I met a fren, explaining why his religion doesn't believe that Jesus is God. This is my reply to his mail posted as a comment below...
Hi Friend,
I heartily agree with you that God is "beyond all created things" therefore any attempt to describe God like "He is mighty like the mountains or vast as the ocean" would inevitably fail to convey the full spectrum of His greatness exhaustively.
But IMHO, your insistence that God is therefore without any point of correspondence with our understanding is unwarranted. It seems to lead to a form ofagnosticism. Isn't it ironic - I believe that God is perfect.... but what is perfection? Well, perfection is "things we cannot imagine what he is, that is what a Muslim should believe". If His perfection is merely that which our human mind cannot imagine, avague idea of no-thing-ness, that's basically saying, "I have absolutely no idea what He is like".
For the Christian, we have no problem with this unbridgeable chasm between God and man simply because God made us human beings in His own image. That means, our personality and mind resembles some of God's transpersonal nature and infinite MIND. The same law of logic which resides in the nature of God is implanted in the mind of the creature. So there is a point of reference and correlation that saves us from agnosticism.
When we say God is perfect, we may describe Him *meaningfully* but NOT completely.
For example, I know you are a Muslim... that is TRUE even though that statement is not exhaustively true. (I dunno alot of things abt you but that doesn't mean that this little bit of knowledge is false) Therefore the Christian faith does not abandon the human race to some unknowable "Wholly Other".
Strangely enuff, I AGREE with you that God in His perfection cannot cease to be perfect.
His essence is transcendent and He cannot chooseto contradict His trancesdence! See, friend, we share much in common but why do I still believe in the Incarnation of God? This difficulty is rooted in the Muslim's misunderstanding of the Christ's incarnation.
You confirm this by saying:" So if we imagine he becomes a man,it contradicts his very being. We say this in islamic theological musings as MUSTAHIL (impossible)"
Indeed, God cannot choose to cease being God and sacrifice His transcendence into finitude. That is not Christian's view of Incarnation. It's more like the Greek notion of mythical finite deities.
The Christian faith affirms that Jesus Christ is a Person who is united to TWO natures (*not one changeable nature, which has lost its transcendece*).
These two natures must be distinguished BUT not separated, mixed or confused. Some of my fellow believers tend to confuse Christ's transcendence with His humanity so the problem they encounter with Muslims who just can't take in the impossibility.
No! Christ is fully divine and 100% transcendent in His essence (ousia) as God. His Person is also united to a finite nature or essence (ousia) that is fully human. One Person, two natures.
There is no mustahil-ity because these two natures retain their own respective attributes fully.
The human body that sweats, tires, hungers, urinates etc. is not divine. Those attributes belong to a human nature which is united to Jesus, the divine Person.
Similarly, the omnipresent, all-powerful, transcendent attributes of the divine nature were not minimised into a weak, human nature. That's where the confusion with your brothers lies. In the final analysis, the Incarnation is a mystery, but not a logical contradiction.
God is indeed unlike anything in creation but He does not despise the creation as something He can't be immanent in. For in Him we live and move and have our being. His sustaining power guides and maintains our very existence. He didn't leave it like a wound-up clock ticking by itself.
So it is a peculiarly Christian's worship to the Creator that God is a relational Deity who intervenes and interacts with His creation!
The chief end of man is to glorify God by enjoying Him forever. But we worship not an aloof unknowable Entity of whom we have absolutely no idea...
For this infinite God doesn't abandon His Deity but has taken up a fully, finite human nature so that we may at last have a true though not exhaustive knowledge of Himself!
There is pleasure ever more in the glorious God who is there, not an entity of which we have no idea and glory in that which we know nothing of. Jesus says, "Let him who thirst come to Me". THere is satisfaction in Him who is alone the infinite-personal God.
Malaysia Boleh,
Daud
Hi Friend,
I heartily agree with you that God is "beyond all created things" therefore any attempt to describe God like "He is mighty like the mountains or vast as the ocean" would inevitably fail to convey the full spectrum of His greatness exhaustively.
But IMHO, your insistence that God is therefore without any point of correspondence with our understanding is unwarranted. It seems to lead to a form ofagnosticism. Isn't it ironic - I believe that God is perfect.... but what is perfection? Well, perfection is "things we cannot imagine what he is, that is what a Muslim should believe". If His perfection is merely that which our human mind cannot imagine, avague idea of no-thing-ness, that's basically saying, "I have absolutely no idea what He is like".
For the Christian, we have no problem with this unbridgeable chasm between God and man simply because God made us human beings in His own image. That means, our personality and mind resembles some of God's transpersonal nature and infinite MIND. The same law of logic which resides in the nature of God is implanted in the mind of the creature. So there is a point of reference and correlation that saves us from agnosticism.
When we say God is perfect, we may describe Him *meaningfully* but NOT completely.
For example, I know you are a Muslim... that is TRUE even though that statement is not exhaustively true. (I dunno alot of things abt you but that doesn't mean that this little bit of knowledge is false) Therefore the Christian faith does not abandon the human race to some unknowable "Wholly Other".
Strangely enuff, I AGREE with you that God in His perfection cannot cease to be perfect.
His essence is transcendent and He cannot chooseto contradict His trancesdence! See, friend, we share much in common but why do I still believe in the Incarnation of God? This difficulty is rooted in the Muslim's misunderstanding of the Christ's incarnation.
You confirm this by saying:" So if we imagine he becomes a man,it contradicts his very being. We say this in islamic theological musings as MUSTAHIL (impossible)"
Indeed, God cannot choose to cease being God and sacrifice His transcendence into finitude. That is not Christian's view of Incarnation. It's more like the Greek notion of mythical finite deities.
The Christian faith affirms that Jesus Christ is a Person who is united to TWO natures (*not one changeable nature, which has lost its transcendece*).
These two natures must be distinguished BUT not separated, mixed or confused. Some of my fellow believers tend to confuse Christ's transcendence with His humanity so the problem they encounter with Muslims who just can't take in the impossibility.
No! Christ is fully divine and 100% transcendent in His essence (ousia) as God. His Person is also united to a finite nature or essence (ousia) that is fully human. One Person, two natures.
There is no mustahil-ity because these two natures retain their own respective attributes fully.
The human body that sweats, tires, hungers, urinates etc. is not divine. Those attributes belong to a human nature which is united to Jesus, the divine Person.
Similarly, the omnipresent, all-powerful, transcendent attributes of the divine nature were not minimised into a weak, human nature. That's where the confusion with your brothers lies. In the final analysis, the Incarnation is a mystery, but not a logical contradiction.
God is indeed unlike anything in creation but He does not despise the creation as something He can't be immanent in. For in Him we live and move and have our being. His sustaining power guides and maintains our very existence. He didn't leave it like a wound-up clock ticking by itself.
So it is a peculiarly Christian's worship to the Creator that God is a relational Deity who intervenes and interacts with His creation!
The chief end of man is to glorify God by enjoying Him forever. But we worship not an aloof unknowable Entity of whom we have absolutely no idea...
For this infinite God doesn't abandon His Deity but has taken up a fully, finite human nature so that we may at last have a true though not exhaustive knowledge of Himself!
There is pleasure ever more in the glorious God who is there, not an entity of which we have no idea and glory in that which we know nothing of. Jesus says, "Let him who thirst come to Me". THere is satisfaction in Him who is alone the infinite-personal God.
Malaysia Boleh,
Daud
Comments
==============================
I am particularly interested in saying more on this. Can God become a man? I have a bit of difficulty explaining in English, and its how do I tell you that you are wrong without having to insult you.
I wonder, is it hard for you to understand the mind of a
Muslim, how he thinks of God? I believe it the great beauty of a Muslim's faith that he believes God in his essense, a transcendental being. His being transcendental is his supreme PERFECTION, that anything we think of Him which we can compare with is contradicting His PERFECTION. As he is perfect, he
remains perfect for all eternity past, present and future. That, we say if God can become a man, then it contradicts his perfect being. He is what he is, without our human mind can imagine what he is, that is already his PERFECTION, our human mind is incapable of picturing what he is like, or if anything that appears in our imagination and we are inclined to imagine what
God is, then it's all wrong! Things we cannot imagine what he is, that is what a Muslim should believe.
If God is so powerful, why can't he become a man? Its not a matter of if he chooses to do so. Its not a matter why can't he do it. In Islamic theological thinking, its God will not do things to contradict his PERFECTION, that is ...its ALREADY his perfection that he is being transcendental. So if we imagine he becomes a man, it contradicts his very being. We say this in islamic theological musings as MUSTAHIL (impossible) because God being perfect is not like any other "thing" apart from he himself. A thing apart from God's essence is a sign of weakness.
Weakness, is anything what God can create it and destroy it, So weakness is not God, its an attribute that exists in his creation that he created.
We say, --mukhalafatu_hu lil_hawaadith--- that God will never be anything like his own creation, for example, an atom, a tree, a horse or a man. It is easy to say, if God is so powerful, why can't he become a man? That's irrelevant. If we insist on saying it is possible, then its kufur (BLASPHEMY). That means we equate God with creation. In short, God's transcendental existence is something aloof from what is created. He is God, and never is like his creation.
To compare with what it means to say IMPOSSIBLE for God, we can take a popular argument, to say God will not do such thing if that will contradict his perfection. A question being asked, God is so
powerful that he can do anything, can he create a rock so heavy that even he himself cannot lift it? Surely we will say: "No", God will not do anything silly like that because it reflects at one instance, God can exercise his "weakness"--that is IMPOSSIBLE.
We also say, ---hawaadith-- as anything "new". God's existence is the REAL existence, that he is in no way capable of making himself into non existence. That again, we say MUSTAHIL. That is, it is mustahil that he exists at one time, and cannot exist at any other instances. His essence is his reality. He gives the
universe, all his creation an existence. And his creation is NOT part of him and he is not even in a minute amount CAN be part of his creation. All his creation is "new", he created them as something NOT being part of him in any way.
This is the very reason why true believing Muslims do not accept Jesus as God-man. We say its --mustahil--. A thing like that is impossible. We do not look at God looking like a human being.
That he can consist of atoms and molecules, he needs to breathe oxygen, need to eat and urinate, possibly can have spontaneous erection. The oxygen and carbon dioxide that he once used and are now part of the air we are breathing make us being partially
PART of Jesus. This is how Muslims argue. We glorify God saying...
"...praise and glory be to Him! (for He is) above what they attribute to Him.." [Quran 6:100]
We find JOY in glorifying God this way. That's why we call ourselves as Tawheedians. We let God be what he is. In fact its a heinous blasphemy to say God is a man,
"They do blaspheme who say: --- God is Christ, the son of Mary.." [Quran 5:72]
"..there is nothing whatever like unto Him..."[Quran 42:11]
Now, you'll have a hard time arguing with a Muslim. His belief is his faith. Its pointless say that a Muslim errs not believing that Jesus, a human being is God.