Re: The Implications of considering Quran the Creator or Created (khaliq or makhlooq)
Peace USResident
We can easily resolve the problems you are experiencing with regards to defining terms. All we need to do is set the parameters of those terms.
If you say that humans do not live eternally based on the definition that “eternal” means no beginning and no end, then I agree with you. I tend to view eternal to mean ongoing … without having to assert that there is or is not a beginning.
So let’s say that eternal for the purpose of our discussion is definition 1, in which case humans are not eternal.
However, my point of using that analogy is that Creation can be sustained indefinitely by Allah (SWT).
But because it has a beginning, Creation is not divine. Now as for Al-Qur’an … again we do not say that it is Divine, rather we say that it is divinely because is it from the sifat of Allah (SWT). (Those things that belong to Allah alone)
Allah (SWT) is Self-Subsistent, so Self-Subsistence is a characteristic that belongs to Allah alone,
Re: The Implications of considering Quran the Creator or Created (khaliq or makhlooq)
So we are on the same page then, eternal is an attribute of Allah SWT that nothing else possesses. To sustain something for an eternity is not the same as being eternal due to being Self-subsistent.
The next thing I would say is that all knowledge is eternal as all knowledge is possessed by Allah SWT. Our knowledge is just discovery of bits and pieces of the knowledge that already exists. The knowledge in teh Quran being no different other than what makes it divinely is that it has been conveyed to us by the possessor of absolute knowledge hence accurate whereas the knowledge we come upon is interpretive.
So to me its not the concept of eternity that sets apart the Quran from other knowledge but rather than it is divine.
