Why Is There Evil? -Mufti Abu Layth

All right. So, here was a question that it's basically the the old question um dealing with that, you know, if God is all powerful and if he is these things and if he's omnib benevolent and omnipotent and then how is there evil and you know the whole uh um that whole theology uh looking at that which they referred to in the past as a theodysy trying to reconcile uh these things.

So the question was the concept of God and religion appears to be foolish and incoherent. Why would an omnipotent being create anything at all? Why would that being then create evil? Why would he create Satan uh knowing he's going to become his enemy? Why would he then create humans and tell us our real purpose is merely to worship him and blindly obey an omnipotent omnisient being? Why would God tell us that he really loves us but then torture and burn those who don't love him back?

How can God be the most merciful yet send natural disasters that kill thousands of innocent people? Why would God per purposefully design a reality that is hellbent on confusion? Just look at the thousands of conflicting religions claiming divine origins. Why would he purposefully hold back evidence and only do the best of his miracles in the pre-scientific era of ignorance? Why would he communicate with us via books and not something more infinitely reliable and trustworthy medium that isn't prone to human fallibility?

What the hell people? Here we need that Sheikh Asar's clip. You have one minute. Explain [Laughter] yourself. That that would be the perfect uh kind of clip to go in there. That Okay, I give you two minutes.

Explain yourself. So, there's a hell of a lot of questions there. I mean, whoa. So the person had said look what is the answer and it's look I did respond by saying that look first of all this depends more so on what your definition of answer is okay so just to begin right

um all right so so just to try to tackle some of this response it depends an answer because in my understanding God does not provide concrete like concretized uh kind of proofs or things like this because then it wouldn't be faith. Um that is in my understanding. Now you could critique that. You could say, "Well, he ought to." But I don't I understand that that's a statement, but then it wouldn't be much of a faith if it was simply, you know, here it is.

It's a fact. Here it is. Everybody's got a text message from God. And you know, if you want to call him back, you can just call him back and say, "Is this you?" Oh, yep. It's you. Okay, cool. You know, it's not really much of a faith, is it? It's not really um the thing I want to highlight here is you know this thing of evil. If God was all powerful, if he was all these things, then why would he create evil?

Now I've explained in the past that God has not created evil. Okay, this unfortunately Muslims have kind of and other theologians have kind of messed this up and they've blamed it on God. Okay, the truth of the matter is that there's two kinds of evils that are mentioned here in this text. So, and this these are the common natural evil and kind of moral evil like human evils.

So, natural disasters, earthquakes, things like that. The other thing is uh human evil. So sorry with the natural they will also put things like diseases and um you know I don't know cancer and all sorts is is part of that uh natural evil the human evil like killing people massacre robberies everything atrocities violence all of that they'll put into human evil so why has God created this now the truth is that God hasn't created it like that okay first of all human

beings have free will and they are responsible for their own actions the natural evils are simply a system of nature the laws of nature in operation so for example earthquakes are simply tectonic plates that have certain shifts and the way the whole climate change takes place over you know over thousands and thousands of is um this is all part of nature.

It's the way the globe has been set up to deal and to produce and to thrive. It has to have nature plays in that way. Now human beings may have gone and settled close to where there is a volcano for example. Now when the volcano erupts that's not saying well you know oh well god has done this evil that was already there in nature.

It was something that this is how nature behaves. Now some human beings reside close to that and others don't. So the fault here comes from certain clergymen, certain men of the so-called cloth who decide to say when these tragedies happen that that was God who did that. So that is the problem that was not God that yes they are laws in nature.

You can say ultimately these laws were created by by God. But that was for nature to operate. Okay? It wasn't created like that. It's like saying that you create a machine with a purpose. You create a car with a purpose. Now to say, well, okay, somebody runs somebody over in a car. Well, that was not the purpose of the vehicle. But yes, people may misuse it.

That's from a human side. But here human beings may settle close to these things and thereby get caught. Now one could say well okay we accept that that is not God's doing but then why doesn't God intervene? This is a different question. Now this is not one about well God did these things but this is well why didn't God stop the the harm from hurting these people?

divine intervention and the system is generally speaking God does not intervene at that level. there isn't divine intervention at that level at the scene level and I ex and I accept that these are very intricate and and complex kind of things to sometimes grapple with um I have explained in the past that I do believe in divine intervention but I've said that there is a strata there are layers to this thing and there is the utmost layer which is the layer realm of the apparent which is where things are happening right now and we are observing serving them.

This when it comes to divine intervention in my understanding reflects something close to the quantum realm where if you look at quantum mechanics and quantum physics you will have the Copenhagen interpretation that when you observe the quantum world it collapses. So the quantum world does operate but it can't be observed when operate in operation and if you try to observe it it collapses and that's scientifically proven.

So now in a similar way I do believe that there are layers of divine intervention taking place but not in the observed realm like we not it's like I've broken my arm oh god fix this for me now here I'm watching it doesn't work like that that's in my understanding okay so that's this thing of natural naturally occurring um kind of calamities things like diseases are a result and a product of um of of h of just life per se.

Now you will have for example since the agricultural revolution human beings because of densely created populations because of coexistence with animals because of these things we have obviously caught a lot of diseases over the thousands of years and then we've built up resilience to them as well. Okay. But in the process many people have died. Uh but that's because these things get transferred.

The virus it will transfer from host to host. It will land on human beings and they will try to fight it. But these are not things that God is doing. Human beings will for example try subjugate an animal species. They will kind of live closely with it. Then they will catch a disease that is not it may be benevolent benign sorry to the animal but to the human being it will be you know it will be malignant.

So and things like cancer are cell re mal reproduction. So our cells are always reproducing. They need to reproduce in order to keep us healthy. DNA needs to operate in that way. Okay? The RNA, things like this, they need to reproduce. Now when you've got millions of cell cells reproducing the chances of some that mal reproduce is also an important part of nature which initially was there to support things like evolution.

Now yes that has a byproduct like in human beings our our cells mal reproduce so often but our immune systems kill them kill them off but on some occasions they can't and it results in harmful diseases but this is not something by God it's not God is doing this to this person God is giving these people cancer God is giving he's not okay and I feel that religious people have really unfairly repres represented God, right?

They've unfairly represented God. And um what they've done is they've thrown God under the bus as some kind of um and this happens a lot actually as some kind of justification. So that's that. And when it comes to the human side of things, you have to understand that human beings have free will and they have to have free will.

But the problem with that is when it's not exercised well, it results in calamities. It results in tragedies. Human beings can be atrocious. I mean, we can be, you know, like as Freud said, and I think well said um that man is more moral than he thinks, yet far more immoral than he can imagine. And I kind of agree with with Freud with Alama Freud, one of my favorites.

Ah, Freud was also a legend in his own way, right? So, but one of the So, I agree with what Freud is trying to say here. And so yes, human beings can and Allah mentions that in the Quran that look that we created human and some people just said oh this was in the sense of uh uh our physical appearance and I think sure I mean you know I'm not denying that that human beings have you know they have capabilities physical capacities to kind of do things the way our fingers work the way things work the way our brain works.

Yes, I'm not denying any of that. But I don't think that that's what the verse was primarily saying. I think the verse was saying that that in the in the most benevolent of uh kind of manifestations or structure in terms of potential that what this human is capable of doing is up there.

that then we return like we allowed him with this capacity as well out of free will for him or her that he can be or amongst the lowest of the low. Now this spectrum in between human beings kind of move through it.

Are we in essence fallen angels or are we dignified apes? That is the that is the journey in between I guess. So I think that this this this this whole thing that it's human beings who then cause these things that they create concentration camps that they create you know no species before us has ever committed genocide so to speak.

I mean we so solely hold that kind of throne of what human capabilities are but at the same time no species has really you know managed to fathom to some extent the cosmos or flown to the moon or you know uh created such technology and I think this is the amazing thing of insan so and and the poem that you

that you know you state that you're just a small being yet inside you is this grandiose world hidden within you as a human you know as in you know or in the words of Aziz Mia right or in the words of somebody else cheese

it that's what insan can be can be the capability so my point here of answering this was that look and god didn't create us you know this verse is so wrongly said that you know except that they create me this except is wrongly translated ated.

It's that I did not create them and as a consequence they worship me. It's not that I did not create them to only do this, worship me. That's and that's wrongly in my understanding uh interpreted by people. So, I hope that sheds some light um on some of these things in terms of why does did God not um create certain you know like continue to send I don't know prophets and things like this.

Well, God in our understanding he seals the deal with the final prophet and messenger Muhammad sallallahu alaihi wasallam. And I think it is testament you know it stands as a testimony to Islam in that way whether you like Islam or you don't like Islam whether you agree with it or disagree with Islam but it is unquestionable that Islam as far as world faith was concerned Islam sealed the deal and there was never to be after the

faith of Islam a global faith to emerge that could ever rival such um such a force and such a kind of um a a power of faith ever. And that is uh in my understanding a testimony to the verse of the Quran that on on this day you shall see that you that faith will have become complete.

And people said, "Does this mean rulings? Does this mean this? Does this mean that?" No, that's to me stupid rulings and this and that and of course not. In my understanding that what God was saying is that as far as the human journey has began maybe 70,000 years ago for modern man with the cognitive revolution out of Africa globaliz you know like spreading and uh colonizing the earth since this journey began global and along the way I'm sure there's been many traditions and many

kind of uh version not versions But uh yeah, I suppose versions or perspectives of faith. But now it has kind of sealed the deal and and and I think that to me is a powerful kind of message about Islam. And like I said, you don't have to agree with Islam to accept that. So other religions have tried to emerge, but never could they ever um do anything like like Islam.

So I know Sikism and other some other religions did emerge after Islam but it could never bring about such a force of faith such a kind of global community spread across the globe touch the hearts of millions. I I think that that ship has sailed. So that's my uh understanding on that. I hope it's of some help.

Right. So people let's uh what shall we move on to? What should we move on to? If I know it's getting