ஏனைய பதிவுகள்:
THE FIRST QUESTION ON RELIGION(S)
LINKS TO POSTS ON - MY RELIGIOUS TURNING POINT
I was a very "regular"christian. From childhood
I was brought up in that environment. I never missed Sunday masses. As a
catholic quite fervently attended novena. Attending novena for Mary of
Perpetual Help on Saturday evenings was so regular for years in my twenties.
Wearing my religion on my sleeve was then
a pride. I defended Christianity and its principles and dogmas even with those
who could have their negative weight on my life. My god was my first. That gave
me that much audacity. I felt that i should defend Him. I thought it was my
birthright as a christian. Regular to the weekly confessionals till my late
thirties. There used to be some questions, now and then, but immediately threw
them off. Because, i thought, while so many learned people were deep believers
how could be a half-baked guy like me could raise questions on religion. Still
the number of questions started to grow more and more. So i started to pray.
"God! Give me the answers or at least spare me from such questions". God
never heeded. So my mind started taking a different route. It all started
in my early forties.
Though it started so explicitly at such an 'old' age,
'the beginning' of questions was from very early age too. In our
childhood catechism classes, we were always discouraged to poke our noses to
find answers or explanations on some of the religious dogmas and faiths. Any
normal thinking person would have some questions raised in his mind when he is
taught one of the very important - and very elusive - dogmas, the Holy Trinity.
I too had it my early days. The list of course grew longer as time went by. The
list has:
·
Holy Trinity
·
Resurrection
·
Who is the Christian god - the Father or Jesus,
his only begotten son?
·
Parthenogenetic birth of Jesus
·
Communion becoming the Flesh of Jesus during a
mass
·
How come a merciful god could create an eternal
Hell, to punish sinful souls?
·
Human sacrifice Father wanted from Abraham.
·
Story of Abraham and his wife, Sara.
·
Some interesting and some "nasty"
stories in OT.
·
The fearful, vengeful, jealousy and
tooth-for-tooth God of OT.
·
Is there anything like fate?
·
The forbidden fruit of Eden.
And
lastly ...
QUESTIONS ON
FREE WILL OF MAN
&
OMNISCIENCE OF GOD
Anybody who questions any of the above is always looked down
by theists. Probably the only reason for their ire could be the uneasiness we
put them in. Though Islamists say that they have answers for all questions from
their Holy book they would be evasive if we ask them about 'fate'. Their answer
usually is fate is Allah's matter or Allah's concern. Christianity goes against
very heavily on such non-believers who raise such questions. “The god of this
world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the
light of the gospel of the glory of Christ” (2 Corinthians 4:4). That is
the punishment (?!) for the unbelievers in Christianity.
FREE WILL
Luke 12:7 Indeed,
the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Don’t be afraid; you are
worth more than many sparrows.
The two quotes are from the New Testament. So according to
Christianity God is an all-knowing entity: that is omnipresent and
omnipotent. Omniscient in toto.
Usually
this is followed with a simple question. God ordered Adam that the fruit of
knowledge should not be eaten. Adam ate it. He had sinned. God became furious
but did not know (!) where Adam was. But
the Lord God called to
the man and said to him, “Where are you? (Gen 3 : 7) .... He (God) said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have
you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?” (Gen 3:
11)]
The questions:
· Did God
know that Adam would not abide his command?
· If yes,
then why did He give that command to Adam?
These questions are raised against the omniscience of God.
Had He known why did he give that order. Had he been omniscient Adam could not
have done that. So the story goes on ... with so many added questions.
Such a
discussion had been going on for very long, probably it started along with
earliest first believers. All along so many interpretations or explanations
have been provided by many theologians. Some of them are as follows - with my
comment within brackets.:
There is
an apparent contradiction between God's omniscience and free will. This
problem is formally described as a paradox of free will or
theological fatalism. This contends
that omniscience and free will are incompatible .
Augustine proposed that evil could not exist
within God, nor be created by God, and is instead a
by-product of God's creativity. ... He believed that
this evil will, present in the human soul, was a corruption of the will given
to humans by God, making suffering a just punishment for the sin of
humans. (God cannot create evil; but evil could be a by-product ...looks very
funny. Sounds so illogical.)
Christians who were influenced by the teachings
of Jacobus Arminius (such
as Methodists) believe
that while God is all-knowing and he still gives them the ability to choose or
not choose everything, regardless of whether there are any internal or external
factors contributing to that choice. (if so, does god know what the man would
do? Adam's case may be cited here.)
The Catechism of the Roman Catholic Church
asserts that "Freedom is the power, rooted in reason and will". It
goes on to say that "God created man a rational being, conferring on him
the dignity of a person who can initiate and control his own actions. God
willed that man should be left in the hand of his own counsel. (If so man is
not under god's control; so god is not omnipotent?)
The above said interpretations have not given a
direct and correct answer. They were mostly beating around the bush and very
much verbose. My contention has always been that no religion can answer
rational questions. When god has said that even hairs on a person's head are
numbered it simply means god is omnpotent and all that happens in our lives
were all under his control. In that case, there is no space for free will.
Assuming that god has given free will and man can handle things all by himself,
then god cannot be omnipresent, since god may not know what the man would do.
It was like Adam- God story. God said no to a fruit; but Adam ate that; then
god comes to know; then curses mankind to a hard and painful life.
So the question still stands strong: can
omniscience and free will co-exist? The answer is simply "no"!
An extra information on free will in
Islam:
P.S.: Disputes about free will in Islam began with the Mu'tazili vs Hanbali disputes, with the Mu'tazili
arguing that humans had qadar, the capacity to do right or wrong,
and thus deserved the reward or punishment they received, whereas Hanbali
insisted on God's jabr, or total power and initiative in managing
all events.
***
