For God to truly be omnipresent,
omnipotent, and omniscient, He must exist outside of time. God’s nature does
not change, and His Will does not and cannot change because His Will is pure Goodness,
Goodness itself.
God’s Will and Natural Law are not contingent
on humanly affairs but God reveals Himself to humanity within time, because we
are time contingent beings. Through this progressive revelation, the Old
Testament laws were given to Humanity in preparation for Christ’s coming and
the brining of a New Covenant. Here is a succession of verses which point to
that –
Mathew 5:17-18
17 Do not
think that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets. I am not come to
destroy, but to fulfill.
18 For
amen I say unto you, till heaven and earth pass, one jot, or one tittle shall
not pass of the law, till all be fulfilled.
Luke 16:16
16 The law and the prophets were until John;
from that time the kingdom of God is preached, and every one useth violence
towards it.
Galatians 3: 24 – 29
24 Wherefore the law was our pedagogue in Christ, that we might
be justified by faith.
25 But after the faith is come, we are no longer under a
pedagogue.
26 For you are all the children of God by faith, in Christ
Jesus.
27 For as many of you as have been baptized in Christ, have put
on Christ.
28 There is neither Jew nor Greek: there is neither bond nor
free: there is neither male nor female. For you are all one in Christ Jesus.
29 And if you be Christ's, then are you the seed of Abraham,
heirs according to the promise.
Romans 10:4
4 For the
end of the law is Christ, unto justice to every one that believeth.
The Law then was but a preparation for Christ’s coming and
ceased once Christ’s mission was accomplished.
A New Covenant would then be formed, this was foretold of multiple times
in the Old Testament, for example -
Ezekiel 16:60
60 And I
will remember my covenant with thee in the days of thy youth: and I will
establish with thee an everlasting covenant.
and
Jeremiah 13: 31-34 -
31 Behold
the days shall come, saith the Lord, and I will make a new covenant with the
house of Israel, and with the house of Juda:
32 Not
according to the covenant which I made with their fathers, in the day that I
took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt: the covenant
which they made void, and I had dominion over them, saith the Lord.
33 But
this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel, after
those days, saith the Lord: I will give my law in their bowels, and I will
write it in their heart: and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.
34 And
they shall teach no more every man his neighbour, and every man his brother,
saying: Know the Lord: for all shall know me from the least of them even to the
greatest, saith the Lord: for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will
remember their sin no more.
And the New Covenant is –
Luke 22:20
20 In
like manner the chalice also, after he had supped, saying: This is the chalice,
the new testament in my blood, which shall be shed for you.
Hebrews
13:20
20 And
may the God of peace, who brought again from the dead the great pastor of the
sheep, our Lord Jesus Christ, in the blood of the everlasting testament
Why
was this necessary? The Word becoming flesh needed to be prepared for, and all
of Israel’s actions were simply preparation for God’s coming into the world as
Christ.
The Bible, which documents the truth
of God’s revelation of Himself to Humanity is the inspired word of God within
time, as God revealed Himself and all His attributes to us within time. All fits
together perfectly as God progressively enlightens us in conformity with what
we are prepared to hear.
The shift from Old Covenant to New Covenant
is fundamental to Christianity, and something Islam rejects, since it rejects
both Christ’s deity and Christ’s sacrifice for our sins upon the cross.
To Islam, Abraham’s covenant is identical to Muhammad’s.
But we find the law changing in
Islam too…
Surah 15 Verse 101 –
And when We substitute a verse in place of a verse
– and Allah is most knowing of what He sends down – they say, “You [O Muhammad]
are but an inventor [of lies].” But most of them do not know.
Obviously some Arabs of the time
were skeptical Muhammad’s claims that Allah commanded contrary things at
different times and Muhammad needed some Damage Control. I would have been skeptical
as well, as with no particular change of Allah’s Covenant and the revelation of
Himself to Humanity, it seems illogical for God to be declaring different
things permissible.
Let’s see an example of Allah doing
it –
Surah 2 Verse 219 –
They ask
you about wine and gambling. Say, “In them is great sin and [yet, some] benefit
for people. But their sin is greater
than their benefit.” And they ask you what they should spend. Say, “The excess
[beyond needs].” Thus Allah makes clear to you the verses [of revelation] that
you might give thought.
Which is abrogated by Surah 5 Verse 90 -
O you
who believed, indeed, intoxicants, gambling, [sacrificing on] stone alters [to
other than Allah], and divining arrows are but defilement from the work of
Satan, so avoid it that you may be successful
How does Allah rationalize this?
Surah 2 Verse 106 –
We do
not abrogate a verse or cause it to be forgotten except that We bring forth
[one] better than it or similar to it. Do you know that Allah is over all
things competent?
This verse has profound theological repercussions,
because it does not mention the necessity of fulfillment for Allah’s past law,
but for Allah to will a different law. By setting this precedent, Allah is no
longer bound by his past statements, which makes His Will fluid.
This surely demonstrates a logical
error in the Islamic conception of God, because a God with a fluid Will is a
God without a Will identical with His Unchanging Omnibenevolence, Absolute
Goodness; it implies a changing Goodness, a contingent Goodness. A Contingency
not determined by God’s relationship with Humanity, but Humans relationship
with other Humans (as there was no change in Covenant). If Allah’s Will is
fluid, Goodness is fluid. And if Goodness is fluid, then what is Good is not an
inherent principle within and transcending creation, but a separate decree from
God’s Will.
It is surely a logical contradiction
for an omnipresent, omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent God to not
have a stable Will.
“But wait,
doesn’t the Christian God change His Will too?”
No. Because the Christian God made clear that the Old Covenant
laws were temporary and meant to be fulfilled and another Covenant be made.
Within the concept of a ‘law meant to be temporary and fulfilled’ there exists
the logical permissibility (in accordance with God’s nature of being Truth
itself and Truth being Logic in action) for the law to be finished and
replaced. Allah never gives Himself such logical permissibility because first,
He never clarifies the temporary nature of His past law, and second, Allah
forgets past laws and offers better ones but never fulfills His past ones.
The Christian
God stays true to His Word, He gives gave the Old Testament Law in order for it
to be fulfilled, and He made the nature of that Law clear as well as the New
Eternal Covenant through Jesus Christ. Allah, on the contrary, changes His law
and therefore His Will, by not foretelling its temporary nature.
Such change
in Allah’s Will breaks the unison of Being, Will, and Goodness that God must
have in order to possess Divine Simplicity and Perfection. The Islamic God is an imperfect and flawed God.
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