Suras 30 & 31 , respectively, are explained by Robert Spencer over at HA. Great stuff, and well worth the study….

Jaynie59 on June 22, 2008 at 9:03 PM

First, Jaynie, you should actually find out what you’re talking about, before you show your ignorance about Christianity and Christians on the World Wide Web, for all to see.

Question: “How does God’s sovereignty work together with free will?”

Answer: It is impossible for us to fully understand the dynamics of a holy God molding and shaping the will of man. Scripture is clear that God knows the future (Matthew 6:8; Psalm 139:1-4) and has total sovereign control over all things (Colossians 1:16-17; Daniel 4:35). The Bible also says that we must choose God or be eternally separated from Him. We are held responsible for our actions (Romans 3:19; 6:23; 9:19-21). How these facts work together is impossible for a finite mind to comprehend (Romans 11:33-36).

People can take one of two extremes in regard to this question. Some emphasize the sovereignty of God to the point that human beings are little more than robots simply doing what they have been sovereignly programmed to do. Others emphasize free will to the point of God not having complete control and/or knowledge of all things. Neither of these positions is biblical. The truth is that God does not violate our wills by choosing us and redeeming us. Rather, He changes our hearts so that our wills choose Him. “We love Him because He first loved us” (1 John 4:19), and “You did not choose me, but I chose you” (John 15:16).

What are we to do then? First, we are to trust in the Lord, knowing that He is in control (Proverbs 3:5-6). God’s sovereignty is supposed to be a comfort to us, not an issue to be concerned about or debate over. Second, we are to live our lives making wise decisions in accordance with God’s Word (2 Timothy 3:16-17; James 1:5). There will be no excuses before God for why we chose to disobey Him. We will have no one to blame but ourselves for our sin. Last but not least, we are to worship the Lord, praising Him that He is so wonderful, infinite, powerful, full of grace and mercy—and sovereign.
http://www.gotquestions.org/free-will-sovereign.html

Second, you obviously not being a person of faith, and incapable of believing the fact that there is something so much greater than yourself, couldn’t understand that God could allow us to go on our own way, as well as retain the ability to revoke free will. This is made abundantly clear by you calling God “…a monster of epic proportions…”, simply because you can’t understand why “…He would allow such horrible things to happen…” Think about all the horrible things you’ve done, and said, to others, and ask why you didn’t prevent them. There’s this thing that Christians and non-Christians, alike, believe: that’s called taking responsibility for your own actions. That’s when you take responsiblity for the things you say and do, and not blame monsters “…of epic proportions…” for making you do anything. Then, maybe you consider how when people like you denegrate Christ and Christians, we don’t hunt you down and saw off your head, like many a muslim certainly would. Maybe that’s because we trust God to handle it, if He even sees it as a problem, whereas muslims don’t believe their allah will, and therefore, must constantly take matters into their own hands. Kind’ve flies in the face of your pompous statement:

“Christians and other religious people cannot bring themselves to believe it is the same God, but the smart ones don’t say that outright. They can’t because they know how stupid it will sound.”

I still have a hard time following the “Allah is responsible for everything” thing. I mean, even in Christianity, we say God knows all and sees all. But God gave us all “free will”, which I take in Islam, how could Allah have given “free will” if everything that happens, everything, is by the will of Allah.

So then, the unbelievers must certainly been “willed” by Allah. You reinded us last week that Allah had even created evil men so he could put them in Hell. But by all this reasoning, all the unbelievers are willed by Allah, no?

JetBoy on June 22, 2008 at 6:01 PM

This is actually the best part of Islam. “Free will” is just an excuse Christians and other religious people use to get around the fact that if there really is a God He must be a monster of epic proportions. There is no other explanation for why, if God exists, He would allow such horrible things to happen. So their God is all-knowing, all-powerful, and all-loving, but there’s not a damn thing he can do about that dreaded “free will”.

Muslims, on the other hand, put their faith completely in their God. Christians and other religious people cannot bring themselves to believe it is the same God, but the smart ones don’t say that outright. They can’t because they know how stupid it will sound.

Some of them do say it, but they’re idiots.

Muslims just admit He’s a monster. That is the one thing they are honest about. It’s also why they can shoot little kids in the back and not feel the least bit of guilt.

First, I second the comment of Hawkins1701 at 5:22PM, and several others too. I admire your actions. I think that the tide of PC is turning; Steyn and Levant seem to be making it happen very publicly in Canada. Jail time seems unlikely.

Second, I thank you for your response. Of course, this means I won’t be “Hot Air’s Most Ignored (non-Troll) Poster for 2008” (I had a shot till now), but such is life.

I’ve read all of your “Blogging the Quran” posts, and I’m somewhat familiar with history and the effects of the Arabs on the civilizations of the Middle East, Africa and India. The level of civilization and achievement of 7th century Arabia is hardly secret; little in the way of technology by Mo’s time, but Arabs in the immediate vicinity could still read and write (and apparently did). Unfortunately for them, Mo’s sword defeated their pen.

I’m also somewhat familiar with Muslim attitudes towards rational thought and inquiry (Hot Air, Jihad Watch, FrontPageMag, LGF and others have added details).

Your points are well taken, but I was looking for a, or the, theological response to my abbreviated points.

That Mo could claim that fragmentary comments on bone, palm leaves, etc, in and of themselves are evidence of anything Divine seems ludicrous, and I think that the literate Arabs/Meccans of the time said so. I’m waiting for the negatives taken of a certain Quran (in Yemen, I think) to be published. Preliminary forecasts indicate much angst and rage.

I note the phrase “Allah knows best”, or some variant, is frequently the final sentence of an Islamic statement, verdict, etc. Its frequent use seems to weigh heavily against quoting some tangentially relevant portion of Islamic scripture. Thus, since some men are led astray by the will of Allah, and cannot be saved, as per the words of Allah, the Islamicly-indisputable quote “Allah knows best” should render any Islamic interference as a sin, against the will of God, and label the involved Muslims as Hypocrites.

My recollection is that Mo threatened Aisha’s father with Divine Judgement for questioning Mo’s desire for his 6-y.o daughter, and it seems that this sort of argument/threat is, ultimately, the only one Mo and the Muslims ever use.

I understand then, that 2:106 is Sura 2 Verse 106. It seems then that Islamic apologists would have a difficult time explaining, theologically, Allah changing the direction of prayer from Jerusalem to Mecca. I suppose that the contemporary Arabs saw nothing wrong with any of this, but still, why the change?

The list of internal Islamic problems and contradictions is long.

The attempts I’ve read, to justify Mo’s actions and contradictions, all fail after a brief debate. I suppose that we will be seeing more attempts as Islam spreads and inflicts itself upon others.

I notice that it is the exposure of the theological failure of Islam that gets the most response, hence, my severely-abbreviated posts.

When I am in prison for telling the truth about Islamic jihad, I do hope you will bake me a cake with a file in it.

Robert Spencer on June 22, 2008 at 5:45 PM

Don’t worry. There are still millions of us in the U.S. who believe in our Constitution, and especially the First and Second Amendments. We won’t let our God-given freedoms be taken from us –any of us– without putting up a fight.

Keep up your good work. Lots of us are listening.

I still have a hard time following the “Allah is responsible for everything” thing. I mean, even in Christianity, we say God knows all and sees all. But God gave us all “free will”, which I take in Islam, how could Allah have given “free will” if everything that happens, everything, is by the will of Allah…

JetBoy on June 22, 2008 at 6:01 PM

This seems to a reoccuring theme in Islamic Theology. It has come up before here at the Qur’an blog. I beleive it is important for EVERYONE WHO VALUES LIBERTY to understand this
key diffecence between our value system an Islam.

Sorry for the above premature post.

I still have a hard time following the “Allah is responsible for everything” thing. I mean, even in Christianity, we say God knows all and sees all. But God gave us all “free will”, which I take in Islam, how could Allah have given “free will” if everything that happens, everything, is by the will of Allah…

JetBoy on June 22, 2008 at 6:01 PM

This seems to a reoccuring theme in Islamic Theology. It has come up before here at the Qur’an blog. I beleive it is important for EVERYONE

Thanks. When I am in prison for telling the truth about Islamic jihad, I do hope you will bake me a cake with a file in it.

Robert Spencer on June 22, 2008 at 5:45 PM

I’ll make you one with a flamethrower in it.

But what I fail to understand is, how can the Koran and Allah say to “fight the infidels”, when the infidels are willed by Allah himself? If the Muslims win, it’s by Allah. Lose, it’s by Allah. Man seems to have no play in this.

And Mohammed’s prophecy cited above seems almost irrelevant, especially given that it’s thought to have been written after the fact.

We’re really getting into the nitty-gritty here in the Koran, and I feel I’m getting lost a little….not because of this series, as you’ve been extremely thorough and explain everything so well…but because the more I learn, the less I see the reasoning of Islam. Man seems to have less and less to do with any outcome. It’s all by the will of Allah. Free will and choices, good and bad, are the basis of religious belief to me. That we control our own destiny if we go to heaven or to hell.

But in Islam, that’s already been preordained.

Yep. See my quote of Qur’an 7:179 above.

Also, there’s Qur’an 10:99:

“If it had been thy Lord’s will, they would all have believed, all who are on earth! wilt thou then compel mankind, against their will, to believe!”

And there are plenty of others in this vein.

So then, the unbelievers must certainly been “willed” by Allah. You reinded us last week that Allah had even created evil men so he could put them in Hell. But by all this reasoning, all the unbelievers are willed by Allah, no?

Thanks. When I am in prison for telling the truth about Islamic jihad, I do hope you will bake me a cake with a file in it.

The ever escalating effort to silence free speech with regards to Islam truly frightens me.

The courage of you and Mark Steyn continues to be an inspiration for me.

Religion poisons everything.

A pinched, narrow, blinkered view of religion, and of the world.

Have the Muslims decided on the question Allah misguiding some men?

Yes, that is quite clear in the Qur’an. See 7:179:

“Many are the Jinns and men we have made for Hell: They have hearts wherewith they understand not, eyes wherewith they see not, and ears wherewith they hear not. They are like cattle,- nay more misguided: for they are heedless (of warning).”

Have the Muslims decided on the question Allah misguiding some men? If Allah does this, then it is the will of Allah, and therefore these men are meant to live this way, and the Muslims should not interfere. Why, then do the Muslims interfere?

Because Allah tells them to call all men to Islam, even though he leaves some to go astray, and even leads them astray.

I find it surprising that Mo was able to:

- Repeatedly ignore calls for signs, miracles and any proof that he was a messenger of God,

He didn’t ignore them. He repeatedly offers excuses/explanations throughout the Qur’an. I have touched on these in passing throughout the Q-Blog. He says that they wouldn’t believe no matter what they saw, and that the Qur’an is itself a sign, etc.

- Repeatedly make assertions (that his words were true, that other religions had distorted their own doctrine, etc.) yet fail to prove them,

In 7th century Arabia, he didn’t have to prove it. No one had ancient manuscripts lying around. It was his word against theirs.

- Violate his own commandments (from God, no less) and get called on it (by Aisha’s father),

He gave himself an out for this in 33:21: he is the excellent example of conduct, so what he does is proper because he did it.

- Contradict himself (the Quran is created perfect, vs. Sura 106; which is it?),

You mean 2:106. Islamic apologists say that Allah canceled material by way of progressive instruction, to lead the Muslims to accept principles (such as the prohibition of alcohol) that they would presumably have not accepted had he sprung them on them all at once.

and still retain a loyal following.

He was, evidently, a clever, quick-witted, and unscrupulous person.

Apparently, the restriction of education combined with free use of sharp swords and an appeal to lust, booty and the baser instincts of the rabble was quite effective.

That was certainly part of it.

I’m surprised you have an admiration for things Islamic. I find the enslavement of souls in a bastardized criminal/religious cult to contain nothing of praiseworthiness. And Islamic music and art are suspect if not outright haram in Islam are they not? It’s the vestiges of humanity left in Muslims that you admire. Imagine if the cultures ensnared in Islam were free to be fully human.

Yes, music and representational art are haram. Do these things exist despite Islam or because of it? A bit of both. Human beings are human beings everywhere, and the human spirit is unconquerable.

Allah says that the Byzantines have been defeated (v. 2), but will be victorious within a few years (v. 4). The Persians defeated them in 615 A.D., taking Jerusalem. According to the Tafsir al-Jalalayn, the pagan Arabs used this news to taunt the Muslims: “The Meccan disbelievers rejoiced in this [defeat of the Byzantines] and said to the Muslims, ‘We shall vanquish you as the Persians vanquished the Byzantines.’” But Muhammad was right: in 622, the Byzantines defeated the Persians and soon drove them out of Asia Minor. In 630, they retook Jerusalem.

This also becomes highly important in Arab (and Islamic) identity as they reflect on how through the narrative of the raids (ghazawat), the Bedouin tribesmen were able to bring two empires to their knees, destroying the Persian Sassanids (especially how the Arabs, much like the Goths, were used by both sides as barbarian auxiliary).

Though the Sassanids were destroyed, and a great part of what Heraclius won back for the ERE lost, the Arabs were unable to bring Constantinople to its knees, a source of dueling admiration and obsession. In the Abbasid years, with the Islamic triumphant of a Caliph, Sultan, and Vizir (Arab Abbasids would manipulate the “minority groups” such as Persians/Turks to play the “barbarian auxiliary role”), the Arab Caliph would only go on military campaigns to the Roman frontier, as such it would legitimize his position as holding the key to religious power in the empire.

Like the Gothic relationship with the Romans, once these groups found out who truly had the power (through observation, military events, and even the Sufi interaction with the Turks), being that of the military might of the Arabs, you see them seizing power from the Abbasids and venturing out of their own empire-creating.

I find it surprising that Mo was able to:

– Repeatedly ignore calls for signs, miracles and any proof that he was a messenger of God,
– Repeatedly make assertions (that his words were true, that other religions had distorted their own doctrine, etc.) yet fail to prove them,
– Violate his own commandments (from God, no less) and get called on it (by Aisha’s father),
– Contradict himself (the Quran is created perfect, vs. Sura 106; which is it?),

and still retain a loyal following.

Apparently, the restriction of education combined with free use of sharp swords and an appeal to lust, booty and the baser instincts of the rabble was quite effective.

I’m surprised you have an admiration for things Islamic. I find the enslavement of souls in a bastardized criminal/religious cult to contain nothing of praiseworthiness. And Islamic music and art are suspect if not outright haram in Islam are they not? It’s the vestiges of humanity left in Muslims that you admire. Imagine if the cultures ensnared in Islam were free to be fully human.

On a less personal note I should perhaps point out that this was a controversy in early Islam — does Allah control absolutely everything, or do human beings have free will? The Qadariyya, the free will party, lost this debate, given the weight of Qur’anic evidence that contradicted their position, and were deemed heretics. A few months ago Alt.Muslim took notice of my Qur’an blog — on sura 10, if I recall correctly — and claimed that I misrepresented Islamic doctrine in noting that it denied free will. When I brought up the Qadariyya, the guy said something like, Well, Spencer just hates Muslims. Yeah, I guess that means Islam teaches free will!

I feel the same way about Heraclius. I root for him all the way, and he has such a hard time. One of the tragic figures of history, and a great hero in many ways.