If God only has to say 'Be' why was the world created in seven days?
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I was reading an English translation of Nahj al-Balaghah. It opens with this beautiful and succinct definition of God, but then moves on to how God made the world. The descriptions make God sound as if He's limited by the linearity of human engineering. But even the Quran gives this impression. God can bring anything into being using whatever mystery of creation he chooses and yet the creation of the earth occurs in processes. The apologist in me wants to believe that there's some deeper meaning to these processes, some gnostic interpretation. But it could just as easily be theological left-overs from a time when Gods were not as transcendent.
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Peace Cushan,
Why should it be any different? God created the natural laws, with the foreknowledge that the end result of their inevitable workings would yield this planet, life, and ultimately humanity. This is tangentially related to the oft-cited theistic evolution dilemma the idea that macro-evolution and God's creation of life are mutually exclusive. This is simply not the case. God created life, and ultimately humanity. How? Through evolution, that is to say, through natural processes that inhere themselves in the working order of things. It is God who created that working order of things.
As for why God created through these processes, as opposed to 'popping' into existence everything wholesale, we can only speculate. One possibility God urges us to study nature and the world around us, i.e. to participate in the field of scientific inquiry. Such an inquiry, of course, presupposes a world where things happen rationally, according to laws of nature. Otherwise, such study runs the risk of attaining self-contradictory and arbitrary results.
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Peace to all,
Theres a verse in the Quran that says, " GOd createdm and then continues his creation" which is a perfect ex[lanation of the debate between creationism and evolution, GOd can do both. I believe he created the original existence and then lets it evolve within his system.
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God does not exist within time. Time exists within God. So at every moment God is creating time and, therefore, creating everything else that exists within time.
Most people put limits on God, try to understand God from a limited human point of view. But God is without limit(s), He does not have a beginning, He does not have and end. How on earth can one imagine something that exists outside of time? Because whatever we imagine, for that moment it exists within time and therefore isn't anything of what God is like.
God alone can exist in a juxtaposition where none else can. When God says, "Be" and it is. It probably is like that with God. For God, the past, present and future would be nothing like how we experience it. In fact, we couldn't imagine it. But when God decrees that something is to be, who or what can stop Him? Nothing and no one can. It WILL be. It's just as good as saying it's done. This is God after all. How God does anything is never explained. Whether He wants to use a process or have it instantaneously appear is up to Him. The impression I get from the Qur'an is that light was created instantaneously but the rest of the universe took longer. But, most importantly, neither process contradicts "Be and it is" when we're talking about something that was created in the past. It's like, after, I own a house I tell my parents, "When I say I want a house, I have a house." How I got the house, how long it took is irrelevant.
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God does not exist within time. Time exists within God. So at every moment God is creating time and, therefore, creating everything else that exists within time.
Most people put limits on God, try to understand God from a limited human point of view. But God is without limit(s), He does not have a beginning, He does not have and end. How on earth can one imagine something that exists outside of time? Because whatever we imagine, for that moment it exists within time and therefore isn't anything of what God is like.
God alone can exist in a juxtaposition where none else can. When God says, "Be" and it is. It probably is like that with God. For God, the past, present and future would be nothing like how we experience it. In fact, we couldn't imagine it. But when God decrees that something is to be, who or what can stop Him? Nothing and no one can. It WILL be. It's just as good as saying it's done. This is God after all. How God does anything is never explained. Whether He wants to use a process or have it instantaneously appear is up to Him. The impression I get from the Qur'an is that light was created instantaneously but the rest of the universe took longer. But, most importantly, neither process contradicts "Be and it is" when we're talking about something that was created in the past. It's like, after, I own a house I tell my parents, "When I say I want a house, I have a house." How I got the house, how long it took is irrelevant.
Salam alaykom,,
Good answer, Really no need to add something. keep going