Posted on 03/26/2013 6:56:09 AM PDT by NYer
Last week, Pope Francis received a collection of world religious leaders in his first ecumenical and interreligious event. His address to them contained diplomatic niceties and specific expressions of good will aimed at Orthodox, Protestants, Jews, and Muslims.
His remarks to the latter recognized that Muslims “worship the one living and merciful God, and call upon him in prayer.” In this he echoed the 1964 dogmatic constitution Lumen Gentium, which gave a nod to “the Mohammedans, who, professing to hold the faith of Abraham, along with us adore the one and merciful God, who on the last day will judge mankind.”
Now, both Lumen Gentium 16 and Pope Francis’s words have a pastoral rather than doctrinal purpose. Their aim is to build interreligious bridges by generously acknowledging whatever can be found to be true in other faiths—not to make precise pronouncements about their theology. That said, Lumen Gentium is an exercise of the ordinary Magisterium, and even casual statements from a pope (be it this one from Francis or similar ones made by his predecessors) shouldn’t be taken lightly.
So, what does it mean to say that Muslims adore the one God along with us—to say, as can be reasonably drawn from these statements, that Muslims worship the same God as Catholics? We can consider the idea in several senses.
I think we can say with confidence that any monotheist who calls out to the Lord is heard by the Lord, whether it’s a Muslim, a pagan philosopher seeking the God of reason, or a Native American petitioning the Great Spirit. As Lumen Gentium 16 continues, God is not “far distant from those who in shadows and images seek [him].”
Likewise I think we’re on solid ground in saying that the subjective intention of Muslims is to worship the one God—moreover, the one God from the line of Abrahamic revelation. Whether or not their version of that revelation is authentic or correct, that’s what they “profess to hold” to. Furthermore, some of the attributes of the God to whom they address their worship are comparable to the Christian God’s: He is one, merciful, omnipotent, and the judge of the world.
Just as clearly, though, we cannot say that the God in whom Muslims profess to believe is theologically identical to the Christian God. For the most obvious example, their God is a “lonely God,” as Chesterton put it, whereas ours is a Trinity of persons. Beyond that difference, in the divine economy our Gods are also quite different: most pointedly in that ours took human nature to himself and dwelt among us on earth, whereas the Muslim God remains pure transcendence. To Muslims the idea of an incarnation is blasphemy.
And so perhaps we can distinguish between worship of God and belief in him, the former being more about the intent of the worshiper and the latter being more about the object of belief himself. Thus could Gerhard Müller, bishop emeritus of Regensburg and since last year the prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, assert in 2007 that Muslims and Christians “do not believe in the same God,” and yet not contradict any magisterial teaching.
Of course, Jews believe in an utterly transcendent and “lonely” God, too; the idea that Jesus was God’s son, Yahweh incarnate, was likewise blasphemous to the Jews of his day. Is their theology as deficient as Islam’s? Ought we to put them in the same category as Muslims: subjectively worshiping the one God but believing in him, as least partly, in error?
Well, at least one difference suggests itself. Muslims “profess” to hold to the faith of Abraham but really don’t; their version of Abrahamic faith is false. (Of course, they believe that our version is the false one, a corruption of the Qur’an.) Jews, on the other hand, know and believe in their God according to his authentic self-revelation—what they have received from him is true, just incomplete. To be fully true, Jewish theology just needs to be perfected by Christian revelation, whereas, although we can identify many truths in it, Islamic theology needs to be broken down, corrected, rebuilt from an authentic foundation.
Now, it can be a bad practice to judge ideas by their sources. But if, as Benedict XVI has said, faith is at root a personal encounter with God, then the authenticity of God’s personal revelation of himself is of the utmost importance. In other words, the source of God-knowledge becomes the very question. We worship and believe in God because and to the extent that we know him. And we know him, above all other reasons, according to how he revealed himself to us.
In this sense, then, I suggest that we can correctly say that Jews worship and believe in a God who is qualitatively truer, closer to the God of Christianity, than the God of Islam. Both Jews and Muslims lay claim to the same revelation, but where Jews have an accurate record of it (and thus of the God it reveals) Muslims have a fictionalized adaptation.
This question of the theological similarities and differences between Christianity and Islam is perhaps more important than it ever has been. With religious folk of all kinds increasingly beset by secularism and moral relativism, we look across creedal lines for friends and allies—comrades-in-arms in the fight for unborn life, traditional marriage and morality, religious rights, and a continued place for believers in the cultural conversation. It can be an encouragement and a temptation, then, to look at Islam and see not warriors of jihad against Arab Christians and a decadent West, but fellow-soldiers of an “ecumenical jihad” against an anti-theist culture.
Can Islam be that reliable ally? (Shameless product plug alert.) That’s the subject of the newest book from Catholic Answers Press: Not Peace but a Sword by Robert Spencer. The evidence he presents will help us understand Islam’s God more clearly, and make us examine more shrewdly the prospects for any future alliance with followers of the Prophet.
Or an anachronism? These “anathemas” from 500 or 1500 years ago aren’t on many people’s minds nowadays, even if we confine the discussion to believers and clergy.
You stated...”Sounds like the moral absolute of taking a human life is relative to the ‘reasoning’ behind it.”
Which then would certainly indicate ‘a standard’ of situation ethics in order to ‘reason’ ones behavior making it acceptable behavior to the individual.
Why did you go from my question on objective truth to “moral” truth. Let’s just settle the truth question first. Do you believe in objective truth? Until I know that, I don’t know how to even begin a dialogue.
You misstated what I said. Murder is the taking of INNOCENT life. It is not the same as other instances where human life is put to an end. Murder is killing, but all killing is not murder. So, when the state executes a convicted murderer, you don’t have equivalence. The murderer took innocent life. The state took guilty life. Likewise, in war, you have a situation in which you are now in a position of defending yourself. You are not taking an innocent life; you are defending yourself against imminent death. Accidental killings (involuntary manslaughter) is not the equivalent of murder, as I’m sure you are able to deduce from the way the courts deal with those found culpable in such situations. The intent is lacking. Murder involves intent. It involves a willful act of bringing to an end a life that is not threatening to oneself (that’s why the case is well-argued that abortion is murder). Collateral damage might be on a higher plain of immorality, given the result indicates a disregard for the full outcome of, say, a military act (or a defending of oneself), but this, too, fails to rise to the moral equivalent of murder.
Murder is a unique act and exists in a class all by itself. It exists as a moral absolute upon which every human being who has ever lived is utterly aware is wrong. Hence, the presence of a moral absolute is established.
Sort of like theft...different circumstance, different wrongness...still theft. Not an absolute to me. I know there are some people that should be killed/murdered, even before they do something.
Individual standards, yes.
People’s actions are measured by society, I believe their standards of morality are instilled in them by God...and judged by men.
Can’t do it, it’s a belief.
The proofs are these:
First and foremost: The Creation - Yahweh declares explicitly that those who cannot see his handiwork in the creation are willfully blind.
Second: His Agents - His working of miracles and awesome demonstrations of power are transmitted to us by his declared agents.
Lastly, and most importantly to the world at large, generation to generation: The Prophecy - Yahweh is the only one declaring himself to be GOD that has left an indelible prophecy which, coming from the beginning, has declared the end. No other 'god' (to include Mohammed's) has done so. Every other one allows for amending the original declaration. Yahweh's words do not return to him empty. The proof is in the Prophecy.
In #20 i asked how someone knew God was an objective reality outside the mind? You took the conversation from there, so tell me the difference between the two things youre talking about so you dont misunderstand the implication, and I’ll tell you.
You stated...”Can’t do it, it’s a belief”.....
Sure you can...beliefs are oftentimes substantiated by where “evidence” leads to one making a conclusion. Certain facts can do so before one arrives at their conclusions as well, or, after one places their “belief” in someone or something.
Then you are of the mindset that each is able to establish their own moral code? I would then ask again...by what standard to they measure?
How does one then discern they have the standards God requires? There has to be a point of reference to substantiate that one has those standards and abiding by them.
Without the resurrection of Jesus, our faith means absolutely nothing. Whether one professes to be Catholic, Baptist, Lutheran, Protestant, etc.. we all cling to the resurrection of Jesus as a core tenant of our faith.
It is the Resurrection and our firm belief that Christ died for our sins and rose from the dead defeating death that sets Christian's apart from Jews and muslims.
I have no way of proving to you what I believe and I’m sure you know that.
No I am not. I do not believe we establish our own moral code. I believe God establishes it in each of us as He sees fit.
God Instills in each of us what He requires. No point of reference is required.
Yours was the first idea that came to mind when reading the article.
The 2nd, was the definition of the AntiChrist. He isn’t merely against Christ, but also works as a counterfeit substitute for Christ.
When our Lord Christ Jesus tells us :
Joh 14:6-7
(6) Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.
(7) If ye had known me, ye should have known my Father also: and from henceforth ye know him, and have seen him.
Act 4:10-12
(10) Be it known unto you all, and to all the people of Israel, that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom ye crucified, whom God raised from the dead, even by him doth this man stand here before you whole.
(11) This is the stone which was set at nought of you builders, which is become the head of the corner.
(12) Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.
Act 5:29-32
(29) Then Peter and the other apostles answered and said, We ought to obey God rather than men.
(30) The God of our fathers raised up Jesus, whom ye slew and hanged on a tree.
(31) Him hath God exalted with his right hand to be a Prince and a Saviour, for to give repentance to Israel, and forgiveness of sins.
(32) And we are his witnesses of these things; and so is also the Holy Ghost, whom God hath given to them that obey him.
we clearly understand ONLY through Christ Jesus is the way to know the Father.
When somebody preaches anything as well as Christ Jesus, then they are preaching a counterfeit substitute for the Gospel.
That is the very meaning of presenting an ANTICHRISTIAN Gospel. It is a substitute for Christ Jesus.
What is to be done with that type of thinking? Paul had a pretty good solution when he wrote to the Galatians.
Gal 1:6-9
(6) I marvel that ye are so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ unto another gospel:
(7) Which is not another; but there be some that trouble you, and would pervert the gospel of Christ.
(8) But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed.
(9) As we said before, so say I now again, If any man preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed.
To put this another way.
As believers, we have been gifted to understand the Word of God, and we know that those who do not exercise faith through Christ, are already condemned and if they do not change before the first death, they will spend all eternity future in the Lake of Fire.
We don’t wish that for any man. Our Lord Christ Jesus died for the sins of the whole world, past, present, and future, so that we might have salvation through faith in Him.
Our refusal to accept other thinkings as comparative religion is NOT being arrogant, because our thinking is not in ourselves, but in God through faith in Christ, recognizing He doesn’t want them to go to the Lake of Fire for all eternity, but has provided them a way which is righteous and just to avoid that consequence.
It is arrogant to accept a substitute for God’s Plan, allowing anybody other than Christ to be their salvation.
He indwells believers in this age, not unbelievers, though they can also be possessed by fallen angels.
God the Father draws us to the Son. We only know the Father through the Son. We don't know the Father by any other way. In that respect, He provides the reference.
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