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This is a dialogue about whether it is possible for the Islamic conception of God to be loving, kind, and personal prior to creation.
Jimmy Stephens:
It might be helpful to start by some charitable investigation of each other’s theology. It’s my understanding that the Qu’ran and most (if not all) traditions of Islam teach that Allah is eternally loving, yes? By this I mean that it’s an Islamic doctrine that an essential attribute of God is love.
Chris Matthews:
He’s asking whether an essential attribute of Allah is love. Isn’t one of the 99 names of Allah, “al-Wadoud”?
Muslim #1:
yea his attribute means the loving or the kind one (do not get this messed up with the all loving attribute )
Jimmy Stephens:
How would you unpack these attributes? For example, I’m curious to know how you mean to distinguish Allah’s being “the kind one” vs His “all loving attribute.”
In order to argue about your view, I need to understand it first. That’s why I asked you how you conceive of Allah’s love.
Muslim #1:
the loving or the kind one
same attribute in arabic
but id kwhat u mean concive gods aturbutes
Jimmy Stephens:
yes pretty much
Jimmy Stephens:
Jimmy Stephens:
That’s problematic. If Allah is unipersonal essentially but He is also essentially kind, in what way is that kindness a reality prior to creation?
Muslim #1:
no such thing as prior with god / also god is personal
Jimmy Stephens:
Do you think creation is eternal?
okay, so if creation is not eternal, it came into existence by God, and God was kind prior to creation’s coming into existence, the problem is that there’s no social reality in terms of which God’s kindness makes sense.
Consider in contrast the Christian Trinity. On that view, God has a singular love that is possessed by three Persons, shared for each other. Each Member of the Trinity adores the other two members, experiencing eternal kindness for and from each other. It makes sense to say God is kind or that one of His attributes is love.
I don’t see how we can say Allah is loving or kind unless we mean He became kind once he created creatures with which to exhibit kindness. Before creating them, there was no one for Allah to whom He could share kindness.
Muslim #1:
the issue here is that u apply time to god
the hypostatic union is a logical impossibility but we can discuss that later
Jimmy Stephens:
how so?
Muslim #2:
Jimmy Stephens:
That looks like a claim. What’s the reason to believe it?
Muslim #2:
right, God’s ‘kindness’ was simply not manifest prior to creation, doesn’t mean it wasn’t “there”
Jimmy Stephens:
What is non-manifest kindness?
Muslim #2:
you can think of it in terms of middle knowledge: Given the circumstance, God acts in x way
Jimmy Stephens:
Okay, so God’s kindness is a mere potential kindness subject to extraneous laws about how He can bring it to be actual?
Muslim #2:
wdym by extraneous laws?
Chris Matthews:
Laws outside of Himself and His nature.
Muslim #2:
Chris Matthews:
Right. Therefore, kindness must always be an actuality in God’s essential nature. But kindness is necessarily interpersonal.
Muslim #2:
To be “kind” is to be friendly, generous, and considerate. Do tell, how can someone be friendly or generous, except if it were towards someone else?
We may say that the person in question has a proclivity for kindness, one which is dependent upon the obtaining of certain “resources” (eg., other persons). But such interdependence and extraneousness cannot characterise an absolutely sovereign and independent God.
So, why are they “contestable presuppositions”? You haven’t justified that claim.
Your analogy concerning the propitiatory sacrifice of Christ doesn’t work. God’s graciousness is an attribute of the economic Trinity ─ i.e., the Trinity in redemptive history ─ and thus not essential in the same sense that His justice is.
Muslim #2:
well, I don’t know what it means for the persons in the trinity to be generous towards each-other, nor how one can cash that out given that they’re all supposed to be God? aren’t you implying that God is kind towards Himself, and if not, why isn’t your “trinitarianism” actually quasi-polytheism under a different name? ;o
right, the point w. the analogy is simply to show that the manifestation of a property is not a necessary condition for its’ actuality. God could be kind w.o ever manifesting kindness, because there’s nothing (apart from God) to manifest it towards prior to creation, or in a world where God simply chose not to create anything at all.
Isn’t God’s sacrifice an exemplification of greater virtue, than had He not chosen to?
Jimmy Stephens:
I do not think you understood the criticism. Some major confusion with your analogy is that it requires the context of time. Muslim#1 and I agreed God is timeless. Therefore, whatever kindness He has cannot be contingent on temporality in order for its predication (of God) to be intelligible. In other words, God’s kindness must be a timeless kindness. So far so good.
The problem is that you want a time-like distinction of God’s kindness to reside in His nature. If God is kind merely in the sense that He has a predisposition to treat others with consideration and generosity, but it is not “yet” manifest in God, that is to say some external law analogous to time presides over God and divides His essence between non-manifest kindness and manifest kindness. While that works perfectly for human beings – time divides us between moments of potential kindness and moments of actually displayed kindness – we have already agreed God is not subject to time. Hence the contradiction for Islam.
Regarding your intended objection to the Trinity, I do not understand it. Yes, it is legitimate to say that Father-to-Son kindness is God-to-Himself kindness. That is the beauty of the Trinity, that these relations have both distinct members in the persons and one member in the being.
Muslim #2:
I don’t have an issue saying that God has unmanifested kindness (if such “kindness” requires creation to exist). Similarly, God has unmanifested forgiveness & unmanifested justice (prior to sin). Is this supposed to be a problem?
Jimmy Stephens:
If God is timeless in the way that you implied, then it ought to be true that it is eternally the case that God sacrificed His son for the sins of humanity.
This is a non-sequitur. Nothing about God’s timelessness implies “eternality” of the Son’s sacrifice. Moreover, “eternal” as you’re using it is ambiguous. Do you mean timeless?
I don’t have an issue saying that God has unmanifested kindness
Apparently Allah is contingent on creation for his attributes then.
Muslim #2:
which sins was God forgiving before humans came to be? yeah, I’m equivocating between timelessness and eternality ;P
What are you talking about? Why does God need to forgive human sins prior to their occurrence?
Muslim #2:
the problem is not that God doesn’t, it’s that God cannot
Jimmy Stephens:
I agree, Muslim#2, that God cannot be forgiving to Himself. Forgiveness presupposes moral error. God certainly can be just with respect to His own moral exigencies. For example, it is just of the Father to elect punishment for those who sin against the Son. However, that does in a different sense presuppose creation. Mercy is more difficult because the term can be defined several ways, but like justice, can only occur in the context of creation.
Each of those are types of love, which does not require creation. God possesses love because God is the Triune communion.
Allah’s kindness, or his love, cannot exist without creation. This, because Allah has no one with whom kindness is shared. It is simply a place holder for an egg waiting to hatch in creation.
Muslim #2:
It seems like you’re subtly sneaking in some implications by implying that the love of God is in itself, contingent on creation. It seems more correct, given the analysis I presented of God’s “interpersonal attributes” (which I reject for other reasons), that it’s simply their manifestation which takes place, not simply when creation simpliciter is taken into consideration, but a variety of different factors. God’s forgiveness is manifested, given the appropriate circumstances (sins or/and errors done by creation) and so is His mercy, justice, kindness, grace, etc.
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