Question 43: Does qadar not limit free will? When a person is ordered to move his fingers, he becomes aware of it 0.5 second later. That is, the decision is made in the brain before the individual decides.

Question 43: Does qadar not limit free will? When a person is ordered to move his fingers, he becomes aware of it 0.5 second later. That is, the decision is made in the brain before the individual decides. In that case, man does not decide and do something. He does whatever is determined for him beforehand. Can free will be mentioned in that case?

Dear Brother / Sister,

Answer: It is necessary to have some basic knowledge to understand qadar (predestination) correctly. A meaning of qadar is plan and program. In other words, it is the detailed planning and determination of something to be done in advance. God Almighty did not give us much information about qadar. However, He informed us about the issues that made us responsible and gave us responsibility.

It is possible to divide qadar into two:

1-Compulsory qadar

2-Voluntary qadar.

1- Compulsory qadar is qadar that is beyond our will and choice. For example, the issues such as coming from this mother and that father, being created in this century, being a man or woman are among this group and they are completely out of our will. We are not held responsible for them because they are out of our will. That is, we know through our conscience that God Almighty will not ask us the following or a similar one: Why did you come to this world in this century?

2- Voluntary qadar is qadar that depends on our will and for which we are held responsible. What makes us responsible here is the choice that we make with our own free will. However, we must be informed before this choice. That is, we need to know the benefits and harms, the good and bad aspects of what we want to do. For example, if there are two ways, one going to a pub and the other going to a mosque, we need to know the benefits and harms of the things to be done at the end of these ways. Prophets and books were sent by Allah to inform us about them. After knowing them, Allah lets us free to choose. Allah creates whichever way we intend to go.

We call that will in the choice, partial free will, intention, or wish. This partial free will or its use is accepted as a nominal thing, that is, an abstract concept. For example, all infinitives are nominal things. That is, they have no external bodies. In other words, they are abstract concepts: to come; to go, to eat, to sleep, etc. Similarly, partial free will does not have an external body; therefore, choice can be given to the slave since it is not accepted as an entity.

It is Allah who creates the deed of going to pub or mosque. The responsibility of man here originates from his intention and wish. Man is completely free to use this wish or intention, or his partial free will. In case of any limitation or force in man’s use of this partial free will, he will not be held responsible for it. What is more, he will not be held responsible when he does not know where those roads lead, what is forbidden and what is permissible. In responsibility, it is essential for the will to be used freely. That is, the universal will of Allah is subject to our partial free will. That is why we take responsibility.

Another issue is that Allah knows beforehand what we will do. Allah Almighty’s name Alim (Knower of All)becomes manifest in qadar. The principle of that name is based only on knowing. That is, He knows what we will do. That He knows what we will do does not force us to do it. For example, we know where and when the sun will rise and we arrange a calendar for our tasks accordingly. The calendar is, in a way, the qadar notebook of the sun. The sunset does not occur at a certain time because we have written that time in the calendar, but we know the time of sunset beforehand and write it in the qadar notebook of the sun accordingly, in a sense.

Thus, Allah knows what man will do before he does and writes accordingly. We do not do those deeds because He has written.

In conclusion, man can choose the way of unbelief or the way of belief with his partial free will. Allah does not like it when he chooses the way of unbelief. Therefore, man is threatened with the violence, horror and torment of Hell if he chooses the way of denial; he is encouraged to return any moment with repentance from bad deeds; when he commits a bad deed or a sin, it is recorded as one but when he does a good deed, it is recorded as at least ten and it can increase up to forty thousand.

It is the spirit that does deeds in human body

The determination of the human decision about doing a deed is possible with the signal given by the brain cells. However, it is not possible for brain cells, which consist of unconscious atoms and which are pieces of meat, to make a conscious decision about an issue. It is the spirit that does this deed.

Likewise, what enables seeing in man is the spirit, not the eye. The spirit watches the world through the window of the eye. Without an eye, the spirit cannot perform the deed of seeing just like someone sitting in a room watching outside through the window. It is man, not the window, that sees outside. However, in the absence of a window, man cannot see outside.

The place of fulfilment of some commands and orders that man takes and intentions and decisions he makes is the brain. However, it is the spirit that works here, makes decisions and applies them. As a matter of fact, since spirit comes out of a dead person, it is not possible for him to perform some acts and behaviors even though his brain cells are present.

The overlooked point in the experiment about the decision time on brain cells above is the existence of the spirit. What they measure is the physiological behavior and response of cells. The being they claim to have already made the decision is the spirit. Since the spirit moves in the form of imagination, its speed exceeds the dimension of time and space that we perceive. For example, the fastest moving object is sunlight. Although the light from the sun comes to us in 8 minutes, we can go to the sun in an instant through imagination. Therefore, there is no time, space, distance and closeness in the deeds of the spirit on the human body and related to its management. Distance and closeness are equal for the spirit. It is not possible to compare the time and duration of body movements based on electrical conduction with the duration of decision-making and implementation of the spirit.

The point that is overlooked in the experiments in this issue is the existence of this spirit. When the issue is viewed from this window, man knows that he makes the decision with his free will, to do or not to do certain acts, and that Allah Almighty creates that deed accordingly and takes the responsibility.

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