, Syria. She became a believer when she was 11 years old. Sherene and her husband were missionaries in Saudi Arabia. Their house was open for meetings and they were involved with the locals until the government knew about their ministry and gave them three days’ notice to leave the country. In 2006, they went back to Syria and started serving the Lord with RZIM International ministry. They travel around the Middle Eastern region—Turkey, Jordan, Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, and United Arab Emirates. Sherene was also involved in her local church among the young youth, young adults, and women’s ministry. In 2013, the civil war broke out in Syria. Sherene and her husband’s car was vandalized 3 times and they had to immigrate to the United States of America. In 2019, Shere became an American citizen.

Sherene is a Ph.D. candidate in Apologetics and Theology at Liberty University. She holds a Master of Art in Christian Apologetics from Liberty University and a Bachelor of Science in Biblical Studies from Moody Bible Institute. She is also working on a Master of Theology in Global Studies at Liberty University. Her specialty is answering Islamic objections to the Christian faith.

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A Trinitarian Moral Argument: Why Christianity’s Trinitarian God is a Better Explanation for Objective Morality than Islam’s Non-Trinitarian God

Editor’s note: Adam Johnson has graciously allowed us to republish this article. Find the original publication here.

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Both Christians and Muslims affirm the following argument:

1. There are objective moral truths.

2. God is the best explanation for objective moral truths.

3. Therefore, God exists.

However, which understanding of God, the Christian’s or the Muslim’s, is a better explanation for objective morality? In this paper I argue that Christianity’s trinitarian God is a better explanation for objective morality than Islam’s God. As part of this argument, I propose a Trinitarian Metaethical Theory (TMT) which maintains that the ultimate ground of morality is God’s trinitarian nature.

Within Christian theology, it’s important to include the dynamic, loving, inner-trinitarian relationships in our understanding of metaethics. To leave out these relationships, by saying morality is merely based on God’s nature, ignores important aspects of God which help explain how He is the foundation of morality. Including these relationships provides a more complete picture of how God is the source of morality. Thus, my TMT focuses on God’s triunity and shows how loving relationships exist at the deepest level of ultimate reality.

Many others have recognized the importance of adding God’s inner-trinitarian relationships to our metaphysical categories of substance and essence. Thomas McCall argued that God’s inner-trinitarian relationships are essential to the very being of God. He wrote “… I am convinced that divine love is essential to God … that holy love is of the essence of God. But I think this is accounted for and grounded in the Trinity.”1 He continued by affirming the following statement by John Zizioulas: “Love is not an emanation or ‘property’ of the substance of God … but is constitutive of his substance, i.e., it is that which makes God what He is…. Thus love ceases to be a qualifying—i.e. secondary—property of being and becomes the supreme ontological predicate.”2 Thomas Torrance also proposed elevating the metaphysical importance of the divine relationships. He wrote that the trinitarian persons “… who indwell one another in the Love that God is constitutes the Communion of Love or the movement of reciprocal Loving which is identical with the One Being of God.”3 Eleonore Stump insisted that “… since, on the doctrine of the Trinity, the persons of the Trinity are not reducible to something else in the Godhead, then, persons are an irreducible part of the ultimate foundation of reality….”4

According to W. Norris Clarke, Josef Ratzinger, before he became Pope Benedict XVI, dared to reproach “St. Thomas himself … and call[ed] for a new, explicitly relational conception of the very nature of the person as such, wherein relationality would become an equally primordial aspect of the person as substantiality.”5 Ratzinger claimed that within trinitarian theology “… lies concealed a revolution in man’s view of the world: the undivided sway of thinking in terms of substance is ended; relation is discovered as an equally valid primordial mode of reality….”6 Clarke himself wrote,

To be a person is to be with …, to be a sharer, a receiver, a lover. Ultimately the reason why all this is so is that this is the very nature of the Supreme Being, the Source of all being, as revealed to us in the Christian doctrine of God as three Persons within the unity of one being, so that the very being of God is to be self-communicative love. This dynamism is then echoed in all of us, his creatures, and in a preeminent way in created persons. Thus the Christian revelation of the Trinity is not some abstruse doctrine for theologians alone but has a unique illuminating power as to the meaning of being itself which carries metaphysical vision beyond what was accessible to it unaided.7

Alan Torrance suggested we should “conceive of the intra-divine communion of the Trinity as the ground of all that is.”8 William Hasker affirmed that “the doctrine of the Trinity is an integral part of the metaphysically necessary ultimate structure of reality.”9 Millard Erickson described the love between the divine persons as “the attractive force of unselfish concern for another person” and thus the “most powerful binding force in the universe.”10 This is more than mere sentiment; if God is the ultimate reality, and He exists as three persons in loving relationships with each other, then love is the basic fabric of reality. Clarke said it well when he wrote,

The highest instance of being is a unity that is not solitary, like Plotinus’s One, but Communion. Here we see in the most striking way how a specifically Christian philosophy can fruitfully shed light on a philosophical problem itself, by drawing on Revelation. The light from Revelation … operates as opening up for reflection a new possibility in the nature and meaning of being that we might never have thought of ourselves from our limited human experience, but which, once opened up, is so illuminating that it now shines on its own as an insight into the nature of being and persons that makes many things suddenly fall into place whose depths we could not fathom before…. [I]n recent years I have come to realize that the doctrine of the Trinity is a uniquely powerful source of illumination in both the philosophy of being and … of the person.11

To develop my TMT, I begin with Robert Adams’s model and expand it by incorporating God’s triunity. In the first part of his model, his theory of moral value, Adams argued that God is the ultimate good and other beings are good when they resemble Him. In his model the “… part played by God … is similar to that of the Form of … the Good in Plato’s … Republic. God is the supreme Good, and the goodness of other things consists in a sort of resemblance to God.”12 Thus humans are good when they resemble God in a morally pertinent sense. My TMT extends this theory by proposing that the specific thing being resembled is God’s triunity as found in, and expressed among, the loving relationships between the divine persons. Humans are good when they resemble the love between the trinitarian members. Millard Erickson argued that, since the relationships between the divine persons are

… bound by agape, self-sacrificial, giving love … the type of relationship that should characterize human persons, particularly believing Christians who have accepted the structure of intratrinitarian relationships as the pattern for their own relationships, … would be one of unselfish love and submission to the other, seeking the welfare of the other over one’s own.13

In this sense God’s inner-trinitarian relationships provide the ultimate foundation for moral value.

Next, I’ll provide two reasons this trinitarian understanding of God is a better explanation for objective moral value than Islam’s God. First, without the inner-trinitarian relationships, it’s unclear that love, the cornerstone of morality, is a necessary aspect of ultimate reality. Because morality is inextricably tied to personal relationships, it’s more plausible to conceive of love and morality in the context of multiple divine persons than in a context of a single person existing in eternal isolation. Richard Swinburne proclaimed there’s “something profoundly imperfect and therefore inadequately divine in a solitary divine individual.”14 It’s difficult to even fathom love, kindness, respect, etc. where there’s only one divine person. Erickson wrote that,

Love exists within the Godhead as a binding relationship of each of the persons to each of the others…. [T]he attribute of love is more than just another attribute. The statement ‘God is love’ in 1 John is a very basic characterization of God, which … is more than merely, ‘God is loving’…. In a sense, God being love virtually requires that he be more than one person. Love, to be love, must have both a subject and an object. Thus, if there were not multiplicity in the persons of the Godhead, God could not really be love prior to the creation….15

God didn’t need to create other persons in order to be loving, moral, and relational because, being three persons in fellowship, He’s always been these things. Hasker explained that “… wholly apart from creation, love and relationship abound within God, in the eternal loving mutuality of the persons of the Trinity….”16

If love isn’t a necessary aspect of God, then it’s difficult to see how God could be the foundation of moral value. However, with God’s triunity, it’s more clearly the case that love is part of ultimate reality. If loving relationships are a primordial aspect of God, we can more confidently affirm that love is necessarily good. Consider the following syllogism:

1. God is the good.

2. God is necessarily a communion of three divine persons in loving relationships with each other.

3. Whatever God necessarily is, is part of what constitutes the goodness of God.

4. Therefore, loving relationships, thus love in general, is necessarily good.

According to premise two, love and relationality aren’t contingent properties of God that only began when He created other beings to love but are part of His essential attributes. McCall explained that,

If the loving relationships … among the divine persons are essential to God, the triune God just is essentially loving…. If God is Trinity, then God’s own internal life consists in the loving communion shared between … the three divine persons, and God is not contingently relational at all but is necessarily so…. [T]he love and relationality of God toward the creation are merely contingent…. But wholly apart from creation, love and relationship abound within God, in the eternal loving mutuality of the persons of the Trinity….17

If these inner-trinitarian relationships were not an essential aspect of God, if love didn’t exist until creation, then love would be contingent. In such a scenario, love, the cornerstone of morality, would be arbitrary because God could’ve created differently such that there was no love. Something that could be otherwise doesn’t seem metaphysically “sturdy” enough to be the foundation of moral value. However, if God is triune, love isn’t something new and contingent that came about in creation but is eternally necessary. In this way God’s inner-trinitarian relationships allow us to affirm that love, the bedrock of morality, is necessarily good.

Second, Christianity’s trinitarian God, as opposed to Islam’s, makes more sense of what we know from human experience, that loving relationships are the most important part of our lives. If God existed before creation as a loving fellowship of persons, it may seem puzzling why He created other persons. Though He didn’t have to, He chose to create human beings in His image to expand this loving fellowship. McCall argued that there’s “… no obvious incoherence in maintaining that the triune God who enjoys perfection in the intra-trinitarian life may desire to share that life while not needing to do so to reach fulfillment or perfection.”18 William Lane Craig explained that existing “… alone in the self-sufficiency of His own being, enjoying the timeless fullness of the intra-trinitarian love relationships, God had no need for the creation of finite persons…. He did this, not out of any deficit in Himself …, but in order that finite temporal creatures might come to share in the joy and blessedness of the inner life of God.”19

Understanding this purpose God had for creating humans helps explain why the meaning of our lives is inextricably interwoven with our loving relationships. As Clarke put it, “[t]o be an actualized human person, then, is to be a lover, to live a life of inter-personal self-giving and receiving.”20 He argued that “… no one can reach mature development as a person without the experience of opening oneself, giving oneself to another in self-forgetting love …. To be a true self, one must somehow go out of oneself, forget oneself. This apparent paradox is an ancient one and has been noted over and over in the various attempts to work out philosophies of love and friendship down the ages.”21 While describing the relationships within the Trinity, Clarke explained,

[T]he dynamism of self-communication is part of the very nature of being and so of the person. But the metaphysician would like to probe further … into why all this should be the case. I think we now have the answer: the reason why all being, and all persons preeminently, are such is precisely because that is the way the Supreme Being, the Source of all being, actually is, and, since all creatures—and in a special way persons—are participants and hence images of their divine Source, then it follows that all created beings, and more intensely persons, will mirror in some characteristic way the divine mode of being.22

Our lives are a reflection of the inner-trinitarian life of God. We were created to image Him by loving others.

Not only our lives but the entire universe, being infused with meaning through God’s intentions for it, is purposefully heading towards the culmination of meaningful love. Clarke summed it up well:

[S]ince all finite goods are good only by participation in the Infinite Good, every finite being tends, as far as its nature allows, towards imitating, becoming a likeness of, the Divine Goodness. In personal beings, endowed with intelligence and will, this universal dynamism towards the Good turns into an innate implicit longing for personal union with the Infinite Good, ‘the natural desire for the Beatific Vision,’ as Aquinas puts it. The whole universe …. turns into an immense implicit aspiration towards the Divine.23

Understanding God’s triunity helps explain the very meaning of life and existence.

In the second part of Adams’s model, his theory of moral obligation, he argued that our obligations are generated by God’s commands. An important part of his theory is that obligations arise from social relationships, a proposal affirmed by many ethicists. He then argued that a “… divine command theory of the nature of moral obligation can be seen as an idealized version of [this because our] relationship with God is in a broad sense … a social relationship.”24 My TMT extends this idea by bringing in God’s triunity. Below, I provide two reasons Christianity’s trinitarian God is a better explanation for moral obligation than Islam’s God.

First, since Christianity’s trinitarian God provides a social context for reality, it’s a more plausible explanation of how and why obligation arises from social relationships. If God exists as divine persons in relationships, then there’s a sense in which ultimate reality is social and thus all reality takes place in a social context. Erickson argued that if the creator consists of three persons in loving relationships, then “… the fundamental characteristic of the universe is personal … [and] reality is primarily social.”25 Social relationships aren’t something new that came about when God created other beings; they are a necessary aspect of ultimate reality. Because social relationships are a primordial part of reality, they enjoy the gravitas of a metaphysical necessity as opposed to merely a contingent reality that only came about when God created others.

If social relationships are part of ultimate reality, we shouldn’t be surprised that personal relationships play such a large role in the metaethics of obligation. The obligations that arise in our social relationship with God are but an image of, and flow out of, the social relationships within God. It makes sense that creation would reflect important necessary aspects of the Creator. Hasker noted how God’s trinitarian nature reinforces the importance of social relationships: “For those who find personal relationships to be central to what transpires between God and … human[s], … the Trinity provides a powerful reinforcement by finding such social relationships in the very being of God.”26

If obligation is inherently social, God’s triunity provides a fitting explanation for why there’s a social context to reality in which moral obligation can arise. God’s trinitarian nature provides the social context for reality in general, and then His creation of other persons was merely an extension of that original social context. When He created us, it was a natural carryover from the ultimate reality of divine persons that we, created in His image, would be accountable to Him via a social relationship. Christianity’s trinitarian God provides a better explanation for the social context of moral obligation than Islam’s God. An essentially societal source of morality (God as Trinity) fits the social aspect of our experience of morality better than Islam’s God.

Second, Christianity’s trinitarian God, as opposed to Islam’s, is a better explanation for why God’s commands, which generate our obligations, focus on loving others, which is affirmed by both Christians and Muslims. Along with Duns Scotus, my TMT affirms that God’s commands for us are instructions for the path which best achieves our ultimate purpose—becoming co-lovers with the members of Trinity.27 While it’s true that God has authority over us, His commands flow not from a despotic desire to control but from a desire that we’d enjoy the greatest thing possible—a loving relationship with Him. John Hare, who champions Scotus’s idea that God’s commands direct us towards our telos of joining the loving communion of the Trinity, explained that in the

… Christian scriptures, the central notion is that of God commanding us…. [T]he notion of obligation makes most sense against the background of command … [however] the Judeo-Christian account adds God’s love to the notion of God’s commands, so that the commands are embedded in a covenant by which God blesses us and we are given a route towards our highest good, which is union with God.28

As Clarke described beautifully: “To be a person is to be a dynamic act of existence on the move, towards self-conscious, free sharing and receiving, becoming a lover, and finally a lover totally centered on Infinite being and Goodness itself, the final goal of our journey as embodied spirits towards being-as-communion—the very nature of the Source of all being, and hence of all beings created in its image.”29

God’s triunity fits well with the idea that the greatest commandments are to love God and to love others and that all the other commandments rest on this foundation (Deut. 6:4-5, Lev. 19:17-18, Matt. 22:36–40). These are the greatest commandments because they instruct us to resemble God, i.e., the trinitarian members who both love God (the other divine persons) and love others (the other divine persons). Love, the basis of morality, originates from within God’s inner life of three divine persons in perfect, loving fellowship.

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Footnotes

[1] Thomas H. McCall, Which Trinity? Whose Monotheism? Philosophical and Systematic Theologians on the Metaphysics of Trinitarian Theology (Grand Rapids, Mich.: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2010), 172.

[2] John D. Zizioulas, Being As Communion: Studies in Personhood and the Church (Crestwood, N.Y.: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1985), 46.

[3] Thomas F. Torrance, The Christian Doctrine of God: One Being, Three Persons (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1996), 165.

[4] Eleonore Stump, “Francis and Dominic: Persons, Patterns, and Trinity,” American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly.74 (2000): 1.

[5] W. Norris Clarke, Person and Being (Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 1993), 2.

[6] Josef Ratzinger, Introduction to Christianity (New York: Herder & Herder, 1970), 132, 137.

[7] Clarke, Person and Being, 112.

[8] Alan J. Torrance, Persons in Communion: Trinitarian Description and Human Participation (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1996), 293.

[9] William Hasker, Metaphysics and the Tri-Personal God (New York: Oxford University Press, 2013), 174.

[10] Millard J. Erickson, God in Three Persons: A Contemporary Interpretation of the Trinity (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker Books, 1995), 221.

[11] Clarke, Person and Being, 87.

[12] Robert Merrihew Adams, Finite and Infinite Goods: A Framework for Ethics (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999; repr., 2002), 7.

[13] Erickson, God in Three Persons, 333.

[14] Richard Swinburne, The Christian God (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994), 190.

[15] Erickson, God in Three Persons, 221.

[16] William Hasker, “An Adequate God,” in Searching for an Adequate God: A Dialogue between Process and Free Will Theists, ed. John B. Cobb, Jr. and Clark H. Pinnock (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2000), 228.

[17] McCall, Which Trinity? Whose Monotheism? Philosophical and Systematic Theologians on the Metaphysics of Trinitarian Theology, 247.

[18] McCall, Which Trinity? Whose Monotheism? Philosophical and Systematic Theologians on the Metaphysics of Trinitarian Theology, 210.

[19] William Lane Craig, Time and Eternity: Exploring God’s Relationship to Time (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2001), 241.

[20] Clarke, Person and Being, 76.

[21] Clarke, Person and Being, 96.

[22] Clarke, Person and Being, 88.

[23] Clarke, Person and Being, 24.

[24] Adams, Finite and Infinite Goods, 249.

[25] Erickson, God in Three Persons, 220–21.

[26] Hasker, Metaphysics and the Tri-Personal God, 211.

[27] Duns Scotus, Duns Scotus On the Will and Morality, ed. William A. Frank, trans. Allan B. Wolter, 2nd ed. (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1997), 20.

[28] John Hare, God and Morality: A Philosophical History (Malden, Mass.: Blackwell Publishing, 2009), 81.

[29] Clarke, Person and Being, 112–13.

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Bibliography

Adams, Robert Merrihew. Finite and Infinite Goods: A Framework for Ethics. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999; repr., 2002.

Clarke, W. Norris. Person and Being. Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 1993.

Craig, William Lane. Time and Eternity: Exploring God’s Relationsihp to Time. Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2001.

Erickson, Millard J. God in Three Persons: A Contemporary Interpretation of the Trinity. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker Books, 1995.

Hare, John. God and Morality: A Philosophical History. Malden, Mass.: Blackwell Publishing, 2009.

Hasker, William. “An Adequate God.” Searching for an Adequate God: A Dialogue between Process and Free Will Theists. Edited by John B. Cobb, Jr. and Clark H. Pinnock. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2000.

———. Metaphysics and the Tri-Personal God. New York: Oxford University Press, 2013.

McCall, Thomas H. Which Trinity? Whose Monotheism? Philosophical and Systematic Theologians on the Metaphysics of Trinitarian Theology. Grand Rapids, Mich.: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2010.

Ratzinger, Josef. Introduction to Christianity. New York: Herder & Herder, 1970.

Scotus, Duns. Duns Scotus On the Will and Morality. Edited by William A. Frank Translated by Allan B. Wolter. 2nd ed. Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1997.

Stump, Eleonore. “Francis and Dominic: Persons, Patterns, and Trinity.” American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 74 (2000): 1–25.

Swinburne, Richard. The Christian God. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994.

Torrance, Alan J. Persons in Communion: Trinitarian Description and Human Participation. Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1996.

Torrance, Thomas F. The Christian Doctrine of God: One Being, Three Persons. Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1996.

Zizioulas, John D. Being As Communion: Studies in Personhood and the Church. Crestwood, N.Y.: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1985.

Making Sense of Morality: Islamic Ethics

Editor’s note: R. Scott Smith has graciously allowed us to republish his series, “Making Sense of Morality.” You can find the original post here.

A Spectrum of Views

In this period between the ancient Greeks and the Scientific Revolution, there also was the rise of Islamic ethics. In Islam’s “classical” period, several schools of thought developed, which cover an epistemological spectrum of how we know what is right. At one end were the rationalists, including Avicenna and Averroes. In their view, moral truths exist objectively, even apart from Allah. Reason can discover moral truths, which does not conflict with revelation.

Next along this spectrum were the Mutazalites. For them, too, morals exist objectively. We can know them from the Qur’an, the Traditions of Mohammed, or independent reason. Some thought we could know morals independently of revelation. Further, they reasoned that theistic voluntarism (morality is based solely on Allah’s will) could lead to some immoral conclusions.

In response, Sunni theologians (or traditionalists) held the sovereignty of Allah as their supreme principle. They disputed the Mutazalites’ view that there are objectively real moral principles that even Allah follows. Such truths would exist independently of Allah’s sovereign will. In effect, independent reason limited Allah’s power, and objective morals had to be rejected. For Ashari, morals are what Allah commands, which ultimately we know only from revelation.

For traditionalists, ethics is one of action (doing Allah’s will). While there has been room for virtue in Islamic ethics, for traditionalists, virtues are not ends in themselves. Instead, the beginning of Islamic ethics is submission, and the end is obedience. Since the traditionalist view realizes both the fundamental point of Allah’s omnipotence, as well as revelation as the basis for knowing what is right, it is easy to see how this view came to dominate.

So, can the traditionalist view preserve these core morals? Yes, but only if Allah so wills that they are valid. But, there are no limits on Allah’s sovereignty, as is the case with the Judeo-Christian God’s character, so conceivably Allah could will they are invalid, and we would have no basis for complaint.

For Further Reading

George F. Hourani, Reason and Tradition in Islamic Ethics

R. Scott Smith, In Search of Moral Knowledge, ch. 3

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R. Scott Smith is a Christian philosopher and apologist, with special interests in ethics, knowledge, and seeing the body of Christ live in the fullness of the Spirit and truth.

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New Developments in Moral Apologetics: Kevin Richard

Editor’s note: Below is a summary of Dr. Kevin Richard’s doctoral dissertation work entitled: Tawḥīdic Allah, the Trinity, and the Eschaton: A Comparative Analysis of the Qualitative Nature of the Afterlife in Islam and Christianity.

The doctrine of eternal life raises certain qualitative and existential questions. Considering the unfathomable duration, one may rightly ask, what will that experience be like and will it be eternally satisfying? British moral philosopher Bernard Williams once stated that “nothing less will do for eternity than something that makes boredom unthinkable.”[1]

The prospect of eternal life creates a potential existential problem for humanity. The problem is potential because eternal existence creates a certain need, a need which can concisely be stated in this way: quality must overcome quantity. One can imagine becoming satiated with the pleasures and joys promised in religious Paradise. Consider this, at the first intimations of boredom, even if that moment took a billion trillion years to reach (if time is still measured that way), you would arrive at this moment relatively quickly given eternity as there would still be as much time in front of you as when you first stepped into this reality. One can further imagine that this boorish reality could quickly become hellish as pleasures and joy would continue to lose their appeal and boredom would increase and abound with no end.

Christianity and Islam have robust eschatologies and both teach that human beings are intended to live forever. Furthermore, this eternal life is presented as intrinsically good. I would submit that if they are in fact intrinsically good then each respective eschatological reality must overcome this problem of eternal duration if eternal life is something to be desired. My concern here is not with comparison between Paradise and Hell. Faced with the option to choose between the two, most rational people would embrace the former. But what if Paradise would eventually become hellish? What then? The notion of this paradisal life would not be a blessed reality, a divine gift, but the worst of all curses to befall mankind. Therefore, I am concerned with the goodness of Paradise as it is in itself. Does either faith tradition’s purported eternal bliss have the ability to eternally satisfy human creatures?

To answer that question, two fundamental assumptions will be made. If the answer is to be yes, that eternal life is intrinsically good, it would seem that two things must obtain in the afterlife. First, eternal pleasure would have to be found in and/or derive from the ultimate Good (i.e. God or Allah). Second, given that human creatures experience goodness in this life – love, happiness, relationality – and that for these creatures their telos is eternal bliss, then these goods in this life will be part of the life to come.

From these two assumptions emerge two “gap” problems, problems against which either religion can be critiqued: the Qualitative Gap Problem (QGP) and the Teleological Gap Problem (TGP). The QGP is perhaps the more obvious problem and is based on the previous statement “quality must overcome quantity.” This is an objective problem, either the quality of the experienced afterlife overcomes eternal duration, or it does not. Some may speculate that one simply could not know if this gap could or could not be overcome, and perhaps there is some merit to this point. In response to this, however, as was mentioned about, if God is the Ultimate Good, as both Christianity and Islam teach, then it would seem that he alone could be the source of a goodness that can overcome eternity’s demand. Here, one emerging thought becomes of ultimate concern: What is one’s relationship to God or Allah in the afterlife? One’s proximity to the divine, relational or otherwise, would weigh heavily on the gap being overcome.

The TGP is a subjective problem and considers how the ultimate good of the afterlife aligns with the human telos in this life and, consequently, human flourishing. The TGP considers three facts that highlight and emphasize the multi-dimensionality of human creatures:

1.     Human beings have a physical dimension.

2.     Human beings have a mental/spiritual dimension.

3.     Human beings have a social/relational dimension.

These are the teleological realities in need of fulfillment in the life to come. If Islamic Paradise or the Christian Heaven is to be desired over the other, it will be because these subjective dimensions, which form our fundamental longings and aspirations, are met. Furthermore, this teleological consideration has theological implications. As Jerry Walls notes, “The question of whether we believe in God is another form of the question of whether the fleeting glimpses of joy we experience in this life are intimations of a deeper wellspring of happiness, or whether they are tantalizing illusions, shadowy hints of a satisfaction that does not really exist.”[2] Although Walls writes within the Christian tradition, his words apply equally within an Islamic context. Applying Walls’s question to both visions of the afterlife, are the experiences of this life intimations of a deeper “wellspring of happiness” or a “tantalizing illusion”? Do they have their place in the life to come? Also, what is the source of this wellspring, God or Allah, or another source?

Within the Islamic tradition, broadly speaking, there are two theological traditions concerning the rewards of Paradise in the afterlife. The first is the one that people are most familiar with, namely, the sensuous and exorbitant afterlife. The second is not so familiar but it comes from the Qur’an itself. In Surah 56, when humanity is judged before Allah, there are three possible outcomes. The wicked are cast into Hell, the righteous are granted Paradise, and then there are a select few, those in the middle, those whom Allah brings near. Their end will be proximity to Allah, their reward is nearness. This station is the ultimate one and is reserved for the select few who attain to that level of nearness on Earth.

But, as I see it, there is a problem with this notion of nearness to Allah. The doctrine of Allah (or Tawhid) teaches that he is One, without distinction, beyond all language and description, utterly transcendent. What then is nearness or proximity to the One? In short, Islamic philosophy teaches that as the other (man) approaches the One (Allah), the more the other diminishes and only the One remains. In the afterlife, then, proximity to Allah amounts to a quasi-absorption into the divine. It is in this state that the self is slowly annihilated as all creaturely distinctions fade out of view and only the divine reality remains. Proximity to Allah, the highest level of Paradise, reaches its culmination in the Beatific Vision, but at what cost? In this moment, the QGP is met, but what comes of the self? Overcoming this gap problem seems to entail willing self-annihilation.

Now concerning the Teleological Gap Problem, how does it fare? As was mentioned above, the traditional readings of Paradise in Islam connect the telos of man in this life with the life to come. In the life to come, all manner of sensuous pleasures and desires are fulfilled. Those intrinsic goods experienced on Earth are now surpassed 1,000-fold. But according to Islamic doctrine, proximity is lost. Those who attain to this level of Paradise are not near to Allah in any real sense. And so, while they may be fulfilled sensually and relationally, it is apart from the Ultimate Good. This seems problematic, for, on the one hand, if they maintain that love is an intimation of love to come in the afterlife, a good worth retaining, then what is the source of the experience of the good in Paradise? The source is not Allah, for his love is self-contained.

At this point, I would submit that there is a greater inherent dilemma for Islam than for Christianity. On the one hand, if the QGP (the objective problem) is to be met it will entail proximity to Allah. But as we see, proximity to Allah entails the annihilation of the human subject, which does not solve the TGP (the subjective problem). On the other hand, if the TGP is to be met, it will entail a severed proximity to Allah. In the physical depictions of Paradise, the TGP, the multi-dimensionality of human creatures, is met. But, at the same time, the QGP is not met because any meaningful experience with the divine is removed. The two gap problems cannot be met simultaneously.

This study argues that the Islamic view of the afterlife does not have the theological and philosophical resources to meet both of these gap problems simultaneously and must compromise on one in order to meet the other. Islam’s doctrine of Allah – Tawhid –raises the following question in need of resolution: “How does the divine overcome the unlikeness that exists between God/Allah and man and yet not annihilate the individual (the other) in the process?”

It is at this point where the Christian doctrine of the Trinity helps to bridge this impasse. Trinitarian love is the fundamental fabric of God’s nature. Instead of this love remaining an abstraction, unknowable through human perception, the triune God acted in human history manifesting the quality of divine love in full display. While humanity remained enemies to God and hostile to his lordship, the Word-made-flesh descended into creation to save and redeem all things. Through Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross, the quality of God’s immense love was demonstrated. In that moment, humanity was given a glimpse of the quality of love that has existed within the Godhead from eternity past. It is this kind of love that Christians identify as part of the ultimate Good. And not only is that love freely given, it made a way for humanity to experience true relationship with God. To know and be known, to love and be loved. The triune God’s love for man is a non-mystical reality, grounded in the very nature of the Godhead. Christians love God because, in a very real and direct expression, God loved mankind first (1 John 4:19). Humanity can embrace those good aspirations of love and relationality both because it is how God created human beings to be and because the God of Christianity has demonstrated it to the world in human history.

This study submits that the Christian view of afterlife overcomes both gaps because of the God/man relationship in Heaven focused supremely on, in, and through the God-man Jesus Christ. It is our holistic relationship to the Triune God that grants eternal joy for all of redeemed humanity. The Christian view of Heaven presented here coupled with the nature of the Triune God is a more desired reality. The teleology of heaven better accounts for and meets the needs of the multi-dimensionality of human beings. Each of the components of the subjective experience in this life are fundamental aspects of the life to come. It is through the relation with the Triune God of Christianity that the problem of eternity is met, where quality does overcome the quantity.

[1] Bernard Williams, “The Makropulos Case: Reflections on the Tedium of Immortality,” in Problems of the Self, (New York, Cambridge University Press, 1973), 95.

[2] Jerry Walls, Heaven: The Logic of Eternal Joy, (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007), 197.

Urban Legends of the Old Testament: Radical Islam Has Inherited Ishmael’s Violent Spirit (Genesis 16:12)

Editor’s note: This piece comes from an upcoming book by Gary Yates and David Croteau, Urban Legends of the Old Testament, a sequel to Urban Legends of the New Testament.

The dismissal of Hagar by Pieter Pietersz Lastman.

“ He shall be a wild donkey of a man,
his hand against everyone
and everyone’s hand against him,
and he shall dwell over against all his kinsmen.”

— Genesis 16:12

The Legendary Teaching on Ishmael and His Descendants

Abraham’s lack of faith and patience that led to the birth of Ishmael through Hagar is the cause of the perpetual conflict between Arabs (the descendants of Ishmael) and Jews (the descendants of Isaac) in the Middle East today. The Bible informs us that the conflict between Ishmael and Isaac would be never ending. Arabs, as the descendants of Ishmael, have inherited his rebellious (“like a wild donkey”) and violent qualities (Gen 16:12), and the existence of radical Islam and violent jihadism is proof that “the spirit of Ishmael” still exists among Arab peoples today. 

Countering the Legendary Teaching

The portrayal of Ishmael as a “wild donkey” conveys a positive message that even resembles the portrayal of the twelve tribes of Israel in Genesis 49. The Bible never prophesies a perpetual conflict between the sons of Isaac and Ishmael, and Ishmael’s descendants even have a vital role in the working out of salvation history and a share in the covenantal blessings given to Abraham and extended through Isaac.

Birth Announcement and Hope for an Oppressed Woman

The declaration that Ishmael would be “like a wild donkey” in Gen 16:12 appears in the context of a birth announcement designed to offer hope and encouragement to a beleaguered slave. Tony Maalouf explains, “Having been the recipient of a special revelation from the ‘God who sees’ everything and cares for everyone, it would become much easier for Hagar to accept her circumstances.”[1] The angelic announcement concerning Ishmael in Gen 16:10–12 was a positive message concerning the future of Hagar’s son.

Readers today understandably read “like a wild donkey” as an insult. Referring to someone in this way in our culture would likely lead to an angry confrontation. Comparing someone to a donkey might seem to convey the qualities of stupidity, stubbornness, or contentiousness. As part of this comforting announcement to Hagar, however, the image likely is a promise that Ishmael and his descendants would enjoy the freedom and independence of living as roving nomads, in spite of the difficulties that such a lifestyle would also entail.

Urban Legends of the Old Testament: 40 Common Misconceptions

By David A. Croteau, Gary Yates

The term wild donkey (pere’) appears only ten times in the Hebrew Bible. It is not always clear whether the connotations associated with the wild donkey are positive or negative. The prevailing ideas associated with this animal appear to be “freedom, isolation, and wilderness habitat.”[2] Gordon Wenham states that the wild donkey is a figure for “an individualistic lifestyle untrammeled by social convention.”[3] The wild donkey lives in barren areas (Job 24:5; Isa 32:14; Jer 14:6; Hos 8:9). In Job 39:5–8, the wild donkey lives in the wilderness and laughs at the noise of the city and, unlike his domesticated counterpart, never has to endure the abusive commands of a taskmaster.

            The second statement about Ishmael in Gen 16:12 does refer to hostilities that would exist between Ishmael (and his descendants) and surrounding peoples. The Hebrew reads: “hand-to-hand with everyone and everyone hand-to-hand with him” and is somewhat ambiguous in meaning because of the lack of a verb. Nevertheless, in twenty-seven of the thirty-three instances in which the noun hand (yad) is followed by the preposition be (“in, on, upon, against”) that has a person, people, or inhabited area for its object, the sense is adversarial and denotes conflict (e.g., Exod 7:4; Josh 2:19; 1 Kgs 11:26–27).[4] The NET Bible even reads, “He will be hostile to everyone, and everyone will be hostile to him.” A people at perpetual odds would seem to be disagreeable and violent, but this statement needs to be read in light of the surrounding context. We have two other important uses of “hand” in this context that inform our understanding here. In Gen 16:6, Abram says to his disgruntled wife Sarai concerning Hagar: “your slave is in your hands” (be + yad) and that she could do with Hagar as she wished. Sarai then mistreats Hagar so that she flees from Abram’s household. In verse 9, the angel of the Lord instructs Hagar to return to Sarai and to submit “to her authority” (tahat + yad; lit. “under her hand”).

The statement in verse 12 about Ishmael’s “hand” being against everyone should then be understood at least in part as a promise of the reversal of Hagar’s powerlessness in verse 9. Ishmael would not be subjugated to others in the way that Hagar was to Sarai, and he would have the strength to stand up to others when wronged. Maalouf explains, “Constant roaming of the bedouin tribes in the desert, with no established legal system and clear civil law code, put them in a state of conflict with each other, and set others against them for fear of their raids, since nomads dislike the settled life.”[5] The point is that Ishmael would be able to contend for himself in these disagreements and confrontations.

The final statement concerning Ishmael in verse 12 that he would “settle near (‘al pene) all his relatives” is also open to interpretation. Because ‘al pene does have an adversarial sense in other passages (e.g., Job 1:11; 6:28), some English translations (NIV, NRSV, NLT) view this statement as also referring to perpetual conflict between Ishmael and his neighbors The NIV reads that Ishmael “will live in hostility toward all his brothers.” The preposition ‘al pene more often has a spatial nuance and likely refers in Genesis 16 to how Ishmael would live away from other peoples because of his Bedouin lifestyle. The fact that ‘al pene has this spatial meaning in Gen 25:18 with reference to Ishmael’s descendants suggests the same meaning is intended here.[6] This last description of Ishmael says nothing about violence or hostility.

            The announcement that Ishmael would be like a wild donkey parallels the depiction of a number of the tribes of Israel in Jacob’s blessing of his sons in Genesis 49. Judah is like “a young lion” (v. 9), Issachar “a strong donkey” (v. 14), Dan “a viper” (v. 17), Naphtali “a doe set free” (v. 21), and Benjamin “a wolf” (v. 27). The portrayals of Judah and Benjamin as a lion and wolf are violent in nature and would seem to depict these tribes as violent—predators tearing apart their prey (vv. 9, 27). Judah would subjugate his enemies so that the nations would give obedience to him (vv. 8, 10), and this promise ultimately points to the dominion of the house of David and the future Messiah. Under attack from archers, Joseph’s bow would be strong and agile (v. 23).[7] Military strength would be essential for Israel’s survival and security as a nation in the violent world of the ancient Near East. These portrayals, however, do not infer that Israel was a vicious, warmongering people, and we should avoid drawing similar conclusions about Ishmael and his descendants on the basis of Gen 16:12. We would not suggest from Genesis 49 that the “spirit of Judah” or “spirit of Benjamin” is responsible for the present-day conflicts in the Middle East.

Isaac and Ishmael in Perpetual Conflict?

Christopher Heard notes that, contrary to popular opinion, the Old Testament never prophesies perpetual animosity between the descendants of Ishmael and Isaac.[8] The two brothers are never in conflict as adults and join to bury their father in Gen 25:9. Isaac subsequently lives near Ishmael, suggesting cordial relations between the two. Joseph’s brothers sell Joseph into slavery to a caravan of Ishmaelite traders who take him to Egypt (Gen 37:25–29), but Joseph’s own brothers are the ones who act in hatred. Only two passages in the Old Testament refer to Ishmaelites committing acts of violence against Israel. Ishmaelites carry out raids against Israel during the time of Gideon (Judg 8:24), and Ishmaelites and Hagrites are mentioned as enemies that conspire against Israel in Ps 83:6. Heard writes, “Although Christians commonly claim that Isaac’s and Ishmael’s descendants have fought constantly since Isaac’s birth, it is hard to sustain that claim with biblical evidence.”[9]

God’s Blessing of Ishmael and His Descendants

Ishmael is not the promised child through whom God’s covenant promises to Abraham would be fulfilled, but this fact does not minimize God’s blessing of Ishmael or negate his redemptive concern for Ishmael’s descendants. The circumcision of Ishmael in Gen 17:23 demonstrates that he was included in the blessings of the Abrahamic covenant. The name Ishmael (“God hears”) is testimony to how God had been attentive to the cries of Hagar when she was alone in the wilderness after Sarai sent her away when Hagar was with child (Gen 16:11). The promise that Ishmael would have many descendants (Gen 16:10) parallels the promises to Abraham that he would have numerous offspring (Gen 15:5; 17:20; 22:17).

The blessing of Ishmael would in fact help to bring fulfillment of specific covenant promises to Abraham—that he would be the father of many nations (Gen 17:4–5) and that all nations would be blessed through Abraham (Gen 12:3; 18:18; 22:18). Isaiah 60:6–8 specifically mentions the inclusion and participation of Ishmael’s descendants (Midian, Kedar, Nebaioth; compare Gen 25:13; 28:9; 37:28) in the future kingdom when the nations stream to Zion to worship the Lord. Ishmael’s descendants will bring their wealth as tribute to the Lord and their flocks and herds for sacrifices to the Lord.

            Other specific literary features in Genesis point to favorable and sympathetic readings of the characters Hagar and Ishmael. The birth announcement from the angel concerning Ishmael is the first of such annunciations in Scripture, and similar annunciations in the Old Testament anticipate the birth of a special or promised child (including Isaac, Samson, and Samuel). Hagar’s experience when God intervenes to deliver Ishmael from death in Genesis 21 parallels Abraham’s as he prepares to offer Isaac in Genesis 22.[10] Both Hagar and Abraham take a journey to a desolate place, and both hear an angel from heaven announcing God’s intervention on behalf of their sons (Gen 21:17; 22:11–12). 

 The depiction of Ishmael in Genesis also invites comparison with Joseph in that both are expelled from their home because of their master’s wife.[11] Sarah expels Ishmael because she observes him “laughing” (mocking?) (tsahaq) at the feast for Isaac’s weaning (Gen 21:8–10), and Potiphar’s wife falsely accuses Joseph of attempting to rape her and thus “mocking” (tsahaq) his master’s house (Gen 39:14–17). In spite of their unfair treatment, both young men prosper because God is “with” them (Gen 21:20; 39:2, 21). These favorable comparisons with other individuals who are part of the covenant people of God suggest that we should also view Hagar and Ishmael as positive characters, not as the ancestors of Israel’s perpetual enemies.

Application

Christians have often used wrong interpretations or simplistic readings of Scripture to justify prejudice or hatred toward specific groups of people. Identifying the mark of Cain in Genesis 4:15 as the curse of black skin or equating Native Americans with the Canaanites to justify their extermination are two prominent examples of such readings. Attributing the conflict in the Middle East to “the spirit of Ishmael” or the lack of evangelical compassion toward Arab refugees in our current environment reflects a similar misreading of the Bible. The genealogical relationship between Ishmael and present-day Arabs is complex to begin with, and the statement that Ishmael would be “like a wild donkey” in Gen 16:12 does not characterize Arab peoples as violent. Ishmael plays a strategic role in the working out of God’s plan to bless all nations through Abraham (Gen 12:3), and the descendants of Ishmael will be among the people of God “from every tribe and language and people and nation” (Rev 5:9). Loving the descendants of Ishmael is a reflection of the heart and character of God himself.

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Annotated Bibliography

Books

 Maalouf, Tony. Arabs in the Shadow of Israel: The Unfolding of God’s Prophetic Plan for Ishmael’s Line. Grand Rapids: Kregel Academic, 2003. Helpful treatment from an Arab Christian of the role of Ishmael and Arab peoples in the working out of God’s kingdom purposes.

Commentaries

 Wenham, Gordon J. Genesis 1–15 and 16–50. Word Biblical Commentary (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2017). Scholarly evangelical commentary with two volumes on Genesis, here presented as one volume.

Articles

 Heard, Christopher. “On the Road to Paran: Toward a Christian Perspective on Hagar and Ishmael.” Interpretation 68 (2014): 270–85. Argues for a more charitable Christian reading of the figure of Ishmael.

Websites

 Rishmawy, Derek. “I Am Not Abraham’s Mistake.” Patheos, Christ and Pop Culture (blog). February 27, 2013. http://www.patheos.com/blogs/christandpopculture/2013/02/i–am–not–abrahams–mistake/. Argues that popular evangelical theology about Arabs often contradicts biblical teaching.

[1] Tony Maalouf, Arabs in the Shadow of Israel: The Unfolding of God’s Prophetic Plan for Ishmael’s Line (Grand Rapids: Kregel Academic, 2003), 65.

[2] R. Christopher Heard, Dynamics of Dislection: Ambiguities in Genesis 12–36 and Ethnic Boundaries in Post-exilic Judah, Semeia Studies 39 (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2001), 69.

[3] Gordon J. Wenham, Genesis 16–50, Word Biblical Commentary (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2015), 11.

[4] Heard, Dynamics of Dislection, 69–70.

[5] Maalouf, Arabs in the Shadow of Israel, 72.

[6] Heard, Dynamics of Dislection, 72.

[7] A strong case can be made for an alternate reading of Gen 49:22 that translates the verse as depicting Joseph as the “son of a donkey” (ben porat) in a manner that recalls the depiction of Ishmael “like a wild donkey” (pere’ ’adam) (rather than “a fruitful vine”). The noun son (ben) is never used with a plant elsewhere in the Hebrew Bible but does appear with animals (Gen 18:7; Ps 29:6). See S. Gevirts, “Of Patriarchs and Puns: Joseph at the Fountain, Jacob at the Ford,” Hebrew Union College Annual 46 (1975): 35–49.

[8] Christopher Heard, “On the Road to Paran: Toward a Christian Perspective on Hagar and Ishmael,” Interpretation 68 (2014): 276–77.

[9] Heard, “On the Road to Paran,” 279.

[10] For fuller development of the Hagar-Abraham parallels, see S. Nikaido, “Hagar and Ishmael as Literary Figures: An Intertextual Study,” Vetus Testamentum 51 (2001): 221–29.

[11] Nikaido, “Hagar and Ishmael,” 232–41.

John Hare’s God’s Command, 6.3.3, “Al-Maturidi”

What’s the relation Al-Maturidi sees between reason and revelation? He claims there are three possible outcomes of reasoning. The first is that the thinker will be led to the knowledge of being created and to see that he has a Creator who will reward him for his good and punish him for his bad deeds, which will inspire him to adopt that which pleases Him. The second is that the thinker will deny all this, and indulge himself in all kinds of pleasure, which will have its consequence in the hereafter. The third is that the thinker will be led to the realization of the incomprehensibility of knowledge and its reality which inspired him to search, but then his heart will rest and the pain will disappear that afflicts him when he tries to think. He doesn’t think the second outcome will happen, and that reasoning, whether on the first outcome or third, will be a gain to the thinker in all of its aspects.

He thinks that God has both given us a sign by way of which we can know God’s command, and He has stirred our mind to thought and reminded us of the various consequences of our actions. So if we disobey God, it’s only because we abandon the pursuit of reasoning and this is our fault. So we’ll be judged by the very thing that could have excused us. This is a result of our own act. Ignorance is no excuse, and that’s because God has given both the sign and the prompting, which are in happy harmony. Reflection will lead to belief in the very God who gives the command.

The important point here is al-Maturidi’s use of the language of “both/and,” in what Hare calls “two methods.” They are both theoretical intuition and the way of revelation. The way of revelation is clear, accessible within the domain of perceptible things. The way of speculative thought is hidden. It may start from something like theoretical intuition, but it requires difficult reflection about things that are beyond the reach of the senses. He makes these partners, though not equal partners.

Al-Maturidi also gives a role to reason in checking the reliability of reports. We need speculative thinking not merely to reflect about that which is beyond the reach of the senses, but also to check the kind of reports that may or may not be erroneous. He accepts the principle of credulity: that human beings have to rely on the reports of others and should therefore give initial credence to what someone tells them, as well as to what they receive through the senses and through reason. But what is received may be true or false, and needs to be tested by a form of knowledge that can discriminate between reliable and unreliable testimony. Al-Maturidi holds that the divine report (the Qur’an) and the Prophet’s personal reports pass this test, and are supported by the consensus of the faithful and by clear miraculous signs. But historical reports in general, and some of the traditions about the Prophet, do not have this degree of reliability.

Reason also has the function of showing that the universe has a purpose, being made by a rational Creator, for whom to act unwisely is a bad thing, who combines that which is properly combined and divides that which is properly divided, and who directs human beings in their different desires, divergent natures, and their various passions. He does, however, acknowledge that our reason has its own proper limits. For example, he thought Aristotle was misled by too ambitious an account of analogy.

We might say that al-Maturidi gives the place of a junior partner to reason in relation to divine command. It’s not, as in al-Jabbar, that revelation merely gives us instruments to what are already known as ends by reason. It’s not, as in al-Ash’ari, that reason simply works out the implications of what is already given by revelation. We could put the matter this way. For both al-Jabbar and al-Ash’ari there is only one final place for access to our proper ends; for the Mu’tazilite it is reason, and for al-Ash’ari it is revelation. But for al-Maturidi there are two, and they are mutually reinforcing. This is not to say that they are equal in status, for our human rational faculties were originated as finite and therefore are short of grasping the absolute reality of things. This is because the rational faculties are parts of the world which is in its entirety finite. The Qur’an is, al-Ash’ari and al-Maturidi agree, God’s own eternal word, received by the Prophet. But in the view of al-Maturidi, God has stirred our minds to be receptive to another source of value, the reason that God himself has for his command, and though we are divided in our nature, and our access to this source of value is not always reliable, we have been given difficult and partial access if we do the necessary hard work.

What can a divine command theorist learn from al-Maturidi? Many things, but here are three. First, it is consistent to hold both that God makes the divine command intelligible to us, even sometimes giving us access to the divine reason for the command, and to say that our access is only partial and difficult. The combination here comes from the fact that our nature is divided. God’s commands are more helpful even than our knowledge of ourselves. Second, it is consistent to hold both that we have the power to act in opposite ways, and that what we do is determined by the divine decree. This decree needs to be distinguished into what God reveals to us as the divine preference, which we can disappoint, and God’s final effective command, which always brings overall good. The three linked distinctions—between two kinds of power, two kinds of divine attitudes, and two kinds of divine decree—start to give us a way to hold together God’s sovereignty with our freedom. Finally, we can see in al-Maturidi an acknowledgment of the authority of both reason and revelation. He refuses to reduce the final authority of revelation to that of reason or vice versa. Reason is a junior partner; the idea is we need both, and not merely instrumentally. This is important for anyone living in a pluralistic culture. To some limited extent (because reason is the junior partner), we can rely on what is common between traditions to adjudicate disagreements between them.

In all three of these ways it’s instructive to compare al-Maturidi with Scotus. The two play some of the same mediating roles in the debates within their own communities. First, like al-Maturidi, Scotus is hesitant to allow a deduction from our nature to the moral law. They both thought there’s a consonance or fittingness of the commandments with our essence, and that our essence is to be pilgrims on the way to a certain relation to God. But our composite nature makes the deduction problematic, even though we can see the fittingness with our reason. Second, Scotus holds that we have the power of opposites, which is like al-Maturidi’s first kind of power. But God’s generosity leads to our good, despite our tendency towards what is not good. This generosity is consistent with the divine justice that punishes us when we fail to do what God commands by the revealed divine will. Finally, Scotus has the same combination of trust in human reason and emphasis on its limitations. He gives what is probably the most complex rational argument for the existence of God in the whole of Christian scholastic philosophy, and he is insistent on the need and capability of “right reason” to work out how we ought to live. On the other hand, he thinks we don’t know our own (individual) essence, or the essence of God, or who the people are that God has elected for salvation [I think that individualist take on election is wrong], and he is hesitant about saying that we know by reason what God must do.

John Hare’s God’s Command, 6.3.2, “Al-Ash’ari”

Al-Ash’ari doesn’t reject the use of reason, but he does wish to reject the Mu’tazilite approach, but not to stop doing theology. Rather, he wished to use it for the defense of a more traditional doctrine. He uses reason conspicuously. But the relation between reason and revelation is approximately the opposite way round from how al-Jabbar describes it. Al-Ash’ari operates on the assumption that the Qur’an and the Traditions are to be interpreted literally wherever this is possible. He acknowledges that the Qur’an does also sometimes speak metaphorically, but he thinks the literal interpretation should be used when it isn’t impossible.

His second major criticism of the Mu’tazilites is that they hold the Qur’an to be created, whereas al-Ash’ari holds that it was recorded in time, but is itself eternal. The most important point for our purposes is that al-Ash’ari does not think we are justified in holding revelation to some standard of interpretation external to it. God gives guidance, he says, to the faithful, and not to the unfaithful (infidels). The Qur’an has a verse that teaches that the Prophet warns both the one who follows and the one who does not, the unfaithful one. Al-Ash’ari concludes from this that guidance and warning are different. The revelation warns both faithful and unfaithful, but only guides the faithful, and there are some warnings also that are given only to the faithful. The point is just that al-Ash’ari can’t allow what the Mu’tazilites assert, namely, that the guidance gives all human beings what they then recognize as means to what their reason already prescribed for them.

We can relate al-Ash’ari’s position about the sources of theological knowledge to the four traditional sources of Islamic law: the Qur’an, the Traditions, the consensus of the faithful, and analogical deduction from Scripture. Of these the first two are given by revelation. For al-Ash’ari, the third (consensus), as it applies to theological knowledge, is also given by special divine grace. But this is not because of a general truth about communities of religious believers, but because of a special dispensation given to Muslims. The fourth source, analogy, is likewise strictly restricted in its theological use to what is implied by the revealed texts themselves. Sometimes we can tell from a scriptural prescription what God’s reason is for prescribing in this way, and sometimes we can apply that reason to cases analogous to the original case. But the point is that al-Ash’ari, in accepting these four traditional sources, is not putting them under two mutually independent headings, revelation encompassing the first two and reason the second two. Rather, the second two depend for their authority on special revelation.

John Hare’s God’s Command, 6.3, “Revelation and Reason”

All three of our authors have an important place for both revelation and reason, but they describe the relation between the two sources of knowledge differently. The term ‘revelation’ is a convenience, but is potentially misleading. It would be better, but cumbersome, to talk about God’s deliverances through the Scriptures and the Traditions.

6.3.1 “‘Abd al-Jabbar”

Al-Jabbar makes a distinction between necessary knowledge and acquired knowledge. Necessary knowledge, unlike acquired knowledge, is known immediately and is known by all sane adult human beings. This includes knowledge from sense perceptions and rules of logic and knowledge of one’s own mental states. The most important for present purposes are certain moral truths and reliable reports. An adult with sound mind necessarily knows the evil of wrongdoing, the evil of being ungrateful to a benefactor, and the evil of lying if it is not intended to bring about benefit or to repel harm. One also knows the goodness of compassion and giving. These moral principles are the basis for rational obligations. Knowledge of reliable reports is also necessary for knowledge, and is required for religious obligation, which is a part of obligation not known by reason—like the obligation to pray and fast.

So al-Jabbar gives a kind of priority to reason over revelation. Neither revelation nor reason makes something right or wrong. But the right that revelation indicates, reason sees is instrumental towards a right that reason already knows. We know by necessary knowledge that we should choose our duty, and revelation tells us that prayer is conducive to this end. There is a difference between intrinsic wrongs and things that are wrong by relation to their consequences, such as the wrongs of the Law, which are only wrong inasmuch as they lead to the performance of a rational wrong or ceasing to perform certain duties. This does not mean, however, that revelation is redundant. One may not know, before being told, how to achieve the end in question, and one also may be insufficiently motivated.

The opponents of the Mu’tazilites tended to object that the moral principles that are supposed to be necessarily known, and so known to all sane adults, are in fact not known by all. There is, in fact, widespread disagreement. For example, the nomadic Bedouins of Arabia approve the practice of plunder. But this does not mean that there is disagreement here about the principle that injustice is prohibited; it’s just that Bedouins have a different conception of private property. But it’s hard to see that the objection from disagreement can be overcome in this way. To be sure, ‘injustice’ is named together with the wrong and so anyone who agrees that some act is unjust is going to agree that it is wrong; but the relevant disagreement is surely about what kinds of act are unjust.

So take lying. One might object that this is not something about which all sane adults agree, and indeed many of al-Jabbar’s own opponents disagreed with him, holding that it would be right to lie to save the life of a prophet. But the case of lying is anomalous here, and it may be that the operative conception of lying is already evaluatively laden. There is nothing implausible, Hare writes, about holding that there are very general principles that are very widely shared across human cultures, as long as one does not insist that they generate absolute prohibitions.

According to al-Jabbar, we need to distinguish rational worship and religious worship. Both kinds involve obligations that are assigned by God. This seems to imply that we can worship rationally by obedience to the principles that are necessarily known, even if we do not know about God, and even if the obedience is not consciously directed towards God. On this view, it is only in relation to religious worship that God must be “described with every and each action,” to use al-Maturidi’s terms.

John Hare’s God’s Command, 6.2.3, “Al-Maturidi,”

Al-Maturidi’s complex views on human freedom and divine command are best understood through three distinctions that he makes, distinctions between two kinds of power, two kinds of divine attitude, and two kinds of divine decree. Let’s start with the two kinds of power. Of these, the second kind of power is relatively straightforward. It’s the power not definable except as the power to perform the act at the time of the act. But acknowledging this kind of power is consistent with acknowledging a different kind of power, the first kind. What is this kind? It’s the human capacity to act in two opposite ways.

Al-Maturidi says God makes us responsible for things that are hard and easy, steep and level, and gives us principles by which to attain every virtue. He holds that everyone knows that he is the one who chooses to do what he is doing, even though the theological determinists deny this. The picture of the two powers we are given is that the first power precedes the act, and it is a power to choose, and the second power performs the act and is concurrent with the action. Both powers are the gift of God. The action that is taken by the second power must be the action that is chosen by the first power, since al-Maturidi says the action is performed “through” the choice made by the first power.

This brings us to the second distinction, between two kinds of divine attitude. It’s similar to the earlier distinction between decreeing and determining in the sense of producing something and decreeing and determining in the sense of commanding it. But whereas al-Ash’ari resists the implication that there exist things of which God disapproves (because he doesn’t want to attribute weakness to God), al-Maturidi gives us a way to take the distinction inside God’s will, without losing God’s global providential control. This solution distinguishes between satisfaction and will in general. But this isn’t intelligible until we have described the third distinction al-Maturidi makes, namely, the distinction between two kinds of divine decree.

The first decree is the definition with which things come into existence. In something like this sense God has said, “Surely we have created everything by a decree.” About the second kind of decree, al-Maturidi says, “Nor with regard to the second is it possible for human beings to determine their actions with respect to time and place, nor does their knowledge attain this. And so in this respect, too, it is not possible for it to be by them, such that their actions do not come to be from God.

What is the difference between these two kinds of decree, which we can refer to (somewhat imprecisely) as the “absolute decree” and the “detailed decree”? It’s noteworthy that the “absolute” decree is an evaluation that is all good for the object because the decree comes from divine wisdom and knowledge. The “detailed decree,” though, is of the coming-to-be of good and evil, beauty and ugliness, wisdom and foolishness. When al-Maturidi talks of the distinction between satisfaction and will, he has in mind (under “will”) that everything is good that is created by the absolute decree in its final connection with everything else in the history of the universe, and is under God’s working all things together for good. But when each type of action is put together with its results and circumstances, but still isolated from the final disposition of the whole universe, it can be good or evil. [Is the intimation that in ultimate context it ceases being, say, bad when it was bad before? That seems to confuse something being good versus something being used for good. An evil redeemed doesn’t mean it’s not evil.] God chooses to reward in accordance with the “detailed decree” only what satisfies Him and to punish only those “He does not like.” But God by His absolute decree and in His absolute power turns even the evil that we choose into good. [How can evil change into good?] One way to put this would be to use a distinction al-Maturidi does not: a murder can still be wrong even though God turns it to good. [Yes, and this is exactly the confusion: it’s not turned into something good, but it’s rather used to bring about some good.] Hare says if this is al-Maturidi’s picture, he has a way to repair the fissure in the providential circle that would otherwise result. It will still be the case that we can attribute the whole final circle to God’s good care.

Image: "Islam" E. Musiak. CC License. 

John Hare’s God’s Command, 6.2.2., “Al-Ash’ari”

Of al-Ash’ari’s ten objections to the Mu’tazilites, three have to do with the matters discussed here (human freedom). The Mu’tazilites assert that human beings create evil, they think that God may wish what is not and that what He does not wish may be, and they think that they alone, and not their Lord, have power over their works. Al-Ash’ari responds that he who doesn’t will the existence of anything except what exists, and nothing exists except what he wills, and nothing is remote from his will, is the worthier of the attribute of divinity. If there are under His authority the existence of things of which He disapproves, this shows an attribute of weakness and poverty. Such a being would be weak in comparison with the sovereign omnipotent God of the tradition.

It’s tempting to think of al-Ash’ari as privileging God’s omnipotence over God’s justice, but this is not how he sees it. He is completely convinced of God’s justice (though he thinks we have to be careful not to think it is the same thing as human justice), and he’s convinced that we are responsible for our actions, and that God rightly holds us responsible. To understand this, we need to describe his notion of “acquisition.” This is the view that a single act can both be created by God and “acquired” or performed by a human being. We can distinguish between the one who lies, who is not the one who makes the act as it really is, and the one who makes it as it really is (namely, God) who does not lie. Similarly, we can make the distinction familiar from experience between cases of casual constraint and cases where we have the power to act, and so responsibility for our action. Al-Ash’ari calls these two cases “necessary motion” and “acquired motion,” and he gives the examples of shaking from palsy or shivering from fever, for the first case, and coming and going or approaching and receding, for the second.

We can ask al-Ash’ari whether God creates evil (or wrong). The answer is not straightforward. Has not God, then, created the injustice of creatures? Al-Ash’ari replies that God created it as their injustice, not as His. But then we deny that God is unjust? Al-Ash’ari replies that one who’s unjust is not unjust because he makes injustice as another’s injustice and not as his. The same reply comes with the question about whether God creates evil and whether God creates lying. God creates evil for another, and lying for another, but God Himself can’t do evil, or lie. Does this mean that God has decreed and determined acts of disobedience? Here al-Ash’ari makes another distinction, between decreed and determined acts of disobedience in the sense that He has commanded them. This is the difference Hare identified in Chapter 2 between two different kinds of prescriptions, namely, “precepts” (or “prohibitions”) and “directly effective commands.”

Someone might worry about God’s commanding things when God does not provide the recipients of the command with the power to carry it out. The interlocutor asks, “Has not God charged the unbeliever with the duty of believing?” Al-Ash’ari answers that He has. But this does not mean that God has given the unbeliever the power of believing, because, if God had given that power, the unbeliever would believe. It seems to follow that God enjoins on him an obligation that he cannot fulfill. Here, al-Ash’ari makes another distinction. Strictly, an inability is an inability both for some act and for its contrary. A stone has the inability to believe, because this inability is also an inability to disbelieve. But the unbeliever has the ability to disbelieve, and so does not strictly have the inability to believe. Al-Ash’ari considers an objection to this account of inability: namely, that he has denied that a power is for an act and its contrary. How can he deny this of powers and affirm it of inabilities? The reason is that, on al-Ash’ari’s conception of power and inability, they are necessarily concurrent with their exercise. The exercise of the inability both for the act and the contrary (to believe and to disbelieve) makes sense (as in the case of the stone). But the exercise of the power both for the act and the contrary does not make sense. It would require a thing to have two contrary attributes at the same time. His opponent could try to reverse the argument and say that it is obvious we have the power both to act and not to act, and so a power can’t be necessarily concurrent with its exercise. This dialectic will continue with the next section (on al-Maturidi).

John Hare’s God’s Command, 6.2.1, “Human Freedom”

Hare now takes up the same three figures, but in relation to the different question whether human beings have freedom of choice in what they do, or whether our actions are only the product of divine causation. This question is the subject of prolonged discussion by all three, but we will focus on material that has implications for the relation between divine command and human obligation.

6.2.1: “’Abd al-Jabbar”

Al-Jabbar starts from the premise that it is irrational to assign an obligation to perform an act, unless the addressee is capable, or has the power to perform it, in order to be considered truly his action. The maxim that it is bad or irrational to impose unbearable obligations is taken from the Qur’an. What kind of power are we talking about? Two things are important to say about it: it has to precede the act and it has to be a power over opposites—that is, a power to perform an action or its opposite. It’s humans who do the wrong that create it. God does have the power to do wrong, but it is impious to think He does it, and there is no reason to think He does it.

Al-Jabbar uses a distinction here that descends from Aristotle’s discussion of the “mixed” cases of voluntary action in the Nicomachean Ethics, which was available in Arabic, though he reaches a slightly different conclusion from Aristotle about praise and blame. Aristotle holds that an action is involuntary if it is done either by force or by ignorance, and it is done by force if the origin of the action is outside the agent. But there are three kinds of mixed cases of “force.” One is where the action is done from fear of greater evils—like acting under a threat to one’s family. Such a case is “mixed” because it resembles both the voluntary and the involuntary, but Aristotle says it’s more like the voluntary. The second case is where one receives not praise or blame, but pardon, when one does what he ought not under pressure which overstrains human nature, and which no one could withstand. The third case is where the action is so base that no one could be forced to do it, like matricide.

Al-Jabbar extends Aristotle’s treatment of the third kind of case (like matricide) to cover all actions wrong in themselves (a category Aristotle does not have). He agrees with Aristotle’s assessment that in some mixed cases we do not receive praise and blame, but he says this not about cases of pressure that overstrains human nature (where Aristotle says we receive pardon), but about all cases where we are motivated by self-preservation. Again, this is because he has a category Aristotle does not have, that of actions to benefit others without reference to oneself, which do deserve praise. Finally, he reflects Aristotle’s point about the pleasant and the noble (which for Aristotle are ingredients of the agent’s own eudaimonia), but he says, not that we can’t be compelled by them, but that we should not be praised for pursuing them as our own advantage. Each of these three changes to Aristotle is highly illuminating about the structure of the Mu’tazilite’s thought as a whole, which denies eudaimonism and embraces the view that we can be moved by what is good in itself, independent of our own advantage.

Al-Jabbar has a complex picture of desire, motivation, and will. The central point for our purposes is that he is concerned to deny that there is any determining cause of our actions, either external or internal. He does not have, just as Aristotle does not have, a Kantian sense of “will,” in which it is the center of agency. If he had thought in the Kantian way, he might not have been so reluctant to posit an internal determining cause. But his notion, though rendered “will,” is closer to wanting than what Kant would call “willing.” One final point is that al-Jabbar holds that it is obvious that we have the relevant kind of power over our actions (a power that precedes the act, and that is a power both to act and not to act). In this way the Mu’tazilite resembles Scotus, and the resemblance is a deep one; the power over opposites is something we know from ordinary experience.

Image: "Quran" by Urganci. CC license. 

John Hare’s God’s Command, 6.1.2, “Al-Ash’ari”

Al-Ash’ari issues several criticisms of the Mu’tazilites, but we’ll focus on those relevant to DCT. According to one story, he was persuaded to attack them by three dreams in which Mohammed himself spoke to him and commanded him to defend Islam as it had traditionally been taught. In chapter seven of Kitab al-Luma, he answers the charge that God’s unjust in relation to unbelievers, since he wills their perversity. Basically his answer is that God is gracious to some and not to others, and it’s all justice on God’s part. It wouldn’t be wrong for God to do whatever he might choose. God is the Supreme Monarch, subject to no one, with no superior over him who can permit or command or chide or forbid or prescribe what he will do. So nothing can be wrong on the part of God.

Al-Ash’ari is committed to the view that there is no standard for wrongness among human beings other than God’s setting a bound or limit for us, and there is no one to set a bound or limit for God, so there is no such thing as a wrong that God could so.

The objector then asks whether this means that lying is wrong only because God has declared it to be wrong. Al-Ash’ari thinks yes. If God declared it to be right, it would be right. If God commanded it, no one could gainsay him. This does not mean, though, that God can lie. There is a difference, al-Ash’ari maintains, between what God can do and what God can command. Thus God can command us to pray and to be submissive, but this doesn’t mean that God can pray or be submissive. God can’t lie, but that is not because it is wrong, but simply because that is not a power God can have. It is like the power to be ignorant, which is another power God can’t have. (My thought: God can’t be submissive because of his perfection; but likewise God can’t command us to do irremediable evil because of his perfection. God’s commands are part of what he does; I think al-Ash’ari misconstrues the import of disanalogies between us and God.)

Al-Ash’ari holds that our human perception of what is wrong is a reception of God’s command, and not (as for the Mu’tazilites) a faculty of reason independent of revelation. This is a point about Mu’tazilite moral epistemology, and not their moral ontology. God controls who hears the command and who does not. Al-Ash’ari uses the Qur’an extensively to make this point. God hardens the hearts of the infidels.

He presents a dilemma to the Mu’tazilites. According to the Qur’an, knowledge of the command comes with a gift of power to the faithful. The dilemma is that the Mu’tazilites have to say whether God gives the infidels the same sort of gift. If they say no, they are no longer maintaining that we humans have the power to determine our acts. If they say yes, then they have to say how the “settlement” produces for the Prophet the state of being settled, but for the infidels it does not produce this. Al-Ash’ari’s conclusion is that, since it does not produce this result, this means the divine settlement is not given to them.

His critics may quote the Qur’an to the effect that it gives guidance both to the infidels and to the faithful. But such a verse, al-Ash’ari claims, has particular meaning. Elsewhere it says it doesn’t guide the infidels, and the Qur’an doesn’t contradict itself. So the particular interpretation is justified. His principle of interpretation is that the Qur’an interprets itself, so that we can legitimately choose a particular meaning over a universal meaning if there are texts elsewhere that prohibit the universal meaning. One of the frequent refrains against the Mu’tazilites is that they are not careful about this principle of interpretation, and pick out verses independently of the sense of the text as a whole.

The next section will consider al-Maturidi’s attempt to stake out middle ground between al-Jabbar’s extreme natural law account and al-Ash’ari’s radical DCT.

Image: "Quran  4" by Themeplus. CC License. 

John Hare’s God’s Command, 6.1.1, Intrinsic Value, “‘Abd al-Jabbar,”

Hare begins by roughly translating al-Jabbar’s language of “hasan” and “qabih” as “right” and “wrong,” respectively, but this will introduce a strain in certain contexts. Hare then makes two qualifications: al-Jabbar doesn’t distinguish between two normative families of terms (value and obligation) the way Hare does. But he does have an account of obligation. The second qualification is to distinguish qabih (wrong) from “zulm,” meaning injustice, something a bit narrower.

Al-Jabbar defines “wrong” by connecting it to that which deserves blame, but there are two qualifications. An act can be wrong without a person being blamed—if the action is such that, if certain conditions held (like the person was awake), performing the action would have been blameworthy. Also, sometimes the wrongness of an action can be overridden by a greater or equal right-making property. The second qualification is that there is no such neutralizing or overriding right-making property in the act that deserves blame.

The contrary of wrongness is obligation, where the person who omits the act (if he’s able to do it) deserves blame. Distinguished from both wrong and obligation are two other kinds of right, the “merely right” and the “recommended.” Cases of the “merely right” are breathing the air or eating harmless food, where the agent doesn’t deserve praise or blame. But they’re not simply neutral, for they are good things to do (as we’d put it in English). Cases of the “recommended” are praying or fasting beyond what’s required, where the agent is praised for the act but would not be blamed for the omission. [Supererogatory?]

Al-Jabbar holds that the right and wrong acts distinguished in his system are evident to human reason in their right and wrong character. They are “known immediately,” independently of revelation. Revelation does indeed inform us of the obligations we already have, but these truths are known by reason when they are revealed, and this knowledge by reason is primary in justification. These standards that we learn from reason apply also to God. “The Eternal Glorious One is able to do what would be wrong if He did it.” Because God in fact only commands and does what is right (though he could do what is wrong), we can use these standards to judge what God is and is not commanding us to do.

Al-Jabbar claims that there are “aspects” by which wrong acts are wrong and right acts are right, and that we can discern these aspects with our reason. “Lying” and “wrongdoing” are aspects that necessarily bring wrong with them, on his account, unlike “injury,” which may bring wrong or right depending on the situation. He distinguishes between the aspect of an act and the genus of an act. The genus does not make an act wrong. Entering a house is a genus of act, as is bowing in prayer. But neither is necessarily right or necessarily wrong. But “injustice” is not a genus of act, because injustice is named together with the bad. But lying is an aspect, not a genus. Al-Jabbar holds that lying necessarily brings wrong with it, but he also holds that a small lie may be exempt from blame, on account of the good past deeds of the speaker and the amount of praise he has earned.

The aspect of injustice is not to be attributed to God’s acts, according to al-Jabbar, but not because there is some difference between aspects as ascribed to humans and to God. He allows that we might seem to judge God’s acts differently from our own, when, for example, we judge that his goodness is consistent with causing pain to children. But in fact there is a difference of circumstances here, because we are assuming that God compensates the children in the next life, and so in fact the same standard is being applied. A key difference between the three authors in this chapter is that they disagree about whether God could do something wrong, even if he does not in fact do so.

Two more preliminary matters: first, previous chapters assumed an affinity between natural law theory and eudaemonism. One value of studying Islamic medieval moral theology is that we can see a school where this pairing does not obtain. The Mu’tazilites, and al-Jabbar in particular, hold that the right in all of its aspects attracts us in itself, intrinsically, not because it leads to a benefit for us as agents of the action. Al-Jabbar recognize that his opponents will claim that people do not avoid injustice and lying intrinsically, but only because of some benefit to themselves. He replies that people will do wrong for the sake of some benefit, but they will do right without any benefit to themselves. Even a heartless man would warn a blind man against falling into a well. Al-Jabbar replies that it is possible to act without thinking about one’s own interest at all. [Seems right to me, contra Piper.]

Second, al-Jabbar offers explicit arguments against divine command theory. DCT can be found in all three Abrahamic faiths, and it creates much the same difficulties in all three. Al-Jabbar offers at least seven arguments against it, and Hare presents four of them. The first is that commands do not imply obligation. Al-Jabbar quotes the Qur’an: “Surely God bids to justice and good doing and giving to kinsmen.” Al-Jabbar thinks such virtues are indicated by the command but not produced by it. This sort of objection is frequently made by those who can’t see what normativity is added by a command, even a divine one. Either, they think, the thing commanded is already right or it is not; the commanding can’t change it from one to the other, though it can inform us of a character that the act already has. (Hare had earlier rejected this view that reduces imperatives to an indicative indicating that someone wants something. Hare thinks the best response, on al-Jabbar’s own terms, is to point out that al-Jabbar has the concept of obligation, distinct from rightness, and that God’s command might make something right but not obligatory into what’s both. This wouldn’t involve the command making the action right, because it already is.)

On al-Jabbar’s second objection to DCT, the account of wrong as what is forbidden by God does not fit our normal language. We don’t say it’s forbidden of God to do evil, for example, even though it would be evil of him. Moreover, there are things that are virtuous and would still be virtuous even if God told us not to do them. [Here I think al-Jabbar’s mistake is rejecting DCT instead of God’s ability to issue such hideous commands. Hare’s response is similar but a bit different, saying God’s commands are based on what’s good. I resist that because on occasion it seems to me God’s command might be predicated on what’s less evil, not what’s good. Perhaps even God chooses to break a tie.]

Third, if DCT were right, we couldn’t know our obligations without knowing they were commanded by God. But al-Jabbar says the sane man knows his obligation even though he doesn’t know that there is a commander. (Hare’s reply is to punt to Adams’s reminder that we can distinguish between what a term for a characteristic means and what makes a thing have that characteristic.)

Fourth, DCT has a problem understanding the goodness of God. If we say God’s acts are not wrong because God is not commanded, we can’t say God’s acts are right either. But we need, and the Qur’an gives, standards of value intelligible to us in terms of which we can praise God for doing right. [Hare says one reply is to say that ‘good’ means “attracting us and deserving to attract us” (where both conditions are necessary), and that we can say that God and God’s acts are the paradigm case of what is good in this sense. My own reply to these last two objections would also punt to the ontology/epistemology distinction and their different orders.]

Matt Flannagan and Paul Copan’s Did God Really Command Genocide? Summary of Chapter 21: “Are Yahweh Wars in the Old Testament Just Like Islamic Jihad?”

Karen Armstrong and Philip Jenkins, among others, have argued that there’s far more violence in the Bible than in the Koran. Jenkins refers to the Old Testament’s ethnic cleansing, institutionalization of segregation, and hate and fear of other races and religions. F&C review some of these themes they’ve already covered: In terms of ethnic cleansing, what we find in the OT instead is “moral cleansing,” and long-awaited judgment on a wicked people whose time had finally come. And God warns the Israelites will experience the same judgment if they commit the same sins. The OT represents a God whose salvation is intended to affect all the peoples of the world. In terms of segregation, Israel was to be distinct morally and spiritually, but they were repeatedly commanded to care for the alien and sojourner in their midst since they too had been aliens in the land of Egypt. In terms of other races and religions, the charge of hating and fearing other races is clearly false, though the Bible is opposed to idolatry, and God brings judgment on ancient Israel for engaging in idolatry and breaking covenant with him after promising to love, cling to, and obey him.

Biblical and Koranic Texts

We see many Koranic references to warfare, and this warfare is not simply defensive but offensive as well. F&C give copious examples; here’s just one: “And those who are slain in the way of God, He will not send their works astray…. And He will admit them to Paradise, that He has made known to them” (47:4, 6).

Clear differences obtain between the Bible and Koran. First, military events captured in a biblical canon are merely descriptive of a unique part of the unfolding of salvation history. Second, whereas the biblical texts offer descriptions of unique history, the Koranic texts by contrast appear to be issuing enduring commands. Islam has exhibited a militaristic aggressiveness from the beginning, and this aggressiveness has been fed by Koranic texts that many Muslims throughout history have taken as normative or binding, enduring throughout history, and worldwide in applicability. Third, the distinctions between divinely commanded wars in the OT and Islamic jihad are much more pronounced than their similarities.

In addition to being unique and unrepeatable events within scripture itself, these wars are restricted to a relatively small portion of land, and accompanied by widely witnessed miracles. By contrast, the “revelations” to Muhammad were private and not publicly available for scrutiny or reinforced by dramatic signs and wonders. What’s more, Israel was an instrument of divine judgment on wicked people, unlike Muhammad, who attacked and overtook even those who were “People of the Book” (Jews and Christians)—part of the global reach to which Muhammed and his followers aspired.

Muhammad’s Example

Consider now Muhammed himself, the supreme human example for Muslims to follow. His goal was “to fight all men until they say, ‘There is no God but Allah.’” He died in AD 632 with his own plans for attacking neighboring nations unfulfilled. In his career, he fought in an estimated eighty-six military campaigns. The first authoritative biography of him covers his battles in 75 percent of its 813 pages, and includes depictions of assassination, rape, and cruelty that met with Muhammed’s approval. In one instance he said, “Kill any Jew that falls into your power.” A number of instances recount his approval of violence. According to the Koran and the traditions about Muhammed (Hadith), he permitted his soldiers to have sex not only with their wives, but also with female captives and female slaves.

The Early History of Islam and Its Ongoing Encounters with the Non-Muslim World

Although the Koran affirms that there should be no compulsion in religion, this verse is contradicted by other passages within the Koran. It’s also contradicted by the example of Muhammed himself. In terms of the word “jihad,” the Koran has a place for an “internal” sense of spiritual struggling or exerting within oneself for Allah, which is called the “greater jihad,” but the Koran also clearly indicates military struggle and connects jihad to physical fighting (the “lesser jihad”). As David Cook indicates in his book Understanding Jihad, there is little support in the Koran and Hadith for the notion of jihad as internal struggle.

Not only did early Islamic history continue the militaristic spirit of its founder; Islam’s history reveals an oppressive stance toward non-Muslims under Islamic rule. F&C adduce several examples.

Conclusions

The claim that the Bible’s warfare texts are “just like” the Koran’s is incorrect. The Hebrew scriptures portray unique, unrepeatable events of Israelite warfare—unlike the ongoing and normative aspect of jihad in the Koran and under the leadership of Muhammed. Unlike the biblical text that stresses God’s judgment against specific people, the Koran and Muhammed placed no such limitations on jihad, as the opponents of Islam are non-Muslims remaining in the “abode of war” rather than the “abode of Islam.” And while the scriptures emphasize a limited geographical area of military engagement, the Koran and Muhammed placed no such limit.

Another point of contrast is the nature of God in the Koran and the Bible. The Koran portrayed a deity who loves only those who love him. Those who reject Islam are “the worst of creatures.” Here God’s love is conditional, depending on the response of human beings. The love of the biblical God is unconditional. He does not merely love those who love him. Rather, God loves all people and even his enemies (cf. Matt. 5:444-48; John 3:16; Rom. 5:6-10; 1 John 2:2). He seeks to make salvation available to all, including the very enemies of his people Israel (e.g., Gen. 12:1-13; Ps. 87:4-6; Isa. 19:23-25; Zech. 9:70).

The contrast between Yahweh war in the OT and Islamic jihad becomes clear when considered are issues of geography, historical length/limit, objects of warfare, objects of God’s love, the standard of morality (God’s loving nature versus Allah’s sheer will that commands indiscriminately), signs and wonders, and the normativity of war.

Find the other chapter summaries here.

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Podcast: Brian Scalise on the Nature of Love in Islam and Christianity

On this week's podcast, we hear from Dr. Brian Scalise. Dr. Scalise is an adjunct professor at Liberty University. He teaches New Testament Greek and recently taught an intensive to graduate students on Islam.  A few weeks ago on the podcast,  Dr. Scalise explained the difference a Christian versus Islamic understanding of God makes for our understanding of love. This week, we're going to be returning to that topic. (If you haven't listened to the first podcast with Brian, it may help to do that first. You can find it here.) In this lecture, Dr. Scalise carefully explains why the Christian Trinity provides an account of love that is richer and fuller than what is possible from an Islamic perspective.  

Photo: "Pompeo Batoni 003" by Pompeo Batoni - [1]. Licensed under Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons - 

Podcast: Dr. Brian Scalise on the Doctrine of God and the Ethics of Love in Islam and Christianity

This week on the podcast, we are continuing a discussion with Dr. Brian Scalise. Dr. Scalise has written his dissertation on the different views of God in Christianity and Islam. Important differences for our view of love and ethics follow from the different views of God in each religion. When we build a worldview from the notion that God is absolutely one with no distinction, as in Islam, we get a deficient ethic and view of love. The Christian trinity, on the other hand, provides a robust foundation for a substantive morality and understanding of love. Since God is one nature with three persons, it turns out that God essentially loves others. And it is this key difference that we will be exploring this week. Dr. Scalise will help us see the implications of this difference by pointing out that the highest command in Christianity is to love the Lord while, in Islam, the highest command is to submit to Allah. We’ll also touch briefly on Islam and the Euthyphro Dilemma. Photo: "Islam" by E. Musiak. CC License.

Podcast: Dr. Brian Scalise on the Theological Implications of Love in Islam and Christianity

Photo by Ali Hegazy on Unsplash

In this week's episode, we hear from Dr. Brian Scalise.  Dr. Scalise's dissertation " involved analyzing trinitarian monotheism vis-a-vis unitary monotheism. This comparison looked specifically at Islam, Trinity, and human relationships." The subject of the discussion is the the theological implications for love in both Christianity and Islam. Specifically, we look at what follows from each religion's view of God. What does Allah's absolute oneness mean for love? And what does the Christian Trinity tell us about love?

On this week's podcast, we hear from Dr. Brian Scalise. Dr. Scalise is an adjunct professor at Liberty University. He teaches New Testament Greek and recently taught an intensive to graduate students on Islam. A few weeks ago on the podcast, Dr. Scalise explained the difference a Trinitarian versus Unitarian understanding of God makes for our understanding of love. This week, we're going to be returning to that topic. In this lecture, Dr. Scalise carefully explains why the Christian Trinity provides an account of love that is richer and fuller than what is possible from an Islamic perspective.