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Shiavault - a Vault of Shia Islamic Books Islamic Philosophy and the Problem of Evil; a Philosophical Theodicy Apprehensional Evil: a challenge for TNNE So far we saw that Muslim philosophers generally endorsed TNNE and tried to provide on behalf of it some intuitional, evidential and philosophical grounds. It seems that according to some philosophical principles (almost accepted by them) a certain type of evils, namely pain and suffering, can challenge TNNE in a serious and considerable way.

Given that pain and suffering are real evils, many philosophers find that they are certain kinds of apprehension (idrak) and knowledge (ilm) (in its broad sense). For example, Avicenna writes: Surely, pleasure is the apprehension of the realization of something which counts perfection for the apprehender inasmuch as it is perfection and good. And pain is the apprehension of the realization of something which is calamity and evil for the apprehender inasmuch as it is so. (Avicenna, 1403, p.

337.Moreover, Muslim philosophers commonly think that apprehension is an existential quality. Therefore, we apparently discover an obvious counterexample for TNNE ; pains and sufferings are evils which have existential nature! In other words, there is an essential difference between pains and sufferings, on the one hand, and, evils like blindness and diseases, on the other.

The former, in contrary to the latter, are not mere privations, but as mental qualities they are as existent as other qualities. Let's call the evils in question "apprehensional evil".18 Regarding the previous distinction between essential and accidental evil, this challenge, in order to be a serious one, should presuppose that apprehensional evil is an essential evil since, as we saw, there is no problem to call some beings "accidental evils" inasmuch as they cause some kinds of privation.

Thus, we may formulate the "apprehensional evil challenge" (henceforth: AEC) as follows: (for the sake of simplicity, I restrict myself to the case of pain): Pain is an evil. Pain is an essential evil, not an accidental evil. Pain is a kind of apprehension. All kinds of apprehension are existential entities. Pain is an existential entity. [from (3) and (4)] Therefore, there are essential evils which are existential entities.

[the conclusion: from (2) and (5)] But this conclusion obviously contradicts TNNE . Some philosophers, like Fackr Al-Din Al-Razi and Mulla Jalal Al-Din Al-Dawani, have objected TNNE by means of AEC.

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