People Are No More Just than God in Otherworldly Distribution
Editorial verification status: this atom has been extracted from an explanatory audiovisual source, and has now been linked to the closest books within the Shahrur project at the book level. For precise academic citation, consult the original book and the original episode together.
Formulation of the claim
Shahrur uses a comparison with prisons on earth to say that God’s justice is not measured by human justice; rather, the opposite: if human beings place a small number in prisons, that cannot be projected onto the hereafter.
Explanation
He presents a real-world example: the area of prisons is extremely small relative to the earth’s population. He then compares that with the idea that most people are either in hell or in paradise. He wants to say that the human comparison is not a valid direct standard for the hereafter. Yet he concludes that God’s justice is broader than human conceptions. This is part of his method of using a concrete example to bring the Qur’anic meaning closer.
Its role in the episode’s argument
It serves his tendency to interpret paradise and hell through a reality that the listener can grasp: prison, space, distribution, rather than through abstract unseen matters alone. It also supports his claim that hell is limited.
Limits of the claim
It does not say that the numerical ratio in the hereafter is identical to that of prisons in this world; it uses the example only for approximation.
Brief evidence
“Are people more just than God? Of course not.”
Nearby links
- The state and society
- Religion and authority
- Drying up the sources of terrorism