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Casting Down Imaginations
Saturday, February 9, 2013 21:21
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One of the reasons Islam appeals to some people is because
of the vaunted simplicity of its conception of Allah, i.e. what Muslims call tawheed or Allah’s absolute oneness. This
most important part of the Islamic creed (aquida)
is supposedly so simple that even a child can understand it.
of the vaunted simplicity of its conception of Allah, i.e. what Muslims call tawheed or Allah’s absolute oneness. This
most important part of the Islamic creed (aquida)
is supposedly so simple that even a child can understand it.
Contrast this with the doctrine of the Trinity, the teaching
that God is tri-personal. In some ways this doctrine is so abstruse and
mysterious that even the most powerful intellects throughout history have had
great difficulty and no success in completely wrapping their minds around it.
that God is tri-personal. In some ways this doctrine is so abstruse and
mysterious that even the most powerful intellects throughout history have had
great difficulty and no success in completely wrapping their minds around it.
While the simplicity of tawheed
can be called into serious question, for arguments sake and for the sake of the
following observations, this otherwise dubious claim may be granted.
can be called into serious question, for arguments sake and for the sake of the
following observations, this otherwise dubious claim may be granted.
Assuming, then, that Allah is so effortlessly apprehensible and comprehensible that juveniles can
understand him, and that with the kind of ease they understand other things in ordinary,
everyday human experience, how is this supportive of the conclusion that Allah
is the God who made heaven and earth rather than unsupportive of it? Doesn’t
this observation really impinge on such a conclusion? That Allah would no more
tax our mental powers than other created things that are amenable to man’s
limited noetic faculties is surely problematic. In fact, while there are things
in human experience or creation that are relatively easy to understand, there
are also a great many realities and factualities that are not. Since some
things in human experience or creation transcend comprehensive rational
scrutiny, Allah would not only be on the level of the multitude of created
things which our minds can penetrate; he would even be beneath those created
things which our minds have not been able to get to the bottom of. If Allah
does not boggle our minds, then he can hardly be the creator and maker of the
apparently limitless but yet still finite universe that continues to stupefy
the world’s brightest intellects. All of this suggests, nay, strongly argues
for the fact that Allah is a product of a/the human mind instead of being the
one who made the complex world of men and things. A god who fits neatly into
our creaturely categories of understanding loses all claims to be the one who
is the transcendent ground and source of all things. Water can’t rise higher
than its source, and an effect can’t be greater than its cause.
understand him, and that with the kind of ease they understand other things in ordinary,
everyday human experience, how is this supportive of the conclusion that Allah
is the God who made heaven and earth rather than unsupportive of it? Doesn’t
this observation really impinge on such a conclusion? That Allah would no more
tax our mental powers than other created things that are amenable to man’s
limited noetic faculties is surely problematic. In fact, while there are things
in human experience or creation that are relatively easy to understand, there
are also a great many realities and factualities that are not. Since some
things in human experience or creation transcend comprehensive rational
scrutiny, Allah would not only be on the level of the multitude of created
things which our minds can penetrate; he would even be beneath those created
things which our minds have not been able to get to the bottom of. If Allah
does not boggle our minds, then he can hardly be the creator and maker of the
apparently limitless but yet still finite universe that continues to stupefy
the world’s brightest intellects. All of this suggests, nay, strongly argues
for the fact that Allah is a product of a/the human mind instead of being the
one who made the complex world of men and things. A god who fits neatly into
our creaturely categories of understanding loses all claims to be the one who
is the transcendent ground and source of all things. Water can’t rise higher
than its source, and an effect can’t be greater than its cause.
Muslims then have no reason to glory in the
observation that Allah is subject to man’s powers of intellection, and Christians
have no reason to recoil from the observation that the triune God of prophetic
revelation is unfathomable in His being and ways. Muhammad’s Allah is the kind
of deity that a man could and would make up; the triune God is not. The former is clearly a projection of one
man’s mind; the latter just as clearly isn’t.
2013-02-09 21:16:10
Source: http://www.answeringmuslims.com/2013/02/casting-down-imaginations.html
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