Replies

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