Islam's Response to Contemporary Issues — Page 77
Social Peace 77 I cannot imagine a God who rewards and punishes the object of his own creation, whose purposes are modelled after our own—a God, in short, who is but a reflection of human frailty. 13 If there is a God, the Lord Creator Whose existence Albert Einstein could not deny, and if all the scientific laws operating in His creation are devised, created and governed by the same creative Supreme Being, it is inconceivable for Him to abandon the ultimate object of His creation by lifting the principle of crime and punishment and leaving man to wander in the chaos of undisciplined and unaccountable behaviour. As far as the second part of his observation is concerned, it is obvious that he failed to understand not only the role of crime and punishment in the progressive development of creation, but also completely misunderstood the meaning of man having been created in the image of God. Man is created in the image of God not as a perfect model of God on earth. Were that so, the world would become more than a heaven on earth and all human beings would be exactly alike. It is debateable, of course, whether such a place would be worthy of being called heaven or boredom, where there is no variety, change or difference between odour, colour and hue—instead a calm, multitudinous sea of colourless identical drops. That is not the meaning and purpose of man having been created in the image of God. This phrase is rich in profound wisdom and speaks of the potential with which man has been endowed. It speaks of the ultimate noble goal which man must constantly endeavour to achieve. That goal is to be as perfect as man can possibly be, by acquiring godly attributes and emerging more like God. It is not a fixed goal, which one can reach