Could it be true? The Quran is not anti-Trinitarian?

[Servant19]

I think the catholic church has deliberately deceived itself on this issue into believing an impossible thing. For myself I cannot reconcile the islamic God and hte Christian God and say they are one in the same God for the God of the quran says he has no son whereas the gospel of Jesus Christ demands we recognise God have a son.

It is clear then that you must try to liberate yourself from the attachment to names and attributes.

If God is so defineable that you can say what the Christian God is and what it isn’t, then it is a figment of human imagination…

.

 

[IgnatianPhilo]

It is clear then that you must try to liberate yourself from the attachment to names and attributes.

If God is so defineable that you can say what the Christian God is and what it isn’t, then it is a figment of human imagination…

.

Oh? Tell me is your God man, That is does your god have a physical body like the mormon god? Take in mind if you answer negatively you are defining your God as immaterial and thus your God is a figment of the imagination.

 

[Servant19]

Oh? Tell me is your God man, That is does your god have a physical body like the mormon god? Take in mind if you answer negatively you are defining your God as immaterial and thus your God is a figment of the imagination.

I have NO IDEA what God is…I’m a human being…what kind of Creator can just be put into a labelled box and on the supermarket shelf by its creation?



.

 

[AspiringSoul]

theoretical vs mystical knowledge that’s why

mystical knowledge can only be experienced personally, theoretical can be agreed upon as it’s based on simple truths.

Theoretically God is 1 and the idea of God possessing offspring is completely absurd.

But from the mystical pov it isn’t so absurd because the mystical truth is how the heart makes it. Jesus loved God, who he called The Father.
Not just His Father but everyone’s Father.
This was his personal inner mystical pov and it was due to his personal connection with God.

This is also why the sadducees hated him because they didn’t understand the idea of a mystical approach to God, they wanted control…they only understood the theoretical. They were filled with theoretical dogma but their hearts were dead to God…

there are people on here who, i won’t say they are evil or distant from God but certainly they’ve confused the mystical approach with the theoretical and here they are attempting to understand Jesus, theoretically…

if the most learned men of judaism couldn’t understand him theoretically how could you?
Even Paul was a complete enemy of Christianity until he saw the vision of Jesus ‘on the road to Damascus’ a fascinating story because it was a mystical story.

It is the same in the muslim world. The mystics had their own way
look at
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mansur_Al-Hallaj
or
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Junayd_of_Baghdad#Difficulties
look at the problems these 2 mystics had at the hands of the people of theoretical knowledge…these men were mad outcasts from the religion

Ibn Arabi is another example.

or Guru Nanak (the founder of sikhism).

one thing you’ll notice, all the people i mentioned above, these men were teaching people a mystic way to be close to God…they were preaching the path of Divine Love. Guess what? So was Jesus!

Jesus preached Faith as much as he did Love because they are one and the same thing.

What’s the point being charged with all this theoretical knowledge, having opinions on the nature of God-head…accepting/rejecting other religious views, if you don’t have love/faith? then what’s the point?

religious/sectarian dogma was exactly what Jesus encountered. It’s the very thing he was exposing.

 

[daler]

theoretical vs mystical knowledge that’s why

mystical knowledge can only be experienced personally, theoretical can be agreed upon as it’s based on simple truths.

Theoretically God is 1 and the idea of God possessing offspring is completely absurd.

But from the mystical pov it isn’t so absurd because the mystical truth is how the heart makes it. Jesus loved God, who he called The Father.
Not just His Father but everyone’s Father.
This was his personal inner mystical pov and it was due to his personal connection with God.

This is also why the sadducees hated him because they didn’t understand the idea of a mystical approach to God, they wanted control…they only understood the theoretical. They were filled with theoretical dogma but their hearts were dead to God…

there are people on here who, i won’t say they are evil or distant from God but certainly they’ve confused the mystical approach with the theoretical and here they are attempting to understand Jesus, theoretically…

if the most learned men of judaism couldn’t understand him theoretically how could you?
Even Paul was a complete enemy of Christianity until he saw the vision of Jesus ‘on the road to Damascus’ a fascinating story because it was a mystical story.

It is the same in the muslim world. The mystics had their own way
look at
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mansur_Al-Hallaj
or
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Junayd_of_Baghdad#Difficulties
look at the problems these 2 mystics had at the hands of the people of theoretical knowledge…these men were mad outcasts from the religion

Ibn Arabi is another example.

or Guru Nanak (the founder of sikhism).

one thing you’ll notice, all the people i mentioned above, these men were teaching people a mystic way to be close to God…they were preaching the path of Divine Love. Guess what? So was Jesus!

Jesus preached Faith as much as he did Love because they are one and the same thing.

What’s the point being charged with all this theoretical knowledge, having opinions on the nature of God-head…accepting/rejecting other religious views, if you don’t have love/faith? then what’s the point?

religious/sectarian dogma was exactly what Jesus encountered. It’s the very thing he was exposing.

Aspiring Soul,
. I want to thank you for one of the most insightful and refreshing posts that I have read in a long time…

. What strikes me as odd is when people try to grasp the nature of God and His Prophets with the intellect alone. It can’t be done!

. They (the Prophets) are coming from a spiritual land where we have never been. They seek to guide us, but do not force us along that path.

. Humanity has a terrible history of stoning and killing the Prophets and Messengers of God. They always use words and arguments to deny the beauty of the Revelation of God when it comes to them as a great Light in the darkness in which they dwell.

. The Word of God is overpowering, mystifying, beyond normal comprehension.

Salaam,
Dale

 

[IgnatianPhilo]

I have NO IDEA what God is…I’m a human being…what kind of Creator can just be put into a labelled box and on the supermarket shelf by its creation?



.

So you worship that which you cannot know.

You cannot know the trinity is false so why do you as a bahai dissagree with it? You cannot know if God is loving because that would be defining God, putting him in a box and limiting him. you cannot know your God is actual person as opposed to a abstract concept which doesn’t do anything.

If you are going to not define God in anyway you reduce your entire religion to absurdity.

Does your God speak? What entails speaking? A mind? Thinking? Does your God think? Does your God act upon what he thinks? What do you know?

Your God is a God which cannot possibly be known therefore I really have no qualms in rejecting such a God because he really cannot do anything to me can he. Did he create me? You cannot say because that would be labeling him as a creator, making him creative and thoughtful. Can he damn me? You cannot say because that would make him just and right and that would be limiting God.

Can God your God lie? You cannot say yes or no.

Your concept of God is rediculous to me.

 

[Servant19]

So you worship that which you cannot know.

You cannot know the trinity is false so why do you as a bahai dissagree with it? You cannot know if God is loving because that would be defining God, putting him in a box and limiting him. you cannot know your God is actual person as opposed to a abstract concept which doesn’t do anything.

If you are going to not define God in anyway you reduce your entire religion to absurdity.

Does your God speak? What entails speaking? A mind? Thinking? Does your God think? Does your God act upon what he thinks? What do you know?

Your God is a God which cannot possibly be known therefore I really have no qualms in rejecting such a God because he really cannot do anything to me can he. Did he create me? You cannot say because that would be labeling him as a creator, making him creative and thoughtful. Can he damn me? You cannot say because that would make him just and right and that would be limiting God.

Can God your God lie? You cannot say yes or no.

Your concept of God is rediculous to me.

Ignatian, when you look at the light that shines around you during the day, does that define the sun?

NOBODY on this planet knows and will never know absolutely everything about the sun. It is unapproachable.

Light is an ATTRIBUTE of the sun
Love is an ATTRIBUTE of God

Don’t confuse yourself with assuming an attribute is a definition of the source of that attribute.

Light is not the sun, and neither is God love.

Of course I worship that which I cannot know, for if I can know Him, He would no longer be worthy of worship, maybe admiration at most, but not worship…while at the same time, the more we worship Him, the more intimate will be our communion with Him. This communion is never stagnant, it’s always perfecting and moving towards an infinite Paradise…

I pray to God that you read and digested well AspiringSouls wonderful post…

.

 

[IgnatianPhilo]

Ignatian, when you look at the light that shines around you during the day, does that define the sun?

NOBODY on this planet knows and will never know absolutely everything about the sun. It is unapproachable.

Light is an ATTRIBUTE of the sun
Love is an ATTRIBUTE of God

Don’t confuse yourself with assuming an attribute is a definition of the source of that attribute.

Light is not the sun, and neither is God love.

Of course I worship that which I cannot know, for if I can know Him, He would no longer be worthy of worship, maybe admiration at most, but not worship…while at the same time, the more we worship Him, the more intimate will be our communion with Him. This communion is never stagnant, it’s always perfecting and moving towards an infinite Paradise…

I pray to God that you read and digested well AspiringSouls wonderful post…

.

The light as proceeding from the sun absolutely defines the sun for if there was no day there would be no sun. A sun by its very nature produces light, not darkness, it has attributes and elements that we can definitely say about it. For instance, the sun is Hot, large, spherical, bright and ancient. All these words mean something and I don’t think the sun as analogy to your God in this case actually helps you.

Now its not about knowing everything about the sun but its about saying if we can know anything at all about the sun which we obviously can. Your shifting the goals here, at first you attempted to refute me defining God by suggesting that such a defined God is actually limiting him. In a sense it is limiting him but God must be defined in some way in order to have a coherent concept. Lets start with the most basic definition we can make and attribute to God, existence, that he is existence itself from which all else draws existence is plain, that he is not nothing is plain. Already we have limited God by this definition by making him not non-being but rather an existing being.

Now I totally disagree with you on the nature of love, believing God himself to be love. For if love is not God as you say, or not essential to his being it is an abstract value which your God must be bound to either reject or accept. I find such notions troubling, like suggesting God isn’t the root of all morality, you make God either bound to morality just this abstract reality which eternally exists or he rejects it.

Now I want to suggest a definition that might be helpful, comprehension and understanding. Lets define comprehension as to perceive how something works, and understanding to know how an object functions. We cannot comprehend God, that is his divinity is unable to be grasped, looked at, studied or anything. We can however understand certain things about this God, that he is one for instance, that he cannot be broken up and divided, that he is all powerful, that he is non physical. I found it surprising that the bahai would not even say their God is a non physical entity.

So with such a definition laid what can you say about your God in the end? What can you understand about your God? Does your God love you? Can you know that?

As for soul, until he can represent the Athanasian creed in the other thread correctly I really have no interest in a gnostic muslim.

 

[AspiringSoul]

The light as proceeding from the sun absolutely defines the sun for if there was no day there would be no sun. A sun by its very nature produces light, not darkness, it has attributes and elements that we can definitely say about it. For instance, the sun is Hot, large, spherical, bright and ancient. All these words mean something and I don’t think the sun as analogy to your God in this case actually helps you.

Now its not about knowing everything about the sun but its about saying if we can know anything at all about the sun which we obviously can. Your shifting the goals here, at first you attempted to refute me defining God by suggesting that such a defined God is actually limiting him. In a sense it is limiting him but God must be defined in some way in order to have a coherent concept. Lets start with the most basic definition we can make and attribute to God, existence, that he is existence itself from which all else draws existence is plain, that he is not nothing is plain. Already we have limited God by this definition by making him not non-being but rather an existing being.

Now I totally disagree with you on the nature of love, believing God himself to be love. For if love is not God as you say, or not essential to his being it is an abstract value which your God must be bound to either reject or accept. I find such notions troubling, like suggesting God isn’t the root of all morality, you make God either bound to morality just this abstract reality which eternally exists or he rejects it.

Now I want to suggest a definition that might be helpful, comprehension and understanding. Lets define comprehension as to perceive how something works, and understanding to know how an object functions. We cannot comprehend God, that is his divinity is unable to be grasped, looked at, studied or anything. We can however understand certain things about this God, that he is one for instance, that he cannot be broken up and divided, that he is all powerful, that he is non physical. I found it surprising that the bahai would not even say their God is a non physical entity.

So with such a definition laid what can you say about your God in the end? What can you understand about your God? Does your God love you? Can you know that?

As for soul, until he can represent the Athanasian creed in the other thread correctly** I really have no interest in a gnostic muslim**.

seeing as you don’t even know the difference between Gnosis as a concept and Gnosticism the sect, which you accused me of belonging to
why should it really matter what you think? you don’t even know your own arguments
the Athanasian Creed made it very clear Jesus Christ has 2 natures

we all have 2 natures

flesh
spirit

 

[IgnatianPhilo]

seeing as you don’t even know the difference between Gnosis as a concept and Gnosticism the sect, which you accused me of belonging to
why should it really matter what you think? you don’t even know your own arguments
the Athanasian Creed made it very clear Jesus Christ has 2 natures

we all have 2 natures

flesh
spirit

Of course it made it very clear jesus has two natures but you go one step further by making Jesus (according to your interpretation) different from the Christ, as if there was a Jesus and the Christ which was a gnostic belief. You share their beliefs, you seemingly reject the ressurection being actual bodies and instead prefer a bodiless bliss. From what I am seeing you are one of the gnostics and would have gladly joined with them in the second century instead of the church. Am i wrong? But I will open a thread if you are interested wherein the Athanasian creed can be discussed specifically.

 

[Shia_Muslim]

It isn’t a false notion, its a true notion. the identity of these Gods contradicts. Christians worship a trinity. Muslims deny the trinity. Therefore we do not have the same God.

Jews reject the Trinity…

 

[IgnatianPhilo]

Jews reject the Trinity…

Your point? Jews reject the true God by denying the son just as much as muslims do in my opinion.

 

[Prayformeiprayf]

It is clear then that you must try to liberate yourself from the attachment to names and attributes.

If God is so defineable that you can say what the Christian God is and what it isn’t, then it is a figment of human imagination…

.

Because of the illuminati

 

[Servant19]

Your point? Jews reject the true God by denying the son just as much as muslims do in my opinion.

I think is point is that by your logic, the Christian God is as foreign to Judaism as it is to Islam.

You are creating a straw man for yourself dear friend. It is for this very reason why the Catholic Church acknowledges that Islam worships the same one God as Catholicism. To avoid this straw man…

.

 

[Servant19]

Because of the illuminati

I have no idea what this means dear friend

.

 

[AspiringSoul]

Of course it made it very clear jesus has two natures but you go one step further by making Jesus (according to your interpretation) different from the Christ, as if there was a Jesus and the Christ which was a gnostic belief. You share their beliefs, you seemingly reject the ressurection being actual bodies and instead prefer a bodiless bliss. From what I am seeing you are one of the gnostics and would have gladly joined with them in the second century instead of the church. Am i wrong? But I will open a thread if you are interested wherein the Athanasian creed can be discussed specifically.

sigh
You really don’t understand where i’m coming from do you?
I have always maintained that as far as ‘God’ is concerned there are 2 ways of looking at God Theoretically…and Mystically.
The belief that The Word became Flesh, for example.

It’s not a theoretical concept, it’s mystical in it’s nature because theoretically it is contrary to the Monothiestic Abrahimic beliefs, contrary to judaism, contrary to islamic tawheed. Mystically however, it is very poignant and beautiful

if you ask me whether I genuinely believe God became a man, i would tell you,. mystically yes, theoretically no.

This here is the essence of the matter, where you disagree.

I’ve studied the New Testament and what becomes very clear is there are many teachings that are mystical in nature and not theroetical.

‘I am in the Father and the Father is in me’ this is mystical, not theoretical.

Now what I’ve explained to you, regarding the difference between the theoretical approach and mystical approach is very much a part of islamic theology.

The question is for it’s evidence in the Christian world, is it a theoretical truth or mystical truth?

Let me put it this way, Theoretical truth is from the Intelligence…Mystical truth is from Wisdom.

Is this making sense? Can you now begin to see what the Wisdom of the new testament is? afterall Wisdom itself is the very root of The Word.

The only point of disagreement I have with you is regarding the literal interpretation of a mystical truth.

Ie
Hold a natural object in your hand.

Is it God? Do you see God before your eyes?

answer:No

Why? because you cannot see God with your eyes.

Now look with the eye of your heart, the inner eye, do you see God in the object

Jesus did not ask people to search for God with the 2 eyes, but with the inner eye.

*Luke 11
Your eye is the lamp of your body. When your eyes are healthy, your whole body also is full of light. But when they are unhealthy, your body also is full of darkness.
See to it, then, that **the light within you *is not darkness.

^^
it also matches this saying of Prophet Mohammed

*"There is in the body a clump of flesh - if it becomes good, the whole body becomes good and if it becomes bad, the whole body becomes bad.

And indeed it is the heart."
(Bukhari)
*

Have you ever read about Otto’s ‘Mysterium’?

What this all reveals to me is that Jesus Christ the man is not the same as Jesus Christ the Son of God, they are 2 different realities, the physical man is perceived with the 2 eyes but the Son of God, the Word incarnate, is only perceived by the inner eye.

What i reject is the attempt to perceive the ‘Son of God’ with the 2 eyes. That’s my personal view of the matter.

ps
If i’ve already said I don’t have any connection with the ‘gnostic’ sect of the 2nd century, why would you accuse me or assume i share any of it’s beliefs? There may be some overlapping similarities but that’s where they end. The term ‘Marifah’ means Gnosis but Gnosis is not limited to any sect, it is universal.

here is the definition of Marifah
*
"Marifa (Arabic: المعرفة‎), which literally means knowledge, is the term used by Sufi Muslims to describe mystical intuitive knowledge of spiritual truth reached through ecstatic experiences, rather than revealed or rationally acquired.

In one of the earliest accounts of the Maqamat-l arba’in (“forty stations”) in Sufism, Sufi master Abu Said ibn Abi’l-Khayr lists marifa as the 25th station: “Through all the creatures of the two worlds, and through all the people, they perceive Allah, and there is no accusation to be made of their perception.”
*

Also I obviously do believe in the physical resurrection as this is a Quranic teaching.

 

[IgnatianPhilo]

I think is point is that by your logic, the Christian God is as foreign to Judaism as it is to Islam.

You are creating a straw man for yourself dear friend. It is for this very reason why the Catholic Church acknowledges that Islam worships the same one God as Catholicism. To avoid this straw man…

.

A strawman is a logical fallacy wherein you attack a point your opponent did not make in order to demonstrate they are wrong. I hardly know how I am creating one for myself or how that applies to me apparently doing it to myself.

The Christian God is as foreign to Judaism, that is the judaism which has developed since the second temple’s destruction and explicit denial by jews of the Christ which developed from then on. I am not inconsistent, or rather I try I not to be. The Jews and the muslims worship a false God in my opinion, they deny the true God by denying Christ. Christ says he who denies the son denies the father and I believe him.

 

[IgnatianPhilo]

I disagree with everything you said, then again nothing could convince you that your interpretation is wrong. I must follow that which left to begin with, the church and its teachings from its ecumenical councils which rejected the gnostics, their views and yours.

What does it mean when Christ says he is in the father? It means that Christ is of one substance with the father. I think to introduce the idea that there a Jesus and the Christ speaking misses the entire point of the incarnation, that God loved us so much, despite all our wickedness and evil deeds and incompetence before him that he took on everything except sin in becoming human. What is the point of a spirit possessing a person? Is that an incarnation? What is the point of Jesus, this innocent man being used as a pawn for the Christ? Why can’t Christ have created his own body to use instead of this one?

Now the wisdom of the New testament is foolishness to you. Theres a reason why the greeks laughed at Saint Paul when he spoke of resurrection, it was an idea which was utterly impossible for them, the dead stay dead and no one can change it. We are to become immortal souls and these useless bodies which cannot possibly be of any lasting good must be discarded from. Jewish thought was not like that however, jewish thought accepted the resurrection that or the total annihilation of the soul like the saducees preached.

I don’t read the New Testament from a view in which I try to make it as mystical as possible. Such readings are dangerous and can lead to any number of interpretations of any given text and hence the text is impossible to understand. We must understand the bible in the context of its time and I would also argue the tradition of the church. What Ignatius of Antioch has to say about the gnostics who deny Jesus had a body is important, just as it is important to read what Iranaeaus wrote about them.

Now don’t treat me like an idiot. I know one cannot see God in his divinity, I know such a divinity cannot be comprehended, comprehension meaning to grasp something and understand how that something works. God cannot be comprehended but he can be understood. God is not a God of nonsense in which nothing real can be said of him. We can describe this God. He is Good, he does not lie, he is beyond the universe, he took on another nature (humanity), he exists in three persons.

As far as the light within is concerned, there is the rest of the passage. Therefore, if your whole body is full of light, and no part of it dark, it will be just as full of light as when a lamp shines its light on you.” Since it is predicated by “if your whole body is full of light,” It indicates that not everyone will necessarily have that light. So what is that light? Is it vague human goodness? Or is it the holy spirit of God? The latter would make more sense to me.

Your chief point to the idea that there must be a Jesus and a Christ, one being the mere man and the other being the spirit becomes an impossible reality in the new testament for no one seemed to have understood this. If such a theology were the theology of the writers of the new testament we might not expect Paul to mention this Jesus at all, who was he? He was not sent from God, rather the Christ within him was yet Paul mentions “Our lord Jesus Christ,” time and time again. For Paul there is no differentiation between Jesus the Christ. I think also we must understand what Christ means, it means anointed one, a station given by God to his appointed and Jesus was the Christ. How does one specifically identify who is giving the teaching? You used before the example of Jesus saying he did not know the time or the hour.

Mathew 24:36 But of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels of heaven, but my Father only.

Yet a verse before that we have this emphatic statement.

35 Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away.

Is this Jesus or the Word speaking? Did Jesus just butt in halfway into the conversation to add a comment which would only confuse people if what you are saying is true? Can you possibly print an edition of the bible wherein you can print the words of the Logos in Red and the words of Jesus in blue?

Your concept sounds convenient at first to try and explain what you see as contradictions, but the church has long since addressed what has seemed to be contradictions and your interpretation into the text assumes a world view which is primarily not jewish but is something more akin to the gnostics. I suggest anyone reading the bible with such a world view is not going to come to the correct understanding of the text.

 

[Tom_Baum]

So why do you think the Catholic Church acknowledges the Islamic God as the same one God as is worshipped in Catholicism?

.

Personally, I do NOT think that “the Catholic Church acknowledges the Islamic God as the same one God as is worshipped in Catholicism”.

I think that the Catholic Church might say that there is some truth in the koran but I think that the Catholic Church has noticed that the koran denies the Divinity of Jesus, denies the Trinitarian Nature of God and the Catholic Church has always taught that Jesus Is God-Incarnate and that God Is a Trinity.

 

[Tom_Baum]

It is clear then that you must try to liberate yourself from the attachment to names and attributes.

If God is so defineable that you can say what the Christian God is and what it isn’t, then it is a figment of human imagination…

.

Either God became One of us in the Incarnation or He didn’t, it is that simple.

Christianity is about God becoming One of us in the Incarnation and islam is about saying that God did NOT become One of us in the Incarnation.

Pretty simple, one or the other could be true, they could both be false but they can NOT both be true.

Even tho words can be quite inadequate in speaking of God, they are quite adequate in speaking of whether or not God became Incarnate.

Ever notice that the god of the koran speaks highly of Jesus, at least the Jesus of the koran Who is quite different from the Jesus of the bible, yet not only denies Jesus’s Divinity but than claims Jesus as his prophet?