Islam and Rationality
November 15, 2009
A rational man speaks with a Muslim and asks: if there is a Supreme Being who wants to communicate with humans, then how would that being make it known that it is the Supreme Being and not just a more Powerful Being than we are.
The Muslims answer it in terms of miracles and supernatural signs. But it is difficult for the rational man to distinguish here between Supreme Being and Powerful Being. The answer is simple, replies the Muslim, for the Supreme Being has already created paradises and hells and is in process of filling those positions (by an equal number of human souls) and so the signs and miracles will be sufficient to account for those souls who are destined for a paradise, and so the others can’t be convinced and are those for whom a hell has been prepared. End of problem.
The Muslims do something this also with the problem of bad things happening to the pious and good things to the damned, namely testing and trial. For example a damned man who is very pious is given a great deal of money and in his enjoyment forgets that he is pious and ends up obviously damned. And the child of a pious family is killed to prevent the subsequent pain to the father and mother from what would otherwise develop into a troublesome child. Things are not what they seem, and the Muslims counsels patience. You will see, he tells us, that everything fits together and is revealed on Judgment Day. Conditions are a test of God, sent by him to clarify things, e.g., a pious acting person is really pious, i.e., continues even in adversity and praises God.
So everything is meaningful and directed and determined, and patience is required. Since it seems to be a curved grading for assignments (of the paradises and hells) this suggests a competitive environment where it is in the interest of every Muslim to be full of zeal.
Now, dreaming on, suppose this God wanted to communicate with the humans and suppose further that his communication were that good people will prosper and evil people will self destruct, and so therefore the way to prosper being to do as God says is necessary in order to prosper, e.g., this, that and the other. And if he said: obey the moral law, then we would comply because that would be the way to prosper. But, according to Kant, we would not be for that reason moral at all, and would be as willing to murder if that were on God’s agenda. And so if the moral law is obeyed because it is commanded of God, that would remove all morality and leave God’s commands and guidance entirely a whim.
Thinking more about Kant here: we naturally grow up being compelled by the moral law, long before the notion of God is meaningful, and so then in which case to be informed that God commands the moral act as the condition of happiness would not be news. It would be expected.
It would be expected because, as Kant teaches, the only meaningful postulation of God arises solely as an effect of the moral law upon the human (respect for the law, even if not obedience). And so we would naturally think (leaving Kant for a moment) that if a God (who must per the postulation be moral) wanted to communicate with humans we would have at least a negative criterion of truth, namely never to violate the moral law. And that would be universally understood, i.e., in an unbiased way.
According to this notion God will want to communicate with the humans and does so that all can understand, and gives them rationality in order to discern his communication. So rationality itself is a device of God for his own revelation.
So then earlier in the days of Moses, Jesus and Mohammed miracles and signs were the forte and were permitted in order that the humans might show what kind of communication they would come up while working on their own and not together, i.e., the humans on their own. In Jesus, according to this hypothesis, the moral religion is uncovered and found to be universal and free and compelling, the Moral Religion of Kant which has it that God is pleased alone by the moral disposition and that every person is expected to do his own moral best before asking the Divinity for assistance. This is what Kant means with the Christian religion as opposed to a Christian faith or church. It is the religion that all people, when just rational and unbiased, would spontaneously avow and subscribe to. E.g., “that’s the way God would have to beâ€.
So now through Jesus the Moral Religion as been acknowledged, and now it is merely a matter of picking a way of expressing this religion via a church or mosque.
The Muslim is not troubled by the high-handedness of the unbiased rationalist and retorts: one of the tests here is granting a person blindness due to his dedication to reason over God. Those so-called rationalists who refuse to accept the clear truth of Mohammed’s revelation are among those created in order to people a hell.
So Islam is confronted with human reason itself and has the ability to sweep reason aside, but in so doing it declares that Islam is not bound by the moral law.
Generally speaking I see the weak point in the Muslim talk at the role of universal human rationality: how can a rational world be convinced of the moral innocence of Islam? With Christianity it is easy enough; but how will it be with Islam?
Questions for me concern the matter of sincerity, where Abraham sets out to slay his willing son because he thinks that God has commanded it (and complies in order that his Ishmael might attain to immediate paradise) and is not troubled by the command being a dream, for Abraham believed that God honored the sincerity of the heart more than the act itself. Abraham takes the dream as a possible command and knows that he will not be punished for choosing in error (being certain that God would intervene if God had not commanded the dream), for his heart was set on choosing right (submission) and he trusted God beyond measure. While sublime in a certain degree the conception is troubling: God will stop me if it is not his will that my deadly mission succeed; otherwise since I have reason enough to suspect the will of God (which for most Muslims means listening to an expert) and, like Abraham, I want to be super submissive, I will act on even the hint of a command of God.
Another question has to do with Moses’ Teacher (Sura 18 I think) where we see how it is that an immoral act, e.g., slaying an innocent child, is the moral act, i.e., keeping that child from doing some evil later. Or helping evil people rebuild a falling wall which ends up keeping safe the treasure buried beneath the wall for a deserving family living among the evil people. So things are not as they seem, and we are not to be ruled by the moral appearances of things.
A final thought concerning Mohammed. I wonder if this famous man did not compose recitations in his head during his teens and twenties and thirties, bringing together stories that would induce people to live in a certain way and which was designed so that there could arise universal happiness in the world. In other words an artistic genius equal to Joseph Smith and (like him?) with a sincere love of humanity and a desire to bring peace and order. Perhaps then he went out like Abraham and thought so: I shall take it upon myself to put together what I sincerely think God would tell humans to do in order to be happy and then I shall publish it as the work of God; and I know, with Abraham, that if this is not the will of God that he will stop me, for I am doing it in that sincerity, i.e., speaking the words of the Koran. Since I (Mohammed speaking according to this hypothesis) can convince the people that this is the message of God, and since this message will bring peace on earth, and since this surely (jumping back to Kant and the pre-judgment of divine commands) is the will of God, I will just do it and know that God will stop me or alter what I say if he has a better way, i.e., his own will.
Mohammed, per this take, takes on Kant’s challenge and calls for belief in something by others and essentially calls upon God to send him to hell if what he says is not true (not God’s will). This reminds me of Plato’s Noble Lie, a lie for the good of others.