Chapter Three

Good and bad

The third important question, the man is confronting is about good and bad. And are the good and bad two different things? Is this concept innate and inborn? Who is the creator of good and bad? Why the people have different criteria of good and bad.
Different philosophers tried to solve this problem differently. According to democrats, every thing that gives pleasure to man is good, while sophists are the followers of the theory that the man in itself possess the criteria of good and bad. Socrates says that the self-
actualization is divine spark in human, which help him to know about good and bad. According to Christian philosopher, Saint Augustine the “God” is only good. In fact it is sin of Adam that is cause of evils in this world.
By analyzing the opinions of all these philosophers it is realized that the cause of their stray for answering these questions is selection of “objects” as standard of good and bad. Also it is baseless to say that “thinking” is standard of god and bad because it is not possible to spare a man for his bad doings by considering this that he is a good or positive thinker. Similarly criteria of pleasure cannot be the standard of good and bad because these vary from person to person. Likewise if we admit that good and bad are two different entities then we have to admit that there are two Gods in this universe, which is against the theory of unity (Toheed).
The Holy Qur’an has presented his own theory, according to which God is divine good of the universe. The all goods and bads are placed in human nature and he is given freedom to choose any path. So the evil is produced by misuse of this freedom. Although, the devil mislead man by creating superstitions, but he is not the creator of evil. The man can meet the standards of good by formation of his wishes and emotions.