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neploho
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So you eat Jesus? Does that mean I poop Jesus out every Sunday night!?!?!?!?!?!?
There are some interesting questions to ask about the idea of omnipresence. Just like there are interesting questions to be asked about the Eucharist. When asking them, however, it is good for one to ask such question with due sensitivity and not stray into vulgarity.
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eichenb2
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I did not offer an answer. However, since you are interested. The Christian God is One in essense and Three persons. It has already been explained in much greater detail than I could hope to achieve, in previous posts. There is no contradiction here. They are category distinction in human words, because we know no other words. Incidentally, Muslims believe that Quran is eternal, uncreated speech of God. This belief (and it is the belief of the overwhelming majority of Sunni scholars and their Aqeedah(s)) qualifies the faith of Islam as Dualistic.
Christian theology unabashedly claims that God took on human flesh to live a perfect life, suffer, and die so that Christian may follow Him in this way of love. Absolutly, Jesus used the lavatory. If he had not subject to all the frailties and hardships of human life, His keeping the Law would have been a cruel hoax (See Gnosticism). Likewise, if He was not truly God, then His willing death would be nothing short of pitiful (See Ebionism). So…to make a long reply short, Christians can find God in the lavatory. I personally find a God who would condescend to me his constantly rebellious Creation in the muck and mire of their sinfulness much more approachable than a God who sits on high and gives rules. Christianity is fully INCARNATIONAL. Some lyrics from Michael Card are useful, in this context.
You and me we use so very many clumsy words.
The noise of what we often say is not worth being heard.
When the Father’s Wisdom wanted to communicate His love,
He spoke it in one final perfect Word.
He spoke the Incarnation and then so was born the Son.
His final word was Jesus, He needed no other one.
Spoke flesh and blood so He could bleed and make a way Divine.
And so was born the baby who would die to make it mine.
And so the Father’s fondest thought took on flesh and bone.
He spoke the living luminous Word, at once His will was done.
And so the transformation that in man had been unheard
Took place in God the Father as He spoke that final Word.
And so the Light became alive
And manna became Man.
Eternity stepped into time
So we could understand.
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inJESUS
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a seal on our heart to believe that the Father, His Word and Spirit are one? why? because Muhammad misunderstood it by inserting Mary in 3 verses and asking about Allah’s consort in another one?
what about Islamic creed that the Quran is eternal and uncreated?
And it was you who said Allah is not omnipresent but his knowledge is, and when i asked if you differentiate between Allah and his knowledge, you did not reply. So instead of attacking that which you cannot grasp, why not explain the Islamic positions on such questions?
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eichenb2
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Yes and yes. Meanings are either connoted or denoted. You can connote disgust to it, if you like, but reality is just that. This “poop” fertilizes the earth, so that plants will grow and YOU can live. It this case, though, despite that fact that you see bread and wine, it is, IN FACT, Flesh and Blood! Why, because the One Who created life itself DENOTED It as such.
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eichenb2
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Well said!:clapping:
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inJESUS
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actually i wanted to say the same about your previous long post. See, when a Muslim decides to see things as they are, not as Muhammad misrepresented, we meet people like you.
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Badaliyyah
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the answer to this would be “yes” for both Muslims and Christians. Since it is drifting from the topic I will just note Aquinas’ Summa, I,q.8,art.1-2.
coming back to inJesus’s earlier statement, I wonder if what is being said there is that God does not exist in a place, which is true enough. As Thomas says, God is present by power, not by dimension or magnitude (I,q.8,art.2,ad.1).
salaam.
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Badaliyyah
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inJesus, do you have a source for this (i.e., the link or…)? thank you.
a lot of the Islamic modernists are as anti-philosophical (and anti-theological for that matter) as anything you will find in low church protestant circles, much to their detriment. the appeal to the salaf makes me think this that kind of “salafi” text. but maybe not; it would just be nice to know.
salaam.
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eichenb2
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inJESUS
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am sorry i did not put the link and i lost it now. Anyway, i searched for them exactly because this is what i heard from many sheikh. I often listen to their teachings on tv and radio, and many times i heard them refuting Allah’s omnipresence by saying he sits on his throne whereas his knowledge is omnipresent. I don;t know if “sitting on the throne” is supposed to mean that Allah is in one place but i understand that Allah is not omnipresent, but his knowledge is.
Maybe you can give different teachings from different schools of thought .
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Badaliyyah
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you said a lot, and I am not sure how I can be fair to all of it since I disagree with the vast majority of it. So I am going to answer the initial question, which makes clear where my disagreement is, and we can go forward from there if you wish.
In short, No! (Nein, Nyet, Non, La) I do not think you can make a distinction between God’s intellect and God’s will. What a horrible idea. And no Dominican in their right mind would either. God is free precisely because God’s action is God’s knowledge and vice versa. They are one and the same.
All you have shown in the remainder of that section is the way in which Scotus turns God into a thing, a being (as opposed to Being itself). The introduction of Scotus’ formal distinction into God creates relativities in God’s own being, and projects the failures and limitations of human ratio onto God.
What makes God free is that God is Actus Purus. Freedom is Act, and of course God’s act is nothing other than Being itself. There is no potency in God. God is free because there is no limitation, potency of external determination of God. God’s Knowing is Act. Creation takes place because God knows the finite (the knowledge is actual).
At least with your invocation of Scotus, it becomes very clear why we disagree. In any case, the distinctions that Scotus makes would not be allowed by Maimonides or an ibn’Sina, ibn’Rushd, Arabi (and of course Thomas). You just cannot violate the unity of God that way. On the Latin Christian side, I would suggest that Anselm thinks through the idea of God as One, as Being, even more consistently than Thomas. This probably has to do with Thomas’ empiricism, which limits his willingness to engage in, what for him appears to be, speculation. Thus when it comes to the Incarnation, for instance, Thomas says it is fitting and specifically denies Anselm’s claim that it is necessary. Anselm says the Incarnation is absolutely necessary, but does not see this as in any way violating freedom because freedom is nothing but the actuality of one’s own being. Along a different line, you can also see in Ps-Dionysius the way that all distinctions are to be negated when it comes to God.
salaam.
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