October 15, 2006

I am interested in Mohammed’s thinking, and according to my present reading it goes something like this:

What would I do on behalf of the humans if I were this God that Abraham and others are talking about? Freedom won’t work. Too much difference of opinion. Men fly at each other and destroy each other when each is free to do as he pleases. I would do something else, if I were God. I would cow them into submission and then I would tell them what they must do in order to be happy. Just like helpless and unexperienced children, they would have to be made to do what is good for them. "Stay out of the street because I say so." Later: "it's for you own good." Later: "you could be hit like that poor squirrel here."

And so given the human penchant for thrashing about in pursuit of happiness, God would most certainly tell the humans what to do. For this is what I, Mohammede, would do if I were in charge. And God is greater than I am. God would say something like this: "in order to be happy, you may defend yourselves against aggression, but only a slap for a slap, and not two for one. You may discipline your women for peace in the house, but you would be very wise not to beat too hard. Listen, O Man, God is wise, secure. And so you can scamper about here and there, but only if you have followed my advice first (God speaking), e.g., bow down to this stone or I will throw you into an everlasting hell of unimaginable horror. See what I mean?! Follow my advice. For hell would not make you happy. To be happy you must first bow down, and then avoid pork and also avoid beating your women too much and repay only slap for slap, and you will be happy in this life and in the next life. And in this life you can then scamper and play and enjoy life--always within these bounds." That's advice of Mohammed's imagined God. God speaking, in other words, “if I were in your place I would do thus and thus.” [because much, much unhappiness otherwise.]

Cow man into submission and then tell him good things to do, things for his own good, like a child not yet able to understand his own good, and in need of parenting.

Abraham's Motivation. Abraham is cowed into submission and does not question the morality of killing his son. And in this way he could have his task made easier, by having Ishmael agree to the killing, and that would best be accomplished through the idea of martyrdom.

This matter now gets a bit confusing. There are two extremes: 1. the immoral, albeit perhaps loving Great Slave and 2. the moral, Good Father. In the latter case, the Good Father, Abraham is happy for the opportunity of aiding his son (immediate entrance into paradise) and seizes upon it for the sake of Ishmael. But the in first case of Great Slave, Abraham uses that same story, but now is conceived of having made it up in order to make it easier to kill Ishmael, by getting him to go along with it. These are the two possible icons, i.e., the extreme.1. It is possible that Abraham was going to kill Ishmael one way or the other but at the same time (and incidentally) was happy in telling him the good things that would coming Ishmael’s way*. and 2. it is possible that Abraham is the Good Father, acting on behalf of the son.

[* Much like a brotherly Mafia talking about the upcoming killing to an old comrade, e.g., “It's better for me to kill you now with one shot, for otherwise the others are going to torture you first and then kill you. This way is the easiest for you. You see, my brother, I am doing all I can. Either I kill you now suddenly and with no pain, or else they kill you later and slowly with lots of pain." Sort of a Masda attitude, I guess. This would be the icon of Great Slave who wanted to make it easier on himself and his victim.]

Great Slave. Kant suggests that we do not have enough evidence to recognize the second of the two extremes, that of the Good Father, for the good acts, due to Mohammed’s “cowing” approach, are no longer of any moral value whatsoever, but are merely additional acts being "advised" by God to find happiness, and which are to be undertaken in a certain attitude: not that they are good (which implies a judgement of God which is forbidden), but that they are commanded by God. All this he calls “extortionist” and not moral. And this would be consistent with the Great (albeit immoral) Slave, where Abraham is to be lauded for his willingness to disregard the vaunted moral law in his obedience to God.

If this were decided on probabilities, we would have to agree with Kant and see the Great Slave as the epitome of Mohammed’s thinking.


Good Father. Now I imagine Abraham’s thinking, in support of the Loving Father hypothesis (position of this defense team against Kant's charge)

“I have the suggestion of a command of God. Now I am determined to comply with any command from God. But this is questionable in fact, and where not my sincerity but my judgment is at play. I have evidence to go both ways. It could be just one of my dreams, or it could be a dreamed produced by God.

"Looking at it one way, I see that it was in a dream, and there all sorts of things popping up dreams including redressed memories (a la Freud), and furthermore this (slaying of an innocent person) is an extremely critical matter, for it would not be right to kill my son. If the dream voice told me to build a house, then I would do that, for that is not a question of right and wrong and the foreseeable consequences not so dire. And so I would be advised morally to consider this merely a dream. God will understand why I would be reluctant to believe that this were an order inserted through a dream rather than merely face to face. God is not a fool and he knows me very well. He knows that it is very plausible that this is just a dream of my own making.

"But now there is another way of looking at this whole thing, something new and marvelous, something entirely unanticipated. For as a matter of fact, I could just as easily take this dream voice as the voice of God and do what I am commanded. I have enough evidence to move me to move. God would understand my sincerity in this act. 'I may be wrong, God, but since I am not sure, I am going to do as I think you are asking me anyway. Just to avoid being a slacker.' I could do that. I could kill him and even if it were not the voice of God, I would not be blamed, for I had reason to think that it was. And if I am wrong, and if God has not told me to do this, then he will see my sincerity and will be pleased by that, by my devotion to duty to such an extreme.

"It’s as simple as that. I can opt for either way, the moral way and the evil way. But wait! there is now something else, that which made this choice suddenly so exciting. If my son believes that God has told me to do this deed, then he is also telling my son also to submit to God and that if he submits, he will die as a martyr and inherit the Utter Delight which goes on forever and which is immediate after a very short pain of the knife. This God will have to do. And so even if that was just a dream voice, still, since I have the option of taking it for a command, and since this will serve the happiness of my beautiful son, even though it will cause me pain, nevertheless for his sake I choose the “evil option” and thereby make it good*. In fact God may have loved me so much as to anticipate my intention regarding my son and to provide this dream for this very purpose, that when I myself may die, I may die knowing that my son is happy and will be so forever."

[* Shakespeare's Richard III to his brother (in an aside): "Plain, simple Clarence, I do love thee so, that I shall shortly send thy soul to heaven, if heaven will have the gift at my hand."]

And so according to this thinking Abraham is an icon of the Loving Father.*

Except, in terms of emphasis, he is overshadowed by the Catholic Mother who slays her infant to be with God now, even though it means that she herself will go to hell.

And so it seems to me at this juncture that the only way to salvage Islam morally is to insist upon the Loving Father hypothesis. For the Great Slave hypothesis is deadly.

But then this understanding of Abraham in Islam would also be a clear sign of something quite marvelous, namely Paul’s message of Jesus was contained in the Koran from the beginning, but was not clearly understood until Paul’s own expression could be purified today.

Jesus is in the Loving Father (this confirms the Christian take on Abraham via John 5 Jesus*). Jesus was in the Koran the entire time. The Koran served to keep the Arabs in check (like the Torah before it the Jews) until Paul’s message of Christ could be made intelligible to them. At the time of Mohammed the message had become garbled with the clash of the sects and orthodoxy. It was chaos. The Koran provides an order until the Arabs and the world can again clearly see the Paulian Christian Congregation, made visible now after over a thousand years in the American Episcopalian Church.

[* Abraham, in the Jewish and Christian understanding, has faith that God will stop the slaying before he can happen, and is concerned merely that he not falter (as he did before the Gate to Egypt) and that his son be worried as little as possible. Speaking to his son: "Lie still. I am raising my knife and will bring it down to enter your heart, and you are to fear not, for God is with you and you shall not be harmed."]

Idea on Mohammed: Cow the people. Tell them what to do to stay alive (not killing each other) until it is time to grow up and put on the Christ. Mohammed will not have had to believe in Christ for this understanding to be contained in the Abraham story, and still he is an agent of God in preparing a people for the Christ. Mohammed is right that God is fair and beneficent, and accordingly God has held the Muslims in check until our present time for their own good, in order that they might be the first in modern times to be offered the (until recently forgotten) Christian Choice: Paulian, gentile, lawless; and Peterian, law-taking, Jewish. Before now their only choice was a hybrid, a Jewish Peterian Christianity (albeit called Paulian), and that was certainly impossible for the Arabs to accept. Could Mohammed have been a saint of the church and have planned out this entire thing, this holding pattern until God could present Christianity reawakened? or was he beneficiary of a dictation of God which was directed, out of love, to the condition of the Arabs about him and for the awakening of whom this story was so formulated? Was he aware of this love expression that God put into the Koran for the future generations, the most amazing secret of the “Amazing Koran,” for that would be amazing beyond belief, and yet morally required? Was his soul elevated to the highest heaven because of the honor bestowed upon him to hold his beloved Arabs alive until the Christ could be prepared for them to receive? This is just like Moses then? Did Moses know he was preparing for the Christ? Did God bless him with that information? or did he know it in faith?

God then does indeed dictate the Koran as necessary for the well-being of the Arabs and in order that they might develop to a point which would coincide with a point of the development of the Paulian Congregation of the Christian Church.

That common point is the American Episcopalian Church today. The Americans have led the Christian Church to reestablish the Paulian Congregation as a rightful, incongruent twin to the Peterian Congregation, of one and the same spirit, the spirit of Jesus (the Jew), the spirit of Christ, Jesus stripped of culture. This is another "binity of Christ" like the left and right hands both being equally hands, but still different.

Kant and Christianity. Now we really ought to consider Kant’s objection to Islam with regard to extortion, and try to discover why he did not make that same objection to the Christians. Let it be true that both the Christian and Muslim enter (physiologically) their respect faiths in order to avoid hell. The difference then arises in the result of that entry (and we are speaking theoretically) namely the Muslim does not change in his attitude and continues to strive to avoid hell, while the Christian does change (and is said to have already entered into eternal life) and strives to do good for the sake of his Christ; and not for reward, for he already is already in his reward. Paul testifies that while he was an enemy, Christ had made him into a friend. There is the outlook of “blessed assurance” which does not lead to lethargy, but to the doing of good deeds as an expression of that “new nature”. [Practically speaking this is all progressive and developing.]

There is no peace of mind in cowed men, nor can there be, for the cowing must be constant. It is only in a free man that peace of mind is at least possible. It is only in a good man that it is actual. Islam then cows people and Christianity inspires people.


And so Mohammed ends up according to all this as a “Christian in his heart.” He has, like a dedicated and deft surgeon, caused as little pain as possible to the Arabs in order to "operate" on them and hold them in check from one another. He did the very best that he could, and the Arabs are alive, and now the purpose of this tutelage is understood (the Hidden Christ in the Koran) via the return of the Paulian Congregation. The Day of Jubilee is at hand. Not Judgement, but Jubilee

Now we can dismiss all charges of demonic influence on Mohammed, and suggest instead that Mohammed was an extraordinary good man (like Joe Smith may have become) who either 1. was inspired by God, or 2.was self inspired into powerful visions by his own goodness and understanding, or 3. was the supreme Noble Liar of Plato. It is not likely that he was inspired by a demon.