S.I.Q. series 3
After a week-long break from Quran study I'm back in full swing, reading verses aloud to myself before I sleep, when I wake, and while tanning under the summer sky. I am now a bit over 1/3 in.
One thing I feel I have to point out before I go onto my third official post in the S.I.Q. series: there is SO MUCH repition and contradiction I think I might just die.
Ok. Enough said. Onto our purpose as human beings...
God, what are we doing here?
While reading the Quran and trying to keep track of all the do's and don't's and perhaps' of God's decree, I began asking myself what it all was for? Why, God, are we supposed to believe? To behave a certain way? Avoid certain thoughts? To like some and not others? To give to the poor and take from the idolaters? To ... you get the point.
Well, in sura 7, "The Battlements", God reveals to me his masterful plan. And here I shall relate to you what I think the God of the Quran intends our purpose on this earth to be.
It goes a little something like this...
First there was Adam, then Eve (origins: clay). God told them to stay away from a tree. Satan tempted them otherwise. Next thing you know Adam and Eve are revealing their private parts to one another.
God is angry. Adam feels sorry.
So, A&E-- wanting to be forgiven for their sin-- ask for God's forgiveness in any way that they can find it. God settles on this: a temporary stay down on earth (which begs the questions, where were they before!?). God says,
" 'Get you down, each of you
an enemy to each (a.k.a. 'guys are from venus, girls are from mars'). In the earth, a sojourn
shall be yours, and enjoyment
for a time.' " (7:20)
Here on earth, God describes A&E's sojourn quite succintly:
" 'Therein you shall live, and
therein you shall die, and from there you
shall be brought forth.' " (7:20)
A few verses later, the moral of Adam and Eve's story becomes even more relevant for my life, and yours.
You see, God promises each and everyone of us one of two end points: heaven or 'hell'. Adam and Eve asked God to give them back an eternity in Paradise. So, God put them on this earth as a test to see if they were worthy of eternal greatness in a lushious land of gardens and underwater rivers.
Like A&E, in life, we are judged. At the end, God promises us Paradise as a reward for the good life we have lived.
" 'This / is your Paradise; you have been given it as your inheritance / for what you did.' " (7:40)
Essentially then,
Life is a test (or a sick game).
You are given chances and, surprisingly, choices. "To every one / of you We have appointed a right way / and an open road." (5:50)
What you make of this life determines the future of your world to come. God 'tries us with good things and evil, so that haply we shall return to the garden's of Paradise' (7: 165).
BUT, there is ONE last thing, one MINOR detail that God throws in two suras later like some fine print on everyday drugs. If you want to make it to heaven you have to sell your soul...
to Him.
Entry into Paradise requires a bargain with God, a simple excahnge of self in return for Paradise (I've added in a little fine(bold) print of my own):
"God has bought from the believers their selves / and their possessions against the gift of Paradise ... . So rejoice in the bargain you have made with Him; / that is the mighty triumph." (9:110).
So, there it is. Our Purpose, as neatly explained as I could on a blog page.
I hope that my understanding of God's masterful plan will become ever clearer as I read on. For the moment, however, I am having a hard time settling on this supposed bargain with Him.
For one, it presupposes that one believes in heaven and hell-- which I am firmly undecided about. Actually, even before that it presupposes the belief in God, which I am equally and firmly undecided about.
Lastly, God's revelations comes to me a little too late, at quite an inopportune time. You see, for the past few weeks following a death-changing read, I have been going around preaching that I would like my bodily remains to be composted upon death. The controversial mantra that started this all: When I die, my body and mind WILL turn off like a switch, or a dead battery.
So it is that I cannot bargain what I do not have to give. For me there is no limbo, no heaven, no hell, no ghost haunting, no death liasoning.
So, what purpose for the Lost, God?
Contractual obligations on items you may or may not possess seem especially dubious in the divine context. I mean even if you have a soul despite your beliefs, what and where gives the other party the right to claim it? Does God ask for a signature? Does his omniscience involve some comprehensive mini-tape-deck recording of your prayers and pledges? Does God get to claim a soul any more than other human being - like Marge's claim on the soul of Homer (you know the episode...)
ReplyDeleteDavid, that was spoken like a true lawyer-to-be! Contract agreements, signed testimonies-- all the necessaries of leading a soul-laundering free life.
ReplyDeleteAs for said Simposon's episode, surprisingly, I have not seen it. But I can only imagine that Marge's grip on Homer's soul is ala God's on ours... .
To answer your fears about a bad contract, god addresses this very point oft in His revelations. As He tells us, He is All-knowing, All-seeing. So in a sense any signed agreement is useless because God already knows if we have consented, or run to The Tree. He even knows our intentions before we have intended them.
And in terms of His right to stalk our hearts and souls, well He kind of has patent-like ownership over them already. He created us. He gave us life. He will take it away. As far as I'm concerned, he already owns our souls and is simply waiting for us to realize this and give in to Him.
Which brings me to one final point of bad digestion. The paradox is: god created us, then gave us a life to live as we please, but in the end He will only pick those who have denied this created life here on earth to go to Paradise. Delusion, choice, ecstasy, temptation, emotions-- none are to be pursued but in his shadow.
My question is then, Why the game? Why create something that is to be denied? Why is Paradise such a mile-high club. And, anyways, what exactly is Paradise-- aside from shade from the sun and water for our sores-- if it's not anything like the sins we divulge ourselves in here on earth...?
Fortunately, for better or worse my parents are much more forgiving with the choices I make.
Hello Sarah,
ReplyDeletethe following verses (from the seventh chapter of the quran) might be of relevance to your post:
And [mention] when your Lord took from the children of Adam - from their loins - their descendants and made them testify of themselves, [saying to them], "Am I not your Lord?" They said, "Yes, we have testified." [This] - lest you should say on the day of Resurrection, "Indeed, we were of this unaware." (172) Or [lest] you say, "It was only that our fathers associated [others in worship] with Allah before, and we were but descendants after them. Then would You destroy us for what the falsifiers have done?" (173)