Is it bad to like Islamic spirituality?

[josie_L]

if you are referring to philosophies of Al-Ghazali then it refers to Gods ESSENTIAL attributes. These attributes are not expressed in creation, but are rather expressed through Gods active attributes.

The concept is found in Catholicism but has been elaborated more fully in Islam and even more so in the Baha’i Writings.

An analogy which may help you understand this uses her sun. In its essence, the sun has essential attributes of intensity, violence, destruction, yet these attributes are manifested in its active attributes on earth with the loving qualities of heat and light.

Hope this helps clarify how Catholicism and Islam when studied fully are not in disagreement on the nature of God. One must always discern that there is a difference between God in His essence (Deus a Se) and His affiliated essential attributes, and ***Deus pro nobis *** which is the concept of God for us which explores His “active” (rather than essential) attributes.

.

Oh, for the love of all that’s holy, I just gave you the very words of a pope delineating those differences, and you insist that Catholicism and Islam’s understanding of God are not in disagreement.

I really think you know less than you think you do.

 

[ialsop]

…Wow.

I leave the thread for half a week and 5 pages get added to it.

Good discussion guys. OP here…I think my question has been answered. Well, with two VERY different answers.

And I think it is clear which one lies in line with Catholic dogma.

Thanks for an awesome discussion though.

Isaac

 

[TonyBS]

Oh, for the love of all that’s holy, I just gave you the very words of a pope delineating those differences, and you insist that Catholicism and Islam’s understanding of God are not in disagreement.

I really think you know less than you think you do.

I also see it Servants way…as to me it is a choice, Personally I can not get too much into this Dogma, that Dogma about God as in the end we just fool ourselves that we have any idea at all.

So I like to keep it simple, look for God and the Good in all and funny enough it is there? Go Figure

What is even more amazing is it could be actually that simple, God is One. When we look for Oneness we find it in the Multiplicity of meanings. There is no Disagreement in Gods Creation but a harmonious blend of opposites, there is in mans understanding of it all.

Now a funny thing here is that, that all this is a part of the One God and His Creation, all but a lesson for us, the bounty of reflection on our free will.

God Bless and Regards Tony

 

[TonyBS]

…Wow.

I leave the thread for half a week and 5 pages get added to it.

Good discussion guys. OP here…I think my question has been answered. Well, with two VERY different answers.

And I think it is clear which one lies in line with Catholic dogma.

Thanks for an awesome discussion though.

Isaac

Is that Clear as Mud, or not?

So what did you conclude, it will be interesting to know!

Regards Tony

 

[Servant19]

Oh, for the love of all that’s holy, I just gave you the very words of a pope delineating those differences, and you insist that Catholicism and Islam’s understanding of God are not in disagreement.

I really think you know less than you think you do.

Dear josie, you can kick up a stink as much as you wish but there is no way that I am going to fall back on incorrect theology, especially incorrect theology that drives a wedge at the heart of Islam and the wicked untruths being shared about it.

The Pope in his Regensburg speech, while quoting from the Byzantine emperor’s dialogue with an educated Persian (the Worthy Mouterizes) (I’m also from Iran btw and my wife is Jordanian, fluent in Arabic and a reader of Ghazali) is, whether he believes in what he was saying or not, INCORRECT in his assertions about Islam.

These sorts of speeches bring a following with them (a bit like yourself ) who blindly accept what is being preached as Gospel, not realising that it is full of errors, and that this is actually the heart of the problems we are currently facing in the world. It is, to put it bluntly, bigoted.

Here are some of the misinformation shared in Regensburg.

1. Surah 2:256 “Let there be no compulsion in religion”. The Pope makes the statement that this verse was revealed by Muhammad during His early years when He was weak. What nonsense!
   Recent Quranic studies research published by the United Nations University indicates clearly that this verse was revealed during the invasion of Banu Nadir in 625, near the end of Muhammad’s earthly life.
2. Now lets get onto this irrational God nonsense.
   The conclusion is made that because God has “pure Will” that He is “irrational”
   Could you please share how a God that has Will must therefore act irrationally?
   To conclude that just because God has His own will, he must therefore be ok with idol worship, if He chooses it, is simply irrational from your part, and that’s putting it mildly.

Can you please tell me Josie, if God has His own Will in Islam, who has the Will of God in Christianity? Does God have no authority over His own Will? Can the Christian God not remove gravity and contradict himself?

He seems to contradict Himself when pork is unclean in the OT, yet it’s perfectly clean in a Christians breakfast table today…

.

 

[Even_So]

**Again…
Please remain within forum posting rules on inter-religious dialogue. **

Mr Modertatership,

What exactly will offend thee? And who and how many define what is wrong or right may i ask? I get bashed for self describing myself as Protestant, but we have JESUS in common. In the other religions there is no JESUS as LORD. These being Catholic forums, i hope u believe in defending Him and give some leniency to those of us who will not run from the Truth. He is KING of kings and LORD of lords! Even so, come LORD JESUS! Amen!

Prolly more to come.
Thank you for understanding.
GOD bless

 

[josie_L]

Dear josie, you can kick up a stink as much as you wish but there is no way that I am going to fall back on incorrect theology, especially incorrect theology that drives a wedge at the heart of Islam and the wicked untruths being shared about it.

What does this even mean, when I am but clarifying our positions regarding our understanding of God, and I am using, furthermore, Islamic scholars and Catholic sources in order to back up my claims?

The Catholic and Muslim understanding of who God is, is different, I did not say, however, that we are worshipping a different God, it is simply how we understand who that God is that differentiates Catholicism and Islam.

If you insist on denying this, than there is nothing further to discuss.

The Pope in his Regensburg speech, while quoting from the Byzantine emperor’s dialogue with an educated Persian (the Worthy Mouterizes) (I’m also from Iran btw and my wife is Jordanian, fluent in Arabic and a reader of Ghazali) is, whether he believes in what he was saying or not, INCORRECT in his assertions about Islam.

And I would say that, yes, the pope was correct in his address, as he would not be imprudent enough to state something that was false (especially being that he was addressing academia). Moreover, you should take the time to actually read the whole address, so you can understand in full what his claims were:

In all honesty, one must observe that in the late Middle Ages we find trends in theology which would sunder this synthesis between the Greek spirit and the Christian spirit. In contrast with the so-called intellectualism of Augustine and Thomas, there arose with Duns Scotus a voluntarism which, in its later developments, led to the claim that we can only know God’s voluntas ordinata. Beyond this is the realm of God’s freedom, in virtue of which he could have done the opposite of everything he has actually done. This gives rise to positions which clearly approach those of Ibn Hazm and might even lead to the image of a capricious God, who is not even bound to truth and goodness. God’s transcendence and otherness are so exalted that our reason, our sense of the true and good, are no longer an authentic mirror of God, whose deepest possibilities remain eternally unattainable and hidden behind his actual decisions. As opposed to this, the faith of the Church has always insisted that between God and us, between his eternal Creator Spirit and our created reason there exists a real analogy, in which - as the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215 stated - unlikeness remains infinitely greater than likeness, yet not to the point of abolishing analogy and its language. God does not become more divine when we push him away from us in a sheer, impenetrable voluntarism; rather, the truly divine God is the God who has revealed himself as logos and, as logos, has acted and continues to act lovingly on our behalf. Certainly, love, as Saint Paul says, “transcends” knowledge and is thereby capable of perceiving more than thought alone (cf. Eph 3:19); nonetheless it continues to be love of the God who is Logos. Consequently, Christian worship is, again to quote Paul - “λογικη λατρεία”, worship in harmony with the eternal Word and with our reason (cf. Rom 12:1).[10]

Again, in Muslim theology, is there anything that states that God is logos in such emphatic terms?

These sorts of speeches bring a following with them (a bit like yourself)

Yes, it’s called following Catholicism and not the Ba’ hai faith.

who blindly accept what is being preached as Gospel

So let me guess this straight, Pope Benedict XVI, a learned man of theology who taught at several German universities for decades, speaks 9 languages/dialects and has many honorary degrees, is blindly accepting what is being preached as Gospel??

not realising that it is full of errors, and that this is actually the heart of the problems we are currently facing in the world. It is, to put it bluntly, bigoted.

Are you calling emeritus Pope Benedict XVI bigoted for stating what he did in his Regensburg address?

1. Surah 2:256 “Let there be no compulsion in religion”. The Pope makes the statement that this verse was revealed by Muhammad during His early years when He was weak. What nonsense!

Recent Quranic studies research published by the United Nations University indicates clearly that this verse was revealed during the invasion of Banu Nadir in 625, near the end of Muhammad’s earthly life.

When you say, recent, how recent, prior or post Regensburg address, because from all intents and purposes, the Pope was only speaking what others before him have stated regarding that statement, i.e., that it was revealed by Muhammed during his early years.

Curious to know, why you are capitalizing the “he”, with regards to Muhammed?

 

[josie_L]

1. Now lets get onto this irrational God nonsense.
   The conclusion is made that because God has “pure Will” that He is “irrational”
   Could you please share how a God that has Will must therefore act irrationally?
   To conclude that just because God has His own will, he must therefore be ok with idol worship, if He chooses it, is simply irrational from your part, and that’s putting it mildly.

Although, I’ve tried to make you understand what is meant by “pure will”, I will try once more. So let me take an excerpt from the book “The Closing Of The Muslim Mind”:

"The Ash’arite view developed a theological basis for the primacy of will by claiming that the revelation of Muhammed emphasized most particularly, and above all, two attributes of God. His uncompromising omnipotence and will. “Allah does what He wills” (Quran 14;27). God’s nature IS His will. He is “the great Doer of what He wills” and “Effecter of what He intends” (Quran 85:15). All monotheistic religions hold that, in order to be one, God must be omnipotent by concentrating exclusively on His unlimited power, as against His reason. God’s “reasons” are unknoweable by man. God rules as He pleases. Allah had only to say “not be” to bring about its end - without a reason for doing either. His word is sufficient for creation or annihilation, though His word is His will, rather than an expression of His REASON (logos). Therefore, creation is not imprinted with reason. It cannot reflect what is not there. As a result, there is no rational order invested in the universe upon which one can rely, only the second-to-second manifestation of God’s will.

God is so powerful that every instant is the equivalent of a miracle. Nothing intervenes or has independent or even semi-autonomous existence. The universe is in no way self-subsistent. In philosophical language, this view, called “voluntarism,” holds that God is the primary cause of everything and there are no SECONDARY causes. There is no causal mediation. Therefore, what may seem to be “natural laws”, such as the laws of gravity, physics, etc. are really nothing more than God’s customs or habits, which He is at complete liberty to break or change at any moment.

More than 150 years after Al-Ash’ari’s death, one of his successors, Abu Hamid al-Ghazali, wrote in Deliverance from Error. "Nature is ENTIRELY subject to God; incapable of acting by itself, it is an instrument in the hand of the Creator, sun, moon, stars, and elements are subject to God and can produce nothing of themselves. In a word, nothing in nature can act spontaneously and apart from God.

On could say that everything that happens is the result of supernatural causes, though the word supernatural becomes meaningless in the absence of the word “natural” from which to distinguish it. As Duncan Macdonald observed, “Miracles and what we regard as the ordinary operations of nature are on the same level.” In the introduction to his translation of Averroe’s “The Incoherence of The Incoherence”, Simon Van Den Bergh quipped “One might say that, for the Muslim theologian, all nature is miraculous and all miracles are natural.” In other words, every “natural” event is the result of a particular divine act. If this is true, if divine intervention is used to explain natural phenomena, then rational explanations for them or inquiries into them become forms of impiety, if not blasphemy.

The consequences of this voluntaristic view are momentous. If creation exists simply as a succession of miraculous moments, it cannot be apprehended by reason. Other religions, including Christianity, recognize miracles. But they recognize them precisely as temporary and extraordinary suspensions of the natural law. In fact, that is what defines them as miracles. One admits to the possible explanation of its occurrence by natural causes. In Voluntaristic Islamic thought, however, there are no natural causes to discount. As a result, reality becomes incomprehensible and the purpose of things in themselves indiscernible because they have no inner logic. If unlimited will is the exclusive constituent of reality, there is really nothing left to reason about. The primacy of will has no boundaries in reason.

Macdonald wrote that, for Al-Ghazali, "the fundamental thing in the world and the starting point of all speculation is will. Whereas the philosophers and the Mu’tazilites shared the view that things exist because God has first THOUGHT them, Al-Ghazali reversed this relationship by stating that “God has cognizance of the world because He WILLS; will precedes knowledge. For Al-Ghazali, thought or knowledge does not come before act; it is the act that produces knowledge. Though written more than half a millennium before Goethe’s Faust, Al-Ghazali’s statement neatly presages Faust’s substitution of the “Deed” for the “Word” is transformed into “In the beginning was the Deed.” This contrast captures the two radically different theologies of the Mu’tazilites and the Ash’arites. Fazlur Rahman summed the differences by saying that Ash’arism had rendered God a concentration of power and will, just as the Mu’tazila had made Him a concentrate of justice and rationality.”

to be continued. . .

 

[josie_L]

Continuation:

According to the M. Abdul Hye, the Ash’arites held that "God being absolutely free in His action, is not BOUND to ACT on his rational purpose. He does not act teleologically, for, otherwise, His actions would be determined by something external to and other than Himself and He would not remain ABSOLUTELY FREE. External purpose would put a limit to God’s omnipotence. Like Spinoza, Al-Ash’ari held that there is no purpose in the mind of God which would determine His activity. From this anti-teleological view it follows that as God’s action is not teleological, He is not bound to do what is best for His creatures. He does whatever He wills. PURE WILL has no purpose other than the indiscriminate exercise of itself. In and of itself, it is directionless and therefore arbitrary.

 

[josie_L]

Can you please tell me Josie, if God has His own Will in Islam, who has the Will of God in Christianity? Does God have no authority over His own Will? Can the Christian God not remove gravity and contradict himself?

He seems to contradict Himself when pork is unclean in the OT, yet it’s perfectly clean in a Christians breakfast table today…

I think what I typed and wrote down in the last couple of replies I posted should be able to NOW adequately explain what is meant by PURE WILL, and why that would preclude irrationality. If it still mystifies you, then I would suggest you read the entirety of Pope Benedict’s Regensburg address and the book from which I quoted from.

But if you need further delineation, then simply look up voluntarism (which is the philosophical underpinning behind Islamic theology) and intellectualism (which is what the Catholic Church expresses regarding the natural world and its divine creator) to understand why we perceive God in a different manner:

Voluntarism

Voluntarism is the theory that God or the ultimate nature of reality is to be conceived as some form of will (or conation). This theory is contrasted to intellectualism, which gives primacy to God’s reason. The voluntarism/intellectualism distinction was intimately tied to medieval and modern theories of natural law; if we grant that moral or physical laws issue from God, it next needs to be answered whether they issue from God’s will or God’s reason. In medieval philosophy, voluntarism was championed by Avicebron, Duns Scotus, and William of Ockham. Intellectualism, on the other hand, is found in Averroes, Aquinas, and Eckhart. The opposing theories were applied to the human psychology, the nature of God, ethics, and the heaven. According to intellectualism, choices of the will result from that which the intellect recognizes as good; the will itself is determined. For voluntarism, by contrast, it is the will which determines which objects are good, and the will itself is indetermined. Concerning the nature of heaven, intellectualists followed Aristotle’s lead by seeing the final state of happiness as a state of contemplation. Voluntarism, by contrast, maintains that final happiness is an activity, specifically that of love. The conceptions of theology itself were polarized between these two views. According to intellectualism, theology should be an essentiall speculative science; according to voluntarism, it is a practical science aimed at controlling life, but not necessarily aimed at comprehending philosophic truth.In the modern period Spinoza advocates intellectualism insofar as desire is an indication of imperfection, and the passions are a source of human bondage. When all things are seen purely in rational relations, desire is stilled, the mind is freed from the passions and we experience the intellectual love of God, which is the ideal happiness. According to Leibniz, Spinoza’s interpretation of the world as rational and logical left no place for the individual, or for the conception of ends or purposes as a determining factor in reality. Voluntarism is seen in Leibniz’s view of the laws which govern monads (individual units of which all reality is composed) in so far as they are the laws of the conscious realization of ends.

iep.utm.edu/voluntar/

Pope Benedict XVI was not wrong.

 

[ialsop]

Is that Clear as Mud, or not?

So what did you conclude, it will be interesting to know!

Regards Tony

It seems that I can like what is true in all religions, no problem in that. But that us undoubtedly already in Catholicism. And that there is only one religion that is fully true, because contradictions cant be true.

On the other hand, the insight into nonChristian and Eastern spirituality on the thread were very interesting.

And now, I think the discussion is going over my head.

Isaac

 

[IgnatianPhilo]

I think when you use the words “superior” and “better” you are competing with other religions.

Just like when one sporting team is “superior” or “better” than the other team.

If you call the quotations from the Quran below a “denial” then I am unsure as to how you define the word “denial”:

I would still be interested to hear you answer the question about who is more truthful, Christ or Krishna?

I also would like to know what is a unique spiritual concept in Christianity that was not found in the religions before it.

.

Four things to respond to

1. If you didn’t think your religion was superior you would cease to be a bahai and would become something else. Stop pretending to be above thinking your own ideas better than someone else’s.
2. How does the quran not deny the Theologian John when it tells that Christ is not God, that Jesus or anyone for that matter is not God’s son because God does not have a son? That Jesus was not crucified? That it does not preach the saving death and resurrection of Christ upon which people are dependant for their salvation? Yes, the Quran denies the Gospel, that’s why Muslims are not Christians.
3. I don’t think Krishna existed. (You will probably tell me I have to deny the existence of Christ, in which case you are ignorant).
4. Theosis, Incarnation, Beautific vision, Divine Light (eastern Orthodoxy), the worship of the trinity. Spiritual ideas and concepts regarding Christ and experience of the divine are different in Christianity to that of Islam. Muslims for instance reject the Incarnation, theosis and would likely take offence to the divine light and the essence energy distinction believed by Orthodox Christians. If you care to say Islam embraces all of these spiritual concepts, embraces all Christian aspects of spirituality (faith and practice) then please demonstrate from the quran that the ideas I listed above are true.

 

[josie_L]

Although, I’ve tried to make you understand what is meant by “pure will”, I will try once more. So let me take an excerpt from the book “The Closing Of The Muslim Mind”:

I just realized I left a vital part out when typing out the quote below in my original post (the part in red was what was left out):

"The Ash’arite view developed a theological basis for the primacy of will by claiming that the revelation of Muhammed emphasized most particularly, and above all, two attributes of God. His uncompromising omnipotence and will. “Allah does what He wills” (Quran 14;27). God’s nature IS His will. He is “the great Doer of what He wills” and “Effecter of what He intends” (Quran 85:15). All monotheistic religions hold that, in order to be one, God must be omnipotent. *But the Ash’arite argument reduced God to His omnipotence by concentrating exclusively on His unlimited power, as against His reason. * God’s “reasons” are unknowable by man. God rules as He pleases. Allah had only to say “be” in order to bring the world into existence, but He may also say “not be” to bring about its end - without a reason for doing either. His word is sufficient for creation or annihilation, though His word is His will, rather than an expression of His REASON (logos). Therefore, creation is not imprinted with reason. It cannot reflect what is not there. As a result, there is no rational order invested in the universe upon which one can rely, only the second-to-second manifestation of God’s will.

God is so powerful that every instant is the equivalent of a miracle. Nothing intervenes or has independent or even semi-autonomous existence. The universe is in no way self-subsistent. In philosophical language, this view, called “voluntarism,” holds that God is the primary cause of everything and there are no SECONDARY causes. There is no causal mediation. Therefore, what may seem to be “natural laws”, such as the laws of gravity, physics, etc. are really nothing more than God’s customs or habits, which He is at complete liberty to break or change at any moment.

More than 150 years after Al-Ash’ari’s death, one of his successors, Abu Hamid al-Ghazali, wrote in Deliverance from Error. "Nature is ENTIRELY subject to God; incapable of acting by itself, it is an instrument in the hand of the Creator, sun, moon, stars, and elements are subject to God and can produce nothing of themselves. In a word, nothing in nature can act spontaneously and apart from God.

On could say that everything that happens is the result of supernatural causes, though the word “supernatural” becomes meaningless in the absence of the word “natural” from which to distinguish it. As Duncan Macdonald observed, “Miracles and what we regard as the ordinary operations of nature are on the same level.” In the introduction to his translation of Averroe’s “The Incoherence of The Incoherence”, Simon Van Den Bergh quipped “One might say that, for the Muslim theologian, all nature is miraculous and all miracles are natural.” In other words, every “natural” event is the result of a particular divine act. If this is true, if divine intervention is used to explain natural phenomena, then rational explanations for them or inquiries into them become forms of impiety, if not blasphemy.

The consequences of this voluntaristic view are momentous. If creation exists simply as a succession of miraculous moments, it cannot be apprehended by reason. Other religions, including Christianity, recognize miracles. But they recognize them precisely as temporary and extraordinary suspensions of the natural law. In fact, that is what defines them as miracles. One admits to the possible explanation of its occurrence by natural causes. In Voluntaristic Islamic thought, however, there are no natural causes to discount. As a result, reality becomes incomprehensible and the purpose of things in themselves indiscernible because they have no inner logic. If unlimited will is the exclusive constituent of reality, there is really nothing left to reason about. The primacy of will has no boundaries in reason.

Macdonald wrote that, for Al-Ghazali, “the fundamental thing in the world and the starting point of all speculation is will. Whereas the philosophers and the Mu’tazilites shared the view that things exist because God has first THOUGHT them, Al-Ghazali reversed this relationship by stating that "God has cognizance of the world because He WILLS; will precedes knowledge. For Al-Ghazali, thought or knowledge does not come before act; it is the act that produces knowledge. Though written more than half a millennium before Goethe’s Faust, Al-Ghazali’s statement neatly presages Faust’s substitution of the “Deed” for the “Word” is transformed into “In the beginning was the Deed.” This contrast captures the two radically different theologies of the Mu’tazilites and the Ash’arites. Fazlur Rahman summed the differences by saying that Ash’arism had rendered God a concentration of power and will, just as the Mu’tazila had made Him a concentrate of justice and rationality.”

 

[Servant19]

Although, I’ve tried to make you understand what is meant by “pure will”, I will try once more. So let me take an excerpt from the book “The Closing Of The Muslim Mind”:

to be continued. . .

Ok I will spend some time to study this Josie, however, justifying an entire theological premise on an Ashar’ite school of thought is the equivalent of me justifying a Christian theological conclusion based on a Presbyterian foundation.

I will, nevertheless, study what you have kindly posted.

.

 

[Servant19]

Ok Josie, I have had a chance to read the material you have posted and thank you for posting it. I will try to address the points you and the then Pope Benedict raised in his Regensburg speech. These will be some preliminary thoughts:

First and most crucially, the biggest mistake the Pope made during his speech and the tragedy that comes with those who simply “accept” what he stated as Gospel (such as most Catholics I assume) is that Islam is not made up solely of Sunni’s.

The Shi’ah sect has a tremendously rich history (richer than the Sunni sect imho) and the Shiah viewpoint has been COMPLETELY dismissed in the Regensburg speech. The Pope talks about irrationality of God as a representation of Islamic theology as a whole. It is stereotyping, prejudiced and dismissive of an entire half of Islam.

The conclusions made by the Pope about an irrational God in Islam is based on the Ashari school of thought which developed some of the Sunni theologies (and even today this conclusion of an irrational God is strongly refuted by all Sunnis), yet he completely dismisses the foundational school of Shi’ah Islam which is the Mu’tazili school.

This Shi’ih based school which derived it’s theology from the Blessed Imams of Islam taught ABSOLUTELY a rational God and the theology was developed to the extent that a Logos or Universal Mind or Universal Intellect was seen as the link between the Essence of God and Creation.
The theology was further explored in the Ikhwan al-Safa (ukcatalogue.oup.com/category/academic/series/philosophy/epbp.do) where a group of ninth century Shi’ah scholars (the Brethren of Purity) concluded that The Universal Soul is said to be manifest (zahir) by virtue of the Universal Intellect, which was the first emanation from God. The Universal Soul then manifests its virtues upon primal matter, giving it form and bringing the universe into being. (lkhwan as-Safi. Jdmiat al-jdmi’a/i. ed. Artf Timir (Beirut: Dir Maktabat al-Hiyah. 1970), pp. 151-152.)

The Brethren of Purity held that, while no being could share with God in the divine attributes, God did emanate such divine attributes as were fitting upon the Universal Intellect.Since many Muslim thinkers believed that the prophet was himself humanity’s link with the Universal Intellect, it was then natural for them to think of the prophet as a manifestation of the divine attributes that God emanated upon the Intellect.

The Universal Intellect is synonymous to the Logos or the Word.

Now, moving on from this, to address this “pure will” situation we have created where the conclusion is absolutely incorrectly made that irrationality results, we must also look at the Quran to see what this concept points to.

In the Quran, the term “God has willed” appears only twice. It is the foundation of His “pure will” and it screams rationality…

“God, who has willed upon Himself the law of Compassion and Mercy” (Surah Cattle, 6:12)

and again:

“Peace be upon you. Your Sustainer has willed upon Himself the law of grace and mercy - so that if any of you does a bad deed out of ignorance, and thereafter repents and lives righteously, He shall be [found] much-forgiving, a dispenser of grace.” (Surah Cattle 6:54)

We therefore see that there is tremendous rationality in God’s manifestations of His “pure will”…compassion, mercy and forgiveness. If the outcome was irrational, then the Quran would not categorise in distinct language the outcomes of what He wills upon Himself.

So to imply violence as the outcome of this Will and to imply idolatry as an outcome of this Will is…well…I cannot verbalise how damaging this narrow-minded approach is.

Dismissing the Mu’tazili school of thought altogether is bad enough

And I would say that, yes, the pope was correct in his address, as he would not be imprudent enough to state something that was false (especially being that he was addressing academia). Moreover, you should take the time to actually read the whole address, so you can understand in full what his claims were:

Unfortunately he did. He stated that “there is no compulsion in religion” was revealed during Muhammad’s early years when “He was weak” and he dismissed completely the other half of Islamic thought (Mu’tazili) that conveys a rational God.
To state that what he did about the timing of the Revelation of a Quranic verse which He was unsure of in the manner that he did, lacked wisdom and drives a wedge between Islam and Christianity which was evident soon after he gave the speech throughout the world. There were Islamic calls for him to retract etc, and all well founded.

I sympathise with many of the points he made at Regensburg, however some of the points raised were very unfortunate and you should do better than to blindly agree with what he said.

(cont. below)

.

 

[Servant19]

Again, in Muslim theology, is there anything that states that God is logos in such emphatic terms?

Yes, its emphatic, but one must understand the perspective of Muhammad’s Revelation in order to appreciate why it was not emphasised as much as it was in Christianity.

The Baha’i Faith emphasises it tremendously. What Christianity is to Judaism, the Baha’i Faith is to Islam in this regard.

Yes, it’s called following Catholicism and not the Ba’ hai faith.

I would suggest you be a follower of Truth. Truth has no names, and as a Baha’i I prefer not to be called a follower of any religion, but rather a seeker of Truth

So let me guess this straight, Pope Benedict XVI, a learned man of theology who taught at several German universities for decades, speaks 9 languages/dialects and has many honorary degrees, is blindly accepting what is being preached as Gospel??

It’s a bold statement, I know. My original statement was not referring to the Pope blindly accepting things (although he did, he accepted what his Sunni informants had told him, and totally neglected Shi’ah theology which is just as true). It was in reference to YOU blindly accepting what the Pope said at Regensburg. There are a lot of false things in that speech.

Are you calling emeritus Pope Benedict XVI bigoted for stating what he did in his Regensburg address?

No, I was saying those who accept what he says about Islam blindly are bigoted. We should not simply accept what a Pope says about other religions as necessarily true. He should stick to Catholicism

I actually have a high regard for Joseph Ratzinger. His have taught me a lot about Catholicism and it’s all good…

When you say, recent, how recent, prior or post Regensburg address, because from all intents and purposes, the Pope was only speaking what others before him have stated regarding that statement, i.e., that it was revealed by Muhammed during his early years.

The date is irrelevant. It was a volatile statement to make about the most revered Man of Islam.

to know, why you are capitalizing the “he”, with regards to Muhammed?

The Baha’i Faith revers all Manifestations of God, because they are earthly manifestations of the Logos and so they are revered with a capital “H”

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[IgnatianPhilo]

Servent provide the Quranic verse or islamic scholar who says God is the Logos.

 

[josie_L]

Unfortunately he did. He stated that “there is no compulsion in religion” was revealed during Muhammad’s early years when “He was weak” and he dismissed completely the other half of Islamic thought (Mu’tazili) that conveys a rational God.
To state that what he did about the timing of the Revelation of a Quranic verse which He was unsure of in the manner that he did, lacked wisdom and drives a wedge between Islam and Christianity which was evident soon after he gave the speech throughout the world. There were Islamic calls for him to retract etc, and all well founded.

I sympathise with many of the points he made at Regensburg, however some of the points raised were very unfortunate and you should do better than to blindly agree with what he said.

(cont. below)

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I follow them because they are TRUE. Pope Benedict XVI was not referring to the whole of Islam (Islamic thought/theology), when he wrote his speech, he was, in fact, referring to those Muslims who do follow the Ash’arite school of thought (Sunnis), and whose vision of God is not one wherein He is “LOGOS”, but rather “pure will”.

And the reason he brings this up is because there are those who use this God of pure will and power as one they can wield to further their BLIND obedience to their RELIGIOUS CAUSE, and thereby commit acts of violence in the name of their RELIGION and their God of PURE WILL.

So, it is highly, highly ironical that you should, therefore, accuse those who agree with the Pope’s address as being blind (without reason/rational thought) followers, when that is the very thing the Pope was addressing in his speech:

Violence is incompatible with the nature of God and the nature of the soul. “God”, he says, “is not pleased by blood - and not acting reasonably (σὺν λόγω) is contrary to God’s nature. Faith is born of the soul, not the body. Whoever would lead someone to faith needs the ability to speak well and to reason properly, without violence and threats… To convince a reasonable soul, one does not need a strong arm, or weapons of any kind, or any other means of threatening a person with death…”.[4]

So, if you want to change the world and make it a better place then start with those whose belief in God is riddled with errors and mistaken notions about His very nature, that is, those who believe violence is compatible with a GOD OF PURE WILL. Because, I can assure you, Servant, that if they TRULY believed that God was a God of REASON than they would have no need or DESIRE to compel, threaten and harm anyone with violence in order for infidels to accept their faith/God. Because violence and reason are INCOMPATIBLE with a God who is “LOGOS”.

 

[Servant19]

Servent provide the Quranic verse or islamic scholar who says God is the Logos.

In Islam and the Bahai Faith, the transcendent Essence of God is differentiated as a separate Entity to the Logos. (Although they are intimately linked and connected)
The Logos (in Islam known as the “Universal Intellect”, or “Word”, or “First Command”) is the First Emanation from God’s Essence, through which the entirety of Creation came into existence. This Reality is co-existent, and co-eternal with God’s Essence but was created, whereas Gods Essence is uncreated.

So to answer your question, you won’t see a reference to the Logos being God simply because ontology is the focus in Islam. The Bahai Faith provides an epistemological perspective too and recognises the validity of saying that God is the Logos.

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[josie_L]

Yes, its emphatic, but one must understand the perspective of Muhammad’s Revelation in order to appreciate why it was not emphasised as much as it was in Christianity.

Give me the scripture, hadiths wherein GOD is referred to as LOGOS?

The Baha’i Faith emphasises it tremendously. What Christianity is to Judaism, the Baha’i Faith is to Islam in this regard.

Well, I’m not talking about the Baha’i faith.

I would suggest you be a follower of Truth. Truth has no names, and as a Baha’i I prefer not to be called a follower of any religion, but rather a seeker of Truth

Truth has a name and HIS name is Jesus Christ.

It’s a bold statement, I know. My original statement was not referring to the Pope blindly accepting things (although he did, he accepted what his Sunni informants had told him, and totally neglected Shi’ah theology which is just as true). It was in reference to YOU blindly accepting what the Pope said at Regensburg. There are a lot of false things in that speech.

No, it is only you not understanding the context in which it was said, hence, the reason you say it was false. Ironically, enough the speech caused such violent mayhem amongst the Muslim populace as to give validation to what the Pope was referring to, i.e., blind obedience and/or using violence in the name of God is irrational. Obviously, these Muslims do not believe in a God of “LOGOS” or they would not have done what they did.

No, I was saying those who accept what he says about Islam blindly are bigoted. We should not simply accept what a Pope says about other religions as necessarily true. He should stick to Catholicism

Whereas you are an expert on all things Catholic, Muslim, Judaic and Baha’i.

I actually have a high regard for Joseph Ratzinger. His have taught me a lot about Catholicism and it’s all good…

You could have fooled me.

The date is irrelevant. It was a volatile statement to make about the most revered Man of Islam.

Excuse me, the date is not relevant, yes it is, in fact, if your so called recent study overturned a previous understanding regarding the timing of said statement, then ipso facto, the pope was not in error in so much as it was the error of those before him (Islamic scholars, etc.). Moreover, Jesus made many a volatile statement that upset the rabbis of his time, I, therefore, see absolutely nothing wrong in Pope Benedict’s statement, assuming said study you mentioned is even true or existent as I haven’t been given any actual study to look at or see.