At some point in life all of us feel desperate for hearing God one way or another. Here is how God speaks to us according to Quran:
بِسْمِ اللَّـهِ الرَّحْمَـٰنِ الرَّحِيمِ
وَمَا كَانَ لِبَشَرٍ أَن يُكَلِّمَهُ اللَّهُ إِلَّا وَحْيًا أَوْ مِن وَرَاءِ حِجَابٍ أَوْ يُرْسِلَ رَسُولًا فَيُوحِيَ بِإِذْنِهِ مَا يَشَاءُ ۚ إِنَّهُ عَلِيٌّ حَكِيمٌ
"And it is not for any human being that Allah should speak to him except by revelation or from behind a partition or that He sends a messenger to reveal, by His permission, what He wills. Indeed, He is Most High and Wise." 42:51
صدق الله العلي العظيم
This verse has immense significance as it explicitly rules out the possibility of humans ( Even prophets) being directly addressed by God. On the other hand, it clarifies that God does speak to us indirectly in three ways:
Subsequently, there are three questions that come to mind. Firstly, why God chooses not to speak to us directly. Secondly, what is the nature of God's communication with us and thirdly, how do we differentiate God's message from other potential sources.
In order to reach a conceivable answer to the first question, perhaps it helps if we consider our relationship with a creation of ours such as a painting or a mechanical machine made of steel parts. Simply speaking, if we want to communicate with the individual shapes in our painting or with the metal components of the machine we have made, there would be no way but through the means within the realm of each creation.
That is to say, we can only speak to a three or any other forms in our painting via the paint we have made them from. It can also be said that we can only alter the shape of any thing in our painting only by the paint itself which is the very nature of that object. In other words, we as a creator are always limited to talk to our creations by their nature. Similarly, if we want to fix or change a piece in the machine we have made, it is only plausible to use tools (means) of the same nature, metal in this case.
The painting and the machine as two examples of human creation are limited by their nature. They do not have the capability of a human language or the intelligence for that matter. By the way of analogy, we can conclude that God-human relation is, in principle, no different than any other creator-creation relationship in which the creation is inferior in terms of its capabilities to its creator.
We can therefore, deduce from our empirical knowledge from the world that a creation can never be identical to its creator with respect to its abilities and its intelligence, otherwise it is not his/her creation. This would explain why no creator can covert itself into the nature of his/her creation as it would be contradictory (since it will no longer be a creator once it has reduced its qualities to the level of its creation) and therefore impossible. Furthermore, from the causality point of view, in the material world nothing can be the cause of itself, so it would not make sense for that reason either. By the same reasoning, we can perhaps understand why it is inconceivable for God to reduce himself to a human form (his creation) or to speak to mankind directly.
It may be argued though that our children are ,in a way, our creation and in the meantime they possess exactly the same qualities which constitute every human being. The answer to this argument could be, the main distinction between a creator and a creation is the fact that the existence of a creation depends on the will of the creator, which is not the case for our children.
The existence of a painting or of a machine in my earlier examples are completely in our hand while this is not true about our children. On the contrary, when it comes to our children we will do our best to protect them from any potential harm, which clearly shows their fate is not entirely in our control.
Therefore, the right view regarding our role in creating our children appears to be mostly an exclusive and substantial influence in determining their material features as well as in shaping their initial spiritual identity. I believe the physical expression of a child is less representative of the parents' spiritual endeavor towards God in their life time than it is for the impact parents leave on a child's heart (soul or mind) when they co-create a human with God. This is mainly due to the fact that children inherent their genes naturally from their parents and parents can hardly do any thing to improve or change their appearance. Whereas, parents' beliefs and their life style consequently, will greatly influence who their children will be in most cases.
On the second question of the nature of God's communication with us, it is important to pay attention to the fact that in all the three forms that is stated in this verse, ultimately there is a message conveyed to our heart which is the only human's faculty to differentiate good from evil and feel the divine with certainty, as explained in a recent post.
Bearing this in mind, it makes no difference from this perspective, whether God's message is transferred to a human by a revelation directly to his/her heart or by an indirect message in disguise or through the words of a prophet. The message will ultimately reaches our heart which is to recognize its source and is to follow. It actually does not matter if it is perceived through senses or not.
It is also equally important to note that our heart needs to be fine tuned in order to hear God's directions. More importantly, our heart has to be in a state that would willingly surrender itself to the truth no matter what hardships it may entail in the material world. In other words, it is our heart that decides which way to go based on what feels right or wrong.
It would be logical then to assume that if we choose the wrongdoing despite the findings of our heart and ignore how it feels we will intentionally lose its capacity to hear the truth and to recognize good from evil gradually. Conversely, if we follow the path of the light, our heart becomes more skillful in tracing God's words, filtering out the noise (our personal desires and interests) effortlessly. This is corroborated by numerous verses in Quran including the amazing verse 24:35 in which God beautifully describes him self as the light of the skies and the earth ( it also implies God's words are always there to guide us).
That said, we humans can freely choose the path of ignorance to the degree that we would even deny an obvious miracle in the material world as some did in the past at the time of Moses, Jesus and other prophets, according to Quran. My point is, no mater how clear and undeniable the message or the sign is, it is ,at the end of the day, up to us to willingly take it as God's or not.
Thirdly, how do we distinguish between God's message and Evil's ? In case of revelations I presume, the message will appear so clear and so strong in a human's heart that there will be no doubt about its origin. Same is true about the message that is delivered by a true prophet.
The challenging case however, is when we are hearing some inspirations inside our heart or when the message appears in shape of an event or a sing in the context of daily life. This is the time we are required to use our mental processing to highlight and recognize God's message. Practically speaking, whenever in doubt, perhaps, it helps if we ask our self which choice would be the most satisfactory to God and the implications of which decision will be more in line with a Godly action. I believe, if we can always keep our heart in a status that we can properly converse with in these situations, we can surely detect the rays of light even in the darkest times. As a matter of fact, we may finally come to the realization that we can only commune with God through our heart.
- Trough revelation ("VAHY" in Quranic terms)
- Sending his messages to us in disguise
- Sending a prophet (messenger)
Subsequently, there are three questions that come to mind. Firstly, why God chooses not to speak to us directly. Secondly, what is the nature of God's communication with us and thirdly, how do we differentiate God's message from other potential sources.
In order to reach a conceivable answer to the first question, perhaps it helps if we consider our relationship with a creation of ours such as a painting or a mechanical machine made of steel parts. Simply speaking, if we want to communicate with the individual shapes in our painting or with the metal components of the machine we have made, there would be no way but through the means within the realm of each creation.
That is to say, we can only speak to a three or any other forms in our painting via the paint we have made them from. It can also be said that we can only alter the shape of any thing in our painting only by the paint itself which is the very nature of that object. In other words, we as a creator are always limited to talk to our creations by their nature. Similarly, if we want to fix or change a piece in the machine we have made, it is only plausible to use tools (means) of the same nature, metal in this case.
The painting and the machine as two examples of human creation are limited by their nature. They do not have the capability of a human language or the intelligence for that matter. By the way of analogy, we can conclude that God-human relation is, in principle, no different than any other creator-creation relationship in which the creation is inferior in terms of its capabilities to its creator.
We can therefore, deduce from our empirical knowledge from the world that a creation can never be identical to its creator with respect to its abilities and its intelligence, otherwise it is not his/her creation. This would explain why no creator can covert itself into the nature of his/her creation as it would be contradictory (since it will no longer be a creator once it has reduced its qualities to the level of its creation) and therefore impossible. Furthermore, from the causality point of view, in the material world nothing can be the cause of itself, so it would not make sense for that reason either. By the same reasoning, we can perhaps understand why it is inconceivable for God to reduce himself to a human form (his creation) or to speak to mankind directly.
It may be argued though that our children are ,in a way, our creation and in the meantime they possess exactly the same qualities which constitute every human being. The answer to this argument could be, the main distinction between a creator and a creation is the fact that the existence of a creation depends on the will of the creator, which is not the case for our children.
The existence of a painting or of a machine in my earlier examples are completely in our hand while this is not true about our children. On the contrary, when it comes to our children we will do our best to protect them from any potential harm, which clearly shows their fate is not entirely in our control.
Therefore, the right view regarding our role in creating our children appears to be mostly an exclusive and substantial influence in determining their material features as well as in shaping their initial spiritual identity. I believe the physical expression of a child is less representative of the parents' spiritual endeavor towards God in their life time than it is for the impact parents leave on a child's heart (soul or mind) when they co-create a human with God. This is mainly due to the fact that children inherent their genes naturally from their parents and parents can hardly do any thing to improve or change their appearance. Whereas, parents' beliefs and their life style consequently, will greatly influence who their children will be in most cases.
On the second question of the nature of God's communication with us, it is important to pay attention to the fact that in all the three forms that is stated in this verse, ultimately there is a message conveyed to our heart which is the only human's faculty to differentiate good from evil and feel the divine with certainty, as explained in a recent post.
Bearing this in mind, it makes no difference from this perspective, whether God's message is transferred to a human by a revelation directly to his/her heart or by an indirect message in disguise or through the words of a prophet. The message will ultimately reaches our heart which is to recognize its source and is to follow. It actually does not matter if it is perceived through senses or not.
It is also equally important to note that our heart needs to be fine tuned in order to hear God's directions. More importantly, our heart has to be in a state that would willingly surrender itself to the truth no matter what hardships it may entail in the material world. In other words, it is our heart that decides which way to go based on what feels right or wrong.
It would be logical then to assume that if we choose the wrongdoing despite the findings of our heart and ignore how it feels we will intentionally lose its capacity to hear the truth and to recognize good from evil gradually. Conversely, if we follow the path of the light, our heart becomes more skillful in tracing God's words, filtering out the noise (our personal desires and interests) effortlessly. This is corroborated by numerous verses in Quran including the amazing verse 24:35 in which God beautifully describes him self as the light of the skies and the earth ( it also implies God's words are always there to guide us).
That said, we humans can freely choose the path of ignorance to the degree that we would even deny an obvious miracle in the material world as some did in the past at the time of Moses, Jesus and other prophets, according to Quran. My point is, no mater how clear and undeniable the message or the sign is, it is ,at the end of the day, up to us to willingly take it as God's or not.
Thirdly, how do we distinguish between God's message and Evil's ? In case of revelations I presume, the message will appear so clear and so strong in a human's heart that there will be no doubt about its origin. Same is true about the message that is delivered by a true prophet.
The challenging case however, is when we are hearing some inspirations inside our heart or when the message appears in shape of an event or a sing in the context of daily life. This is the time we are required to use our mental processing to highlight and recognize God's message. Practically speaking, whenever in doubt, perhaps, it helps if we ask our self which choice would be the most satisfactory to God and the implications of which decision will be more in line with a Godly action. I believe, if we can always keep our heart in a status that we can properly converse with in these situations, we can surely detect the rays of light even in the darkest times. As a matter of fact, we may finally come to the realization that we can only commune with God through our heart.
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