Questions by Thomas, while studying Qur'a

thank you, I am eager to hear what you have to say. I began reading the annotated Qur'an you linked to, and the first disagreement I had was in the commentary for Surah 2:4. (Correct me if this is not the correct way to reference a quote from the Qur'an).



it is absolutely essential to be able to reason out the meanings of scripture beyond what is explicitly stated in the text, by looking at historical context, language, and other channels (such as science, for He created the physical laws which govern this universe as well as the spirtual ones) through which God has revealed parts of the nature of his character.



I think that while scripture is key to a working understanding of God, that God also chooses to reveal himself to people on an individual basis as they grow in their faith.


this I agree with completely, and find it to be contradictory to the first 2 pieces I quoted from the commentary. Faith and reason are tied hand in hand for we do not serve a God who's decisions are arbitrary, and to say that one must rely on faith alone and then to say "seek truth wherever it can be found" is a blatant contradiction.

who acknowledge that this guidance does not come to people individually but reaches them through Prophets and Divine Books
I think that while scripture is key to a working understanding of God, that God also chooses to reveal himself to people on an individual basis as they grow in their faith.

abuzaid wrote: 10 people believe that they get direct guidance from God and almost all of them are contradicting with each other. Whom shall we trust now? Another point is, how do we distinguish between our own imagination and revelation of God. If you believe in satan it could be revelation from satan as well. So, how do we distinguish?

I am referring more to the use of using reason to better understand and clarify the meaning of the guidance he has already given us, this should be a constant process of refining our understanding of him. As imperfect beings we will never have a perfect understanding of the God we serve, but we can always strive to better that understanding.

But as per Prophets, their lives and their influence on humanity is a proof of what they were. � Now you may say that revelation of God in major religion is also contradicting, so we can't trust on revelations on Prophets also. We do not believe that. We beleive that all the Prophets brought same basic message. In fact those non-prophets who claimed to get direct guidance from God changed the actual religion (remember st. paul).

in the Old Testament, God actually gave criteria to the Jewish people by which they could evaluate whether or not people were actually prophets or not. if a single prediction made by someone claiming to be a prophet was shown to be false they were executed.

abuzaid wrote: I am not talking about understanding God!! Even after getting direct message from God we can't have complete understanding of God for the same reason you have mentioned (imperfect being!)

Every messenger sent by God is sent for one reason, to convey knowledge of God's will for us, so that we may be able to better understand him, and through that better understanding, better our ability to serve Him.