01-30-2005, 05:38 AM
Salaam Alaikum,
I'm very shocked at how far this conversation is going. Interestingly, I was going over an email that my friend sent me today. It was about divine decree. I have read it over about 2 time so far, thinking about it more deeply each time, so that I can understand it all.
I can say that there are some things in this that I've always had a belief in before Islam, which makes the learning much easier. I won't for a second pretend that it's easy to grasp at very first glance either.
It really takes alot of thought, and deeeeep thinking to get the concept of living out a predestined life with free-will. To us simple humans, the future is unknown to us and all; so the concept of God knowing our future before even being born is alot to accept, and then that leaves you with the question, 'Well, if it's already planned, then I'm doing what I'm supposed to be doing, right?'.... and this gives us room to make bad choices, thinking that God willed it that way.
This is how I understand it, and maybe you all can help me with this, because as I said, this is new for me. But so far, I'm thinking: When God wrote down our life in His book, each and every plan, event, change, and decision has a border around it. We move within these borders with our decisions.
Envision this, or get a pencil and paper and draw it. Everything in our life as they unfold are circles, in the center of the circles is a dot, that dot is the perfect plan from God, and it is also our goal/target. Now, the space/distance from that perfect plan, and the the end of the circle, or the border, is where we are using our free will. The entire cirlcle is FILLED with all kinds of scenarios and possibilities. We move around making these decisions, and living out the scenerios. They can range from anwhere to anything....... but.... it's still within site of the plan itself. All these circles are inside of one huge overall circle, and that is God's overall plan, but the dot in the middle is God Himself, our goal is to be closer to, and to progress towards Him. We have to work our way through all His plans for us, and make the right decisions in life. When we hit closer and closer to the variouse targets in life, we move near him faster and faster.
Think on this:
Is it any irony that the word sin that is found in the Bible is translated literally as "missing the mark"?
Salaam.