RZIM Spore

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Jack Said wrote this illuminating summary of major highlights at last Friday's Interfaith Dialogue:

Just came back from an Interfaith dialogue in Universiti Malaya. The topic is "Concept of God From the Perspective of Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism and Islam.

Some point from the Muslim speaker, my dear fren Bro. Shah Kirit..hehehe...

1. God is the Creator of all things. He can be called anything, all good names belong to God. The Quran encourages/promotes the noun Allah for God.

2. God is:
a. Uncreated/Unbegotten and begets not
b. Single/Tunggal/Strictly One
c. Cannot be describe or imagined. Everything that we can see is not God. Even when we close our eyes, everything that comes to our mind is not God.
d. Does not do "human functions", i.e. eat, sleep, err etc.
e. Is not an anthropomorphic God, which in his definition means God didn't become human.

3. Islam means "peace/calmness etc from submission/obedience to God".

4. Muslim are those who submit/obey God, i.e. follow his law. The moon is Muslim, the sun is Muslim, the trees are muslim because they all obey God's law. Anyone who obeys the true God is a Muslim.

5. Revelation of God is from the Quran, as primary source (yes he said that) and Sunnah as secondary source. We dont' speak from human reasoning alone, but from the scripture.

Jack's Analysis

1. His rhetorical use of the term Muslim is misleading. I am a firm believer of God and I sought to obey his law, if according to Bro. Shah, I am then a Muslim. Well, if I announce that, someone might come and take my body away when I die (re M.Moorthy). To be Muslim, it's much more than believing and obeying the true God. The Khalimat Syahadah which is the confession of faith states:

"There is no God but Allah AND Muhammad is his prophet"

A Muslim technically therefore must believe and accept Muhammad as God's prophet to mankind. If this real definition of Muslim is used, I am not a Muslim. Can non-volitional things like the trees, and the sun and the moon be Muslim? Go figure

2. This has been my question to many Muslim I met. Can the Quran, which is the revelation of God to Muhammad stand alone? What is the role of the Traditions of Prophet/Hadith/Sunnah? Are the equivalent in authority? Bro. Shah said Sunnah is the secondary source. What does it mean? For there are different parts of Quran which one will not understand unless one consult the Sunnah. And there are many different degree of authenticity of Sunnah. Yet some scholar pointing to the Quranic verse "Nor does he (Muhammad) speak of (his own) desire. it is only a Revelation revealed." (Sura 53:3-4) argued that Sunnah are revelatory. Muslim scholars are divided on this (as in quite a number of things...)

3. Bro. Shah used the word anthropomorphism to describe belief of god who became a man on earth. I thought that's a rather unusual usage of that word. The word simply means "humanization" or in more explanatory terms: to describe something (not necessary god/s) using human characteristics. E.g. "the hand of God", as Phye Keat the Christian speaker showed us and Yang Jern gave a good example of common english language anthropomorphism, i.e. "I stare at the spoon and the spoon stared back at me".

The reason why I point this out is because, i believe in order for God to be knoweable and understandble to some degree, anthropomorphism is inevitable. Bro. Shah's God seemed to be the TOTALY WHOLLY OTHER. he cannot be described or imagined. Chris made a good point by asking, "what is in our mind when we say 'God is loving'? If so, how then can we appreciate thiings like, "God is just", "God is good" etc? Bro. Shah tried to explain in terms of zat (substance) and sifat (characteristic) but he got nowhere. (this happens at the end of the dialogue when we approached him in person). Finally he gave us an example.

He asked whether we know the painter of Mona Lisa. Yes.
Well, can we appreciate him? Yes.
Do we know how he looked like? No.
There!
Not so soon.
But sir, I can imagine what it means when someone say, Da Vinci was a meticulous artist because I understand what meticulous may be. I may not fully know how meticulous Da Vinci was, but i can appreciate that it meant his great effort for details.

4. Someone asked, outside the forum hall, at the book table, what are the different kinds of bible? Common question. Very common. But first, for the first time, we displayed a Greek bible. We want to show them that we have access to the original language and bible didn't come in King James language from the sky and all. The questioners were Usuluddin students in the Academy of Islamic Studies, equivalent to our "theology" course i believe. Yet they seemed to be quite uninformed even on the most basic elements of Christianity, i.e. the "versions" of the Bible. I believe if we are overtly self-centered, we may become like that in our interaction with other religion. Let's be a fairer critic and learn at least the basics about our neighbour's faith -- at least for those of us who are apologist-theologian wannabes.

Back to the question, what are the different kinds of bible. I have two copies of Quran at home:

a. The Holy Quran with English Translation translated by Abdullah Yusuf Ali --- YA
b. The Holy Quran with English Translation commisioned by King Fahd ibn Abd al-Aziz Al Saud (translated by Dr. Muhd. Taqi-ud-Din Al-Hilali & Dr. Muhd. Muhsin Khan) ---- KF

Sura Al-Fatihah, verses 1-2

YA : 1. In the name of God, Most Gracious, Most Merciful.
2. Praise be to God, the Cherisher and Sustainer of the Worlds;

KF: 1. In the Name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful.
2. All the praises and thanks be to Allah, the Lord of the Alamin (mankind, jinn and all that exists).

Different versions?

I picked up my ESV, asked another person to read from NRSV, John 3:16...the verdict from my questioner: Sama saje.

And many more interesting stuff. Rev. Wong stood up to defend the duality of Jesus' natures and then throw a question to the Bro. Shah: Is the God of the Jew the same as the God of Islam? The crowd cried "NO"...but Bro. Shah said "Yes, or else I would be saying that there are two different God" (paraphrase).

Duality of Christ, for Bro. Shah, though as powerful as he made God to be, God cannot do what he did in Jesus. "If God becomes man, he is trap in man's body and world" or "If God becomes man yet retains his divine characteristics, he CANNOT eat, sh*t and sleep and err". Either OR. I believe LT's model of Cube in a two-dimensional world is a good explanation as least to show that it is possible for a thing in an higher degree of existence to exist in a lower realm which has some of its characteristics (the square face). The higher thing then retain its characteristics while taking on the characteristics of the lower thing. (did CS Lewis also use this?). OF course this is the first step, at least on the surface show them that it's not illogical. We still have to go back to the scripture to see why the disciples finaly come to see that Jesus is and must be God.

Good night it was. Am really touched by the Christians' turnout. Agora was there with Emergent folks. :) It's sweet. Universiti Malaya's CF juniors were there. Pastor Wong and Ps. Caleb from CDPC was there. It's a very very good start. I am most impressed by the Buddhist speaker, one Mr. Tan. He is the best I've heard so far, even better than the Ven. Dhamananda (maybe the latter haven't showed his real stuff..hehehe). Josh, he was your University-mate, the Pali University. He did his degree, self study and after that lectured at Than Hsian Temple for a while. Now he is also lecturing in a temple in Subang. Hope i can meet him again. Oh, interesting, heard from Hedonese Mr. Tan is actually the brother of Tan Kang Sang, a Christian scholar serving in OMF. hmmm...wow. betul kah?