What was before God? (or, Why did He wait so long?)

WOW! that is so deep, i agree with you becasue you don't have to see something to know is there. It's llike air you don't see it but you know it's there, You can't see God but you know he is there becasue of FAITH!!!

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So basically, everything I need to know is in the Koran. And you guys have been trying to tell us this for years! Man, we really have to get our fingers out.

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I didn't say that God only gave bits and pieces to other Prophets, but that those messages were corrupted and changed over time by human beings. The holy Qur'an is the last revelation to the last Prophet, and it contains the same message that was revealed to all other prophets.

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You say that God is “perfect and all-knowing”. If God is omniscient and omnipotent, then there can be no free will. If I have a choice of two shirts to put on, God knows which I will choose. If He does, then I can only choose the one He knows I will choose. This means I do not have free will. If He doesn’t know, then He isn’t omniscient and omnipotent, which means He can’t be God.

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God knows everything because He is not limited by time or space. He knows what has happened, what will happen, and what is happening, because the relativity of time does not exist for Him. However, just because He knows something will happen, does not alter the fact that you have free will. He knows what you will decide, not because He is influencing your free will, but simply because He knows the future, and knows what your decision will be even before you yourself make it. There is no contradiction in this at all.

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Originally Posted by Ryduce

I don't understand why we have these discussions,because the answers to these questions are unattainable.As for me,I will continue to believe in God because it gives me comfort in my existence.I do not know God,nor will I ever,but I refuse to accept that life ends with death.I don't know if we have free will or if we are pre-destined by the plans of God,but I do know that we are beings ultimately created from nothing and we have a conscious choice to choose between right and wrong,and I will try to live as right as possible even if it is certain that God infinitely knows my every thought,choice or action.

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There many questions to which there are no answers but we owe it to ourselves to continue asking them. Or perhaps it is just a compulsion that is an attempt to stave off the monumental boredom of everything. You state your position passionately and there is nothing much to be said in the face of faith. For me, to say that it gives you comfort is no different from saying the same about alcohol, drugs or your favourite Teddy bear. I don’t know any of the things you mention either, but I will continue to wonder. The question of free will versus predestination is a tough one. If God does know your every thought, choice or action, then how can you be said to be responsible for any of them? They are already ‘written’ and your behaviour must be compelled by God’s knowledge of what you will do. This comes as a huge relief to me – none of it is my fault; it was God’s will.

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Originally Posted by Amra

God knows everything because He is not limited by time or space. He knows what has happened, what will happen, and what is happening, because the relativity of time does not exist for Him. However, just because He knows something will happen, does not alter the fact that you have free will. He knows what you will decide, not because He is influencing your free will, but simply because He knows the future, and knows what your decision will be even before you yourself make it. There is no contradiction in this at all.

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Of course there’s a contradiction! If God knows what my decision is before I make it, then I can only make one decision – the one God knows. This limits my freedom to choose. You cannot explain this in terms of human reason and logic – you resort to saying that the rules don’t apply for God. I also find it interesting that this boundless, infinite, unfathomable God, this God who is beyond all categorisation, is nevertheless male.

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Originally Posted by The Unnamable

Of course there’s a contradiction! If God knows what my decision is before I make it, then I can only make one decision – the one God knows. This limits my freedom to choose. You cannot explain this in terms of human reason and logic – you resort to saying that the rules don’t apply for God. I also find it interesting that this boundless, infinite, unfathomable God, this God who is beyond all categorisation, is nevertheless male.

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I don't think there is contradiction after all..it's as simple as He knows what our reaction on our life but he just lets us do things our own...Because if we do not have freedom to choose then why will He let YOU respectively make a post here questioning His significance??get it?if He limits you then why we are all arguing on this matter if He can make all choose one belief and faith..this explains how we're having freedom on our ways.And another thing, this topic will go a long way but after all, we still have the same question that won't be answered here...unless we believe that there reallyis the great God...Just wnt to share an answer of a child when his teacher asked that if God really exists where is He?The child said...Do you believe that you are intellectual ma'am?The teacher answered "yes" "Why Ma'am did you see intellectuality?"And this portays the big discusion here.... :brow:

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Originally Posted by The Unnamable

If God is omniscient and omnipotent, then there can be no free will. If I have a choice of two shirts to put on, God knows which I will choose. If He does, then I can only choose the one He knows I will choose. This means I do not have free will. If He doesn’t know, then He isn’t omniscient and omnipotent, which means He can’t be God. No one has ever adequately explained this to me. I have been told that “God knows your free will” but this is typical of the evasions of the faithful. If I don’t have free will, then how can I be morally responsible for anything I do? I couldn’t do anything else.

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Not only that, but you have no choice about whether to be a believer or not and God knows this, so why would you be punished for it?

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Originally Posted by Ryduce

I don't understand why we have these discussions,because the answers to these questions are unattainable.As for me,I will continue to believe in God because it gives me comfort in my existence.

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What if comfort isn't really what you need, Ryduce?

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Originally Posted by Whifflingpin

"Another plausible argument is that the shift to monotheism was associated with a social change from a matri-central society to a patriarchal society.

Neither of those views answers your questions from the point of view of any of the "Religions of the Book." From those you will have to be content with the old failsafe of "I don't know that, only god knows that." If you started from a theist position, that would be a sufficient answer. If you don't, no answer that actually involves God is likely to convince you.

"What was the fate of those 'souls' that perished before your religion existed? Or for that matter, those that lived and died in a country that it hadn't yet reached?" There is not much milage in speculating about the fate of souls, whether in this life or beyond. In the religion to which I feel closest, however, the purpose of mankind is to assist God in opposing evil. A person need not hold to a religion or even know about one to fulfil this purpose - all that is necessary is to have a sense of right and wrong. Having this sense, those who try to promote what is right are fulfilling God's purpose, and those who oppose what they know to be right are denying God's purpose. What this means, in terms of the fate of their souls, God alone knows.

This may not bring us much further forward. We do not all appear to have the same view of right and wrong, so you could ask the question, "Why has God not enabled us all to see the correct view (i.e. His view) of right and wrong?" One religious answer is that, within this universe, there is Evil as well as good, and confusion and dissension are products of evil. Your assumption (expressed in such phrases as "if god is as all-powerful as supposed") that any God must, within this universe, be omnipotent, is not necessarily valid. I am comfortable with a dualist viewpoint, not a monotheist viewpoint. I take licence to contribute to this thread from your original post which rather mixed a tolerance of polytheist religions with the monotheist assumptions behind some of the questions.

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One cliche afer another.

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Originally Posted by Amra

I didn't say that God only gave bits and pieces to other Prophets, but that those messages were corrupted and changed over time by human beings. The holy Qur'an is the last revelation to the last Prophet, and it contains the same message that was revealed to all other prophets.



God knows everything because He is not limited by time or space. He knows what has happened, what will happen, and what is happening, because the relativity of time does not exist for Him. However, just because He knows something will happen, does not alter the fact that you have free will. He knows what you will decide, not because He is influencing your free will, but simply because He knows the future, and knows what your decision will be even before you yourself make it. There is no contradiction in this at all.

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More cliches.

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Originally Posted by The Unnamable

I also find it interesting that this boundless, infinite, unfathomable God, this God who is beyond all categorisation, is nevertheless male.

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An anthropomorphic male, interesting, yes, isn't it? And if we were bumblebees, we'd be buzzing away in our hives to the omnipresent, omnipotent, omniscient Bee!

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Originally Posted by chef

WOW! that is so deep, i agree with you becasue you don't have to see something to know is there. It's llike air you don't see it but you know it's there, You can't see God but you know he is there becasue of FAITH!!!

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I swear, I'm moving to the woods! I gotta get away, seriously!

"Of course there’s a contradiction! If God knows what my decision is before I make it, then I can only make one decision – the one God knows. This limits my freedom to choose. You cannot explain this in terms of human reason and logic – you resort to saying that the rules don’t apply for God. "


God knows your free will. He knows what you will decide before you even think it. He knows what you will write next before you even write it. Does that affect you in any way? Certainly not. His knowledge of future has nothing to do with your free will. He didn't tell you to not believe in him, nor did He force you not to believe; He simply knows that you don't believe. I don't know why this is a hard concept to understand. To simplify, let's say you have a child who says "you are welcome" every time someone says "thank you" to him/her. Does you child not have a free will simply because you know the child will say "you are welcome" after you thank him/her? Of course not. And, let's say, you know that when your child is mad, he/she will refuse to say "you are welcome" and will instead look mad. Does your child not have a free will, simply because you know that when it is upset, it will refuse to say that to you? No. Well, imagine all this in a greater scale, and imagine God, who is not limited by time or space, and who knows EVERYTHING. Why does His knowledge affect you? He knows what will happen in the future, and He also knows what your free will will make you do, or not do.

"I also find it interesting that this boundless, infinite, unfathomable God, this God who is beyond all categorisation, is nevertheless male."

He is not male. God doesn't have a gender. Muslims refer to God as Allah; and Allah in itself does not have a gender. It is unfortunate that because of our language limitations we resort to the resources we have, and assign Him a gender simply because we have to refer to Him in some way. It is best to not do that, but it would be pretty hard to talk about God without being forced to refer to him/her/it in that way.

Unless you have something constructive to offer to the ongoing arguments, please don't post. Using cliche, 'put down' remarks do nothing in the way of moving the argument forward.

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Originally Posted by tiny explorer

why will He let YOU respectively make a post here questioning His significance??

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Because he doesn’t exist.

So the answers to Xamonas’s questions, “What was before God? (or, Why did He wait so long?)” are ‘People who needed a God’ and ‘He had to wait for man to invent him.’

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Originally Posted by Amra

God knows your free will. He knows what you will decide before you even think it. He knows what you will write next before you even write it. Does that affect you in any way? Certainly not. His knowledge of future has nothing to do with your free will. He didn't tell you to not believe in him, nor did He force you not to believe; He simply knows that you don't believe. I don't know why this is a hard concept to understand.

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Don’t assume that I find it hard to understand – I don’t. I simply find it impossible to accept. There is a huge difference. Your explanation is a semantic conjuring trick and not even a convincing one. If he knows what I will write, then what I will write must already exist in his ‘mind’, even before it appears in mine. For me to produce something different from God’s knowledge of what I will write is, therefore, a logical impossibility. How is it therefore possible to say that I have free will? You also manage to make God seem rather menacing – as if he is daring me to reject him. What, according to your religion, will be the consequences for me (in both this life and the next) if I don’t believe?

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Originally Posted by Amra

To simplify, let's say you have a child who says "you are welcome" every time someone says "thank you" to him/her. Does you child not have a free will simply because you know the child will say "you are welcome" after you thank him/her? Of course not. And, let's say, you know that when your child is mad, he/she will refuse to say "you are welcome" and will instead look mad. Does your child not have a free will, simply because you know that when it is upset, it will refuse to say that to you? No. Well, imagine all this in a greater scale, and imagine God, who is not limited by time or space, and who knows EVERYTHING. Why does His knowledge affect you? He knows what will happen in the future, and He also knows what your free will will make you do, or not do.

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This is a weak analogy. Firstly, why a child? Secondly, what sort of a human being can only respond “you are welcome”? Are you sure you don’t mean a telephone answering machine? On what basis am I making the assumption that the child will only answer, or refuse to answer, “you are welcome”? I might expect the child to say, "you are welcome" but that doesn’t mean I know it will. Your comparison is not the same as God knowing my every thought and action, unless God simply programs us like robots. That doesn’t seem very much like free will, either.

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Originally Posted by Amra

He is not male. God doesn't have a gender. Muslims refer to God as Allah; and Allah in itself does not have a gender.

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Would you say that Allah has been endowed with predominantly male, female or neutral gender characteristics? I notice that you don’t use ‘She’ but ‘He’. Are they interchangeable?

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Originally Posted by Amra

It is unfortunate that because of our language limitations we resort to the resources we have, and assign Him a gender simply because we have to refer to Him in some way. It is best to not do that, but it would be pretty hard to talk about God without being forced to refer to him/her/it in that way.

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In the end, we come down to the claim that God is unknowable and that human logic cannot comprehend it/him/her/them. If you are happy with the contradictions I see, then that’s your choice. But why is it necessary to assume that lack of understanding on behalf of those who don’t accept those contradictions is the problem? My answer to Xamonas’s question is simple – because there is no God. I have many objections to the idea but picked a simple one on the basis of logic. There is nothing wrong with the reasoning – I am finally beaten by faith, not reason.

As this is a Literature Forum, we might expect people to be interested in human experiences as depicted in Art. Has anyone seen Krzysztof Kieslowski’s Dekalog, based on the Ten Commandments? What I see in those films is Kieslowski’s sympathy with the frail and flawed human beings who try to live by those rules. One of the stories is about a Mathematician and his seven-year-old son. Both of them are computer buffs and, with winter approaching, they take various measurements at the lake to calculate when the ice will be thick enough to withstand the weight of the boy. The father (a Professor, if I remember correctly) puts his faith in the capacity of the human mind, in Mathematics and Physics. That’s his faith. But the commandment relating to this episode is “Thou shalt have no other Gods before me". You can imagine what happens. For me, the beauty of the film is not that there is any resolution of the theological issues; it’s in the nature of the depiction of their impact on our lives.