Philosophy Discussion Forums

Is God to be feared?

The Holy Bible says:
"Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom, and to depart from evil is understanding." Job 28:28

The Holy Qur'an says:
"So, fear Me, o ye that are wise." Qur'an 2:197.
"As for those who fear theirLord unseen; for them is forgiveness and a great reward." Qur'an 67:12.

In Philosophy, how does wisdom equate to the fear of God?

Rasheed Babatunde wrote:Is God to be feared?

The Holy Bible says:
"Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom, and to depart from evil is understanding." Job 28:28

The Holy Qur'an says:
"So, fear Me, o ye that are wise." Qur'an 2:197.
"As for those who fear theirLord unseen; for them is forgiveness and a great reward." Qur'an 67:12.

In Philosophy, how does wisdom equate to the fear of God?

Great q, RB!
God is to be feared in Love of God and fears!
God's Unconditional Love moderates and naturalises and normalises the fear...so that fear in Love is just another way of saying Respect or Reverence or Honor, which is the beginning of wisdom.
Proverbs 1:7The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge: but fools despise wisdom and instruction.
God wants us to keep the fears, apply Love to them so that all fears are IN Love and stay in Love so that all fears come from God and are of God, and apply that fear to Him as in 'the fear in Love of the Lord,' and he wants us to ONLY get rid of the Hatred for fears which Hatred is the sin that makes all fears or all other emotions or all feelings or all thoughts oppressive and phobic and sinful.
2 Corinthians 10: 5Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God[that is, the Knowledge of Love which is what God is], and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of [Love and so of] Christ;

1 John 4: 18There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear: because fear has torment. He that fears is not made perfect in love.
What that means is that:
There is no fear of Hate in the Love which loves all words and their opposites:
there is only fear in Love in that unconditional Love:
in Love of all fears, we are naturally fearful, our fears are normal, which natural and normal fear is what God made and keeps and wants us to have and keep in Love and is the beginning of wisdom as in PROVERBS 1: 7.
So In Love of all fears or words, we are never phobically fearful nor nightmarishly fearful in Hate of any words or fears, not fearful as in we can't even bear to think the thought of who or what we fear because we hate her or him or it so much and over much.

And that is because perfect Love casteth out the Hate of words which Hate causes fear in Hate of who&what is hated and fear of the fear itself, which is doubles the fear and is the excess fear that is called phobia.

Because fear in Hate of who is feared and of the fear itself has self-torment as in 'I am fearful of being fearful' and 'we only have to fear fear itself'!!!!!!

He that fears in Hate of who is hated and in Hate of the fear itself is not and can NOT be made perfect in Love, in the Love which loves all words and their opposites, including the opposites fear and faith, fear and courage.

Only he that fears IN Love or fears OUT OF Love is made perfect in Love, which Love is perfect only when it loves the perfect and the imperfect, the fear and the unfeared, all words and their opposites as per Matthew 5:44-45, 48.

In Love of all words and fears, we only have sweet dreams! Proverbs 3:21-24.
In Hate of any words or fears, we have lots of bad dreams or nighmares! Daniel 2:1.
So Job 28:28 means:
The fear of the Lord that is wisdom is to love all words and their opposites, including fear and courage;
and to depart from the evil of Hate for evil or for fear or for any word is understanding.
And Qur'an 2:197 means:
So, fear Me in Love, o you who are wise with the Wisdom of Love for the fool and the wise.
And Qur'an 67:12 means:
As for those who fear their Lord in Love
of the seen and unseen, of the feared and the unfeared, of the fearful and the fearless,..
for them is the forgiveness that comes from the Love that is for the giving to the forgiven and the unforgiven, for givers and for takers,
which Love IS the great word and re-word and reward that makes a great reward doubly great and makes a poor reward great!

So in Philosophy, which is really the Philosophy of the Wisdom of Love for wisdom and foolishness, for the wise and the fool,
it is the Wisdom of Love for God and Man, for fools and the wise, for fear and faith, for fear and courage, for the equal and the unequal, that equates wisdom to and keeps it on par with the fear of God and with all other words, and makes parallels or parables comparing fear with wisdom as in:
The prudent, who are fools and cowards in Love who thus in Love know when to be wise and when to be fools, when to have courage and when to cower, when to stand up and fight and when to not fight, know when to run away IN LOVE and IN LOVE fight another day!
Hope that helps.

Rasheed Babatunde wrote: In Philosophy, how does wisdom equate to the fear of God?

No, but it might in Monotheism, at least you if you believe that a single god made this madhouse.

The real question is, if you believe in God, would you worship an obvious sociopath and call his morality your own?

"In Philosophy, how does wisdom equate to the fear of God?[/quote]

One should not fear god, one should fear those whom believe in god.

Once again a general misunderstanding. It is not God you must fear but His wrath or anger.

What if God, willing to shew his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction:
Romans 9:21-23.

Here we can see where it speaks of the vessels of wrath what is that? Well the vessels of wrath are the people who don't except Gods words. These passages suggest that God is merciful but it is people who are the holders of Gods Wrath. Man is the vessel or instrument of his own destruction, the evil is within them.

So no God is not to feared but those who do not live by His word who condemn others through their wrath are to be feared.

God is merciful He endures the wrath within men until judgement.

quote="Juice"]Once again a general misunderstanding. It is not God you must fear but His wrath or anger."

jUICE,

The crimminal/GOD is not to be feared, ONLY WHAT HE MIGHT DO IS TO BE FEARED-lol!! BRAINSTEM THEOLOGY

boagie-You really need to read the rest of that post!
The wrath of God is man. It is man that is to be feared not God.

Juice wrote:boagie-You really need to read the rest of that post!
The wrath of God is man. It is man that is to be feared not God.

Juice,

My apology, or is it, man is to be feared while doing the works of god. If there is one feature that stands out in believers it is this, they can committ the most vile crimes against huaminity all the while feel self-righteous. Granted this is self-delusional, but,is that not the name of the game?

With the Morality of Love
for sociowells and sociopaths,
for the ill and the well,
for the antisocial personality disordered and for the pro-social personality ordered,
it is easy to love sociopaths and so transform them, rehabs them into sociowells!
If God is a sociopath, His Sociopathy is health and social personality ordered!
Then His health and personality order is off the charts: doubly healthy and double the number of ordered persos!;)

"Power is of two kinds.
One is obtained by the fear of [hateful and hated]punishment,
and
the other by acts of Love.
Power based on Love is a thousand times more effective and permanent than the one derived from fear of punishment."
Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi

boagie-I doubt very much that is true. Man acts upon his own will. If any man attributes his will to the will of God then man is to be feared. If any man forces his will upon another man and claims that is the will of God then that man is to be feared.

A true understanding of God comes through revelation and revelation is gotten through individual communion with God. The only thing one man can do for another in relation to God is provide instruction and that comes through the word of God in the Bible. And as I said that is a way in which individual revelation can be attained.

No man can judge another mans relationship with God. A man is of his own mind and as such comes free will.

The devil knows the Bible as well as any scholar and in the same way can the word of God be twisted to an end and purpose. That is why personal revelation is important. God does not test men and if one man deigns to test the will of any man then that is not the will of God.

Even the questions are not a test for me but a willingness to seek, and in so doing a revelation in and of itself.

I have a personal God. I can only define Him by what He has revealed to me.

Rasheed Babatunde wrote:Is God to be feared?

The Holy Bible says:
"Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom, and to depart from evil is understanding." Job 28:28

The Holy Qur'an says:
"So, fear Me, o ye that are wise." Qur'an 2:197.
"As for those who fear theirLord unseen; for them is forgiveness and a great reward." Qur'an 67:12.

In Philosophy, how does wisdom equate to the fear of God?

Fear of God is the recognition of our nothingness. This is where it could be interesting to compare perspectives. If you are a believer in Islam, and correct me if I'm wrong, you believe in the personal God. In contrast I believe that the Absolute is outside of the limitations of time and space but relative qualities of consciousness exist in the universe as dermiurgic influences and conscious humanity.

Fear of God is the fear of the loss of the recognition of the human condition and how we are nothing as we are.

Again correct me if I'm wrong, but do you believe that it is the "Great Beast" or society itself that denies us the ability to follow God's will dictated in the Quran?

From my perspective we are asleep in Plato's cave and as such, without higher conscious influences to help us in our awakening. It is the "Great Beast" that denies the human ability to "awaken" to human meaning and purpose that the great traditions try to inspire in us.

It seems to me that where you would be concerned with what we DO, I'm concerned with what we ARE in relation to the evolutionary potential for human "being" that is denied when the Beast provides human meaning and purpose.

[quote="Nick_A"[/quote]

Fear of God is the recognition of our nothingness. This is where it could be interesting to compare perspectives. If you are a believer in Islam, and correct me if I'm wrong, you believe in the personal God. In contrast I believe that the Absolute is outside of the limitations of time and space but relative qualities of consciousness exist in the universe as dermiurgic influences and conscious humanity.

Fear of God is the fear of the loss of the recognition of the human condition and how we are nothing as we are.

Again correct me if I'm wrong, but do you believe that it is the "Great Beast" or society itself that denies us the ability to follow God's will dictated in the Quran?

From my perspective we are asleep in Plato's cave and as such, without higher conscious influences to help us in our awakening. It is the "Great Beast" that denies the human ability to "awaken" to human meaning and purpose that the great traditions try to inspire in us.

It seems to me that where you would be concerned with what we DO, I'm concerned with what we ARE in relation to the evolutionary potential for human "being" that is denied when the Beast provides human meaning and purpose.[/quote]
-----------------------------------------------------

Nick_A,
Your definition of fear of God as "the recognition of our nothingness" is beautiful and correct. I agree with you.

Yes, I'm a Muslim, but your description of the Absolute as "outside of the limitations of time and space but relative qualities of consciousness..." is exactly the Qur'anic description of All - God!

The only slight correction I have is that in Islam, God is both a personal God and God of all the people.

Moreover, I feel the opposite of your submission about the society as the "Great beast." In my opinion, the individual negates the will of God by following the will or the dictates of the society.

It is the individual that wishes to satisfy the societ's various and insatiable desires, demands and expectations, instead of living in his own rules and God's will for him.

We always wish to look good in people's eyes, we want the society to love and appreciate us; we want to be better than others and to be so acknowledged. It is this desires that gets us into trouble and makes our ego turn us into the "Great beast", who must conquer and achieve at all cost or with whatever means possible.

If we can know and be ourselves, your "Great beast" - the society - will have no control over us, it would be us dectating the society.

What we DO is what we ARE.

Ape,
Are you saying that it is man - wicked or unrighteous man - that should be feared and not God, Who "do good and created evil"(according to the Bible)?

boagie wrote:

Juice wrote:boagie-You really need to read the rest of that post!
The wrath of God is man. It is man that is to be feared not God.

Juice,

My apology, or is it, man is to be feared while doing the works of god. If there is one feature that stands out in believers it is this, they can committ the most vile crimes against huaminity all the while feel self-righteous. Granted this is self-delusional, but,is that not the name of the game?

But Jesus foretells of this. FIrst he says "Not all who cry Lord Lord shall enter into the kingdom of heaven, but those who do the will of my Father in heaven (love truth rightness and others).
And "In that day (judgement) they will say "We did all these things in your name" and I will say to them "Depart from me for I knew you not".

God is not fooled by those who do evil and then say "We do Gods will". Too bad so many people like you are. Because if you were not fooled you would know God and you would know these people do not speak or act on behalf of God.

Juice wrote:boagie-I doubt very much that is true. Man acts upon his own will. If any man attributes his will to the will of God then man is to be feared. If any man forces his will upon another man and claims that is the will of God then that man is to be feared.

A true understanding of God comes through revelation and revelation is gotten through individual communion with God. The only thing one man can do for another in relation to God is provide instruction and that comes through the word of God in the Bible. And as I said that is a way in which individual revelation can be attained.

No man can judge another mans relationship with God. A man is of his own mind and as such comes free will.

The devil knows the Bible as well as any scholar and in the same way can the word of God be twisted to an end and purpose. That is why personal revelation is important. God does not test men and if one man deigns to test the will of any man then that is not the will of God.

Even the questions are not a test for me but a willingness to seek, and in so doing a revelation in and of itself.

I have a personal God. I can only define Him by what He has revealed to me.

Who or what is God? Is God a being ? Is God a concept? Is God a spirit? If a spirit describe that spirit to me. Does that spirit exist as an entity? Does that spirit exist as a concept" I myself have an understanding of such a God. Whether or not Jesus lived on earth or is only a character in a story called the gospel. Jesus is alive today and very real to me. What say you?

james1951,

Let us know when he/she/it starts talking to you, we may then get you signed in on the third floor psyche ward. Are the voices telling you to do bad things, or just bad things to bad people.