He [Allah] begets not, nor was He begotten.[1]
The Qur’an confirms the rationally derived attribute of God – that of being uncaused.
He [Allah] begets not, nor was He begotten.[1]
The Qur’an confirms the rationally derived attribute of God – that of being uncaused.
Christianity was founded by Prophet Jesus on whose teachings the beliefs of Christians are based.
Christianity is now made up of three main denominations:
The purported teachings of Prophet Jesus are codified in the New Testament. However, the Christian Bible, which is the foundation of their belief, also includes the Old Testament or Hebrew Bible.
The New Testament is made up of four books, all originally written in Greek, not the language of Aramaic which is believed to be the language of Prophet Jesus:
The Gospels are testimonies of belief about Prophet Jesus and each Gospel is believed to have been authored by one of the Apostles, the twelve followers of Prophet Jesus, or by one of their disciples.
There are four Gospels:
The first three are collectively called the Synoptic Gospels, because they are very similar in form and content. The Gospel of John differs materially from the Synoptic Gospels because it contains information not found in the latter and presents a different history of the ministry of Prophet Jesus.
Epistles are letters that contained Gospel interpretations, solutions to local problems and advice on how to live Christian lives. They were mainly written by Paul and given such names as I and II Timothy.
According to Biblical tradition, Judaism was founded at least 3,000 years ago when the nation of Israel was formed by Prophet Abraham and his descendants in the land of Palestine in the Middle East.
The beliefs of Judaism are based on the Hebrew Bible which consists of the Law, the Prophets and the Writings and on the teachings of Prophets Abraham and Moses.
The Law or Torah narrates the story of creation, God’s covenant with the descendants of Prophet Abraham and the creation of the nation of Israel as an example to all other nations.
The Law is made up of five books:
The Prophets or Neviʾim reports the interpretations of the Law and frequent condemnations and declarations of divine punishment by ancient Israelite prophets of their nation’s behaviour.
The Former Prophets include:
The Latter Prophets include:
Since God can only be One, the only valid religion(s) must be monotheistic.
Monotheism is the belief in the existence of one god, polytheism is the belief in the existence of many gods, and atheism is the belief that there is no god.
There are purportedly only three monotheistic religions in the world today:
To evaluate the compatibility of each religion with our rational understanding of God, I suggest a Nature of God test.
The stated belief in God must be compatible with the deduced nature of God.
After deducing the existence of One God, we can now finalise our rational understanding of His Nature. However, the initial deduction of His Nature is arrived at by negation, that is, we know what God cannot be, and, therefore, by implication what He must be. I call these attributes of the first-order.
God is:
From these first-order divine attributes, we can further deduce second-order divine attributes that God is:
We can now elaborate further on eternality. Eternality can be defined as:
God cannot be infinite-omnitemporal because He created time and therefore cannot exist in time, in the same way that God cannot exist in the material universe because He created matter, energy and space and therefore must be immaterial and transcendent. Infinite-omnitemporality would mean that God created Himself. This would mean simultaneous existence-nonexistence which violates the law of non-contradiction and is a logical impossibility. God can, however, be timeless-eternal, because He transcends His creation. He transcends time. He exists beyond time in the same way that He exists beyond matter, energy and space, all of which He created. Therefore, God is timeless-eternal.