‘We’re just making things better’

There is an inherent flaw in the current worldview, which dominates our intellect and actions and causes our current situation, both at the planetary and human levels. This defect is that we want -and pretend- to act in the world as if we, the earth and all living beings were nothing but hard and cold matter; obviating the invisible -and immeasurable- reality that underlies everything. And, in the first place, obviating the Divine Reality.

This has resulted in a diverse range of ideologies competing to capture our understanding, while all emerging from the same place. To adhere to one of these ideologies – or any ideology – is contrary to nature. Nature is not a system, Goethe said. And Islam is nature. This, in turn, has resulted in our current situation.

Our situation is “because of what your hands sought”. It would be difficult to argue with this, whether from a believer’s perspective or not. The current scientific worldview is based on the relationship between cause and effect. What we are seeing is the result of what we have caused:

Whatever grief afflicts you is because of what your hands sought, yet He forgives many things. (Qur’an, 42:30)

However, it is not a kind of divine punishment for our irreligiousness. Allah tells us that “He forgives many things” and the Prophet, peace be upon him, told us, in a Hadith Qudsi, that Allah “is in the opinion that His servant has of Him” (Bukhari and Muslim). Sometimes, claiming divine intervention is a way of avoiding our responsibilities. On the contrary, it is “that which your hands have sought”.

To see a consequence and attribute a cause to it is not to deny that Allah has power over everything in creation and that nothing happens without Him making it happen; rather it is to discern patterns. To attribute power to the cause to make the consequence happen is not to have understood the nature of the Divine and Reality.

They ask you about the phases of the moon, say: they serve to indicate to men the time and the Pilgrimage. (Qur’an, 2:189)

Indicating the time means we know when it is day and when it is night, so we can discern patterns, act accordingly and maintain our sanity.

Sanity is discerning patterns and acting accordingly. Yet, we are living in such a strange time that it seems difficult to comprehend it. It seems difficult, only, when you look at it from the perspective of the current zeitgeist, and the defining characteristic of this time is the absence of the centrality of the Divine in the human project. Put God at the center and everything begins to become clear.

The root of the problem, as in a classical Greek tragedy, is our own humanity. When the human being enthroned himself as lord of the universe – something that no other creature can even conceive of – he forgets that the universe and he himself have a Lord.

Making man the measuring rod of reality is not characteristic of any particular system that has emerged in the last three hundred years, but the foundation of all of them. So to try to explain the particularities of our situation by attributing them to a particular “ism” is to fail to realize their common origin and to miss the main point. It is also not to realize that we have set something in motion and are living the resulting inertia, which has also affected all religions, although not all religious people.

This is the meaning attributed to Ayat:

“When it is said to them, ‘Do not corrupt things on earth,’ they reply, ‘But if only we make them better.'” (Qur’an, 2:11)

To cause corruption on earth is to act as if the Divine Reality does not exist. This is what Ibn Abbas said when he explained the meaning of this verse: to disobey God in that which He has commanded and forbidden us. The corruption we are seeing on Earth, in such a painfully clear way, is the result of this. Our present condition is also the result of this.

We should not consider this a matter of private morality, that is a danger we must avoid, but of social, civil and ecological responsibility. Of course I have to do my best not to contribute to this corruption, but, if we reduce the problem to a matter of guilt, we will be ignoring the real causes and making it very easy to establish any kind of dictatorship; and neither of these two things would contribute much to the betterment of our situation.

It is natural that, when we discern a pattern of cause and effect, we ask what are the causes of what is the effect, and, even more relevant, who – in practical terms – has brought about the causes of the effects we are contemplating. When these effects are harmful this question becomes more relevant.

Groups with questionable – if not outright reprehensible – intentions have existed and will always exist. These are the same people who time after time have opposed the Divine Reality and His messengers and who when told “do not corrupt things on earth” replied “we only make them better”.

However, to think that our situation is the result of one mind or one group through time conspiring to control us all and make us suffer is proof that we have not understood how pervasive the current worldview is. It takes over our intellect and heart leaving no room for even a blade of grass to grow. And it brings the issue back to a matter of private morality.

In the study of psychology we learn that even the most delusional psychopaths have a justification for their actions. If we were to ask them they would probably respond that they were “just making things better.”

It’s hard to imagine that Bill Gates – about whom there is so much conspiracy – wakes up every morning and eats breakfast thinking about what he’s going to do today to control the world. More likely, if we asked him, he would say that he is “just making things better,” and he probably thinks so. That’s why he comes up with things like mass vaccine programs, free books for entire populations, or genetically modified seeds to survive pests. All very practical and valid solutions from the worldview that created the need for those solutions in the first place.

Not only that, but we applaud these solutions and salute their proponents without realizing that “insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results,” a common definition in psychology textbooks.

To improve our situation there are three things we should have in mind -and heart-.

The first is to recognize that the Divine Reality is constantly behind every process in the universe, and, consequently, to give back to man what technology has taken away from him: his soul.

The second is to recognize that accepting the Divine Reality must have an impact on our actions and that the human being is not the measuring rod of reality. Man is the observed, not the observer.

And the third, that there is no evil force or force of any kind that can oppose the first two.

A good place to start:

He is Allah, Whom there is no god but He, the Knower of the Unseen and the Apparent. He is the Merciful, the Compassionate. He is Allah, Who is no god but He, the King, the Most Pure, the Peace, the Security-giving, the Watcher, the Irresistible, the Compelling, the Compelling, the Superb. Glory be to Allah above all that they associate! He is Allah, the Creator, the Originator, the Fashioner. His are the most beautiful names. He is glorified by all that is in the heavens and on earth. And He is the Irresistible, the Wise. (Qur’an, 59:22-24).

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Written by Luqman Nieto. The English version is available at: luqmannieto.com.