Why would a Merciful God create people he knows will burn in Hell forever?
(This article has been made into a video here.)
Sheikh Asrar Rashid made a video titled: “Response to Hassan Radwan, Atheists and Former Muslims,” where he attempted to answer the question; Why would God create people he knows will burn in Hell forever?
This question highlights arguably the greatest contradiction in the concept of God in Islam.
On the one hand God is the “Most Merciful of the Merciful” and “His Mercy encompasses all things.” Yet at the same time he needlessly creates beings knowing they will suffer eternal torment.
One cannot argue God is unable to achieve his ends in any other way as it would deny his omnipotence. Nor can one argue God wants do this as it would mean God is malevolent.
It is an irreconcilable contradiction.
The knee-jerk response most Muslims give is that God granted humans freewill — a gift he does not violate. He allows them to make their own choices — even if it has terrible consequences.
However God would not be violating their freewill if he didn’t create them in the first place!! You can’t violate the freewill of something that doesn’t exist. Just as God has not violated the freewill of the infinite number of humans he didn’t create.
As for the believers, they still have freewill. The fact that God knows they will believe & submit does not deny them their freewill. Nor does it even mean they will not sin. Some believers will even enter Hell for a temporary period.
There is simply no need to create beings that will end up suffering an eternity of torture — and to claim a Wise & Merciful God would choose to do this is the contradiction of all contradictions!
However, as I said, Sheikh Asrar addressed a video to me personally, where he claims to have answered this question, so I thought I’d look at his arguments — as well as those by Sheikh Wesam Charkawi who also attempted to answer this same question.
- Sheikh Asrar’s first response to this question is;
God does whatever he wants.
This is an appeal to faith and doesn’t answer the question. Obviously if an omnipotent God exists he can do whatever he wants, but who says it’s the God of Islam? How do we know Islam’s depiction of God is not simply a man-made fiction? One thing we do know for certain about humans throughout history, is that they have a tendency to invent gods. Unless one already has faith in this particular god, then they have no choice but to use human reason to assess the actions of this character they are being asked to believe in. They must assess whether creating beings — only to later eternally torture them — is compatible with the claim that this God is a Wise & Merciful God!
Of course I realise that appeals to faith are an effective way believers deal with problematic issues. It was certainly how I dealt with this question when I was a Muslim. I trusted the Qur’an when it assured me God is the most Just and will never wrong a soul. I recalled the hadith that God is more merciful than a mother to her child and a mother would never throw her child into the fire! However, although appeals to faith may silence questions for the faithful — at least for a while — they are meaningless to those seeking a rational answer.
2. He then asserts that:
Life, intellect & Free will is a greater favour than non-existence.
For those destined for eternal torture this is couldn’t be more untrue! A life of 70 odd years followed by a never ending existence of being burnt alive is without a shadow of a doubt worse than non-existence. Whatever brief joys one may experience in life, it can never outweigh an infinite existence of torture.
3. Sheikh Asrar then presents a thought experiment, whether to kill baby Hitler. He says:
A) If one chooses not to kill him, one cannot object to God creating sinners who go to Hell.
B) If one chooses to kill him, one cannot complain about God sending people to Hell.
This is a false analogy. The dilemma of whether to deny the right to “life, intellect & free will” to a baby that will grow to be evil — is irrelevant! The question is:
Why create them in the first place?
If God doesn’t create them, he is not denying them the right to “life, intellect & free will” — because they don’t exist!! As I say, you can’t deny anything to something that doesn’t exist!
If that were the case then God has denied “life, intellect & free will” to the infinite number of beings he could have created.
Plus, how a person might react to the moral dilemma of baby Hitler is open to debate, but whether the person chooses to kill him or not, he didn’t create Hitler nor is he torturing anyone for eternity. This is completely different to a God who creates humans, knowing he will be torturing these creatures for all eternity — and does this when he has no need to.
There can be no circumstances that could force an omnipotent God to include eternal torture in his ultimate plans for creation. If it wasn’t for the dictates of faith, no one would argue that creating such needless eternal suffering is compatible with the notion of a Wise & Merciful God.
Sheikh Asrar then moves on to a different question which I have addressed elsewhere in my article on the Status Principle.
The next video is of Sheikh Wesam Charkawi
1. He begins by asserting that foreknowledge doesn’t transform a good act into an evil act.
However, that entirely depends on the details of the case. In particular, whether the known benefit outweighs the known harm. In the case of God creating disbelievers knowing they will spend an eternity of torture — the known harm is quite literally infinitely greater than the known benefit.
2. He then gives an example of a father buying a bicycle for his son knowing he will fall off at some point, to prove that foreknowledge doesn’t transform a good act into an evil act.
Comparing falling off a bike with eternal torture is again a false and shockingly absurd analogy. Obviously, if the father knew his son would die, (never mind be eternally tortured,) he wouldn’t buy the bicycle.
The father may know his son is likely to receive cuts and bruises, but he also knows he will, hopefully, eventually learn to ride. Buying a bicycle has a good and beneficial purpose for the child.
Whereas creating people knowing they will end up in eternal Hell has no good or beneficial purpose. Quite the contrary! God knows that creating them will only result in them suffering the most horrendous fate imaginable — eternal torture!
The irony is that the Sheikh’s analogy demonstrates the exact opposite to that which he intended. The pain suffered when learning to ride a bike has a beneficial purpose. It is intended to lead to something good.
Creating people in the knowledge they will suffer eternal Hell has no beneficial purpose. It doesn’t aim to teach them, improve them, or correct them. It is not remedial, instructive or purifying. Its sole purpose is to inflict the most extreme and never ending suffering as an end in itself for all eternity.
Although Sheikh Wesam said the question fails for “many, many reasons,” these are actually the only arguments he provides. He spends the rest of the video dismissing the validity of the question and making several appeals to faith.
Despite the dismissive stance of these and other Muslim apologists this is a crucially fundamental question. It goes to the very heart of the nature of the God Islam presents us with and which we are being asked to believe in.
It is a question that has deeply troubled the minds of the greatest theologians & scholars throughout the centuries — including many Islamic scholars.
One of these was Ibn Taymiyyah, who towards the end of his life was so profoundly concerned by this question that he felt compelled to challenge the orthodoxy of his day and wrote a treatise arguing that Hell was finite.
There are links below to Ibn Taymiyyah’s treatise in its original Arabic as well as my English translation, plus a lecture on it by Yasir Qadhi.
At one point Ibn Taymiyyah states:
أما خَلْقُ نفوسٍ تعمل الشر في الدنيا، وفي الآخرة لا تكون إلا في العذاب، فهذا تناقض يظهر فيه من مناقضة الحكمة والرحمة ما لا يظهر في غيره
“As for creating souls who commit evil in this world, while in the Hereafter they will only exist in torment, this is a contradiction, in which appears a contradiction of Wisdom and Mercy that does not appear in anything else.”
I am certainly no fan of Ibn Taymiyyah, but he hit the nail on the head.
A God of infinite wisdom and whose mercy embraces all things, creates man — not for his benefit, for God is self-sufficient and needs nothing— but for man’s benefit, while knowing with infallible certainty that a huge portion of these wretched creatures will not only not benefit, but will have to continue to exist in a state of appalling eternal torture? People he had no need to create.
It is not reason that leads people to affirm such a preposterous proposition. It is fear. Fear of questioning their religion. I understand that fear. I was there once, so I don’t blame Muslims for resorting to all sorts of mental gymnastics in order to preserve the faith that gives them meaning, comfort, purpose and identity in a world full of adversity & pain.
But as I have said before, if a Wise and Merciful God exists, then there can be no greater insult to him than the notion he would knowingly & needlessly create beings that will exist in a state of eternal and horrific suffering.
Links:
Sheikh Asrar Rashid — “Response to Hassan Radwan, Atheists and Former Muslims”
Sheikh Wesam Charkawi “Why did God create people knowing some would go to Hell?”
Sheikh Yasir Qadhi “The Eternality of Heaven & Hell (& Ibn Taymiyyah’s Views)”
“Response to Those who Say Heaven & Hell will Pass.” By Ibn Taymiyyah (English Translation)
الرد على من قال بفناء الجنة والنار وبيان الأقوال في ذلك — ابن تيمية
