Determinism and Free Will
The issue of determinism (jabr) and free will (ikhtiyar), or coercion and choice, represents the relationship between the individual and the universe. It is a problem whose finer points have exhausted human thought across all eras, and it is fitting that it reemerges to capture the full attention of thinkers due to the necessity of understanding it. This understanding is precise - not stemming from mental luxury as some might assume, nor is it an issue irrelevant to our daily livelihoods in earning and spending, as others might believe. Rather, the necessity of understanding it arises from the need for a practical approach to achieving absolute individual freedom. Absolute individual freedom has now become the center from which collective freedom emanates in all its forms and at all levels, influencing our daily lives in both earning and spending. The enduring question is: Is the human being destined to a predetermined fate? Or is he delegated to choose in an ongoing matter?
The Infallible (the Prophet) has decreed the need for the believer to be entirely self-sufficient when He said: “Whoever believes has believed in qada’ (divine decree) and qadar (predestination), and whoever disbelieves has disbelieved in qada’ and qadar. So, the pens have been lifted, and the pages have dried.” When some companions asked, “Then what is the point of effort, O Messenger of Allah?” He replied, “Act, for everyone has what was created for him.” The companions turned to their work, held steadfastly to their faith, and their faith protected and embraced them. “Indeed, those who have believed and done righteous deeds, their Lord will guide them because of their faith. Beneath them rivers will flow in the Gardens of Pleasure” (10:9).
Thus, the believer's need is satisfied by faith itself, but the Muslim's need requires further knowledge that brings about certainty and secures for it the tranquility of the heart. Consider Ibrahim al-Khalil: “And [mention] when Abraham said, ‘My Lord, show me how You give life to the dead.’ [Allah] said, ‘Have you not believed?’ He said, ‘Yes, but [I ask] only that my heart may be satisfied.’ [Allah] said, ‘Take four birds and commit them to yourself. Then [after slaughtering them] put on each hill a portion of them; then call them - they will come [flying] to you in haste. And know that Allah is All-Powerful and All-Wise’” (2:260).
After the companions, those who came after did not find in this matter what the companions had discovered. Some of them, the people of opinion, began to think that absolute coercion with punishment for sin was akin to someone saying, "He threw him into the sea while he was tied up and said to him, ‘Do not let yourself get wet’." This is injustice. Since Allah, the Blessed and Exalted, is free from injustice, and since punishment for sin is fixed in the Sharia and religion, there remains the notion that man enjoys some choice - deserving punishment when he errs and meriting reward when he succeeds. Thus, they believed and fell into shirk (polytheism) from wanting to exalt Allah.
These misguided individuals are influenced by two factors: the first is that common sense and the apparent aspect of the matter suggest that a human being has a choice, which appears in his voluntary movements - for he can walk, if he wishes, or sit, or stand, in addition to a number of other movements and states of stillness, all of which fall under his choice and will. And the second is that the apparent aspects of the Quran affirm for the human being what this lived common sense has bestowed upon him.
Our Sufi friends, in general, have tried to be content with what the companions were content with regarding this matter. However, the wisdom of time and the insistence of other groups forced some of them to decide that humans are destined (musayer) in every small and large matter, and that, nevertheless, they are punished for wrongdoing and rewarded for goodness. Allah is not unjust in any of these matters because He did not act in a kingdom other than His own. Some others were compelled to accept absolute determinism with punishment, then departed from this issue of Allah’s injustice by His saying: “They do not inquire about what they do” (10:36).
All the great scholars agreed that reconciling absolute determination - which is a matter necessitated by monotheism - with punishment and divine justice must be sought in the wisdom behind punishment. They pursued various avenues of explanation, which sufficed for the needs of their era and the eras that followed, up to the present day. However, we do not see these explanations as adequate for the needs of modern thought from now on.
