It is possible to assert that since everything I have is from god, I should not mourn when god takes back that which he had given to me. That something was given to me by god, is sometimes presented as a reason for not being sad about losing it – whoever gave it had real ownership of the thing given and had every right to take it back. Therefore, no wrong is done and there is no cause for complaint. I should instead, I can be told, be grateful for the opportunity to have that thing and enjoy it for the period it was given to me and not cry out and mourn its loss.
I think such an argument tries to encourage gratitude to god through a most serious oppression and suppression. How so?
It is an oppression that god gives me something that he makes beloved to me, which i did not ask for and did not deserve, and then takes it away and gives me hurt and pain when it is taken. This is oppression whether it is done by a human to another human or by god to another human.
It is suppression because I am asked to suppress real feelings of anger and sadness by invoking the merits (and psychological benefits) of gratitude for the “opportunity” to experience his “blessing” while I had it.
It is more than oppression and suppression. It is also a distraction and a falsity that prevents me from finding truth. It tries to distract me from asking the question that reason asks: is it not a grave cruelty for god to give me what i love (or, even if i were go to deeper and say ‘what he makes me love’) and then take it away and, to add insult to injury, ask me to be grateful to him as the one who makes me suffer in this way?
It is a falsity because it claims that gratitude to such a god (and in this way) is what religion/revelation teaches and it thereby sets up one’s natural (now read ‘evil’) impulses/desires/loves against religiously salutary dispositions and attitudes (gratitude in the face of loss), without providing any just reason to do so. It is a falsity because it does not ask the question: why did god give me something to love in the first place? how is it fair/just/good that i be given something (including existence) that i did not choose to have, give me love for it, then make me lose it and make me suffer in its loss!? Reason stops at this objection and its not a stopping place where gratitude is found in truth. At this stopping place is found a demand from this god for an answer! It is a place where one can, if one is reasonable, ask this god to speak and make known what the meaning of such an existence is!
Only a revelation from whoever has done this to me – a revelation which suggests (and teaches how) I look at signs/indications/messages (about God) in what I see/experience if I wish to save my mind/soul from the oppression I have caused myself – can help. In many other blog posts, I have already shared my thoughts about how ‘in the name of God’ works for me, how it shows the way to praise and gratitude not by recourse to an irrational and unjust duty of the “thanks for letting me have what i love, for a while and then taking it away from me forever and threatening me with hell if I dont constantly praise you for this indignity” kind. Instead, it shows that in the apprehension/experience of a good and love for it AND in the apprehension/experience of a loss and pain in it, something can be learned by the soul about who/what god is and what his will for the soul is! the god who gave something good (a child, for instance) and then took it away (with cancer for instance) only to demand thanks for the 5 or 6 years you could enjoy the child is not a god that reason accepts as good and it is not a good taught by revelation. it is the god of well-meaning but misdirected piety. it confuses people about god and gratitude and it takes the mind/heart away from the god taught by revelation. praise for god is not possible for the ‘little while’ he allows me to experience life and the goods of it. praise for the god of revelation is for allowing me to see that he, and not perishing things, is the real posessor of bounties and treasures beloved to me and that he will for me to never be deprived of these treasures in reality – it is written/decreed in the soul that it is unhappy and tortured by deprivation and therefore meant for abundance without end (i.e. in perpetuity). It is these indications – accessible when the events (of having and losing) is looked at to see what divine meanings are indicated by it, that one comes to praise the god that revelation claims is alone worthy of my praise (and not worthy of praise as something/someone like all these other things/gods that, i imagine without any evidence, offer me benefit/pleasure and then leave me with pain).
The Quran as Revelation 