Mustafa, et, al.,
I'm going on short sleep here, so I reserve the right to correct, even contradict, myself later. That said, I think that all of us, Christian and Muslim (and any other person who speaks about God) must head the advice of a fellow dabbler in quantum physic who wrote regarding the origin of space/time:
I think the problem lies in that our brains are limited in that we can only visualize 3d space and time. Some ppl can conceptualize 1 or 2 more dimensions max. But to take it any further than that, you need to use math. But even with math its like trying to find a needle in the haystack in that its a hit-miss proposition from the get-go. Its one thing to be able to use real world scenario's to work out theories such as considering what a beam of light shining down from a light fixture in a train looks like to a passenger in that train versus what it looks like to an observer standing on the platform outside as the train is blowing by, but its an entirely different proposition to try to conceptualize scenarios in other dimensions in order to help focus your thoughts. Our brains just arent built that way.
Now, I do believe we were built to know God, even to live in relationship with God. But I don't think we were built to understand God. That is quite a different thing. Rather, God makes himself known to us in small bite-sized bits of revelation: the beauty of creation, our innate longing for something outside ourselves, the inspiration given to prophets. I submit that relative to God himself even the most sublime scripture is bite-sized. And further, because of our limitations in understanding, we translate even that into ways of thinking that harmonize with our pre-existing way of thinking and expressing things. So it is that I speak of God in terms in which I express God as being big and us and our knowledge of him as being small.
But why? Why do I speak of God as big and me as small? What makes that comparison more appropriate than to say it the other way around? I submit to you that it isn't the actual nature of God which drives this way of thinking, but my own human nature which views big as greater.
For most of us here (I realize it isn't 100%) would argue that God doesn't actually occupy space in the sense of being able to be meausured in inches or pounds, so comparisons of size are more because they help me to talk about God's greatness than because they really identify anything measurable about God. Our language about God is, as you said Mustafa, allegorical. It is metaphor. Even the Bible's own statement about light and dark is a metaphor.
Now, I don't find it surprising, or in anyway troubling that the Bible would speak in metaphor or that the Qur'an would speak in allegory. Indeed, I would be most surprised if they didn't. In fact, I expect the use of allegroy, metaphor, and other figurative language is present more than we give it credit for being. For example, we read in both our sacred scriptures of God speaking of Allah seeing. And, because you and I do these things via the mechanisms of eyes and ears we project these constructs onto God as well. And though our different scriptures themselves may each speak of the hand of God, I believe that we humans would be wiser to understand such statements to be constructed so that we might relate to the action of the passage than to be informative as to God's form, and even less to convey the idea of a physical body.
Indeed, one of my basic understandings with regard to God that I believe is conveyed in the Christian scriptures (and I had thought was similarly held to be true in Islam, though you've said previously that I was wrong on this point) is that God is not bound by space or time in any way. I don't just mean that he has it within himself to miraculously transport himself from one place or point of time to another, but that he doesn't need to, for he exists outside of time and space and does not inhabit it. Indeed, I personally like the suggest that they reside within him.
And, I know however close our beliefs may (or perhaps may not) be up to that point, it is at this point they most definitely diverge. For, with respect to the original focus of this thread, we do claim that Jesus was God incarante, and we claim that to say this is not to say that the above was no longer true, but that it remained true even as God placed himself within his creation. I understand it does not make sense to you. I understand that the more I describe it the less it seems even plausible or consistent with the nature of God as you now know him. But this is the Christian understanding of what it means to say, as our scriptures do indeed affirm, that God became flesh and dwelled among us, even that God was pleased to have all his fulness dwell in the Christ. However, even as you vehemently disagree with what we say is true with regard to the nature of Jesus, I would hope that you might be able to see why it is that we assert that even as we worship Jesus, that we are not worship someone who is a partner of God, but of none other than God himself. Such a statement is shirk to you, but it is Gospel to us.
