By Defending-Islam.com
Objection #1: “I cannot believe that God exists until He manifests Himself plainly to us all”
We
found the following hypothetical scenario presented by a self-declared
agnostic, and we believe it is important to present it and address the
problems inherent in such an exposition. The agnostic said[1]:
I was once asked ...
“In what way would a God need to reveal Godself to you in order for you to believe that a God exists? Secondly ... if you were God, how would you reveal yourself to the people of the world?"
“In what way would a God need to reveal Godself to you in order for you to believe that a God exists? Secondly ... if you were God, how would you reveal yourself to the people of the world?"
To wit:
If we're at the Redskins game next Sunday, and the sky suddenly lights up around 11 o'clock ... and some fellow who looks like Chuck Heston with a face a dozen times the size of the Moon appears ... or some form of entity never before seen around these parts manifests Itself ... and each of the 90,000 fellow humans around us in the stadium perceive It as we do ... and we all perceive It as It begins communicating how It feels about us, or sharing insight on how The Whole Thing Works or some other Really Big Thing ... and then perhaps rearranges a constellation or two while we all watch agog (you know, just to show us It’s serious) ... and when we all wake up the next morning the whole thing is in all the papers and on the news and by golly there's the film and sound and everything ... and all the subsequent frenzied digging by all the world's best scientists and all the world's best investigative media reveal that no, we were not in fact all going through some mass psychosis, or suffering a drug-induced mass hallucination due to a bad strain of grain and that yes, in fact this thing really did happen ... and oh by the way, the Big Dipper now looked like a Smiley Face instead of a spoon ... then yeah.
If we're at the Redskins game next Sunday, and the sky suddenly lights up around 11 o'clock ... and some fellow who looks like Chuck Heston with a face a dozen times the size of the Moon appears ... or some form of entity never before seen around these parts manifests Itself ... and each of the 90,000 fellow humans around us in the stadium perceive It as we do ... and we all perceive It as It begins communicating how It feels about us, or sharing insight on how The Whole Thing Works or some other Really Big Thing ... and then perhaps rearranges a constellation or two while we all watch agog (you know, just to show us It’s serious) ... and when we all wake up the next morning the whole thing is in all the papers and on the news and by golly there's the film and sound and everything ... and all the subsequent frenzied digging by all the world's best scientists and all the world's best investigative media reveal that no, we were not in fact all going through some mass psychosis, or suffering a drug-induced mass hallucination due to a bad strain of grain and that yes, in fact this thing really did happen ... and oh by the way, the Big Dipper now looked like a Smiley Face instead of a spoon ... then yeah.
Putting
aside the many references to popular culture and mild jokes being
presented above, this description is basically that of an
agnostic/skeptic asking for God to manifest Himself as the Christians
understand that God manifested Himself.
This
is a most unfortunate scenario, since what is true (and what is the
Muslims’ firm belief) is that Allah is not a body, He is not part of the
creation and He does not exist within the creation, nor does He change
from one state to the other; all of these are impossible to be
attributed to Allah, since in that case He would be just another
creature from among the creation, may Allah save us from such a belief.
However,
what is jokingly described above is merely a variation of the
Christians’ view of how God supposedly manifested Himself in this world.
The skeptic is merely saying that he does not know for certain that God
manifested Himself in the way Christians claim it occurred (since the
historical claim is suspect for him), and that he would only believe if
he and thousands of people with him witnessed an event similar to what
Christians claim occurred when God supposedly took the form of a man.
For a synopsis as to why such a view is impossible, the following
objections and their responses can be read:
and
Now,
once we know of the impossibility of God manifesting Himself in human
form, the Muslim points out that Allah does send certain elect people to
convey His Message from time to time. The Islamic religion calls such
people Prophets and Messengers, and such people are given wonders which
cannot be matched by their opponents – something which in Islamic
terminology is called a Mu’jizah (translated as miracle but the Arabic
term conveys the important meaning that those who oppose the Messenger
are utterly unable to reproduce the same amazing feat which the Prophet
or Messenger has been given), so that all the people who hear and see
the Prophet may be rationally convinced regarding the truth of the
Prophet’s claim.
The
Muslim knows and believes that Muhammad (Salla Allahu Alayhi Wa Sallam)
was given a very long list of visible miracles just like the miracles
of the past Prophets. In addition to this, he was given the glorious
Qur’an, which is a truly unique miracle, since it is a recited miracle
which is still accessible to us today, while all the other great feats
and miracles of the past Prophets are not accessible to us anymore, and
their truthfulness is totally a matter of belief rather than an
experience that can be accessed by anyone in the world today.
The
Muslim can discuss about the issue of Prophets and Messengers and how
Allah makes His Message known to mankind through these elect persons,
but all incorrect and wild ideas about how God can or should manifest
Himself have to be dropped before any fruitful discussion can be had
about this topic.
[1] http://omchronicles.blogspot.com/2007_02_01_archive.html
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