Have you read Bart Erhman's Misquoting Jesus?

[Metacrock]

Here is one thought for where to begin, as it is the place that all knowledge in Islam takes root: who has the authority? Who gets to say, "this is the way it is" and why? How is this issue resolved? It isn't an Islamic problem, rather it is THE problem of intersubjectivity.

the American news media gives us the impression that old men in turbines in Iran spout what they want it becomes law in Islam. I have a feeling it's a bit more complex than that.

[sgttomas]

lol

[met]

. Here is one thought for where to begin, as it is the place that all knowledge in Islam takes root: who has the authority? Who gets to say, "this is the way it is" and why? How is this issue resolved? It isn't an Islamic problem, rather it is THE problem of intersubjectivity.

Yes, but. In what context? An xian, or at least a Prot, might say "witness of the a Holy Spirit" is the only ultimate authority. Even if one ultimately decides to submit to (some interpretation of) the scriptures or to the Magesteria, the decision to do so must first be grounded in something.

How does it work in Islam? Is it different? Is the Quran seen as convincing on a purely intellectual level? (My ignorance of Islam always makes me abit cautious in these convos with you, you know? Your wider knowledge of our subject matter is rather an advantage, and I don't wanna come off pretentiously, even tho I know that neither of us are really trying to "win" here. ) Anyway, there are inter-Islamic controversies, to say the least, about this very topic, just as there are in xianity - n' est ce pas?

Whereas in our wider secular world, prob'ly science is held to have the most general authority. The "facts" devoid of controversial "values". Supposedly.

[sgttomas]

Yes, but. In what context? An xian, or at least a Prot, might say "witness of the a Holy Spirit" is the only ultimate authority. Even if one ultimately decides to submit to (some interpretation of) the scriptures or to the Magesteria, the decision to do so must first be grounded in something.

How does it work in Islam? Is it different? Is the Quran seen as convincing on a purely intellectual level? (My ignorance of Islam always makes me abit cautious in these convos with you, you know? Your wider knowledge of our subject matter is rather an advantage, and I don't wanna come off pretentiously, even tho I know that neither of us are really trying to "win" here. ) Anyway, there are inter-Islamic controversies, to say the least, about this very topic, just as there are in xianity - n' est ce pas?

Oh yeah, there are all kinds of similarities and differences. A rich history of heresies, heterodoxies, competing orthodoxies, and currently....general confusion resulting from the implosion of traditional learning models and accessibility of source texts made possible by the internet. It's not something that anyone can honestly say is a straightforward subject.

Here is a interesting commentary on the topic. I just started re-watching the HBO series "The Wire" and wanted to read some critical commentary on the show. Here is such a profound statement made by one essayist:

Even if The Wire focuses on particular failing institutions, it implicitly makes a deeper point about institutions as such. As a society, our response to most problems that require collective action is to set up institutions that provide constraints and incentives to help align self-interest with the goal in question. Unfortunately, complex problems, such as education or crime, cannot be perfectly captured by institutional design. The gap between the incentives and constraints established by any institution and the goals it is meant to serve leaves a space for self-interest to subvert the original purpose of the institution. The Wire illustrates this tendency by showing its extreme manifestations in the war on drugs, in the public school system, and in democratic politics.

source: http://www.oxonianreview.org/issues/7-2/mark.shtml

Like you said, "the decision...must first be grounded in something". I love studying this subject. I don't even know if I have a good answer for myself, but it's a fascinating topic to explore!

Whereas in our wider secular world, prob'ly science is held to have the most general authority. The "facts" devoid of controversial "values". Supposedly.

-sgtt

[met]

ST - Richard Beck's blog on Walter Wink on "powers and principalities." Interesting...

http://experimentaltheology.blogspot.co ... guage.html

More later!

[met]

Okay, I want to respond to some of your previous points now....

. So I do, essentially, agree with you when you say that one cannot support a set of doctrines on which to build our lives and society, but this is a tremendous weakness. In Islamic thought, all of this is tethered to a source of revelation and the notion is that God has provided us with the basic set of tools on which to construct these things. It is of course entirely necessary to have doctines on which to build our lives and society. So Muslims are often confused why a Christian would want to struggle with making those things up for themselves instead of listening to God's instructions. A God who loves us and has Mercy on us and shows His Favour towards us is more than capable of instructing us in these matters in the best ways possible.

Well, people try to make Xianity into that, an explicit "pattern for life". Indeed, people like the dominionists even try to reconstitute the Law. But within the tradition there are issues with that. To use Lutheran language there is that other thing, that deconstruction, the minority report, that "theologia crucia" that as Luther noticed tends to undermine and subterfuge all constructive attempts to over-delineate, hierarchize, and rationalize. And that thread of xian thinking delves deeply into core of the very center of the main narrative itself, unfortunately for some who would rather minimize its implications.

So what's left after realizing that, that any attempt to define an xian society or even "way of living" is implicitly unstable - learning to "die in Christ?"

. In life with Jesus Christ, death as a general fate approaching us from without is confronted by death from within, one's own death, the free death of daily dying with Jesus Christ. Those who live with Christ die daily to their own will. Christ in us gives us over to death so that he can live within us. Thus our inner dying grows to meet that death from without. Christians receive their own death in this way, and in this way our physical death very truly becomes not the end but rather the fulfillment of our life with Jesus Christ. Here we enter into community with the One who at his own death was able to say, "It is finished."

--Dietrich Bonhoeffer,

Is this a part of xianity that has no correlation in Islam? (( I think the Sufi mystics anyway use similar "apophatic" images/ideas sometimes,at least? )


Is there a critical difference between the traditions here? Is there a different understanding of the world?

. It is not necessary - it is entirely unnecessary - that God's Son sacrifice his life for our sins, in order that we enter into heaven. The seriously flawed theology that supports the assertion of our justification and sanctification is based on that crucial flaw of confusion sufficiency with necessity, and the resulting priority of knowledge that diminishes intellectual exercises in favour of personal relationships is a direct extension of this flaw.

That objection applies only to Anselmic "substitutionary atonement" types of views, I think. There are other ways to see it. Metas liberation theology-influenced "solidarity" view - eg - doesn't seem to require that, an underlying necessity to excuse God's presence among us, an exchange, a salvationistic "economy"...


In any case, do the mysteries/incongruencies associated with the Son also tend to make the Father seem more transcendent, less comprehensible, further away?

[sgttomas]

Well, people try to make Xianity into that, an explicit "pattern for life". Indeed, people like the dominionists even try to reconstitute the Law. But within the tradition there are issues with that. To use Lutheran language there is that other thing, that deconstruction, the minority report, that "theologia crucia" that as Luther noticed tends to undermine and subterfuge all constructive attempts to over-delineate, hierarchize, and rationalize. And that thread of xian thinking delves deeply into core of the very center of the main narrative itself, unfortunately for some who would rather minimize its implications.

So what's left after realizing that, that any attempt to define an xian society or even "way of living" is implicitly unstable - learning to "die in Christ?"

That notion of stability is fascinating, because we really have no idea how to practically implement it. There are so many variables, if it was easy, science could tell us how to do it lol (srlsy tho)

It's a lot to say that Christianity IS inherently unstable, but sufficient to argue that Islam has a better argument for justifying the claim that it is a probable and viable means to strive for it. At least there is a consistency in the basis of knowledge in Islam that allows for such a claim to be plausible in fairly straightforward terms that I think most people can appreciate. Nothing fancier than that is required. I just don't see a similar structure as even plausible in Christianity.

. In life with Jesus Christ, death as a general fate approaching us from without is confronted by death from within, one's own death, the free death of daily dying with Jesus Christ. Those who live with Christ die daily to their own will. Christ in us gives us over to death so that he can live within us. Thus our inner dying grows to meet that death from without. Christians receive their own death in this way, and in this way our physical death very truly becomes not the end but rather the fulfillment of our life with Jesus Christ. Here we enter into community with the One who at his own death was able to say, "It is finished."

--Dietrich Bonhoeffer,

Is this a part of xianity that has no correlation in Islam? (( I think the Sufi mystics anyway use similar "apophatic" images/ideas sometimes,at least? )

Is there a critical difference between the traditions here? Is there a different understanding of the world?

It's nothing sufi's have exclusive claim over. It's mainstream Islam...(Gabriel Hadith) http://www.islamicity.com/articles/Arti ... C0508-2762

Here is the crucial error of Christianity. Muslims have access to that spiritual quest to a single, unified, coherent objective in Allah. All of the mystery is still deeply bound, but it is correctly attributed to God alone. Here is the other fascinating part. The Prophet Muhammad - May God send peace and blessings upon him - was described as "the Quran, walking". The Quran is the very Word of God. Quran is literally God's eternal, uncreated speech in Islamic theology. Also, this explains the significance of Muhammad's charateristics: http://seekersguidance.org/blog/2010/07 ... z-rabbani/

The Christian error is failing to realize that a human being is a slave to God, and God may impart perfect character upon His slaves, as He wills. The Messengers - among them Jesus - were given this character as a proof of their message being from God. Quite literally, when we see Jesus we see God, but we dont SEEEEEEEE God, for God's sake - God is far above association with any of His Creation. God is necessarily unique. A proper understand of God will easily dispel the notion that Jesus was IN ANY WAY equivalent to God. Yet Jesus was nothing less than the perfect character of God on Earth. And so was Muhammad. And he was the best of Creation, and a guide and a mercy sent to the entire universe.

So the character of God is indeed just as accessible, and the mystery of what the Messengers' inner reality of such a close realtionship with God was really like is completely beyond us - except as God bestows upon us, by His will and favour. It is this "dying to Christ" or this drawing near to Godly perfection that constitutes the mysteries of the self and our relation to the Divine. This is the stated purpose of Islam, as clearly laid out in that "Gabriel Hadith".

The mistake of the Christian is not properly attributing God His uniqueness, as it befits Him, and failing to recognize the noble character of the Prophet Muhammad, who came to perfect the human condition - by God's will and guidance. He was our exemplar and Islam is our path, and God has preserved these for our instruction and striving after.

....not trying to be too "evangelical" here, but this is just the most basic facts of the matter from the Muslim perspective.

. It is not necessary - it is entirely unnecessary - that God's Son sacrifice his life for our sins, in order that we enter into heaven. The seriously flawed theology that supports the assertion of our justification and sanctification is based on that crucial flaw of confusion sufficiency with necessity, and the resulting priority of knowledge that diminishes intellectual exercises in favour of personal relationships is a direct extension of this flaw.

That objection applies only to Anselmic "substitutionary atonement" types of views, I think. There are other ways to see it. Metas liberation theology-influenced "solidarity" view - eg - doesn't seem to require that, an underlying necessity to excuse God's presence among us, an exchange, a salvationistic "economy"...

That is only a specific instance of the non-necessary attribution of divinity to Christ. Every other instance of such an attribution can also be shown to be non-necessary, and contradictory in the framework for proper discussion of the Creator that I laid out in my piece on Knoweldge of God in Islam. We can have many ideas about God's relationship to humans. Revelation is the only sure guide. Other approaches are based on the inner-suggestions, and we can't really trust ourselves unless we are purified selves. And we can only be purified selves because God draws us near. But we would need a standard by which to validate our drawing near, otherwise it is complete subjective and I don't know how to resolve the Problem of Authority in that case. Everyone is "lead" by the Holy Spirit, but the signal seems to be confusing some people. This is a real problem.

From the Islamic perspective, we still have the notion of God leading us, but the standard we are held to is the character of Muhammad, God's Messenger, and the message he brought. Here, the ambiguity is over how to interpret the standard, but the core issues are clear and only people whose hearts are bent on argumentation would focus on the details arrogantly, as if they know better than anyone else.

This is a distinctly different mode of being.

In any case, do the mysteries/incongruencies associated with the Son also tend to make the Father seem more transcendent, less comprehensible, further away?

That's debatable. In my opinion, yes. I think there is good evidence that many people experience the same thing. For a Muslim, God is both immanent and transcendent. These are just His attributes - Glorious and Exalted is He! Having Muhammad as God's Messenger to bring godly character and diving knowledge to us allows for the intimacy of humanity's perfect connection with the Divine to be our guide, while keeping a proper perspective on God's complete independence of Creation and utter dissimilitude with Creation.

I think these are all distinctly different attributes and modes of reality between the two traditions.

Peace,
-sgttomas

[sgttomas]

More later!

Great! ...looking forward to it

[met]

that was brought up on CARM. I have not read it but I would like to argue against it. He tries to say we don't know anything Jesus really said. I think we know enough to get he gist.

By comparison to the methods for validating scriptural texts in Islam, the saying of Jesus in the New Testament wouldn't even reach the lowest level of validity and could not be relied upon for defining religious doctrine.

-sgtt

that's easy to say when you just declare that your stuff is literal and true and then wont let anyone at it. I have read schoalrs who say Muslims just don't allow the kind of criticism we do. if they did the Koran would fall apart as the Bible has.

I think st and I both missed this.... I dunno that it would. I've never heard anyone claim the Quran was redacted at all or anything like that. It's just different, a single text produced all at once and not a collection evolving over centuries or millennia.

Controversies much like our "Bible scholarship" one, however, seem to arise in Islam over different issues: Hadith, hermeneutics, etc. (In fact, ST alluded above to the "general confusion" right now, since the Internet age began. )

Well, now that I bumped this post, ima let him comment... he knows much better than me.

[sgttomas]

Yeah, I did miss it.

What I will honestly say is that...if it took me 2.5 years to have to develop a way to express myself in this subject, then I would expect it will take just as long to give a proper reply to that point that Meta is making.

Peace,
-sgttomas