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JimmyDFG
Guest
hasantas, Have you forgotten what we talked about earlier?
Message #263
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Message #263
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jimkhong
Guest
hasantas
I will be ignoring your posts, or attempt to even explain anything to you until you have replied my direct question to you in my earlier post: Are you here in this forum to prove to Christians that Quran is right and the Bible is wrong?
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zamyrabyrd
Guest
Indeed, there is a significant difference between the two concepts. However, even slaves could be freed in the Ancient world, not only in the Jewish tradition:
Deuteronomy 15:12-18New King James Version (NKJV)
The Law Concerning Bondservants
12 “If your brother, a Hebrew man, or a Hebrew woman, is sold to you and serves you six years, then in the seventh year you shall let him go free from you. 13 And when you send him away free from you, you shall not let him go away empty-handed; 14 you shall supply him liberally from your flock, from your threshing floor, and from your winepress. From what the Lord your God has blessed you with, you shall give to him. 15 You shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God redeemed you; therefore I command you this thing today.
16 And if it happens that he says to you, ‘I will not go away from you,’ because he loves you and your house, since he prospers with you, 17 then you shall take an awl and thrust it through his ear to the door, and he shall be your servant forever. Also to your female servant you shall do likewise. 18 It shall not seem hard to you when you send him away free from you; for he has been worth a double hired servant in serving you six years. Then the Lord your God will bless you in all that you do.
There is not lifelong slavery but the hope of redemption and freedom.
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jimkhong
Guest
This is an excellent point and it does illustrate one of the more fundamental points of difference between Islam and Christianity. (For Christians, please understand that the word ‘Islam’ means ‘voluntary total submission to God’).
It is not that we Christians do not have the concept of a submission to God but at a softer level (“Thy kingdom come”). Ultimately, it is a spectrum and we sit further down the spectrum and Muslims sit further down the other way. That’s all. What’s more with both religions not being monolithic, there will be a good number of literalist Christians who are much closer to the Muslim position and quite a few progressive Muslims who are much closer to the Christian position.
The dividing point is not free will as the free and voluntary submission by a Muslim is necessary to make the submission valid (from a legal Sharia point of view) and authentic (from a personal conversion point of view). Having said that, many governmental authorities and some religious authorities can get very liberal with the idea of free and voluntary, accepting the ritual as definitive of the inner intent.
The dividing point is more the practice of the submission by the more common lay (sorry can’t think of a better word) adherents. At the risk of over-generalisation, submission by the common Muslims at times veer close to fatalism (eg., “the child died in the accident because God willed it and we accept it” usually spoken in a resigned tone) while the lay Christian expect his/her personal dignity plays a greater role in God’s plan for him/her. Again at the risk of over-generalisation, this could also be due to a difference between the more communal east vs the more individual west. (Sorry if I am not explaining this well enough - so shoot, it will help me refine my thoughts)
However, among the more reflective adherents, of say the Sufi Muslim and the comtemplative Benedictine, I do not think there is much difference between Muslim and Christian thoughts on submission. In fact, both sometimes gets quite close to elements of Buddhism.
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GUNNER7070
Guest
As you well know that I as a Muslim believe in predestination, and the decree of all creation was written 50,000 years prior to the creation of heavens and earth.
I would like to learn about Christianity’s view on this matter.
In my belief we were given free well, my close friends and I sometimes oversimplify this when we talk about this subject as “chain reaction” or “solving a quadratic equation using subroutine”.
Every person has a choice, but the outcome of that choice is already written, whatever he/she chose, that what he or she will get and also this is where prayer comes in.
Surah Al-Maida 81:29
But you shall not will except as Allah wills, - The Cherisher of the Worlds.
For example:
If I went to Medical school instead of Engineering, then I would have made friends that I do not have right now and there is a good chance that I wouldn’t have met the majority of my new friends whom I knew during my years in school.
The program was already written and the choices (subroutines) “paths” we take in life will change our outcome, but the outcome of the choices we made or never made and will make were already written.
I am way oversimplifying this, as the talk about the Qadha and Qadar in Islam can take a lot of time and I only want to know Christianity’s view on the subject.
The example you have made about a death of a child and the level of acceptance in that child’s family goes deep in the doctrine of Islam, it does not just tackle the predestination subject but it goes beyond that (despair of the Mercy of Allah) as one example.
Whatever Allah takes away or gives, belongs to Him, and everything with Him has a limited fixed term in this world.
Could you please further explain the following?
1- Thy kingdom come.
2- The difference between communal east and individual west.
3- The correlation between God’s plan and the personal dignity of the individual.
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GUNNER7070
Guest
Hello Martin.
Could you please explain the point of view of Christianity on this?
Because I really do not know what a Christian means when he or she say that God is Love.
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GUNNER7070
Guest
Please Jimmy give me an answer to my question.
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GUNNER7070
Guest
Now you really got me confused.
Why the talk suddenly shifted towards slavery?
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zamyrabyrd
Guest
We were talking about free will which has a lot to do with the subject if we are pre-programmed or not. The “road not taken” has more to do with probability and multiplicity of what choices individuals and those around him make. If these choices are not informed, then there are usually pressing psychological reasons. People ask why the masses follow dictators. If they would know the end product, death and destruction, most probably they would not be so careless.
The political and cultural set up of the time of Jesus was that if a person called himself the Messiah, the priests and rulers would have to execute him. Today, that person would be considered in most cases a lunatic.
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jimkhong
Guest
Christianity actively reject fatalism and thus do not have a doctrinal equivalent of Qadar (for Christians; Qadar means fate). The closest is the doctrine of predestination.
As in Islam, Christianity is not monolithic and there is no one single view of predestination. There is a spectrum and I guess being a Catholic, I am probably better qualified to explain the Catholic doctrine of predestination rather than the Protestant ones. Generally unlike Qadar, Christian concepts of predestination centres around only on the question whether an particular individual’s salvation, not on events of history.
The Muslim doctrine of Qadar do not find much echo in mainstream Christianity (I am leaving out the smaller independent churches as there are just too many to discuss here). Classical Calvinist strict view is called ‘double-predestination’ in which God has willed some people to be saved and some people to be damned. In this way, it is similar to Qadar in that God has already pre-decided the outcome.
Catholic doctrine of predestination teaches (in very brief terms) that God predestine everyone to be saved but by one’s own free will, some end up damned. Although it is in Catholic textbooks, Catholics tend to prefer to use the term grace as predestination sounds too Protestant to some. In baptism, God gave us the grace to be saved but we have to cooperate with that grace in order for that salvation to be fulfilled. So, basically, God took the initiative but whether we are finally saved or not depends on what we do.
At a practical level, Catholics accepts that God may have fore-knowledge and may have pre-destined certain people to be saved and certain people to be damned, humans not having such fore-knowledge cannot thus act on such knowledge and so such a doctrine has no practical value. If you were to do it as a thought experiment, it can get to pretty interesting conclusions.
Predestination gets rather complex once you get to Protestant thinking.
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jimkhong
Guest
This is the line from Our Father, the most common Christian prayer. In this line we also give our submission to what God’s plans are. In a way, this is our equivalent of ‘total submission to God’
Basically, I was referring to the commonly-held view that Westerners are seen to be more individualistic whereas Easterners are seen as more willing to conform to communal expectations. As such, Western religious views emphasise more on personal free will while Eastern religious views tend to seek to accept things beyond our control (eg., by submitting to God)
Basically, Christians require a sense of personal dignity so that the will of the individual does not get subsumed into God’s plans (“pre-progammed” was the word zamyrabyrd used). These therefore get expressed in the doctrine of free will (see my previous posts discussing Catholic predestination)
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GUNNER7070
Guest
I do not think pre-programmed describes it fully.
In away I agree with you in regards of the relationship between the choices that someone would take and the reasons behind those choices and what influenced them.
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GUNNER7070
Guest
Thank you Jimkhong very much.
That was informative, as I did not know that before.
I have another question and I would like to learn about the point of view of the Catholic Church on the subject.
What was the purpose of our (humans) creation?
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jimkhong
Guest
Haha. All good Catholics know he answer to this one. You guys memorise the Quran and we Catholics memorise the Catechism
(maybe we are not so different after all). But we are not very good at memorising. This one is memorised because it is only No 3But I also refer you to the Full Catholic Catechism which would be the definitive body of Catholic doctrines
(Refer: vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/p1s2c1p6.htm
For me at a personal faith level, I believe man was created by God to love Him and His creation
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hasantas
Guest
Then you did not read my posts. I think you know well that Muslims believe in Bible also. That is one requirement of faith for Muslims. What I arise is about original text of Bible in Aramaic and some comments and statement of writers.
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jlhargus
Guest
Supposedly, Gabriel had the very qoran right there and wanted Mohammad to take and read it. Why was it necessary years latter to collect, from scattered sources, what others wrote and others years latter remembered? How reliable is that? What authority decided, which writings and memories were actually Mohammad’s sayings, were they infallible?
Perhaps some were mistaken. Perhaps someone just made up something in order to have their particular views in the qoran. Where is that qoran Gabriel had? Are you sure it wasn’t the Old & New Testament Word of God? How do you know? If God’s Word could be corrupted at one point in time then His Word can’t be trusted at any point in time. Isn’t it odd God would hand a fished book to Mohammed and he didn’t keep it?
Christ wrote nothing and the apostles, for the most part, wrote only to established congregations, who were already living out, teaching and preaching that which had already been received from the apostles. The NT epistles were written mostly to clarify or settle problems in already established teaching communities.
If your prophets are mentioned in the OT & NT why are those books not included in the qoran? Christians didn’t throw out the inspired Word of God, in the OT, but included them in the inspired writings of the NT. If writings are inspired they are God’s Word and cannot be ignored and excluded.
Why didn’t Mohammed go first to the people of God the Christians? Christ went first to God’s people, the Jews, then the Word went from Jewish Christians to the Gentiles. The qoran is a total disconnect from Gods Word, received in the bible.
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jlhargus
Guest
Then why wasn’t those comments and statements of writers corrected by Mohammad and the bible added to the quran?
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hasantas
Guest
A bit slowly, please! You start so fast that is very likely to cause some accidents.
Gabriel did not write Qur’an. He revealed to Muhammad the Qur’an verses in a process which last about 23 years. It was very possible until death of Muhammad that revelation might come in any time. There were writers of revelation and they were used to write revelation ever it came. Many of Sahabas were used to write verses also. After death of prophet Muslims organized a commission to compiled verses in a book. If muslims had done that before death of prophet so they would have to abolish the previous copy which would arise more difficulties and doubts. Commission worked very carefully and they did not accept a verse which was not approved at least by 2 witness. So there was no any possibility for an accidentally case. And … Anyway.
If you say perhaps they did not work correctly or perhaps Gabriel did not come and revealed etc. then we can suspect everything perhaps history even about our selves which is non sense.
Here Qur’an which is miraculous and Qur’an challenge for about 1400 years if someones do not believe.
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hasantas
Guest
Abdullah is translated as “Allah’ın kulu” in Turkish and that do not mean servant or slave as expression. Ofcourse that word may mean servant or slave but as a religious term it has a different meaning which cannot be stated just by one word in English. The meaning is that:
Human is abdullah that mean human is creature but not creator. God feed humanbeing and humanbeing is in necessity which make human abd. While humanbeing is a creature and in absulate necessity so humanbeing is supposed to know and worship creator. That is something which is interest in faith. Abd must know and worship God. If someone know that he is abdullah that mean he is creature of Allah and Allah support, save, feed, protect etc him. And he knows God as creator of universe.
I thing that was overemphasized because of that Christians had ascribed Jesus the attributes of deity. But Jesus was just humanbeing who were used to eat, drink, sleep, walk on the world etc which make Him an abd. Yes Jesus was an abdullah and He was feed and supported by God. Jesus were used to pray and worship God which declare that He was an abdullah.
And for slavery. Islam had not established slavery but Islam abolished slavery gradually.
12- And what can make you know what is [breaking through] the difficult pass?
13- It is the freeing of a slave Al-Blad(90)
89- Allah will not impose blame upon you for what is meaningless in your oaths, but He will impose blame upon you for [breaking] what you intended of oaths. So its expiation is the feeding of ten needy people from the average of that which you feed your [own] families or clothing them or the freeing of a slave. But whoever cannot find [or afford it] – then a fast of three days [is required]. That is the expiation for oaths when you have sworn. But guard your oaths. Thus does Allah make clear to you His verses that you may be grateful. Al-Maidah(5)
Human is abdullah that mean human is creature but not creator. God feed humanbeing and humanbeing is in necessity which make human abd. While humanbeing is a creature and in absulate necessity so humanbeing is supposed to know and worship creator. That is something which is interest in faith. Abd must know and worship God. If someone know that he is abdullah that mean he is creature of Allah and Allah support, save, feed, protect etc him. And he knows God as creator of universe.
I thing that was overemphasized because of that Christians had ascribed Jesus the attributes of deity. But Jesus was just humanbeing who were used to eat, drink, sleep, walk on the world etc which make Him an abd. Yes Jesus was an abdullah and He was feed and supported by God. Jesus were used to pray and worship God which declare that He was an abdullah.
And for slavery. Islam had not established slavery but Islam abolished slavery gradually.
12- And what can make you know what is [breaking through] the difficult pass?
13- It is the freeing of a slave Al-Blad(90)
89- Allah will not impose blame upon you for what is meaningless in your oaths, but He will impose blame upon you for [breaking] what you intended of oaths. So its expiation is the feeding of ten needy people from the average of that which you feed your [own] families or clothing them or the freeing of a slave. But whoever cannot find [or afford it] – then a fast of three days [is required]. That is the expiation for oaths when you have sworn. But guard your oaths. Thus does Allah make clear to you His verses that you may be grateful. Al-Maidah(5)
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MartinJordan
Guest
Your brother in Faith, Gunner7070 consistently uses only the Quran to state the Islamic view (and that is means he is being very consistent), yet you need to refer to the Bible. Why is that?
Peace be with you.
MJ
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