If you ask any Muslim questions regarding existence of God, angels, heaven and hell, chances are that he/she will ignore you or at best what you can hope for is an emotional response. There's also a 3rd category of Muslim who is so overwhelmed by scientific knowledge that he feels obligatory to answer these questions using Einstein's conception of space-time. He'll tell you stuff like angels travel faster than speed of light, somewhere among these galaxies God will create heaven and hell once our solar system is destroyed, even to the extent that God resides in a throne somewhere in this universe. Such a person has a linear conception of time as shown below
Forcing empirical logic like this results in the following hypothetical scenario. Imagine that you get a chance to visit hell 30 years after judgement day i.e. year 2230 and there you meet a person who has been living there since judgement day. If you ask that person "how much time have you been living here?", a natural answer is 30 years.
Let's dig seep into this question from philosophical point of view. Imagine today if I ask you this question that "what is the composition of chemical X inside your body?", you're response will obviously be "WTF! Can you please tell me what this chemical X is?" The person living in hell who has been asked this question about "how much time he has spent in hell" will feel the same way. He has no perception of time just like you have no perception of that chemical X. God, angels, heaven and hell are metaphysical objects, the existence of which does not depend upon time.
Space-Time is a physical construct. Every object that we perceive in this physical world exists within a time span. I was born in 1985 and I will die in, say, 2050. This chair or the bed in which you're sitting was created 10 or 20 years ago and it has a life span as well. Infact every physical object of this universe exists within a time span. Time, therefore, is a necessary variable of existence in physical space. We cannot think of any physical object that has existed forever and will exist forever.
This is not true in metaphysics where time is not a variable for defining existence. Heaven and Hell can exist without time. Hence this question that how much time has a person spent in hell is invalid, since time is not perceivable in hell just like that chemical X is not perceivable in today's world.
Same goes for the constraint of space in this physical world. Every thing that we perceive in this world has a predefined shape. And everything including galaxies can be specified by a spatial coordinate system. This is not true in metaphysics. Heaven and hell is not like a planet somewhere in the galaxy. God does not reside in this physical space. In fact he remains outside the bounds of space itself. He created the space, he isn't bounded by it! Or to put it in Thomas Aquinas words, God created time instead of being created by time. Space-Time is thus a creation encapsulating other creations (like you and me) within itself.
Time is a criteria of judging a punishment in this world. For instance a person standing on fire for 1 minute will feel more pain that a person who stands on fire for 1 hour. But this cannot be extrapolated to hell. One simply cannot say that a person living in hell for 1 day will suffer "less" than the person living in hell for 50 years. Time, as a basis for suffering becomes meaningless there.
So what is the criteria of punishment in Hell if not time? I simple don't know. What I know for sure is that isn't time. This is called negative theology, that is you can infer what a metaphysical object is not, but you cannot tell what it exactly is.
Forcing empirical logic like this results in the following hypothetical scenario. Imagine that you get a chance to visit hell 30 years after judgement day i.e. year 2230 and there you meet a person who has been living there since judgement day. If you ask that person "how much time have you been living here?", a natural answer is 30 years.
Let's dig seep into this question from philosophical point of view. Imagine today if I ask you this question that "what is the composition of chemical X inside your body?", you're response will obviously be "WTF! Can you please tell me what this chemical X is?" The person living in hell who has been asked this question about "how much time he has spent in hell" will feel the same way. He has no perception of time just like you have no perception of that chemical X. God, angels, heaven and hell are metaphysical objects, the existence of which does not depend upon time.
Space-Time is a physical construct. Every object that we perceive in this physical world exists within a time span. I was born in 1985 and I will die in, say, 2050. This chair or the bed in which you're sitting was created 10 or 20 years ago and it has a life span as well. Infact every physical object of this universe exists within a time span. Time, therefore, is a necessary variable of existence in physical space. We cannot think of any physical object that has existed forever and will exist forever.
This is not true in metaphysics where time is not a variable for defining existence. Heaven and Hell can exist without time. Hence this question that how much time has a person spent in hell is invalid, since time is not perceivable in hell just like that chemical X is not perceivable in today's world.
Same goes for the constraint of space in this physical world. Every thing that we perceive in this world has a predefined shape. And everything including galaxies can be specified by a spatial coordinate system. This is not true in metaphysics. Heaven and hell is not like a planet somewhere in the galaxy. God does not reside in this physical space. In fact he remains outside the bounds of space itself. He created the space, he isn't bounded by it! Or to put it in Thomas Aquinas words, God created time instead of being created by time. Space-Time is thus a creation encapsulating other creations (like you and me) within itself.
Time is a criteria of judging a punishment in this world. For instance a person standing on fire for 1 minute will feel more pain that a person who stands on fire for 1 hour. But this cannot be extrapolated to hell. One simply cannot say that a person living in hell for 1 day will suffer "less" than the person living in hell for 50 years. Time, as a basis for suffering becomes meaningless there.
So what is the criteria of punishment in Hell if not time? I simple don't know. What I know for sure is that isn't time. This is called negative theology, that is you can infer what a metaphysical object is not, but you cannot tell what it exactly is.
No comments:
Post a Comment