The previous musings lead to realize yet another way in which Islam is superior to the Christianity; it's solution to the problem of evil (that it is a test) is perfectly compatible with the sovereignty of Allah (SWT) while still allowing scope for human moral responsibility. The Christian view, of the entrance of evil and sin into the world as a great unintended tragedy set in the Garden of Eden, sacrifices this sovereignty in order to attribute cosmic consequences to the latter. The Islamic view is compatible with the findings of science (that suffering existed before the emergence of humankind); the Christian view is not. Allah (SWT) intended to create humanity from the perspective of eternity; physical evil forms a necessary backdrop to the emergence of humanity _as_ humanity. That animals lived and died, that viruses and bacteria evolved long before the origin of genus Homo is wholly compatible with Islam. Christianity posits as a fundamental tenet the idea that evil entered the world as the result of _free_ human agency; Adam could have ate the fruit or not. It is this disobedience of God which then results in the introduction of decay into the world; of death for all animate creation, of carnivorous diets, of disease. Adam becomes a kind of demiurge; he bears responsibility for fundamentally altering God's perfect creation. Islam avoids this usurpation of Allah (SWT)'s authority and presents a system which is in accord with both moral reason and the findings of biology and paleontology. This consideration has detirmental effects on Christian soteriology as well. Since death and sin entered the world as a result of the actions of a single human being, it follows (in the, in my opinion, logically falacious Christian view) that it can be cleansed by actions of a single, perfect human being, one who, according to _Christian_ understanding of Jewish law could also serve as the perfect attonement sacrifice to an angry God. Salvation, depending on one's denominational adherence, depends either on faith in this sacrifice (although how this faith taps into the salvific effect is unexplained) or in participation in a sacrament whereby one recieves an infusion of the divine grace emmenating from this act (characterized, grotesquely, as eating the flesh and drinking the blood of their savior cum deity). Besides the blatantly pagan elements in this system (especially in the latter formulation) there is also the problem that, if sin and evil did _not_ enter the world as the result of the actions of a single human being, but did in fact originate long before he did, then the whole house of cards collapses. If evil and sin did not enter the world through the action of a single human being, then the singular sacrificial act of a singular saviour is not required to expiate it. If it is in fact a part of the system of nature, then the method of coping with it must be natural as well. I submit that it is the act of repentence, the act of turning to the creator of all and asking for forgiveness, which is a natural part of human psychology, exhibited in some form by all human beings, that is the beginning of the expiation of sin (the expiation of course, comes from Allah (SWT) alone). We are not saved by human effort (either our own or someone else's) because sin and evil did not enter the world via human effort. They are divinely ordained tests; the solution is to seek forgiveness and salvation from that self-same divine source.