The Kuala Lumpur High Court has finally allowed a motion for the Catholic Church to set aside a ban by the Home Ministry on the use of the word 'Allah' as a Bahasa translation for 'God' in its publications.
Whether the Home Ministry will appeal the decision or not is uncertain. Who will hear the case when the appeal is filed will also probably influence the outcome. This saga over in what name God should be called is far from over.
In September last year, 10,000 bibles in Bahasa Malaysia imported from Indonesia were seized by the authorities in Sarawak because they use 'Allah' for 'God' as well.
In Sarawak, 47 percent of the population are Christians of various denominations, and it is the state with the largest proportion of Christians in Malaysia. Most use their Bahasa Malaysia version of the Bible, and the seizure of their Bibles - translated and perfectly legal for use in Indonesia - is beyond rhyme and reason.
The Christians in Malaysia are a meek and peaceful lot. They are long immersed in the political sensitivities of Malaysians of other faiths, especially the Muslims. Most will never dream of trying to convert Muslims to Christianity.
Our Muslim Malaysians are also very devout worshippers of their deity, and their strong religious faith will not so easily be confused just because the Christians call their God 'Allah'.
I am not a member of any organised religion, though that does not mean I am an atheist. But I had spent some years studying the Christian Bible, and I also studied Christian theology in university, purely out of interest.
Clearly, Judaism, Christianity and Islam are three branches of the same religious tradition. They originated from the same monotheistic narrative though they have different accounts of their truth revealed through their charismatic prophets.
Later on, through the long river of history, they develop different dogma, doctrine and creed based on their different accounts and their different interpretations of their holy books.
But these three different religions still share one common conceptual belief: there is no other gods but the One God, creator of heaven and earth, lord over all things that ever are, omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent, just and compassionate over His dominion.
As the great Christian philosopher Immanuel Kant pointed out, things like God and the immortality of the soul are beyond knowledge. That is why you need faith for monotheistic belief.
According to this scheme of things, God is impossible to think of and know entirely, because no matter how you think about God, he is greater than what you think of him, or else he is not God. At least, that is how St Anselm tried to conceptualise God's infinite divinity when he tried to prove the existence of God through his ontological proof.
Even in Judaism, there are many names for God, but they refer to the same and one and only God. The Catholics have their mystery of the holy trinity, which makes little logical sense, but then religious truths are not always logical anyway.
By now, we know that the word 'Allah' was commonly used to refer to 'God' in the deserts sands of Arabia, even before Prophet Mohamad appeared on the scene.
Imperfect human language
Then, there is also this problem of defining and understanding our human language.
As the linguistic philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein observed at the beginning of the last century, there is no way of defining language because we do not have a logical neighbour beside language. The next logical neighbour is non-language, and that realm does not exist within our human experience.
Without language, we have no consciousness or understanding of our being and our existence. As another great philosopher Martin Heidegger proclaimed, language is the abode of our being.
I am aware that some other religious traditions of the world claim to have knowledge or enlightenment about the ultimate reality through meditation or some other mystical means. But they certainly cannot express such knowledge though linguistic communication.
The next thing to observe about language is its imperfection. Until today, philosophers still debate about what constitutes meaning when we engage in inter-subjective communication. The true nature of our spoken and written languages remains veiled for us.
Then, there is a school of thought called the Hermeneutics that recognise the importance of the interpretive element of linguistic communication. Words are never simple words with plain objective meaning. Messages, especially those in religious discussions, are constantly interpreted to and fro.
Therefore, the question arises whether such an imperfect vague and protean human creation as human language can reflect the ultimate immutable reality of God's kingdom. Even if the holy books of the various monotheistic faiths are referred to by their faithful as the 'word of God', we can assume the comparison to be metaphorical only.
Interfaith dialogue
Another question also arises as to whether any word or name in the imperfect human language is adequate to represent the infinite greatness and the unimaginable sanctity of the perfect God.
By reasoning alone, any name by which we call God is never worthy of the Supreme Being. But still, for convenience sake, followers of the various faiths call this same Supreme Being by various names out of convention or various modes of divine revelation.
In short, it really does not matter what name you call or worship your God, as long as in your hearts, God is that personalised Supreme Being revealed by those prophets down through the millennia. The more important thing is never to use God's name in vain.
Again, I am not a member of any organised religion. I am simply trying to clarify some conceptual confusion in the hope of expediting discussions on this sensitive topic. If I have made any mistake, please do not condemn me in the name of God's wrath, but teach me the Truth.
In our multiracial and multi-religious Malaysia, both the government and the people have to constantly engage in interfaith dialogue in order for religious understanding to further its course.
SIM KWANG YANG was member of parliament for Bandar Kuching, Sarawak from 1982 to 1995. He can be reached at kenyalang578@hotmail.com
Whether the Home Ministry will appeal the decision or not is uncertain. Who will hear the case when the appeal is filed will also probably influence the outcome. This saga over in what name God should be called is far from over.
In September last year, 10,000 bibles in Bahasa Malaysia imported from Indonesia were seized by the authorities in Sarawak because they use 'Allah' for 'God' as well.
In Sarawak, 47 percent of the population are Christians of various denominations, and it is the state with the largest proportion of Christians in Malaysia. Most use their Bahasa Malaysia version of the Bible, and the seizure of their Bibles - translated and perfectly legal for use in Indonesia - is beyond rhyme and reason.
The Christians in Malaysia are a meek and peaceful lot. They are long immersed in the political sensitivities of Malaysians of other faiths, especially the Muslims. Most will never dream of trying to convert Muslims to Christianity.
Our Muslim Malaysians are also very devout worshippers of their deity, and their strong religious faith will not so easily be confused just because the Christians call their God 'Allah'.
I am not a member of any organised religion, though that does not mean I am an atheist. But I had spent some years studying the Christian Bible, and I also studied Christian theology in university, purely out of interest.
Clearly, Judaism, Christianity and Islam are three branches of the same religious tradition. They originated from the same monotheistic narrative though they have different accounts of their truth revealed through their charismatic prophets.
Later on, through the long river of history, they develop different dogma, doctrine and creed based on their different accounts and their different interpretations of their holy books.
But these three different religions still share one common conceptual belief: there is no other gods but the One God, creator of heaven and earth, lord over all things that ever are, omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent, just and compassionate over His dominion.
As the great Christian philosopher Immanuel Kant pointed out, things like God and the immortality of the soul are beyond knowledge. That is why you need faith for monotheistic belief.
According to this scheme of things, God is impossible to think of and know entirely, because no matter how you think about God, he is greater than what you think of him, or else he is not God. At least, that is how St Anselm tried to conceptualise God's infinite divinity when he tried to prove the existence of God through his ontological proof.
Even in Judaism, there are many names for God, but they refer to the same and one and only God. The Catholics have their mystery of the holy trinity, which makes little logical sense, but then religious truths are not always logical anyway.
By now, we know that the word 'Allah' was commonly used to refer to 'God' in the deserts sands of Arabia, even before Prophet Mohamad appeared on the scene.
Imperfect human language
Then, there is also this problem of defining and understanding our human language.
As the linguistic philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein observed at the beginning of the last century, there is no way of defining language because we do not have a logical neighbour beside language. The next logical neighbour is non-language, and that realm does not exist within our human experience.
Without language, we have no consciousness or understanding of our being and our existence. As another great philosopher Martin Heidegger proclaimed, language is the abode of our being.
I am aware that some other religious traditions of the world claim to have knowledge or enlightenment about the ultimate reality through meditation or some other mystical means. But they certainly cannot express such knowledge though linguistic communication.
The next thing to observe about language is its imperfection. Until today, philosophers still debate about what constitutes meaning when we engage in inter-subjective communication. The true nature of our spoken and written languages remains veiled for us.
Then, there is a school of thought called the Hermeneutics that recognise the importance of the interpretive element of linguistic communication. Words are never simple words with plain objective meaning. Messages, especially those in religious discussions, are constantly interpreted to and fro.
Therefore, the question arises whether such an imperfect vague and protean human creation as human language can reflect the ultimate immutable reality of God's kingdom. Even if the holy books of the various monotheistic faiths are referred to by their faithful as the 'word of God', we can assume the comparison to be metaphorical only.
Interfaith dialogue
Another question also arises as to whether any word or name in the imperfect human language is adequate to represent the infinite greatness and the unimaginable sanctity of the perfect God.
By reasoning alone, any name by which we call God is never worthy of the Supreme Being. But still, for convenience sake, followers of the various faiths call this same Supreme Being by various names out of convention or various modes of divine revelation.
In short, it really does not matter what name you call or worship your God, as long as in your hearts, God is that personalised Supreme Being revealed by those prophets down through the millennia. The more important thing is never to use God's name in vain.
Again, I am not a member of any organised religion. I am simply trying to clarify some conceptual confusion in the hope of expediting discussions on this sensitive topic. If I have made any mistake, please do not condemn me in the name of God's wrath, but teach me the Truth.
In our multiracial and multi-religious Malaysia, both the government and the people have to constantly engage in interfaith dialogue in order for religious understanding to further its course.
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