Posted on 05/31/2014 11:09:11 AM PDT by ealgeone
841 The Church's relationship with the Muslims. "The plan of salvation also includes those who acknowledge the Creator, in the first place amongst whom are the Muslims; these profess to hold the faith of Abraham, and together with us they adore the one, merciful God, mankind's judge on the last day."330
Actually, it can’t be assumed anymore because actions and words of popes and other Catholic leaders lead others to believe otherwise. The Vatican II teaching and liturgy is all about not offending the non-Catholics: “reformulated positively”.
islamist apologetics
In Indonesia and Peninsular Malaysia they want to legally ban Christians from using the word "Allah" in their Arabic-language Bible translations, even though "Allah" is the only Arabic word there is, for God.
On the other hand, in the Middle East, Christians were using the word "Allah" in their Arabic translations for 400+ years before Mohammad was even born. It is also often used by Bahá'ís, Maltese Christians, Mizrahi Jews and Sikhs in Malaysia.
Mohammad, who evidently was influenced by early contact with Nestorian Christians, used "Allah" because that was the only current name for "the God" as opposed to the various subordinate gods, goddesses, angels and djinns.
Allah in Arabic is the equivalent of the Greek "ho theos monos" -- the One God.
Oops, I meant #143
That's true. Agreed.
However, Orthodox Jews don't believe in Jesus Christ, yet they plainly worship the same God.
By the way, the Qur'an mentions the Mary 34 times and Jesus 25 times while Muhammad is only mentioned 5 times. Interesting.
This is also why Muslims refer to themselves as worshipping the God of Abraham.
Interesting that Muslims are being prayed for specifically in that consecration. May God draw them out of the darkness of error, and into the light of Our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
If the person they worship fails to provide a perfect sacrifice for all sins, then they do not worship the same God. Instead they substitute a counterfeit object for their worship.
Muslims aren’t the only ones. There are lots of people who call themselves Christian, who have never accepted Jesus Christ and what He provided on the Cross.
Read a little context and you'll see that the Catechism is discussing every category of religious believer through the particular lens of what we have in common. It starts with the Orthodox Christians, then proceeds to the non-Orthodox Christians (Evangelicals, Pentecostals, etc.), then the Jews, then the Muslims, then non-monotheistic religions; then vague seekers and so forth.
It notes that Christians and Muslims have certain elements in common, such as:
Inasmuch as they hold these elements --- Creator, One, Merciful, Judge --- we hold these same beliefs about God as well. Me, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, and Benyamin Natanyahu. Even you do, ealgeone. This is what we have in common.
The Catechism does not say that Islam is the "True Religion" any more than it says "Seventh Day Adventist is the True Religion." It just says that it incorporates some elements of Truth. All false, defective or fragmentary systems incorporate some elements of truth.
Nor do Muslims entrust themselves to the Catholic God: I doubt any Muslim on earth would agree to that. The very phrase "Catholic God," a Muslim would regard as blasphemous.
Seventh century St. John of Damascus grew up in a mixed Christian-Muslim community where his father was a political administrator for the Caliph. He knew the Koran very well (and vehemently opposed it) but clearly saw Islam as a heretical variant of Christianity.
By the way, the Qur'an mentions the Mary 34 times and Jesus 25 times while Muhammad is only mentioned 5 times. Interesting.
To know which God (or other deity) they serve, one would have to know what is in their hearts. And only God knows that...well, except when what is in a man's heart is visible through his actions.
As an aside, it is interesting to read cases in which Muslims have had a dream or series of dreams about Jesus and eventually converted. They are usually quite shocked by how their lives are transformed. I would suggest that the degree to which they are shocked gets to the heart of which God or god they were previously serving.
“However, Orthodox Jews don’t believe in Jesus Christ, yet they plainly worship the same God.”
The Jews in my family don’t deny the Son. I refer you to 1John 2:22 and 23. While I respect the historical and religious connection orthodox Jews have to Yahweh, I suggest they don’t really know who they worship, or they would recognize Jesus Christ as the Son.
Antichrists are falsities of Christ. Islam is antichrist, and any of the Koran’s references to Jesus, or plagiarizations of scripture aren’t for the sake of Christ, but to destroy belief in him and Christianity. Allah is not God the Father, and belief in him is ignorance and subjugation, not something to be encouraged.
But when a simple Muslim prays to Allah, he or she is not necessarily prying to the Allah of the Koran. He or she could be praying to Creator of Heaven and Earth, the Mighty, the Merciful, the Compassionate, the Just One who will come to judge the living and the dead.p> I know who fits that description: and there's only One.
I would disagree that Islam teaches many things about God which are true as we do not worship the same God. Jehovah is real. Allah is a false god. In my study of Islam it is all false as they teach a different version of who Christ is.
Using the principle of the excluded middle:
Jehovah is God
Allah is God
Neither is God
Only one of these statements can be true.
I still have a concern with the wording of the catechism when it says and together with us they adore the one, merciful God, mankind's judge on the last day.
This gives the impression that Catholicism and Islam are adoring the one, merciful God.
To me this is equating Jehovah and Allah as the same and they are not.
If this is not the case, why does the catechism say catholics and muslims adore the one merciful God?
I would suggest that the Islamic understanding of the God of Abraham is different from the Biblical understanding of the God of Abraham.
At the very least it is confusing and opens the catholic church up to possibly unwarranted criticism.
Again, I appreciate your post.
I appreciate your sentiment, but there I would have to agree with Paul, Acts 17:30. It isn’t the sincerity of “simple Muslims” while they are praying to Allah that disturbs me so much as what Islam is doing to them, and what it has done to millions of innocent people. When all is said and done, there is one mediator between man and God, and that is Jesus Christ.
That's a massive great 10-4!
I have a guy, not quite a friend but more than an acquaintance. He's very learned and a good guy to have a discussion with. BUT he's a Muslim. (Horrified by the vicious and brutal nonsense of the others. I have to ask him why he isn't a little more vocal about that horror.)
But he's just WRONG! He's wrong philosophically as well as religiously. I find he just doesn't 'get' what the Incarnation means, and he thinks his denial of the Trinity is a kind of transcendent monotheism, while we are borderline polytheists.
MY counter is that he is judging the divine "oneness" as if he had a complete idea of what transcendent unity and simplicity mean, but what he's really doing is dragging the concepts down to our level.
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My analogy works with two examples:
We call God "Father," as we are taught to do. And we START by thinking that he's kind of like a human father. But somewhere in there we realize that that's backwards. Actually human fathers are pale copies of TRUE fatherhood.
Or Jesus says that his flesh is true food and his blood true drink. and we say, okay, yes, they're kind of like what I eat and what I drink
But one day wwe get it. This stuff on my plate and in my cup is radically unsatisfactory! Sure, it's GOOD and all, but in a few hours I'm hungry and thirsty again, and even when I am, for the moment, sated, I'm still yearning for something.
But Jesus, on the other hand -- perfect sustenance in every way!
So I begin to see that my fatherhood is lacking, and my victuals are lacking: they are not truly food, I am a very imperfect parent and in important ways more a sibling than an parent to my child.
And so with oneness and simplicity. I am thinking too much of, say, a pearl or a plain marble. But TRUE oneness and simplicity are overwhelming, vital, dynamic!
So both in terms of devotion and also in terms of philosophical wisdom he is missing the boat in ways which will do him no good.
Try to turn to the scriptures, rather than pagan men’s catechism.
Their knee must bow to Yeshua, and their tongue must confess him before they even begin the journey to salvation that Peter called the Mikva (Baptism, translated loosely).
In his first epistle, Peter notes that that journey is a life long process, not the quick reciting of a prayer devised by men.
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>> “Properly viewed the Muslims are christian heretics who deny the Divinity of Christ. But that does not mean that they worship the devil. On the contrary, they worship the one true God.” <<
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What a nonsensical concoction!
One cannot deny Yeshua and worship him at the same time.
Yeshua and his Father are one; you deny one, you have denied the other.
Muslims are just as deeply lost as catholics!
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>> “Can they not worship the true God falsely?” <<
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Not according to the true God!
He says plainly in his Torah that one cannot add to, nor take away from it.
Man made worship is worship of man. Read Paul’s explanation in Hebrews 3 and 4. The reason that the gospel didn’t save those Israelites that died in the desert was their own lack of faith. There is only one gospel; the one preached to them was the same one preached by the apostles. That is what he said, and he had the benefit of a direct encounter with the arisen Yeshua on the Damascus road.
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