Living The Quran
From Issue: 575 [Read full issue]
Dignity of free will
Al-Shuara (The Poets) Sura 26: Verse 4
"If We will, We can send down a (compelling) sign on them from heaven, so that they are forced to bow their necks before it (in humility)."
If God willed, He could, for example, write His Name on the surface of the heavens with starts or, as He caused Mount Sinai to tower above the Children of Israel to compel them to keep their covenant, He could compel people to believe in some way. However, the signs he provides in creation and the lives of humankind, as well as through the Prophets, are perfectly sufficient for one who is not overcome by arrogance, wrongdoing, misjudgement, and carnal desires; if God were to provide a more obvious sign, this would mean negating human free will and nullifying the purpose of the tests we are put through.
God has endowed human beings with distinguishing faculties and honoured us with free will. He has also created us with a disposition to believe and worship. Moreover, just as the whole universe and our physical composition provide multiple signs for Existence and Unity of God, each human being has many experiences throughout their life that also give certainty to their conscience about this same, cardinal truth. In addition, God sent numerous Prophets throughout history, the character and life of whom, along with the many miracles God created at their hands, were an undeniable sign for the truth of the Message from God. In short, God opens all the doors to faith for human reason and conscience. However, He never compels human beings to believe, because this would be in contradiction to the dignity of free will.
Unbelief arises not from there being a lack of sufficient signs, but rather from human arrogance, wrongdoing, misjudgement, an attachment to the world and worldly benefits, or carnal desires. This is clear in the history of many peoples who refused to believe, even when the miracle they asked their Prophet to perform had been shown to them, and who were subsequently destroyed as a result.
Compiled From:
"The Quran: Annotated Interpretation in Modern English" - Ali Unal, pp. 762, 763