Divine Foreknowledge and Human Freewill (with an Emphasis on the Viewpoint of the School of Ahl al-Bayt (peace be upon them) and Criticism of Rival Viewpoints)

Document Type : Scientific-research

Authors

1 Associate Professor, Department of Education, Faculty of Literature and Human Sciences, Lorestan University, Khorramabad, Iran (corresponding author)

2 Assistant Professor, Department of Education, Department of Religious Studies (Religions and Mysticism), Faculty of Literature and Humanities, Lorestan University, Khoramabad, Iran

Abstract

Explaining the relation between divine foreknowledge and the limits of human agency is a long-standing issue which the revealed religions have dealt with it. In dealing with this issue, they have hold in a logical relation between human free agency, which requires the order of reward and punishment, and the order of divine knowledge, predestination, and sovereignty. On the other hand, the efforts of some leaders of the Islamic denominations in dealing with the issue of human agency have resulted in two viewpoints: determinism and indeterminism. The first viewpoint denies the human freewill, and the second viewpoint limits the power of God. But there is another viewpoint which presents a different explanation of human free agency, called “the viewpoint of the School of Ahl al-Bayt (peace be upon them)”. This paper, taking a descriptive-analytical approach, rereads the thought of Ahl al-Bayt and criticizes the rival viewpoints. This rereading and criticizing has been done in three steps: at first, the features of God’s knowledge such as absoluteness, belonging to particular things, and infallibility have been taken into account; then, the concept of freewill in Islam has been discussed, and the arguments of the proponents of determinism as well as the proponents of indeterminism have been criticized; and, finally, by maintaining the meaning of divine foreknowledge, God’s knowledge has been known as compatible with human freewill, and the viewpoint of the School of Ahl al-Bayt (peace be upon them), which is a viewpoint between determinism and indeterminism, has been exposed.

Keywords

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