Barnes: 
1.  Summary of Augustine's position on predestination and original sin.
     [See single page handout]

2.  Brief review of first papers.

3.  Lecture on disagreement in Islam between Traditionalists and Mu'tazilites 
     on free will and God's action in the world. 
     [Two readings were handed out during the previous class.]

Summary: 
         The Mu'tazilites were those who engaged in rational or philosophical analysis of the Koran (as well as of Hadith, traditions about the precedents set by Mohammed's --PBUH-- life).  Their insistence on the Unity of God made them dispute the traditional understanding of the eternity of the Koran.  If the Koran was eternal, then it would be like a second divine reality alongside God, they argued.  This opposed the general consensus that the Koran, in Arabic, is eternal.  More relevant to the topic of this course, the Mu'tazilites also insisted on the divine Justice.   They particularly argued that God could not justly send anyone to hell unless the person had freely chosen unbelief and disobedience.  But the consensus of most Muslims was to take literally the lines in the Koran which said that God decided who went to hell and who to paradise, so literally as to place the notion of free will in doubt.  This fits with the consensus that nothing happens in the world except as God wills it, that each and every event that takes place is somehow a direct act of God.  The consensus of the Muslim community is one of the major criteria for Muslims in deciding what is correct..  So on both counts of "Unity" and "Justice" the Mu'tazilites have been usually treated as at best dangerous thinkers.  Muslims everywhere would insist that they believe in God's unity and justice; they just do not draw out the same implications as the Mu'tazilites.  (Recently in Egypt a modern day Mu'tazilite was declared to be an unbeliever by religious authorities.  His wife, as a good Muslim, therefore had to divorce him. They are both apparently now living in another country.)