111 replies to this topic

[Incognito]

For what reason did God create us?

[Gepetto_Zapata]

I dunno but thank GOD a.j. we were eh? Ahh the blessing of LIFE, seeing, hearing, breathing, sleeping, playing, all kinds of pleasures... Just take it simply like that because no one as much as they tell you this and that knows the true wisdom behind creation... Only He a.j.

Sure, "And I did not create the jinn and mankind except to worship Me." [Quran 51:56], however Allah a.j. doesn't need us to worship him, so doesn't need to create us... So the wisdom behind all of this... That's not for us to know about it, at least for now...

[wundermonk]

Incognito, on 10 October 2011 - 06:27 AM, said:

For what reason did God create us?

Creation assumes that we didnt exist before.

According to Hinduism, that is not so. Our souls were always existing working their Karma out. God is the efficient cause of the universe. Every creation of His [of which there are infinitely many] is another chance for us to attain liberation. We were never non-existent. Nor will we ever cease to be.

[El Cid]

It's all just things that will mess with your head, Hinduism is a man-made religion what was later ammended by the their leader Gandhi Can you really follow such lies? I can make pencil worshipping a religion if I get enough supporters, besides idol worshippers? really? There statues can't even brush off flies off their noses. Only trust jewish/christian/Muslim books and religions while arguing seriously.

[Incognito]

wundermonk, on 10 October 2011 - 09:06 AM, said:

Creation assumes that we didnt exist before.

According to Hinduism, that is not so. Our souls were always existing working their Karma out. God is the efficient cause of the universe. Every creation of His [of which there are infinitely many] is another chance for us to attain liberation. We were never non-existent. Nor will we ever cease to be.

As far as I am aware, Muslims believe in the creation of the soul too. Somewhat 2000 years before the creation of the body.

[wundermonk]

El Cid, on 10 October 2011 - 10:39 AM, said:

It's all just things that will mess with your head, Hinduism is a man-made religion what was later ammended by the their leader Gandhi Can you really follow such lies? I can make pencil worshipping a religion if I get enough supporters, besides idol worshippers? really? There statues can't even brush off flies off their noses. Only trust jewish/christian/Muslim books and religions while arguing seriously.

Hello Cid:

Who knows. Probably Hinduism IS a man-made religion. Actually Mahatma Gandhi tried to play a great role in reforming some of the degradations of Hinduism - caste system, etc. I notice you are from Pakistan. Arent you happy he also played a key role in helping both our countries free from the clutches of the British?

Actually, if you want to attach a source to what passes as current-day Hindu philosophy, you would have to look towards our philosophers who devised the six Hindu Darshanas. Each of these Darshanas claim to be the truest representations of various Hindu scriptures including Vedas.

We believe Vedas are eternal. But the six schools of philosophy above are certainly man-made for each had a founder/Acharya.

[El Cid]

The man tried to dephrive us Muslims of our rights, He didn't support the idea of the two-nation theory and supported Hindus over muslims anyday. Sorry but I don't support such figures, And yes I have read Pak history.

The caste system btw? I think when the British presented the Communal award, Gandhi himself fasted for days saying Minorities shouldn't be given the right to vote or anything.. The Communal leader was disheartened and just refused the award out of humanity that Gandhi stops fasting..

[Waiting for HIM]

***OP: Yours is the best question I've seen on SC. In fact this is the best question for all of humanity ever. ***
(so please excuse me if I could not explain it in all eloquence)

Here the answer to your question.

We were created for one reason alone, to be in total conformity to the commands of our Creator. In other words to be "exactly what HE wants us to be".

And I did not create the jinn and mankind except to worship Me." [Quran 51:56]

Quran calls it "ibada", to lead life in exactly the way Allah wants. Note that worship (ibada) is a very very expandable word. So our salat, our eating, our working, our walking, our sleeping, our every action, everything becomes in total conformity to Him.

Let me explain it further.

1. Earth: It was created to carry humans till judgement day. It does it without any hiccups and without any objections.
2. Sun: It was created to carry the planets in motion and to provide light on earth which helps sustain life. It does it without any hiccups and without any objections.
3. Cow: To give milk and help humans feed. It does it without any hiccups and without any objections.
4. Chicken: To give egg and to get fed by humans. It does it without any hiccups and without any objections.

And the list goes on and on and on.

Allah created this whole eco system starting from sun, moon, earth, down to the microbes in sea, and countless other things for us Humans. Now you must have noticed, none of these creatures of Allah ever become disobedient of Him, not for an iota of a moment.

Human, on the other hand, becomes disobedient of Allah all the time. We the thankless creatures for whom he has created so much for our satiation and for our pleasure, become disobedient the moment we get a chance.

Then Allah says that "this is the Human who can become higher in status than Angels and can also debase himself to be lower than the animals" all based on how he lives his life.

So the purpose of Human is to live his life exactly according to Allah's commands so he can elevate himself above the status of angels.

Once we understand this, then we can understand the whole logic behind why Allah sent prophets, why he sent law books, why he made us to seek guidance, and all things proper. This also makes us understand why we needed aimah and what is the need that the last Imam (atf), the final savior of humanity, has yet to come among us. That is, to lead us to live a life exactly how Allah wants us to live. Because that is how, the last Imam will fill the globe with justice (put everything in proper order) by making humanity, one of only two known creatures, Allah created with free will - to live life exactly how Allah wants in all it's aspects.

<also I wish some moderator could delete post 3 to 7 for clouding such a nice question from OP>

Edited by Waiting for HIM, 10 October 2011 - 01:35 PM.

[Incognito]

So He created us to worship Him despite Him not having any needs?

[.InshAllah.]

You can do something without needing to do it

[wundermonk]

.InshAllah., on 17 October 2011 - 02:47 PM, said:

You can do something without needing to do it

Hello .InshaAllah.:

I love analogies Could you give appropriate analogies depicting how one could do something without needing to do it?

One analogy that comes to mind is I could bounce the ball onto the wall, as sport, for no reason at all. I have no need. I might as well not bounce the ball. Yet, the act of my bouncing the ball causes my neighbour, his wife and small kid loss of sleep. *Knowing* that my bouncing the ball is going to wake up the neighbours and cause them lack of sleep - all the more so when I as well could have refrained from doing so - and still bouncing the ball doesnt seem morally correct to me.

Edited by wundermonk, 17 October 2011 - 03:12 PM.

[.InshAllah.]

I like analogies as well! I like your analogy. Heres another, perhaps less obvious: Eating chips rather than pizza. Suppose that I'm hungry and I like chips as much as I like pizza. They are equal from my point of view. So I have no need to eat chips rather than pizza, although I do have the need to eat something tasty.  Im not claiming this is appropriately analogous to divine creation; its just an example of how you can do something without needing to do it.

You could say that you do in fact need to eat chips as you need to eat something tasty, and chips are tasty. I would say that chips have 2 sets of properties: the first is being tasty, and the second is all the additional properties that differentiate chips from other tasty foods. Although you need to have something with the first set of properties, you dont need to have something with the second. So you are performing the act of eating something with properties that you dont need when you could have eaten something else with different properties.  If that doesnt convince you then I could grant that I needed to eat chips whilst also maintaining that I didnt need to eat chips rather than pizza!

More generally I would say that 'need' is pretty ambiguous so that it could mean more than one thing. It sometimes makes sense to say that 'I did x because I wanted to, not because I needed to'.  So ordinary use of the word 'need' sometimes sets it apart from 'want'.

Edited by .InshAllah., 17 October 2011 - 03:47 PM.

[Incognito]

.InshAllah., on 17 October 2011 - 02:47 PM, said:

You can do something without needing to do it

All wants stem from needs.

wundermonk, on 17 October 2011 - 03:08 PM, said:

Hello .InshaAllah.:

I love analogies Could you give appropriate analogies depicting how one could do something without needing to do it?

One analogy that comes to mind is I could bounce the ball onto the wall, as sport, for no reason at all. I have no need. I might as well not bounce the ball. Yet, the act of my bouncing the ball causes my neighbour, his wife and small kid loss of sleep. *Knowing* that my bouncing the ball is going to wake up the neighbours and cause them lack of sleep - all the more so when I as well could have refrained from doing so - and still bouncing the ball doesnt seem morally correct to me.

This was a good try, but I do not think it is sufficient. The act of bouncing the ball against the wall is not arbitrary. You will not be bouncing the ball against a wall if it is your wedding day. This is because on that day you will be restricted of your boredom and spare time. It is the need to get rid of boredom, or possibly have some excitement that leads to you bouncing a ball against a wall.

.InshAllah., on 17 October 2011 - 03:45 PM, said:

I like analogies as well! I like your analogy. Heres another, perhaps less obvious: Eating chips rather than pizza. Suppose that I'm hungry and I like chips as much as I like pizza. They are equal from my point of view. So I have no need to eat chips rather than pizza, although I do have the need to eat something tasty.  Im not claiming this is appropriately analogous to divine creation; its just an example of how you can do something without needing to do it.

You could say that you do in fact need to eat chips as you need to eat something tasty, and chips are tasty. I would say that chips have 2 sets of properties: the first is being tasty, and the second is all the additional properties that differentiate chips from other tasty foods. Although you need to have something with the first set of properties, you dont need to have something with the second. So you are performing the act of eating something with properties that you dont need when you could have eaten something else with different properties.  If that doesnt convince you then I could grant that I needed to eat chips whilst also maintaining that I didnt need to eat chips rather than pizza!

More generally I would say that 'need' is pretty ambiguous so that it could mean more than one thing. It sometimes makes sense to say that 'I did x because I wanted to, not because I needed to'.  So ordinary use of the word 'need' sometimes sets it apart from 'want'.

Like I said, all wants stem from needs. The 'want' to eat chips comes from the need to eat (caused by hunger). To have any wants in the first place means that there are basic needs already in place.

For God to 'want' to create is for there exist some needs. (especially if you are taking this form of argument)

[MajiC]

Incognito, on 10 October 2011 - 06:27 AM, said:

For what reason did God create us?

There is a Hikmah or Wisdom in the purpose of Creation. God did not create out of need nor in vain but by virtue of His Essence (or His Grace), which necessitated that God create the greatest possible perfection. That is the perfection of Man’s free-will, which is found in the willing worship of God. Worship in this sense is not merely superficial and confined only to the actions of bodily limbs and organs and ritual practices (although these are necessary) but its substance is the vicegerency and reflection of the Divine Essence in our affairs (i.e. Justness, Trustworthiness, Benevolence etc).

In other words:

The act of creation is a necessary implication of the Divine Essence: To possess absolute perfection is to posses all positive ontological qualities. Among those qulities is 'Grace' or the "giving" nature. God therefore "gives" existence, without withholding whatsoever, to all "things" that qualify and are receptive to it. Among those is the greatest possible creation and that happens to be the 'free being'. This type of entity, unlike the inanimate entities which follow prescribed natural laws, is the most perfect possible product of creation by virtue of its possessing the potential to 'freely and willingly' submit to and therefore spiritually return in communion with its creator.

Please see the link below for an earlier and more extensive discussion on this some years ago:

http://www.shiachat....se-of-creation/

Edited by MajiC, 27 October 2011 - 07:42 PM.

[Ugly Jinn]

Quote

God did not create out of need

Quote

act of creation is a necessary

MajiC, on 27 October 2011 - 07:34 PM, said:

The act of creation is a necessary implication of the Divine Essence: To possess absolute perfection is to posses all positive ontological qualities. Among those qulities is 'Grace' or the &quot;giving&quot; nature. God therefore &quot;gives&quot; existence,

• So before God created anything He wasn't 'absolute perfection'? Yes/No?
  
        
  
• And to attain 'absolute perfection' God needs to create? Yes/No?

Edited by Ugly Jinn, 28 October 2011 - 06:48 PM.

[MajiC]

Ugly Jinn, on 28 October 2011 - 06:38 PM, said:

1.  So before God created anything He wasn't 'absolute perfection'? Yes/No?

No.

God’s Essence is immutable; creation neither adds nor detracts from it. God therefore possesses absolute perfection before and after creation without mutation.

Quote

2.  And to attain 'absolute perfection' God needs to create? Yes/No?

No.

Creation being a “necessary implication” of God’s Essence does not mean privation and “need”. Creation is simply an expression of the reality of God’s Essence. To be Absolute is to possess all positive ontological qualities, among which is ‘giving’. This quality manifests itself to us as creation.

Here is an imperfect but sufficient analogy to reflect on:

Imagine a dark room with unobservable objects within it. Let’s take this room as being the realm of existence and the objects within as the possible or contingent entities. Now imagine lighting a bright lamp in this dark space thus illuminating it entirely and manifesting all objects within its confines. The light has no intrinsic need to manifest those objects but the manifestation is rather an inevitable implication of the presence of light. For the light not to manifest these - otherwise physically reflective - objects is impossible and their manifestation is therefore a necessity. But this necessity is not the same as need or privation on the part of light! Similarly, for God not to create (by "illuminating" all contingent entities) is impossible if the meaning of God is to be Giver (or "illuminator"). Were God to withhold from creating then God would cease to be Giver and would in turn cease to really be God.

As a side note: If we reflect on this principle it's easy to see that it tends to imply what I call "exhaustive creation". It is potentially profoundly useful in helping us to understand creation better and has, in my opinion, vast implications on many fields of human thought. In other words, to understand the universe through an "understanding" of God (in a top-down approach) opens up many possibilities that secular science will only contemplate much later.

Edited by MajiC, 28 October 2011 - 10:04 PM.

[Ugly Jinn]

MajiC, on 28 October 2011 - 09:33 PM, said:

To be Absolute is to possess all positive ontological qualities, among which is ‘giving’. This quality manifests itself to us as creation.

Is this from óur' perspective' only? Again, there seems to be a contradiction. You are showing the dependency on "giving" in order "to be absolute".

Based on above God must possess the quality to "give" "to be absolute". Any justification to 'create' by default in itself will include dependency.

Can God be Absolute without an expression of "giving"?

Quote

Were God to withhold from creating then God would cease to be Giver and would in turn cease to really be God.

Again, you are speaking from the perspective of the creation? Without creation God is unknown, is that your point?

Edited by Ugly Jinn, 30 October 2011 - 08:05 PM.

[eThErEaL]

Incognito, on 10 October 2011 - 06:27 AM, said:

For what reason did God create us?

Three possible answers, all of which are correct depending from which point of view one asks the questions.  The sentences in bold are the crux of each of the three possible answers.  

A ) Just like how a triangle is, by definition, a triangle, so also God is, by definition, the Creator.  And so logically the Creator creates a creation, otherwise He would not be what in fact He is, namely, the Creator.  And yes, this means there was always and will always be some kind of creation, otherwise God would not be "the Creator".  And no, this does not mean that creation is Eternal, but rather this just means creation is everlasting.  Big difference!  while the former transcends time, the latter is time with no beginning and no end.

or

B ) Only the Divine Essence exists, and only the Divine Essence can exist because only the Divine Essence can properly be called "Being".  Now with respect to the Divine Essence the entire creation does not exist.

or

C ) God eternally knows all of creation and therefore all of creation inasmuch as it is in God's knowledge can also be Eternal.  So if one asks specifically why there is a creation in time?  This is because that creation exists eternally as well (in God's eternal knowledge).  And God's Eternal knowledge can't be incorrect!  What is interesting about this third answer is that it marks the very intersection between time and Eternity.  Notice how it is God's knowledge that make it possible for a relation between what is in time and what is beyond time.  It is through God's knowledge that creation in time can be possible.    



Makes sense...?

Edited by eThErEaL, 31 October 2011 - 04:39 AM.

[eThErEaL]

Ugly Jinn, on 30 October 2011 - 08:03 PM, said:

Is this from óur' perspective' only? Again, there seems to be a contradiction. You are showing the dependency on "giving" in order "to be absolute".

Based on above God must possess the quality to "give" "to be absolute". Any justification to 'create' by default in itself will include dependency.

Can God be Absolute without an expression of "giving"?



Again, you are speaking from the perspective of the creation? Without creation God is unknown, is that your point?

excellent questions.  you have spotted a a fallacy.

[Dhulfikar]

"Giving" is part of the Attribute of His Actions (Even Divine Will and Intent). The Creator is an Absolute even if He does not Create (In such a sense that He was The Creator even before the creation existed and that He did not earn the title of the Creator because of creation). Anyway, He Is The Giver, but it does not mean that it is necessary to give (Maybe the necessary is wrong word here, but It is by His Will He gives)

Edited by Zufa, 31 October 2011 - 05:01 AM.

[eThErEaL]

Zufa, on 31 October 2011 - 04:41 AM, said:

"Giving" is part of the Attribute of His Actions (Even Divine Will and Intent). Creator is an Absolute even if He does not Create. Anyway, He Is The Giver, but it does not mean that it is necessary to give.

?

Creator can be seen as an attribute of His action.  Because a creator is not a creator unless He creates.  if God is the Giver he necessarily gives, otherwise He is not a giver.  How does a Giver = one who does not give?  surely that is not logical.

Edited by eThErEaL, 31 October 2011 - 04:59 AM.

[Dhulfikar]

eThErEaL, on 31 October 2011 - 04:57 AM, said:

?

Creator can be seen as an attribute of His action.  Because a creator is not a creator unless He creates.  if God is the Giver he necessarily gives, otherwise He is not a giver.  How does a Giver = one who does not give?  surely that is not logical.

I update my post. About "necessarily", i believe it was  very bad word to choose.

Edited by Zufa, 31 October 2011 - 05:04 AM.

[eThErEaL]

Zufa, on 31 October 2011 - 05:02 AM, said:

I update my post. About "necessarily", i believe it was  very bad word to choose.

And also...

Explain what you mean by Absolute (your word) or Essence (my word).  Are they interchangeable as far as you are concerned?  I assume that to be the case.  If so, Is it not true that the Essence of X is X in and of itself without respect to anything other than itself?  So the Essence of God is that aspect of God which has no relation whatsoever to anything other than God Himself.  So the Creator logical implies the Creation.  This means that Creator is not an Essential name of God.  How else can one think of "Essence" or "Absolute"?

Zufa, on 31 October 2011 - 05:02 AM, said:

I update my post. About "necessarily", i believe it was  very bad word to choose.

Alright.  So if God is a giver, he can "will" (as you said) to either give or not to give.  This is incorrect. You should say rather,
If He wills to give then He is necessarily the giver.  And if he wills not to give, then he is necessarily not the giver.

Edited by eThErEaL, 31 October 2011 - 05:21 AM.

[Dhulfikar]

Quote

Explain what you mean by Absolute (your word) or Essence (my word). Are they interchangeable as far as you are concerned? I assume that to be the case. If so, Is it not true that the Essence of X is X in and of itself without respect to anything other than itself? So the Essence of God is that aspect of God which has no relation whatsoever to anything other than God Himself. So the Creator logical implies the Creation. This means that Creator is not an Essential name of God. How else can one think of "Essence"?

What i understand about God Essence is following Imam saying "The Core of His Essence is a distinction between Him and His Creations.". So yes I believe That " Essence of God is that aspect of God which has no relation whatsoever to anything other than God Himself"

Quote

If He wills to give then He is necessarily the giver. And if he wills not to give, then he is necessarily not the giver.

Ahsent, this sound correct!

What i ment actually is this example: If you ask Allah (SWT) to give you "x", and you will not receive it, it does not mean that Allah (SWT) did not gave it to you, rather If He wills to Give, you will get the "x".

Edited by Zufa, 31 October 2011 - 06:41 AM.

[aladdin]

What is the Job of Allah?