Belief in Qadar E18: Is man a prisoner of Qadar? (CHAPTER 5)

KNOWLEDGE IS DEPENDENT ON THE KNOWN (5)

Example 7:

At the train stations, the times that the trains will arrive are written. This writing is knowledge. The thing known is the arrival of the train at that time.

Our question is the same again: "Does the train arrive because of the writing, or was this writing written because of the knowledge about the arrival of the train?

What was our rule? "Knowledge is dependent on the known" Then, the answer to our question is: The arrival of the train is known; so, it was written. If the opposite had happened, that is, if the known had been dependent on knowledge, when a naughty boy changed the arrival time of the train, the arrival of the train would have changed. Furthermore, if the train timetable which shows the arrival and departure times were broken accidentally, no train would arrive at that station. However, none of them happens because the thing known is never dependent on knowledge.

The knowledge of Allah and the book of Qadar is like the train timetable in which arrival and departure times are written; and this is knowledge. Everything we do is like the train which is going to arrive at the station; it is known. In our example, the cause of the arrival of the train is not the writing on the timetable; on the contrary, such a writing was written because the train is going to arrive at that time.  Likewise, the cause of our deeds is not the knowledge of Allah; Allah knows that we will do them in the future.

Example 8:

Think of an experienced judge in his job. Because of his experience, he almost knows the character of a person by looking at his or her eyes. When this judge walks on the road, he sees a man who looks like guilty and because of his experience he writes in his notebook that this person will commit a crime and he will appear in court as a criminal. Sometime later, that man appears in court and he meets the experienced judge here. After deciding his punishment, the judge says to him: "Look! This is my notebook! I had seen you in the street and I had predicted that you would commit a crime and I wrote it in my notebook."

In reply to the judge's saying can the guilty man have the right to say this: "Then, I committed this crime because of your writing. If you had not written it, I would have not committed this crime"? Certainly, he cannot say so because the cause of his crime is not that writing and it did not force him to commit the crime.  On the contrary, the knowledge of the judge is dependent on the guilty person. The experienced judge knew that this person would commit a crime and he recorded it in his notebook.

Similarly, Allah who is the only judge of this universe knows all of the deeds of his servants with His pre-eternal knowledge and He wrote them in the book of qadar. The cause of our deeds is not the writing of Allah. On the contrary, Allah wrote them because He knows that we will do them in the future.

In that case, the defense of the guilty person against the judge and blaming the writing of the judge instead of blaming himself is extremely wrong. If we do these wrong deeds against Allah, that is, blaming the writing of Allah because of our sins and saying wrong things like: "If Allah had not written, we would not have sinned", are those sayings not regarded as a greater sin than our sins?  

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