Transcendent or Immanent God?
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I was wondering which view of God best matches that in the Quran? I think the traditional view is transcendent (God outside of the world) but a lot of passages I've been reading recently in the Quran and also statements from people on this site and others seem to suggest to me a more immanent view (God present in/expressed through the world)
Is God outside of creation and reflected in it?
Or is He actually present in it?
Just wondering... I would like to know what people think
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My belief God's creation (i.e. the universe) is time, space and matter which did not exist until God created it, so God was outside of that.
But I understand that God's creation is "within" that which existed before (as best as I can describe using our worldly frame of reference), but that we have no frame of reference to describe such a model in that I believe time and space (which we somewhat understand) are constructs of God, but what existed before creation is outside our perception, and thus we have no tools to describe them, and I find that God has not described what existed before creation, nor given us tools to understand it.
At the same time, I suspect that the animation-that-is-life is part of God's essence which God has into us... and God being and and ... and it seems to me that God is "present" in creation, but again, not in a manner that I believe we have a model to describe.
Even the word "present" seems to be defined only in terms of time and space, so since I believe God to be "outside" of time and space, I don't know how to apply the word to Him ) https//www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=define%3A%20present
Regarding God being "expressed through the world", I understand the Quran to tell us that everything in creation is an expression of God... that everything is evidence of God... (2115)
I find my response to be lacking... but it is (as you asked) "what I think"
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Transcendent
- better superior in quality or achievement
- philosophy beyond limits of experience in Kant's philosophical system, exceeding the limits of experience and therefore unknowable except hypothetically
- philosophy beyond categories above or outside all known categories
- religion independent of world existing outside the material universe and so not limited by it
Microsoft? Encarta? 2006. ? 1993-2005 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
Let us research in the Qur'aan to find mention of all the above four attributes associated with the word. I am sure you will find it.
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Salaam , I believe that transcendent is close in describing Allah's qualities despite the limitations of human language. Furthermore, I say He is unique and there is nothing in universe like him He is beyond the labels of transcendent or immanent which appeared relatively recent in history.
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Salaam , I believe that transcendent is close in describing Allah's qualities despite the limitations of human language. Furthermore, I say He is unique and there is nothing in universe like him He is beyond the labels of transcendent or immanent which appeared relatively recent in history.
Very nice. http//3.bp.blogspot.com/--h4eLCX9klE/UZHjEBYfY2I/AAAAAAAADoo/W5bcUQjtXls/s1600/thumb-up-facebook-emoticon-like-symbol.png
Salm.
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, but what existed before creation is outside our perception, and thus we have no tools to describe them, and I find that God has not described what existed before creation, nor given us tools to understand it.
and
... and it seems to me that God is "present" in creation, but again, not in a manner that I believe we have a model to describe.
Indeed, there is much we cannot encompass in understanding.
Even the word "present" seems to be defined only in terms of time and space, so since I believe God to be "outside" of time and space, I don't know how to apply the word to Him ) https//www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=define%3A%20present
Yes, even the word 'present' indicates some sort of separation. To fully understand if God is outside, inside, present or what in relation to us and creation, we have to understand God, which we cannot do. We can however refine our previous beliefs by reasoning what God is NOT, and rid ourselves more and more from unrealistic ideas.
Regarding God being "expressed through the world", I understand the Quran to tell us that everything in creation is an expression of God... that everything is evidence of God... (2115)
bravo bravo bravo
Perhaps is wiser to think in terms of how we are related to God, instead of where God is located. If all is evidence of God, and we see "his" face wherever we look, this says more about the nature of creation and our relation to God, than it does about where God is "placed". The point is to see Allah's face and to know. The point is not to conclude the location of Allah, because that's just intellectual philosophy, at best.
I find my response to be lacking... but it is (as you asked) "what I think"
I found your response appropriate, balanced and wise.
On the other hand, I found myself poorly expressed.Peace
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Zulf-
Thanks for your comments.
I said earlier
God's creation (i.e. the universe) is time, space and matter which did not exist until God created it, so God was outside of that.
After pondering further, the word "Temporal" came to mind (maybe I've watched too much Star Trek...?)
My thought was that God's creation (i.e. the universe) is temporal in nature, whereas God is not.
Ultimately, I find that God is not knowable beyond that which God has revealed to us. Therefore, I believe anything beyond that can be only speculation.
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Zulf-
Thanks for your comments.
I said earlier
After pondering further, the word "Temporal" came to mind (maybe I've watched too much Star Trek...?)
My thought was that God's creation (i.e. the universe) is temporal in nature, whereas God is not.
Ultimately, I find that God is not knowable beyond that which God has revealed to us. Therefore, I believe anything beyond that can be only speculation.
I guess so.
And, even that which has been revealed, is subject to speculation, depending on our own insight and understanding.
Best regards
Peace -
God is the only existing thing. Nothing exists, only God. As a comparison, which of course is just that, we could say that a hand exists, but what exists are beings which have hands. That is part of being. We really do not exists. We are dreams... of God.
Is a dream a different thing from the person who dreams it?
The good thing about it is that since we are of God, as long as there is God, we are not lost.
Only god exists, la ilaha illallaah
Salaam
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Salaam, you say that we are dreams of Allah? What proof do you have, if any, that we are? I personally do not believe this and I have not seen an ayah supporting such an idea, therefore to claim the Qur'an supports this is a lie. If you are a Muslim like I think you are, I urge you to be careful, brother. This idea is mostly found in Zen Buddhism and Jodo Shinshu but if you are not a Muslim, more power to you but what are you doing here?
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Peace,
It depends on how you see things, Themaninblack.
It can be a true statement that God is the only thing in existence considered that we are the mass of a giant singularity that is God. We are like software programs running on a platform and hardware which could also be allegorically described as dreams. I would not use the word "dream" like huruf, but I can understand the thinking. And our goal here is to become one with God or face the consequences. I use to say that we are not to end up like anomalies to God, like impurities or viruses. God's "anti-virus" program will put them in quarantine on the promised day.
Be whole
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Salaam, you say that we are dreams of Allah? What proof do you have, if any, that we are? I personally do not believe this and I have not seen an ayah supporting such an idea, therefore to claim the Qur'an supports this is a lie. If you are a Muslim like I think you are, I urge you to be careful, brother. This idea is mostly found in Zen Buddhism and Jodo Shinshu but if you are not a Muslim, more power to you but what are you doing here?
So you exist by yourself? You do not need God to exist?
By the way we are well served in this forum, we do not need to go to a shia or sunni or wahabi forum, we get here all the pontifying, judging and all knowingness from the posters, who needs to go to a sunni or whabi, when we are so well attented by judges here? Not even asked questions you are handed down the sentence as if in a court martial. My God. Are you preparin for joining the ISIS or what?
I am in this forum for many years and I do not owe you any explanation but you need to be more refined when you read people contributions if you want to benefit and if you do not understand ask, but your judgments keep them for yourself, I have not asked for them and I am not interested in them.
Salaam
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To answer the initial question, we have to look at what creation is. Do we know what creation is, how it works and how much of the creator is in it?
Some people may believe people can create things and we understand the process. But is that really the case? As humans we cant create anything. We cant create anything new. We cultivate, refine, process resources that were not created by us.
On a macroscopic level we have some big bang theory that appears to be valid. But we cant understand even what happened one microsecond before it.
I must admit I dont understand creation at all. And thus I cant answer the question.
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Peace,
It depends on how you see things, Themaninblack.
It can be a true statement that God is the only thing in existence considered that we are the mass of a giant singularity that is God. We are like software programs running on a platform and hardware which could also be allegorically described as dreams. I would not use the word "dream" like huruf, but I can understand the thinking. And our goal here is to become one with God or face the consequences. I use to say that we are not to end up like anomalies to God, like impurities or viruses. God's "anti-virus" program will put them in quarantine on the promised day.
Be whole
Salaam, I like your analogy and I am eager for you to explain the idea in further detail. I am intrigued by it
I especially like the part underlined. -
So you exist by yourself? You do not need God to exist?
No, I do need Allah to exist; What I meant by my response and I should have clarified was How do you know that we are in a dream. A dream is a state in which thoughts and images are flashing and pass through the mind while one sleeps. Allah is not a person; Allah is Allah and does not sleep, Allah is free from any human attributes or traits. I believe to say that we are in Allah's dream is shirk. Look at 3120, 4738 and 2255 to see the point I am trying to make.
By the way we are well served in this forum, we do not need to go to a shia or sunni or wahabi forum, we get here all the pontifying, judging and all knowingness from the posters, who needs to go to a sunni or whabi, when we are so well attented by judges here? Not even asked questions you are handed down the sentence as if in a court martial. My God. Are you preparin for joining the ISIS or what?
I am not interested in anyway whatsoever with joining ISIS; in fact, I worry that they are going to kill my friend in Kurdistan. Brother huruf, I am sorry that my tone was that of a know it all and I did misunderstood you but I am offended that you would think of me as such, I did not understand until MoF posted the post above. Still, if I have offended or insulted you; I apologize but it didn't give you any reason to accuse me of joining ISIS whatsoever.
I am in this forum for many years and I do not owe you any explanation but you need to be more refined when you read people contributions if you want to benefit and if you do not understand ask, but your judgments keep them for yourself, I have not asked for them and I am not interested in them.
I see that you are more experienced than I but I was only trying to remind you and I had good intentions. However, I only judged because I misunderstood, perhaps my comment was not necessary and I know that I am not quite "refined" but I meant good out of my comment. Salaam, I have nothing more to say.
Salaam
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Salaam, I like your analogy and I am eager for you to explain the idea in further detail. I am intrigued by it
I especially like the part underlined.The part that you underlined is a nice analogy, isn't?
I use to say that we are not to end up like anomalies to God, like impurities or viruses. God's "anti-virus" program will put them in quarantine on the promised day.
Bold Kindly explain further or more about this, brother MoF. Thanks.
Salm.
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That is ok, Themaninblack, since you have apologized that is all ok with me and thank you for your apologies. Not all people take the trouble to do that. So, thank you. I know you are not going to join the Isis, but I do think it is a bad trait when people adopt that overbearing tone in debates. That is not conducive to a friendly, even if vehement debate. If people fear they are going to be judged by what they say, there is no more debate, but examination. That Ihave noticed lately amongst some young people in the forum and that is very wrong and destructive, particularly for themselves. For me, really, I do not care, I have years enough to ignore that kind of thing. So I just wanted you to see for yourself that we are not going anywhere, anybody is nto going anywhere if we keep watch on each other as if we were some moral police and at the first exchange we launch the worst suppositions to people and before we ask or question whatever may shock us we think the worse. That we are indeed strictly forbidden by the Qur'an and warned very seriously. Freedom, friendliness and exchange are not compatible with moral or intellectual policing. See what I have put red of your words. Myself I can't follow how you can extract from that parable a shirk and sincerely I am not even interested. But on the other hand I find it terrible. It reminds me of Cardinal Richelieu when he said give me three lines written by the most innocent person on earth and I will find in them enough motives to hang him. That is it with words. We may learn from them, but we may choose to not only not learn but let loose our worst tendencies. We indeed are warned many, many times in the Qur'an about that. I I won't insist on what that kind of thing does to freedom. If people fear speaking, then there is very little left for them.
Now, to the question, you say
"A dream is a state in which thoughts and images are flashing and pass through the mind while one sleeps. Allah is not a person; Allah is Allah and does not sleep, Allah is free from any human attributes or traits. I believe to say that we are in Allah's dream is shirk.
Exactly Allah is nto a person, in fact Gos is beyond anything we can imagine, you or me or anybody and even beyond what the Qur'an might say, because what God is cannot be put in words, which are limited. We have no means of conceiving Allah, we may get some vision, to our own measure, through His names, attain at some level of his manifestations, through worshipping of His divine names.
THEREFORE in general when we speak about God we are doing it never litterally because simply He is beyond our grasp, we do it by approximations concerning some of his manifestations, never in any attempt whatsoever to comprise Him.
THEREFORE, if I say a dream of God, like even the Qur'an itself uses parables, I am using an analogy WITH RESPECT TO WHAT WE ARE DISCUSSING, not in any attempt to give a vision of God as such but in an attempt to show how we can be of God and not be outside of God and still not be God nor grasp God. The same as our dreams are ours, but we are not our dreams, and they are not us and do not have any power over us, or any existence outside of us, the same with us and God.
?Do you really think that what people may say in this forum or anywhere else will really tell you what God is or is not? Words. Only the heart may feel the way to God, our link to His mercy. Words cannot give us knwoledge nor real understanding of God if they are not the expression of a real fealt nearness to Him from the depth of our hearts and if we do not arrive at this certainty of being asolutely His.
Going back to dreams, they are of many kinds, even the daydreaming where in fact we are the masters of our own dreams by opposition to sleepdreaming, where our dreams are not under our will. That of course would not be pssible with God, I think, He would always be the master of his own dreams. His "dreams", like creation, keeping to the parable, would always be akin to daydreaming and not deepsleep dreaming, that is why I say that the parable that I put forward with this dream thing refers exclusively to the matter under discussion and that I took for granted that it was so understood, that we are talking about wheter God is transcendent or immanent, and to that I say that God is all there is, that outside of God nothing has real existence, like so many philosophers and writers have said, life is a dream, and our existence is the way back to the One awake. It is not that God is anything for Us. God is nto for us, we are for God.
Salaam
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I see, could you if you would, show me how what I said overbearing? Thanks, in meantime, I suppose I better tell you how I see us in relation to Allah. I see ourselves as lowly creatures in sense that we need His Grace, Mercy and Forgiveness but we are high enough to be spiritually separate from animals and act as guardians of the Earth, which is our home
That is ok, Themaninblack, since you have apologized that is all ok with me and thank you for your apologies. Not all people take the trouble to do that. So, thank you. I know you are not going to join the Isis, but I do think it is a bad trait when people adopt that overbearing tone in debates. That is not conducive to a friendly, even if vehement debate. If people fear they are going to be judged by what they say, there is no more debate, but examination. That Ihave noticed lately amongst some young people in the forum and that is very wrong and destructive, particularly for themselves. For me, really, I do not care, I have years enough to ignore that kind of thing. So I just wanted you to see for yourself that we are not going anywhere, anybody is nto going anywhere if we keep watch on each other as if we were some moral police and at the first exchange we launch the worst suppositions to people and before we ask or question whatever may shock us we think the worse. That we are indeed strictly forbidden by the Qur'an and warned very seriously. Freedom, friendliness and exchange are not compatible with moral or intellectual policing. See what I have put red of your words. Myself I can't follow how you can extract from that parable a shirk and sincerely I am not even interested. But on the other hand I find it terrible. It reminds me of Cardinal Richelieu when he said give me three lines written by the most innocent person on earth and I will find in them enough motives to hang him. That is it with words. We may learn from them, but we may choose to not only not learn but let loose our worst tendencies. We indeed are warned many, many times in the Qur'an about that. I I won't insist on what that kind of thing does to freedom. If people fear speaking, then there is very little left for them.
Now, to the question, you say
"A dream is a state in which thoughts and images are flashing and pass through the mind while one sleeps. Allah is not a person; Allah is Allah and does not sleep, Allah is free from any human attributes or traits. I believe to say that we are in Allah's dream is shirk
Exactly Allah is nto a person, in fact Gos is beyond anything we can imagine, you or me or anybody and even beyond what the Qur'an might say, because what God is cannot be put in words, which are limited. We have no means of conceiving Allah, we may get some vision, to our own measure, through His names, attain at some level of his manifestations, through worshipping of His divine names.THEREFORE in general when we speak about God we are doing it never litterally because simply He is beyond our grasp, we do it by approximations concerning some of his manifestations, never in any attempt whatsoever to comprise Him.
THEREFORE, if I say a dream of God, like even the Qur'an itself uses parables, I am using an analogy WITH RESPECT TO WHAT WE ARE DISCUSSING, not in any attempt to give a vision of God as such but in an attempt to show how we can be of God and not be outside of God and still not be God nor grasp God. The same as our dreams are ours, but we are not our dreams, and they are not us and do not have any power over us, or any existence outside of us, the same with us and God.
?Do you really think that what people may say in this forum or anywhere else will really tell you what God is or is not? Words. Only the heart may feel the way to God, our link to His mercy. Words cannot give us knwoledge nor real understanding of God if they are not the expression of a real fealt nearness to Him from the depth of our hearts and if we do not arrive at this certainty of being asolutely His.
Going back to dreams, they are of many kinds, even the daydreaming where in fact we are the masters of our own dreams by opposition to sleepdreaming, where our dreams are not under our will. That of course would not be pssible with God, I think, He would always be the master of his own dreams. His "dreams", like creation, keeping to the parable, would always be akin to daydreaming and not deepsleep dreaming, that is why I say that the parable that I put forward with this dream thing refers exclusively to the matter under discussion and that I took for granted that it was so understood, that we are talking about wheter God is transcendent or immanent, and to that I say that God is all there is, that outside of God nothing has real existence, like so many philosophers and writers have said, life is a dream, and our existence is the way back to the One awake. It is not that God is anything for Us. God is nto for us, we are for God.
Salaam
See the underlined parts? The underlined defeat the statement in red. We are and never were God, I am not God, I am too imperfect for the statement to be true. Besides, the worship of self is one thing forbidden in the Qur'an . The Qur'an instructs us to worship Allah alone and nobody else; Not even ourselves, I believe that in order to be with Allah, one must the crush the ego and submit to His Will. Still, I urge you to read the verses I have cited and now, for daydreaming, it sounds reasonable until you know the definition of it A dream-like state in which fanciful thoughts are mused and entertained. Again, it is a human attribute, Allah is free from any needs and all wants, He is a very self sufficient God; see 397 for evidence. With all due respect, I urge you to reconsider what you have said about being in Allah's "dream" for I do not see any ayahs supporting your statements about Allah, so I ask; Where is the proof for it? How did you come to such conclusion? Please explain to me further if I have totally missed the point but nonetheless, I am curious.
Pardon me if I was a bit headstrong in my questions to you Plus, I might have messed up the highlights and underlining.
Salaam.
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