Do all "monotheisms" worship the same God?

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Dovekin said:
Muslims believe in the one God who created the Heavens and the Earth.
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Respectfully I don’t know how that would logically conclude:
  • The God who created the Heavens and the Earth is the Holy Trinity
  • Muslims don’t believe in the Holy Trinity
  • Ergo, Muslims don’t believe in the God who created the Heavens and the Earth
Of course, they may have inklings of how deity works (as do all faiths that believe in a Higher Power, to certain extents).
 
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Read the book; then judge his intentions - and the facts. There is much more on the table than this one instance.
 
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As always ven Fulton Sheen has great things to say about this topic 🙂


Ave maria
 
Maximian said:
If you show a Moslem some Catholics adoring the Blessed Sacrament and ask him if he worships the same God they are worshipping, he will say firmly “no”
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That’s only bc of a misunderstanding on the part of the Muslim you are addressing. Many Muslim people are much more open-minded.
YHWH_Christ said:
So for example, is Brahman and/or the Hindu Trimurti, Allah of the Muslims, Ahura Mazda of the Persians, Zeus of the Greeks, the Three Pure Ones of the Daoists, the Great Spirit of the Native Americans, Baha of the Baha’is, Asshur of the Assyrians, Waheguru of the Sikhs, and the many other highest deities of various different faiths an expression of Yahweh but under different names?
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I think it was St. Anselm who proved the existence of God with something like “God is the greatness that you cannot imagine something more great.” So even for those of the polytheistic religions, it would be a matter of understanding a set of definitions for people to concede some form of monotheism.

In the long run, it is probably more fruitful to acknowledge that everyone has a Spiritual life. This aspect of our humanity does much to tie us together, and takes away the more divisive aspect of how we frame our beliefs.

We are all loved by God even though we have different ways of loving God and seeing God’s presence and existence.
 
0Scarlett_nidiyilii said:
The answer is “sometimes” and “sort of”.

Like the above posters have said, there are some new or rebooted pagan theologies out there, and while they’re monotheistic, they’re not the God of Abraham, Issac and Jacob.

In the case of the Moslems, they do worship the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, but their theology departs from Christianity (ie they’re not trinitarian and they don’t want to be) that the answer is a very messy “sort of”.
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If the god of the Israelites is the same as the god of the Jews, then the god of the Christians and Muslims is the same as the god of the Jews. Obviously there are some pretty big differences in the nature of God, but I’d argue that the difference in how Jews (or at least many Jews) view God is different in degrees from how Christians and Muslims see God. My theory is that the Islamic version of God is essentially anti-Chalcedonian, and that Islam’s origins are in the Syriac and other Oriental churches who were often suppressed during the Byzantine period. Mohammed and his early followers just took it a few steps further than the Miaphysites of the Byzantine era.
 
If I were to hear that an alien superhero saved Metropolis from a rampaging monster named Doomsday and died in the process, and I look up at the monument in his memory and give him the honour and credit that is due him, I am honouring Superman.

Since I do not know that Superman was really Clark Kent (“Superman is what I can do. Clark is who I am”), then I don’t acknowledge the fullness of the truth about Superman. But if as a grateful citizen I lay flowers at Superman’s memorial, and people ask who I’m honouring, I point at the statue and say - “That guy!” And then one asking knows it is Superman I intend to honour. At that point, I would have no intention of honouring Clark Kent for the same feat, after all, why should I?

Am I therefore honouring somebody else because I don’t know the fullness of truth about him?

I find it odd that people are so quick to dismiss the Islamic Allah as the same God we worship because they don’t profess the fullness of his nature, but wouldn’t be so quick to dismiss the Jews who can be held to the same accusation on the exact same grounds.
 
As someone who has read some Greek mythology and studied Greek for college classes, comparing Zeus to God is really a non-starter. It’s a comparison made before but Zeus (and the other Greek gods) act out of self-interest very often and are often selfish. God does not.
 
Dolphin said:
As someone who has read some Greek mythology and studied Greek for college classes, comparing Zeus to God is really a non-starter. It’s a comparison made before but Zeus (and the other Greek gods) act out of self-interest very often and are often selfish. God does not.
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And in fact, St. Paul did not affirm Zeus as the one true God, but rather, the Unknown God to which the Athenians had dedicated an altar.
 
porthos11 said:
If I were to hear that an alien superhero saved Metropolis from a rampaging monster named Doomsday and died in the process, and I look up at the monument in his memory and give him the honour and credit that is due him, I am honouring Superman.

Since I do not know that Superman was really Clark Kent (“Superman is what I can do. Clark is who I am”), then I don’t acknowledge the fullness of the truth about Superman. But if as a grateful citizen I lay flowers at Superman’s memorial, and people ask who I’m honouring, I point at the statue and say - “That guy!” And then one asking knows it is Superman I intend to honour. At that point, I would have no intention of honouring Clark Kent for the same feat, after all, why should I?
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That’s the thing, though - Allah doesn’t do what our God does. He doesn’t die for anyone. He doesn’t save anyone. Two completely different characters with different stories. To stretch your analogy, it’s like Superman and Bizarro, not Superman and Kent.

Allah himself says that he is different character all throughout the Quran:
  • he has no Son (Surah 23:91)
  • denies the Resurrection (Surah 4:157-159)
  • allows Muslim men to be polygamous (up to 4 wives) - and many men, to this day, are. (Surah 4:3)
  • commands men to beat their disobedient wives (Surah 4:34)
  • promises virgins with pear-shaped breasts to followers in Heaven. (Surah 78:33)
Surah 4:3: “Marry those that please you of women: two, or three or four. But if you fear that you will not be just, then one or those your right hand possesses.”
 
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That, sir, is strictly his problem. Opinions and error do neither define nor recognize revealed truth.
 
ReaderT said:
Allah doesn’t do what our God does. He doesn’t die for anyone. He doesn’t save anyone.
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As an Arabic-speaking Christian, I feel compelled to point out that in my Bible, he does.

Good night. Time for bedtime prayers…which I address to Allah.

Al hamd li Allah- Praise be to God!
 
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fide said:
The two “sides” in the Church show this same irreconcilable conflict: contradiction, with no end in sight.
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There are always two side, or more. It is not insult to not that Bishop Scheinder is more extreme in his views in disagreeing with the side that did not prevail at Vatican 2 when this dogmatic constitution was voted on by the Catholic Church, meeting in council. But in context, I choose do disbelieve him. He is not my bishop, nor is he my Pope. It is clear to me that our last three Popes have believed that we worship the same God. So consistent teaching from Rome combined with a dogmatic constitution from the Church meeting in council, vs. a more extreme bishop - I know what I believe.
 
Salibi said:
As an Arabic-speaking Christian, I feel compelled to point out that in my Bible, he does.

Good night. Time for bedtime prayers…which I address to Allah.

Al hamd li Allah- Praise be to God!
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Salibi, what I mean is that the Islamic “Allah” acts / behaves differently than the Christian deity, which is undeniable when one reads the Quran. I know Arabic Christians use the name “Allah” too - but two people/beings can have the same name and yet be different. The name “Baal” just means “Lord”, but the Hebrew God forbid anyone equating Himself to that idol.
 
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You are presuming that to know the one God is to know the three persons. That is not something the Church holds.

We and the Jews worship the same one God. That they could not/would not acept three persons in one God does not mean they do not worship the one God.

And given that both Judaism and Christianity were fairly well known by the time Islam started, it is no fat step at all to see that Islam was influenced by both.
 
The old testament god acts differently than the NT god. Does that mean the God of Abraham is a totally different god?
 
fide said:
I have since read that the progressive/“conservative” (not the best word) divisions in the committees of the Council resulted not always in one “compromised” consistent viewpoint expressed in the documents, but sometimes in a mere mixing in of two conflicting viewpoints. The result of that is not good - either “side” can now find justification for their conflicting perspectives in “the Council”.
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That is why there is a strong resemblance between making “law” and making sausage.
fide said:
The two “sides” in the Church show this same irreconcilable conflict: contradiction, with no end in sight.
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I don’t think that dividing the Church in terms of opinions is particularly accurate; I suspect there are far more people in the middle, with two ends which can get into disagreements, with most in the middle not particularly interested in the “discussion”.

I don’t question that by the time of the third year, bishops were wanting to get things closed, signed, and return to their primary focus, their diocese. Could it be better said? Absolutely. Could it be longer? No doubt. However, on the level of relations between Islam and Catholicism (and Christianity in general), any activity between the two faiths is going to take place in a rather rarefied atmosphere. Thus I am not sure a critique is of particular relevance other than among those who wish to side=track explore it.

It may have more relevance to Bishop Schneider given that he is in Kazakhstan, if I remember correctly.
 
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