How can Christianity & Islam be compatible enough to be the same God that we worship?

LivingWordUnity said:

I didn't say that they don't believe their deity to be the first cause. My point is that the religion of Islam teaches that their deity is purely a slave master,

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No it doesn't.

and the religion of Islam rejects the JudeoChristian orthodox teaching of God being a loving Father. So how can a deity that is our loving Father and a deity that is purely a slave master and not our loving Father be the same God?

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Islam doesn't describe God in terms of a father - but that's barely there in pre-Christian judaism either.
It does picture God as loving.

GoingByzantine said:

I wonder, would we call Islam a Christian hearesy? Or an entirely different religion.

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-St. Peter Mavimenus (d. 8th century), martyr from Gaza. Response reported in the Martyriologum Romanum when he was asked to convert to Islam by a group of Muslims.



“There is also the superstition of the Ishmaelites which to this day prevails and keeps people in error, being a forerunner of the Antichrist…. From that time to the present a false prophet named Mohammed has appeared in their midst. This man, after having chanced upon the Old and New Testaments and likewise, it seems, having conversed with an Arian monk, devised his own heresy. Then, having insinuated himself into the good graces of the people by a show of seeming piety, he gave out that a certain book had been sent down to him from heaven. He had set down some ridiculous compositions in this book of his and he gave it to them as an object of veneration.”

St. Thomas Aquinas (d. 1274), Theologian and Doctor of the Church. Quoted from his De Rationibus Fidei Contra Saracenos, Graecos, et Armenos and translated from Fr. Damian Fehlner’s Aquinas on Reasons for the Faith: Against the Muslims, Greeks, and Armenians (Franciscans of the Immaculate. 2002.).



“As we have seen, Muhammed had neither supernatural miracles nor natural motives of reason to persuade those of his sect. As he lacked in everything, he took to bestial and barbaric means, which is the force of arms. Thus he introduced and promulgated his message with robberies, murders, and bloodshedding, destroying those who did not want to receive it, and with the same means his ministers conserve this today, until God placates his anger and destroys this pestilence from the earth.

“Worshipping the same God” seems to me a difficult phrase. There’s only one God. No one can be worshipping a different one. They can, however, have very distorted ideas of God.

So does worship that is based on a distorted view of God mean that you are not actually worshipping God? I don’t think there’s a simple answer to that question. To the extent that one’s ideas of God are distorted, worship and service are going to have some damaging effects. Yet the inclusivist perspective (which seems to be the official Catholic perspective these days) is that God can still reach that person, despite his errors, and use even distorted worship for good. That doesn't mean that distortion is OK, however.

It does appear that public statements by both the Pope and world leaders are being a bit optimistic about Islam. I assume they are trying to avoid an us-vs-them situation, and to encourage Muslims who want to take a humane approach to Islam. Such approaches certainly exist.

If I understand Islam correctly, the religion doesn't believe in the Trinity of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. Islam also denies that Jesus is the Christ. Scripture is very clear that whoever denies that Jesus is the Christ is a liar and the anti-Christ for denying both the Father and the Son (1 John 2:22).

The only way that a Muslim can believe in the same God is through ignorance just as those in some non Christian cults. The problem being here is once someone goes from ignorance about what their faith is then it starts to define a God that isn't the same and as that progresses farther into more precise definition then the god(s) believed in depart any resemblence of sameness. When it comes down to the most important thing... salvation, the identity of who saves you is tantamount.

hedrick said:

“Worshipping the same God” seems to me a difficult phrase. There’s only one God. No one can be worshipping a different one. They can, however, have very distorted ideas of God.

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That's an interesting way of putting it.

Like in The Shawshank Redemption, the character Andy creates a persona as a front to launder the money. This person doesn't actually exist, but the bankers wouldn't have known that because Andy presents himself to them as this person. They didn't know who Andy really was, but they encountered him nonetheless, they just identified him differently.

Sophrosyne said:

The only way that a Muslim can believe in the same God is through ignorance just as those in some non Christian cults. The problem being here is once someone goes from ignorance about what their faith is then it starts to define a God that isn't the same and as that progresses farther into more precise definition then the god(s) believed in depart any resemblence of sameness. When it comes down to the most important thing... salvation, the identity of who saves you is tantamount.

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Do you apply that same logic to the Jewish faith? Because if it applies to Muslims then it applies to Jews as well.

Darth Bagel said:

Do you apply that same logic to the Jewish faith? Because if it applies to Muslims then it applies to Jews as well.

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Yes the same logic applies but in reality the books of the Bible the Jews respect can lead them towards considering Christ while the writings of Muhammed etc lead farther from who God is the more you read. One must have to seemingly have the wrong idea of God in Islam to actually have a chance to believe blindly in the right god while the Jews have the right god to begin with they are just missing the pieces that are supplied in the New Testament the fill in the blanks that are presupported in the OT.

ebia said:

Islam doesn't describe God in terms of a father - but that's barely there in pre-Christian judaism either.
It does picture God as loving.

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God is described as being a father in the Old Testament and in the New Testament. That means that it is a Jewish and a Christian belief. But the religion of Islam considers it to be blasphemous to call its deity a father.

LivingWordUnity said:

God is described as being a father in the Old Testament and in the New Testament. That means that it is a Jewish and a Christian belief. But the religion of Islam considers it to be blasphemous to call its deity a father.

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It's a pretty obscure theme in the OT. To the point that it looks like cherry picking: one has decided that judaism and Christianity are compatible but that islam is not, and then goes cherry picking similarities and differences to justify that.

One, of course, could equally well pick themes that are shared by christianity and Islam but not judaism. Or ones shared by judaism and Islam but not christianity.

ebia said:

It's a pretty obscure theme in the OT.

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It is not obscure. It is clearly there in the Old Testament as follows:
But in the religion of Islam it is considered blasphemy to call Allah father.

LivingWordUnity said:

It is not obscure. It is clearly there in the Old Testament as follows:

"Father of the fatherless and protector of widows, is God in his holy habitation." - Pslam 68:5​

But in the religion of Islam it is considered blasphemy to call Allah father.

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One reference doesn't make something Central.
As I said, it's there but it's obscure. It's not common in the text nor in jewish culture. It marked Jesus out to major on it.

So, as I said, it looks very much like choosing the evidence to fit your conclusion.

ebia said:

One reference doesn't make something Central.
As I said, it's there but it's obscure.

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One reference is all it takes to show the fact that the Old Testament teaches that God is our Father and that, unlike with the Muslims, the Jews can't call it blasphemy to call God our Father. But there are other other places in the Old Testament that also say that God is our Father. Here's the one I showed you plus some other verses:

LivingWordUnity said:

One reference is all it takes to show the fact that the Old Testament teaches that God is our Father and that, unlike with the Muslims, the Jews can't call it blasphemy to call God our Father. But there are other other places in the Old Testament that also say that God is our Father. Here's the one I showed you plus some other verses:

"Father of the fatherless and protector of widows,
is God in his holy habitation." - Pslam 68:5

"Do you thus requite the Lord,
you foolish and senseless people?
Is not he your father, who created you,
who made you and established you?" - Deuteronomy 32:6

"I will tell of the decree of the Lord:
He said to me, 'You are my son,
today I have begotten you.'" - Psalm 2:7

"For thou art our Father,
though Abraham does not know us
and Israel does not acknowledge us;
thou, O Lord, art our Father,
our Redeemer from of old is thy name." - Isaiah 63:16​

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You're repeated what isn't disputed in missing or ignoring what is.

LivingWordUnity said:

It is not obscure. It is clearly there in the Old Testament as follows:

"Father of the fatherless and protector of widows,
is God in his holy habitation." - Pslam 68:5​

But in the religion of Islam it is considered blasphemy to call Allah father.

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The Greeks and Romans would have considered it ridiculous and inappropriate to call The One a father.

And yet we don't say they were talking about a different God, and in fact they were of huge importance in the development of Christian theology. Augustine based some of his responses to pagans on the fact that they were in fact talking about the same God, but had misunderstood him.

It's not consistent.

ebia said:

You're repeated what isn't disputed in missing or ignoring what is.

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I repeated the fact that the Old Testament teaches that God is our Father.

And the point is that this is very much unlike what is taught in Islam.

"Abraham: Father or Master?" Dr. Scott Hahn