|
Seems like a false statement. Please explain. |
Post Reply 
|
Page 123 11> |
| Author | |
Israfil 
Senior Member 
Joined: 08 September 2003 Status: Offline Points: 3984 |
 Post Options
 Thanks(0)
 Quote Reply
 Topic: Seems like a false statement. Please explain.Posted: 09 May 2008 at 11:05pm |
|
S.A you have greatly misunderstood AGAIN and tried to systematically explain to you what I mean. Anyway we've exhausted this long enough |
|
 |
|
|
Shasta'sAunt
Senior Member
Female Joined: 29 March 2008 Status: Offline Points: 1930 |
Post Options
Thanks(0)
Quote Reply
Posted: 09 May 2008 at 6:15pm |
I am totally baffled by your response. Who has said that God is being held accountable for anything?
And, you actually did state in a few posts that we have no freedom of will, and quoted that man is passive Allah is responsible for all action....
God is not the cause of our actions, He is associated with our actions. There is a huge difference. God created me, the earthly environment I live in and gave me the freedom to choose my path, thus He is associated with my choices through His creation, but God does not cause me to choose the right path or the wrong path. I choose.
Anyway, you have your belief and I have mine.
|
|
|
�No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.�
Eleanor Roosevelt |
|
|
|
|
Israfil
Senior Member
Joined: 08 September 2003 Status: Offline Points: 3984 |
Post Options
Thanks(0)
Quote Reply
Posted: 09 May 2008 at 11:39am |
|
The fact that Allah knows what will happen before it happens is not the same as Allah deciding what will happen.
I believ I made that distinction already. I made it clear in several posts back that although God is not personally directing my actions.
You may think that because Allah knows what you are going to do it will cause you to do it, but rather your actions are not caused by Allah's knowledge but Allah's knowledge is of your choices. He did not make these choices for you, nor did He cause you to make them.
Agreed. The problem (as I've already explained in several posts back) here is God is the ultimate causality of things although he is not direct in individual actions he is the cause of all actions. I believe we all can agree on this. We can also agree on the belief that prior to all the universe's inhabitants existence (notice I'm including any other life forms that we are not aware of) he knew what the universe was and how it is and what will transpire in both the particulars and the general.
With that said, since his knowledge is broad because prior to our existence there was our what we in philosophy call our potentiality (means the area in which we are coming into existence) he knew what we we are and what we will do in the future. As I mentioned although we at a specific time didn' exist yet God knew what we would become in the future and our spiritual destination would be. This is the problem I have.
God already knows my destiny before I know. I cannot change my destiny because all the actions that I perform only fulfill what God knows. Although I may act "freely" I am not acting free because God's knowledge precedes my action. I understand S.A. it is hard for you to understand but this makes perfect sense. God doesn't need to act or violate my freewill in order for me to be limited. The fact that (1) God is the first cause and (2) God has knowledge of past, present and future, makes this problematic.
Because God is (1) it is impossible to say that which caused is independent of God since all causes are caused by (1) mover that which is God. What this means is although God may remain inactive independently from us, his will through us causes us to act. This will is our ability to act. God has given us the will to act independently. For instance if I create a computer program to only calculate multiplication in less than .1 seconds that is what it will do until I design another ability within it. Although me being a human I cannot complete certain multiplications in less than .1 this computer has that ability, but because the computer can do this ability faster than I it doesn't necessarily mean that I can calculate this fast. Of course this is somewhat comparable to the discussion I cannot make the computer designer analagous to God/human action. But from this example you should get my point.
Since Allah has stated that every soul will be held responsible for its own doing then you must either believe that or believe:
1. Allah is not being truthful when He states that man will be judged according to what his own hand has wrought
2. That Allah is not Just and Merciful because He is rewarding and punishing people for something that they had no control over
Shausta you are making this too easy.....
If I were a god, and couldn't be held accountable to my own laws (because I'm infinite and the first cause of all things) I could easily manipulate laws in which inhabitants whom I've created and designed would only be held accountable to those laws. The greatest thing about God is he doesn't have to be held accountable to laws which he has designed (not saying I believe this to the extreme but this is a critique to the questions you posted) so even if he has created the will in us to act even to do good things he cannot be held accountable for the laws which he designed specifically for humans.
What I believe is God has given us a limited amount of space to act (this is not freedom of course) and although our moral conscience and our religious duties is what gets us closer to God I believe that what we do in this life is already determined apriori. I realize on the Day of Judgement I cannot say "well God, you did know I was gonna cheat with 100 prostitutes and kill 100 people" of course I am held accountable because at some point I am conscious of my actions. But even with this in mind this raises anothe rproblem. If God knew I'd kill 100 people why would he cause me to exist in the first place?
As you can see the discussion on predestination and freewill takes several turns not just in the problem of freedom but morality and ethics as well.
Israfil,
I'm curious. You say that homosexuality is innate and natural and still manage to believe in a God who destroyed a nation for that very reason. What does that mean? Was God wrong about Sodom? Had I that doubt, that's good reason for me to not believe in that God.
I am at a point where these questions which has no relevance to the thread should not even be said much less addressed by me. What does you question (Saladin) have to do with our discussion? What does that mean? Well. I don't know God wiped out people for specifically for their sexual orientation? I particularly don't believe he destroyed an entire race of people simply because they are gay I'm sure there was more to it than that. The people in Lot's time could have done some really bad things I don't know. But I believe God is just wiping a whole people out simply because of their sexual orientation is an unbelievable act. If I truly felt this way then I would cease to believe in any Abrahamic deity.
I can add one more to your example of the prevalence of homosexuality in the animal kingdom (or so as you say). Male chimps stimulating each other sexually, due to the absence of female chimps, as I read in some Wildlife site. We also find some chimps engaging in cannibalism. If we are to take points from that, perhaps Dahmer wasnt as sick as we thought he was, huh?
Humans are a sick species. We kill, torture and murder people just for pleasure! That is scary. And yes in some sectors of the world humans eat other humans too. This is why we are not different from other creatures especially chimps since as biologist have mapped out over 90% of our genes are linked to chimps. As far as Jeffrey Dahmer he was just sick psychologically because he was a psychopath. It is weird even for some murders to eat their victim. Of course this is off topic.
|
|
|
|
|
Saladin
Senior Member 
Male Joined: 04 September 2007 Location: Sri Lanka Status: Offline Points: 575 |
Post Options
Thanks(0)
Quote Reply
Posted: 09 May 2008 at 2:44am |
|
Israfil,
I'm curious. You say that homosexuality is innate and natural and still manage to believe in a God who destroyed a nation for that very reason. What does that mean? Was God wrong about Sodom? Had I that doubt, that's good reason for me to not believe in that God.
I can add one more to your example of the prevalence of homosexuality in the animal kingdom (or so as you say). Male chimps stimulating each other sexually, due to the absence of female chimps, as I read in some Wildlife site. We also find some chimps engaging in cannibalism. If we are to take points from that, perhaps Dahmer wasnt as sick as we thought he was, huh?
|
|
|
'Trust everyone but not the devil in them'
|
|
|
|
|
Shasta'sAunt
Senior Member
Female Joined: 29 March 2008 Status: Offline Points: 1930 |
Post Options
Thanks(0)
Quote Reply
Posted: 09 May 2008 at 1:35am |
|
IS: First, what is written in The Quran will always hold prominence over the Ahadith. You can look at the Ahadith in light of The Quran, but if something in the Ahadith is not in line with The Quran then you should follow The Quran.
The fact that Allah knows what will happen before it happens is not the same as Allah deciding what will happen.
Knowing the future is not the same as creating the future.
You may think that because Allah knows what you are going to do it will cause you to do it, but rather your actions are not caused by Allah's knowledge but Allah's knowledge is of your choices. He did not make these choices for you, nor did He cause you to make them.
Allah has clearly stated in The Quran that man will be judged according to what choices he makes. If you read the context and Ayats of the verses you yourself posted you will see that even these support this. "every soul will have what it has earned and it will be held responsible only for its own doing." Al Baqarah 2:286
This is an excellent excerpt:
"But there is no need to go to such extremes, since it is not difficult to reconcile Divine qadar (predestination) and human responsibility. Allah decided to create man as a free agent, but He knows (and how can He not know!) before creating every man how he is going to use his free will; what, for instance, his reaction would be when a Prophet clarifies Allah�s message to him. This foreknowledge and its registering in a �Book� is called qadar.
�But if we are free to use our will� a Qadari might say, �we may use it in ways that contradict Allah�s will, and in that case we would not be right in claiming that everything is willed or decreed by Allah.� The Qur�an answers this question by reminding us that it was Allah who willed that we shall be of free will, and it is He who allows us to use our will. Allah, Most High, says, �Lo! This is an Admonishment, that whosoever will may choose a way unto his Lord. Yet ye will not, unless Allah willeth. Lo! Allah is Knower, Wise.� (Al-Insan: 29-30) �If so,� a Qadari might say, �He could have prevented us from doing evil." Yes indeed He could. Allah says, �Had Allah willed, He would have brought them all together to the guidance; if thy Lord had willed whoever is in the earth would have believed, all of them, all together.� (Yunus: 99) �Had Allah willed, they were not idolaters; and We have not appointed thee a watcher over them neither art thou their guardian.� (Al-An`am: 107) But Allah has willed that men shall be free especially in regard to matters of belief and disbelief. Allah Almighty says, �Say: The truth is from your Lord; so let whosoever will believe, and let whosoever will disbelieve.� (Al-Kahf: 29) But men would not be so free if whenever any of them wills to do evil Allah prevents him from doing it and compels him to do good. �If our actions are willed by Allah,� someone might say, �then they are in fact His actions.� This objection is based on a confusion that Allah wills what we will in the sense of granting us the will to choose and enabling us to execute that will, i.e., He creates all that makes it possible for us to do it. He does not will it in the sense of doing it, otherwise it would be quite in order to say, when we drink or eat or sleep for instance that Allah performed these actions. Allah creates them, He does not do or perform them." (Based on Dr. Ja`far Sheikh Idris�s article �Belief in Qadar�. (Source: http://isgkc.org/pillars_qadar.htm). Since Allah has stated that every soul will be held responsible for its own doing then you must either believe that or believe:
1. Allah is not being truthful when He states that man will be judged according to what his own hand has wrought
2. That Allah is not Just and Merciful because He is rewarding and punishing people for something that they had no control over Edited by Shasta'sAunt - 09 May 2008 at 1:59am |
|
|
�No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.�
Eleanor Roosevelt |
|
|
|
|
Israfil
Senior Member
Joined: 08 September 2003 Status: Offline Points: 3984 |
Post Options
Thanks(0)
Quote Reply
Posted: 08 May 2008 at 10:50pm |
|
The article within the link I posted was meant to discuss qadar. Now, if you read my words carefully I was discussing the concept of Qadar and the fact that we act in limited fashion. But my question is how can freedom als have limited involvement? If we are limited how are we free? I'm taking god's knowledge out of the equation for a moment here and discuss absolute freedom. But first, let us define what freedom is:If in fact we are free then there is no limitation on will. If there is limitatiom then we are not free. See the following:
freedom1.the absence of necessity, coercion, or constraint in choice or action2. unrestricted
3. liberation from slavery or restraint or from the power of another.
Physical laws and their limitations are a given so we ALL know that physically we are not free to do anything. Whereas laws of action and inaction (non-physical laws) are more comprehensive. As the article states if you "punch a brick wall and complain that it hurts you cannot blame it on Qadar becaus you are conscious of the wall."
I would agree with the person here that we do act. But I am critiquing the point of view that such action is considered free. Certain actions are acutalized by compulsion as well and if this is true are those actions free? Someone who calls themself an exhibitionist but is compelled to have "sexual intercourse" openly (there are studies on this but let us assume this is hypothetical) are they free? In our eyes the causality of their action is the result of some form of deliberation which in this case a type of conscious effort. However, the problem here lies in what actually caused the behavior. One may argue that it is not compulsion but deliberation. This too is another problem of freedom along with the attributes.
Truly, if possible, we can say freedom is extended to all persons regardless of their biological makeup. I wonder, if such is true then individuals who are mentally defective are they free? I hope you can dwell on these questions.
|
|
|
|
|
Israfil
Senior Member
Joined: 08 September 2003 Status: Offline Points: 3984 |
Post Options
Thanks(0)
Quote Reply
Posted: 08 May 2008 at 10:32pm |
|
S.A. since it is impossible for you to understand my philosophical approach, we'll discuss the issue from the Quranic approach. I will also address your previous comment regarding the weblink and excerpt you have posted.
The following are surah's I've highlighted for discussion:
(1) Nor can a soul die except by Allah�s leave, the term being fixed as by writing. If any do desire a reward in this life, We shall give it to him; and if any do desire a reward in the Hereafter, We shall give it to him. And swiftly shall We reward those that (serve us with) gratitude. S. 3:145
(2) Say: For myself I have no power to benefit, nor power to hurt, save that which Allah willeth. Had I knowledge of the Unseen, I should have abundance of wealth, and adversity would not touch me. I am but a warner, and a bearer of good tidings unto folk who believe. S. 7:188
Allah Predestines the Fate of Every Soul.
(3) The guiding of them is not thy duty (O Muhammad), but Allah guideth whom He will. And whatsoever good thing ye spend, it is for yourselves, when ye spend not save in search of Allah's Countenance; and whatsoever good thing ye spend, it will be repaid to you in full, and ye will not be wronged. S. 2:272
Allah Predestines Our Wills
(4) �Unto whomsoever of you willeth to walk straight. And ye will not, unless (it be) that Allah willeth, the Lord of Creation.� S. 81:28-29 As we see in example (1) bodies which extinguish e.g. death do not die except by Allah's leave. All sentient beings which exist and move and breathe and extinguish do so by God's own knowledge. this point is followed by God's will in point (2). Although I am aware that scholars have divided the philosophy of predestination into several spheres i personally wanted to address the problem of attributes as this would relate to the problem.
When we say "God is All-knowing" it is obvious we are discussing God's knowledge being the maximum comprehensive capcity. What this means is that God knows everything basically. If God knows everything then he knows our past (our past which is the path which we didn't exist prior to our existence) our present (our existence from birth to present) and our future (that which will happen that hasn't). This has become problematic and to support this allow me to present the following Hadith narration: Abu al-Aswad reported that �Imran b Husain asked him: What is your view, what the people do today in the world, and strive for, is it something decreed for them or preordained for them or will their fate in the Hereafter be determined by the fact that their Prophets brought them teaching which they did not act upon? I said: Of course, it is something which is predetermined for them and preordained for them. He (further) said: Then, would it not be an injustice (to punish them)? I felt greatly disturbed because of that, and said: Everything is created by Allah and lies in His Power. He would not be questioned as to what He does, but they would be questioned; thereupon he said to me: May Allah have mercy upon you, I did not mean to ask you but for testing your intelligence. Two men of the tribe of Muzaina came to Allah�s Messenger (may peace be upon him) and said: Allah�s Messenger, what is your opinion that the people do in the world and strive for, is something decreed for them; something preordained for them and will their fate in the Hereafter be determined by the fact that their Prophets brought them teachings which they did not act upon. And thus they became deserving of punishment? Thereupon, he said: Of course, it happens as it is decreed by Destiny and preordained for them, and this view is confirmed by this verse of the Book of Allah, the Exalted and Glorious: �Consider the soul and Him Who made it perfect, then breathed into it its sin and its piety� (xci. 8). (Sahih Muslim, Book 033, Number 6406) Also the following:
Allah's Apostle, the truthful and truly-inspired, said, �Each one of you collected in the womb of his mother for forty days, and then turns into a clot for an equal period (of forty days) and turns into a piece of flesh for a similar period (of forty days) and then Allah sends an angel and orders him to write four things, i.e., his provision, his age, and whether he will be of the wretched or the blessed (in the Hereafter). Then the soul is breathed into him. And by Allah, a person among you (or a man) may do deeds of the people of the Fire till there is only a cubit or an arm-breadth distance between him and the Fire, but then that writing (which Allah has ordered the angel to write) precedes, and he does the deeds of the people of Paradise and enters it; and a man may do the deeds of the people of Paradise till there is only a cubit or two between him and Paradise, and then that writing precedes and he does the deeds of the people of the Fire and enters it.� (Sahih Al-Bukhari, Volume 8, Book 77, Number 593)
As you can see according to the hadiths God has already preordained our duties whether we know them or not. In my view, Freedom is our ignorance of the future because although we seem to act without proviocation accept from our own will, we are still fulfilling what has been preordained before us. Actions cannot be independent of God because God has established the "stage" for our ability to act.
A scholar once said:
Risaleh-i-Barkhavi says: �Not only can He do anything, He actually is the only One Who does anything. When a man writes, it is Allah who has created in his mind the will to write. Allah at the same time gives the power to write, then brings about the motion of the hand and the pen and the appearance upon paper. All other things are passive, Allah alone is active.�
Edited by Israfil - 08 May 2008 at 10:33pm |
|
|
|
|
BMZ
Moderator Group
Joined: 03 April 2006 Status: Offline Points: 1852 |
Post Options
Thanks(0)
Quote Reply
Posted: 08 May 2008 at 6:12am |
Yes and welcome, but please go slow as I write on many sites, mostly hostile to Islam and the Muslims.
 BMZ
|
|
|
Shasta's Aunt: "Well, there's the difference you see. The Bible was written by man about God, The Quran was revealed to man by God."
|
|
|
|
|
Post Reply
|
Page 123 11> |
Tweet
|
| Forum Jump | Forum Permissions You cannot post new topics in this forum You cannot reply to topics in this forum You cannot delete your posts in this forum You cannot edit your posts in this forum You cannot create polls in this forum You cannot vote in polls in this forum |
Topic Options
Israfil wrote: