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RE: Free will and Morality - How can you have one without the other?
I'm not sure if that metaphor holds true if the painter did not paint the gesture, but only the man. Paint generally doesn't do much moving other than dripping, but you get the point. God created us (something I think any theist can agree on), but we choose our own actions. He has full knowledge of what we will choose, and allows us to make that choice even if it is something displeasing to Him, but he is not responsible for it, no more than a father is responsible for their child growing up to become a gangster when he did everything he could to raise him/her on the straight and narrow. God sends his guidance to all of humanity, and we choose to accept it and walk the path of righteousness or reject it and follow false gods.
Well, you are getting right at the heart of the matter, now. I agree the metaphor doesn't hold, it is just a thought experiment. However, I do think the idea that God is outside of time implies that the creation as a whole is actually complete. That is, if we could for a moment borrow God's perspective, like looking at the painting, we would also see the end from the beginning. In that way, what we are going to do has already been decided by the creator.
It's the very fact that man and the painting of a man are not the same, that causes me to reject the idea.
The way I see it, if the whole world/time/space is actually already finished, then our actions have been made for us by the creator and we are no different than the painted man. We would be no more responsible for our actions than he.
In a way I feel like that limits God. By creating in such a manner God would not create an actual free will agent like man, rather, he creates complicated robots.
I think your thinking on it is pretty close to mine, actually. As an aside, there is a similar concept to the idea that God sends guidance to all humanity; it's called prevenient grace. It's a Wesleyan idea that says God is at work influencing everyone toward Himself, and it is our choice to accept that grace or not. I rather like the idea but some Christians reject it.
I'm really surprised that you aren't more deterministic. I was under the impression that Islam was totally determanistic. Thanks so much for dialoging with me, I'm richer for it!
Well, just as in Christianity, there has been a considerable debate within Islam regarding determinism vs. free will. There is consensus among Muslims that Allah is in control of everything (Qadr) , as well as a consensus that human beings are responsible for our actions in life (which implies that we have agency) and will be rewarded or punished accordingly on the day of judgement (Yawm mi'din). Some Muslims, such as the more traditional Asharis, would say that causation is an illusion and that the only cause is God. They would argue that creation is continuously being created and recreated, and that while we think we can cause things to happen, it is only through God that anything happens. There's an interesting video of a lecture by Hamza Yusuf which talks about this:
Thanks for sharing that. It's interesting to me how some Muslims have reached the same conclusions about these things as many Christians do, only for different reasons. This is a good example of provenient grace.
Well, the three religions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam all stem from the same Abrahamic and indeed Adamic truths about the nature of God and life. While there are major points of contention between each faith, Ive always found theres more we agree on than we disagree on.