Tuesday, February 5, 2013
God in the Qur'an and the Bible
The most important difference that I noted in the Qur'an and the Bible was God's attitude. While both texts made me ask questions about intentions and actions of different characters, the Bible presents more questions about God than the Qur'an. The overarching character quality that is really emphasized about God is that he is an all-powerful, all-knowing, etc. character. There is nobody who is above God, as is frequently demonstrated all throughout books like Genesis, which is more or less one long torrent of God's wrath. However, other, more specific moments in the bible make me sort of double-take, and wonder about how all-knowing, etc. God can really be. Take, for example, the story of Noah in the bible. In the bible God regrets his creation of mankind, and decides to flood the world, killing everyone. In the Qur'an, however, God doesn't express any regret, despite the amounts of sinning in the world, and whatever else is going on, God still doesn't act as though this wasn't something that he expected, or anything like that. It seems odd that God should act as though he is surprised or something, and then act as though he needs to solve some kind of problem (i.e.: flood the world); if God knew that this problem was going to arise then wouldn't he have been able to solve it beforehand? Therefore making his all-knowing status actually something verifiable. In the Qur'an Noah is actually the one who expresses regret for the human race, not God. Even though God agrees with Noah in a sense, and goes through with his plan to flood the world, it's important that God doesn't contradict his position as an all-powerful being by somehow expressing such a human quality, like regret or something similar.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Denis Jekić
ReplyDeleteThe question that struck me most in this bog entry was: "It seems odd that God should act as though he is surprised or something, and then act as though he needs to solve some kind of problem (i.e.: flood the world); if God knew that this problem was going to arise then wouldn't he have been able to solve it beforehand?" This is a great question because it asks why in the world there ever existed such a problem (any, in general), if God already knows everything and can avoid problems or change them for the better. This makes me want to change the question to "What benefits/positive outcomes are there to "playing dumb" and just letting things happen the way they do?" As much as I'd like to think it's done as some cosmic joke, this cannot be true. God is there to guide people, but I believe his ultimate goal is to allow for humans to learn from and for themselves and then create their own opinion on matters. The Bible is once again another guide. It allows a person to create a base knowledge on right and wrong, or whatever that is supposed to mean in the Bible, and then God allows people to go ahead and figure it out. Although he does ask for complete devotion, one can't help but wonder why he allows for "do-overs" and repent. It must mean that, as is obviously true, we humans are imperfect and need to make mistakes. It is what we learn from. He knows we will encounter trouble and misguidance and possibly almost completely straying off our paths. But when we learn our mistake, we are given the chance to ask for forgiveness and then to take in the knowledge we gained from out first mistake so as to never do it once more. God in the Qur'an expresses no regret because I believe he knows that in the end the ultimate goal prevails the immediate, and that is to learn the ways and slowly become this morally righteous, selfless, devoted person. This is true for the Bible as well, regardless of the fact that in one there is a feeling or regret and in the other there isn't. In the end, there are two outcomes for those who follow these religious texts: they will prosper and be rewarded, or they will fail and be punished.
Chris Iorio
ReplyDeleteI as well have many concerns with how God is portrayed in the various parts of the Old Testament. He seems very merciless at times, having no issue with wiping out the whole earth, or Sodom and Gomorrah, or plaguing the Egyptians, to name but a few. For how often God is spoken as a merciful god, he seems very lacking of mercy at many points. It also bothers me, as you brought up, that he is disappointed with his creation of mankind at a point, and regrets making man. For a God that is supposed to be perfect and all knowing and powerful, why did he not see that coming? How does something that is all knowing, all powerful, and perfect make mistakes? It is a blaring contradiction in the Bible that really bugs me. This goes along with the fact that God needed a 7th day during creation to rest (which was brought up in class). In many of these aspects God is actually taking on human characteristics. It really brings up many questions about the validity of the text and it's origins. If these texts of the Old Testament are truly from God, how can there be so many glaring problems like the aforementioned? This is one of the major reasons why I am not a Christian (among many others).