How Are We Judged in the Court of Divine Justice?
Throughout our lives, we have heard and read many times about the establishment of the Court of Divine Justice on the Day of Judgment. We have heard about the different questions that will be asked there and that we must have appropriate answers to. It is a Court from which there is no escape; it is a place where we are supposed to see the result of all the deeds we have done in the world. But how can everything we have done in our lifetime be present there? How can our thoughts and intentions be seen? At times, we have heard different statements that seemingly do not match up. For example, we have heard that everyone will be judged; we have also heard that some individuals pass through this stage without being judged. Now, with all these statements, the question is how to understand what the Court of Divine Justice is and how it works.
In previous lessons, we learned about the Law of Proportion. This law makes it easier for us to understand many inaccessible religious concepts and states that the relationship between the world and the hereafter is like the relationship between the mother’s womb and the world. Just as the mother’s womb prepares the fetus for life in the world, the world itself serves as a womb for the hereafter, and we must prepare ourselves in it for life in the hereafter. By studying the behavior of the fetus in the mother’s womb and the events that occur during its transfer from the womb to the world, many of the events we will encounter in the hereafter become unveiled. Therefore, it is better to take a look at the birth of a newborn before we examine how our deeds will be judged on the Day of Judgement and in the Court of Divine Justice.
How Is the Performance of a Fetus Judged?
The world provides its resources equally to all newborns, but due to their different births, newborns do not equally benefit from the world’s resources. Each fetus is able to utilize the resources of the world based on the level and quality of his development in the mother’s womb. In fact, the type of relationship that each newborn has with the conditions of the world is his “court.” Every characteristic that the world presents to the newborn is like a “question,” and the newborn must provide a corresponding organ as a “response” to this question.
For example, “light” is a question, and the newborn has provided a response called “the visual system” as an answer to it.
“Air” is a question, and the suitable response to it is a “healthy respiratory system.”
The world is full of such questions, and it judges the newborn based on these questions right at the beginning of birth. Now, if any organ or system of the newborn’s body is not healthy enough, it means that it has not provided a complete answer to the question related to itself. In this condition, the newborn cannot benefit from that particular resource, but rather the same conditions that are enjoyable for a healthy baby are the source of discomfort and trouble for him.
A baby’s disease means not having an appropriate answer to the questions of the world, not being in harmony with the conditions and laws of worldly life, and being admitted to the hospital for treatment. But the problem is that a newborn who faces the questions of the world with a birth defect no longer has the opportunity for compensation in the hospital and is forced to be deprived of some resources throughout his worldly life because the hospital has therapeutic capabilities, not constructive capabilities.
No Questions in the Womb
During the time when the fetus is busy making his organs, he has no concern for any questions or judgment. This few-month period is his only opportunity to prepare the necessary tools and be ready to face the world. Even if the fetus is sick or has not built an organ, he does not suffer pain in the mother’s womb. He only feels this pain and deficiency when he encounters a new environment called the world as a newborn and he is expected to use what he has brought with himself.
We know that when the world questions the newborn, there is no need for conversation or time to pass. In fact, this process of question and answer is done in an objective and practical way; the organs of the newborn are like deeds that he has brought into the world with him, and there is no separation or distance between him and these deeds. The newborn himself represents all his past behaviors, and his deeds and their effects have become part of him. In this way, in the very first moment of the birth of every newborn, the type of his relationship with the world is determined for both himself and others. In the court of the world, there is no need to spend time on these “questions and answers” and examine each and every organ and part of the baby’s body.
Just as the fetus inside the womb is not aware of his level of harmony with the conditions of the world at the moment of birth, the womb-like quality of the world is such that we are not aware of the extent of peace, happiness, pain, or suffering of our soul before our birth into the hereafter. In fact, the relative peace that we get from doing good deeds or the worry and anxiety that we feel as a result of bad thoughts and deeds are a very small part of the truth of our deeds that we experience in the world. Each of our beliefs, decisions, relationships, and behaviors is an “acquisition” for our soul. These acquisitions transform into organs and systems of our soul, and only in the hereafter will they show their existential dimensions and be judged. In fact, it is in the hereafter and the Court of Divine Justice that we will face all the acquisitions we have acquired in the womb of the world.
Our Duty in the World
We are currently in our second womb, namely the world. The world is a place where we must prepare ourselves for birth into the hereafter and provide correct and complete answers to the questions that we will be asked in the hereafter. By examining how the fetus is judged at birth, the quality of the judgment of our deeds in the hereafter and the Court of Divine Justice becomes clear to us to a great extent.
The truth of our existence is the Divine Breath, in which all the attributes of God are potentially placed. This Spirit is transferred to our worldly body, which is made in the mother’s womb, so that we can nurture these attributes of our own free will in the world. In other words, worldly life is merely an opportunity for us to actualize our potential capabilities, and the degree to which these attributes manifest themselves indicates our well-being in the hereafter. After the completion of the womb-like period of the world, our material body will be returned to its origin, namely the world, and the truth of our existence or our soul is transferred to the realm of the hereafter and appears in the Court of Divine Justice.
The Quality of Judging Deeds in the Hereafter
Just as the court of the world quickly, accurately, and without delay questions the body of a newborn in terms of its relative health for a healthy life, our soul is quickly judged when it is born into the hereafter and encounters its living conditions. God’s swift judgment means that our harmony or disharmony with the laws of the hereafter is determined at the moment of birth or wafat. For example, we must be able to move there without restriction, but if we do not provide the tools in advance, we will become immobilized. There is no gap between birth and judgment, and every soul realizes the extent of its happiness or misery depending on its level of harmony with the laws of the hereafter.
If our soul is not healthy enough, it means that it has not brought suitable answers to the questions in the Court of Divine Justice. In fact, this is why when someone is born into the hereafter and realizes his lack of harmony with its living conditions, he asks God to send him back to the world to do righteous deeds.[1] However, the return of someone from the hereafter to the world will only be possible if the baby who has been born into the world can also return to the mother’s womb! This impossibility is related to the natural and physical conditions of the womb’s structure: After birth, there is no possibility of returning to the womb: both the mother’s womb and the womb of the world.
If a newborn’s nervous system, blood circulation, respiration, digestion, and other organs are all healthy, but he has only one percent of disease or deficiency, he will be affected accordingly. For instance, if a baby has a healthy and strong body, but his legs are of different lengths and one of them is one centimeter shorter, even that small amount will make the baby suffer and make it difficult for him to walk in the world. This implies that there is no need to inform the baby that one of his leg is shorter, and then the baby cannot walk properly; rather, his own condition is sufficient to be deprived of walking properly. Similarly, in the hereafter and the Court of Divine Justice, there is no need for anyone to examine everything very carefully and then punish us for our deeds. Since in the hereafter, we are a collection of our worldly acquisitions, each of us is enough to judge ourselves.
What Answers Are Accepted?
Just as a newborn whose organs and limbs serve as answers to the questions of the world, our spiritual acquisitions and assets, which constitute our existence in the hereafter, are the answers to the questions of the hereafter. The living conditions of the hereafter ask their questions not verbally, but in an objective and practical way. We will be in harmony with the living conditions of the hereafter to the extent that we have acquired assets in order to be similar to the truth of our existence, which is God. The extent of this similarity is the answer to all the questions put to us in the Court of Divine Justice.
Thus, we will find the answers to many of our questions about the quality of judgment in the hereafter and the Court of Divine Justice. With our wafat from this world and birth into the hereafter, each of us is faced with questions, or better to say, the conditions and characteristics of life in the hereafter. The extent of our harmony with the living conditions of the hereafter determines our responses in the Court of Divine Justice. Although this Court questions everyone, it does not spend time asking these questions, nor do any discussion and dialogue take place between the two parties. That is because our self in the hereafter indicates our assets and abilities, and every healthy soul passes this stage quickly and without delay. Sick or defective souls must answer for their deeds and endure the suffering of treatment, depending on the extent of their lack of harmony with the hereafter or their inability to answer the questions of the Court of Divine Justice. Therefore, our deeds are ourselves, and in general, in order to have a healthy birth or a robustly healthy birth, we must avoid undesirable attributes and manifest good attributes in ourselves. Bad temper, betrayal, lying, slandering, and any undesirable deeds are like extra organs in our hereafter body and they must be removed from us by surgery in hell. We have to stay in hell for centuries to get rid of these negative attributes.
In this article, we discussed that the attributes we develop in ourselves during our lifetime shape our existence. In other words, our self in the hereafter is a collection of our beliefs, decisions, relationships, and deeds. Just as a fetus develops his earthly form within the mother’s womb, our actions and deeds in this world will shape our existence in the hereafter. Upon entering the world, the world questions the fetus about his body. We will also appear in the Court of Divine Justice with our deeds, and these deeds are in the form of answers that we give to the characteristics and living conditions of the hereafter. In fact, the Court of Divine Justice determines to what extent we are in harmony and compatibility with the living conditions of the hereafter.
Before reading this article, what was your opinion about attending the Court of Divine Justice in the hereafter? Has the Law of Proportion helped you to better understand the process of judgment on the Day of Judgment and attending the Court of Divine Justice?
[1]. Quran, 39:58