A Blank God And It's Blank Servant: IT and Itaz

Muslim Dawahgandist Ijaz Ahmad is such a nice fellow isn't he? Never initiating insults, never attacking any of his opponents. Only retaliating when provoked by Sam Shamoun who attacks him!

If only...

Lets be serious now.

Itaz The Fallacious Ahmad has once again been caught initiating insults (2:13:16), this time to the very polite, cordial, respectful Samuel Green, the Church Fathers, his Christian audience, and all who believe in the Trinity!

Rewind a little, this all begins at 2:09:00 seconds, where my friend General Han Solo questions Ijaz Ahmad, then follow up and listen to his answer carefully:

Ijaz not only insults all Christians but also misrepresents the now deceased Church Fathers like Athanasius, Tertullian, and reformers like Calvin. After he misrepresents them and quotes Athanasius out of context, he proceeds to attack a strawman of his view, in which he criticizes him (and others) by using modern standards of apologia, rather than the very local ancient standards they were familiar with. Very easy to do when a deceased person cannot respond isn't it, Ijaz? Rather distasteful of Ijaz, I don't mind saying myself. I will let others handle the blatant misrepresentation (or perhaps it's rather to obvious to rebut).

What is most disturbing about of all of this? This is the exact same issue Ijaz has with Dr. James White:

If that wasn't clear enough try this one a few posts down:

These screenshots must contain more of the "Tabloid Journalism" mentioned by ITAZ

To take a few words, from the all to familiar vocab of Dr. James White's, which may come into play here: inconsistent, double standards, much?

But this isn't the first time Ijaz has been quite embarrassed, he has a history, in fact Ijaz likes to debate opponents who he thinks are the easiest, weakest and even most self defeating Christians! He does this in order to promote himself unbelievably as Paul Williams says as "one of Islam's best apologists". I advice Dr. White to examine his attitude with Christian missionary Bob Siegal

God is knowable, yet Allah is an unknowable indefinable blank.

Despite all the insults, and misrepresentation given from Ijaz (which I hope Dr. White considers before debating him), I would like to repeat a question asked by Ijaz, in what was meant to be his "answer" to Han Solo:

"How can you call me to worship a God, who is unknown, and you can't tell me his nature?" (2:13:30)

The most substantial problem for Ijaz at this point is that Ijaz has mistakenly rendered himself a Christian. Yet Ijaz is actually a Muslim who has conveniently forgotten some crucial facts:

1. Christians know who God is
2. The only thing Muslims know, is that Allah is an unknowable god

Lets focus on (1) to begin with. 

What evidence do we have that Christians know God? 

Let's evaluate God's nature and his persons:

The woman said to him, "Sir, I see that you are a prophet. Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, and you people say that the place where people must worship is in Jerusalem." Jesus said to her, "Believe me, woman, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You people worship what you DO NOT KNOW We worship what WE KNOW, because salvation is from the Jews. But a time is coming– and now is here– when the true worshipers will worship THE FATHER in spirit and truth, for THE FATHER seeks such people to be his worshipers. GOD IS SPIRIT, and the people who worship him must worship in spirit and truth." John 4:19-24

Paul can even declare who God is to the gentiles, since the Christians know who the one true living God is:

So they took Paul and brought him to the Areopagus, saying, "May we know what this new teaching is that you are proclaiming? For you are bringing some surprising things to our ears, so we want to know what they mean." (All the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there used to spend their time in nothing else than telling or listening to something new.) So Paul stood before the Areopagus and said, "Men of Athens, I see that you are very religious in all respects. For as I went around and observed closely your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: 'To an unknown god.' Therefore what you worship without knowing it, THIS I PROCLAIM TO YOU. Acts 17:19-23 

What else do we know about God's essential nature?

Now this is the gospel message we have heard from him and announce to you: God is light, and in him there is no darkness at all. 1 John 1:5 

The person who does not love does not know God, because God is love. 1 John 4:8

Now an intermediary is not for one party alone, but God is one. Galatians 3:20

 Ultimately it is Jesus Christ himself who reveals God the Father's nature:

All things have been handed over to me by my Father. No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son decides to reveal him. Matthew 11:27

He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation Colassions 1:15

The only way of course Jesus was able to reveal us, God's exact nature, is because Jesus himself, shares this exact nature:

The Son is the radiance of his glory and the representation of his essence, and he sustains all things by his powerful word, and so when he had accomplished cleansing for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high. Hebrews 1:3 

No one has ever seen God. The only one, himself God, who is in closest fellowship with the Father, has made God known. John 1:18

And we know that the Son of God has come and has given us insight to know him who is true, and we are in him who is true, in his Son Jesus Christ. This one is the true God and eternal life. 1 John 5:20

According to Christianity

Who is God?:

• God is Personal
• God is Father
• God is Son
• God is Holy Spirit

What is God?

• God has Nature
• God is One
• God is Light
• God is Love
• God is Spirit

Christianity then gives us a revelation explaining facts about God's essential nature, characteristics and persons.

But how does Islam fair in this regard?

Lets move on to (2) The only thing Muslims know, is that Allah is an unknowable god

Islam does attempt to usurp one essential attribute of God from Christianity, claiming  "God is light", however because Islam fails to comprehend enlightened theology, it asserts so inadequately as we shall see. Light, truth and guidance are not viewed as part of Allah's essential nature. Rather the statement "God is light", "God is Truth", "God is guidance", "God has guided me", are said to be a prescriptive action God has taken, revealed as God's characteristic, but God's attributes in Islam are merely a description showing what kind of actions God has performed.

Is Allah knowable or unknowable?

Allah not only doesn't possess any real attributes or even a nature, Allah is not even personal or a person:

Perhaps Ijaz "Fallacy" Ahmad needs a more closer colleague to help him out with this:

As Yahya points out, Allah is therefore not a "he" but an impersonal, rather blank:"IT"

Or perhaps Ijaz, agrees with Muslim Blogger: Jesus, who thinks just because Allah is impersonal, that doesn't mean it's a blob, but impersonal things can be more complex like a car or a computer:

For more on Allah's lack of personality and substance visit Anthony Rogers fascinating re-education center, made available here. I'm sure this will be extremely helpful for non-Muslim/Muslim, (can't figure him out) Paul Williams and newly made Christian Apologist (who knows God), Ijaz Ahmad and Yahya who knows IT. 

Perhaps even a simple Google or Wikipedia check, would of helped Ijaz:

“Occasionalism The doctrine first reached prominence in the Islamic theological schools of Iraq, especially in Basra. The ninth century theologian Abu al-Hasan al-Ash’ari argued that there is no Secondary Causation in the created order. The world is sustained and governed through direct intervention of a divine primary causation. As such the world is in a constant state of recreation by God. The most famous proponent of the Asharite occasionalist doctrine was Abu Hamid Muhammad ibn Muhammad al-Ghazali, an 11th-century theologian based in Baghdad. In The Incoherence of the Philosophers, Al-Ghazali launched a philosophical critique against Neoplatonic-influenced early Islamic philosophers such as Al-Farabi and Ibn Sina. In response to the philosophers’ claim that the created order is governed by secondary efficient causes (God being, as it were, the Primary and Final Cause in an ontological and logical sense), Ghazali argues that what we observe as regularity in nature based presumably upon some natural law is actually a kind of constant and continual regularity. There is no independent necessitation of change and becoming, other than what God has ordained . To posit an independent causality outside of God’s knowledge and action is to deprive Him of true agency, and diminish his attribute of power. In his famous example, when fire and cotton are placed in contact, the cotton is burned not because of the heat of the fire, but through God’s direct intervention, a claim which he defended using logic. In the 12th century, this theory was defended and further strengthened by the Islamic theologian Fakhr al-Din al-Razi, using his expertise in the natural sciences of astronomy, cosmology and physics. 

Because God is usually seen as rational, rather than arbitrary, his behaviour in normally causing events in the same sequence (i.e., what appears to us to be efficient causation) can be understood as a natural outworking of that principle of reason, which a we then describe as the laws of nature . Properly speaking, however, these are not laws of nature but laws by which God chooses to govern his own behaviour (his autonomy, in the strict sense) — in other words, his rational will. This is not, however, an essential element of an occasionalist account, and occasionalism can include positions where God’s behaviour (and thus that of the world) is viewed as ultimately inscrutable , thus maintaining God’s essential transcendence . On this understanding, apparent anomalies such as miracles are not really such: they are simply God behaving in a way that appears unusual TO US . Given his transcendent freedom, he is not bound even by his own nature. Miracles, as breaks in the rational structure of the universe, can occur, since God’s relationship with the world is not mediated by rational principles. ” (Source: Wiki)

To further aid Ijaz in spreading the icing on the cake, he should know that Sunni Islam has two schools of Aqida (creed/doctrine), the Ashari and the Maturidi. In case Ijaz, still didn't get the memo, the Aqida of Imam Abu Jafar al-Tahawi (239-321), who represents both of these creeds, hence representing Ahl al-Sunna wa al-Jama`a, exclaims:

2. There is nothing LIKE Him. 

8. No imagination can conceive of Him and no understanding can comprehend Him. 

9. He is different from any created being. 

“38. He is beyond having limits placed on Him, or being restricted, or having parts or limbs. Nor is He contained by the six directions as all created things are.” 

45. The exact nature of the decree is Allah's secret in His creation, and no angel near the Throne, nor Prophet sent with a message, has been given knowledge of it. Delving into it and reflecting too much about it only leads to destruction and loss, and results in rebelliousness. So be extremely careful about thinking and reflecting on this matter or letting doubts about it assail you, because Allah has kept knowledge of the decree away from human beings, and forbidden them to enquire about it, saying in His Book, "He is not asked about what He does, but they are asked" (al-Anbiya' 21: 23). 

Therefore, anyone who asks: "Why did Allah do that?" has gone against a judgement of the Book, and anyone who goes against a judgement of the Book is an unbeliever. 

46. This in sum is what those of Allah's Friends with enlightened hearts need to know and constitutes the degree of those firmly endowed with knowledge. For there are two kinds of knowledge: knowledge which is accessible to created beings, and knowledge which is not accessible to created beings. Denying the knowledge which is accessible is disbelief, and claiming the knowledge which is inaccessible is disbelief. Belief can only be firm when accessible knowledge is accepted and the inaccessible is not sought after. 

“51. He encompasses all things and that which is above it, and what He has created is incapable of encompassing Him.”  

75. When our knowledge about something is unclear, we say: "Allah knows best." (source)

Oh you read that?

I was just putting the sprinkles on the icing.

Back to you.

Fellow Muslim colleague and MDI speaker Abdullah Andualsi defines God negatively, in terms of what God is not, and candidly admits his God possesses no nature, or attributes, components that he is fundamentally absolutely unique and indivisible, being of pure will, check out his introductory remarks and rebuttal sections:

Notice Andualsi distinguishes between descriptions and prescriptions of God. He speaks of the characteristics/traits/attributes being revealed to us as merely actions describing his relationship with humans, but not having an actual con-substantial existence within God's nature, because there is no "within" to speak of, God is indivisible. For Andalusi God has nothing within him that is made up of distinct attributes, rather God's attributes are merely descriptions of God's behavioral actions.  Andalusi even goes on to say: "God doesn't have a substance, he doesn't have a being, he just has a will and infinite power" (111:58).

What are the consequences to such beliefs to such an utterly irrational belief asserting God has a complete absence of any nature and attributes? I will just provide a few of many dilemmas. Not only is the Muslim God an utterly indefinable unknowable thing that has no substance, being or nature, one that cannot even reveal himself to us,  but If God has no positive attributions, he then has no identity, if God transcends or is beyond the Law of Identity: "A = A", God cannot positively be God. But if God cannot be defined in distinction to other phenomena, God cannot exist as distinct from anything else. As one atheist puts it, this is fundamentally the same as pantheism or non-existence:

"If a supernatural being is to be exempt from natural law, it cannot possess specific, determinate characteristics. These attributes would impose limits and these limits would restrict the capacities of this supernatural being....A supernatural being, if it is to differ in kind from natural existence, must exist without a limited nature--which amounts to existing without any nature at all." Atheism: The Case Against God, written by George H. Smith (page 41)

This argument cannot be applied to the Christian God of course, because our God has intrinsic boundaries conjoint to his very nature. However this is a perfect description of a God like Allah who has no limitation. Either Allah simply doesn't exist, or he cannot be distinguished from creation! I advice Ijaz not just to be Christian in theory then (by borrowing from the Christian world-view of a personal knowable God), I would recommend he make the full step and be Christian in identity not merely in thought! 

Just for giggles, another MDI speaker and colleague of Mr Ahmad, Australian MDI debater: Abdullah Kundi (who has debated Dr. White) has also given us another consequence of claiming God has limits or boundaries.

Kunde claimed that the sacrifice of Christ limits God’s power:

“All-powerful. Well, if I can just ask the Christians here in the room to give me a quick show of hands. Who thinks through the sacrifice of Jesus you’re guaranteed entry into heaven? Ok, so are you going to stand before God on the Day of Judgment and say, ‘You now need to let me into heaven because I believed in something?’ So God’s going to be forced to let you into heaven? So you have a God that is not all-powerful because you as a human being are now forcing him to do something.” (source)

Kundi has also been recorded in the debate as saying:

“We also need to accept that it implies a limited God, a God that cannot hold the attributes of eternalness, being all-powerful, and also a unified God. Why? When we say that God is one in opposition to the Trinity, we don’t mean one in terms of the numerical one, that zero can come before it and two can come after it. We mean it in an absolute unity that is not describable in mathematical terms. And when we consider the Trinity, that actually applies a created aspect to God. You’re saying three; the number three in that two comes before it and four comes after it. There’s no way around this, it’s not a complex number. For those of you doing mathematics or science you’ll know it’s even been in the real number system, three. So you’re applying a created aspect to God, and there can absolutely be no such divine unity in that concept. Even if somebody came to you and said that God is one in the sense of the number one, that zero can come before it and two can come after it, that in itself is not even a proper unity, in terms of a godly unity. It’s very important to understand that point.” (Saviour of the World: Jesus or the Quran?)

If Mr Kundi (and hence Islam) is correct, and God has no limitations, God is all powerful in the sense that he has no binding nature, his oneness is of an absolute indivisibility that contains no distinctions within himself including morality, rationality etc. We have serious consequences. If Allah creates the rules by which behavior must be judged and if the rules do not bind their Creator, then there is nothing that is improper for Allah, Allah is not bound, and he itself, is the Judge, who cannot be judged. 

When Allah promises that obedient Muslims will eventually go to heaven and infidels will go to hell, there is no reason to believe that he will not break his promise and send Muslims to hell and infidels to heaven. In fact, it is just as likely that he will break his promise as it is that he will not, there is know way of knowing or predicting what Allah will do since he is not bound to anything, even his own word, Muslims can only read his word and hope he will fulfill it, knowing he has no obligation or moral inclination to do such. What possible grounds could the Muslim have for maintaining that God will keep the promise in question? Allah’s love for Muslims? But we could not call him unloving if he sent Muslims to hell, for this would be to judge Allah. Could we say that God will keep his promise because he is honorable? But again, honorable is just a description of some of his previous actions, nothing inherent in Allah is honorable. If Allah broke his promises we could not judge him to be dishonorable, for that too would be a judgment. Muslims in order to retain there perverse understanding of Allah's almighty power then have reduced his morality to that of arbitrary unbound recklessness. Ultimately we have no way of knowing what Allah will do, and whatever he does Muslims cannot condemn..

According to Islam

Who is God?

• IT is impersonal
• IT is no one
• IT does not think
• IT does not emote 
• IT is not aware
• IT wills stuff (contradiction to the above) 

What is God?

• Nature-less
• Unknowable
• Blank
• Indefinable
• Unpredictable
• God is defined by what he/it is not: "without limit" aka nothing, without positive definition.

The question I have for Ijaz then, is:

"How can you call me to worship a God, who is unknown, and you can't tell me his nature?"

Here is my upgraded version:

"How can an impersonal, utterly natureless God be truly known? Allah is blank. Islam is incoherent. Come to the only God who is living and can be known in his Son by his personal Holy Spirit" ~ Mark Bennett 

Before, I leave, I would like to give a parting gift to our new Christian brother Ijaz from a fellow Christian Apologist of ours.

Earlier we saw Muslims do not believe Allah is contained within our three dimensional realm, as Sunni Islam puts it "he is not contained by the six directions as all created things are". Yet this completely vindicates exactly what the Church Fathers had spoken of in times past (The one(s) that Ijaz had butchered). 

A brilliant Christian thinker and apologist General Han Solo, shows us how Tertullian's point of view has now been vindicated by contemporaneous philosophy and science: