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Life Worth Living is an initiative of the Yale Center for Faith & Culture at Yale Divinity School.
What is the role of suffering in a good life?
Al-Ghazali on Trusting God's Benevolence
Life Worth Living Team
"... nor is anything more fitting, more perfect, and more attractive within the realm of possibility.”
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If we accept the existence of an omnipotent God, how do we make sense of the existence of suffering in our lives?
Quote + Question + Context
What is the role of suffering in a good life?
If we accept the existence of an omnipotent God, how do we make sense of the existence of suffering in our lives—what does it mean to believe “everything happens for a reason” in a world that includes pain? The Muslim scholar Abu Hamid al-Ghazali (1058-1111) contends that God is not only The Most High and supremely powerful, but also supremely benevolent and wise. God cannot do otherwise than what God is—and therefore all that happens must, ultimately, be benevolent and wise. In fact, we live in the best possible world.
Quote
[.alt-blockquote]“Everything which God Most High distributes among His servants: care and an appointed time, happiness and sadness, weakness and power, faith and unbelief, obedience and apostasy—all of it is unqualifiedly just with no injustice in it, true with no wrong infecting it. Indeed, all this happens according to a necessary and true order, according to what is appropriate as it is appropriate in the measure that is proper to it; nor is anything more fitting, more perfect, and more attractive within the realm of possibility.”[.alt-blockquote]
[.alt-blockquote-attribution]—Abu Hamid al-Ghazali, Faith in Divine Unity and Trust in Divine Providence[.alt-blockquote-attribution]
Questions to Consider
- What would you change about your life if you knew that any outcome was ultimately the “right” one?
- Do you feel that your life has transpired “according to a necessary and true order?”
- Can injustice exist in a world that is ultimately just?
Context
- Abu Hamid al-Ghazali's Faith in Divine Unity and Trust in Divine Providence
- Life Worth Living: A Guide to What Matters Most, Chapter 11: …And There’s No Fixing It
Quote + Question + Context
What is the role of suffering in a good life?
If we accept the existence of an omnipotent God, how do we make sense of the existence of suffering in our lives—what does it mean to believe “everything happens for a reason” in a world that includes pain? The Muslim scholar Abu Hamid al-Ghazali (1058-1111) contends that God is not only The Most High and supremely powerful, but also supremely benevolent and wise. God cannot do otherwise than what God is—and therefore all that happens must, ultimately, be benevolent and wise. In fact, we live in the best possible world.
Quote
[.alt-blockquote]“Everything which God Most High distributes among His servants: care and an appointed time, happiness and sadness, weakness and power, faith and unbelief, obedience and apostasy—all of it is unqualifiedly just with no injustice in it, true with no wrong infecting it. Indeed, all this happens according to a necessary and true order, according to what is appropriate as it is appropriate in the measure that is proper to it; nor is anything more fitting, more perfect, and more attractive within the realm of possibility.”[.alt-blockquote]
[.alt-blockquote-attribution]—Abu Hamid al-Ghazali, Faith in Divine Unity and Trust in Divine Providence[.alt-blockquote-attribution]
Questions to Consider
- What would you change about your life if you knew that any outcome was ultimately the “right” one?
- Do you feel that your life has transpired “according to a necessary and true order?”
- Can injustice exist in a world that is ultimately just?
Context
- Abu Hamid al-Ghazali's Faith in Divine Unity and Trust in Divine Providence
- Life Worth Living: A Guide to What Matters Most, Chapter 11: …And There’s No Fixing It
Pairings
Our responses to life's big questions are meant to form a coherent whole—a vision of life worth living. A response to one question will fit well with certain responses to other questions, but it will be incompatible with others. We've provided the "Pairs Well With" and "Pairs Poorly With" sections for this article to help you consider these questions of coherence.
Pairs Well With
- Stoicism; accepting what you cannot change
- Strains of nihilism that emphasize the impossibility of true understanding
Pairs Poorly With
- Debatable: Buddhist understandings of how to overcome suffering
- Debatable: Strong commitment to activism to reduce suffering
- Utilitarian insistence that suffering is inherently bad
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