Acts17apologetics looking for God's Face; anthropomorphism in the Quran

In answer to the video "Decapitating Allah (and "Defacing" Islam)"

During his communion with his Creator, Moses who sought to comfort his faith, humbly asking his Sustainer to

7:143"make me see so I can look at You"

to which God answered

"you will never/LAN see Me..".

LAN is a forceful negation unrestricted by time. Moses knew that humans cannot see God, as is clear from the wording in his request. Moses asked God to make him able to see God fully manifested. He thought that God would acceed to his supplication and remove that barrier momentarily. Moses' demand was not because of his lack of faith but out of curiosity as to God's appearance. God followed by demonstrating why this is an impossibility. The physical realm from which humans cannot be extracted from, in its entirety, cannot bear God's presence without a barrier. Interestinglty, Jesus himself whom some have unfortunately idolized, reflected that reality when he stated that none has ever seen God Jn1:18,5:37. 

It is a well established Biblical belief that none can see God and live Gen32:30,Ex33:20. The mountain, which is the most massive and stable entity found in nature was used to demonstrate the point to Moses

"but look at the mountain, if it should remain stable in its place, then you will see Me. And when his Lord revealed Himself to the mountain, He made it crumble and Musa fell down unconscious".

A similar incident re-occured later in the times of the prophet Elijah, as reported in 1kings19:11. The Hebrew bible in Judges5:5 speaks of the mountains literally melting from God's presence and Isaiah states that should God manifest Himself

Isa63:19"mountains would have dripped from before You".

Moses could not see Allah but did see the mountain being destroyed. This caused him to faint, and as he woke back up he began glorifying God and stating his deep belief in Him. 

Contrary to Moses' humble request, the Israelites' demand to see God stemmed out of disbelief. We are here speaking of the elders of the community who had accompanied Moses for his first meeting with God. They began taunting Musa that they will not believe in him unless they see God face to face. They made that demand after receiving many miraculous favors, including their liberation from bondage 2:55,7:155. But Allah, as He explained and demonstrated to Moses, does not speak directly to any mortal 42:51. He only addresses them from behind a veil meaning the only thing that would transpire to the receiver would be the essence of what Allah wishes to convey. That intent is transmitted through inspiration/wahy 42:1 or by sending an angelic messenger in a familiar shape 11:69,17:95,22:75 to convey to a nation or a particular person a certain message. Musa was spoken to from behind a barrier 4:164,7:143,19:50-53,20:9-48,27:7-12,28:29-35 and the Israelites at Mt Sinai too 2:63,7:171. God spoke directly to other people in that same veiled manner too 2:253-254. 

The manner by which God makes the listener understand the intended message, without compromising His non corporeality is a process beyond our understanding 17:85. Just like a toddler does not understand how an individual speaking through a phone is seperate from it. A believer accepts the limits of his perception of the unseen. After describing the most vivid manner in which divine communication occured between Himself and Moses, God proceeds with a statement most often used throughout the Quran in order to elevate Himself above any imperfection, which includes material representation and limitations 27:7-9. It is particularily relevant in the context of God's communication with Moses at the burning bush, as there was a risk that the medium of revelation, the fire through which Allah spoke, could be taken as divine in essence. A fine point to note is the manner in which the Quran describes God's calling Moses 20:11"a voice called out to him". The passive form is used to keep ambiguous the manner, source, form of the address.

This demand of the Israelites to see God was not meant to obtain inner satisfaction, did not spring from a believing heart zealous to know the hidden realities, but came from a disbelieving heart and reflected their denial and skepticism. They werent content with having Moses being their intermediary with God, they needed special proof. Despite all they had seen and made to experience, they requested something that is not only an affront to God's glory, but also revealing of an ungrateful heart. Nothing was good enough to make them believe that the Almighty spoke and communicated to Moses. 

The prophets of all ages were confronted to such demands of having direct communication with God and seeing Him, including the nation of the prophet Muhammad 2:118,25:21,74:52. The Quran relates how even prior to that incident, during their exodus and while Moses was still in their midst, they requested to have a god made for them just as the idol worshipping nations 7:138. Their primitive mindset and years of bondage under a polytheistic people had such a strong grip on them, despite their monotheistic legacy, that they were not spiritually satisfied by the worship of an all encompassing, intangible Being. They needed the realm of the unseen to be brought to the seen to have their hearts appeased

7:140"Shall I find you a god other than Allah, while He has graced you above the nations?"

Moses' subtle answer was that nothing he could fashion with his hands would be a representation of the true God. But they can still find their God and worship Him through His attributes which they saw manifest in the strongest of ways until now. 

This eagerness, described in their own books, to literally see God reflects in the crude and primitive anthropomorphic expressions that abound in the Hebrew writings. At times it would ironically appear that what we have in front of us is man creating God in his own image, likeness and form rather than the other way around Gen1:26. God for example would speak face to face with Moses Ex33:11,Numbers12:6-8. But knowing the difficulty and incompatibility of promoting monotheism while at the same time having a God incarnate, Jewish scribes have injected the text with many explicit passages in light of which one can interpret the ambiguous ones so as to safeguard the notion of pure monotheism. So although Moses spoke to God face to face, in reality no one can see God's Face Ex33:20, not even Moses who had to be covered and stand away until God passed so he could have a glimpse of God's "back" Ex33:22-23. "panim el panim", which literally means 'face-to-face' becomes an idiom to convey the exclusive closeness and intimate relation Moses had with God with whom he communicated directly, not through dreams, visions or through an angel as He did with all other Israelite prophets. With those explicit axioms in mind, one can begin understanding why God had to appear to the Israelites through a dark cloud Ex19:9. The purpose was to strengthen the Israelites' trust in Moses by overawing them with this experience

Ex20:20"in order that His awe shall be upon your faces, so that you shall not sin". 

The Torah reports the traumatic experience

Ex19:16"thunder claps and lightning flashes, and a thick cloud was upon the mountain, and a very powerful blast of a shofar, and the entire nation that was in the camp shuddered".

The phenomenon of God manifesting Himself in this world clearly is in a non-incarnate sense, rather through actions and at most, dramatic occurences. This dreadful "representation" of God began to instruct the terrified Israelites. But they could not bare seeing and hearing God. Had they be seeing a human incarnation of God, they wouldnt have had any problem. Instead they begged Moses to be their sole intermediary with God, fearing that if the manifestation continued, they would die Ex20:15-21,Deut4:12-13,5:1-5,23-27. The fear of death for seeing God was apparently deeply instilled into the hearts of the pious Israelities, who knew by experience what had befallen their forefathers who had even so much as asked for it. Gideon thought he would die simply for having seen an angelic messenger in human form Judges6:22-3. Same for Samson's father Judges13:21-22.
Moses thus drew nearer to the dark smoke where he alone continued receiving revelation Ex20:21. At one point he,

"Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel"

were sumonned to worship God at a distance, with only Moses being allowed to draw near Ex24:1-2. Those that accompanied him however disobeyed and "saw God" who nevertheless

"did not raise his hand against these leaders of the Israelites".

This "seeing" of God is no different than the Israelites' seeing God earlier. They saw a type of manifestation that doesnt even hint to human incarnation, much less to Jesus. So when Moses had a glimpse of God's back, the Hebrew word for "back" can also be rendered as "what comes after". Ex16:6-7 has Moses and Aaron telling the children of Israel they will see God's glory. Yet we know that the Torah constantly tells us they did not see a form. Ex14:31 says the Israelites saw

"the great hand, which the Lord had used upon the Egyptians, and the people feared the Lord, and they believed in the Lord and in Moses, His servant".

This again points to the metaphorical usage of these words when applied to God. Similarly in the Quran we often read about God's eyes or hands in a metaphorical sense

48:10"Surely those who swear allegiance to you do but swear allegiance to Allah; the hand of Allah is above their hands".

Other Biblical anthropomorphisms are the references to YHWH's eyes, face, nose, mouth, lips, tongue, breath, loins, heart, etc Jer16:17,Ps18:8,Isa30:27-33,Ezek1:27,1Kings9:3,2Kings10. YHWH also regrets, grieves, forgets, is jealous, has knowledge and physical limitations and needs resting Jonah3:10,Gen2:2,6:6,35:10,46:2,Ex20:5,Hosea8:4,Judges1:19. Even the idea of a "loving" God is but an anthropomorphic depiction. Love is a human emotion, like hate or fear, denoting change and mutability. As can be seen, anthropomorphism is pervasive in the HB, side by side with transcendental monotheism but due to the lack of systematic elaboration and complete safeguard against possible misconceptions, one has to sift through many statements before deriving a concept of the absolute otherness and transcendence of God. 

These crude and naive descriptions of the attributes, qualities, emotions and portrayals of God, may confuse a reader approaching the text with a certain paradigm in mind, namely the Christian one. Hence leaving him with the superficial impression of the God of the Hebrew Bible as being like a human being but of a higher rank or gigantic proportions.