Understanding the Quran

[Hawkeye]

Yet all this recorded history is considered revelation 2 Tim 3:16 and was revealed to those who wrote it down after the events happened.

Its best if you actually read the verse and if you had bothered you would know it say NOTHING about history as such only that all SCRIPTURE is inspired. In that context all scripture arrived in a historical setting of some kind and for reasons know to God these particular setting impart something of God's message to us. Scripture itself is a mixture, some is straightforward history, some is direct teachings, some parables, some poetic and so on. Just like in Islam there are hermeneutic rules for using scripture so that one can extract meaning. In most cases of scripture we know the context but the question is whether the context drives what is regarded as scripture and who loosely benefits at the time or at a later time. I will give some examples from Islam in a later post to see how you view it.

What situations caused God to - forbid the Amonites and their descendants from entering the Lord's assembly, command 3000 Israelites be executed by their, "brother and friend and neighbor", order Canaan be cleansed from its inhabitants, forbid the Israelites entry to the promised land? etc

You give no references so I don't know if you have actually read any of this or you just copied it from elsewhere. But let us take one example, you say that 3,000 Israelites were executes and that is an historical fact not a command or bit of teaching. No doubt God wants us to learn something from the incident if its only to feel deep sadness that sin should bring this about but no one now argues this means we must go an execute anyone and Moses does not turn it into a bit of teaching or law. Neither do we say that this story was written before time began.

Even if you want to go to the 600+ commandments, many of them, just like many but not all of the laws in the Quran, came in answer to situations that had already occured.

Well you might argue that way but I do not agree and I cannot recall an incident where that did occur - I cannot deny it entirely because often we do not know the contexts. Perhaps you will find just ONE and we can discuss it and I will do the same for then Qu'ran and we can compare them.

There is no "as understood in Islam", there are opinions formed from verses of the Quran that give us a glimpse on the relation between God's omniscience, human freewill and moral accountability. These passages teach us that man uses his freewill while remaining subservient to God's will meaning nothing passes out of His control, and that God holds us accountable according to the level of freewill eachone is granted.

Interesting, Islam does not know, it only has opinions? But it does sound something of a contradiction to say freewill and nothing passes out of his control. But consider, Muhammed said "my community will never agree upon error", meaning I suppose that something confirmed by the Umma, is taken as infallible so where is revelation in this or freewill or fresh ideas - it sounds like intellectual suicide.

[naderM]

Its best if you actually read the verse and if you had bothered you would know it say NOTHING about history as such only that all SCRIPTURE is inspired

Which has everything to do with my point about the revelation of scripture recounting events that already occured

In most cases of scripture we know the context but the question is whether the context drives what is regarded as scripture and who loosely benefits at the time or at a later time.

You were already given examples, and i can cite 10 more where God commands Moses and other prophets to act in a certain way in answer to a situation

Just like in Islam there are hermeneutic rules for using scripture so that one can extract meaning. In most cases of scripture we know the context but the question is whether the context drives what is regarded as scripture and who loosely benefits at the time or at a later time. I will give some examples from Islam in a later post to see how you view it.

You mean for example the context that drove God to command Moses to ban the Amonites from the Lord's assembly because "they did not come to meet you with bread and water on your way when you came out of Egypt, and they hired Balaam son of Beor from Pethor in Aram Naharaim to pronounce a curse on you"? Seems like its getting personal and Moses is benefitting morally by this abasement of the Amonites by "divine order" because of having mistreated him in the past.

You give no references so I don't know if you have actually read any of this or you just copied it from elsewhere

Yeah i did copy it, from a book called the Bible. I did not think your knowledge of your own scripture was so shallow so as to ask for the reference for God;
- banning the Amonites and their descendants from entering the Lord's assembly Deut23:3-4
- ordering Canaan be cleansed from its inhabitants Deut9. Another example of scriptures getting "personal" according to your understanding with Moses and the Israelites benefiting from a "divine" order to occupy a land because its people have become corrupt
- forbiding the Israelites entry to the promised land Numbers13:28-33,14:1-35,Deut2:7,14. Another example of scriptures getting "personal" and a prophet benefiting morally from a divine order, according to your understanding, with God "avenging" His prophet by punishing the people who rebelled against his directives.

and the list goes on

Interesting, Islam does not know, it only has opinions?

Islam isnt a person and if there is consensus on the pillars of belief among us, there are differences of opinions on minor issues that do not have any bearing on a Muslim's practice of his religion as well as his salvation. Freewill is one of them and the Quran teaches the believer through the story of Moses and his encounter with one of God's messengers that we should be humbled just like Moses was humbled when confronted to such questions that particularly pertain to the relation between God's attributes of justice, omniscience and human freewill.

But it does sound something of a contradiction to say freewill and nothing passes out of his control

Go there

[naderM]

There is a sense in which we are all descended from Adam so in that sense we all partook of his sin.

You are descending from your father, did you partake in his sins like Cain and Abel "partaked" in Adam's sin

But the issue is SIN not Adam and how we individually deal with it

No the issue is Adam who sinned and whose sin was necessary to allow your redemption through Jesus' blood

unless there is no concept of Sin in Islam

The concept of sin in Islam is and has always been including in the OT personal responsibility for knowingly transgressing a divine command

Was Adam forced to Sin by God? I think not

He had to be since without it there would be no need for the atoning lamb, according to your understanding

and we hear God asking of Adam not "what have you done" but "where are you" meaning how far along have you travelled in your journey with and to God.

Talk about far fething an interpretation. The most obvious reading would be that since God is all knowing, His intention was to make Adam come out and stand up for his own choices, giving him an opportunity to admit what he had done wrong, but they didnt: Eve blamed the serpent and Adam blamed Eve. It is after the immature finger pointing and refusal to take responsibility and repent that God sends everyone out of the garden meaning what really caused their banishement was their stubborness and refusal to repent, otherwise they would have been sent away right after eating from the tree.

Now the Christian view is that God planned to bring salvation through a substitutionary death and that was foretold long before it happened.

So everything was engineered by God since the beginning of time to allow your redemtion through the blood of Jesus

Now you can argue that God engineered all the circumstances down to the smallest detail or you can simply say the prophesy was somehow fulfilled - I take this latter view.

- Show where does God foretell Adam's sin
- Even if you do which you wont, the prophecy still negates freewill down the line for if the prophecised even tdoes not happen, then it means God lied, according to your understanding

Summary - To answer your question I will use http://www.gotquestions.org/predestination.html and as you will see it is based on Professor Jim Packer’s book “Evangelism and the Sovereignty of God” ISBN 978-0830834129 (this is the 2009 edition)

When a Christian tries to answer the questions "What is predestination and is predestination Biblical?" you have to bear in mind that in general we cannot know the future and no one is born a Christian it has to be a deliberate choice. The Christian sees no inconsistency in speaking of an electing God who calls who he wills and a salvation free to whosoever will accept it. So we declare the sovereignty of God and yet the unimpaired responsibility of man.

As i summed up previously "..man uses his freewill while remaining subservient to God's will meaning nothing passes out of His control.."

Finally, there are several verses that speak of God changing his mind or repenting over what he has done

So is God isnt all wise and makes mistakes

So God predestines who will be saved, and at the same time we must choose Christ in order to be saved. Both facts are equally true.

If God chose you to be saved, you cannot disbelieve in Jesus meaning you have no freedom of choice

[shaad_lko]

Yes I have read it but I am still waiting for your clear answer that these verses CANNOT be used today to justify killing, they are now an historical account ONLY?

Yes they cannot be used to justify killing today. They refer to the Divine punishment for the deniers of manifest Prophethood.

[shaad_lko]

Interesting, Islam does not know, it only has opinions? But it does sound something of a contradiction to say freewill and nothing passes out of his control. But consider, Muhammed said "my community will never agree upon error", meaning I suppose that something confirmed by the Umma, is taken as infallible so where is revelation in this or freewill or fresh ideas - it sounds like intellectual suicide.

My community will never agree upon an error -means the opposite to what you have stated- it does not make consensus infallible, but means that there will always be some part of the community on truth.

[shaad_lko]

There is a sense in which we are all descended from Adam so in that sense we all partook of his sin. But the issue is SIN not Adam and how we individually deal with it - unless there is no concept of Sin in Islam.

naderM has already answered your opinions.. As to the concept of sin in Islam, there is no Original Sin because God forgave Adam, and in any case no soul bears the burden of another. So we all start with a clean slate - each child, whether born in a Muslim or Christian or Hindu or Jewish family is born innocent and free of any guilt. Thus the Prophet is reported to have said that all those who die in childhood will enter Paradise, irrespective of their parents' faith.

[DocW]

002.125
Remember We made the House a place of assembly for men and a place of safety; and take ye the station of Abraham as a place of prayer; and We covenanted with Abraham and Isma'il, that they should sanctify My House for those who compass it round, or use it as a retreat, or bow, or prostrate themselves (therein in prayer).

Islahi states that "Linaas" refers to the same people which are quoted in "Ini jailluka linnas i Immama" in other words it refers to the entire zuriyat i Ibrahim. Inessence Kaaba is the markaz and qibla for all of them. So should Jews and Muslims be allowed to enter Makkah?

[DocW]

Islahi is of the opinion that there is reference to the construction of Kaaba ( House of God) in OT. In Genesis 12 it states that Abraham leaves Haran and sets for Canaan. He comes to the sacred tree of Moreh. Islahi believes that this was actually the hills of Marvah where Kaaba is today but has been interpolated. OT then mentions the building of an Altar. In Islahi's opinion this is the mention of building of Kaaba by Abraham.

[DocW]

002.129
Our Lord! and raise up in them a Messenger from among them who shall recite to them Thy communications and teach them the Book and the wisdom, and purify them; surely Thou art the Mighty, the Wise.

What does recite to them mean?

What does Book mean?

What does wisdom mean?

What is the significance of purification?

[DocW]

002.131
When his Lord said to him, Be a Muslim, he said: I submit myself to the Lord of the worlds.

What is the definition of a Muslim?

[Hawkeye]

naderM has already answered your opinions.. As to the concept of sin in Islam, there is no Original Sin because God forgave Adam, and in any case no soul bears the burden of another. So we all start with a clean slate - each child, whether born in a Muslim or Christian or Hindu or Jewish family is born innocent and free of any guilt. Thus the Prophet is reported to have said that all those who die in childhood will enter Paradise, irrespective of their parents' faith.

God may have forgiven Adam but he did not remove sin did he and that was my point.

[shaad_lko]

God may have forgiven Adam but he did not remove sin did he and that was my point.

he did - all children are born innocent. The human soul has a propensity to do both good and evil, and that is the trial of this world. It is as though a challenge by God to see who is the best in conduct. Mercy of God is all-pervading, and will always be required for Paradise, but man makes himself worthy of Divine Mercy

[Hawkeye]

My community will never agree upon an error -means the opposite to what you have stated- it does not make consensus infallible, but means that there will always be some part of the community on truth.

Fair enough, but how can you be sure, in any case it says 'my community' and now you are saying its really should be 'some of my community.' But its a reasonable interpretation but even then all you have is agreement by some or even the majority but that has never been and never will be a guarantee of truth. But we seem to have a logical difficulty here: you say consensus is not infallible yet you say some part of the community will have the truth - so one supposes for that to be right it may well be a minority has the truth though how one can know I cannot tell.

[Hawkeye]

Islahi is of the opinion that there is reference to the construction of Kaaba ( House of God) in OT. In Genesis 12 it states that Abraham leaves Haran and sets for Canaan. He comes to the sacred tree of Moreh. Islahi believes that this was actually the hills of Marvah where Kaaba is today but has been interpolated. OT then mentions the building of an Altar. In Islahi's opinion this is the mention of building of Kaaba by Abraham.

He can have any opinion but what is his evidence? Its an odd idea really as it would be a very strange route to take to get to Canaan.

[shaad_lko]

Fair enough, but how can you be sure, in any case it says 'my community' and now you are saying its really should be 'some of my community.' But its a reasonable interpretation but even then all you have is agreement by some or even the majority but that has never been and never will be a guarantee of truth. But we seem to have a logical difficulty here: you say consensus is not infallible yet you say some part of the community will have the truth - so one supposes for that to be right it may well be a minority has the truth though how one can know I cannot tell.

It is immaterial to know which exact group of persons is on the truth. Rather, we should search for the truth itself, and this does nothing to Islam or to the freewill of man, since Islam is preserved in its sources - the Quran and the example of the Prophet (s).