Judgment Day Means Justice For All
by: Amanda Quraishi on June 30th, 2010 | 5 Comments »
We usually hear about Judgment Day in the context of our impending doom for not adhering to the commandments of God (or some specific interpretation thereof). Zealous imams tell us stories of Judgment Day to inspire fear, guilt and repentance. More often than not we leave those khutbas feeling despondent or even resentful at the prospect of a final Judgment Day.
But Judgment Day isn’t just about doling out punishment. It’s primary purpose is justice:
“But how (will they fare) when we gather them together against a day about which there is no doubt, and each soul will be paid out just what it has earned, without (favor or) injustice?” Quran, Surah 3 Verse 25
Any person with a spiritual bone in their body has been overwhelmed at one point or another by the sheer volume of injustice in the world. We may have even become depressed or immobilized from obsessing over these conditions. Rampant suffering from war, hunger, abuse, addiction, and flawed legal systems subject to human error weighs heavily on our hearts and minds. While we may dedicate our time, energy and money to trying to solve these problems, they continue unabated.
Obviously part of our own judgment will involve how we chose to respond to the suffering of others during our lifetime. The assurance that God will settle all accounts on Judgment Day is not an excuse to let injustice thrive among us. Fighting for the rights of all people to live, worship and work in a healthy society is as much a part of being a Muslim as is prayer and fasting.
But the promise of Judgment Day can help us cope with the conditions we see and keep us from being overwhelmed by them. As we go about our work, offer charity, and attempt to live by the tenets of our faith, we can do so with confidence that God sees all. No one will have suffered needlessly, and no one will be rewarded undeservedly when Allah (SWT) chooses to pronounce a final judgment.
It’s incredibly reassuring.
The distance between these two entries is the distance between the secular and the religious perspectives. With the religious hope is not possible without transcendence. Ultimately it is up to God to balance the scales. With SG Simpson, it is what we do with intention now is the question, and the question of how we are forced to live. Simpson doesn’t say by whom the force is applied; one would assume it is social forces.
Is hope secular? Marx tried to make it a law of history unfolding through class struggle. You can judge for yourself how much hope Stalin was capable of engendering. Is it truly satisfying to put all justice off to one giant trial led by a Deity whose face is so ambiguous that one fears, having only himself/herself to look at and knowing damn well that all too often we miss the mark and do not express the good we are capable of.
I can only find hope when the heart meets an expression of unconditional compassion outside in the world, with a human face. I see such a face in the Buddha, in Jesus of Nazareth, in others. Their example is enough to ask me to reach deeper in myself and find the connection there to all living creatures, and, thus, true justice.
So, no Hope is not secular. It is an expression of the deepest essence of what it is to be human. And thus also divine.
The question of judgment by the Divine is very complex (to our present minds) and has been complicated immensely by our own primitivejudgmental projections onto the Divine. The Christian Gospels (due to the projections of its well-intentioned but badly mistaken authors, in my opinion) feature a complex mix of reassurance, demands for social justice, and presumed Divine threats.
I have found immense encouragement in “A Course in Miracles,” which offers newer and more holistic clarifications of the teachings of Jesus. I would also say that the Gospels (with all of their flaws) offer these passages as reassurances: “I have come not to judge the world but to save (redeem/transform) it.” And in Mt 5:43-48, “Your love must have no bounds. Only in this way can you be as true children to your Father.” [Quotes approximate]. The implication of the latter is that the Divine has no limits on loving ALL of his children – who must still learn to grow into states of unconditional love, a slow process indeed.
Finally, the saying in Mt 5, “Judge not, lest you be judged” is (I have realized over the years) NOT a threat from a “heavenly dictator” but instead is a statement of what we do to our own selves if we engage in “ad hominem” judgments against ANY human being, be that person Adolf Hitler, Mother Theresa or Charles Manson. If you think about it, anger can ONLY arise from “ad hominem” judgments. This we must stop, but instead learn to love completely, deal with injustice from postures of love and not rage, and still maintain laws which at this stage of our development are needed to protect ourselves from one another at times.
I am convinced that when we die, we have the moment we have heard about from those who have had NDE (near death experiences) when the whole of their lives flashes before them. We all get to relive what we have done in our lifetimes. Hence those who have lived well will die well. Those who have lived lives of hate and destruction will have horrible deaths.
No I have no proof. Nor do I need to believe in heaven or hell or that injustice has the last word.
When I have shared this with others, I get stories from those who have come close to death and have not had an experience reliving their lives. (I, too, have had such an experience.) I do not count such events as NDE. No one has returned from death to confirm my beliefs. Nor to deny them.
Rex
I have had two NDE’s and one drowning experience. I had a flashback with the drowning and with one of the NDE. On the other I was doing a Vajrayana practice that intervened with what I perceive to be the “normal process”.
jm
Jim,
Thanks for adding to my experience. The consequence for all of this is that I am trying to get in the habit of asking myself when I do something whether I want to relive what I am doing. It takes effort on my part to routinize that. But I do feel that it adds to my life rather than detracts. When I get objections to the notion, I ask the objectors why it is that they would rather not believe it. Usually all I get is a grumble, the familiar response to a new idea.