Can Allah’s Attribute of al-Barr Resolve the Euthyphro Dilemma?

Answered by Shaykh Faraz Rabbani

Question

I heard the Euthyphro dilemma answered by saying that Allah is al-Barr, so that everything from Him is good: is that sound, and does it follow that it is rationally impossible for Allah to command lying, theft, or rape, since such a command would contradict al-Barr?

Answer

In the name of Allah, the Most Merciful, the Most Compassionate.

Yes to the first half of what you heard, and no to the second. Everything that comes from Allah Most High is good, and it is sound to answer the dilemma by saying so. It does not follow that a command to lie or steal is rationally impossible. He will never issue one, and the reason is His wisdom and His own word, not a shortfall in His power.

The dilemma comes from Plato: “Is the holy holy because it is loved by the gods, or do they love it because it is holy?” [Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy] Either a thing is good only because Allah commanded it, and the good is arbitrary, or He commands it because it is good, and something stands above Him. Neither, and one answer disposes of both. I answer on the Maturidi road, the creed behind the Hanafi school.

What the Name Establishes, and What It Does Not

The All-Benevolent (al-Barr) is a revealed name: “Verily He is the All-graciously Kind, the Compassionate.” [Quran 52:28; Keller, The Quran Beheld] The name tells you what comes from Allah. Imam Maturidi (Allah have mercy on him) holds that every act Allah creates is at least wisdom and justice, or bounty and beneficence [Abu Mansur al-Maturidi, Kitab al-Tawhid 1:217]. No evil attaches to His act, which is not to deny that He creates evil.

A name will not carry a claim about what Allah can and cannot command, and your sentence folds two different impossibilities together. Rationally impossible means what could never be at all, like a second god; power does not relate to it. A command to lie is not in that class. When Imam Maturidi says an act of His cannot depart from wisdom [Abu Mansur al-Maturidi, Kitab al-Tawhid 1:125], he is not putting it beyond the reach of power. He is saying it cannot be ascribed to Allah, since it would ascribe folly to Him, and folly cannot be ascribed to the Lord.

Where the Two Sunni Schools Differ

Both schools of belief agree that reason knows some good and bad on its own, that knowledge is good and ignorance bad, with no disagreement recorded. They differ over good and bad as reward and punishment in the Law. The Asharis hold that the Law is the source, and that reason neither makes a thing good nor bad, nor obliges, nor forbids [al-Mawsuʿa al-Fiqhiyya al-Kuwaytiyya 10:214]. The Maturidis hold that reason reaches the good and bad of some acts, not the Mutazili claim that reason grasps all of it, and even then the Law need not follow what we grasp [al-Mawsuʿa al-Fiqhiyya al-Kuwaytiyya 16:248].

Imam Bayadi (Allah have mercy on him) states the position from within the school: reason is an instrument for knowing an obligation that Allah has established, not the thing that obligates, and not merely a way of understanding revelation and verifying that its reporter is truthful [Bayadi, Isharat al-Maram]. Hafiz al-Din al-Nasafi (Allah have mercy on him) reports that faith being obligatory by reason is narrated from Imam Abu Hanifa (Allah have mercy on him), and he puts the school’s answer in one line: “With us reason is an instrument for knowledge, and the one who obligates is Allah Most High.” [Hafiz al-Din al-Nasafi, al-Itimad fi al-Itiqad] Neither school sets the good above Allah, and neither leaves it to bare decree.

Put the Necessity in His Wisdom and in His Own Word

Abu Dharr (Allah be pleased with him) related that the Messenger of Allah (Allah bless him and give him peace) said, relating from his Lord Most High: “O My servants, I have forbidden injustice for Myself and made it forbidden among you, so do not wrong one another.” [Mishkat al-Masabih] He forbade it upon Himself, by His own word, which is His report of what will never come from Him, not a law laid over Him. The wisdom and kindness you are grounding morality in are His own attributes, beginningless, not acquired, not standing over Him. To say that His act never departs from wisdom is to say something about Allah, not to raise a rule above Him.

So keep the first half of what you heard, and rewrite the second half. The necessity is real, and it is a necessity of wisdom and lordship rather than a shortfall in power.

And Allah knows best.

Faraz Rabbani

Related Answers

• What Is the Islamic Response to the Euthyphro Dilemma? — The Ashari road to the same conclusion: Allah’s acts are never coerced, and always match His infinite wisdom.
• Is It Possible for God to Create Another God? — Divine power reaches only what is rationally possible, so a logical contradiction is no limit on true omnipotence.
• What Is the Relationship Between Allah and His Attributes? — Allah’s attributes are neither identical to nor separate from His essence, the starting point for any argument built on a divine name.
• What Is the Meaning Of “Whatever Believers Deem Good, Is Good With God”? — This saying, from a Companion rather than the Prophet, guides personal conscience only where no clear text or consensus already speaks.