Most of us in class said, yup, totally.
Our reasoning was:
We can choose to do good, and choose to do bad, only we'd have to face up to the consequences as well. Like let's say (hypothetically) we'd decide to go clubbing the night before our final A level paper. We'd have short term fun, and like, totally screw up the paper the next day. A consequence we'd have to face. Of course, lucky smart ones can do both. They're the few that are truly blessed.
But our ustaz then told us that Islam is brought to us such that there are guidelines that us humans have to do so as not to harm ourselves. And constantly move in a direction that would bring out the best in ourselves.
So by reasoning that out, we'd have the freedom to choose how we'd like to spend our time, resources, wealth and energy in the domain of "good". Like you can do a million things with your free time. Just don't waste it off.
We can't choose to do bad, because that would mean doing something useless and harmful to us, and we'd have to face the repercussions.
This idea kinda stuck to me, but I didn't really understand it totally until recently, when I tried considering our choices we face on this earth. Like, why do we choose to face the consequences in the first place, and to be subjected to such guidelines or repurcussions?
And then it came to me... that that's cause we never actually HAD a choice in the first place. We couldn't choose to be born into this earth, and we didn't have a choice when we faced Allah as the first time as souls, and acknowledged His presence as our Creator.
In the larger picture, we were never given a choice.
Following this, we are in this earth because Allah wills us to be here, we're forever indebted to Him, and would have to follow the guidelines He has brought to us.
It's that simple, and scary at the same time. Because as much as we want to be in control, we're only in control of our lives in a way that we can put in effort towards a certain direction, and we should very much have faith that our efforts will pay off but at the same time that He has overall control over our lives, our destiny.
And then we realise that freedom of choice, like many other things thought up by man and his (usually secular) intellectual constructs, is merely a western concept that can only be used in the miniscule region of "goodness" that has been given to us by Allah.
So which direction would you choose?
2 comments:
its not merely a case of being able to dichotomize choice and non-choice. on one hand the effect of being part of any society renders an individiual unable to possess any "real" element of choice. everything has been socially constructed so to say, even the whole notion of "choice" and "free will" itself is not free from the moral perjoratives of the time/place- and religion itself as yoi pointed out is one perfect example. so how then can there be freedom of choice. YET at the same time, there are many sufficient evidences of the existence of freedom of choice in the daily workings of life. the autopoeisis system is one such thing. so don't be reductive
hey, thanks for commenting, think this is the first time someone has actually posted an intellectual reply to my blog...hehe, yay!
ok yup, u have a pt, but my point is that if you have faith, the essential part of it is that within your choice, you have a greater power guiding/wielded over you. I believe you added a layered approach to the discussion,which I wasn't considering coz I wanted to strip the notion to its barest essentials.
Sometimes, you have to agree that we have or should break away from socially constructed norms to actually do what we believe is right.
Post a Comment