Posted on 03/26/2013 6:56:09 AM PDT by NYer
Last week, Pope Francis received a collection of world religious leaders in his first ecumenical and interreligious event. His address to them contained diplomatic niceties and specific expressions of good will aimed at Orthodox, Protestants, Jews, and Muslims.
His remarks to the latter recognized that Muslims “worship the one living and merciful God, and call upon him in prayer.” In this he echoed the 1964 dogmatic constitution Lumen Gentium, which gave a nod to “the Mohammedans, who, professing to hold the faith of Abraham, along with us adore the one and merciful God, who on the last day will judge mankind.”
Now, both Lumen Gentium 16 and Pope Francis’s words have a pastoral rather than doctrinal purpose. Their aim is to build interreligious bridges by generously acknowledging whatever can be found to be true in other faiths—not to make precise pronouncements about their theology. That said, Lumen Gentium is an exercise of the ordinary Magisterium, and even casual statements from a pope (be it this one from Francis or similar ones made by his predecessors) shouldn’t be taken lightly.
So, what does it mean to say that Muslims adore the one God along with us—to say, as can be reasonably drawn from these statements, that Muslims worship the same God as Catholics? We can consider the idea in several senses.
I think we can say with confidence that any monotheist who calls out to the Lord is heard by the Lord, whether it’s a Muslim, a pagan philosopher seeking the God of reason, or a Native American petitioning the Great Spirit. As Lumen Gentium 16 continues, God is not “far distant from those who in shadows and images seek [him].”
Likewise I think we’re on solid ground in saying that the subjective intention of Muslims is to worship the one God—moreover, the one God from the line of Abrahamic revelation. Whether or not their version of that revelation is authentic or correct, that’s what they “profess to hold” to. Furthermore, some of the attributes of the God to whom they address their worship are comparable to the Christian God’s: He is one, merciful, omnipotent, and the judge of the world.
Just as clearly, though, we cannot say that the God in whom Muslims profess to believe is theologically identical to the Christian God. For the most obvious example, their God is a “lonely God,” as Chesterton put it, whereas ours is a Trinity of persons. Beyond that difference, in the divine economy our Gods are also quite different: most pointedly in that ours took human nature to himself and dwelt among us on earth, whereas the Muslim God remains pure transcendence. To Muslims the idea of an incarnation is blasphemy.
And so perhaps we can distinguish between worship of God and belief in him, the former being more about the intent of the worshiper and the latter being more about the object of belief himself. Thus could Gerhard Müller, bishop emeritus of Regensburg and since last year the prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, assert in 2007 that Muslims and Christians “do not believe in the same God,” and yet not contradict any magisterial teaching.
Of course, Jews believe in an utterly transcendent and “lonely” God, too; the idea that Jesus was God’s son, Yahweh incarnate, was likewise blasphemous to the Jews of his day. Is their theology as deficient as Islam’s? Ought we to put them in the same category as Muslims: subjectively worshiping the one God but believing in him, as least partly, in error?
Well, at least one difference suggests itself. Muslims “profess” to hold to the faith of Abraham but really don’t; their version of Abrahamic faith is false. (Of course, they believe that our version is the false one, a corruption of the Qur’an.) Jews, on the other hand, know and believe in their God according to his authentic self-revelation—what they have received from him is true, just incomplete. To be fully true, Jewish theology just needs to be perfected by Christian revelation, whereas, although we can identify many truths in it, Islamic theology needs to be broken down, corrected, rebuilt from an authentic foundation.
Now, it can be a bad practice to judge ideas by their sources. But if, as Benedict XVI has said, faith is at root a personal encounter with God, then the authenticity of God’s personal revelation of himself is of the utmost importance. In other words, the source of God-knowledge becomes the very question. We worship and believe in God because and to the extent that we know him. And we know him, above all other reasons, according to how he revealed himself to us.
In this sense, then, I suggest that we can correctly say that Jews worship and believe in a God who is qualitatively truer, closer to the God of Christianity, than the God of Islam. Both Jews and Muslims lay claim to the same revelation, but where Jews have an accurate record of it (and thus of the God it reveals) Muslims have a fictionalized adaptation.
This question of the theological similarities and differences between Christianity and Islam is perhaps more important than it ever has been. With religious folk of all kinds increasingly beset by secularism and moral relativism, we look across creedal lines for friends and allies—comrades-in-arms in the fight for unborn life, traditional marriage and morality, religious rights, and a continued place for believers in the cultural conversation. It can be an encouragement and a temptation, then, to look at Islam and see not warriors of jihad against Arab Christians and a decadent West, but fellow-soldiers of an “ecumenical jihad” against an anti-theist culture.
Can Islam be that reliable ally? (Shameless product plug alert.) That’s the subject of the newest book from Catholic Answers Press: Not Peace but a Sword by Robert Spencer. The evidence he presents will help us understand Islam’s God more clearly, and make us examine more shrewdly the prospects for any future alliance with followers of the Prophet.
So, it’s not similar to the Judeo-Christian God of the Bible, I never said it was.
I have, over the years, explained what I believe in...that is one God, creator of all. I don’t know how to simplify it for you. If you need more, be specific and I will try to answer.
What does truth mean to you? That IS my question.
What would you call your religion? What, if any, of the major religions is it closest to?
I don’t have a religion that I know of.
None that I know of, but I don’t know all of the religions. What would you suggest?
I’ve never had a need or desire to name my beliefs until now.
Something that can be proven to anyone, at any time during history, without question, I guess.
I have to admit, I’ve never had the need or desire to define it.
It seems complicated, this need to define truth.
If I said I was hungry, then that would be true, but how could I prove it to you? If I said I believe in God, how could I prove it to you?
If I held up 2 fingers on each hand and then asked you to represent that number using only one hand, then you would hold up 4 fingers on one hand, that would be a truth, wouldn’t it? Or do you need more?
yes, the strategy is to put/keep his opponent on the defensive with questions and avoid having to defend his own position. This is my first go-round with him and hopefully I’ll have enough sense to make it my last. Thanks for the advice.
Based on your posting history, I honestly think your religion could be described as narcissism,
Nothing you have professed originates outside of yourself.
You have my pity.
You have said....”For me, the conscience is the source for right or wrong.”
Then you lay claim that you are your source and standard of truth,...it is your “opinion” what determines how you destinguish truth from error?
Objective truth is not dependent on proof or argument. It is what is... truth is reality. Your hunger and your belief is subjective truth. Mathematics, however, is a good example of objective truth as far as I understand. It appears you do not perceive the difference between objective and subjective. Thus, God’s existence for you depends on man’s prooving Him to exist. For me, God’s existence does not depend on prooving Him to be. God has given us good and sufficient reason to believe in Him but His existence does not depend on our belief. Our different starting points makes our discussion unproductive. It has been an education of sorts.
Muslims teach that Jesus will return and subordinate Himself to the Muslim Mahdi. Jesus will then perform a pilgrimage to Mecca and institute Sharia law worldwide. He will judge the world, but according to Islamic law, and He will destroy Christianity. After living on the earth for forty years, our Lord (their "prophet") will marry and have children, and die.
According to Islam, He will return and "break the Cross."
ok, thanks
No, I do not. As I have said a number of times, I believe it’s from God...but you certainly have your right to judge me any way you want, as it changes nothing.
I have no need to prove there is one God, it’s self-evident to me. If you have a problem with other people’s self-evidence, ok.
Yes, the way they describe Issa, he is the literal anti-Christ.
So, do you agree with the first half of my statement, but not the second? “God has given us good and sufficient reason to believe in Him ... but His existence does not depend on our belief.”
‘Tis true. And very sad.
You said ...”I believe (conscious) it’s from God”..
That is understood and accepted, as mentioned before...but the question remains....
How do you determine if what your conscious is telling you is right or wrong?
You had to be taught somewhere along the line, conscious does not operate without teaching...a source...to define what is right or wrong.
“God has given us/me good and sufficient reason to believe in Him ... but His existence does not depend on our/my belief.”
I agree with all of the above, but of course I can only speak for myself
...is this some sort of trick question that you’re going to twist around somehow?
Excellant point.....
“...God’s existence does not depend on prooving Him to be. God has given us good and sufficient reason to believe in Him... but His existence does not depend on our belief.”
Exactly.
Baloney. God cannot lie and cannot change and will not reveal Himself to others based on their preferences.
I don't know what you're up to on this forum, but it's no good, for sure. None of the arguments, contentions, or "questions" you ask even make sense.
You are free to believe in a god of your own choosing, God gives you that option, but you have to do it by his rules and nobody on this forum is going to tell you what your itching ears want to hear.
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