Why should one be tried and not the other?

Why should one be tried and not the other? We are at a crossroad. We either have to deny existence of the common conscience of all of the people of the world and consider the courts, punishment of those who disobey the law to be ridiculous and useless and even oppressive or deny the beliefs of the fatalists. Obviously the latter is preferable.

It is interesting to note that those who believe in the school of fatalism, and give reasons for their belief, when they are faced with a real life situation, they act according to free will! For instance, if a person aggresses against them, or annoys or bothers them, they take this person to court and do not rest at ease until that person is punished. Well, if it is really true that a person has no choice or free will, what are all of this commotion and court and trial about?

At any rate, this common conscience of the intelligent of the world is a living idea for the reality that human beings have accepted the existence of free will in the depths of their being and has always been loyal to that and cannot live without the belief for even one day and have the wheels of social and individual programs progress.

A great Iranian philosopher, Khawjeh Nair al-din Tusi, in discussing predestination and free will says in one short sentence in his book Kitab Tajrubah bih al-Aqa’id, “Our necessary understanding and conscience tells us that we are responsible for all of our deeds.” The Contradiction Between the Logic of Predestination and Free Will That which we have said above was about the contradiction between the school of predestination and the common conscience of the intelligence of the world, both from the point of view of supporters of religion and people who do not at all accept religion.

But from the point of view of religious thought, there is another sure reason for recognizing the falsity of the school of fatalism. As religious belief can never agree with fatalism, religious programs, as well, are all altered by accepting this school of thought. How can we reconcile the justice of God which we proved in previous lessons with the school of fatalism? How is it possible that God oblige someone to do an evil deed? Then punish him because he did it.