In answer to the video "Quran Contradictions: Are Christians Polytheists? (Anthony Rogers)"
Finally, Jesus' "love your enemy", which most Christians uneducated in their own scriptures like quoting, does not refer to all kind of enemies, only to a certain type, those to whom if replied with good and magnanimity may reform themselves and become our friends, as stated in the Quran
"It may be that Allah will bring about friendship between you and those whom you hold to be your enemies among them".
It is a call to try and show love to those who do not necessarily love us, with the hope of them changing their attitude towards us. In a passage absent from the oldest manuscripts of Luke over a wide geographical distribution, Jesus while on the cross prays to the Father
Lk23:34"forgive them, they do not know what they are doing".
Again, the words here are conditional and do not concern those who opposed him knowingly, and whom he condemned in his lifetime. The prayer is to those who engage in harmful behavior from ignorance. These are the type of "persecuters" Jesus, and any other prophet prayed for, because they might mend their ways once truth has been properly exposed to them.
The concept of unconditional divine "love" not only is beyond common sense, as it would encourage the oppressor in the sin and even turn the passive victim into an accomplice in the crime, but in addition this notion is one that is alien to all scriptures. Both the Quran and the previous scriptures clearly define what God loves and what He doesnt
Prov8:17"I will love those who love me, and those who seek me eagerly will find me"
Prov15:9"The way of a wicked man is an abomination of the Lord, but He loves him who pursues righteousness".The Greek writings themselves reflect that notion in several places as previously mentioned, including in
Jn14:21"he that has my commandments, and keeps them, he it is that loves me: and he that loves me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him".
God certainly loves his creatures, but not the ones that wilfully disobey, until they repent. God doesnt love the stubborn sinner but the repentent sinner. Nothing about loving those that do not love Him, and are defiantly sinful. In fact, immediately after stating that God
Jn3:16"so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son"
a restriction states to who that love extends
"Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned".
Further, despite the
1Jn3"great love the Father has lavished on us...This is how we know who the children of God are and who the children of the devil are: Anyone who does not do what is right is not God’s child".
God certainly loves his creatures, but not the ones that wilfully disobey, until they repent. God doesnt love the stubborn sinner but the repentent sinner.
There is a reason why Love of Truth and aversion towards everything false and sinful is the natural outcome of the acceptance of the straight path. One becomes in a heightened state of spiritual awareness, constantly longing to be increased in divine knowledge and wisdom. IT is however important to keep in view that the Quran here is not speaking of hatred towards the sinful person itself.
There are countless verses encouraging rectitude and compassion indiscriminately even towards one's enemies, and regardless of the person's religion or lack thereof. Religious hatred is hatred for evil and evil deeds.
This again, demonstrates the supreme pragmatism of the Quran; infatuated love and destructive hatred completely miss the mark. One hates for the sake of God and loves for the sake of God. One hates the evil deed because it harms the sinner, just as one loves the good deed because it brings one closer to guidance. The prophet encapsulated that notion when he spoke of a category of people whom the prophets and martyrs themselves will envy on the day of resurrection
"The best faith is to love for the sake of Allah, to hate for the sake of Allah, and to work your tongue in the remembrance of Allah. Mu’adh said, “What is it, O Messenger of Allah?” The Prophet said: That you love for the people what you love for yourself, and you hate for the people what you hate for yourself, and that you speak goodness or remain silent".The HB surely echoes the theme of religious hatred although it amalgamates hatred towards the individual itself as reflected in David's
Psalms119:104-5,139:21-22"From Your precepts I shall gain understanding; therefore, I hate all ways of falsehood. Your words are a lamp for my foot, and light for my path...Did I not hate Your enemies, O Lord? With those who rise up against You, I quarrel. I hate them with utmost hatred; they have become my enemies"as well as Solomon's Proverbs2:7-10,13:5.
We may also add the fact that Jesus, Besides distancing himself from the spiritually unclean while calling them dogs and pigs Matt7:6, Jesus also purposely spoke to the spiritually dead, as the ones alluded to above, in parables, knowing that however clear his language is they will not understand him, thus conforming the prophecy of Isaiah according to which a category of transgressors will never be spiritually receptive
Mk4:10-12,Matt13:13-15"Therefore speak I to them in parables: because they seeing see not; and hearing they hear not, neither do they understand. And in them is fulfilled the prophecy of Esaias, which saith, By hearing ye shall hear, and shall not understand; and seeing ye shall see, and shall not perceive: For this people's heart is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes they have closed...lest at any time they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears, and should understand with their heart, and should be converted, and I should heal them".Jesus did not love and pray for these "enemies", he on the contrary kept them far from the truth, in line with David who "hated" the lame and blind Jebusites 2Sam5:8.
Jesus clearly states in it that he keeps speaking in parables to the spiritually blind "in order that" they do not understand "otherwise they might turn and be forgiven". He uses parables to teach and lead astray at the same time. It teaches his followers and confuses his rejecters and he purposely continues in this manner "otherwise" the rejecters might turn and repent, meaning he could have taught them in another manner than in parables but didnt, to achieve the purpose of NOT having them reform themselves. Note Jesus is quoting Isaiah6's prophecy where YHWH is sending Isaiah to some sinful nation. Isaiah foretells that nation's doom and prior to this these people have their spiritual senses sealed as a punishment. Isaiah is to further confuse them (make the heart...) "otherwise" they might mend their ways. It is in this exact sense that Jesus in Matt13 is referencing Isaiah, hence the words that the prophecy is fulfilled in his contemporaries. He was confronted to people whose spiritual senses were sealed by God as a punishment as he stated earlier.
To fulfil Isaiah's text he does exactly like him, confusing them further as a form of worldly punishment for their rejection of him, through unintelligible parables that will prevent any possibility for them to reform themselves.
This theme isnt unique to Isa6, elsewhere God has
Isa29:10"poured upon you a spirit of deep sleep, and He has closed your eyes; the prophets and your heads who stargaze, He has covered".This sealed their understanding to all the vision which Isaiah was putting before them
"And the vision of everything has been to you like the words of a sealed book, which they give to one who can read, saying, "Now read this," and he shall say, "I cannot, for it is sealed".To those who only pay lip service to the Law, the hypocrites who only fear God outwardly
Isa29:14"I will continue to perform obscurity to this people, obscurity upon obscurity, and the wisdom of his wise men shall be lost, and the understanding of his geniuses shall be hidden".This complete loss of wisdom will perdure until an unspecified day where the spiritualy dead wil "see" and "hear" again v18.
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