Is God Proud?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Angeluzza
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
A

Angeluzza

Guest
I am in a debate with a muslim regarding God. I said that God is humble and that this was proved through Christ’s birth, life, and death.

The muslim, however, keeps insisting that God is not humble but is proud. As pride is such a great sin, and threw the devil out of heaven, I cannot see how God can be proud. If He were proud, would He not be self-interested, conceited, arrogant, self-loving, etc.?

Now I am beginning to wonder if perhaps I am interpreting my own faith wrong. Is God proud or not?
 
** In the name of Allah , the Most Gracious , Ever Merciful **

Salaam/ Peace
Angeluzza said:
… Is God proud or not?
Click to expand...
this kind of debate is a wasting of time , is not it ? On the Final day , God won’t ask us about this .Our fate will be decided on the basis of how we worshipped God , if we associated partners with Him or not etc .

God is Just , God won’t do any injustcie to anyone , only God deserves to be worshipped & others are His humble servants – hopefully , these are enough to know for our salavation .
 
I don’t think God is capable of either pride or humility, since these are human attributes.
 
Pride is inappropriately ascribing glory to oneself that one is neither qualified to give nor deserves. There is no glory that God can inappropriately ascribe to Himself, and there is nothing of which he is not worthy, and thus, God can say, “All hail me!” and it is not pride. He is just keeping it real.
 
Angeluzza said:
I am in a debate with a muslim regarding God. I said that God is humble and that this was proved through Christ’s birth, life, and death.

The muslim, however, keeps insisting that God is not humble but is proud. As pride is such a great sin, and threw the devil out of heaven, I cannot see how God can be proud. If He were proud, would He not be self-interested, conceited, arrogant, self-loving, etc.?

Now I am beginning to wonder if perhaps I am interpreting my own faith wrong. Is God proud or not?
Click to expand...
Hi.

Pride or humility is not one of the common attributes of God in Christianity unlike love, merciful, compassionate, forgiving, comforting, etc. God sometimes used adjective to describe what He is, like jealous (and proud?). It’s possible if it’s to denote His greatness and His nature.

However, God loves humility and wants us to be humble. Humility is exemplified by Himself through His Son Jesus. See Philippians 2:8-11 which depicts the ultimate humility that we ever know of.

Prides, on the other hand, is a sin. It is made famous by our first parents when they committed the sin of pride by eating the fruit in the Garden of Eden.

Why do Muslims say that God is proud? Maybe it was said in a context. Remember that Islam’s attributes of God are very similar to Christianity. Of course from our perspective what Islamic god (Allah) did were different things altogether, many of which we do not agree at all.
 
Angeluzza said:
I am in a debate with a muslim regarding God. I said that God is humble and that this was proved through Christ’s birth, life, and death.
Click to expand...
I totally agree.
Now I am beginning to wonder if perhaps I am interpreting my own faith wrong. Is God proud or not?
Click to expand...
Allah in Islam has 99 names, and proud (Arabic: المتكبر) is one of them.
 
Angeluzza said:
I am in a debate with a muslim regarding God. I said that God is humble and that this was proved through Christ’s birth, life, and death.

The muslim, however, keeps insisting that God is not humble but is proud. As pride is such a great sin, and threw the devil out of heaven, I cannot see how God can be proud. If He were proud, would He not be self-interested, conceited, arrogant, self-loving, etc.?

Now I am beginning to wonder if perhaps I am interpreting my own faith wrong. Is God proud or not?
Click to expand...
The Bible says that God is jealous; so I don’t see why He can’t be proud as well.

zerinus
 
I don’t think that the reference to jealousy in Exodus 20:4-5 (“I am a jealous God”) is quite the same thing as the human emotion of jealousy. What that verse intends is a rather formal and hardfast denunciation of idolatry of false gods.

God is all-perfect and immutable; he doesn’t become jealous in the same sense as humans,
 
jdnrite01 said:
I don’t think that the reference to jealousy in Exodus 20:4-5 (“I am a jealous God”) is quite the same thing as the human emotion of jealousy. What that verse intends is a rather formal and hardfast denunciation of idolatry of false gods.
Click to expand...
God need not be proud in the same way that we are proud either; but who is to say that He cannot in His own way be proud?

zerinus
 
I think I phrased it wrong. I meant to say that God is neither proud nor humble because he is immutable. Because he is also omnipotent, he is capable of either emotion, but eternally chose not to be so. One of my previous comments said that he isn’t capable of such emotions, which of course, detracts from omnipotence.

It might be a small point, but I think it is significant.
 
jdnrite01 said:
I think I phrased it wrong. I meant to say that God is neither proud nor humble because he is immutable. Because he is also omnipotent, he is capable of either emotion, but eternally chose not to be so. One of my previous comments said that he isn’t capable of such emotions, which of course, detracts from omnipotence.

It might be a small point, but I think it is significant.
Click to expand...
So how do you explain all the massages in the Bible which attributes various emotions to God, such as hate, anger, love etc.

zerinus
 
zerinus said:
So how do you explain all the massages in the Bible which attributes various emotions to God, such as hate, anger, love etc.

zerinus
Click to expand...
God eternally “hates” sin because it is an affront to him. This is not an emotion per se, it is a state of being as “all perfect.” Rage is in the same category. We all know that "God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him” (1 Jn 4:16)… Again, it’s not an emotion.
 
When we speak of God, we use human words and expressions - being human. When God speaks about Himself, He also uses human words and expressions - so we can understand Him. He speaks to angels in angelic tongues and to us in human tongues, for He is a personal God, not a distant god like the pagan deities.

When God describes His attributes - love, mercy, justice, etc. - He describes Himself truly, for His attributes are not emotions, since God is not a human being. He is Love itself, Mercy itself, Justice itself, and Holiness itself: these are what God is, but they are not who God is. Who God is in His essense, no one can ever know, for His essense is unfathomable to both men and angels.

The jealousy of God means God demands total alliegence from Israel, just as a husband demands total alliegence from his wife. God, in His Covenant, has taken Israel in marriage, making her His Bride; hence, when she ever committed idoltry, He accused Israel of adultery and of going to prostitutes and harlots. In virtue of Jesus Christ, God is now married to the universal Israel, aka, the Catholic Church.

The jealousy of God also means God is vigorously protective of His Children: He delivered Israel out of Egypt, He redeemed her on the Cross, He will save her from her enemies, and He will lead her into eternal peace. (Probably not the correct terms, my apologies for poor communication) God continuously protected Israel from evil and He promised the Church the gates of hell would never prevail against her.

Hence, God can be said to be a Husband and a Father to Israel. He is inded a Father to all, but He is especally a Husband and Father to Israel.
 
Uhh… I think pride has to do with other people. We are proud of ourselves as compared to others because we want to show of the good work we’ve done. I don’t think it’s always a bad thing, though obviously sometimes it is. Anyway, given that, it doesn’t make sense to me to give God the attribute of Pride since God is in perfect awareness of all of His perfect abilities and anything He shares with us lowly creatures is out of His abundance of love, not out of a need to show off.
 
Eucharisted said:
When we speak of God, we use human words and expressions - being human. When God speaks about Himself, He also uses human words and expressions - so we can understand Him. He speaks to angels in angelic tongues and to us in human tongues, for He is a personal God, not a distant god like the pagan deities.

When God describes His attributes - love, mercy, justice, etc. - He describes Himself truly, for His attributes are not emotions, since God is not a human being. He is Love itself, Mercy itself, Justice itself, and Holiness itself: these are what God is, but they are not who God is. Who God is in His essense, no one can ever know, for His essense is unfathomable to both men and angels.

The jealousy of God means God demands total alliegence from Israel, just as a husband demands total alliegence from his wife. God, in His Covenant, has taken Israel in marriage, making her His Bride; hence, when she ever committed idoltry, He accused Israel of adultery and of going to prostitutes and harlots. In virtue of Jesus Christ, God is now married to the universal Israel, aka, the Catholic Church.

The jealousy of God also means God is vigorously protective of His Children: He delivered Israel out of Egypt, He redeemed her on the Cross, He will save her from her enemies, and He will lead her into eternal peace. (Probably not the correct terms, my apologies for poor communication) God continuously protected Israel from evil and He promised the Church the gates of hell would never prevail against her.

Hence, God can be said to be a Husband and a Father to Israel. He is inded a Father to all, but He is especally a Husband and Father to Israel.
Click to expand...
What an eloquent statement!
 
He contains Himself in a small piece of bread which can so easily be broken, only to be with us

When we look at Jesus on the cross we know how much he loved us, When we look at Jesus in the tabernacle we know how much he loves us – Mother Teresa
 
Wow - thank you to everyone for all the replies!

The context of the debate was this: a muslim asked, “What kind of God would be a DEPENDANT fetus that feeds off blood and nutrients of a host?”

I replied: “a humble God.”

The other person then went on to say that I meant “a pagan God” and I said no, a humble God. I then said that my God proved He is not a pagan god because a pagan god would be prideful, since pagan gods are of the devil and the devil is prideful. But because my God was humble (as shown through Christ) He proved He is true God because a prideful God could never have humbled himself to become man as Christ did.

The muslim then said that he had heard Christians all had twisted views, and that this proved it, because only God can be prideful and if God wasn’t proud he would have made all his angels prostrate before Adam. (Problem: didn’t he ask them to do this and Lucifer did not want to? That would further back that God is humble and not just all about Himself but willing to share His glory with His creation. Talk about amazing!)

He then added that God is not love either.

I then did a nice comparison between Mohammed and Christ, showing all the great things about Christ and how Mohammed could not stack up.

The interesting thing is, when I was done with this comparison, I would think the Muslim would offer a good comeback, like “No - here are all the great things Mohammed did” but all he did instead was start attacking me, calling me arrogant for not believing his ideas and attacking the fact that I am American, etc.

I thought this was really fascinating. It really showed me that he had nothing. In the light of the truth of comparing Christ to Mohammed, what could he say? All he could do was resort to childish, angry tactics like insulting me and my country. He had no defense against the pure, perfect life of Christ and the contrary life of Mohammed.

Thank you to everyone for the replies. I just want to make sure I am saying the right things.👍
 
I think that your context of a “humble God” is probably correct. It’s not human humility, but rather a manifestation of God’s love for us. In other words, he’s not stuck on himself; he loves all of us unconditionally.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top