Posted on 05/10/2007 12:28:17 PM PDT by Gamecock
Deficient as in being totally dead wrong? Deficient means wrong... unless you are thinking along ecumenical lines where if you're sincere then even if you're worshipping a 'deficient' god then it's ok?
I'm not sure how using the word 'deficient'to describe him makes Allah the same as the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. If that is the case, I would think because we are fallible human beings, ALL our understanding of God is 'deficient' in some way.
>> In fact, in can be argued that the Jews don’t worship the same God as Christians, since they don’t believe in the Trinity. <<
If an argument is made that Muslims don’t worship the same God as Christians, because they don’t believe in the divinity of Christ, then neither do Jews, Mormons, etc.
You wrote:
“That’s pretty clear also. In order to deny that these documents state that Muslims worship the same God Catholics worship (even though the Muslim concept of God is deficient in certain respects), one has to deny what these documents quite explicitly state.”
Incorrect. What is clear is that this is about “they”. It is, just as the text says, about Muslim beliefs, Muslim views.
“A deficient *concept* of God does not necessarily entail that the object of that concept [i.e. the being described by the concept] is other than the one true God.”
It does when laid side-by-side with the correct understanding of God by the Church sent by Him.
I like Robert Spencer’s rejoinder to a Protestant who claimed CCC 841 said what so many people mistakenly believe:
To say that Muslims adore the one God as do Catholics is not the same thing as saying Muhammad was a prophet. If the Catholic Church believed Muhammad was a prophet, it would have a very different character. The statement you quote is simply an acknowledgment, whether or not you believe such an acknowledgment is legitimate, of the fact that Muslims, as well as Christians, believe in one God who revealed himself to Abraham and Moses, etc.
Cordially
Robert Spencer
Also there’s this (and don’t just stop reading at John Paul II’s title for his audience!):
Remote, here is some information for you to read by Pope John Paul the Great. Note the distinctions he makes in regard to the Trinitarian aspect of The Father, Son and Holy Spirit in relation to what muslims believe.
Christians and Muslims believe in the same God, the one God
General Audience of Wednesday, 5 May
Along the path marked out by Abraham in his submission to the divine will, we find his descendant, the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of Jesus, who is also devoutly invoked by Muslims, especially in popular piety.
2. We Christians joyfully recognize the religious values we have in common with Islam. Today I would like to repeat what I said to young Muslims some years ago in Casablanca: “We believe in the same God, the one God, the living God, the God who created the world and brings his creatures to their perfection” (Insegnamenti, VIII/2, [1985], p. 497). The patrimony of revealed texts in the Bible speaks unanimously of the oneness of God. Jesus himself reaffirms it, making Israel’s profession his own: “The Lord our God, the Lord is one” (Mk 12:29; cf. Dt 6:4-5). This oneness is also affirmed in the words of praise that spring from the heart of the Apostle Paul: “To the king of ages, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honour and glory for ever and ever. Amen’”(1 Tm 1:17).
We know that in the light of the full Revelation in Christ, this mysterious oneness cannot be reduced to a numerical unity. The Christian mystery leads us to contemplate in God’s substantial unity the persons of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit: each possesses the divine substance whole and indivisible, but each is distinct from the other by virtue of their reciprocal relations.
3. Their relations in no way compromise the oneness of God, as the Fourth Lateran Council explains (1215): “Each of the persons is that supreme reality, viz., the divine substance, essence or nature.... It does not generate, is not begotten and does not proceed” (DS 804). The Christian doctrine on the Trinity, confirmed by the Councils, explicitly rejects any form of “tritheism” or “polytheism”. ******In this sense, i.e., with reference to the one divine substance, there is significant correspondence between Christianity and Islam.*******
*******However, this correspondence must not let us forget the difference between the two religions. We know that the unity of God is expressed in the mystery of the three divine Persons. Indeed, since he is Love (cf. 1 Jn 4:8), God has always been a Father who gives his whole self in begetting the Son, and both are united in a communion of love which is the Holy Spirit. This distinction and compenetration (perichoresis) of the three divine Persons is not something added to their unity but is its most profound and characteristic expression.*******
The full text can be found here:
http://www.ewtn.com/library/PAPALDOC/JP2MUSLM.HTM
God as Logos, Allah as Will
Father James Schall on Benedict XVI’s Regensburg Address
Q: At Regensburg, Benedict XVI highlighted the Christian understanding of God as Logos. How does the idea of God as Logos differ from an Islamic conception of God?
Father Schall: The Holy Father posed the fundamental question that lies behind all the discussion about war and terror. If God is Logos, it means that a norm of reason follows from what God is. Things are, because they have natures and are intended to be the way they are because God is what he is: He has his own inner order.
If God is not Logos but “Will,” as most Muslim thinkers hold Allah to be, it means that, for them, Logos places a “limit” on Allah. He cannot do everything because he cannot do both evil and good. He cannot do contradictories.
Thus, if we want to “worship” Allah, it means we must be able to make what is evil good or what is good evil. That is, we can do whatever is said to be the “will” of Allah, even if it means doing violence as if it were “reasonable.”
Otherwise, we would “limit” the “power” of Allah. This is what the Pope meant about making violence “reasonable.” This different conception of the Godhead constitutes the essential difference between Christianity and Islam, both in their concept of worship and of science.
http://www.ewtn.com/library/ISSUES/zlogoswill.HTM
“our rocor priest mentioned in a sermon that we should not be confused by protestants claiming to worship the same God. they don’t.”
After some years here on FR, I have often at least wondered if what your priest says isn’t true. I have concluded that in many cases, though by no means all, he may well be correct.
I hestitate to comment on this article since it is clearly designed to be inflamatory and anti-Latin Church, but.... I suspect that many of our Latin brethren have noticed that Orthodoxy was no really much enamoured of +JPII. Clearly the Latins were, but I think its just as clear that we weren’t. Speaking personally, I found his theology fuzzy at best, essentially modernist and at worst, syncretist. Perhaps I shouldn’t say his theology was syncretist so much as that his actions were syncretist. Those actions, and comments like the ones attributed to him in this article, caused great concern among the Orthodox of all parts of The Church. It is no mere coincidence, or a result of fatigue on the Orthodox part, that relations between all the Orthodox Churches and the Vatican have improved so dramatically since the election of +BXVI. +JPII was, in my eyes, very much a man of the 20th century, given to grand gestures and a whole lot of “kumbaya”. +BXVI is unlike any pope for something more than 1000 years. His theology is thoroughly patristic. He is not so much a man of the 20-21st centuries as he is a true Father of the Church whose words, whether we agree with them or not, are “timeless”. Orthodoxy has been blessed over the past 1000+ years with men who likely will one day be viewed as Fathers. But the overwhelming majority of them are known only to a few Orthodox, even fewer Western Christians. +BXVI, however, is the Pope of Rome. Everyone knows about him. If God gives him the years, he will transform the Christian world. That’s something +JPII never even came close to accomplishing.
I'm constantly being told by Catholics that Mormons are actually Protestants. If that's the case, then Muslims must be "deficient Catholics" in funny headwear.
Looks to me like that's a two way street.
>> According to Iranian Television, the woman who appeared to the three shepherd children in 1917 was not the Virgin Mary, mother of Jesus, but Fatima, the daughter of the prophet Mohammed, founder of Islam. Her message was reported to be “I am Fatima, daughter of the Prophet of Islam.” This television report has helped launch the growing waves of Muslim pilgrims who have been visiting this Christian site in Portugal in recent years. <<
So Zenit never asserted that; it merely exposed the lies that Iranian television said. The authors said a Catholic News organization said the Our Lady of Fatima WAS the daughter of Islam, not that it reported that Muslims were saying so. The authors lied. They didn’t merely come to contentious conclusions, they outlied lied. Yet knowing this, you defended them as if they were telling the truth.
[scurries off to add carrots & pineapple tidbits to shopping list]
>>>> they presume that anyone who disagrees with them is hellbound for “rejecting the truth.” versus enter into dialog with servants of the devil, whether they are Muslims or Calvinists. <<<<
>> Looks to me like that’s a two way street. <<
I clearly contrasted the difference between coming to alternate, contentious conclusions and bold-faced lying. Rejecting a lie is not morally equivalent to lying.
For a finer point, I didn’t condemn all Calvinists, or everyone who disagrees with me. But, whether they know it or not, the authors of this piece ARE serving the devil by spreading such lies.
Then, you should stuck with liars, instead of dragging a denomination into the discussion.
I think JP2 was a little overly interfaith-oriented at times. But those same flaws sprang from a personality which also gave him certain gifts which rescued Catholicism from heading over a cliff. He is the soft left jab that has set up the right punch that is Pope Benedict.
You wrote:
“I realize Catholics have people explain things to them but I’m not like that. I like things in clear text.”
So do I. I also had no one “explain” it to me. I simply read the text. I also knew how to place it in the context of the Church’s history. It ain’t hard!
“What religions share????? And what precisely do we share with Muslims religion-wise?”
Many things, ideas, and concepts.
Belief in monotheism. Belief in revelation, prophecy, inspiration, miracles, prayer, fasting, pilgrimages, houses of prayer and more. We look at all of these things differently, but we still share the ideas.
“The Church fathers didn’t share this view in the 11-12th century when the western world was being overrun.”
There were no Church fathers in the 11-12th centuries. Their time had already ended 2 0r 3 centuries earlier. Also, the West was being overrun in the 7th and 8th centuries already. And you still don’t know what you’re talking about. St. John Damascus when defending Christianity from Islamic attacks and insults often cited what Muslims did or believed to show the rightness of Christian doctrine. Here’s an example: “They furthermore accuse us of being idolaters, because we venerate the cross, which they abominate. And we answer them: ‘How is it, then, that you rub yourselves against a stone in your Ka’ba and kiss and embrace it?’”
>> Yeah, but the article seems to imply that the Catholic news organization was saying that, not Iranian TV. <<
It doesn’t imply. It outright asserts it.
With that kind of a diet you’re not going to last long.
LOL!!!!
There is one god, who is God. That one god is the creator of the world, and he is worshipped by Muslims as creator of the world. However, they believe so many wrong things about him, one may certainly be inclined to assert that it ain’t him they believe him.
If my neighbor believes that Noam Chomsky is a brilliant, honest man devoted to true democracy, and I believe he is a dishonest, manipulative, Stalinist prick, can it be said that either one of us doesn’t believe that Noam Chomsky exists?
If she believes he is tall, skinny, and shaggy-haired, and I believe he is short, fat and bald, do we still both believe that Noam Chomsky exists?
It’s a silly argument to make whether Muslims and Christians believe in the same God. I think the Pope was wrong to make that assertion, and I think you are wrong to quibble with him. I’d only say that they have a dreadfully incorrect notion of who God is.
>> He’s led by the Holy Spirit...He’s the magisterium...He’s the head of all religions of the world...And you disagree with him as to the nature of God??? <<
He is NOT divinely inspired by the Holy Spirit. No Catholic asserts definitively that the Pope has the gift of prophecy. He has the protection of the Holy Spirit against proclaiming from the Chair of St. Peter as the eternal teaching of the Magisterium that which is untrue.
Sort?
Catholic. If I was still living in Paris (which I did all too briefly) I would again attend the parish (Eglise de la Sainte-Trinité) there for the Russian Orthodox Church in Communion with Rome. When I tried to talk to Fr. Dupire (who sadly died in late 2005), I tried Russian since I knew little French. My Russian was once pretty good. Well, not any more. He took one look at me and said in English,” Why don’t you just talk to me in English?” He then told me he had once been a parish priest in Scranton, Pennsylvania!!!
And if I weren’t Catholic, I would be Russian Orthodox. Okay, maybe Ukrainian Orthodox in a pinch!
deficient
• adjective 1 not having enough of a specified quality or ingredient. 2 insufficient or inadequate.
— ORIGIN Latin, from deficere ‘fail’.
-----------------------
I meant deficient in that they are largely wrong, not "totally dead wrong". Remember that Muslims do:
- Worship One God, who they consider to be the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Ishmael (and Jacob, but they, coming from the line of Ishmael hold him as the child of God's promise instead of Jacob).
- Address God as 'Allah,' which is Arabic for 'God,' and incidentally is the VERY SAME name that Arabic-speaking Christians use to address the true and Triune God.
- Take into account the revelation given to the Jews and Christians
However they also (wrongly):
- Gravely twist that same revelation given to the Jews and Christians
- Believe that Mohammed is a true prophet, and is the last and greatest prophet
- Believe that God is only one person, and that Jesus was only human, and solely a prophet inferior to Mohammed.
And so yes, even though it may be fair to say that all of us have a 'deficient' understanding of God because we are human, the understanding that the Muslims have, as well as their manner of worship is gravely deficient, and far inferior to that of the Jews, and moreso inferior to that of the Christians. And no, I'm not saying that worshiping God in any deficient manner is OK.
>> Then, you should stuck with liars, instead of dragging a denomination into the discussion. <<
The subject was liars. There was no basis, aside from touchiness, to presume that all Calvinists are liars, or any of them, besides the topic of my comments.
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