>>17655
>Don't you see why circular logic doesn't work?
Only circular logic works i.e. makes sense of the world holistically, so that parts mutually explain each other. The hard part is how to enter the circle at a good point and angle, and make it self-connected as seamlessly as possible. This means the Quran has to be read and interpreted multiple times to get closer and closer to a coherent understanding of how each part fits and constitutes the whole and how this whole in turn gives meaning to each part. Hence the need for continuous study.
Every other logic that pretends to be non-circular will always have a need to find an ultimate external foundation for itself, which will in turn need a further foundation, and so on to infinity, so it will always remain fundamentally unfounded. Whereas the coherence of the circle is its own internal foundation. You will find parts within Quran that refer to the whole of Quran as such, such as in the opening Surah and in the beginning of the 2nd one.
>Once again I ask you; can't you view this as a figure of speech or do you have to take every verse literally?
It's not a question of metaphorical vs. literal reading. The language of Quran is itself different than our modern materialistic language where all spiritual content of words has been removed or pushed aside. Both those who argue for a literal approach, as those who argue for a metaphorical one, are doing so on the basis of their inability to experience the world spiritually. So for example those who argue for a metaphorical approach do so because they have to compensate for their inability to go beyond their otherwise materialistic understanding of words.
To be more concrete: when somebody says I love you with all my heart, they don't mean their heart as a material body organ, but neither do they mean it as a secondary extension of meaning (i.e. metaphor) on the basis of a material body organ - both cases assume a materialistic meaning as a basis and therefore make the expression seem equally nonsensical. If the word "heart" primarily means just another organ, how could it have then been connected to love secondarily? Expressions like above existed before modern clinical practice (e.g. "anatomical pathology") started dominating our imagination, which it did in relatively recent times. Heart had a different, spiritual and emotional meaning before, of which our heartbeat was a direct bodily experience. And it obviously still has this meaning in many uses. This meaning was then extended to the specific material body organ (not the other way around) when it was found out, already early in history, that this part within our body is what physically produces heartbeat. The further step was then taken much much later, in modern history, when the primary spiritual or rather holistic meaning was gradually reduced to the secondary material one, eventually producing a completely materialistic view of human existence with no place for spirituality, which is the stage we have reached now in the West.