By Babatunde Jose
Man should not find himself in a theological dilemma or a hopeless void when confronting the problem of evil. Instead, he must find optimism in life, and see it as a brief opportunity-filled phase of his greater existence. The whole of man’s sojourn in life is one big test prelude to the everlasting life on the other plane. This test of life would be meaningless if this world’s natural laws were not in place since it is our recognition of coherent patterns—such as cause and effect—that compels us to engage our realities. These laws set this world as it was meant to be and are there to serve as a stage for the test of life. It is true that the laws God created to make life possible, stable, and enjoyable, are the same laws that sometimes make life painful and uncomfortable. Some natural phenomena such as melting glaciers though cause destructive floods, however, irrigate the land and quench the thirst of people and animals. Lightning provides plants with nitric oxide but may sometimes fatally strike down a human being. However, in all these cases, God created natural laws that offer far greater good for the world than the occasional evil they cause.
Good and evil are two sides of the same coin, an inseparable cosmic pair that need each other to exist. Valour cannot exist without peril, forgiveness cannot occur without offense, and perseverance cannot happen without obstacle. Only those who have been bitten by hunger can know the delight of satiety and feeling quenched is only savored by those who experience thirst. There must be some manifestations of evil in order to attain the virtue of conquering them.
As Hubert S. Box writes in The Problem of Evil, “Only with the possibility of failure do we deserve the reward for triumph.” God deemed that there must be sickness, so that we would pursue and enjoy health, and that there must be failure, so that we would be interested in accomplishment.
Says Ibn al-Qayyim: “Pain is the container in which pleasure is delivered. Happiness, pleasure, and comfort are not reached except by the bridge of difficulty and fatigue, and they are not accessed except through the gates of hardship, patience, and enduring difficulties. For that reason, God surrounded Paradise with hardships and Hellfire with temptations.”
In Allah’s wisdom, hardships are the cause of pleasure and goodness, thus He said: Fighting is prescribed for you, and ye dislike it. But it is possible that
ye dislike a thing which is good for you, and that ye love a thing which is bad
for you. But Allah knoweth, and ye know not. (Quran 2:216).
A world without evil is like a world without good; neither possesses any meaning which a person would strive to actualize. The joy of triumph and glory of conquering would be lost, and no righteous person on earth would find the gratification of being righteous, nor would any wrong person find the humiliation of being wrong, nor would anyone with conviction taste the coolness of certainty, nor would anyone in doubt be plagued with distress and haunted by the unknown. People would no longer hope nor be consumed by ambitions, their souls would be stripped of all purpose, their minds of all their fruits, and all things would lose their value and due right.
Sudden deaths, horrific acts of violence, and natural disasters are but three of many ways God alerts people to the insignificance of this world. These “evils” remind us that everyone on earth perishes, quickly replaced by others as if one had never set foot on its soil.
God says, Know ye (all), that the life of this world is but play and
amusement, pomp and mutual boasting and multiplying, (in rivalry) among
yourselves, riches and children. Here is a similitude: How rain and the growth
which it brings forth, delight (the hearts of) the tillers; soon it withers; thou
wilt see it grow yellow; then it becomes dry and crumbles away. But in the
Hereafter is a Penalty severe (for the devotees of wrong). And Forgiveness from Allah and (His) Good Pleasure (for the devotees of Allah). And what is the life of this world, but goods and chattels of deception? (Quran 7:20).
This analogy portrays how all this seriousness we see in the world around us today will—in an instant—be like aimless play and futile competition, except for those who invested it for yields in the afterlife.
In his book, An Irenaean Theodicy, renowned philosopher John Hick describes how “soul-making” is the outcome of “encountering evil” in the world, explaining how a world without temptation or choices leads to an atmosphere in which human excellence can never thrive.
Passion of the Christ
Some two thousand years ago, in the late hours of the night at the forested garden of Gethsemane; a garden at the foot of the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem where, according to the Gospels of the New Testament, Jesus underwent the agony in the garden and was arrested the night before his crucifixion.
The Roman guards entered the garden to arrest Jesus. Peter draws his dagger and slashes the ear of Malchus, one of the guards and a servant of the high priest Caiaphas. Jesus heals Malchus’. But as the disciples flee, the guards secure Jesus, and beat him during the journey to the Sanhedrin.
Caiaphas holds trial over the objection of some of the other priests. False accusations and witnesses are brought against him and Jesus is condemned to death for blasphemy.
Caiaphas brings Jesus before Pontius Pilate to be condemned to death. At the urging of his wife Claudia, who knows of Jesus’ status as a man of God, and after questioning Jesus and finding no fault, Pilate transfers him to the court of Herod Antipas. After Jesus is ridiculed at Herod’s court and returned, Pilate offers the crowd the choice of chastising Jesus or releasing him. He attempts to have Jesus freed by the peoples’ choice between Jesus and violent criminal Barabbas. The crowd demands Barabbas be freed and Jesus crucified. Attempting to appease the crowd, Pilate orders that Jesus be severely flogged. Jesus is then scourged, abused, and mocked by the Roman guards. A bleeding Jesus is presented before Pilate, but Caiaphas, with the crowds’ encouragement, continues demanding that Jesus be crucified. Pilate washes his hands of the affair, and reluctantly orders Jesus’ crucifixion.
During the journey to Golgotha, Jesus is beaten by the guards until the unwilling Simon of Cyrene is forced into carrying the cross with him. At the end of their journey, with his mother Mary, Mary Magdalene, and others witnessing, Jesus is crucified: And he said “It is finished! John 19:30. But it was not ‘finished’; the Evil of crucifixion did not triumph over good of resurrection; it was not the end, not even the beginning of the end, but the dawn of a beginning. In one of the greatest turn of events in history, that crucified Jesus is today venerated and in fact deified by about 2.5 Billion Christians. If there had been no Passion of the Christ, there would have been no Good Friday nor Easter. Perhaps there could have been no Christianity.
Barka Juma’at and Happy Easter
