Bijla Singh is ‘Contradicting Allah’

Introduction

This is a response to Bijla Singh’s attempt at rebutting our article on the contradictory theology of Nirgun-Sargun in Sikhism. The author’s article, curiously titled Contradicting Allah, is another confused, jumbled and desperate attempt at defending the indefensible.

Confusion Abounds

Bijla Singh begins with the claim that the “description of Waheguru (God) is so unique that for many it goes beyond understanding”. It certainly is unique; very unique in fact; straight into the realms of the weird and fantastic.

He cites a number of verses from SGGS [1] and follows this up by claiming:

What is this strange principle/ rule which states that two juxtaposed terms cannot be contradictory? He then alludes to another equally absurd principle/ rule by asserting:

Bijla Singh has a tendency of failing to define key terms of an argument; in this instance, he has again failed to define what he means by “hidden meanings”. Hence, it would be futile for us to respond by fallaciously reading into what this vague term could mean. Moreover, despite our best efforts, we too have failed in our search for a principle/ rule that not only holds that two juxtaposed words cannot be contradictory, but that such words “must” also contain “hidden meanings” (whatever that means).

Not a good start on the part of Mr Singh; but let us move on to his explanation of the word Sargun and see if he fares any better:

It seems that Bijla Singh has failed to delineate an exhaustive explanation of Sargun and its relationship to Nirgun. He should have clarified that although Waheguru was Nirgun sans creation, i.e. was “formless and has no particular form of His own”, but then “manifested Himself from His Nirgun (invisible) form, which forever existed, to his Sargun (visible) form”, he still remained Nirgun following said manifestation. It is important to make this specific point crystal clear and not leave it ambiguous. Before we deal with this anomaly in detail, it is important to point out a red herring in Bijla’s suggestion that the words “Nirankar” and “Ik Oankar” are “not contradictory at all”. At no stage have we ever contended they are. The only reference we have made of said terms was in response to Saajan Sandhu, which Bijla has obviously overlooked, wherein we conspicuously stated:

We have not claimed that Nirankar and Ekankar are contradictory terms, but that Sargun is contradictory to Nirgun under which these two terms happen to be associated to.

What is more, Bijla continues by giving the following etymological breakdown:

He then claims:

While again, it all depends on what Bijla means by the word “same”, which he has typically failed to define, what we can safely infer in this context is that when it comes to Waheguru and His relationship to creation, then three essential possibilities exist:

Bijla, however, certainly seems to acknowledge an intrinsic change when he states:

The use of the adjective “first” with respect to time and order (by order we mean: Waheguru was Nirgun and not Sargun sans creation) followed by the conjunctive adverb “then” (grammatically speaking the full stop before the word “then” should, in actual fact, be a comma so as to join the two clauses separated by time) clearly point to the fact that a change certainly occurred: Waheguru cannot be what he is said to have been before, otherwise the use of the adjective “first” would be redundant and meaningless. According to Bijla, “Waheguru was only Nirgun” (bold ours) when there existed nothing, but “then” manifested as Sargun when “He created the entire creation”, while of course still fully remaining Nirgun. Since Nirgun and Sargun are descriptions of Waheguru’s intrinsic nature, i.e. his essence, thus Waheguru underwent an intrinsic change with the becoming of creation. To say otherwise is to deny the claim that Waheguru is Sargun, which he certainly was not sans creation.

In addition, there must have also been a relational change with the becoming of creation because Bijla Singh maintains that “He is within His creation and beyond” and “Waheguru is omnipresent and all pervading nothing in the creation is without Him”, and cites the following verses as evidence:

In this regard, we wish to ask: could Waheguru have been omnipresent, within His creation and beyond, and all pervading without the existence of the creation? Also, could an “image of the Lord” exist without the existence of “this whole world”? Since the answer to these questions is an obvious no, it is incorrect to claim absolutely that “He doesn’t change over time” when Bijla acknowledges the Sargun form of Waheguru as pervading through space, time and existence, which are a priori in a constant state of change and flux? Hence, there must have been for him a relational change with the becoming of creation. It is, therefore, apparent that Waheguru changed both intrinsically and relationally following creation. In failing to see this, Bijla is either incredibly confused or suffering from compounded ignorance.

Finally, returning to Waheguru being both Nirgun and Sargun with the becoming of creation, then in light of his obvious intrinsic change in this context, what he was sans creation, i.e. Nirgun, is not what he was thereafter. Yet, Sikhs still insist that what Waheguru was sans creation is what he is thereafter despite his obvious intrinsic and relational change vis-á-vis Sargun. This should, however, create a catch-22 situation for the Sikhs: either Waheguru is Nirgun and, thus, changeless; or he underwent a change with the becoming of creation to be what he was not sans creation, and that is, Sargun. They cannot have it both ways! However, since he is said to be both Nirgun and Sargun at the same time and in the same respect with the becoming of creation, the glaring contradiction still exists.

In spite of Bijla Singh’s valiant effort in trying to “explain this concept in details [sic] so that Muslims can see the truth and correctly understand who Waheguru really is”, we, who correctly understand and apply the a priori universal law of non-contradiction, are indeed finding this so-called “simple yet so elegant concept […] hard to grasp”.

The only thing we “Muslims are […] confused” over is how Sikhs, like Bijla, can delude themselves into believing that “Nirgun (without attributes) and Sargun (with all attributes) at the same time” is a rational and non-contradictory belief? Is it simply because “every word of Gurbani is directly revealed from Waheguru”? If so, then this blind following can only be accepted by rejecting rationality. This would in turn raise questions over the nature of God’s relationship with His creation where He would demand of His servants’ worship of Him through the acceptance of a mentally oppressive belief in His divine nature.

Bijla Plagiarises the Christians

Following his desperately unsuccessful attempt at defending the indefensible, poor old Bijla Singh then turns his luck to the alleged contradictions in the Qur’an. In doing so, however, he ends up exposing his sheer and utter ignorance of what constitutes a contradiction. He states:

His use of the adjective “so-called” is troublesome; is he, much like his fellow faithful I.S. Dhillon, who nonsensically called for a paradigm-shift by rejecting the use of this a priori law while simultaneously asserting truth claims, doubting or suspecting this law? Is he claiming that this law is incorrectly or falsely termed? It would not surprise us one iota if this turned out to be the case. Unlike Bijla, Dhillon was astute enough to realise the immediate pitfalls in attempting to defend the contradictory notion of Nirgun-Sargun through the use of the universal law of non-contradiction. He, therefore, took the line of argument adopted by some eastern religious scholars, and attempted to rubbish this law during his ill-fated defence. Bijla on the other hand has resorted to a more underhanded approach by committing red herring and suppressed evidence fallacies.

To continue, Bijla Singh attempts to turn the tide by plagiarising a number of contradictions originating from the Christians. Unfortunately for him, in doing so he also ends up repeating the same school boy blunders committed by said Christians by misapplying the law of non-contradiction, thus further exposing his neophytic nature.
Let us quickly expose his woeful attempts:

Poor chap! The law of non-contradiction is: (A & ¬A) false, where A is a given proposition. Applying this to the above assertion we have: A = “According to Quran wine is haram [in this life only]”. But, the negation of this proposition is not that wine is forbidden in heaven, which shall be a different and separate life to the life of this world; thus, this is not a contradiction.

Embarrassingly terrible! Firstly, we do not believe in the Christian concept of inherited sin, which exposes Bijla’s utter lack of understanding of the very basics of Islaam. Rather we believe that all people are born upon al-Fitrah (a natural inclination in the belief in God and without sin). However, if, for arguments sake, we did believe this, why is Bijla Singh expecting us to show him how the “universal law of non-contradiction apply [sic] here”? Is he expecting us to do his work for him, or is it the case that this neophyte is incapable of applying this law correctly?

Before we refer to a refutation of this hackneyed accusation, we would like to say that such copying and pasting only exposes Bijla’s lazy approach to honest discourse and places a question mark over his ability to construct coherent and lucid arguments. In what way do verses 10:3 and 11:7 clash with 41:9-10 & 12? Is six and eight days specifically mentioned in said verses? Can Bijla show how these are contradictory by applying the law of non-contradiction? Just pasting verse numbers without making an internal critique of them followed by an honest attempt at constructing premises and drawing a conclusion does not prove anything. Further, Bijla should not expect his opponents to do his dirty work!
Following these friendly suggestions, we refer Bijla to: The Number of Days Taken to Create the Universe.

We refer Bijla to: On the Length of God’s Days.

On the Length of God’s Days clarifies that this has nothing to do with the period of time taken for creation, thus Bijla’s argument, which he lifted without referencing, is a strawman.

We refer you to: The Number of Gardens in Paradise.

Something being seemingly ambiguous does not make it false or contradictory. As for the number of classes, we refer Bijla to: The Number of Groups on Judgement Day.

We refer Bijla to: Who Takes the Soul at Death.

And how is this a contradiction? Is this another example of Bijla not knowing what a contradiction is? We wonder! Or is he just desperately clutching at straws by throwing out everything except the kitchen sink?

And how is this a contradiction? As for “beat[ing] their wives”, refer to: Muslims “Beat” Their Wives – A Refutation.

Again, this is not a contradiction. If this is a case of Sikhism’s acceptance of blind equality, then Bijla is exercising double standards if he holds that Waheguru was not unjust in failing to appoint a single female Guru.

We are certain Bijla meant “universal law of non-contradiction”, in which case this is not a contradiction. In addition, there exists an ancient legitimate difference of opinion over the triple pronouncement of divorce. The most correct opinion is that it only accounts for temporary separation that requires remedial arbitration; but we are not expecting Bijla Singh to know of such juristic nuances. Moreover, a woman can seek divorce through the process known as khulla.

Proposition A: Allah is considered all loving; but, since Muslims being ruthless and merciless to non-believers is not the negation of proposition A, this is not a contradiction.
Although this is not the topic of debate, in response to this flawed argument, we will assist Bijla on the path of further study in the theology-proper of Islaam by pointing out to him that Allaah is al-‘Adl (the Most Just) and that His Love and Mercy are conditional to His obedience and worship.

Firstly, the following does not make sense: “Instilling terrors only into the hearts of non-Muslims does not advocate universal law of non-contradiction.” How does one advocate the law of non-contradiction in this respect? Also, pay attention Bijla: it is not a “universal law”, it is the “universal law of non-contradiction”, which is a priori.

Secondly, the problem for Bijla Singh is that he has tiresomely failed to define all-Loving. Does he mean by all-Loving that Allaah loves good equally as he loves evil? Does he mean by this that Allaah loves the pious and the sinner equally? Does Allaah love the Gurus for their barbaric Cruelty to Animals and the Muslims who are kind and compassionate to animals equally? Does Allaah love those who lie about Him by claiming He is Nirgun-Sargun? Is Allaah’s love unconditional? If this is how Bijla defines all-Loving, then again this is a strawman. We await his rectification of this fallacy before further exposing the Sikhi theology, insha’Allaah.

Bijla Singh finally says:

If the endless list of alleged contradictions is anything like the above then what do Muslims have to fear?

Conclusion

In his defence of the notion of Nirgun-Sargun, Bijla resorted to a red herring in his allusion that we hold the terms “Nirankar” and “Ik Oankar” to be contradictory. He also seemingly attempted to suppress the evidence by failing to clearly mention, whether intentionally or inadvertently, the crucial point and crux of the debate that Waheguru was both Nirgun and its mutual opposite Sargun at the same time after creation.

As for the alleged Qur’anic contradictions, if Bijla is going to merely copy and paste tired and refuted attempts of the Christians and disingenuously pawn them off as his own, then he should know that these have already been thoroughly refuted. If on the other hand he wishes to be original and conduct his own research, then we suggest the following three prerequisites so as not to embarrass himself in the future:

[1] saragun niragun nira(n)kaar su(n)n samaadhhee aap ||
He possesses all qualities; He transcends all qualities; He is the Formless Lord. He Himself is in Primal Samaadhi. (Ang 290)

niragun aap saragun bhee ouhee ||
He Himself is absolute and unrelated; He Himself is also involved and related. (Ang 287)

raaj joban prabh thoo(n) dhhanee || thoo(n) niragun thoo(n) saragunee ||2||
O God, You are my power, authority and youth. You are absolute, without attributes, and also related, with the most sublime attributes. ||2|| (Ang 211)

nira(n)kaar aakaar aap niragun saragun eaek ||
He Himself is formless, and also formed; the One Lord is without attributes, and also with attributes. (Ang 250)