Title: Why should Creating, even if to Imitate God's Powers, be Considered Wrong? Question/Comments: When I think about the moral argument for God's existence, I note that our 'good' attributes of mercy, justice, knowledge, power, etc. can be directed towards the infinite, allowing us to reach the concept of a perfect being. That is, we can clearly and distinctly intuit a being that is perfect in all respects. This perfect being is perfectly just, perfectly merciful, perfectly knowledgeable, perfectly powerful, etc. and one of the roles He (I will use 'He' for convention's sake) takes on is the role of Creator. His ability to create whatever He wills, however He wills, whenever and wherever He wills is a natural subset of His omnipotence. In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus Christ (pbuh) is reported to have said that we are to be perfect, as our Father in heaven is perfect. That is, if we wish to become closer to our Lord, we must strive to become as just, as merciful, as knowledgable, etc. as we can. In this way, we genuinely travel along the Straight Path to God, for just by striving to match His goodness, we make excellent progress. As such, I really do not see how imitating God's role as creator could be considered wrong. Suppose a human being who loves God decides to act as justly as he can, as mercifully as he can, actively seeks knowledge, and desires power (to be wielded in a morally sound manner of course), what harm would there be in this person's desire to further mimic his Creator by creating (for instance) airplanes because he is absolutely fascinated by the way God designed birds' flight? In my opinion, there really is no harm, so long as the person's intention is to become closer to his Lord and not to misuse any of the divine attributes he seeks to inculcate in himself. Omar Sarwar Answer: I really do not have much of a difference with your stipulations. In fact, I find them quite realistic and, yet, interesting. However, as you would agree, it is one thing to aspire and strive to be, for instance, as 'just' as the Almighty, but quite another to claim to be as 'just' as the Almighty. The former may be considered 'desirable', but the latter would amount to crossing one's limits and refusing to see one's weaknesses. The same holds true for the attribute of 'creation'. I do agree that most, if not all, of man's developments is indebted to the emulation and the imitation of natural phenomena. Thus, the development of airplanes may indeed have been the result of man's imitation of the flying birds. Nevertheless, an airplane, with all its greatness, is a machine not a real 'flying' bird. If one were to consider an airplane as exactly the same as a 'living bird' and started treating it as such, the action would obviously be considered as idiotic, to say the least. Keeping the foregoing explanation in perspective, it should be clear that the condemnable part in images is not merely the act of emulated creation, but in giving them the status of 'gods', which obviously implies the creation of 'life' and all other divine attributes in these images. I hope this helps. Regards, Moiz Amjad December 27, 2001