Wisdom‐based arguments recognize that God has the power to act or refrain from acting in a certain way, but His wisdom dictates a particular course of action. Such arguments have been applied on both sides of the creation/evolution debate among Muslims. This article analyzes a number of contemporary wisdom‐based arguments for and against evolution in light of how God's wisdom is understood by classical Muslim theologians of the three canonical Sunnī schools of Ashʿarism, Māturīdism, and Atharism/Salafism. It finds that there is a considerable disconnect between these contemporary arguments and how God's wisdom has been traditionally understood. It also examines the high level of subjectivity exhibited by these arguments and the potential negative impact this subjectivity could have on the broader debate.
Muslim creationists often argue that the theory of evolution is inherently unethical, claiming that concepts such as natural selection, survival of the fittest, and differential reproductive success promote behaviors like selfishness, violence, and sex- ual promiscuity. This article explores the distinctions made by classical Islamic theologians between God’s actions and human- ity’s actions and their potential to address ethical objections to evolution. The question is examined with reference to two theological traditions: the Ash`ari and the Salafi. The first one distinguishes between God’s creation of actions and humanity’s acquisition (kasab) of actions. According to this approach, ethical valuation is understood to be an attribute of human volitional action. The second approach, followed by Ibn Taymiyyah, Ibn al-Qayyim, Ibn Abu al-`Izz, and others of the so-called Salafi tradition, distinguishes between God’s existential (kawni) will and legislative (shar`i) will. According to it, ethical valuation is restricted to the domain of what God legislates for His volitional creatures. Although these approaches differ in how they contextualize ethical behavior, both of them place ethical valuation strictly within the context of human volitional action. As a consequence, God’s actions in creation (and therefore what is observed in nature) can neither be taken as a pattern for determining ethical norms nor judged according to the ethical norms appropriate for human beings. The paper concludes that by making these distinctions, classical Islamic theology has the potential to effectively counter ethical objections to evolutionary theory.
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