1) If you choose to ignore weblinks that are provided as a response to your claims, then you cannot continue to pursue your claims nonetheless. That would be called argumentum ad ignorantium.
How did that link address anything we're talking about?
2) You must remain consistent in your arguments, by applying your criteria against aspects of your own doctrine. Therefore, until you can adequately address the issues concerning orthodox Islamic theology, which i address in this response, then you cannot continue with your line of reasoning against Christian theology, because then you would be contradicting yourself.
We can discuss Islamic theology if you want, but when you throw that into our discussion, you are basically miring it with a gigantic topic. It's digressive.
Bro, your conclusion that the God-man is an amphiboly is based on the assumption that the square-circle is analogous with what the incarnation entails (which is a false dilemma due to the fact you'd be creating a categorical fallacy), and therefore you’re begging the question. The square-circle analogy gives the implication that for a square to “unite” with a circle, one’s properties must inevitably replace the other – and this is true (as my friend noted) due to the fact you’re “overlapping” 2 things of the same category – i.e. shapes. The incarnation didn't compromise God for a human, nor can we logically assume this inevitably needed to be, because theyre of two different categories.
Bro, the square-circle is analogous to the God-man because each involve mutually exclusive "categories" being combined. You're yet to show how one thing can be both a square AND a circle or fully God and fully human without the disclaimer "temporarily assume that we can suspend one of the criteria of divinity"
You’ve presented a false dilemma based on a false analogy as the result of a categorical fallacy.
Sorry bro, I haven't, I've given you the simplest example of two irreconcilable essences. I know it's a lot easier for you to brush that away by calling it a "false dilemma based on a false analogy" but you're yet to show how the God-man is any different from the square-circle.
Nice observation bro! I think what you want me to point out to my friend, is the whole basis of his conclusion that your square-circle analogy is a categorical fallacy. “Redness” and “blueness” are defining properties of a COLOUR, something of a different category to a shape, just as man is of a different category to God. So why don’t you point out to yourself, that the whole point that your square circle analogy is of a categorical fallacy, is that you’re trying to provide an analogy between two things of the same category (shapes) uniting (which inevitably means one must ultimately be replaced by the other), to two things of different categories uniting (The divine and the human).
Heh, just because you call humanity and divinity "two things of different categories" doesn't mean that they can coexist like color and number of sides. That's my whole point, you think that divinity and humanity are two categories and therefore not mutually exclusive and I'm telling you to give an example of how they can exist without sacrificing any aspect of either. You can call them two categories or one category if it makes you comfortable, but as long as you can't show they can exist simultaneously, how does it serve your argument?
I think the key word bro that you missed, was “ATTACHED”, I emphasize that the point he was making is that you can take a square and attach it to a circle, conjoining a circle and square together. Since this can be done, what logical argument is there against God taking on, attaching to himself a human nature without ceasing to be God? NONE.
That's fine bro, to be honest with you I've never heard of Jesus (pbuh) being described as a man attached to God, but I do note that this diverges from orthodox Christianity. So are the square and circle tangent or what? What exactly do you mean by God is "ATTACHED" to man? Do you believe that Jesus (pbuh) was attached to God, or that he was/is God?
I think I’m providing you with this website for the…3rd time now?
http://www.muhammadanism.com/Jesus/JesusInfinite.htm
If you cant provide a direct response to the authors reasoning concerning the compatibility of divine infiniteness and the finiteness/temporality of a human being, then don’t bother asserting that its illogical. You can avoid reading the website out of your own ignorance if you want bro; I don’t care, but don’t bother pursuing certain issues ignorant of the responses I give you.
The article says
Is God infinitely extended spatially? Christians don't think so. First of all, only material and physical beings are extended in space. Christians do not believe that God is a material or physical being. Thus, when a Christian states that God is infinite, he does not mean that God is an infinitely extended physical being.
And this
In other words, it is not possible for there to be an actual infinite set of physical objects or temporal durations in the universe.
Hence, there could be only one infinitely spatial being in the universe, namely God.
But then concludes with this:
God is not a space-time body…Hence, it is logically possible that an absolute infinite can be within a finite dimensional space, including the body of Jesus Christ.
The article thankfully does a great job of showing how God is independent of space and time, and that if someone literally thought God was a physical infinity, then He'd always have to be WITHIN the universe. So after the author concludes that God must be independent of His creation, the Universe, and not literally exist within its confines, he decides that it's alright that God exist within a subcategory of the Universe, Jesus. This is why I enjoyed the paragraph on the creation of the universe, because it stresses that God didn't NEED energy to create matter. God is independent of his creations, energy and matter AND the universe which did not pre-exist nor co-exist with Him. The strange thing is that the article gives a good account of why God can't be said to be WITHIN the universe and yet side-steps the annoyance that God can't be said to be WITHIN any of His creations for the same reasons.
Response 2:
Orthodox Islamic theology asserts that within the Quran, the infinite and finite did indeed meet, since the Quran is eternal by nature while at the same time it is temporal - contained within the pages of a finite book. So logically speaking, why can't God's Word become a man?
Professor Yusuf K. Ibish, in an article entitled "The Muslim Lives by the Quran," writes: I have not yet come across a western man who understands what the Quran is. It is not a book in the ordinary sense, nor is it comparable to the Bible, either the Old or New Testaments. It is an expression of Divine Will. If you want to compare it with anything in Christianity, you must compare it with Christ Himself. Christ was an expression of the Divine among men, the revelation of the Divine Will. That is what the Quran is. If you want a comparison for the role of Muhammad, the better one in that particular respect would be Mary. Muhammad was the vehicle of the Divine, as she was the vehicle... There are western orientalists who have devoted their life to the study of the Quran, its text, the analysis of its words, discovering that this word is Abyssinian, that word is Greek by origin... But all this is immaterial. The Quran was divinely inspired, then it was compiled, and what we have now is the expression of God's Will among men. That is the important point. (Charris Waddy, The Muslim Mind [New York: Longman, 1976], p.14)
In his Ideals and Realities of Islam, Seyyed Hossain Nasr writes,
The Word of God in Islam is the Quran; in Christianity it is Christ... To carry this analogy further one can point to the fact that the Quran, being the Word of God therefore corresponds to Christ in Christianity and the form of this book, which like the contents is determined by the dictum in heaven, corresponds in a sense to the body of Christ. The form of the Quran is the Arabic language which religiously speaking is as inseparable from the Quran as the body of Christ is from Christ Himself. Arabic is sacred in the sense that it is an integral part of the Quranic revelation whose very sounds and utterances play a role in the ritual acts of Islam. (Op. cit. [London: George Allen & Urwin, 1975], pp. 43-44; emphasis ours.)
The Quran is eternal, whereas its form (i.e., the Arabic language and the book in which it is written) is temporal. In fact, in early Islamic history it was considered blasphemous to say that the Quran was created, with the Caliph Al-Mutawakkil (d. A.D. 850) going so far as to "decree the death penalty for anyone who taught that the Word of God (i.e., the Quran) is created." (John Alden Williams, ed., Islam [New York: George Braziller, 1962], p.179)
"The Qur'an is God's speech, which he uttered, and it is uncreated. Who holds the opposite is a Jahmit, an unbeliever. And who says: 'The Qur'an is God's speech', and stops at that point without adding 'uncreated', speaks even more infamously than the latter. Also, who maintains our sounds, our Qur'an recitation would be created, the Qur'an itself, however, God's speech, is a Jahmit, too. And who doesn't declare all these people as unbelievers, is like them." (according to Ibn Abu Ya'la, Tabaqat al-Hanabila, ed. Muhammad Hamid al Fiqh, Cairo 1952, vol. I, p. 29; transl. Dr. Christopher Heger)
Cyril Glassé continues:
"It is a fundamental doctrine of Islam that the Koran, as the speech of God, is eternal and uncreated in its essence and sense, created in its letters and sounds (harf wa jarh). It has been asserted that the doctrine of the uncreated Koran was the result of exposure to the Christian dogma of the Logos; that, as Christians defined Jesus as the Word of God and as having two natures, one human and one Divine in one person, so the Muslims transposed this doctrine by analogy to the Koran as the Word of God made book. The Muslims were indeed aware of the Christian doctrine; the Caliph al-Ma'mun (d. 218/833), who supported the Mu'tazilite theory that the Koran was created, wrote to one of his governors that belief in the uncreatedness of the Koran resembled the Christians when they claim that Jesus was not created because he was the 'Word of God'. During the brief Mu'tazilite ascendancy which began in the Caliphate of al-Ma'mun, belief in the uncreated Koran was temporarily suspended, arousing fierce opposition. The Koran was declared to be created, and those opposed to this view were persecuted during an inquisition called the mihnah (212-232/833-847) into the beliefs of the religious authorities. Yet lawyers and Judges staunchly upheld the dogma of the uncreated Koran, and nurtured it when necessary in secret. Ibn Hanbal went further, and declared that the Koran was uncreated from 'cover to cover', that is, also in its letters and its sounds. In this he was certainly not intending to imitate the Monophysites, but he was flogged for his beliefs. When the mihnah came to an end, the doctrine of the uncreatedness was restored, and has not been challenged since, in the Sunni world. The Kharijites differ from the Sunnis on this point, and in their dogmas the Koran is entirely created, which is also true for the Shi'ites, both Twelve-Imam and Zaydi, whose theology in many ways is an extension of that of the Mu'tazilites." (Glassé, The Concise Encyclopedia of Islam, [Harper San Francisco, second edition 1991, 1999], pp. 231-232
Thomas W. Lippman says regarding the Mutazilites that:
... They also rejected the dogma that the Koran was the uncreated word of God, coeternal with Him. The Mutazilites said that this view compromised the oneness of God. In the ninth century the Caliph al-Mamun elevated Mutazilism to the status of official creed. He proclaimed that the Koran had been created by God and was not coeternal with Him. The test of orthodoxy was the answer to the question whether God created all things, including the Koran. A "no" answer brought torture and imprisonment, and the Caliph decreed that all judges must subscribe to the new doctrine. Mutazilism which originated in rationalism, thus manifested itself as illiberal and repressive, and after al-Mamun's death his successors repressed it as vigorously as he had imposed it. The argument over the eternality of the Koran is of little relevance to the practice of ordinary Muslims today; but it shows the extent to which Islam, basically a straight forward and unequivocal faith, has undergone the same process of self-analysis as Christianity. The issues of rationalism and spirituality, divine omniscience and human freedom, have never been finally settled. (Lippman, Understanding Islam: An Introduction To The Muslim World [ A Plume Book: October 2002, third revised and updated edition ], p. 74;
Finally, Annemarie Schimmel writes:
The problem of the nature of Christ, so central in the dogmatic development of the early church, has also influenced, in a certain way, the development of Islamic dogma. Christ's designation as logos, as the Word of God, "born not created," has most probably influenced Islamic theories about the Koran, which is regarded by the Muslim as the uncreated Word of God. Phenomenologically seen, the Koran has the same position in Islamic dogmatics as has Christ in Christianity. Harry A. Wolfson therefore coined the term "inlibration," the "Word become Book," in contrast to the Christian concept of incarnation, "the Word became Flesh." That explains why theologians emphasized the designation ummi for Muhammad; this term, first probably meaning "the prophet sent to the gentiles" was interpreted as "illiterate." The Prophet had to be a vessel unstained by external knowledge for the Word's inlibration, just as Mary had to be a virgin in order to be a pure vessel for the Word's incarnation. That is, the Koran is much more than simply a book ... (Schimmel, Islam - An Introduction [State University of New York Press, Albany 1992], pp. 74-75;
Hence, there should be no problem for Muslims in accepting the fact that the eternal united with the temporal since this is what is believed about the Quran.
To conclude, I reiterate that there are simply no good reasons to reject the biblical witness that "God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself..." 2 Corinthians 5:19. AMEN
Haha, I knew you were thinking of Mutazalite thought this whole time. Well I'm glad you brought that up, because the whole notion of creationism and the Qur'an is humbly refuted in this link, and you can find this in your library as well:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/de ... 0?v=glance
Nearly a thousand pages of refutation and rebuttal by the greatest philosopher in history I would say, but very challenging material so take your time with it, and to paraphrase a friend:
If you cant provide a direct response to the authors reasoning concerning [the incoherence of mutazalite doctrine], then don’t bother asserting that its [logical]. You can avoid reading the [book] out of your own ignorance if you want bro; I don’t care, but don’t bother pursuing certain issues ignorant of the responses I give you.
You have seriously pulled out one of the longest and most complex philotheological debates I've ever known (regarding the Mutazalite vs. Ashari debate). It's kind of insulting that you think you can throw out a few quotes in a forum to discuss it, but if you are serious about it, you should come back after reading that book. It historically closed the doors to Mutazalite philosophy, but who knows, maybe you caught something they didn't.
1) Just as a circle cannot be a square, God cannot be a man. – Analogy proven to be fallacious.
Not yet, the analogy is proven to be fallacious when you show how the divine and human can coexist, bro.
How can God’s attributes co-exist with human attributes? Issues i brought up concerning your theology must be addressed first, to prove to me that your arguments are not contradicting your own beliefs, and then you can pursue to respond to my comments concerning this.
Haha wow. So now we have to first talk about Islam before we finish our discussion. My philotheological beliefs are contained in the book I suggested above by Al-Ghazzali. I highly recommend it.
Is the iron-fire a plausible analogy. (irrelevant because im not using it as a proof of the incarnation, but merely to give you an adequate and reasonable natural representation of what the hypostatic union entails)
Yes, similitudes about God are irrelevant.
2) The philosophical issue of what defines what something is. (irrelevant due to the fact I never asserted that Christ’s divine attributes ever ceased to exist in the first place, but rather that he voluntarily chose to live within the limits of his humanity whilst in union with his divinity)
And I'm asserting that when you say that God can willingly choose to be less perfect than He is, you're altering the essence of God.
I apologise, next time you want to repeat an argument despite the fact its already been answered (such as above when you asked concerning the compatibility of Christ’s infiteness with his humanity – despite the fact ive provided a website 2 times already explaining that), I’ll re-paste my reply, until you can directly respond to it,
I responded, but like I said before, that article didn't at all address the incoherence of the statement "God suspended one of His divine attributes for some time" or "God can be dependent on His creation for some time" or "something can be fully Divine and fully human without foregoing any of either of the essences' attributes"
Yes, technically speaking. If by "define" you mean determining "what" God essentially is.
Let's stick to the dictionary:
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=define how about definition 1b?
Affirmative. We identify Him by his secondary characteristics, which distinguish him as God apart from His creation.
Hey bro, careful, you're starting to sound like me!
If you can define God for me by His primary characteristics, in the same way I can define a chair by its primary characteristics – i.e. a wooden base supported by 4 wooden sticks - and THEN prove to me that the incarnation must have inevitable taken away from God’s primary characteristics (like taking away the 4 stick supports of the chair) – THEN we can conclude as an absolute fact, that God ceased to be what he is, the same way a chair ceases to be a chair once it no longer has supports for its base. God’s secondary characteristics allow us to distinguish God, but they do not essentially make God. In any event, ive never asserted that God’s attributes (secondary characteristics) CEASED at any time.
God's attributes are absolute and unchanging. One of these attributes is "being". God always "is". God is perpetually omniscient, omnipotent, independent of space and time. The key word here is perpetual, these aren't properties you can switch off like a light switch I said,. When you change, suspend, take away, or alter any perpetual property, you have CHANGED God and are said to have detracted from His Perfect and Divine attributes. If you can't even pose a scenario where these "secondary" attributes as you say are not being changed, how do you expect to show that the "primary" characteristics are constant? Also, these attributes are Boolean, their negation is their opposite. You are either omniscient or NOT omniscient, eternal or NOT eternal, you can't temporarily lose that or temporarily have been that. You can't have a part of absolute infinity, go read your article again.
What does this prove? The fact is, there is a “Godly” divine nature – that no one can describe with human language. This divine essence never to ceased to be, and consequently His divine attributes never ceased to be. In the case of Christ He is eternally existent as a hypostasis of God (God’s eternal word) which means he is of this divine essence which consequently gives him the attributes of God as well.
Weren't you telling me above that the "square" is attached to the "circle"? And there is no Christian theologian on earth that will say that Jesus was independent of his surroundings, he was very much subjected to time, space, and human needs. This in itself negates the assertion that God retained his secondary qualities, one of which is independence from creation. Unless you still stick by your Jesus was attached to God theory, which I'd like to hear more about.
A car is a “body of metal” on four wheels with a motor etc. etc. (These are PRIMARY characteristics).
So if a car loses a wheel it ceases to be a car? I disagree with your definition of primary characteristics. How many can you remove before you cease to call a car a car? Now if you remove ANY of God's attributes, you are effectively saying He is no longer God.
In light of all this the fact the car is not being-self propelled (an attribute and secondary characteristic unique only to a car) does NOT indicate that we no longer have a car – due to the ESSENTIAL FACT that the CAR is defined by its primary characteristics I.E. the fact we still have a body of metal, with four wheels, and a motor etc. etc. means this “thing” is still a car nonetheless.
I'd like to hear more about how you decided what was a primary and secondary characteristic bro, tell me about that. So if your car loses a wheel, but you are still driving it around, you wouldn't call that a car?
Yes that’s right its an incomprehensible aspect of Christian theology, not an illogical one.
Don't play with words bro, something is either logical or illogical. If it's incomprehensible and can't be explained logically, it's illogical. I'm sorry.
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=illogical
Also, I pasted a whole list of verses from the Quran that show your Allah is not all-knowing (which you conveniently avoided answering), and this is far from what the Bible portrays concerning God.
Addressed in my book, take your time reading it.
The Bible portrays God’s eternal will adding a human nature to His divine, and voluntarily choosing to retain his knowledge of certain things in his waking consciousness as a man according to His humanity, whilst His divinity and consequent omniscience always existed along side his humanity – allowing him to make comments explicitly revealing His omniscience.
Choosing not to be omniscient for a while? (Which is ok because we removed the criteria of 3-sidedness for the triangle for this sentence).
The Bible reveals an incomprehensible apparent paradox
It's not a paradox bro,
A paradox is something that seems impossible but can be demonstrated to be true.
whilst the Quran just blatantly reveals an ignorant God – an ignorant God my friend, is a square-circle.
That's not true bro, and the issue of predestination is at the heart of this (all in "The incoherence of the philosophers"). Now if you had said that God chooses to be ignorant for a while, then that certainly is a square-circle.
So again i refer you to all those verses i pasted in my previous post, and i patiently await your response. In addition to those 10 or so problematic verses, i refer you to Surah 2:30-35. There are 2 theological problems that arise from this passage, but i'll simply raise questions concerning the problem relevant to this discussion. First, how did the angels know what the condition of man would be prior to his creation, a fact obviously not known by Allah since he rebukes the angels for their statements by declaring his omniscience. And yet still the angels were correct. Are the angels also omniscient, or even worse, is Allah not omniscient since the angels were obviously right?
Heh, all those verses AND MORE are discussed in length, including predestination, knowledge and actions of the angels by the leave of God, and the creationism regarding the Qur'an, go to your local library or amazon, Bro. This book is PRECISELY what you need to understand Islamic philosophy.
Subjugated in terms of hierarchy within the God-head
The God-head has a hierarchy? What is it? I always thought you believed there was coequality but I admit I was in error in this regard then.
Second of all, I wasn’t using my analogy to say “since God can will this, he can than will anything upon himself” – like I said, I cant logically prove the incarnation, it is one of God’s great perplexing mysteries (And that’s far from accepting a square-circle as a great mystery). I was simply using it as a plausible analogy to the doctrine of the Incarnation (which you have yet to logically disprove)
But you said yourself it's incompressible and therefore a matter of faith, not logic, I'm still waiting for your logical proof, since something is either logical or illogical (and faith based).
2 “natures” united – without mingling, without confusion, and without alteration, whilst retaining their properties/attributes.
Unfortunately there is significant "alteration" of the divine essence, but if it's a matter of your faith, you have a right to believe it.
(Please remember the ground rules in your response)
Heh, I certainly did. I can't wait for your response after reading "The Incoherence…" but remember the ground rule I've set for you,
1) If you choose to ignore [books] that are provided as a response to your claims, then you cannot continue to pursue your claims nonetheless. That would be called argumentum ad ignorantium.
And remember, if you do bring up anything that even has its own chapter in the book, I'll clearly know you've decided to ignore the most quintessential book in Islamic philosophy and continue ad ignorantium. I hope you don't think my ground rule is unfair, but after all, you decided to play the Mutazalite card, so I decided to cut that off from its source, otherwise we can sit here for days with you quoting 'Ata ad nauseum.
And remember, the Mutazalite school of thought currently has no adherants. (I'm pretty sure it's been that way for hundreds of years!) That's how powerful Al Ghazzali's book was.
2) You must remain consistent in your arguments, by applying your criteria against aspects of your own doctrine. Therefore, until you can adequately address the issues concerning orthodox Islamic theology, which i address in this response, then you cannot continue with your line of reasoning against Christian theology, because then you would be contradicting yourself.
Thankfully a Mr. Al-Ghazzali did this for me hundreds of years ago, and honestly I can't find a single rebuttal to what he said. Maybe you can though, take a look.
Peace bro and seriously good luck