63 Comments

Jonathan Watson
January 11th, 2010 | 9:35 am

Joe,

What IS the word for God in the Malay language? Do they have any other suitable words that do not refer to pagan deities that are likely to be less confusing?

–Jonathan

Nickp
January 11th, 2010 | 9:35 am

I would suppose that Malaysian Christians do not use “Allah” to refer to Christ. More likely, they use the name to refer to the first person of the Trinity. AFAIK, “Allah” is the Arabic word equivalent to God, and Arabic speaking Christians routinely refer to God that way. Malaysians don’t speak Arabic, but wikipedia says that Malay contains many loanwords from Arabic. if “Allah” has become a standard Malay term for “God,” then its use by Malay Catholics would not represent a claim that the Muslim and Christian God are the same.

aonghus
January 11th, 2010 | 10:06 am

As I understand it, Malay has borrowed the arab word allah for god.

The issue is not passing off Christ as Allah, but being forbidden to use the word for God.

Stephen M. Barr
January 11th, 2010 | 10:10 am

A few points, Joe. First, I cannot see how a Christian, evangelical or otherwise, can possibly say that “those who don’t acknowledge Christ as God are not worshiping the true God.” So Jews are not worshiping the true God? Did St. Paul think this?

Second, most Christians whose native language is Arabic refer to God as Allah, and claim that they have been doing so since a time before Islam existed. From the wikipedia article on Arab Christians: “Like Arab Muslims and Arab Jews, Arab Christians refer to God as Allah, since this is the word in Arabic for ‘God’. The use of the term Allah in Arab Christian churches predates Islam by several centuries.” (‘Allah’ is cognate to “El” in Hebrew.) In the Malay language, some reports say, there is only one word for God, namely “Allah”. (Not surprising since Malays were probably not monotheists before Islam reached them and may not have had a word for God before that.) Therefore, Malay-speaking Christians naturally use that word; whereas those Malaysians who speak Chinese presumably use some Chinese term. What is wrong with that? We are not talking about “political correctness” here. Also, I am not sure that, when Christians are being persecuted by a bunch of fanatics for simply using the word for “God” in their own native tongue, we should sitting back and criticizing them for their political correctness, and saying that we admire their persecutors for being made of sterner stuff and not being sappy PC types like those whose churches are being firebombed. I must confess to being a bit disturbed by this post of yours, Joe.

Zak
January 11th, 2010 | 10:15 am

During Muhammad’s lifetime, a large number of Arabs, particularly in and at the fringes of the Byzantine empire, where Christian. Their word for God was Allah. Deus in Latin obviously meant something different to Cicero or Varro than to Augustine, but Augustine still used the word. Allah is the word used for God in Malaysian; they are not saying that Christ is the same as Allah; I don’t think most Christian’s typically use the name Christ to refer to the triune God.

Andrew
January 11th, 2010 | 10:19 am

You’ve got it entirely wrong.
We’re not using Allah to define God..
We know Christ is God…
But in the communities of indegenious people and sabahan’s and sarawakians as well as indonesians… Allah is used and has been used for as long as we can remember to describe God..
Its the same for orthodox/Catholic communities in syria,egypt,lebanon,malta,irag etc.
Stop generalizing.

Tristian
January 11th, 2010 | 10:19 am

“As an evangelical Christian I believe that those who don’t acknowledge Christ as God are not worshipping the true God.”

Does this mean you believe Jews don’t worship the true God? Just asking.

There’s a deep issue here having to do with what fixes the referent of a term, but I’d argue that “Allah” refers to God even if Muslims get a lot wrong about God, just as a student is still referring to Plato when she says “Plato wrote The Republic” while believing false things about Plato. The reason is names work more like demonstratives than short hand descriptions–they find their object by pointing, so to speak, not by encoding essential properties.

If indeed God made the world, and it’s that God whose reality Muslims are trying to describe when they say “Allah created the world”, then surely they’re talking about God, whatever else they believe. Their name is pointing to the same object, God.

To see this from another angle, go back to your Tracy example. Suppose Tracy is a man. But suppose I saw him helping his child from a distance and heard him called “Tracy” and wrongly assumed I was looking at a woman. Still, if I say “Tracy is a good mother” while pointing to Tracy, I’m surely talking about Tracy–the person I saw helping his child. I just have a false belief about that person.

Stephen
January 11th, 2010 | 10:22 am

I would normally agree with such a contention that “words mean things” except that even many evangelical Christians in Muslim nations use the word “Allah” because of its cultural embeddedness.

Should the New Testament and Septuagint writers have never used “theos?” Should Latin Christians have never used “Deus?” Should North American Christians in an atmosphere of “moralistic therapeutic deism” give up on the word “God?” While the use of “Allah” is not quite the same thing, it’s close enough to consider leaving the question open.

Dominic
January 11th, 2010 | 10:24 am

Hey Joe,

Just to clarify something: the word Allah predates Islam. It is the word which the Arab Christians have used for centuries and centuries. The Malay language, I believe, borrowed the word from Arabic, and this is how God is referred to by Christians in that language. “Allah” is not a word which the Christians in Malaysia are using for “Christ”, but for “God.”

Always enjoy your writing! God bless!

Dominic

Lee
January 11th, 2010 | 10:49 am

I agree that Islam and Christianity have different conceptions about God and that different names for God might be the best way to maintain those distinctions, but the comment misses some crucial historical and cultural background. First, Christians throughout the Malay archipelago, particularly in Indonesia, have used the name Allah for God (the Father) for a very long time. I don’t know about Malaysia in particular, but I would suspect that this is not an innovation but simply a desire to formally allow in print what Malay Christians already use in their daily lives. Second, a Malay speaker would never confuse Allah (God the Father) for Christ. Third, and most fundamentally, think of how many people in the English speaking world who use the word God in a way that is totally inconsistent with the orthodox Christian understanding of God. That doesn’t mean that when a Christian uses the word God, it is devoid of proper meaning. It is in the nature of language and our imperfect understanding that a single word for the Supreme Being will never be able to embody perfect understanding for all people, but a word for the Supreme Being must nevertheless be chosen. Malay Christians want to use Allah because for them that is the word that best embodies the concept that we label God, and it is a tragedy that a court of law makes that impossible.

Frankie
January 11th, 2010 | 11:08 am

For a better understand of the word Allah, the following articles may be helpful:

http://www.krisispraxis.com/archives/2010/01/translating-the-names-of-god/

http://www.krisispraxis.com/archives/2010/01/allah-and-tuhan-in-bible-translation/

Wonders for Oyarsa
January 11th, 2010 | 11:17 am

What about using the word “Deus” for God? That word was the word used to describe Zeus and Apollo – suitable is it? What about the word “God” for God – the word used to describe germanic pagan deities?

Tristian
January 11th, 2010 | 12:42 pm

Joe, your proof moves from matters of straightforward propositional logic to matters that are much more complicated as soon as you introduce words like “know”, “deny” and “worship.” In technical terms, these can create ‘intensional contexts’ where some ordinary logical rules seemingly break down. It would be tedious to get into this, but the upshot is that every move you make depends on an equivocation. Fortunately I think we can see that something has gone badly wrong just by noting that if the argument were valid it would have the result that no one before Jesus ever worshiped the true God, which is surely absurd. Or at least news to Moses.

There is, I think, a much more straightforward, and also charitable, way to look at it. Unless we want to say that every faith aside from Christianity simply got lucky in believing in a divine being at all, we should hold that God is the source and object of whatever is true in those faiths. Hence God is the referent of whatever terms or names they use to refer to the divine, however wrong they may be in the details.

Joe Carter
January 11th, 2010 | 12:56 pm

Tristian Fortunately I think we can see that something has gone badly wrong just by noting that if the argument were valid it would have the result that no one before Jesus ever worshiped the true God, which is surely absurd. Or at least news to Moses.

I don’t think that is true. Consider premise #7:If you deny that Jesus is the begotten son of God then you do not know the Father.

Christianity is a religion based on progressive revelation. God had revealed certain aspects of himself to people prior to the arrival of Christ on earth. But after Christ came, the expectation is that to accept the Father you also have to accep the Son.

The question is whether Abraham, Moses, and the others would have recognized that Jesus is God. Christians believe the answer is yes, while modern Jesus would find it absurd to think that Moses would believe in the divinity of Christ.

Unless we want to say that every faith aside from Christianity simply got lucky in believing in a divine being at all, we should hold that God is the source and object of whatever is true in those faiths. Hence God is the referent of whatever terms or names they use to refer to the divine, however wrong they may be in the details.

The problem with this approach, in my opinion, is that it is predicated on a view of God being an abstract concept rather than a personal being. The referent of the term God has a direct object. If a religious believers denies that the direct object being referred to is what they mean, why is it more charitable to simply assume that they don’t know what they are talking about. (Those who are unfamiliar with the revelation of Christ may indeed be unclear about what is being referred to by the term “God” so they are an exception.)

There is, I think, a much more straightforward, and also charitable, way to look at it. Unless we want to say that every faith aside from Christianity simply got lucky in believing in a divine being at all, we should hold that God is the source and object of whatever is true in those faiths. Hence God is the referent of whatever terms or names they use to refer to the di

Wonders for Oyarsa
January 11th, 2010 | 1:03 pm

Joe, I’ve heard this debate come up from time to time, and it really isn’t based on a very clear headed question. Unless we frame the discussion with intelligent questions, we’re shooting ourselves in the foot from the very beginning.

Frankly, “do Muslims and Christians worship the same God” is almost a “have you stopped beating your wife” question. Neuhaus saw as much in his defense of George W. Bush’s comment on the matter. There’s a sense in which the answer is “yes” and a sense in which the answer is “no”, but really both answers are bad because they imply all sorts of falsehood.

To answer “yes”, you correctly affirm that we are both monotheists. There isn’t a separate “Jewish god”, “muslim god”, “mormon god”, and “Christian god” – there is only one God. In fact, to even hint otherwise is to show that a person doesn’t know what the word “God” means to Christians – for God isn’t the sort of thing you can have more than one of. Also, answering “yes” correctly aknowledges the many things we and muslims agree about the nature of God (as opposed to pantheists or polytheists), and correctly frames our disagreement with them as to the nature of the one God rather than competing champions in some polytheistic survival-of-the-fittest war of the gods.

However, answering “yes” might also imply that someone might worship God rightly while rejecting the revelation of his Son. Which of course one cannot. It implies that all religions are basically doing the same thing in the soul of their adherants, while the reality is that people may suppose themselves to be worshipping God rightly and in fact may be rebelling against him and spurning his grace and love for lies. It might imply that the way Muslims characterize God isn’t substantially different than the way he is revealed in Jesus

So the question really isn’t helpful. Particularly in that the word “worship” implies a certain acceptability of their rituals in brining them before God in holiness and truth, and the word “same God” implies that there are a bunch of said “Gods” that we could list side by side and pick the best one, or actually be talking about the same guy when we thought we were talking about two different guys (that’s not how monotheism works).

Wonders for Oyarsa
January 11th, 2010 | 1:14 pm

And Joe, unless you are deeply knowledgable about the particular situation that these Malasian Christians are in, I think you are being deeply irresponsible with this post. Contextualization questions in Christian mission are often very very tricky, and not easy to judge from another context. I say this as someone who thouroughly enjoies your writing (but also as someone who knows a bit about Christian cross-cultural work in Asa – let the reader understand) – you really need to back off here.

Barry Arrington
January 11th, 2010 | 1:25 pm

Joe, I think you mean “modern Jews.”

Stephen M. Barr
January 11th, 2010 | 1:39 pm

Joe, I have seen it claimed on the internet that East Malaysian Christians have used the word Allah for God for 400 years. The words of “Wonders for Oyarsa” in his 1:14 PM comment are right on target, in my opinion.

Mary
January 11th, 2010 | 1:41 pm

Possibility: Jesus is using “know” in the connaitre sense, not in the savoir sense.

A demon who believes that God is one and trembles knows God in a certain sense, but not one that will save it.

Mary
January 11th, 2010 | 1:43 pm

a useful discussion of what we might mean.

Nickp
January 11th, 2010 | 1:48 pm

Joe,

I don’t speak Malay, but this opinion piece suggests that in Malay translations of the bible, Lord is rendered “Tuhan” and “God” is rendered “Allah.”

http://www.mysinchew.com/node/33523?tid=14

Nickp
January 11th, 2010 | 1:58 pm

I should also add that assuming the author is correct, the piece makes a convincing case that both “Tuhan” and “Allah” are required to successfully translate Scripture and Scriptural concepts.

Tristian
January 11th, 2010 | 2:23 pm

Hi Joe,

I mentioned an equivocation—here it is. There is a sense of “know” according to which you can know A and not know B even if A=B. In technical terms this is a ‘de dicto’ reading, meaning it’s sensitive to which terms you use. So de dicto Oedipus knows Jocastra is the woman he desires, but not that his mother is the woman he desires, and of course all manner of tragic ickiness ensues.

Ok. Using this we can say Moses knows de dicto that God created the world, but he doesn’t know de dicto that Jesus did. This seems exactly right, but there’s no *logical* reason a modern Jew or Muslim can’t know God in the same way just because they deny Jesus is God.

It seems you want to reject this last result by using “know” in a different sense, one in which you *can’t* know A without knowing B if A=B. This is the ‘de re’ reading (which means it isn’t sensitive to which terms get used). If it’s impossible to know God without knowing Jesus is God, then modern Jews and Muslims are plainly out. That’s fine, but to be consistent you have to conclude Moses is out too, which we both agree is pretty dubious theology. It’s better to say they all know Jesus de re because and to the extent they know God. Why? Because Jesus *is* God–to know the one is to know the other, even if you don’t realize it. That’s how knowledge de re works. That Jews and Muslim don’t believe God=Jesus cuts no ice.

What you can’t do is use the de re reading against modern Jews and Muslim by *arguing from* their not knowing Jesus, and the de dicto reading in favor of Moses by *discounting* his not knowing Jesus. That’s cheating.

You also can’t change words and use “accept” or “recognize” to hide the equivocation on “know”. Moses would accept Jesus if he knew de dicto that Jesus was God, yes But so would Muslims and modern Jews. If you respond that they unlike *should* you’ve changed the debate. That’s a point of theology, not logic, as it’s another matter whether all non-Christians are culpable for failing to believe Jesus is God. The reason my strategy is more charitable on this point is because it allows the divide between Christians and Muslims might be one based on an honest disagreement about the facts. It’s not Oedipus’ fault he doesn’t know Jocasta=Mom, and it would be uncharitable to call him a deviant. He was (tragically) wrong about something is all. So too with Muslims, no?

Tristian
January 11th, 2010 | 2:24 pm

Hi Joe,

I mentioned an equivocation—here it is. There is a sense of “know” according to which you can know A and not know B even if A=B. In technical terms this is a ‘de dicto’ reading, meaning it’s sensitive to which terms you use. So de dicto Oedipus knows Jocastra is the woman he desires, but not that his mother is the woman he desires, and of course all manner of tragic ickiness ensues as a result.

Ok. Using this we can say Moses knows de dicto that God created the world, but he doesn’t know de dicto that Jesus did. This seems exactly right, but there’s no *logical* reason a modern Jew or Muslim can’t know God in the same way just because they deny Jesus is God.

It seems you want to reject this last result by using “know” in a different sense, one in which you *can’t* know A without knowing B if A=B. This is the ‘de re’ reading (which means it isn’t sensitive to which terms get used). If it’s impossible to know God without knowing Jesus is God, then modern Jews and Muslims are plainly out. That’s fine, but to be consistent you have to conclude Moses is out too, which we both agree is pretty dubious theology. It’s better to say they all know Jesus de re because and to the extent they know God. Why? Because Jesus *is* God–to know the one is to know the other, even if you don’t realize it. That’s how knowledge de re works. That Jews and Muslim don’t believe God=Jesus cuts no ice.

What you can’t do is use the de re reading against modern Jews and Muslim by *arguing from* their not knowing Jesus, and the de dicto reading in favor of Moses by *discounting* his not knowing Jesus. That’s cheating.

You also can’t change words and use “accept” or “recognize” to hide the equivocation on “know”. Moses would accept Jesus if he knew de dicto that Jesus was God, yes But so would Muslims and modern Jews. If you respond that they unlike *should* you’ve changed the debate. That’s a point of theology, not logic, as it’s another matter whether all non-Christians are culpable for failing to believe Jesus is God. The reason my strategy is more charitable on this point is because it allows the divide between Christians and Muslims might be one based on an honest disagreement about the facts. It’s not Oedipus’ fault he doesn’t know Jocasta=Mom, and it would be uncharitable to call him a deviant. He was (tragically) wrong about something is all. So too with Muslims, no?

Joe Carter
January 11th, 2010 | 2:29 pm

Wonders for Oyarsa To answer “yes”, you correctly affirm that we are both monotheists. There isn’t a separate “Jewish god”, “muslim god”, “mormon god”, and “Christian god” – there is only one God.

This seems to imply that as a referent, the concept of monotheism takes primacy over the doctine of the Trinity. I’m not sure how this could be the case and be consonant with orthodox Christianity.

Like all monotheists, I agree that there is only one God. But the question is that if you reject that God what is it you are claiming to believe in? You cannot separate Jesus out from the Godhead and say that what other religions believe in is the Father. Scripture doesn’t allow us that concession. So what we Christians are saying (whether we are concious of it or not) is that other monotheists are worshipping Jesus whether they realize it or not.

If people from other religions are aware that this is what we mean and yet have no problem with it, then I am fine saying we all worship the “same God.” Essentially they are admitting that, despite what they may claim, they are indeed worshipping the same Triune God that I do. Now I’m not sure how many people would not have a problem with that, but if they don’t then I shouldn’t either. As long as we are clear on what we are referring to when we say “same God.”

Contextualization questions in Christian mission are often very very tricky, and not easy to judge from another context.

No doubt there may be cultural issues at stake that would sway my opinion on this. But I don’t find the “we had the word before the Muslims did” all that convincing. Language is a tool that changes over time. There is no doubt that Islam has co-opted the Arabic word for God. The question is whether they have been so successful adding their own connotations to it that it has ceased to be useful for other religions. I suspect it has, though not being Arabic, I can’t really say.

To me it seems a bit like Paul’s discussion of the “weaker brother.” There is nothing wrong with eating meat, but when it is served in an idolotrous context it becomes something we should avoid. Likewise the use of the term “Allah” is not inherently wrong. But if the term has become so associated with Islam that it’s use hinder the work of the Kingdom of God, then it should be abandoned no matter how much cultural claim anyone may have to its use.

Perhaps the word is not so imbued, and I am wrong. But what are the chances that in a predominately Muslim area of the world that the word can be used in a Chrisitan theological context in a way that does not smuggle in Islamic connotations? We Americans can’t even use the generic term “God” without filling it with Deistic notions that have more to do with the Enlightenment than the Bible. So what is the likelihood that the term “Allah” will be any more neutral?

Wonders for Oyarsa
January 11th, 2010 | 3:06 pm

This seems to imply that as a referent, the concept of monotheism takes primacy over the doctine of the Trinity. I’m not sure how this could be the case and be consonant with orthodox Christianity.

For crying out loud Joe, we are talking about the definition of words not the primacy of doctrines. This is sloppy thinking, brought on by a sloppy question. To a man of your thoughtfulness, I’m surprised the distinction isn’t immediately apparent.

Of course we understand “God” to be trinune. And of course this doctrine is fundamental. But that doesn’t mean that the word “God” by definition means trinity, even though the only God in all existence and beyond IS trinue before all worlds. For example, if I say “God isn’t triune” I am saying something (false) about “God”, not changing the subject.

So what we Christians are saying (whether we are concious of it or not) is that other monotheists are worshipping Jesus whether they realize it or not.

The word “worshipping” isn’t helpful in this context – as I said before. Neither the words “worship” or “same God” clarify the question. All of us can bring glory to God (who is triune, father of Jesus Christ, etc.) despite our false assumptions – whatever you do to the least of these you do to me, etc. So when you say “worship [God]” you might mean:

1. Being engaged in ceremonies which intend to be in the honor of God.
2. Being in a right relation to God, such that he recieves your offering in righteousness.

Did Cain and Abel “worship the same God”? By definition #1 yes, and by definition #2, no. So in a sense Cain is worshipping God, and in a sense he is worshipping the Devil. OK – so we are asking a muddled question.

Perhaps the word is not so imbued, and I am wrong. But what are the chances that in a predominately Muslim area of the world that the word can be used in a Chrisitan theological context in a way that does not smuggle in Islamic connotations? We Americans can’t even use the generic term “God” without filling it with Deistic notions that have more to do with the Enlightenment than the Bible. So what is the likelihood that the term “Allah” will be any more neutral?

Joe, I really think you need to do some reading on missiology. Seriously – this isn’t just a pot shot in the heat of argument (like when people all of a sudden seem suddonly concerned that I need psychological help). When the gospel is brought to a new culture, it has to deal with non neutral words and connotations. This is inevitable, and has happened everywhere the gospel went from the very beginning – not least centered around the word “Theos, Deus, Gott, God, Allah, etc.” But this is the thing about incarnation – being enfleshed means engaging the mess. For example, to say, in the American context, “I don’t believe in God”, however much the word “God” may imply much we don’t believe, is to communicate much more falsehood indeed.

This is the experience of every Muslim convert to Christ that I know. It isn’t “I worshipped some other guy, and now I worship this guy called ‘triune God’”. It’s rather that “I came from hearing lies about God to meeting him in Jesus and knowing the truth”. But their pre-Christian longings for God and even words of thanks and awe toward the creator of the world, are seen as just that. They say of their former days things like “I saw through a glass darkly – now I see him face to face.”

Anyway Joe, I think you are shooting at theological liberalism here, and raining down friendly fire on Christian mission throughout history and today. You need to stand down.

Joe Carter
January 11th, 2010 | 3:08 pm

Tristian I mentioned an equivocation—here it is. There is a sense of “know” according to which you can know A and not know B even if A=B. In technical terms this is a ‘de dicto’ reading, meaning it’s sensitive to which terms you use. So de dicto Oedipus knows Jocastra is the woman he desires, but not that his mother is the woman he desires, and of course all manner of tragic ickiness ensues as a result.

Interesting point. I’m not sure if the analogy works, but if it does it makes my point about us Christians condescending to other religions.

Let’s first look at your example. The problem for Oedipus is unaware that he is unaware that A=B. As a reader of the play, however, I am aware that Jocastra=Oedipus’ Mommie. Imagine if I were to break into the play and say to him, “The woman you are married to is your mom.” Jocastra, recognizing the truth of this statement, also tells him, “Yes, I am Jocastra and I am your mom.” Oedipus, however, decides to reject this claim that they are one and the same person. He is quite confident that his mom does not have the attributes of Jocastra.

To say that Odeipus and I have different conceptions about who his mom is yet are referring to the same woman is clearly wrong. We are both claiming to have knowledge—a justified true belief—yet one of us is mistaken.

Ok. Using this we can say Moses knows de dicto that God created the world, but he doesn’t know de dicto that Jesus did. This seems exactly right, but there’s no *logical* reason a modern Jew or Muslim can’t know God in the same way just because they deny Jesus is God.

The logical reason is because Jesus has revealed himself as God.

Imagine a situation in which for several years you communicate with a woman named Judy by phone and email but you’ve never met in person. One day a woman comes up to you and says, “I’m Judy.” Your response it that she can’t be Judy because she doesn’t fit the conception you had of what she would be. I comes along and say, “This is Judy.” You continue to deny this claim.

Now someone is clearly wrong. Either you or Judy and me are wrong about here identity. To say that we are all referring to the same person means that either you or wrong, or that we are not referring to the same person at all.

Similarly, it may be that monotheists who deny Christ are wrong about his being God (obviously, I think they are). But is it really a linguistic improvement to say that we are referring to the same person when clearly they reject that claim?

That’s fine, but to be consistent you have to conclude Moses is out too, which we both agree is pretty dubious theology.

The question is what a person knows after a paricular revelation. Would Moses recognize Jesus as God if he had been transported to the first century? Yes (since in fact he did). The question is whether Moses could know God and still have rejected Jesus. According to Jesus own words, the answer is no.

Because Jesus *is* God–to know the one is to know the other, even if you don’t realize it. That’s how knowledge de re works.

But that’s precisely my point. If to know one is to know the other, shouldn’t it follow that to reject one is to reject the other?

You also can’t change words and use “accept” or “recognize” to hide the equivocation on “know”. Moses would accept Jesus if he knew de dicto that Jesus was God, yes But so would Muslims and modern Jews.

The question is not whether Moses would recognize Jesus as God before that was revelaed. Moses never explicity rejected Jesus as God, as both Muslims and modern Jews do now. We can’t just say that Jesus’ revelation has no bearing on our understanding of God.

it’s another matter whether all non-Christians are culpable for failing to believe Jesus is God.

That seems to be the position of Jesus, so that is indeed the one I subscribe to.

The reason my strategy is more charitable on this point is because it allows the divide between Christians and Muslims might be one based on an honest disagreement about the facts.

Christians and Muslims can certainly have honest disagreement about certain facts. But the question is whether a Muslim can have an honest disagreement with Jesus. If Jesus were to say (as he did) that he is God, and Muslims say, “No, you’re not” then they obviously do not share the idea about who the true referent of the term “God” actually is.

Joe Carter
January 11th, 2010 | 3:34 pm

Wonders for Oyarsa Of course we understand “God” to be triune. And of course this doctrine is fundamental. But that doesn’t mean that the word “God” by definition means trinity, even though the only God in all existence and beyond IS trine before all worlds. For example, if I say “God isn’t triune” I am saying something (false) about “God”, not changing the subject.</em

You are certainly correct that the term "God" can be used in a generic sense to refer to a vast array of being. But when we use the word "same" (identical with) when referring to God, then it must mean more than simply "no more than one."

Say a Christian, a Muslim, and an ancient Greek go into a bar. They begin to have a dispute about which of them believes in the same God and ask you to resolve the argument. You say that the Muslim and the Christian believe in the same God because they are monotheists but the Greek doesn't because he believes in more than one God.

How would such an answer be justified? I'm not being disputatious; I'm seriously unclear on that point.

(Now if what you are saying is that using the phrase "same God" is so muddy that its worthless, then I'm in complete agreement.)

This is the experience of every Muslim convert to Christ that I know. It isn’t “I worshipped some other guy, and now I worship this guy called ‘triune God’”. It’s rather that “I came from hearing lies about God to meeting him in Jesus and knowing the truth”.

If that’s the case then I withdraw my objection. But what concerns me is stuff like this quote in Time magazine:

“Why are the Christians claiming Allah?” asks businessman Rahim Ismail, 47, his face contorted in rage and disbelief. He shakes his head and raises his voice while waiting for a taxi along Jalan Tun Razak, a main thoroughfare in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia’s capital. “Everybody in the world knows Allah is the Muslim God and belongs to Muslims. I cannot understand why the Christians want to claim Allah as their God,” Rahim says as passersby, mostly Muslims, gather around and nod in agreement.

There does seem to be some deep confusion brought on by the Christian use of the term. Whether missiologists believe that the good that comes from using it outweighs the bad is something I’ll leave to them to decide. But I don’t think it is out of order to express concerns about the issue.

Joe Z
January 11th, 2010 | 4:44 pm

Mr. Carter, Tristian is being very patient with you. There is no quicker way to start making fallacious arguments than to ignore intentional contexts. (I know that Mark Twain wrote Huckleberry Finn; Mark Twain is Samuel Clemens; therefore I know that Samuel Clemens wrote Huckleberry Finn. etc. etc.) Your follow-up to his comments seems to be the following:

Jews before Christ could worship the one true God, but those after Him cannot, because they’ve rejected Christ, and know one knows the Father but through the Son, etc.

So, if a Jew prior to Christ understood that God was the creator of the world who continues to watch over it, and a Jew after Christ has the same understanding, they are not talking about the same God? Huh?

It seems to me the most your argument shows is that after the Incarnation, someone who rejects Christ as God has rejected something true (and important!) about God, has culpably (at least in some cases…) deprived him or herself of some knowledge of God. So there is some important difference between a Jew’s knowledge of God prior to the Incarnation and after. You conveniently diagnose this difference such that they are not referring to one and the same Being. Why does it follow that that person is no longer thinking of or referring to the same being when he or she says “God”? On the face of it, this kind of rejection of God is not at all the same as worshipping something else besides God. Even the demons believe, and tremble. So of course it “makes a difference” that God has revealed Himself in Christ, but what difference, precisely, does it make? You don’t seem to have any argument that the difference is what you want it to be.

Here’s a parallel case, using Frege’s famous “sense and reference” example: I talk about Hesperus, the evening star, and Phosphorus, the morning star, but I don’t know that they are in fact the same thing: Venus. Then someone presents what should be a conclusive argument that they are the same thing. He explains the astronomy to me in detail and makes it clear to any fair and rational person that Hesperus is Phosphorus. I reject it, culpably resisting the truth in some way. The next night I go outside and admire the beauty of Hesperus. Oh wait! No I don’t, by your argument. I’m not even talking about the same thing. Isn’t that clearly the wrong result?

The general point (here I’m echoing Tristian) that should be taken is this, I think: there are difficult questions about names and reference, made particularly difficult when the object in question is God. So it’s entirely too quick to pin on some diagnosis about over-zealous ecumenism or postmodern tendencies to paper over differences, etc. Sure, people can use the mantra, “we worship the same God” to glide over important questions, but the reverse is also true. Pascal, for example, distinguishes the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob from “the God of the philosophers,” and that’s perhaps a rich and important insight, but notice that the rhetorical move implies that the philosophers are no longer even talking about the true God (and making mistakes) – the suggestion is that they are building up an idol. That’s not a charge that should be made lightly by anyone – the point at which one ceases to be making mistakes about, but nonetheless referring to God Himself, and begins building an idol, is not easy to determine! So it’s not always admirable to resist the “ecumenical” approach on naming God – sometimes it’s just a way to define others out of the conversation, so to speak.

Joe Z
January 11th, 2010 | 4:44 pm

Sorry, “intentional” should be “intensional.”

Wonders for Oyarsa
January 11th, 2010 | 4:44 pm

Say a Christian, a Muslim, and an ancient Greek go into a bar. They begin to have a dispute about which of them believes in the same God and ask you to resolve the argument. You say that the Muslim and the Christian believe in the same God because they are monotheists but the Greek doesn’t because he believes in more than one God.

How would such an answer be justified? I’m not being disputatious; I’m seriously unclear on that point.

This may help clarify things. Put quite simply, a god and God are not the same sort of thing. It’s confusing, in that they are the same word, but they are not the same thing. There really ought to be different words.

For the greeks, and any polytheist, a god is a creature like us, only far far more powerful. They might believe any number of things about the gods – they might be immaterial, or they might not – they might be immortal (Greek), they might not (Norse), etc. But we’re talking about sort of the equivalent of superheroes here. And, in a world of superheoroes (or villains), we might find the Greeks and the Romans getting together and having the following conversation:

Deuscharitas: “I just sacrificed a goat to Jove”
Theophilus: “I know what you mean. I sacrificed a white rabbit to Zeus last week.”
Deuscharitas: “Hey, no kidding. What’s Zeus like?”
Theophilus: “Well, he’s the king of the gods, and the driving force behind lighning and thunder.”
Deuscharitas: “You’ve got to be kidding! That’s exactly what Jove is!”
Theophilus: By thunder, I think we’re talking about the same god!

When you begin to talk, however, not about “gods”, but about “God”, it’s a different matter. Not that you can’t think of God like a god, a patron superhero – as many of the early Israelites (like Rachel with her household gods) no doubt thought of him. For God is certainly greater than us, and we relate to him personally, as we might with a god. But the ontologically accurate analogy between “the gods” in Christianity would be “the saints” or “the angels”. When we talk not of “a being” so much as “the uncreated root of all being”, we are changing categories. Suddonly, we’re talking about something that there cannot be, by the very definition of what we are discussing, two of. We are talking about something akin to truth, goodness, and beauty itself, as opposed to something that might reflect these things. God is love. He isn’t just a being who happens to be loving, but is love itself. God is light and life. In him there is no darkness. Etc.

When polytheists talk, they might say “well your god is like that, but mine is different.” But Christians can’t talk like that, except perhaps as analogy. When a pantheist says “all is God”, the right response isn’t “maybe yours is, but mine isn’t” (that’s thinking like a polythesit), but rather “God may fill all things, but all is certainly not God”. But we recognize at least that both of us are trying to talk about God and not our favorite superhero.

Put another way – there is no “God of Mohammed” but God. There is one God, and father, of all. Now, we might say that the “lord of Mohammed” is the father of lies, and say that the worship he mandates in fact serves the devil and dishonors God. He would perhaps say the same about us, and cut off our heads. But even Mohammed could rightly tell the difference between “people of the book” who at least worshipped one God, and the pagans who did not.

Now, in this regard, our worshipping “the same God” need say we are close together, or even say that Muslims are closer to the truth. A pagan polytheist might be closer to the truth when he ponders myths of the dying god. No one need be selling the shop to liberalism by aknowledging this.

Wonders for Oyarsa
January 11th, 2010 | 4:46 pm

The first sentence of the last paragraph should read “need NOT say”

Joe Carter
January 11th, 2010 | 5:36 pm

Joe Z Jews before Christ could worship the one true God, but those after Him cannot, because they’ve rejected Christ, and know one knows the Father but through the Son, etc. So, if a Jew prior to Christ understood that God was the creator of the world who continues to watch over it, and a Jew after Christ has the same understanding, they are not talking about the same God? Huh?

I’m merely following the logic laid out by Jesus. In John 8:19 it says: “[The Pharisees] said to him therefore, “Where is your Father?” Jesus answered, “You know neither me nor my Father. If you knew me, you would know my Father also.”

Let’s break down this claim:

1. The Pharisees do not know God the Father (Yahweh)
2. The Pharisees do not know Jesus
3. If the Pharisees had known Jesus, they would have known God the Father (Yahweh)

The Pharisees understood that God was the creator of the world who continues to watch over it. Yet Jesus said they did not know him. What do you think he meant? I take it to mean that if you don’t know Jesus than your claim to know God is faulty.

It seems to me the most your argument shows is that after the Incarnation, someone who rejects Christ as God has rejected something true (and important!) about God, has culpably (at least in some cases…) deprived him or herself of some knowledge of God.

I would go farther than saying that someone who rejects Christ as God has rejected something true and important. I would say they are rejecting God Himself. (They aren’t kidding when they say we evangelicals are Christiocentric. )

How do we square these two claims:

1. I know God.
2. I know that Jesus is not God.

From a Christian perspective, what is it they know if they do not know that Jesus is God? It is not like God is three different beings and they can know one being and reject the other. There is only one God. If you reject his self-revelation, what is it you are claiming to know and accept?

Why does it follow that that person is no longer thinking of or referring to the same being when he or she says “God”?

My obvious answer is because that is what God himself (in the form of Jesus) said was the case.

On the face of it, this kind of rejection of God is not at all the same as worshipping something else besides God.

How exactly do you reject God and worship at the same time? I’m not sure how that is possible?

You don’t seem to have any argument that the difference is what you want it to be.

My argument is essentially an argument from authority: The ultimate authority said it’s true so I believe it. ; )

I’m not even talking about the same thing. Isn’t that clearly the wrong result?

As with Trisitian’s example, I think yours is essentially making the case I was saying before. If its true that we are talking about the same being, then we are saying that we are correct in our understanding of God and they are not only ignorant about God but are worshipping what they claim to reject.

Essentially Christians are saying one of two things:

1. Because you have rejected God’s self-revelations, the God that you are referring to doesn’t exist. It is a figment of your imagination.
2. Although you claim to have rejected God’s self-revelations, you are—as Paul told the Greeks—”ignorantly worshipping” the one true God. Despite your protest, you do indeed worship Christ.

Now to me, #1 isn’t very flattering but it is respectful of a person’s beliefs. Position
#2 smacks of condescension and is saying that they can’t even believe what they say they believe.

Wonders for Oyarsa Put another way – there is no “God of Mohammed” but God. There is one God, and father, of all. Now, we might say that the “lord of Mohammed” is the father of lies, and say that the worship he mandates in fact serves the devil and dishonors God.

Here is where I get confused: If the “lord of Mohammed” is the “father of lies” and he is the same God as the God we worship, we are saying that our God is also the “father of lies.” Either God is the same God or he is not the same.

Saying that he has different attributes than the “lord of Mohammed” is saying that we are not talking about the same being at all (in fact, we are talking about a being that does not really exist).

As you said yourself, “When you begin to talk, however, not about “gods”, but about “God”, it’s a different matter.” If we are saying that the “lord of Mohammed” is the “father of lies” then we are saying that Allah refers to a God, not “God.”

Barry Arrington
January 11th, 2010 | 5:56 pm

Here is the problem with this entire debate: Words do not have a fixed meaning either spatially or temporally. As Wittgenstein said, “meaning is usage” and usage may vary from time to time and place to place. In other words, the same word may have very different meanings depending on where and when it is used. Therefore, both sides are right and both sides are wrong. In certain times and in certain places, the word “Allah” may well convey the idea of “the God of the Bible.” We will call that “Case One.” And in other places and times the word “Allah” may be so infused with Islamic notions, that it can no longer convey the idea “the God of the Bible.” We’ll call that “Case Two.”

Therefore, it seems to me that fixed, bright line rules are not appropriate. This issue calls for the application of judgment, and as in all such instances, people acting reasonably and in good faith may disagree. The issue is whether in modern Malaysia, the word “Allah” falls within Case One or Case Two, and only experts in Malaysian languages are qualified to opine on this issue. I, for one, would trust the opinion of the folks down at Wycliffe Bible Translators on this issue.

Joe Z
January 11th, 2010 | 7:06 pm

Joe Carter – I muddled some of that stuff about rejecting and worshipping. You were right to be befuddled there. What I was trying to say was that even those who reject God in the starkest way – demons – are not thereby prevented from knowing who the true God is. (Of course they don’t worship God – I shouldn’t have continued to talk about worship there.)

But anyway, I think you get down to brass tacks here:
Essentially Christians are saying one of two things:

1. Because you have rejected God’s self-revelations, the God that you are referring to doesn’t exist. It is a figment of your imagination.
2. Although you claim to have rejected God’s self-revelations, you are—as Paul told the Greeks—”ignorantly worshipping” the one true God. Despite your protest, you do indeed worship Christ.

Now to me, #1 isn’t very flattering but it is respectful of a person’s beliefs. Position
#2 smacks of condescension and is saying that they can’t even believe what they say they believe.

(Well, condescension might not be so bad if the alternative is imputing idolatry to all Jews after Christ… It might cast a better light on this to note that Jesus Himself said that they knew not what they were doing. Also, #1 is condescending in just the same sense as #2 – see end of my reply below.)

But that aside – right there, in number two, it seems to me that you make the crucial mistake again. The fact that they worship God, plus the fact that Christ is God, doesn’t yield the conclusion that they worship Christ.

Parallel: The fact that I acknowledge Hesperus to be Venus, plus the fact that Hesperus is Phosphorus, doesn’t yield the conclusion that I acknowledge Phosphorus to be Venus.

You can’t substitute based on identity into a context governed by a term like “know,” “acknowledge,” etc.

Am I correct in reading your argument in number 2? It looks to me that you are proceeding thus:

‘You (the Jewish interlocutor) worship God.
But Christ is God.
Therefore (despite claims to the contrary), you worship Christ.’

I don’t think that follows, because I think we have an intensional context here as well. But correct me if that’s not the kind of argument you had in mind.

As for this:

From a Christian perspective, what is it they know if they do not know that Jesus is God? It is not like God is three different beings and they can know one being and reject the other. There is only one God. If you reject his self-revelation, what is it you are claiming to know and accept?

I don’t see the force of the question at all. One obvious component of the answer, to put it shortly, is the preambles of faith. Try these: God is the creator of the universe; God is omnipotent; God is one; God is omniscient. Or try things revealed to the Israelites: God is the author of the Covenant; God is the one who led us out of Egypt; God is the one who gave us the commandments; God is the one who gave us the Promised Land. Those things are all true, right? And Jews can and do still believe them, right?

As for the argument from authority: you say that Christ is saying that the Pharisees’ knowledge of God is “faulty.” Well, yes – of course it’s faulty. It’s seriously deficient, and deficient in the crucial respect of how God will manifest Himself (and probably deficient in other ways as well). But knowledge admits of degrees, and your knowledge of something can be pretty darn faulty without it following that you are no longer even talking about that thing at all. I think the knots that your reading gets you into can be avoided if you admit that a statement like “You do not know my Father” doesn’t necessarily have to be taken in an absolute sense – i.e. that they lack knowledge of the Father so completely that they aren’t even naming Him when they try to talk about him. Notice that in the context of knowing persons, we say this all the time. “I don’t know person X” doesn’t always mean that we don’t know who X is, still less that we are incapable of successfully referring to X. In many situations we explicitly distinguish: “I know who he is, but I don’t know him.”

(Notice also that endorsing your #1 has to involve “condescension” as well – there’s no avoiding it, if you’re correct. As long as you make the identity substitutions across intensional contexts, it works both ways. You characterized only #2 as condescending, but #1 has the same character: they think they are referring to God, but they’re not. They think they believe in the one true God, but they don’t. They think they are still worshipping the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, but they’re not. Just as in #2, where they think they aren’t worshipping Christ, but they are, on your account. The condescension is not a feature of #2 as such, or of my position, but rather an artifact of your neglect of intensional context. Thus: He thinks he knows that Mark Twain wrote Huck Finn, but he really doesn’t, because he doesn’t know that SC wrote it, and SC is MT, etc. That’s where the “condescension” comes from.)

Joe Z
January 11th, 2010 | 7:18 pm

A little follow up on the Gospel text you’re relying on, Mr. Carter. Consider the parable of the pharisee and the publican. The Pharisee depicted in the parable is, I think, an example of someone who could be said not to know the Father. If he had known the Father, his prayer would have been much different. But the point of the parable, I take it, is not that they were praying to different things – one to God, and one to a figment of his imagination. Not that my interpretation is authoritative, but maybe that helps show how one can take your text seriously without admitting that the Pharisee’s have absolutely no knowledge of God, such that they aren’t even talking about God when they try to.

Wonders for Oyarsa
January 11th, 2010 | 7:39 pm

Here is where I get confused: If the “lord of Mohammed” is the “father of lies” and he is the same God as the God we worship, we are saying that our God is also the “father of lies.” Either God is the same God or he is not the same.

Saying that he has different attributes than the “lord of Mohammed” is saying that we are not talking about the same being at all (in fact, we are talking about a being that does not really exist).

As you said yourself, “When you begin to talk, however, not about “gods”, but about “God”, it’s a different matter.” If we are saying that the “lord of Mohammed” is the “father of lies” then we are saying that Allah refers to a God, not “God.”

One serves the father of lies BY worshipping God in a manner that defies his true nature. When you suppose God to underwrite your own self-righteous or violent ambitions, you show yourself to be a servant of the devil. But we are still talking about God.

Your example from Jesus falls flat, because of the obvious retort that the pharasees are of coruse, technically, God’s children – he is the father of all. But they are being unfaithful to him and their service to God does not serve his purposes, but that of the devil. “Children of the devil” is not a technical term about who is their actual ontological father (the devil creates nothing), but rather a rhetorical slam about whose purposes they are serving in the world by opposing Jesus. But Jesus and the Pharasees are still talking about God in their arguments.

Joe, you’re not following the sustained argument – you’re playing rhetorical games and proof texting. I’m beginning to lose patience with this obtusenss.

california episcopalian
January 11th, 2010 | 7:56 pm

How about trusting the Malaysian Christians to make that decision? Oh, I guess they already did.

Ranger
January 11th, 2010 | 8:08 pm

As others have said, you are incorrect in your understanding of Bahasa Malaysia. Our church has primarily English and Chinese speakers (although every member learned Bahasa Malaysia in school and speaks it daily). I asked around and every one agreed that the only word in BM that can be translated as “God” is “Allah.”

The origins of Bahasa Malaysia come from a mixture of local languages with the languages of the Arab spice traders in the 14th-15th centuries. Thus it’s not surprising that a formerly animistic culture when confronted with Muslim culture and needed a word for “God” adopted Allah. As Christian missionaries came just after this (15th century), they used “Allah” as well.

“Tuhan” means Lord. Thus, as others have said, you run into all types of issues when you try to translate any reference to Elohim, Theos, etc. as “Lord.”

In English we use “God” to speak of the Trinity, but it’s origins are Anglo-Saxon pagan, or possibly Persian/Hindu (khodd, khodda). In popular Chinese usage, we always say “Shen” which is also the common word for any of the Chinese religious deities.

Thus, I see nothing wrong with people being able to use Allah (a word that was in usage long before Islam) as the common name of God in their native language. We have much less generic Christianity here, despite being much more diversity than the USA. A lot goes into becoming a Christian here, so there is much less “we all worship the same god” junk that has been imported from the West. Thus, I doubt there is any confusion between the Triune God and Allah, when someone from a Muslim background, who is in effect standing against their society, culture and family by even attending a Christian church.

Instead of bickering over this further, please spend your time praying for our Christian families here. It’s very tense. Nobodies even talking about the many, many cars that had Christian logos or something Christian hanging from the rearview mirror that have had their windows smashed in, or about how countless homes have had the crosses above their doors either desecrated or stolen. The church that was attacked by black paint on its walls and stained glass a few days ago, is a church where I have preached in the past and houses the school where my son goes. Please pray for peace.

Ranger
January 11th, 2010 | 8:23 pm

This is just as political as it is religious. Fifty years ago, this wouldn’t have been a problem in Malaysia, but with the separation of Singapore which gave the Malay people a majority in government, there has been a long movement to re-identify being Malaysian with being Muslim. There is no way that a Malay child would be allowed in my home today, because I eat pork, have Scriptures hanging on the walls, etc. Twenty years ago even this wouldn’t have been a problem.

Some Malays see the existence of Bahasa Malaysia services as an attempt at opening doors to convert Malays to Christianity (which is “constitutional” in principle, but against the law in reality). Most churches have Mandarin Chinese/English services and various Chinese dialects. Some have Tamil, Burmese or Bangladeshi as they reach out to the Indian community. Outside of KL, Penang and Johor Bahru (the three largest cities), having Bahasa Malaysia services isn’t that common. In the smaller cities, even having such a service is seen as an afront to the Islamic community.

I hope that gives a better context to the situation.

Joe Carter
January 11th, 2010 | 8:53 pm

Wonders for Oyarsa But Jesus and the Pharasees are still talking about God in their arguments. Joe, you’re not following the sustained argument – you’re playing rhetorical games and proof texting.

I don’t suspect we’ll make much progress in continuing this so I’ll let it drop. I’m fairly stuck on the idea that when Jesus claimed “You know neither me nor my Father” that he meant they didn’t know the Father, rather than that they did know the Father just . . . well, I sort of lose the line of reasoning after that.

Wonders for Oyarsa
January 11th, 2010 | 9:46 pm

Well gosh, Joe – way to demolish all that silly philosophical human reason with the simple truth of the Bible! But keep reading – it gets even more intense than just the Pharasees:

“O righteous Father, even though the world does not know you, I know you.”

Get that? The whole world doesn’t know him!But wait, read on to Romans:

“For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened.”

What? Joe, I too am confused. Here Romans says they DO know him! But then later on he says this:

“For I bear them witness that they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge.”

Now they are zealous for God (not the devil, mind you), but they DON’T have knowledge. It’s almost like the scriptures are using the same words in a different sense or something.

But no, let’s just take abstractize the first quote, and ignore the others. That way we can trumpet our childlike faith in scripture in the face of all that silly reason…at least as long as no one brings any of the others up.

Come on, Joe – you’re better than this – way better. Why not just admit you were wrong on this one? It’s one miss out of a great many hits.

Joe Carter
January 11th, 2010 | 10:28 pm

Well gosh, Joe – way to demolish all that silly philosophical human reason with the simple truth of the Bible!

You still have not explained how Jesus did not mean what he said but meant something completely different. I’m open to being shown through careful exegesis that I am wrong about the passage I quoted. But you haven’t done that. Instead, you’ve simply pretended that its obvious Jesus couldn’t have really meant what he said. Well, I don’t think its so obvious.

But no, let’s just take abstractize the first quote, and ignore the others.

Alright, I’m all ears. If you want to explain what all three quotes mean in their context and how they support your point I’m open to hearing it.

That way we can trumpet our childlike faith in scripture in the face of all that silly reason…at least as long as no one brings any of the others up.

Obviously, I should have a more “adult faith” in scripture, right? One that determines what Jesus meant not by what he said, but what we know he really meant (because he could really mean what he actually said). ; )

Come on, Joe – you’re better than this – way better. Why not just admit you were wrong on this one? It’s one miss out of a great many hits.

I would admit I was wrong if I were, you know, wrong. But the claim that Muslims and Christians worship the “same” God (but pagans worship a different “god”) despite having antithetical conceptions of God, that we can reject God and yet accept the “same” God, and that Jesus didn’t really mean what he said, but actually meant the exact opposite, is not something I can agree with.

I guess I just have a childlike faith in the law of non-contradiction. ; )

arah
January 11th, 2010 | 11:17 pm

My dear Joe Carter

Allah is the Almighty Creator of this world, he is not a person like you and me or Jesus who rest, sleep and fight.

The Malaysian are trying to the tell the Christian, they are confused, the bible contradict and they disobey Jesus the messenger.

WHO IS ALLAAH?

It is a known fact that every language has one or more terms that are used in reference to God and sometimes to lesser deities. This is not
the case with the Arabic term Allaah. Allaah is the personal name of the one true God. Nothing else can be called Allaah. The term has no
plural or gender. This shows its uniqueness when compared with the word god which can be made plural, gods, or feminine, goddess. It is
interesting to note that Allaah is the proper name of God in Aramaic, the language of Jesus and a sister language of Arabic.

To a Muslim, Allaah is the Almighty, Creator and Sustainer of the universe, Who is similar to nothing and nothing is comparable to Him.
The prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) was asked by his contemporaries about Allaah the Almighty; the answer came directly
from God Himself in the form of a short chapter of the Qur’an, which is considered the essence of the unity or the motto of monotheism.

This is chapter 112 which reads:
In the name of Allaah, the Merciful, the Compassionate.
Say (O Muhammad (peace be upon him)): “He is Allâh, (the) One. Allâh-us-Samad (The Self-Sufficient Master, Whom all creatures need, He
neither eats nor drinks). He begets not, nor was He begotten; And there is none co-equal or comparable unto Him”. (Qur’an: Chapter #
114)

Some non-Muslims allege that God in Islam is a stern and cruel God.
He is not loving and kind. Nothing can be farther from truth than this allegation. It is enough to know that, with the exception of one,
each of the 114 chapters of the Qur’an begins with the verse: “In the name of Allaah, the Merciful, the Compassionate.” In one of the sayings of prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) we are told that “Allaah is more loving
and kinder than a mother to her dear child.”
But Allaah is also Just. Hence evildoers and sinners must have their share of punishment and as for the virtuous, His bounties and favors.
Actually, God’s attribute of Mercy has full manifestation in His attribute of Justice. People suffering throughout their lives for His
sake and people oppressing and exploiting other people all their lives should not receive similar treatment from their Lord. Expecting
similar treatment for them will amount to negating the very belief in the accountability of man in the Hereafter and thereby negating all
the incentives for a moral and virtuous life in this world. The following Qur’anic verses are very clear and straightforward in this respect:

“Verily, for the righteous are gardens of delight, in the presence of their Lord. So shall We treat the Muslims (believers, righteous) like the criminals? (disbelivers, eveildoers) What is the matter with you?
How do you judge?” (Qur’an 68:34-36)
Islam rejects characterizing God in any human form or depicting Him as favoring certain individuals or nations on the basis of wealth, power or race. He created the human beings as equals. They may distinguish themselves and get His favor through virtue and piety only.
The concepts that God rested on the seventh day of creation, that God wrestled with one of His soldiers, that God is an envious plotter
against mankind, or that God is incarnate in any human being are considered blasphemy from the Islamic point of view.

The unique usage of the term Allaah as a personal name of God is a reflection of Islam’s emphasis on the purity of the belief in God
which is the essence of the message of all God’s messengers. Because of this, Islam considers associating any deity or personality with God as a deadly sin which God will never forgive, despite the fact He may forgive all other sins. Note that what is meant above applies ONLY to those people who die in
a state wherein they are associating others with God. The repentance of those who yet live is acceptable to God if He wills. The Creator must be of a different nature from the things created
because if He is of the same nature as they are, He will be temporal and will therefore need a maker. It follows that nothing is like Him.
If the maker is not temporal, then He must be eternal. But if He is eternal,He cannot be caused, and if nothing outside Him causes Him to continue to exist, which means that He must be self-sufficient. And if He does not depend on anything for the continuance of His own existence, then this existence can have no end. The Creator is therefore eternal and
everlasting: “He is the First and the Last.”
He is Self-Sufficient or Self-Subsistent or, to use a Qur’anic term,Al-Qayyuum. The Creator does not create only in the sense of bringing
things into being, He also preserves them and takes them out of existence and is the ultimate cause of whatever happens to them.
“Allaah is the Creator of everything. He is the guardian over everything. Unto Him belong the keys of the heavens and the earth.” (Qur’an 39:62-63)
“And there isn’t a creature that crawls on earth, except that upon Allaah is its provision. He knows its place of dwelling and place of
storage. All is in a clear register.” (Qur’an 11:6)

ALLAAH’S ATTRIBUTES:
If the Creator is Eternal and Everlasting, then His attributes must also be eternal and everlasting. If this is so, then His attributes
are absolute. Can there be more than one Creator with such absolute attributes? Can there be for example, two absolutely powerful
Creators? A moment’s thought shows that this is not feasible.

The Qur’an summarizes this argument in the following verses: “No son (or offspring or children) did Allâh beget, nor is there any ilâh
(god) along with Him; (if there had been many gods), behold, each god would have taken away what he had created, and some would have tried to overcome others! Glorified be Allâh above all that they attribute to Him!”
(Qur’an 23:91)
“Had there been therein (in the heavens and the earth) gods besides Allâh, then verily both would have been ruined. Glorified be Allâh,
the Lord of the Throne, (High is He) above what they attribute to Him!” (Qur’an 21:22)

THE ONENESS OF ALLAAH:
The Qur’an reminds us of the falsity of all alleged gods. To the worshippers of man-made objects, it asks: “Do you worship what you
have carved yourself?” (Qur’an 37:95)
Say (O Muhammad SAW): “Who is the Lord of the heavens and the earth?”
Say: “(It is) Allâh.” Say: “Have you then taken (for worship) Auliyâ’ (protectors, etc.) other than Him, such as have no power
either for benefit or for harm to themselves?”

Say: “Is the blind equal to the one who sees? Or darkness equal to light? Or do they
assign to Allâh partners who created the like of His creation, so that the creation (which they made and His creation) seemed alike to
them.”
Say: “Allâh is the Creator of all things, He is the One, the Irresistible.” (Qur’an 13:16)

THE BELIEVER’S ATTITUDE:
In order to be a Muslim, i.e., to surrender oneself to Allaah, it is necessary to believe in the oneness of Allaah, in the sense of Him
being the only Creator, Preserver, Nourisher, etc. But this belief – later on called “Tawheed Ar-Rububiyyah” – is not enough. Many of the
idolaters knew and believed that only the Supreme God could do all this, but that was not enough to make them Muslims. To tawheed ar-
rububiyyah one must add tawheed al’uluhiyyah,
i.e., one acknowledges the fact that Allaah alone deserves to be worshipped, and thus abstains from worshipping any other deity or
thing or being.

Having achieved this knowledge of the one true God, man should constantly have faith in Him, and should allow nothing to induce him to deny the truth. When correct faith enters a person’s heart, it causes certain mental states which result in certain actions. Taken together, these mental states and actions are the proof for the true faith. Foremost among those mental states is the feeling of gratitude towards Allaah which
could be said to be the essence of ‘ebadah’ (worship).

The feeling of gratitude is so important that a non-believer is called ‘kafir’ which means ‘one who denies a truth’ and also ‘one who is
ungrateful.’

A believer loves, and is grateful to Allaah for the bounties He bestows upon him, but being aware of the fact that his good deeds,
whether mental or physical, are far from being proportional to divine favors, he is always anxious lest Allaah should punish him, here or
in the Hereafter. He, therefore, fears Him, surrenders himself to Him and serves Him with great humility. One cannot be in such a mental state without being almost all the time mindful of Allaah. Remembering Allaah is thus the life force of faith, without which it fades and ithers away.

The Qur’an promotes this feeling of gratitude by repeating the attributes of Allaah (God) very frequently. We find most of these attributes mentioned together in the following verses of the Qur’an:

“He is Allâh, than Whom there is Lâ ilâha illa Huwa (none has the right to be worshipped but He) the All-Knower of the unseen and the
seen. He is the Most Beneficent, the Most Merciful. He is Allâh than Whom there is Lâ ilâha illa Huwa (none has the right to be worshipped but He) the King, the Holy, the One Free from all defects, the Giver of security, the Watcher over His creatures, the All-Mighty, the
Compeller, the Supreme. Glory be to Allâh! (High is He) above all that they associate as partners with Him. He is Allâh, the Creator, the
Inventor of all things, the Bestower of forms. To Him belong the Best Names. All that is in the heavens and the earth glorify Him. And He
is the All-Mighty, the All-Wise. (Qur’an 59:22-24)

“Allâh! Lâ ilâha illa Huwa (none has the right to be worshipped but He), the Ever Living, the One Who sustains and protects all that exists. Neither slumber, nor sleep overtake Him. To Him belongs whatever is in the heavens and whatever is on earth. Who is he that
can intercede with Him except with His Permission? He knows what happens to them (His creatures) in this world, and what will happen to them in the Hereafter. And they will never compass anything of His Knowledge except that which He wills. His Kursî extends over the heavens and the earth, and He feels no fatigue in guarding and preserving them. And He is the Most High, the Most Great. [This Verse is called Ayat-ul-Kursî.] ” (Qur’an 2:255)

“O people of the Scripture (Jews and Christians)! Do not exceed the limits in your religion, nor say of Allâh aught but the truth. The Messiah ‘Iesa (Jesus), son of Maryam (Mary), was (no more than) a Messenger of Allâh and His Word, (“Be!” – and he was) which He bestowed on Maryam (Mary) and a spirit (Rûh) created by Him; so believe in Allâh and His Messengers.

Say not: “Three (trinity)!” Cease! (it is) better for you. For Allâh is (the only) One Ilâh (God), Glory be to Him (Far Exalted is He) above having a son. To Him belongs all that is in the heavens and all that is in the earth. And Allâh is All Sufficient as a Disposer of affairs.” (Qur’an 4:171).

May Allah, the Almighty God the Creator guide us the truth

AMEEN

Stephen M. Barr
January 12th, 2010 | 12:19 am

Two points about the question of whether Jews worship the same God as Christians,

(a) It seems contrary to everything that First Things stands for and has always stood for to say that they don’t. It is to say that modern Jews are essentially pagans and have forfeited their right even to be called Jews. This takes supercessionism to an absurd length.

(b) It seems to me (at best!) sophistical to say that Jews do not worship God. I would point out the passage John 4:22. “You [Samaritans] do not know what you worship; we worship what we know.” This passage implies that a person can worship God without knowing Him, or at least knowing Him as he should. Christ did not say that the Samaritans worshiped a god other than the God Jews worshiped. Rather, what he said implies that they worshiped the same God, but without knowing him. Thus, when Jesus said that the Pharisees did not know the Father, it does not necessarily imply that the Pharisees were worshiping some other god. They worshiped the Father, but did not know the Father.

Frankly, I think this whole subject is fraught with spiritual danger and best left alone.

As for the questions about the situation in Malaysia, the letters from Ranger and Anthony have shown that our discussions here are being read in Malaysia and other Muslim countries where our Christian brothers are suffering persecution. Instead of offering them OUR prayers, we have been discussing how THEY should pray. These brave Christians, who live in a place where real martyrdom is a daily possibility, have much more to teach us than we to teach them. Let us join their prayers, and not sit around analyzing them.

Dear Anthony and Ranger and any Christian in Malaysia or Indonesia who may be reading this, be assured that everyone associated with First Things IS praying for you. And for those of my fellow Catholics who are reading this, wherever you may be, let us all remember these brothers of ours at Holy Mass this Sunday and every Sunday. And let us not forget to pray also for the wretched souls of their persecutors.

Wonders for Oyarsa
January 12th, 2010 | 12:44 am

You’re not playing by the rules of reasonable discussion here, Joe. You’re actually starting to remind me of Marc Thiessen’s rhetorical approach against you a few threads back.

I said that there is a sense in which the Jews were God’s children, and a sense in which they were the devil’s children. This isn’t something I can see any way to rationally disagree with me about. The devil didn’t create them, right? Agree? They are sons of Adam, the son of God, right? So, they are ontologically God’s children (made, not begotten), right? You believe God is the father of all, right?

Therefore Jesus doesn’t mean that the Pharasees are Satan’s children in the same sense that we are all God’s children, right? What does the word “father” mean, in this context then? Not biological father, right? Not creator, right? The devil is their father, according to Jesus, in the sense that they do the things the devil does, just like, if they were Abraham’s children (which they literally are, in the sense that they are biologically descendent from him) they would do the things Abraham did, rather than try to kill Jesus. He meant that their actions in rejecting him who stood before them with signs and wonders, who came from God, are in imitation of the devil. They are children of the devil, because, though they think they are doing a service to God (as Jesus says later in John), they do the devil’s work by killing and lying – like the original murderer and the father of lies. Their deeds are evil, and so they reject the true light from shining in their dark hearts.

And the above is a wishy washy attempt to say Jesus isn’t saying what he’s saying? No, on the contrary, it’s an attempt to take the Bible seriously enough to consider what the words actually mean in the context of the sustained story, as well as in the greater picture the Bible is painting, rather than just chucking the verses at some Muslim kid thanking God for a sunset to show that he’s actually thanking the Devil for the sunset.

Joe Z
January 12th, 2010 | 2:43 am

Thank you Stephen Barr and Wonders for Oyarsa. Mr. Carter, I can’t express enough how disappointed I am in the line of argument that fixes a reading of one passage from the Gospels, declines to consider countertexts adequately (and there is a clear one at John 4:22, as Barr points out), and then rejects other interpretations as playing fast and loose with “what Jesus actually said.” Since when does a literal interpretation of Scripture mean a piecemeal approach and neglect of context?

Domininc
January 12th, 2010 | 3:50 am

“The term Allah has become so bound up with Islamic doctrinal distinctions that it’s hard to imagine that an Arab Christian can use when speaking to Muslims without their being confusion.”
And yet do they not still use it? At what point should Christians in Arabic-speaking countries have got together and suddenly decided to change their vocabulary?

And isn’t jettisoning a word because it carries political baggage what we call political correctness?

“Obviously, those Christians who have been using the term for centuries and have proven that it causes no confusion should not abandon the term. But it is clear that in Malaysia, the use of the word is causing theological confusion.”
Or perhaps it’s a political move to prove the ruling party’s (UMNO’s) Islamic credentials, some sort of religious outbidding against their rivals, the Islamist PAS, who claim that UMNO’s stance on Islam is too wishy washy?
Why the sudden confusion? Isn’t it absurd to fear that such “confusion” would lead to accidental conversion, as some claim?

“Malaysians are not using a term for God that is in their native tongue, so in this example the point is inapplicable.”
They are Joe.

Let me give you the Malay version of the Hail Mary. It is prayed like this both in Malaysia and Indonesia.

Salam Maria, penuh rahmat, Tuhan serta mu, Terpujilah engkau diantara wanita dan terpujilah buah tubuh mu Yesus.

Santa Maria, Bunda Allah, Doakanlah kami yang berdosa ini s’karang dan sewaktu kami mati. Amin.

Tuhan serta mu – The Lord is with Thee
Santa Maria, Bunda Allah – Holy Mary, Mother of God.

See how it’s used?

Should Malaysian Christians call God “Allah”? | Cranach: The Blog of Veith
January 12th, 2010 | 4:53 am

[...] Joe Carter asks, but why would Christians want to call the Triune God “Allah”? Yes, it’s the Arabic word for “God,” but he argues that since the term is used for a name, and the deities that Christians and Muslims worship are so different, the same name should not be used for both. The Malaysians do have a more generic term they could use. Read Joe’s argument at A God By Any Other Name . . . » First Thoughts | A First Things Blog. [...]

David Gray
January 12th, 2010 | 12:07 pm

>It seems contrary to everything that First Things stands for and has always stood for to say that they don’t.

That isn’t very powerful.

But it does explain why I let my subscription to FT lapse.

robert moody
January 12th, 2010 | 6:00 pm

Good for you David Gray. Joe Carter has demonstrated why he should not be on this web site. Between the confused discussion about “enhanced interrrogation techniques” and his evangelical inability to understand the discussion between faiths, he has personified everything that Father Neuhaus was not.

Wonders for Oyarsa
January 12th, 2010 | 6:05 pm

Mr. Carter,

With a day’s reflection on this thread, I believe I owe you an apology. As is obvious, I am pseudonymous, and as such have a responsibility to not “snipe” at someone whose name and reputation is public. While I maintain my substantive disagreements with you, I see now that my anger got the better of me and some of my posts attacked you personally. I regret this and withdraw each snippy statement about you. I also regret that my tone even when discussing ideas was less than cordial and respectful – compare them with the class and grace shown by Stephen Barr above. Basically, I’ve been a bit of a cowardly scoundral here, and I ask your forgiveness.

Joe Carter
January 12th, 2010 | 6:20 pm

robert moody oe Carter has demonstrated why he should not be on this web site. Between the confused discussion about “enhanced interrrogation techniques” and his evangelical inability to understand the discussion between faiths, he has personified everything that Father Neuhaus was not.

So because I oppose torture and don’t agree that “Allah=Jesus” that I don’t belong at FT?

Also, you do realize that Fr. Neuhaus opposed these “enhanced interrogation techniques”, don’t you?

Joe Carter
January 12th, 2010 | 6:34 pm

Wonders for Oyarsa Basically, I’ve been a bit of a cowardly scoundral here, and I ask your forgiveness.

While I appreciate it, you certainly have nothing to apologize for. The argument got heated but I don’t think it crossed the line. I too, however, have been thinking about this issue and want to add a few points that I may or may not have been clear on yesterday (and a few points that I will concede).

1. While I don’t understand how anyone on the entire globe can hear the term Allah and not think of the God of Islam, I’ll defer to the Christians in the countries that use that term on its usage. If they think it is more helpful than harmful, then I withdraw my objection.

2. On the question of whether Jews and Christians worship the “same” God, I think people are confusing the ontological with the linguistic. The reason I don’t think that we should say they are the “same” is because I don’t think we can make that claim without either doing violence to our beliefs or insulting our Jewish friends.

To say that the Jews worship the “Father” is a category error. First, they have no conception of the “Father” since to them there is no “Son.” To say that they are worshipping the Father is to say that they don’t understand who it is they are worshipping.

Second, the Father cannot be worshipped apart from the Son. There are not two distinct deities only one God subsisting in three persons and one substance. For a Christian to say that Jews worship the “same” God as us is to claim that they worship a Triune God, a claim that they explicitly reject. Essentially, we are saying that they are Christ-worshippers and Holy Spirit-worshippers but just don’t know it.

I fully agree that the God that what followers of modern Judaism think they are worshipping is the conception of what we consider God the Father. (This too is insulting, which is why I think such talk is unhelpful.) But since if you aware of the self-revelation of the Son you can’t worship the Father without also worshipping the Son and Holy Spirit, we are claiming that they are, as St. Paul would say, “ignorantly worshipping” God.

Now if this is what Christians must claim, then I guess I’ll fall in line. I would rather make a less insulting claim (who we worship is not the same) than to say that Jews are so confused in their concept of God that they worship what they say they reject.

If this is what I have to concede to, I will. But we should all be perfectly clear about the claims we are making and that they are more condescending than respectful.

Ethan C.
January 12th, 2010 | 7:11 pm

“If this is what I have to concede to, I will. But we should all be perfectly clear about the claims we are making and that they are more condescending than respectful.”

I guess I’m a bit unclear as to why concerns of respectfulness or condescension are at all relevant to that discussion. But that’s an entirely separate issue from the subject of the original post, so I won’t divert the thread by addressing it.

Joe Z
January 12th, 2010 | 7:23 pm

I too will try to be more civil.

I think you’re still making the same errors in your arguments. But I will restrict myself to two follow-ups here, and a general concluding remark:

1. “To say that they are worshipping the Father is to say that they don’t understand who it is they are worshipping.”

Why is that so problematic? (Sounds like John 4:22 to me… see above.) Isn’t that a perfectly natural thing to say, for a Christian? Again, understanding comes in degrees. Given that, I am baffled as to why this should be thought a difficulty – isn’t it perfectly natural for a Christian to think that Jews worship God, but don’t fully understand who He is? I would think that would be totally unexceptional. I can only conclude that this seems like a difficulty to you because you take understanding and knowledge to be ‘all or nothing’ matters (hence your interpretation of Jesus’ “you do not know the Father”). But understanding and knowledge are not all or nothing, and so this seems a perfectly acceptable result. (Especially in light of John 4:22, per Stephen Barr’s comment above.)

2. As I argued above, both of your options are “condescending.” On the one hand, you are saying that Jews worship Christ even though they think otherwise; on the other hand, you are saying they worship a figment of their imagination even though they think they worship the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. They’re perfectly parallel as far as that goes. Either way, you are saying that they don’t know what it is that they’re worshiping. The reason you get the same “condescension” is that you are neglecting, still, the fact that we don’t just worship something, we worship it (or know it, acknowledge it, understand it, etc.) under some aspect or description. And since that description is crucial, you can’t validly argue by substituting different names or descriptions for the same thing.

In all charity, I think that in continuing to consider this matter, you simply have to look carefully at, and perhaps read up on, the philosophical notion of intensional context (try the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy) and consider, in general, what sorts of arguments can and cannot be made when terms like “know,” “understand,” and “worship” are in play. I don’t mean to say that only professional philosophers are allowed to make arguments, nor do I mean to condescend (there’s that word again), but so far as I can tell there is nothing about your arguments’ logic that distinguishes them from standard fallacies involving these terms.

Tristian
January 12th, 2010 | 10:56 pm

Joe, I’m afraid the confusion is and remains yours, and it’s really pretty simple. To say that Jews worship the Father is no more a category error than to say a child has beliefs about H2O even if they’ve never heard of Hydrogen. It is perfectly possible to have a belief about something without having a full understanding of it, or having false beliefs about it. (Animist beliefs about water are beliefs about H2O as well). Nothing really changes when you move to ‘worship’ or ‘prays to or whatever. To see this requires nothing more than distinguishing belief about an object–belief de re–from beliefs about an object under a certain description–belief de dicto. Jews have beliefs about God, the same God you worship. The don’t recognize that God under certain descriptions, such as “Father”. There’s just no problem with this. I also can’t imagine this being more insulting than saying they worship a false God.

francis
January 12th, 2010 | 10:58 pm

There is Only ONE True Living G-D, Father(Creator) of ALL…….

The Messiah bore witness unto “The Only True G-D”…….

And Truth IS, as Paul testified, “G-D was in The Messiah”, Paul did not testify that ‘g-d was the messiah’…….

And Paul testified of “ONE G-D, Father of ALL”…….

The Messiah testified of, “The Only True G-D” and The Messiah testified that He had a “G-D and Father”, HE WHO IS The ONE and Only True G-D, Father of ALL…….

Paul testified, “And to make all men see what is the fellowship of the mystery, which from the beginning of the world has been hid in G-D, WHO CREATED ALL things by The Messiah”…….(Eph3:9)

And The Father(Creator) spoke “Let there be Light” and “there was Light”…….

LIGHT begot Light…….

The Messiah, “The Light which enlightens every man”, was “The Beginning of The Creation of The ONE and Only True G-D, Father(Creator) of ALL…….(Rev 3:14)

There is Only ONE True G-D, Father(Creator) of ALL, and HE IS The G-D and Father(Creator) of The Messiah and His brethren…….

John 17:3 “And this is Eternal Life, that they might know YOU The Only True G-D, and The Messiah, Whom YOU have sent”…….

Mark 12:32-33 “And the scribe said unto The Messiah, Well, Master, You have said The Truth: for there is ONE G-D; and there is NONE OTHER but HE. And to love HIM with all your heart, and with all your understanding, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and to love his neighbor as yourself, is more than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices”…….

Rom 3:30 “Seeing it is ONE G-D, WHO shall justify the circumcision by faith, and uncircumcision through faith”…….

1 Cor 8:6 “But to us there is but ONE G-D, The Father, of WHOM are all things, and we in HIM; and one Master, The Messiah, by Whom are all things, and we by Him”…….

Rev 3:14 The Messiah was “The Beginning of The Creation of The ONE and Only True G-D, Father(Creator) of ALL”…….

Eph 4:6 “ONE G-D, Father of ALL, WHO is above all, and through all, and in you all”…….

John 4:24 “G-D is A SPIRIT: and they that worship HIM must worship HIM in Spirit and in Truth”…….

Luke 24:39 The Messiah testified after He was “raised from among the dead”, “Behold My hands and My feet, that it is I Myself, handle Me and see, for A SPIRIT DOES NOT HAVE FLESH AND BONES, AS you see I HAVE”…….

The ONE and Only True G-D, Father(Creator) of ALL can not die…….period…….

The Messiah died and “The ONE and Only True G-D, Father(Creator) of ALL raised Him from among the dead”……. And The Messiah’s incorruptible body ascended into the clouds…….

James 1:13 “Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of G-D, for G-D CAN NOT BE TEMPTED with evil, neither tempts HE any man”…….

Heb 4:15 “For we do not have a High Priest(The Messiah) Who cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities, for He WAS in all points TEMPTED like we are, yet without sin”…….

The ONE and Only True G-D, Father(Creator) of ALL, HE CAN NOT BE TEMPTED with sin AS THE MESSIAH WAS…….period…….

1 Tim 2:5 “There is ONE G-D, and one mediator between G-D and men, the man-The Messiah”…….

James 2:19 “You believe that there is ONE G-D, you do well, yet the devils also believe, and tremble”…….

John 20:17 “The Messiah said unto her, Touch Me not; for I have not yet ascended to My Father: but go to My brethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto My Father, and your Father; and to My G-D, and your G-D.”

Mark 3:33-35 “The Messiah answered them, saying, “Who is My mother, or My brethren”? And He looked round about on them which sat about Him, and said, “Behold my mother and my brethren! For whoever shall do The Will of G-D, the same is My brother, and My sister, and mother”"…….

Rom 8:29 “Whom G-D did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of HIS Son, that The Messiah might be the firstborn among many brethren”…….

Hope is you are one of the brethren of The Messiah…….

The brethren of The Messiah know there is Only ONE True Living G-D, Father(Creator) of ALL…….

And Truth is as The Messiah tesified, ” My(Our) Father is greater than I”…….(John14:28)

And Truth is as Paul testifed, “The HEAD of The Messiah is The ONE and Only True G-D, Father(Creator) of ALL, and The Head of the man is The Messiah, and the head of the woman is the man”…….(1Cor11:3)

Those who would pervert The Order of The ONE and Only True G-D, Father(Creator) of ALL will have to answer to HIM…….

For The ONE and Only True Living G-D, Father(Creator) of ALL, “HE Created all things by The Messiah” and The Messiah was “The Beginning of The Creation of The ONE and Only True Living G-D, Father(Creator) of ALL…….

Truth is “The Messiah is The Son of The ONE and Only True Living G-D, Father(Creator) of ALL”…….

The Messiah testified that He had a “G-D and Father” and that His “G-D and Father” was also the “G-D and Father” of His Brethren…….

And The ONE and Only True Living G-D, Father(Creator) of ALL, HE has no god, for HE IS G-D, and HE has no father, for HE IS Father(Creator) of ALL, and HE has no brethren, for HE IS Father(Creator) of ALL…….

Hope is there would be those who experience The Miracle that is receiving “the love of The Truth” for they will “experience The Messiah and The Power(Our Father) that raised Him from among the dead”…….

The Faith of those who have received “a love of The Truth” is grounded in Miracles, not mere colored marks(words) written on a dead tree(page) and bound in a book…….

Thankfully The ONE and Only True G-D, Father of ALL, HE yet communes with HIS Children, HE yet reveals all things…….

Father Help! and HE does…….

Peace, in spite of the dis-ease(no-peace) that is of this world and it’s systems of religion, for “the WHOLE(not just a portion) world is under the control of the evil one” indeed and Truth…….

Truth is never ending……. francis

Wonders for Oyarsa
January 13th, 2010 | 12:24 am

“On the question of whether Jews and Christians worship the “same” God, I think people are confusing the ontological with the linguistic. The reason I don’t think that we should say they are the “same” is because I don’t think we can make that claim without either doing violence to our beliefs or insulting our Jewish friends.”

Didn’t you just insist they were Satan worshippers a second ago (citing Jesus)? Or did I just imagine that in the heat of battle? I’d rather be accused of being a muddled God-worshipper who is fundamentally confused about the nature of the God I worship, than be a Satanist. To each his own, I suppose.

I think it is more fruitful to say that, whenever someone speaks of God (or any monotheistic equivalent), they are talking about, well, God. Thus when they say they worship God, well, I assume they are trying to worship that-which-there-can-only-be-one-of. Now, what success this “worship” actually has in truly uniting them to God in spirit and truth – well – without consciously doing it in the name of Christ, at the very best, we Christians might hope for is that Christ slips his grace through invincible ignorance and something good happens (like the good Calormen guy in The Last Battle). It’s hard to imagine being moved to praise and thanks at a sunset ever moves someone further away from the love of Christ, however insufficient it may be in itself to redeem the whole man from sin and death. But at worst, such misguided worship does more harm than if the person were an atheist. Heck, ask Uzzah or the sons of Aaron.

I maintain that this discussion is more fruitful between us and Jews or Muslims:

A: God isn’t like that!
B: Yes he is!
A: Why do you think he is?
B: Because X! Why do you think he’s not?
A: Becuase Y!

Than this conversation:

A: Our god is better than your god!
B: No way! Our god kicks your sorry god’s lousy buttocks!
A: Dude, you totally need to defect to our team!
B: No way – you need to dump your lousy god and join up with ours!

Honestly, which type of discussion do you see Paul and Stephen having with their fellow Jews? And really, what Jew-become-Christian ever saw this as leaving one god to serve another? It’s almost always, to my knowledge, experienced as finding true revelation about the God they had known only from a distance – now brought face to face in love. Or even finding longings which their religion rightfully instilled in them now fulfilled. In polytheism, you can’t do this – you never say “Wow – I realized that Zeus is actually Jesus” or even “I knew I could actually serve Aphrodite better by finding her love in Christ”. The closest you get is appropriating some of the harmless trappings of the prior paganism – like celebrating Christ’s birth on a day that you are already used to having a huge party, or building your church on a mound you are used to worshipping at. Hence, I see your point in seeing “Allah” as a proper name, but reject it as smuggling in polytheistic ways of talking about disagreements between monotheists. This is why Augustine says he only spends a little bit of time in the City of God debunking polytheism, but really wants to have a solid reasoned debate with the Platonists.

I do think it’s interesting, in a way, that the Muslims you quote want to cast all this in the competing god lingo. Because they are right, in a sense. Seeing that the good things they long for in Mohommad’s revelation of God are actually found in Jesus, without the distortions, is a FAR MORE EFFECTIVE evangelistic approach than saying “your religion is evil and you worship a false god; come reject your homeland and defect to our team”. You have to do that with paganism (at least the worst forms of it), but thankfully we can take the former approach with Muslims, to great effect.

For example, look at this dialog between Maryam and Marzieh and their prosecutor in their recent trial in Iran:

Mr. Haddad, asked the two women if they were Christians. “We love Jesus,” they replied. He repeated his question and they said, “Yes, we are Christians.”

Mr. Haddad then said, “You were Muslims and now you have become Christians.”

“We were born in Muslim families, but we were not Muslims,” was their reply.

Mr. Haddad’s questioning continued and he asked them if they regretted becoming Christians, to which they replied, “We have no regrets.”

Then he stated emphatically, “You should renounce your faith verbally and in written form.” They stood firm and replied, “We will not deny our faith.”

During one tense moment in the questioning, Maryam and Marzieh made reference to their belief that God had convicted them through the Holy Spirit. Mr. Haddad told them, “It is impossible for God to speak with humans.”

Marzieh asked him in return, “Are you questioning whether God is Almighty?”

Mr. Haddad then replied, “You are not worthy for God to speak to you.”

Marzieh said, “It is God, and not you, who determines if I am worthy.”

This is a debate about the nature of God, not whose god is better. Notice they didn’t say “your god doesn’t talk to humans – our god does”.

Of course, in the end, you and Stephen Barr are right – it’s best not to speculate or talk too much about what people are really doing when they worship. It’s best to bear witness to who God is in Christ, and let whatever truth and whatever error in the other faith have to encounter him.

By the way – I forgot to mention something that really should be a deal-breaker in using logical proofs like yours above about Jews worshipping Jesus. Using “is” in that sense, would also deny the Athanasian creed.

A: Jesus is God
B: The Father is God
C: Therefore, Jesus is the Father

Trinitarianism is more subtle than just saying “Jesus is God” in that sense – notice the creeds don’t say that outright. He is “the only begotten son of the Father, God from God, light from light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, of one being with the Father”. Jesus is the image of the invisible God. He is the divine wisdom, he is the word of God become flesh and dwelling among us. When we look at Jesus we see God, and looking anywhere else will be a distortion. Mary is theotokos, the bearer of God. Etc. But using the unqualified logical “IS” in a proof would just say that the Father is the Holy Spirit is the Son. So you have to temper the simple logic with mystery when you come to the trinity. Dorthy Sayers helps a lot in “The Mind of the Maker” in explaining the trinity on more fruitful ground.

Anyway, in the end, perhaps it’s hard to discern exactly where we agree and disagree. Would you concede me my original point, though? That “do we worship the same God” is basically a “have you stopped beating your wife” question – which you can’t really safely answer “yes” or “no” to without qualifying the heck out of it, and in fact it sends the whole discussion in all sorts of unhelpful directions? Haven’t we demonstrated that rather well here? ;-)

Steve Schaper
January 13th, 2010 | 10:14 am

Choosing which term to use in a given language requires sensitivity to the culture which we likely don’t have from afar.

The idea that God means something different from Deus from Theos from ya’Illah from YHWH from Allah reflects a lack of knowledge of linguistics and translation. Which letters and sounds are used is not the issue, the meaning or semantic domain is. Is the uncreated Creator being referred to, or is someone or something else?

Are muslims worshiping a different god, or the same God, wrongly? Can we tell without God’s perspective and insight into their souls?

John W Gillis
January 13th, 2010 | 10:25 pm

I know I’m jumping into this thread late, and the earlier comments were interesting, but the discussion here misses what I see as a startling point.

As interesting as it may be from a Christian perspective to consider whether Christians should use the term Allah to speak of God, I find it remarkable that there are Muslims that think Allah is a specifically Islamic referent. They are cutting off the branch they are sitting on.

Islam, of course, understands itself to be an Abrahamic faith; a corrective to the perceived errors of the other Abrahamic faiths. In other words, it doesn’t see Christians (or Jews) as pagans, but heretics.

If these Muslims are claiming that they serve a different God than Christians (and, presumably, Jews) do, they are repudiating Islam’s very claim to theological and religious legitimacy. And Mohammad then is last in the line of prophets of… Whom, exactly?

Allah = peace
January 26th, 2010 | 3:14 am

I think i never see any bible in english version says “Allah” but yes. In Malay version bible. “Allah” “tuhan” . Word of Allah is not a malay language but Arab language. Tuhan yes, that is malay language. Muslim in Malaysia angry when christian use the word of “Allah” it seems like they doesn’t want the bible publish in malay language . But not all the people here in Malaysia are Malay and the goverment ask the people to unite in 1 Malaysia. The Muslim people should think that the word of “Allah” itself is not a malay word or muslim word. When the quran transleted to Kadazandusun language ” the word of Allah become Kinorohingan or Minamangun” and it is mean God the creator and God to give life. Allah is not the name of the God. God is no name. God = Tuhan, God= Allah, God = Minamngun, God = Kinorohingan. Allah is a title of the God and the word Allah is for everyone and everybody has the right to mention it, either they just said God, or allah or kinorohingan it is still the same (The creater who give life). Jesus never said that “I am Allah but he said I am the son of God, who know me , he will know who is the (father) = the creator (Allah) , he said who accept me he also will accept the (father) = Allah (The creator) . Allah is not a name it is a title of the god. What is Tuhan?..in malay language Tuhan is God. (Tuhan = dewa) meaning to say, Tuhan is something to obey, something to worship so Muslim people woship Allah (the creator and who give life) and christian or Jwes also worship Allah (the creator who give life) The deffrent here is Muslim worship Allah(the creator and who give life) and christian also worship Allah (trinity= Father, son and the holy ghost) = ( the creator and who give life), just the doctrine is totaly diffrent here, of cause the beginning of the world creator was adam and eve, Noah, Abraham, Moses, Jesus (Im sure the language before Mohammad the word of Allah was already in used. And im sure Quran itself get all the history and story about those Kings and kingdom or those prophets from the bible before quran. Why the word of “Allah” claimed by Muslim only???? there is not and no in the quran said that ” Allah” can not use to any other races or language or religion??? but yes in the bible said..” DO NOT SIMPLY MENTION MY NAME (ALLAH)” something like this, and so many people in this country mention it simply, specialy malay people. But in my family we trained by parents to say “aaaaayaa” or “astaga”..instead of said “Ya Allaaaaa , “u are stupid people” as I always heard my Malay neighbour scorled their son…..” Allah is for everyone “

theshepard
January 29th, 2010 | 1:33 pm

The reason given by the malaysian christians as a basis to use the word Allah is that Allah is the malay word for god. The true malay word for god is actually tuhan. Allah is derived from arabic. Because all malays are muslims, they refer god as Allah. You have to understand that malaysian muslims use arabic in their prayers and they recite the quran in arabic like other muslims and that is why they use the word Allah to refer to god almighty. i understand that arab christians use the word Allah because arabic is their language, their mother toungue. But the christians in malaysia are not arabs and they do not speak arabic nor do they pray in arabic. But instead they either pray in their native tounges or english. i suggest that malaysian christians use the aramaic word Elaha or the hebrew word Elohim to refer to god as these could be the words used by jesus since jesus is ethnically a jew and speak aramaic. But if malaysian christians insist on using the word Allah, then they have to use the arabic bibles since Allah is an arabic word.