A Muslim Convert Once Before

بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ The following was taken from “ Benedicte cave maledictionem ,” “Benedict Beware of Malediction!” by Shaykh Abu Faydhan Faridi Muhammad Harun Riedinger, and published in Women’s Own, in the October 2006 issue.   Once again, a potentially heavy thunderstorm is building up in the skies over the Muslim world.   This time not caused by the profane vulgarities of an ignorant cartoonist, but by the insensible remarks of someone who should have known better.   To set the record straight, in the related issue, the Pontiff himself actually did not make the derogatory remarks about Islam, and jihad , which he is being decried for by Muslim leaders all over the world, but “only” quoted someone else’s remarks, remaining totally non-committal about them himself – or at least giving this impression …   The situation is somewhat like this: A teacher says in class that he read somewhere that someone had accused an ancestor of one of his stu...

The Council of Carthage declared Pelagius a heretic in 418 CE. The argument he was condemned for has not stopped since.  It resurfaces in every theological tradition that takes seriously the question of human moral responsibility — including Islam, which arrived centuries later and proceeded to have the same argument with considerable vigour. The Man and the Controversy Pelagius was a British monk — his origins are debated, but the sources consistently place him as coming from the British Isles — who arrived in Rome around 380 CE and built a significant reputation as an ascetic and moral teacher.  His public life was austere.  His rhetoric was persuasive.  Bishop Aurelius Augustinus Hipponensis called him a saintly man before calling him a heretic.  The transition between those two assessments tells you something about the intensity of the theological stakes involved. Bishop Augustine of Hippo summarised it in The Spirit and the Letter IV : “There is an opinion ...

بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ Christianity, like any old religion, has had its share of extremists, and few comes as extreme as their own suicide fighters, the Circumcellions.  The Circumcellions roamed Northern Africa, killing people, torturing them, and pillaging, in the name of Christianity, until they were killed.  They were bands of Roman Christian radicals in Numidia and nearby regions of North Africa in the early to mid-4 th century.  They were considered heretical by the Catholic Church.  They condemned poverty and slavery, and advocated cancelling debt and freeing slaves.  They started out as a movement to fight oppression.   The origin of the term “Circumcellions” is uncertain.  It  may have been coined as a mockery  name by their critics who referred to them as “ circum cellas euntes ”, “they go around larders”.  This referred to their habit of moving about among the peasants, living on those they sought to indoctrina...

بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ   The following is my answer to a Quora question: “ Where did the concept of Original Sin originate? ”   Original Sin refers to the sin of Adam ( a.s. ) in the Garden when he disobeyed God and approached the Tree of Life, resulting in the Fall of Man.   It is a Christian doctrine.   There are many interpretations of this doctrine.   It was first known to be properly articulated as a doctrine in the 2 nd century CE, by Bishop Irenaeus of Lyons.   It can be considered a reaction in the Catholic refutation of Gnostic dualism.   It was the consensus of the major Church Fathers that this is based on the teachings of Paul of Tarsus.   These included Bishop Aurelius Augustinus Hipponensis, Quintus Septimius Florens Tertullianus, Bishop Aurelius Ambrosius and Bishop Cyprian of Carthage.   The passages on which Original Sin is based on are the following:   Romans 5:12-21 12 It was through one ma...

بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ   The following is my answer to a Quora question: “ What impact did Immanuel Kant have on theology, as he is often compared with such theologians like Fr. Thomas Aquinas or Bishop Aurelius Augustinus Hipponensis? ”   Immanuel Kant was a philosopher first, and a theologian as an afterthought.   His contribution was to the philosophy of religious thought, and his positions evolved throughout his life, reflecting the deep thought he put into the nature of God, and God’s relationship with Man.   Kant began a rationalist, which was the tradition he was educated in.   As he matured, he moved beyond humanist rationalism, and increasingly centred his worldview on the Divine Perspective and the Divine Intent of Creation.   As such, his early writings advocated a demonstrative argument for metaphysics.   A demonstrative argument is a form of inductive reasoning.   It hypothesises a rule utilising numerous examples...

بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ   The following is my answer to a Quora question: “ What arguments have been used to counter the Epicurean Paradox? ”   I am looking at this question for the Abrahamic and related traditions since they explicitly hold the concept of an Omniscient, Omnipotent God as central to their theological doctrine.   Mainstream Judaism and traditional Islam both agree that evil is perception since if God is All Good, then everything in the Divine Sight and cosmic scale is ultimately good.   It is our inadequacy and perception that causes things to be “evil”.   There is a Day of Judgement where all misconceptions are Addressed.   Based on Scripture, Christianity actually defines evil as all that is opposed to God and His   Intent, sin; or that which the human perspective views as “harmful and non-productive”, suffering. Christian theologians have argued that though evil is present, it is not strong enough evidence to su...

بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ The following is my answer to a Quora question: “ What are the differences between the Peshitta and the Septuagint? ”   “ Peshitta ” is derived from the Syriac ܡܦܩܬܐ ܦܫܝܛܬܐ , mappaqta psitta , which literally means “simple version”.   The Peshitta is the standard version of the Bible for churches that follow the Syriac tradition.   These include the Maronite, the Chaldean Catholic, the Syriac Catholic, the Syriac Orthodox, the Malabari Syrian, the Syro-Malankara Catholic, the Mar Thoma Syrian, the Assyrians of the East, and the Syro-Malabari churches.   It is thought that the Old Testament of the Peshitta was translated into Syriac from Hebrew around the 2 nd century AD, and that the New Testament of the Peshitta was translated from Greek.   There are several versions of the Peshitta .   The Septuagint is simply the Greek version of the Old Testament.   The Septuagint is the earliest extant Greek trans...

بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ   The following is my answer to a Quora question: “ Is the Rapture unbiblical? ”   The Rapture is a doctrine that is not found in traditional Bible scholarship and was not mentioned by the Church Fathers in any of their writings.   It is loosely based on the concept of Futurism advanced by Francisco Ribera, a Jesuit, in 1590.   Futurism is the belief that Revelation, the last book of the Bible, was about the future of the Church.   Without boring you with the details of the doctrinal history and evolution, the Rapture as how modern American evangelists understand it, as a pre-Tribulation event, was first proposed and later popularised by John Nelson Darby in 1827.   This doctrine spread and was eventually accepted by a significant proportion of American Protestantism.   The Catholic, Orthodox, Anglican and Old World Calvinist Churches reject it.   The basis of the Rapture as a doctrine is spurious in i...