Is God Sadist (Follow Up: God in Need of Creation?)
Question:
Sir by saying the following you made God in need of creation to qualify Himself as God. “A. God creates things because He is Creator; he is full of 'being' and He spreads this 'being' by creating. He would have not been a perfect being if he would have not created. To bring this close to mind, consider, how would you rate a perfume that does not spread the good odour or a light that does not brighten up its surrounding. (59:24)” There was a point of time when he did not create anything, so then was he not creator thus not God? Analogy of perfume is not good in this case as perfume can't help spread, but God has intention and will and is an independent being. He is independent of everything even if he did not create.
Now my question arises that he created without being in need to create. Since he created the system and the prospects of failure too, without for any need, now some fails due to these prospects. Since he is the first cause and he created out of no need, so one think of him as sadist. The human beings were too not in need of this system to be created for them, at first place. They were made part of this system. Now they have to face it. No matter if we did not meet the paradise, but the hell is so horrible. The people like Abu bakr and Umar used to wish not be born. anticipating another good answer from you thanks
Answer:
There is a difference between an ‘attribute’ and a ‘need’. If I had written that “God needs to create in order to exist as God” then I had in deed implied that God was in need of creation. However, as you quoted, I have written that “He would have not been a perfect being if He would have not created.”
You can say the above about any other attribute of God:
“He would have not been a perfect being if He was not All Knowing/All Hearing/ Compassionate”.
You wrote:
“There was a point of time when he did not create anything, so then was he not creator thus not God?”
I have three answers for the above, from three different perspectives:
a. The above and statements like the above make God limited to the dimension of time. God Himself created time. This means, unlike us, for Him there is no past, present and future. This of course is beyond our understanding and when it comes to our relationship with the Almighty, we have to put this relationship in the dimension of time. However when we ask about God’s being and God’s attributes it is helpful to note this point.
b. My understanding of verse 55:29 is that God is creating every time.
c. The implication of what I wrote above (that creation is His attribute and not His need) is that even if for the sake of discussion we assume that at some point God did not create, that does not make Him anything less than God, still the attribute of creation is in Him anyway.
You wrote:
“Analogy of perfume is not good in this case as perfume can't help spread, but God has intention and will and is an independent being.”
People use examples not because those examples match 100% but because the mind may understand an aspect of a reality by noticing an aspect of the example.
I could have given you the example of Teacher and Teaching and your objection would then never have raised.
Now allow me to proceed to your main question.
If I understand you correctly your question is why human being is created in a way that he can fail, since this can lead him to hell therefore this is not fair.
Allow me to skip philosophical arguments about the existence of evil, Sharr (we can address these in a follow up discussion if needed) and directly address the core of your question: Going to hell.
Before answering this question please note that the description of heaven and hell in the Qur'an was a warning tool that the Almighty used to guide Arabs at the time. These verses are all among mutishabihat (allegorical verses) and therefore we are not sure exactly what happens to us after death. All we know is that there is a hereafter and that our performance in this world determines our destiny in the hereafter.
With the above point in mind, based on the Qur’an, only those will go to hell who continue their bad deeds out of their ego and arrogance (not out of ignorance or while they genuinely have every intention to repent soon). The rejecters at the time of the prophet (pbuh) were among these kinds of people and the vast majority of verses about hell are about those people.
Of course we can never say that we deserve to go to heaven, however we are informed that his compassion has dominated everything (7:156) and that He will forgive all our sins (39:53) - unless, out of arrogance, we become the manifestation of sin ourselves (2:81). He has put the potential for knowing Him and to be good in us (30:30, 91:8) and he has promised that no one will be treated unfair in the hereafter (4:124). He has also promised to reward our good deeds ten times (6:160). He has created us from nothing and has given us this opportunity to rise from nothing to the best possible thing. With these descriptions (and many more that I skip for the sake of brevity) what should we think of Him? A sadist (as you suggested in your question) or a Compassionate (as He calls Himself in the Qur’an)?
Related Topics:
- Is God Sadist?
- Is God Sadist (Follow Up: Honest Polytheism)?
- Is God Sadist (Further Follow Up: Honest Polytheism)?
----------
September 2013
Sir by saying the following you made God in need of creation to qualify Himself as God. “A. God creates things because He is Creator; he is full of 'being' and He spreads this 'being' by creating. He would have not been a perfect being if he would have not created. To bring this close to mind, consider, how would you rate a perfume that does not spread the good odour or a light that does not brighten up its surrounding. (59:24)” There was a point of time when he did not create anything, so then was he not creator thus not God? Analogy of perfume is not good in this case as perfume can't help spread, but God has intention and will and is an independent being. He is independent of everything even if he did not create.
Now my question arises that he created without being in need to create. Since he created the system and the prospects of failure too, without for any need, now some fails due to these prospects. Since he is the first cause and he created out of no need, so one think of him as sadist. The human beings were too not in need of this system to be created for them, at first place. They were made part of this system. Now they have to face it. No matter if we did not meet the paradise, but the hell is so horrible. The people like Abu bakr and Umar used to wish not be born. anticipating another good answer from you thanks
Answer:
There is a difference between an ‘attribute’ and a ‘need’. If I had written that “God needs to create in order to exist as God” then I had in deed implied that God was in need of creation. However, as you quoted, I have written that “He would have not been a perfect being if He would have not created.”
You can say the above about any other attribute of God:
“He would have not been a perfect being if He was not All Knowing/All Hearing/ Compassionate”.
You wrote:
“There was a point of time when he did not create anything, so then was he not creator thus not God?”
I have three answers for the above, from three different perspectives:
a. The above and statements like the above make God limited to the dimension of time. God Himself created time. This means, unlike us, for Him there is no past, present and future. This of course is beyond our understanding and when it comes to our relationship with the Almighty, we have to put this relationship in the dimension of time. However when we ask about God’s being and God’s attributes it is helpful to note this point.
b. My understanding of verse 55:29 is that God is creating every time.
c. The implication of what I wrote above (that creation is His attribute and not His need) is that even if for the sake of discussion we assume that at some point God did not create, that does not make Him anything less than God, still the attribute of creation is in Him anyway.
You wrote:
“Analogy of perfume is not good in this case as perfume can't help spread, but God has intention and will and is an independent being.”
People use examples not because those examples match 100% but because the mind may understand an aspect of a reality by noticing an aspect of the example.
I could have given you the example of Teacher and Teaching and your objection would then never have raised.
Now allow me to proceed to your main question.
If I understand you correctly your question is why human being is created in a way that he can fail, since this can lead him to hell therefore this is not fair.
Allow me to skip philosophical arguments about the existence of evil, Sharr (we can address these in a follow up discussion if needed) and directly address the core of your question: Going to hell.
Before answering this question please note that the description of heaven and hell in the Qur'an was a warning tool that the Almighty used to guide Arabs at the time. These verses are all among mutishabihat (allegorical verses) and therefore we are not sure exactly what happens to us after death. All we know is that there is a hereafter and that our performance in this world determines our destiny in the hereafter.
With the above point in mind, based on the Qur’an, only those will go to hell who continue their bad deeds out of their ego and arrogance (not out of ignorance or while they genuinely have every intention to repent soon). The rejecters at the time of the prophet (pbuh) were among these kinds of people and the vast majority of verses about hell are about those people.
Of course we can never say that we deserve to go to heaven, however we are informed that his compassion has dominated everything (7:156) and that He will forgive all our sins (39:53) - unless, out of arrogance, we become the manifestation of sin ourselves (2:81). He has put the potential for knowing Him and to be good in us (30:30, 91:8) and he has promised that no one will be treated unfair in the hereafter (4:124). He has also promised to reward our good deeds ten times (6:160). He has created us from nothing and has given us this opportunity to rise from nothing to the best possible thing. With these descriptions (and many more that I skip for the sake of brevity) what should we think of Him? A sadist (as you suggested in your question) or a Compassionate (as He calls Himself in the Qur’an)?
Related Topics:
- Is God Sadist?
- Is God Sadist (Follow Up: Honest Polytheism)?
- Is God Sadist (Further Follow Up: Honest Polytheism)?
----------
September 2013
