Here’s why Pope Francis is wrong to say Muslims and Catholics worship the same God

[JSRG]

What you copied and pasted:

11 Q. Who are they who are outside the true Church?
A. Outside the true Church are: Infidels, Jews, heretics, apostates, schismatics, and the excommunicated.

12 Q. Who are infidels?
A. Infidels are those who have not been baptised and do not believe in Jesus Christ, because they either believe in and worship false gods as idolaters do, or though admitting one true God, they do not believe in the Messiah, neither as already come in the Person of Jesus Christ, nor as to come; for instance, Mohammedans and the like.

In other words, Muslims are considered as "infidels."

They are infidels. As I noted, this certainly it is not the terminology one would use nowadays, but the substance behind it applies.

And what in the world does this have to do with the point I was making? And unless you are arguing that Muslims worship a separate God, what is your issue with the point I was making?

The current Catechism does not call Muslims and Jews "infidels."

Certainly; as I noted, the word sounds awfully odd nowadays.

Just so we're understanding the word "indidel"

in·fi·del
[ˈinfədl, ˈinfəˌdel]

NOUN

1. a person who does not believe in religion or who adheres to a religion other than one's own:
   "they wanted to secure the Holy Places from the infidel"
2. 
   

Which is a definition that applies to Muslims, at least from a Catholic standpoint.

And again, what in the world does this have to do with the point I was making? And unless you are arguing that Muslims worship a separate God, what is your issue with the point I was making?

It legitimately feels at this point as if you're arguing just to have an argument, not because you have any actual disagreement. This feels like me offering an argument that the sky is blue, and then you come in and complain that I'm wrong because the sky is blue.

 

[Michie]

No, I'm not carrying hurt, and I agree, let's start anew.

However, as a spiritual practice, I'm detaching from social media sites like this. So, if
you don't see me, it's not because of anything you or anyone else did.

God Bless

God bless you Jim.

 

[Salvadore]

Pope Francis' ecumenical relations with Muslims has become one of the key aspects of his pontificate, yet in doing so he ignores the fundamental fact that ‘Islam in itself is not faith.’

ROME (LifeSiteNews) — Much has been made by the Vatican and Pope Francis of the three “Abrahamic religions” coming together in a spirit of harmony and peace in the Abrahamic Family House, recently opened in Abu Dhabi, yet the truth of how Catholicism, Islam, and Judaism actually relate is not entirely as the Vatican portrays.

On February 16, the Abrahamic Family House (AFH) held the inaugural ceremony to mark the grand opening of the center, which was directly born out of the 2019 Abu Dhabi document on Human Fraternity signed by both Francis and Ahmed el-Tayeb during the Pope’s 2019 visit to the UAE.

The AFH is home to a Catholic church, a Muslim mosque, and a Jewish synagogue, and — according to Cardinal Miguel Ángel Ayuso Guixot, current president of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue — it serves as a “concrete example for people of different religions, cultures, traditions, and beliefs to return to the essential: love of neighbor.”

The AFH is the natural progression of Pope Francis’ controversial Abu Dhabi document on Human Fraternity, a text which states: “The pluralism and the diversity of religions, color, sex, race and language are willed by God in His wisdom, through which He created human beings.”

The text has been described as seeming to “overturn the doctrine of the Gospel” due to its promotion of equality of religions in a form of “fraternity.”

The Pope’s 2020 encyclical Fratelli Tutti has also played a part in the AFH, since the ecumenical project embodies the style of fraternity that the document called for. This form of fraternity is so essential to such ventures: namely, it is a fraternity and “unity” which are divorced from promotion of the Catholic faith which underly modern ecumenical activities.

Indeed, for many years the Vatican’s relationship with Islam and Judaism has presented a great danger to Catholics. This is particularly visible in the documents which emerged from Vatican II and which have since been used as the backbone of a number of different texts, including the modern catechism, as noted recently by Bishop Athanasius Schneider.

Yet while Vatican officials are busy promoting Islam and Judaism as equatable to Catholicism, as if they are simply the other side of a coin, the truth is that the Abrahamic Family House cannot promote Catholicism, but only dilute or weaken it. How then do Catholicism and Islam, in particular, compare?

Catholics and Muslims – the same God?


Continued below.

Here's why Pope Francis is wrong to say Muslims and Catholics worship the same God - LifeSite

Pope Francis' ecumenical relations with Muslims has become one of the key aspects of his pontificate, yet in doing so he ignores the fundamental fact that ‘Islam in itself is not faith.’

www.lifesitenews.com

It’s a good question. There is truth to be found even in false belief systems. But Jesus said there is no way to the Father but through Him. It makes it hard to understand where the Church is coming from. I believe we can worship certain aspects of God in common but we do not worship the same God is His entirety. It does not really make it the same God in my view. I don’t know how it could be.

Michie, I find the spiritual aspect of the United Nations to be interesting and connected to the Abrahmic Family House. As everyone knows, there is a global effort to attain peace through understanding of other people's beliefs. Protestants and Catholics believe God is the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Muslims and Jews do not worship The Son and Holy Spirit. God is not divided. He is all or nothing. Correct? The Bible says that in the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God. The Word became flesh and dwelt among us. I, personally, do not think humans will attain peace because people do not agree. Having said this, people can agree with certain ideas that the UN puts forth. I do not know how much you have read about the triangles, etc. Do the people in the triangles believe in God? Not all of them. I would like to know what the future holds with this man-made attempt at world peace. Religious tolerance is one thing. Changing the definition of God so that people can get along is not okay.

 

[fide]

The way I view this is the Catholic Church has the fulness of the faith.......
.......
Their message seems to always be that we have a valid pope, but we can’t trust him or his recent predecessors. But the Church is known by our union with the Popes. Am I the only one confused by that???

I can't speak for them, or any others, but I can speak from a prophesy that explains for me, the contemporary profound, deep and troubling crisis for the faithful:

Mt 16:18 And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the powers of death shall not prevail against it.
Mt 16:19 I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven."

Yes, Peter was given the keys, and the popes are his successors. But what prophesy was Jesus citing and fulfilling in this entrustment?

Isa 22:20 In that day I will call my servant Eliakim the son of Hilkiah,
Isa 22:21 and I will clothe him with your robe, and will bind your girdle on him, and will commit your authority to his hand; and he shall be a father to the inhabitants of Jerusalem and to the house of Judah.
Isa 22:22 And I will place on his shoulder the key of the house of David; he shall open, and none shall shut; and he shall shut, and none shall open.
Isa 22:23 And I will fasten him like a peg in a sure place, and he will become a throne of honor to his father's house.

Yes, this prophesy is fitting in many ways. And fitting even better, in these very troubling days when we read the continuation and end of the prophesy:

Isa 22:24 And they will hang on him the whole weight of his father's house, the offspring and issue, every small vessel, from the cups to all the flagons.
Isa 22:25 In that day, says the LORD of hosts, the peg that was fastened in a sure place will give way; and it will be cut down and fall, and the burden that was upon it will be cut off, for the LORD has spoken."

And what is "that day..." when "the peg" and all held up by it, is cut down and falls?

Perhaps in a moment of some number of clock days, when this is fulfilled:

Mt 24:15 "So when you see the desolating sacrilege spoken of by the prophet Daniel, standing in the holy place (let the reader understand),
Mt 24:16 then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains;....

So as they say, we need to "do the math" and live the truth.

 

[fide]

Yes, but they reject the New Testament. They reject the Trinity, and they reject that Christ is God.

I just am always puzzled at the reasoning that the Muslims worship a different God than we do because they reject the Trinity and Christ as God but then fail to apply that same test to the Jews. Because they also reject the Trinity and Christ as God. But somehow the Jews do worship the same God we do. Doesn't add up.....

There is a radical difference:

• The Jews are faithful to God as revealed in His covenant made with them prior to the Incarnation.
  
  
• The Moslems are faithful to their god revealed in a prophesy (?)/revelation (?) made to "the prophet" six hundred (600) years after the Incarnation of God the Son, and after the Holy Spirit had been sent to His Church, and the Holy Truth of God had been sent out into the whole world for the salvation of all men.
  
  
• To conflate these two obscures the rational conclusion that for Islam to be true and of God, He must have intentionally obscured Truth and directly lied in the revelation that founded Islam, and did so after 600 years to think about it.

 

[JosephZ]

There is a radical difference:

• The Jews are faithful to God as revealed in His covenant made with them prior to the Incarnation.
  
  
• The Moslems are faithful to their god revealed in a prophesy (?)/revelation (?) made to "the prophet" six hundred (600) years after the Incarnation of God the Son, and after the Holy Spirit had been sent to His Church, and the Holy Truth of God had been sent out into the whole world for the salvation of all men.
  
  
• To conflate these two obscures the rational conclusion that for Islam to be true and of God, He must have intentionally obscured Truth and directly lied in the revelation that founded Islam, and did so after 600 years to think about it.

When trying to answer the question as to whether or not Muslims worship the same God found in the Bible, it's not important what we believe as Christians, it's what the Muslim believes in their hearts and minds. Based on the teachings of both Judaism and Islam a follower of either of these religions will be worshiping the God of Bible because their holy books, the Torah and Qur'an, instruct them to worship the God of Abraham. As Jews and Muslims they may reject the deity of Christ, but that in no way changes who the one true God is, hence, Jews, Christians, and Muslims are all worshiping the same God. The God of Abraham. It would be laughable to even think that Jews aren't worshiping the one true God found in the Bible, and it should be equally as laughable to think that Muslims aren't as well since they, like the Jews, can trace their lineage back to Abraham and put their faith into the same God that Abraham did. There's a reason why Judaism, Christianity, and Islam are called the Abraham faiths. Same Abraham. Same God. Seems pretty simple to me.

 

[fide]

When trying to answer the question as to whether or not Muslims worship the same God found in the Bible, it's not important what we believe as Christians, it's what the Muslim believes in their hearts and minds. Based on the teachings of both Judaism and Islam a follower of either of these religions will be worshiping the God of Bible because their holy books, the Torah and Qur'an, instruct them to worship the God of Abraham. As Jews and Muslims they may reject the deity of Christ, but that in no way changes who the one true God is, hence, Jews, Christians, and Muslims are all worshiping the same God. The God of Abraham. It would be laughable to even think that Jews aren't worshiping the one true God found in the Bible, and it should be equally as laughable to think that Muslims aren't as well since they, like the Jews, can trace their lineage back to Abraham and put their faith into the same God that Abraham did. There's a reason why Judaism, Christianity, and Islam are called the Abraham faiths. Same Abraham. Same God. Seems pretty simple to me.

So 600 years after revealing the Holy Truth through Jesus, when "god" spoke to Mohammad, He decided to keep the Gospel a secret from him, and all his future followers - hiding and lying about the one Truth that was salvific? Such duplicity is fitting for God, in your thought?

 

[WarriorAngel]

So 600 years after revealing the Holy Truth through Jesus, when "god" spoke to Mohammad, He decided to keep the Gospel a secret from him, and all his future followers - hiding and lying about the one Truth that was salvific? Such duplicity is fitting for God, in your thought?

An angel [fallen who was anathema says St John] came with a new gospel.

Muhammad took one verse from the Bible 'the lion' and called himself the lion... after Jesus.
It's what is called the god-complex.
He listened to Nestorians.. then started spinning his own heresy.
He gathered a following BY announcing the One True God of Abraham was whom they were to follow.

The followers followed based on the One True God concept and the lion.... But like all heresies and heretical leaders, the distortion of the truth doesn't change that there is only One True God in Existence.

They're attempting to follow the Almighty.
The teachings are far from truth but they do not understand that.

 

[JosephZ]

So 600 years after revealing the Holy Truth through Jesus, when "god" spoke to Mohammad, He decided to keep the Gospel a secret from him, and all his future followers - hiding and lying about the one Truth that was salvific? Such duplicity is fitting for God, in your thought?

No, not at all; Muslims just have a different understanding of who God is and how salvation is found through Christ based on the teachings of Muhammad and the Qur'an. Muslims reject the Trinity as a result of these teachings, but this doesn't mean that a Muslim can't or isn't worshiping God the Father.

 

[Michie]

Rejection of Christ’s divinity presents a huge problem.

 

[fide]

No, not at all; Muslims just have a different understanding of who God is and how salvation is found through Christ based on the teachings of Muhammad and the Qur'an. Muslims reject the Trinity as a result of these teachings, but this doesn't mean that a Muslim can't or isn't worshiping God the Father.

Mt 10:32 So every one who acknowledges me before men, I also will acknowledge before my Father who is in heaven;
Mt 10:33 but whoever denies me before men, I also will deny before my Father who is in heaven.

Mt 11:27 All things have been delivered to me by my Father; and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and any one to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.

So to follow a false teacher is fine with God, and to worship a god of one's own understanding is OK too? I get dizzy trying to follow your logic. What exactly does "idolatry" mean to you?

 

[fide]

Rejection of Christ’s divinity presents a huge problem.

Of course, yes. And yet here we are. Come Lord Jesus!

 

[JosephZ]

So to follow a false teacher is fine with God, and to worship a god of one's own understanding is OK too?

Of course not.

I get dizzy trying to follow your logic. What exactly does "idolatry" mean to you?

Let me ask you this, there is no other God than the one true God. So if Muslims aren't worshiping the one true God of Abraham, then who/what are they worshiping?

 

[WarriorAngel]

Rejection of Christ’s divinity presents a huge problem.

The problem throughout time.

Even today so called christians don't believe it.
Yet call themselves followers.

And still they do worship the One Lord, but not correctly. Not at all.

As for their judgment, I'm not privy so much. But I know they're trying despite the awkward leadership that is so very very far from the truth.

 

[Michie]

Catholics believe in a Triune God, as revealed as as outlined in Catholic doctrine. (See Denzinger, Enchiridion Symbolorum, §800, 851, 1330, 1880. Particularly the Tridentine Profession of Faith in 1862.) God is not adored as God the Father separate from God the Son or Holy Spirit, but in the fullness of His Trinity.

Nostra Aetate itself states that Muslims “do not acknowledge Jesus as God, they revere him as a prophet.” Consequently the statement that Muslims adore the same one God as Catholics appears even more fallacious, or at least in need of fundamental clarification. The Muslim belief in God is not a belief in the Triune God as taught by Christ in the Gospels and by His Church.

‘Islam in itself is not faith’

In recent times, notable members of the hierarchy have pronounced that Catholics and Muslims do not, in fact, worship the same God. In an August 2016 interview, Cardinal Raymond Burke stated that “I don’t believe it’s true that we’re all worshipping the same God, because the God of Islam is a governor.”

He warned that modern ecumenical rhetoric is grounded in a lack of understanding of Islam:

[W]e don’t respect the truth about what Islam teaches and what, for instance, the Catholic Church teaches, and we just make these general statements, we’re all believing in the same God and so forth, and this is not helpful and ultimately it will be the end of Christianity, meaning nothing has changed in the Islamic agenda from prior times in which our ancestors in the faith have had to fight to save Christianity. And why? Because they saw that Islam was attacking sacred truths, including the sacred places of our redemption.

The cardinal’s words are echoed by Bishop Athanasius Schneider in his book length interview Christus Vincit, when he mentions that “Islam in itself is not faith.” The bishop continues by explaining that faith is only found in Christianity and “is applicable only to belief in the Holy Trinity – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit … When someone does not believe in the Holy Trinity, he has no faith but simply natural religion.”

Continued below.

Here's why Pope Francis is wrong to say Muslims and Catholics worship the same God - LifeSite

Pope Francis' ecumenical relations with Muslims has become one of the key aspects of his pontificate, yet in doing so he ignores the fundamental fact that ‘Islam in itself is not faith.’

www.lifesitenews.com

 

[WarriorAngel]

God is not adored as God the Father separate from God the Son or Holy Spirit, but in the fullness of His Trinity.

I have pondered this and the words of Isaiah "A Son born unto you and He shall be called the Father Almighty"
AND
When you see Me, you see the Father.

So to comprehend it I see the Father with His arms outstretched and a full circle of the 3 Almighty and embodying the Three as one circle for eternity even though we see and perceive separation, there is NONE. Zero.

So the Father died for us in the embodiment of Jesus. Because there is zero separation.
And this only enrages evil because the Almighty Himself in the embodiment of Jesus died for us.

And if ever we could should be humbled it in this knowledge.

 

[fide]

Of course not.

Let me ask you this, there is no other God than the one true God. So if Muslims aren't worshiping the one true God of Abraham, then who/what are they worshiping?

Bishop Schneider discusses this problem very well, bringing in the need, for true worship, of Spirit and truth (Jn 4:24):

To state, as the Council did in Lumen Gentium n. 16, that Muslims adore together with us the one God (“nobiscum Deum adorant”), is theologically a highly ambiguous affirmation. That we Catholics adore with the Muslims the one God is not true. We don’t adore with them. In the act of adoration, we always adore the Holy Trinity, we don’t simply adore “the one God” but the Holy Trinity consciously—Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Islam rejects the Holy Trinity. When the Muslims adore, they do not adore on the supernatural level of faith.
So even our act of adoration is radically different. It is essentially different. Precisely because we turn to God and adore Him as children constituted in the ineffable dignity of divine filial adoption, and we do this with supernatural faith. However, the Muslims do not have supernatural faith. I repeat: they have a natural knowledge of God.
The Koran is not the revelation of God, but a kind of anti-revelation of God, because the Koran expressly denies the divine revelation of the Incarnation, of the eternal divinity of the Son of God, of the redemptive sacrifice of Christ on the Cross, and therefore denies the truth of God, the Holy Trinity. This ambiguous affirmation of the Second Vatican Council must be corrected. This affirmation is not infallible and was not meant by the Council to be such. In some way, we can accept the affirmation of Lumen Gentium, but then we must give a long explanation. Of course, when a person sincerely adores God the Creator—as I assume the majority of simple Muslim people do—they adore God with a natural act of worship, based on the natural knowledge of God, the Creator. ....

Schneider, Bishop Athanasius; Montagna, Diane. Christus Vincit: Christ’s Triumph Over the Darkness of the Age (pp. 76-77). Angelico Press. Kindle Edition. (bold and underline added by me)

 

[JosephZ]

Bishop Schneider discusses this problem very well, bringing in the need, for true worship, of Spirit and truth (Jn 4:24):

What Bishop Schneider says is true, but he also acknowledges that Muslims worship the same God.

They adore in a natural act of adoration of the same God, whom we adore in a supernatural act and with supernatural faith in the Holy Trinity. But these are two essentially different acts of adoration: the one is an act of natural knowledge and the other is an act of supernatural faith.

“The acts of adoration, and the acts of knowing on which they are based, are substantially different, though the object is the same in that it is the same God… -- Bishop Athanasius Schneider

Different faith, same God.

 

[WarriorAngel]

What Bishop Schneider says is true, but he also acknowledges that Muslims worship the same God.

They adore in a natural act of adoration of the same God, whom we adore in a supernatural act and with supernatural faith in the Holy Trinity. But these are two essentially different acts of adoration: the one is an act of natural knowledge and the other is an act of supernatural faith.

“The acts of adoration, and the acts of knowing on which they are based, are substantially different, though the object is the same in that it is the same God… -- Bishop Athanasius Schneider

Different faith, same God.

Succinct explanation.

 

[WarriorAngel]

FWIW I used to be down on the whole idea of them believing the same Lord because well, it's not in practice the same Lord [Triune, Savior etc] but in their minds, it is the same... and as above stated, the natural act of adoration.