God’s incarnation, personification, and manifestation... between rejection and acceptance

Ali hanna

Summary
The  question of how to know God is one of the questions that philosophers and thinkers have cared about since ancient times. Every school of thought has tried to show the reality of God according to its beliefs, teachings, and adopted cognitive notions, besides their evidences on the existence of God. In this study, we will briefly shed light on three concepts that are directly related to the knowledge of God; the concepts of incarnation, personification and manifestation. Incarnation is one of the basic tenets of faith in Christianity. However, this kind of understanding and knowledge of God is contrary to the intuitions of intellect and it violates the religious texts and teachings of the Abrahamic religions.

Another concept concerning the knowledge of God is the concept of personification, by which we mean that God appears in a shape of a human being or any other creature. It was necessary to study this kind of knowledge of God and show the reality of embodiment in Islam. Finally, we discuss the question of manifestation. It is stated in the true, definitive Islamic texts that God has manifested Himself to the mountain. However, it will be clear through the study that God’s incarnation and embodiment are impossible, but as for His manifestation in a certain shape or form, it is potential, but not through the physical visual sense.

Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)