Completely agree with everything except “Nothing is hidden from view, as in thought”. Almost everything is hidden and we have no faculties or tools or aids to even help fathom the depths of what is hidden. That is why God is unknowable.

Khalid, as I think I said in the thread on James a while back, “Works” are important and valuable, as a witness of the Grace that was granted. However, works, in and of themselves, have no eternal value.

Well once we “pass” in the afterlife (hopefully!) yes works are not of any further value. But the point is this life they are very important in that they do reflect our true faith, far more than our words. Perhaps one confusion is that works always fall short, unless you are a Gandhi or a Father William Christensen (http://usamarianist.blogspot.com/2007/09/interview-with-fr-william-christensen.html). So for most of us works (and faith) fall short and we do depend on mercy from the Almighty in the hereafter (and Allah is Most Merciful). So works seem puny and to an extent they are. But they are still the main evidence to confirm our faith in this life.

hs,

You state:

“However, works, in and of them, have no eternal value”.

For some reason I am not getting the picture that you have understood that we are all in agreement but, I also get the feeling that you actually feel in the most exact sense that faith alone can possibly mean something apart from works also.

I want to thank you again for this post. It is enjoyable and extraordinary in its possibility to remove the barriers we have placed between ourselves and God.

In knowledge and thought, I was speaking of God.

The consideration that God is unknowable is that God is. God is of being, not knowledge.

We can not know God. God is not present in knowledge. The use of the description of God as “all knowing” is not accurate. God is omnipotent, and God is.

We may be with God, and we may be present to God. We may not come to God in knowledge, only in faith.

Being and thought(conscience) are distinct.

God speaks directly without thought. There is no time, doubt, uncertainty, or things left unsaid between God and God’s speaking. They are one, uninterrupted by thought.

As God is, God speaks. They are one.

The consideration is that for God nothing is hidden. For us, we pretend that all is hidden. It is hidden in knowledge and thought. We toil to know.

Faith and works are the distinction of being and doing.

When we accept faith, the doing is called forth by who we are, authentically. Not to gain, or to please.

The doing alone, even in obedience, will never generate faith, nor will it last.

Choosing powerfully our way of being (faith) will change hearts, transform being, and conquer time. It calls us. Without it, the impact of doing will turn to dust.

Be. Do. vs. Do. Be.

Dobe..dobe…do! It must be getting late.

Peace.

Another,

It is the interaction that is enjoyable and useful. Thank you for your efforts.

We cannot know all that God knows. We can only get a glimpse and remain in awe.

To say works don’t matter is to miss the point. Yes for most of us our works are puny and we will be left on the mercy of the Creator to be generous and forgiving (but we will point to every scrap of works to demonstrate we did have faith even if it was weak). But the special ones, oh their works reflect their strong faith. There are other paths for works but one great one is a life devoted to the service of the poor. Such is indeed a great life, but very few choose it even though we have more opportunity today than ever. Heaven is second prize (according to the Qur’an). First prize is nearness to Allah. Very few prove worthy of that special privilege and you have to have a very deep faith reflected in a life devoted to service of the poor (for God loves the poor most) or an equally worthy path.

There are things about Islam and Muslims that I consider are hiding in plain sight. That is if one ponders and anyone of those things the realization is that this evidence could not have been manufactured it is the product of more than a thousand years. I have written previously about 1400 year old minorities existing in Muslim lands and what they say about Muslim tolerance of minorities (when there are no examples outside Muslim lands of significant size minorities surviving and remaining socially well integrated anywhere for even 500 years). And I have written about the survival of the Quranic Arabic for over 1400 years, when no other language has survived unchanged for even 500 years. Then there is the Kaaba, the house that Abraham built. Do people ever consider what would be the implication if Abraham really built it? And if he did not build it how can anyone explain why this myth was started centuries before Muhammad? But there is something even more in the open and yet even more hidden. Every Muslim is aware of it and yet do not contemplate the implication. And that is a word.

There is a word in the Qur’an that is so simple and yet contains possibilities I haven’t yet fully understood. It only occurs twice in the whole book and both times in the same verse and it is a verse Muslims utter in every cycle of every daily prayer (yet most are unaware of its significance or, even knowing the language, not believing that it could really be true). The word is, transliterated, Eeyakah. It means ‘you’. But it means much more than simply ‘you’. In arabic the word for ‘you’ is Aantaa and it is the word used everywhere else in the Qur’an and used in daily language. Eeyakah, as my teacher Dr. Jamil Diab explained, is imagine you are face to face and pointing your finger to make sure there is no confusion who you are addressing; it is a very personal ‘you’. And it is the word we say in every cycle of every prayer to Allah twice. “Eeyakah/You we worship and Eeyakah/You we ask for help”. How can we be saying Eeyakah to the one not confined by space and time while we exist in space and time? There is only one answer, space and time both are illusions. There is no space, no time separating us from God. We can address God anytime anywhere face to face. Think of the marvel of this. Think of the honor, the privilege, and our unworthiness. What a gift and to receive it all we need is a sincere submitting heart.

Peace be upon you too

DW: Works DO have value, don’t get me wrong. Works have value as witness, for example. When (as a group from my church recently experienced) a group went to Cedar Rapids (the forgotten flood) and spent a week hanging sheet rock and siding, that WORK has incredible value. And they reported something extraordinary: a congregation there has donated their building to the disaster assistance cause. The sunday school rooms have been filled with bunk beds built from 2X4’s and plywood, their fellowship hall has been converted to a dining room, a mobile trailer is in the parking lot full of showers. And they expect to house a changing cast of workers pretty much continuously for the next 2 years. That is a WORK of immeasurable value.

However, those WORKS do NOT bring salvation to anybody. That is the crux of the “justification by faith alone” statement.

Khalid, thank you for the comments about Islam, and the personal “you” that appears in the daily prayers. It sounds quite similar to the call by Jesus to call God “Abba, Father”. Literally, in Aramaic, “Abba” is the first word for father that small children learn. It means, in no uncertain terms, “daddy”. To call God daddy?????? THAT is radical, no?

Faith provides all. It is through faith that we make a difference. Works are an outward and visible sign. That is all.

As an aside, it relates to the saying: we can give a hungry man a fish, or we can teach them to fish. Without faith we are only serving fish.

Does serving fish matter, or does it hold the hunger in place for our own righteousness?

A question for the Biblical scholars. Who speaks of works or good deeds in the Bible as the way to God?

I read that God, as an outcome of our taking on the knowledge of right and wrong, put us out of Eden, keeps us from the Tree of Life, and tells us we must now toil (work).

It was not so before this. Tell me it wasn’t Paul. (chuckle)

There is the temptation of idolizing work.

It is faith that makes a difference. All else comes from this.

Much like knowledge, to search for redmption through works, is a distraction, a temptation.

Offering works as a way to God misleads. We must first look within and choose.

In all of this and to Khalid’s word, service is the highest form of being. We choose our being. What glorifies God is in the choice.

Of course, without integrity it is not a choice, only looking good.

Another,

You stated this so well and it expressed exactly my understanding of faith and works.