God, Ethics, and Evolution: An Islamic Rejoinder to Sterba’s Moral Critique

OpenAlex · İngilizce

This paper engages with James Sterba’s arguments from an Islamic theological perspective, particularly drawing on the Mu‘tazilite tradition. It focuses on three central themes: (1) the position of God in the face of horrendous evils, (2) the relationship between divine command theory and moral objectivity, and (3) the compatibility of Darwinian evolution with objective morality. First, I challenge Sterba’s claim that the existence of a wholly good and powerful God is logically incompatible with horrendous evils by proposing a “theistic structuralist” framework inspired by the Mu‘tazilite scholar Qadi Abd al-Jabbar. Second, while largely agreeing with Sterba’s critique of divine command theory, I incorporate a Mu‘tazilite view that grounds moral objectivity in God’s inherently good nature. Third, I support Sterba’s argument—against Sharon Street—that Darwinian evolution does not undermine moral objectivity, but I further argue that a consistent defense of this view ultimately requires the existence of God.