A person asked Imam Muhammad at-Taqi (p): Tell me about the Lord, the Hallowed, the Exalted, whose names and attributes have been mentioned in His Noble Quran. Are these names and Attributes He Himself?
Imam Muhammad at-Taqi (p): Your question has two aspects. If you mean that His names and attributes are in themselves His Supreme Self, you are attributing plurality and multiplicity to God. He is far above that. But if you mean that these names and attributes have eternal existence then the word eternal shall also have two meanings. First, if you mean that these names and attributes have eternally been in the knowledge of God and He has eternally deserved them, then your conception is right. But if you mean that (in their literal sense) the image, the pronunciation and the spelling of these names and attributes have eternally existed, then may God save us from the notion that there had eternally been any other thing along with God. God existed when there was no creation. God created these names and attributes to be a medium between Himself and His creation. Through these names and attributes they could supplicate before Him and worship Him. And this is the remembrance of God. God existed when there was no remembrance. The object of remembrance is God, the Eternal and eternally existing. But His names and attributes are created and the meaning of these names and attributes is the same as God, and the notion of incongruity and of union (between His self, names and attributes) is not in keeping with His elegance because incongruity and union are found in things compound and divisible. It can neither be said that God is compound nor less nor more and He is eternal in His essence. Everything else is divisible and compound but God is one and indivisible. The notions of �more� and �less� are not applicable to Him. Everything that is divisible or to which �more or less� can be attributed is essentially a created being providing a proof (of the existence) of its Creator...
So we see that the expression
God is his names and attributes can have two wrong meanings:
1. That they themselves are God (wrong).
2. That the words themselves existed with God and formed part of God (that is wrong as well).
Then there is a meaning that is right.
The meaning of that these names exist in the knowledge of God in the sense that he knows they point to Him, then this meaning is right.
So we see Imam Jewad [as] lived in a time when people expressed "God is Names and Attributes" with different intentions. The sense that God is formed of multiplicity, that he has various attributes and divisions with himself that differ with one another, is against Tawheed.
The notion that the names themselves are God is also wrong. The only notion that is correct is the meaning of the names is God himself without division. They all point to One and the same glory.
The names and attributes were created as a means between himself and God and the meaning is God. The named in the names are God himself. The names are however created, despite the meaning itself being God.
This also shows "Quran" being eternal can only be true in the sense that it manifests eternal glory. In the sense that anything exists with God including the Quran, than Imam Jewad teaches us to seek refuge from such a saying.
And this makes sense, because Quran contains "names" that in the words of Imam Jewad [as] was created as a means between God and creation. The pronunciation of these names for example didn't always exist neither their realities as connections to God, but rather the meaning of the names always existed and only in that sense is God is his names.
Another way to see a misconception is explained by Imam Jaffar [as]:
An atheist: Do you say that God is All-Hearing and All-Seeing?
Imam Jafar as-Sadiq (as): God is All-Hearing and All-Seeing but He hears without any organic mechanism and sees without any instrument. He hears and sees by His Supreme Self. When I say �His Supreme Self� I do not mean that He is one thing and His �Supreme Self� is something else. But I wanted to explain what I knew because I had been asked and wanted to explain it to you since you had asked. If I say �He hears with the wholeness of His Being� this does not mean that His whole has any parts, as whole according to our concept is made up of parts. But I wanted to make you understand and to interpret my knowledge. But in this matter to which I refer, there is nothing except that He is All-Hearing, All-Seeing, All-Knowing and All-Aware without diversity in His essence or in the meaning of His Supreme Self
Imam Jaffar [as] was on alert of how each of his statements can be misinterpreted and not seen in reality for what he was saying.
Another way is to misunderstand the issue of Tashbih, for example, God is one and individual is one, so don't we resemble God? God is living and we are living, so do we resemble God?
Imam Ali ar-Reza (p), in the presence of some people, said: He (God) is the Subtle, All-Aware, All-Hearing, All-Seeing, the One, the Single, the Absolutely Independent, He begetteth not, nor is He begotten and there is none like unto Him. If God were such as the anthropomorphists have thought, then neither the Creator can be distinguished from the created, nor the Originator from the originated. But He is the Originator and distinction between Him and the things to which He has given body and form and which He originated is a must, since there is nothing like Him nor is He like anything.
One of the audience: You have called Him One, the Independent and you also said that nothing resembles Him. But God is one and an individual is one. Is it not a resemblance in Oneness?
Imam Ali ar-Reza (p): Not at all. May God keep you steadfast. Resemblance relates to essence (not in names). As for the names, every object is one and the names signify the objects that bear those names. When we talk of an individual as �one� we mean that the individual is one body and not two because he is made up of several limbs and colours. And what is composed of different parts cannot be regarded as one. He consists of separate parts, diverse and divisible. His blood is not his flesh and his flesh is not his blood. His nervous system is different from his veins (and arteries) and his hair is not his skin. His blackness is different from his whiteness. The same holds good for the other creations. Therefore, person is one in name and not in essence. God, Exalted be His Majesty, is One and Unique and none else is One and Unique. There is no incongruity and diversion in Him nor is there any excess or deficit. But person is a creation composed of different parts and essences and primary elements, and in this state of composition is regarded as one....
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December 31, 2015, 08:03:27 AM