An Atheist Explores the Qur'an Part Twenty: Things Exist, Therefore God (Thunder (al-Ra’d) 1-43)

Thunder (al-Ra’d) 1-43
Things Exist, Therefore God.

Welcome to the next instalment of An Atheist Explores Sacred Texts (Qur’an version).
In this series I work my way chapter-by-chapter through the Qur’an, commenting on it from the point of view of the text as literature and mythology.

For more detail, see the introductory post https://bit.ly/2ApLDy0
For the online Qur’an that I use, see here http://al-quran.info and http://quran.com

Thunder 1-20
“The Thunder celebrates His praise, and the angels [too], in awe of Him, and He releases the thunderbolts and strikes with them whomever He wishes. Yet they dispute concerning Allah, though He is great in might”

This surah, Thunder, is a short one of only 43 verses, but I’m going to assume, since the surah are arranged in order of length for some reason, that they are long verses. It’s theme to begin with is to list all the various natural wonders of the world and attribute them to Allah – “It is Allah who raised the heavens without any pillars that you see, and then presided over the Throne. He disposed the sun and the moon, each moving for a specified term”. Therefore, because there are the sun and moon, mountains, rivers, fruit, night and day etc. then this is considered proof of a creator God. I’ve come across this argument a lot. God even gets involved in obstetrics – “Allah knows what every female carries [in her womb], and what the wombs reduce and what they increase”

Of course it’s very well praising all the great things and attributing them to a God, but of course not everything in the natural world is benevolent. The Qur’an offers the rather uncomforting explanation that “And when Allah wishes to visit ill on a people, there is nothing that can avert it”. So, Allah does what Allah does, and there’s nothing you can do about it. Pretty much like the Biblical God in Job.

Thunder 21-43
“[…]The Gardens of Eden, which they will enter along with whoever is righteous from among their forebears, their spouses, and their descendants, and the angels will call on them from every door”

The rest of this chapter returns to the familiar theme that Allah does what He wishes, and sees all things, rewards in “the Gardens of Eden” for the faithful and punishment for heretics, etc. etc. etc.

Once again we see the problem of free will with an omnipotent God explored, but contradictorily. On the one hand, the Qur’an says that “Indeed Allah leads astray whomever He wishes, and guides to Himself those who turn penitently [to Him]” and “Have not the faithful yet realised that had Allah wished He would have guided mankind all together?”. In other words, all things, including people being “lead astray” and any strife between different people, is all part of some grand scheme of Allah.

However, the Qur’an goes on to say that “The faithless will continue to be visited by catastrophes because of their doings”. But if the previous statements are true, it’s not “of their own doings” at all, it’s because they are puppets of Allah. Christian philosophy justifies it with free will being something that God doesn’t meddle in, hence bad choices are the fault of the person. That argument doesn’t really hold up under scrutiny either, but it’s at least less immediately contradictory. It’s similar to Biblical God “hardening the heart” of Pharaoh to stop Moses’ people leaving, or sending a spirit of madness on King Saul. Either way turns humans into puppets, regardless of concepts of free will.

The chapter ends with instructions for an argument from authority – “The faithless say, ‘You have not been sent [by Allah].’ Say, ‘Allah suffices as a witness between me and you, and he who possesses the knowledge of the Book.’”. In other words, yes, I was sent by Allah because I’ve written it in a book, see?

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Dr Simon Reads... Appendix N. Part One: Poul Anderson

Image
Dr. Simon Reads Appendix N: Introduction This is a new series that will feature sporadically, in which I explore classic fantasy and science fiction works. You will either know what I mean by “Appendix N”, or you will have no clue. In the original Advanced Dungeons and Dragons Dungeon Masters Guide, Gary Gygax provided a large number of appendices, from random smells to reputed magical properties of herbs and gemstones. Appendix N was a bibliography of works that inspired him. Back in 1982 when I first got hold of this book, there were only a couple of items on there that I’d read, and only a few other authors that I’d even heard of. Many years later, after, much reading, I returned to Appendix N expecting to have added greatly to the works on there that I’d read; but actually, there were still very few. Many of the authors were obscure or out of print authors of, for want of a better expression, golden age pulp; the kind that feature in Amazing Stories and the like. Now, ...
Read more

An Atheist Explores the Qur'an Part 80: The Nineteen Guardians of Saqar (sounds cooler than it is) (Shrouded (al-Muddaththirl))

Shrouded (al-Muddaththirl) 1-56 The Nineteen Guardians of Saqar (sounds cooler than it is). Welcome to the next instalment of An Atheist Explores Sacred Texts (Qur’an version). In this series I work my way chapter-by-chapter through the Qur’an, commenting on it from the point of view of the text as literature and mythology. For more detail, see the introductory post https://bit.ly/2ApLDy0 For the online Qur’an that I use, see here http://al-quran.info and http://quran.com Shrouded (al-Muddaththirl) 1-28 “O you wrapped up in your mantle! Rise up and warn!” Like the previous surah , Enwrapped, this one starts with God addressing the Prophet as one wrapped in a mantle. Last time, because of the emphasis on praying at night, I took this to be a reference to a literal cloak against the cold night, but here it seems to be more metaphorical. Perhaps it was always meant to be both. I think metaphorical because the Prophet is told to “ purify your cloak ” and to avoid “ i...
Read more

An Atheist Explores the Qur'an Part 121: Closing Thoughts

It took half as many posts to tackle the Qur'an as it did the Bible, 120 compared to 248, but it felt like longer sometimes. Perhaps because the Qur'an is written by a single man and deals with pretty much the same topic over and over, whereas the Bible is a compilation of multiple works, some of which are historical, some apocalyptic, some laws or building instruction, some philosophical, some poetic, some a bit of each. From that point of view, I'd have to say that the Bible was the more interesting work to read. Have I learned any great wisdom from the Qur'an? I'd have to say … no, not really. Granted, I probably didn't approach it with a particularly deep understanding of the material in the first place, but that (as with the Bible readthrough) was always my intent. Picking through line by line is still something of a deep dive, and in both books I tried to be alert for symbol and metaphor. Doing it that way, however, it's easy to miss thematic callb...
Read more