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Section 4. Having presented these views, I report that I found some people asking: what is the wisdom in the Creator, exalted be He, placing this noble soul — which is purer than the sphere — into this lowly body?
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They began to imagine that He had wronged it. I felt it necessary to dwell on this topic and explain it clearly.
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I state at the outset: the Creator, whose nature I described earlier, is utterly beyond the claim that He wrongs or is unjust to His creature.
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First, because all accidents are removed from Him; then because all His acts are good and benevolent; and also because He created creation only to benefit it, not to harm it — these are general, summary propositions.
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Then I follow these with specific individual arguments — that injustice has three causes and no fourth, and all three are negated from the Creator.
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First: an unjust person acts out of fear of the one he wrongs; second: out of desire for something he wants from him; third: out of ignorance of where justice lies. The Creator — of whom it cannot be said that He fears, or desires, or is ignorant of anything —
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— of anything — all the causes of injustice are thus entirely removed from Him.
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Then I surveyed the scriptures and found them appealing to His justice through these three — as the early statement says: 'who shows no partiality to princes, nor regards the rich above the poor, for they are all the work of His hands' (Job 34:19).
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'Who shows no partiality to princes' refers to the removal of fear; 'nor regards the rich above the poor' refers to the removal of desire; and 'for they are all the work of His hands' refers to the removal of ignorance — for He sees His creatures clearly, and all the more does He see their acts and what they deserve.
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Having established this justice as a principle, every question people ask about the soul must be referred back to this principle and tested against it.
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I say: since the soul cannot act independently by its own constitution, it was necessary to combine it with something through which it would attain —
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— actions for its own good — for actions lead to everlasting bliss and complete happiness.
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As I explained in the Fifth Maamar — acts of obedience add light to its substance, and sins cloud its substance, as the scriptures make plain: 'Light is sown for the righteous' (Ps 97:11).
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— and: 'The light of the righteous shines; the lamp of the wicked is extinguished' (Prov 13:9). And the one who tests this is the Lord of the worlds — He sees the soul's deeds, and He likens this to placing something called gold or silver in a furnace so that the true nature of its substance becomes clear.
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Gold and silver are the genuine elements and they endure; what is mixed in of dross — some burns up and some evaporates — as He said: 'The crucible for silver and the furnace for gold, and a man according to his praise' (Prov 27:21); and: 'I will refine them as silver is refined and test them as gold is tested' (Zech 13:9).
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So pure, refined souls that are free of impurity shine forth and become revealed — as He said: 'For He knows the way I take; when He has tested me, I will emerge like gold' (Job 23:10).
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And those resembling dross and slag among them sink and drop low — as He said: 'In vain has the refiner refined; the wicked are not drawn out — they are called rejected silver' (Jer 6:29–30).
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Yet the defiled among souls, as long as they are in the body, can return and become refined and cleansed. That is why repentance is accepted as long as a person is alive.
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But when it departs from the body it can no longer cleanse itself of what has lodged within it — nothing of that is to be hoped for: 'When a wicked man dies, his hope is lost' (Prov 11:7).
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If one says: 'It would have been better for it had it been left alone — it would have been spared cloudiness, impurities, and pain' — one should clarify and reveal that if solitude were better for it,
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— its Creator would have made it so. Moreover, we know that had it been left alone it would attain no pleasure, no happiness, and no eternal life.
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For its attainment of all these comes only through obedience to its Lord, and there is no path according to its constitution to obedience except through the body.
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For with the body it performs every action — just as fire has no path to its form except through its clinging to something.
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And many paired things cannot complete the action of one without the other. If the soul were left alone it would do nothing — and all the more, the body would do nothing.
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And if both were stripped of action, there would be no purpose in creating them; and if their creation had no purpose, it would bring down along with it the creation of heaven and earth and all between them — for all was created on account of the human person.
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If one says: 'Let it remain alone and give it the capacity for action so that it may reach what was made available to it' —
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We clarify that this request is like the first request we mentioned regarding the human body — that it should be like the substance of the stars and angels. We answered that this request, if fulfilled, would mean the soul is no longer a soul.
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For the rational soul is precisely what acts only with the human body; if it acts without the human body, it is —
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— either a star, or a sphere, or an angel; and its true nature has been annulled. One who seeks to annul it without actually using the word 'annulment'
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— is like one who wishes fire to descend and water to ascend by nature, which nullifies their meanings; or who wishes fire to be cold and snow to be hot, which nullifies their meanings.
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One who demands this transgresses against wisdom — for wisdom is things being on their known true natures; wisdom is not things being as someone desires or wishes, as Scripture says: 'Woe to one who quarrels with his Maker!' (Isa 45:9).
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As for the soul's proximity to sins — that happens by its own bad choice, since it opposed what its Creator intended for it, as He said: 'Lo, this I have found: God made humankind upright, but they have sought out many schemes' (Qoh 7:29).
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As for the objection about impurities and uncleanness — we say: the human body contains nothing impure; on the contrary, it is entirely clean — for impurity is not a sensible thing, nor something required by reason; it is required by religious law.
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The law made certain human fluids impure after their separation from the body — but not while they are still within the body.
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As for the pains the soul is burdened with — these are in one of only two categories. If the pain was self-acquired by going out in darkness or extreme heat or cold, the fault is its own and not its Lord's — for He gave it reason and commanded it to avoid these harmful conditions, but it disobeyed.
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— as He said: 'The prudent sees danger and hides; the naive go forward and suffer' (Prov 22:3). And if the pain was caused in it by its Lord — He, in His justice and His mercy, did not bring it —
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— except as discipline, to compensate it with something better, as He said: 'In order to humble you and test you, to do you good in the end' (Deut 8:16); and: 'Happy is the man whom You discipline, O Lord... granting him respite from days of evil' (Ps 94:12–13).