Resurrection, a Manifestation of Divine Justice

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Resurrection, a Manifestation of Divine Justice

 

The question of divine justice a question which has numerous

dimensions must be raised at this point.

 

We observe that in this world the good and evil deeds of men are not

subject to any final accounting. Criminals and oppressive rulers, who

with their claim to absolute sovereignty encroach on men's lives and

their freedom, may enjoy opulence and luxury until the end of their

lives. They shun no action that their polluted minds inspire in them,

but they are not caught in the firm grasp of justice and law, and

they do not suffer the natural consequences of their deeds. There is

no power or authority to prevent their oppression, to stop their

encroachment on the rights of others, or to restrict the scope of

their power to their own private affairs.

 

In the end both the oppressor and the oppressed, the one polluted

with sin, and the wise one who strives to gain mastery over his

passionate instincts and acquire virtue, who attains abundant

spirituality through the admixture of piety to his conduct all will

close their eyes on the world. It is true that religion forbids all

forms of submission to unbelieving rulers and the acceptance of the

tyrannical edicts put forth by oppressive governments, and that it

regards resistance to all kinds of aggression as a necessary dictate

of religion and life. Nonetheless, confrontation with oppressors does

not always yield a positive result, and in the course of the struggle

people may be trampled by the power of the oppressors and lose their

lives. Were the file to be closed in this world on the deeds of the

good and the evil so that they were buried for ever in the cemetery

of nothingness, what would become of the infinite justice, wisdom,

and mercy that God cherishes for His servants God, the traces of

whose justice and wisdom are manifest throughout His creation?

 

If we accept that God has created an environment in which numerous

evildoers and oppressors are able to continue on their chosen path

until the last moment of their lives, without recognizing any limit

on their behavior, to stoop to any vile act in order to gain power

and gratify their desires if we accept that this is possible without

their being called to account, and that the oppressed continue to

writhe beneath the lash of injustice and deprivation until their last

gasp can all of this be called anything but oppression and injustice?

 

Now we know that nobody who has the slightest notion of love and

justice would consent to such a state of affairs; how then could the

most Sacred Essence of God, from Whose being infinite pity, love, and

justice flow forth, accept such injustice and place on it His seal of

approval? How would the creative mind of man, the most sublime aspect

of his being that guides him to knowledge of himself and the universe

judge this matter?

 

It is true that God has not directly permitted the commission of a

cruelty against a given person. However, the fact that a certain

collectivity grants some criminal oppressor the freedom and power to

act as he wills and in the end exempts him from all punishment is in

itself a clear form of injustice. The link between God's justice and

the need for a precise accounting of men's deeds thus makes

irrefutably clear the necessity for resurrection.

 

In addition, certain crimes and evils are so extensive in their

effects that they cannot be adequately punished in this world, with

its limited timespan. Crimes are sometimes so grave that the

punishment inflicted by men is not equal to the task of imposing on

the criminal the punishment he deserves. The criminal plunderer for

whom the world is nothing but a carcass on which to feed kills and

consumes at will; his hands are stained with the blood of hundreds or

thousands of people whom he drags into the slaughterhouse. He is so

sunk in the mire of vice and injustice that he is incapable of

learning lessons from the past or thinking of a better and more

enlightened future. If despite all his crimes his soul were to be

taken in just the same way as that of one of his victims, the

punishment involved would be unjust and grossly unequal, for he would

then have been punished simply for one of his victims and all his

other crimes would remain unpunished.

 

Many crimes are, then, beyond the scope of worldly retribution. If we

wish to analyze matters more logically, we must look further, beyond

this world. There is also the consideration that no authority in this

world has the power to restore to men all the rights which have been

violated.

 

Similarly, the world does not have the capacity to reward virtue in a

fitting and complete manner. When we attempt to assess the value of

the unrelenting efforts that the pure and the virtuous expend in this

world, which is full of trouble and pain, we realize that the rewards

available here are very slight.

 

What reward commensurate with the value of his efforts can be given

in this world to one who has benefited millions of people with his

treasury of knowledge and learning or sincere and devoted service?

 

How and where in this world will one be rewarded who devotes all his

life to the worship of God and the support of His servants, whose

services extend in manifold ways to whole societies, and who

ultimately gives up his life for the sake of divine goals?

 

No life remains for him in this world to enable him to reap the

fruits of his devotion and self-sacrifice. The temporal limitation

imposed on life in this world does not even permit the pious to

receive their reward.

 

The Qur'an says. " Shall We make those who believe in God and do good

deeds like those who work corruption on earth? Shall We requite pious

and God fearing men like the sinful and the doers of evil? Do those

who have committed foul and sinful deeds imagine that We will grant

them a rank like that of those who believe in God and do good works,

so that they wilt be alike in death and in life? Theirs is a false

and ignorant notion. God has created the heavens and the earth in

justice, and ultimately every soul shall receive the requital for its

deeds, without any injustice " (45:21-22).

 

From the day that he first steps into this abode of dust until the

moment the earth draws him into its embrace, man has to struggle with

hardships, difficulties, problems and misfortunes.

 

The Commander of the Faithful, `Ali, peace be upon him, depicts this

transient, pain-filled world as follows:

 

" The world is a dwelling the inhabitants of which are overcome by

sorrow and pain. It is a world well-known for its deceit and trickery

and lacking in all stability. Those who enter this dwelling will

never enjoy safety or tranquillity. Its circumstances are constantly

changing, and its pleasures are reprehensible and blameworthy. Repose

and tranquillity are nowhere to be found in it. Every instant it

fires the arrow of disaster at man, before finally dispatching him to

the jaws of death and destruction. "

 

Can it be believed that such a world, replete with pain, misfortune

and hardship, should be the final aim and goal of creation? That a

God all of Whose actions are based on excellence and order and the

signs of Whose justice and wisdom are manifest throughout creation,

should have created man only for the sake of such a world?

 

Comprehensive and Universal Order

 

It must be remarked at this point that the order we see in the world

is a divine order, one that includes all things in its scope. All

created objects in the universe, whether large or small, ranging from

the minute particles of the atom to the countless planets that are

scattered throughout space, are created and take form from the

justice that rules the whole scheme of creation. This vast system of

being does not escape the direct influence of the rule of justice for

a single instant; this is a reality that can be deduced from all the

phenomena in the world of creation.

 

Should the component parts of this system deviate even so slightly

from their prescribed orbit, the necessary principles on which the

order, of the universe is based would collapse, resulting in its

destruction.

 

Despite all his remarkable talents, man forms a part of this

universal order; he cannot be regarded as exempt from its

comprehensive and universal rules. The only factor that sets him

apart is his possession of freedom which enables him to be creative

and inventive; it opens up before him a path for attaining his goals

and purposes. It is indeed a source of pride for him that alone among

all the creatures of the phenomenal world he is able thanks to this

unique quality and the potentialities it yields to tame his

destructive impulses and reconcile them with his constructive

activities. By creating man free, God has demonstrated both the

underlying order of the universe and the changes that are brought

about in that order by the disobedience of man.

 

Were man to be directed ineluctably toward the acquisition of

spiritual riches and the path leading to happiness, were a

deterministic power to conduct him toward lofty values, there would

be no pride in this for man. We must therefore accept that by

receiving the gift of freedom and will from God, man must one day

stand in the court of God's justice to be judged there according to

the universal principle of all creation justice. It cannot be

believed that man should be exempt from the justice of the Creator

that prevails throughout the universe, thus becoming an element of

disharmony.

 

If we take into consideration on the hand the functioning of the

principle of justice throughout the entire scheme of being and on the

other hand the fact that many rewards and punishments cannot be

dispensed in this world, it becomes obvious that the nature of men's

deeds and accomplishments must be subjected to examination in another

world and at an appropriate time. The proof lies in the deduction

that can be made from man's essential nature (as a being possessing

freedom), for all the dimensions of his being, all his ideals and

fundamental needs, will come to fruition in the hereafter.

 

Thus we can understand well that God Who has no need for the creation

of man will never destroy or obliterate our being before it attains

perfection. This is unthinkable, and no intelligent person would

consent to such an erroneous notion.

 

The Requital of Deeds

 

It is obvious that the deeds of all sinners cannot be fully requited

in this world. Nonetheless, some punishments do occur in this world,

as can be seen from those pages of history which record the

disastrous fate of certain wrongdoers. Indeed we ourselves witness

time and again the bitter and painful fates they undergo; after

suffering torment and humiliation, they go to their deaths in utter

disgrace, although no one had been able to predict such an

inauspicious end for those powerful tyrants.

 

The existence of such a remarkable linkage between corrupt action and

ultimate disgrace cannot be ascribed to simple coincidence; it must

on the contrary be regarded as an instance of requital taking place

in this world.

 

The Qur'an says: " God will cause them to taste humiliation in this

world, and the torment of the hereafter will be much greater, if they

but knew " (39:26).

 

Such chastisements sometimes function as alarm bells, as warnings to

the sinners, encouraging them to come to their senses, to change

direction and reform themselves before it is too late. These warnings

remind them that good and evil are the two pans of the balance in

which our deeds will be weighed, and that no abomination or moral

corruption will go unpunished, in just the same way that no good deed

will remain unrewarded.

 

A Western philosopher writes:

 

" The world resembles a multiplication table; however much you

manipulate it, it retains its structure and shape and always yields

the same answer. Whatever method we may choose to solve a

mathematical problem, the figures that result will be the same.

Nature silently but ineluctably reveals all secrets: it punishes

every crime, rewards every virtue, and compensates for every act of

oppression.

 

" What we call retribution is a universal need; it causes the whole to

appear from within its constituent part. If we see smoke, we are

certain that it has arisen from fire, and if we see a hand or a foot

we have no doubt that it is attached to a body.

 

" Every act carries its own requital. To put it differently, in

accordance with the law of which we have spoken, every act completes

itself in two ways: first by way of action and reaction within the

thing itself, in its objective nature, and then with respect to its

outer qualities. What we mean by outer qualities is none other than

what is commonly called retribution and punishment. The retribution

that takes place in the thing itself can be seen with the eye; the

retribution that takes place in the external quality of a thing is

visible only to the intelligence. This second form of retribution is

inseparable from the thing itself, and may not become apparent for

some time.

 

" The consequences peculiar to a given sin may appear years after the

sin was committed, but they will definitely occur because they are

inherently attached to it, like the branch of tree to its trunk.

Alternatively we may say that both crime and punishment are the

branches of a single trunk. Retribution is the fruit that suddenly

emerges from the blossom of the pleasure that the sin yields. "

(Falsafa i Ijtima'i, p. 378)

 

* * * * *

 

The appearance of the consequences of evil acts is a clear sign that

God Almighty does not accept corruption and wrongdoing, and that all

sinners will receive their due punishment in the next world.

 

In addition, the positive educational effect of requital should not

be underestimated, both on the individual and on society. The

whiplash of punishment should from this point of view be regarded as

a form of mercy and divine favor, leading to men's awakening and

their aspiring to purity. It is a form of compensation the payment of

which earns men abundant benefit.

 

In order for His justice to reach the fullest extent possible, God

has freed man of the shadow of determinism and granted him the divine

trust which even the mountains had been unwilling to bear. Ascent to

the lofty station of true humanity is possible only through effort

and striving, by passing through the furnace of trial. The Qur'an

says: " Every man is a pledge for his own deeds " (74: 38).

 

What is meant by this is that whatever appears in this world in the

form of a sin or misdeed takes on in the hereafter the shape of the

implementation of justice and the punishment of the transgressor. It

is belief in the pre-eternal source of all existence and His all-

embracing justice that impels man to act correctly and with justice

himself.

 

Imam al-Sajjad, upon whom be peace, made this supplication to God:

 

" O God, I know that there is no cruelty or oppression in any of Your

decrees or commands, and that You do not hasten to punish anyone, for

only he hastens to perform an act who fears he may miss the

opportunity, and only he who is weak and impotent feels the need to

commit oppression and cruelty. You, O Creator, are pure and exalted

above both these defects. "

 

A theologian says:

 

" It is better for all mankind that they spend their lives in the

service of the One God, for the spirit that serves God is the

legitimate commander of the body, and the mind that serves God brings

under control the passions and unruly emotions of man. I ask

therefore what justice can possibly exist in the person who does not

serve God. It can plainly be seen that such an individual does not

rule over his bodily form by means of his spirit, nor over his

emotions by means of his intellect. "

 

For those who do serve God the ideal life is that which comes after

death. As the Qur'an says: " The hereafter is the abode of true life,

and the life of this world is but play and amusement " (29:64).

 

Those devoted to God not only do not fear death, but even wait

longingly for the moment that the angel of death shall whisper

melodiously in their ear: " O sacred spirit, return to your Creator,

satisfied and well-pleased " (89:27-28).

 

These verses of the Qur'an are also relevant:

 

On that day your journeying shall bring you to the presence of your

Lord. (75:12).

 

Your return will be to your Lord (96:8).

 

There is none in the heavens and the earth but will come before God

as His servant. He is aware of the number of all His creation, and

they shall all individually be present before Him on the day of

resurrection. (19:93-95).

 

In the other realm happiness will be the essential goal of all

beings, and pleasures will be available for them that we cannot even

imagine.

 

In short, this life full of confusion and oppression is only a small

part of the totality of life. One group will earn as the final result

of its deeds permanent abode in the propinquity of God's mercy, while

another group will find itself condemned to be the neighbors of Iblis

in eternal torment. Are these two destinies in any way equal the

misery of hellfire and the blessing of paradise? It is up to man to

choose freely between them.

 

http://www.al-islam.org/Resurrect/r4.htm