Being Perfect

Back then, and even now, I have rarely met anyone who loves the Witnesses. This drew my interest all the more. The accusations made against them also seemed, to me, quite baseless. Besides, what really interested me was not the Witnesses themselves. I simply took great pleasure in coming to know God. When I read the events recounted in the Holy Scriptures or in any other book, I always try to put myself in the place of those people. I try to be a thief with the thief and a policeman with the policeman, so that I can understand them better. Because whatever anyone has done, I want to know the reason for questions such as why they did it and what drove them to do it — and, above all, I want to understand. For instance, when I read of the disobedience of Adam and Eve toward God, I first became Eve and then Adam. Even when I was not reading, I would think about it. What would I have done in such a situation if I were Eve? Why did she not run at once to her husband and tell him, but instead ate? And why did Adam eat? Again I would say to myself, “If it were me, before eating I would certainly have told God, and I would have said, ‘This thing that talks as if it were a serpent is troubling us.’” But did Eve not know that a serpent cannot speak? Did all the serpents in the garden speak? I kept saying, surely not. A serpent had no such trait. In fact, I would later learn from the Quran that God had warned them against Satan. Someone who does not read the Quran and stays only in the Holy Scriptures does not know this truth. In Surah al-A‘raf 7:22, after Adam and Eve had eaten of the forbidden fruit, God:

“...did I not forbid you that tree? Did I not say that Satan is your open enemy?” He rebukes them thus. This means that God had told them beforehand that Satan was their enemy and that they should not listen to him. The Holy Scriptures, meanwhile:

“For the Sovereign Lord Jehovah will not do a thing unless he has revealed his confidential matter to his servants the prophets,” says Amos 3:7. This statement in the Holy Scriptures likewise supports the above verse of the Quran. Indeed, it would be more correct to say, “this is a principle of God.”

These truths of course shed light on many questions. How can Eve now say to Adam, “Look what this is telling me”? Because she knows what answer she will get. Adam was created first. We do not know how many years later Eve was created. But Adam’s experience was greater than Eve’s. His relationship with God was also greater than Eve’s. That is why Satan too dealt first with Eve. In experience, in knowledge, in strength, Eve was not like Adam. And what could Adam say to God? God had already warned them both beforehand. If he were to say, “My God, this thing is telling us such and such,” would God not ask, “Did I not tell you not to listen to it?” Besides, if God had already told them beforehand the things they needed to know, it is meaningless to ask a question whose answer is already known. In short, Eve knew very well that the person speaking behind the serpent was Satan. That is why she pondered it secretly. She did not take that fruit and eat it right away, but in her thoughts she dwelt on Satan’s words so much that she could no longer resist. Let us read from the passage itself how the Holy Scriptures describe Eve’s situation.

And the woman saw that the tree was good for food and that it was pleasing to the eyes and desirable to make one wise, and she took of its fruit and ate it, and she also gave some to her husband when he was with her, and he ate it. Genesis 3:6 .

Later, in the New Testament, what would befall Eve and those like her, how this thing called sin first begins in a person’s mind and then can come to dominate a person, is described toward the end of the New Testament in the Letter of James 1:14-15 as follows:

But each one is tried by being drawn out and enticed by his own desire. Then the desire, when it has become fertile, gives birth to sin; and sin, when it has been accomplished, brings forth death.

Surely Eve permitted exactly such a development. Until the thought of sin that Satan had planted within her ripened, she dwelt on it in her mind. And this led not only herself but all of humanity to death. As for why Adam listened to his wife’s word and ate, we can only speculate. In the Holy Scriptures and in the Quran, Adam’s thoughts about “why he listened to his wife’s word and took and ate a thing that was forbidden” are not explained in depth. Perhaps Adam expected that fruit to produce the effect of death immediately. Because God had said, “In the day you eat of it you will certainly die.” (Genesis 2:17) Yet for them, a day in their minds was the 24 hours in which the world they lived on rotated around its axis. But was the place where God dwells the earth, that the unit of time He calls a “day” should be 24 hours? Of course God knew that we — and Adam back then too — misunderstand certain things. It is precisely through such things that our faith, our patience, our power of endurance, and our love are tested. In truth, from the moment they ate of the forbidden fruit they lost eternal life and became mortal, but they would notice this only later. Indeed, by Eve saying “here, look, I ate it” and giving some to him as well, she showed as it were that nothing had happened to her, that she had not died in that moment. This is where trust in God was at issue. If in that moment she had trusted God more than herself and her own doubt, then she surely would not have eaten. At the very least, even if she doubted that God had lied, could she not have said this openly to God before eating? Yes, she could have. Besides, here is something else I thought: if the woman had eaten of that fruit and thrown herself to the ground writhing in agony, would Adam still have taken and eaten it? I kept saying, surely not. Because certain religious organizations (the Witnesses) try to stage a scenario like “let this world sink” from the old Turkish films, saying, “Adam ate it because he loved his wife, and since his wife was going to die anyway, so that they would die together”!

In fact, the following verses give us the impression that in Adam and Eve’s relationship with God, they had a relationship like that of a friend, of a father and son. Contrary to what they teach us, we do not have a Creator who has fixed His eye upon us merely to punish and pass judgment. We see that this good relationship was spoiled only after they sinned. When Adam hears God coming, he hides. This means that God was in continual dialogue with Adam. From the sounds in the garden, Adam understands that the one coming is God. (Genesis 3:8) At the same time, Adam’s hiding clearly shows that, even though he was perfect, he did not possess much knowledge about God.

Here we must give a brief explanation of what “perfect” means. Because many people confuse being perfect — that is, being flawless, sinless — with being like Almighty God! To be perfect does not mean to know everything. Knowledge is an infinite thing, just like coming to know our Creator. Just as He introduces Himself as “a God who has no beginning and no end,” so too the acquiring of knowledge will have no end.

Then what does it mean to be perfect? To be perfect means to be sinless in God’s eyes; it does not mean to know everything. Because, with our present knowledge, do we not find Adam’s hiding very childish? Can one hide from God? But Adam did not have, as we do, written books spanning more than four thousand five hundred years on the subject of humanity and God alone. (Torah – Psalms – Gospel – Quran) Adam did not possess, as we do, this historical knowledge covering thousands of years of what passed between humanity and God. We, too, have been able to come to know God only thanks to these lived examples and experiences. Let me put it this way: in the matter of knowledge about God, we possess incomparably more knowledge than Adam. But our knowing more than Adam back then does not make us perfect; and Adam back then knowing little compared to us now does not make Adam imperfect. In short, knowledge is not a measure of perfection. With these explanations I also emphasize that this knowledge can very easily be found in our time. But to acquire it, one must read and think. And unfortunately very few people do this.

Actually, continually acquiring new knowledge is a very delightful thing. Otherwise everything would be very tedious. Indeed, for us it would mean — there is nothing new anymore. If we knew everything and nothing remained for us to learn, what would we do after that? On the other hand, for many people acquiring knowledge is like sheer torture. They say, “Shoot me, kill me, but do not tell me to learn anything.” This too has many causes. First, in our world acquiring knowledge is always full of a host of barriers — forced, joyless, meaningless, punitive, and belittling to the person. And the greatest cause is the pressure of time. Everything has to be done in a hurry! Because life is short. Consider a person. He starts school at seven. Every day he is taught things according to an organized plan. Even if within this education he goes all the way to university and finishes that too, the person does not know how bread is made, nor can he make it. And if he can, he has surely learned it somewhere other than school. Even in the simplest, trivial ailments involving his own body he again does not know what to do. In the past, humanity did not have such a great opportunity for knowledge. Now we have the knowledge and the means to investigate the structure of the tiniest cell and to know how it can be multiplied. I describe it this way with my ignorant mind, and it is certain that they are much further along. But the things taught in schools are a disgrace. In the exam of the second year of high school, where I had a make-up in biology, I drew the inside and structure of a slug! Yet I knew nothing useful about my own body. Whatever we did know was hearsay knowledge picked up from our surroundings, from our families. Perhaps in advanced countries computers and such are taught, and while those little children who are sharp as poison in technical matters astonish us, if one looks carefully one sees that those children cannot do the simplest things. For instance, he cannot put his dirty laundry into the washing machine and wash it. And if he does wash it, he makes a mess of it. Those who cannot even manage to put on their own socks split hairs at the computer! What I mean is this: they have no knowledge of the things necessary for daily life, but perhaps they learn many things not necessary for life and happiness. Life is short, yet they fill our minds with garbage. With the education systems they have set up, our minds must be filled as if by force with garbage, or with a heap of useless odds and ends. And this generally comes about only in theory. The useful things they teach are very, very few. But God certainly created man to be always acquiring knowledge, and to do this with pleasure. He was to apply what he knew, and from this both he and those around him would derive benefit and happiness. The proof of this appears both in the Quran and in the Holy Scriptures as follows:

Now the Lord God was forming from the ground every wild animal of the field and every flying creature of the heavens, and he began bringing them to the man to see what he would call each one; and whatever the man would call each living creature, that became its name. And the man named all the domestic animals and the flying creatures of the heavens and every wild animal of the field...Genesis 2:19-20 And in the Quran:

He said, “O Adam, inform them of their names.” And Adam informed them. al-Baqarah 2:33.

Think of all those animals — the angels themselves are amazed at the wise names Adam gave to those animals according to their traits. And it is certain that Adam carried out this task he received from God with joy.

In the Quran, more light is shed on this subject. Upon God’s saying, “I am going to place upon the earth a governor” (a human being) (in al-Baqarah verse 30), the angels, as if opposing God’s creation of man, knowing that this human would be a creature who would start wars and cause corruption on the earth, mean to say, is this to be done? And they ask a question as if in opposition to it. God, however, answers by saying, “I know what you do not know.” (Surah al-Baqarah, 2:30)

The Christian world makes these verses a subject of criticism, saying, “Since man had not yet been created on earth, how did the angels know what humans would do?” God’s relationship with His creatures is in a way that is greatly liberating and instructive — otherwise, could the angels have asked Him this question? Moreover, the angels possessed knowledge of the things that humanity would do in the future. And this while the being called man did not yet even exist.

Later, in God’s relationship with Abraham as well, we see the same freedom and the value He gave him. And this in a relationship with an imperfect person — that is, a flawed, sinful one. Yes, in one place God:

And the Lord said: Am I keeping hidden from Abraham what I am doing? Genesis 18:17 He says, and He tells him what He is going to do. Indeed, if you read this passage in its place — concerning God’s destruction of the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah because of their sins — while Abraham speaks as if doubting God’s justice, he also, as it were, bargains with God. He asks questions, saying, “How many people, or how many righteous ones, will You kill?” Why would God, who did not hide His purpose from Abraham back then, hide from the angels the realities that would come to pass in the future? From these verses we clearly understand that God has from time to time made known to His creatures His purpose, the things that would come to pass in the future, in advance. Indeed, what do the whole of the Holy Scriptures and the Quran speak about? Do they not also speak of events that will occur in the future? God makes known to people the changes that will occur in the heavens in the future, the angels who are demons, Satan’s future end — and this is not absurd, so why is it absurd for the angels to receive knowledge from God about humans? In fact, through these things we see both the value God gives to His creatures and how free and at liberty He leaves them. We do not have a despotic God. We know that the angels were created before man. Why are Christians and those who criticize the Quran so astonished that God spoke to His angels about the human He would create on the earth, and then gave them knowledge in the form of prophecy about what that humanity would do? For this reason too, the Quran is nonsense to them! If God’s having foretold the future is nonsense, then what is the entire Holy Scriptures? And when one asks such a question, they stare blankly and shake their heads senselessly! That was for the Christians; I will touch upon the absurdities of those who pass for Muslims in later chapters.

Yes, I had said there is a pressure of time in the matter of learning. In his short life a person is to learn, to plunge into life and earn money, and then, with the old age that follows, to withdraw his hands and feet from everything. If this happens at 60 — and while in some countries it is later, in Turkey it can even be much earlier. Anyway, let us say 60 on average. Generally he starts school at 7. This means that within 53 years a struggle begins and everything ends. A terribly short time. And within this, if he also goes to those long schools, like medicine and such, he is done for. He will only start on life, on earning money, at 25. If he is male, there is also the matter of military service and so on. Then, penniless, or with great debts, set up a workplace and work, my dear, work, pay off the debt. Can he marry at thirty? And if he marries, that too is another conflagration! The years we call the finest will pass by in an instant. He will grow decrepit, he will move toward the age at which he begins to take no more pleasure in anything, and what comes after that is well known. These are not our subject, but it is a fact that a person has very little time in his life for learning. And if we throw into the mix the technology of our time that changes every week, then, if one is not careful, you may almost have to call someone from the street just to turn on the television! Try keeping pace with learning every new thing that comes out!

Again, after all these explanations, if we return to perfection: for a perfect person to commit a sin — that is, to step outside the will of God — he must force himself. Just as for us committing a sin is easier than not committing it, for a perfect person the situation is exactly the opposite. But this does not mean that he can never commit a sin. It only means that, unlike us now, he does not suffer in order to do what is right. On the contrary, he does it as if by his nature, willingly. As for us, especially if we have no experience or training in the matter of righteousness, we writhe when we are about to do a good thing. Doing the right thing comes very hard to us, as if we were suffering. Is it not because of this that people flee from God into every nook and cranny? Even though God does not ask impossible things of humanity, His requests come hard to imperfect, sinful us. The truth, however, is the opposite: doing His requests is far easier than going the way this world goes. In fact, the greatest obstacles arise from the order of the world, from its being Satan’s world. And because God knows this, He has given us commandments, laws, and counsels that make things easy for us while we live within that order.

Consider this: which is easier, to tell a lie or to tell the truth? In fact, telling the truth is easier. Because there is no need for caution. Whatever a thing is, it is told exactly as it is. But once a person has told a lie, he then knocks himself out so as not to give himself away in everything, in every matter connected to it. However much he knocks himself out, he still gives himself away. Its coming to light is only a matter of time. Of course, people often do not tell the truth out of fear of the punishment it would bring, out of fear of paying its price, and they resort to lying. The pressures are great. Who has never told a lie? In fact we have all told lies, and knowingly and unknowingly we still tell them. The proportions may certainly differ. If we were to reckon it in proportion, if 90 percent of the speech of the biggest liar is baloney, then the proportion of baloney in even the best and most truthful person in this world can never be zero. Surely he too told lies and still does. And knowingly, at that! The perfect person, however, does not lie. Because concerning lying it says in the New Testament, “Satan is the father of the lie.” (John 8:44) That is, this “lie” first came out of him and spread. Since it is also a thing that God does not accept, the perfect person cannot lie. Unless he forces himself and commits a sin, that is another matter. That is, a perfect person would have to do this thing by forcing himself. And then he is no longer called perfect — that is, flawless. He loses this trait; he becomes flawed — that is, imperfect.

On the subject of Adam and Eve again, a very large portion of Christians interpret that forbidden fruit as actually being sexual intercourse. A person who does not know, or one who does not think deeply, accepts this at once. But this idea has a host of weak points. If that forbidden fruit was sexual intercourse, why did God create and give Adam someone of a different sex? Could He not have made yet another male as a helper? And most importantly, God gave Adam the woman, married them, and also gave commands such as this:

God created man in his own image; in God’s image he created him. Male and female he created them. And God blessed them, saying: “Be fruitful and become many. Fill the earth...” Genesis 1:27-28

If sexual intercourse is the forbidden fruit, how could God command these people, “Be fruitful and become many”? That is, would He both command them to do it and also place a prohibition on it? And the one who married them was God Himself.

So my ear was always open to such absurd interpretations spread by Christianity. Besides, a person learns and develops through these interpretations. Because these interpretations impelled me to investigate all the more. Otherwise, just for myself, for my own belief, the very first book — that is, Genesis, written by Moses, or by its new Turkish name the book called Yaratılış — had been sufficient for me. Different people mean different points of view. The questions of people with different thought, culture, and knowledge are also far more varied. These were questions and answers that perhaps I myself would never have thought of. But as I said, whether while debating or while conversing, whether while listening or while learning, I took pleasure in it. Even sometimes while quarreling. But seeing that those people, who made great sacrifices for their faith, regarded man more than God, sometimes both angered and astonished me. And most of the time I could not understand it. I still cannot understand those who choose the fear of man in place of God. And they choose that fear willingly! They put themselves into the Middle Ages within religion. While one says, what pains, what ordeals, what tortures humanity suffered over thousands of years to break the chains of those religionists of the Middle Ages — and thank God they broke them — you go and willingly put yourself into that same environment again! I saw these situations a great deal among people who pass for deeply religious. And I would see it most of all in my relationship with the Witnesses while I was among them.

Tarık Akan had a film. The film’s name must be “Yol.” In that film the subject was a prisoner coming out of prison on a week’s leave to his home, to his village. While he was in prison his wife made a mistake and slept with someone else — that is, committed adultery. Even though the husband did not want to, we regarded the fear of society that made him abandon his wife to death in the snow as “thoughtlessness, the ignorance of Anatolian society.” Seeing that the people of countries like Europe and America had come under still greater, more ignorant pressures than such pressures would astonish me much more. This meant humanity was the same everywhere. Of course it should be the same, because did we not all descend from a single human couple? Our resembling one another is also normal. I write these things so that those who fancy themselves something may be ashamed. They have fallen into far worse situations than the societies they look down upon. Moreover, they do this willingly. Most of the people in Anatolia do whatever they do under the pressure of compulsion. They have become the unwilling slaves of the wrong customs of that society. But what is to be said of those people in Europe and America enslaving themselves willingly to a human being just like themselves?! Their shouting about democracy and freedom is in fact a slyly forcing of people into utter slavery. In my book I will try to show such matters with examples.

As I described in the subject of Adam and Eve, this is exactly how I read the Holy Scriptures — thinking deeply. What I have written was of course not understanding I gained immediately upon a first reading. I have only given one example. When I first read it, the passages that stuck most in my mind were, as with everyone, the ones that drew my own interest in my own way. There were certain passages whose meaning, however many times I read them, I would grasp better only while living through those events. There is learning a thing only in theory, and there is applying it in practice. Although they are different, they are both things bound to each other. How will you apply what you do not know, and if you do not apply it, how will you understand it and gain experience?

This should not mean that, in order to understand what sin is, everyone must inevitably commit sin. I have never jumped into fire, but if I jump I will die. And to understand this I do not need to jump into fire. Even if I never do it, I know this. But there is this difference: I cannot have the experience of someone who burned in the fire and died. I can only understand that it is not at all pleasant. It is the same with the angels. There are many angels who, though they saw and learned what sin is, have never committed sin. (Genesis 3:22) They do not need to gain experience of sin by doing the same things as those who commit sin. Because of what they have seen, they know what sin is. And their knowing this does not mean that they have committed sin. Let me put it this way: a person who has never suffered pain does not know what pain means. But if he sees someone who has suffered pain, he sees its effects on him — even if he himself does not feel it — just as in the example of the fire. Would a person burn his finger just because he was very curious? If he sees before him someone who has died in the fire, would he say, “Wait, let at least my finger burn”? In my opinion, someone with sound thinking would not do this. But these are only examples. As they say, there is no fault in an analogy — I used these examples as analogies. Otherwise, if you apply them word for word to the things in our present world, these examples become very absurd. So let us not generalize the follies humanity commits from time to time as though they were a measure.

In short, to be perfect — that is, to be flawless — means a person who has not committed even a single sin in God’s eyes. Sin, in turn, means doing what is evil in God’s eyes. As I said, let us by no means confuse knowledge with perfection. Both a perfect person of little knowledge and a perfect person of much knowledge have committed no sin. Let us also not confuse flawlessness with the concept of the Almighty. A flawless person does not mean one who is capable of everything — that is, for whom everything is possible, for whom there can be nothing he does not know. This is a trait belonging to God alone. When Adam and Eve were created, both were perfect. But their abilities in every matter were limited. And limited abilities do not make a person sinful. If he commits no sin, this shows that he is still perfect. Only three people possessing this trait have lived on the earth until now: Adam, Eve, and Jesus Christ. None of these three had a bodily father; they were created directly by God. (Genesis 1:27; Hebrews 7:26-28; 9:14-28; John 1:13; Surah Al ‘Imran verse 59) In Paradise, God will grant humans the opportunity to return once again to this state of being perfect. There will again be no compulsion — through free will and by choice. (Revelation 21:1-8)