Do Muslims Worship the Same God as Catholics?

[Montalban]

Well firstly Jesus isn’t considered ‘inferior’ to Muhammad,

Actually he is. Muhammed is believed to be the greatest prophet, not just the last.

God’s greatest Prophet Muhammad
islamonline.com/cgi-bin/news_service/spot_full_story.asp?service_id=2008
The word ‘Islam’ simply means submission to god, and a Muslim is one who follows the laws of Islam. The revelation of Islam was given to Muhammad, who is revered by Muslims as the greatest prophet.
30-days.net/islam/prophet.htm
He is, indeed, the greatest Prophet of God for the guidance of the whole human race.
wefound.org/texts/Muhammad_files/Muhammad1.htm
His greatest Prophet Muhammad
as-sidq.org/muhammed.htm

If you’re going to say Muslims don’t believe in the same God as Christians do because we believe Jesus was a Messenger of God, then what do you say about the Jews’ God?

Moslems don’t believe Jesus is God, and we do. You don’t worship Jesus (who is God) therefore you don’t worship the same God.

 

[Kadaveri]

So Jews worship a different god because they don’t worship Jesus?

Yes or no?

 

[Booklover]

So Jews worship a different god because they don’t worship Jesus?

Yes or no?

No, they worship the real God! The “god” who “spoke” through Muhammad’s lips and “dictated” the Quran, is none other than the inventor of Islam, Muhammad himself!

Vickie

 

[Kadaveri]

So Muslims don’t believe in the real God because they don’t worship Jesus (who is the real god apparently), but Jews ***do ***believe in the real God even though they consider Jesus to be a lying fraud.

This doesn’t make much sense now does it?

 

[Angelos]

So Muslims don’t believe in the real God because they don’t worship Jesus (who is the real god apparently), but Jews ***do ***believe in the real God even though they consider Jesus to be a lying fraud.

This doesn’t make much sense now does it?

:nope: dear kadaveri, you seem to miss an important point, which makes your analogy a false one.

The New Testament includes neither the word Allah nor the Islamic notion signified by that Arabic word! We confess to believe in the same God as Jews not only because their faith preceded ours but also Jesus in the new Testament endorsed that the God of Judaism is the one and only true God. Therefore, whom Jesus called Father and asked His disciples to call Father is no one than the God of Judaism. All the evangelists and other authors of the books of the NT as well as Christian theologians of the early centuries kept worshipping the same God of Judaism, whom they believed to have revealed His triune nature through Jesus’ birth.

Nevertheless, none of these can we claim for Allah, whom Muslims regard as the only true God of the Universe. For us Christians, the name and notion of Allah are a mere innovation that some guys uncannily try to patch to our Sacred Scripture & Tradition.

More to the point, most of the Muslims delight in distinguishing Allah from the God of the Bible whilst few of them acknowledge that the people of the Book adore the same God as the God revealed & defined in the Koran.

Peace to you,
Angelos N.

 

[guanophore]

The Catechism looks like it says so. But it’s kind of hard to swallow.

What do you think?

Clearly God has revealed Himself progressively. Muslims are also children of Abraham. They worship the One God. However , they don’t know about his continued revelation which was given first to the Jews, and then to Christ’s Church. Since they have incomplete understanding of who He is, they have a limited perspective and maybe false practices.

 

[Contarini]

Nevertheless, none of these can we claim for Allah, whom Muslims regard as the only true God of the Universe. For us Christians, the name and notion of Allah are a mere innovation that some guys uncannily try to patch to our Sacred Scripture & Tradition.

Speak for yourself. Arabic-speaking Christians use the word “Allah” as their word for God. You are not representing the mainstream Christian view here. Muslims are clearly claiming that their God is the same one who inspired Abraham, Moses, and Jesus. However wrong we believe they are about God, it is clearly the same God we are talking about. There is not one shred of reason to believe otherwise. The people who deny that Muslims worship the same God are bigots, pure and simple. They have been blinded by their hatred for Islam and they can’t think straight.

Edwin

 

[ABostonCatholic]

I read through the first half of these posts, and skimmed the rest, and I have just a little bit to say:

To say that someone worships the same God as Catholics is not to say that they worship the Trinity, or the God of Abraham, etc. It means that we worship the God who is the highest being and the only being which exists in itself. Everything else that exists is dependent upon something else; only God is self-sufficient. Thus we can say that the following people worship the true God: Abraham, Aristotle (Plato is questionable), St. Paul, Muslims, Jews. Pantheistics such as Hindus do not worship the true God. I think it is safe to say that Jehovah’s Witnesses worship the true God, but as neo-Arian Christians. Mormons are debatable. If the actually do teach that there are 3 gods, or that God was a glorified man on another planet, then no, they do not worship the true God.

 

[Montalban]

So Jews worship a different god because they don’t worship Jesus?

Yes or no?

Jews worship God.

Jews worship a *shadow *of the real God. The difference would be the same thing as other Christians worshipping the same God, but not in the proper ‘way’.

Jews followed God, but without full understanding which is only known through Jesus.

Islam worships a created being that is not God, but they call god.

Hope this clears things up.

 

[Montalban]

Clearly God has revealed Himself progressively. Muslims are also children of Abraham. They worship the One God. However , they don’t know about his continued revelation which was given first to the Jews, and then to Christ’s Church. Since they have incomplete understanding of who He is, they have a limited perspective and maybe false practices.

Progression?

Islam is not Christianity 2.0

It is a very different message, owing to a different source for its revelation.

 

[Montalban]

I read through the first half of these posts, and skimmed the rest, and I have just a little bit to say:

To say that someone worships the same God as Catholics is not to say that they worship the Trinity, or the God of Abraham, etc. It means that we worship the God who is the highest being and the only being which exists in itself. Everything else that exists is dependent upon something else; only God is self-sufficient. Thus we can say that the following people worship the true God: Abraham, Aristotle (Plato is questionable), St. Paul, Muslims, Jews. Pantheistics such as Hindus do not worship the true God. I think it is safe to say that Jehovah’s Witnesses worship the true God, but as neo-Arian Christians. Mormons are debatable. If the actually do teach that there are 3 gods, or that God was a glorified man on another planet, then no, they do not worship the true God.

I’ve read where Hindus believe that ultimately there is one god, with the ‘gods’ as different manifestations of that god.

 

[javazinger]

Well, this is the extent of my stay here. The world is broken and everywhere I go is just more… uhh! Just forget it. I am out of this ungodly place.

 

[ABostonCatholic]

I’ve read where Hindus believe that ultimately there is one god, with the ‘gods’ as different manifestations of that god.

You’ll quickly be exhausted if you look for a systematic Hindu philosophy of God. Different schools of Hinduism strongly consider themselves monotheists, others polytheists, some atheists. I think the average Hindu is polytheist.

If you want to see the underlying problem with Hinduism, look no further than the “Viveka-chudamani” from “Shankara’s Crest-Jewel of Discrimination” tr. Swami Prabhavananda and Christopher Isherwood, Vedanta Press, 1975. Pg 49

This is the section on Maya, which literally means “magic” or “illusion”

Maya, in her potential aspect, is the divine power of the Lord. She has no beginning. She is composed of the three qualities (guna), subtle, beyond perception. It is from the effects she produces that her existence is inferred by the wise. It is she who gives birth to the whole universe. She is neither being nor nonbeing, nor a mixture of both. She is neither divided nor undivided, nor a mixture of both. She is neither an indivisible whole, nor composed of parts, nor a mixture of both. She is most strange. Her nature is inexplicable. Just as knowing a rope to be a rope destroys the illusion that it is a snake, so Maya is destroyed by direct experience of Brahman-the pure, the free, the one without a second.

This seems to support monotheism, yes, but my bigger point is that the law of non-contradiction is ignored. When we say that something neither being nor non being nor a mixture of both, we might as well say that it is both being and nonbeing and a mixture of both, while asserting that it is none of those things!!!

 

[ABostonCatholic]

Well, this is the extent of my stay here. The world is broken and everywhere I go is just more… uhh! Just forget it. I am out of this ungodly place.

 

[Montalban]

This seems to support monotheism, yes, but my bigger point is that the law of non-contradiction is ignored. When we say that something neither being nor non being nor a mixture of both, we might as well say that it is both being and nonbeing and a mixture of both, while asserting that it is none of those things!!!

And yet Moslems gave Hindus *dhimmi *status, by the logic of some here, that means they too worship the one (and same) god.

 

[Montalban]

Well, this is the extent of my stay here. The world is broken and everywhere I go is just more… uhh! Just forget it. I am out of this ungodly place.

giving up after 2 posts

It seems to me he lived his life like a candle in the wind…

 

[Kadaveri]

The word ‘God’ doesn’t appear anywhere in the Old Testament (or the New Testament) either now does it? They were both written way before that word was used in English, so do Christians who use the word ‘God’ worship a different god since the words actually used in the Bible are Yahweh, Elohim and Allaha?

There’s no need to quibble over linguistics, ‘Allah’ is just God in Arabic and the Qur’an is in Arabic so obviously that’s the word it’s going to use. Do the Arabic speaking Jews/Christians who use the word ‘Allah’ all worship a different god?

I find it most striking how many Catholics go so far as to ignore their own Church’s teachings that Muslims worship the real God… Is going to all lengths to delegitimise another faith really more important than adhering to your own? Wow…

 

[Booklover]

The word ‘God’ doesn’t appear anywhere in the Old Testament (or the New Testament) either now does it? They were both written way before that word was used in English, so do Christians who use the word ‘God’ worship a different god since the words actually used in the Bible are Yahweh, Elohim and Allaha?

There’s no need to quibble over linguistics, ‘Allah’ is just God in Arabic and the Qur’an is in Arabic so obviously that’s the word it’s going to use. Do the Arabic speaking Jews/Christians who use the word ‘Allah’ all worship a different god?

I find it most striking how many Catholics go so far as to ignore their own Church’s teachings that Muslims worship the real God… Is going to all lengths to delegitimise another faith really more important than adhering to your own? Wow…

The Cathechism states that Muslims *profess *to worship the God of Abraham!

Vickie

 

[Booklover]

Speak for yourself. Arabic-speaking Christians use the word “Allah” as their word for God. You are not representing the mainstream Christian view here. Muslims are clearly claiming that their God is the same one who inspired Abraham, Moses, and Jesus. However wrong we believe they are about God, it is clearly the same God we are talking about. There is not one shred of reason to believe otherwise. The people who deny that Muslims worship the same God are bigots, pure and simple. They have been blinded by their hatred for Islam and they can’t think straight.

Edwin

Do you believe that the God we worship dictated the Quran to Muhammad?

If you do, then we’d all better convert to Islam since the Quran states that Allah does not accept any other religion except Islam!

*002.120 *
YUSUFALI: Never will the Jews or the Christians be satisfied with thee unless thou follow their form of religion. Say: “The Guidance of Allah,-that is the (only) Guidance.” Wert thou to follow their desires after the knowledge which hath reached thee, then wouldst thou find neither Protector nor helper against Allah.
PICKTHAL: And the Jews will not be pleased with thee, nor will the Christians, till thou follow their creed. Say: Lo! the guidance of Allah (Himself) is Guidance. And if thou shouldst follow their desires after the knowledge which hath come unto thee, then wouldst thou have from Allah no protecting guardian nor helper.
SHAKIR: And the Jews will not be pleased with you, nor the Christians until you follow their religion. Say: Surely Allah’s guidance, that is the (true) guidance. And if you follow their desires after the knowledge that has come to you, you shall have no guardian from Allah, nor any helper.

*003.019 *
YUSUFALI: The Religion before Allah is Islam (submission to His Will): Nor did the People of the Book dissent therefrom except through envy of each other, after knowledge had come to them. But if any deny the Signs of Allah, Allah is swift in calling to account.
PICKTHAL: Lo! religion with Allah (is) the Surrender (to His Will and Guidance). Those who (formerly) received the Scripture differed only after knowledge came unto them, through transgression among themselves. Whoso disbelieveth the revelations of Allah (will find that) lo! Allah is swift at reckoning.
**SHAKIR: Surely the (true) religion with Allah is Islam, and those to whom the Book had been given did not show opposition but after knowledge had come to them, out of envy among themselves; and whoever disbelieves in the communications of Allah then surely Allah is quick in reckoning. **

cont.

 

[Booklover]

cont.

*003.085 *
YUSUFALI: **If anyone desires a religion other than Islam (submission to Allah), never will it be accepted of him; and in the Hereafter He will be in the ranks of those who have lost (All spiritual good). **
PICKTHAL: **And whoso seeketh as religion other than the Surrender (to Allah) it will not be accepted from him, and he will be a loser in the Hereafter. **
**SHAKIR: And whoever desires a religion other than Islam, it shall not be accepted from him, and in the hereafter he shall be one of the losers. **

Muslims worship the god who spoke these words. Is this the same God that we have come to know? If it is, then as I mentioned before, we have no alternative but to convert to Islam since he himself revealed that no other religion but Islam is acceptable to him.

That would also mean that we’ve been wrong all along and Jesus Christ is just a prophet and not the son of god and that Muhammad should be our role model.

*008.020 *
YUSUFALI: O ye who believe! Obey Allah and His Messenger, and turn not away from him when ye hear (him speak).
PICKTHAL: O ye who believe! Obey Allah and His messenger, and turn not away from him when ye hear (him speak).
SHAKIR: O you who believe! obey Allah and His Messenger and do not turn back from Him while you hear.

*008.021 *
YUSUFALI: Nor be like those who say, “We hear,” but listen not:
PICKTHAL: Be not as those who say, we hear, and they hear not.
SHAKIR: And be not like those who said, We hear, and they did not obey.

*008.022 *
YUSUFALI: For the worst of beasts in the sight of Allah are the deaf and the dumb,- those who understand not.
PICKTHAL: Lo! the worst of beasts in Allah’s sight are the deaf, the dumb, who have no sense.
SHAKIR: Surely the vilest of animals, in Allah’s sight, are the deaf, the dumb, who do not understand.

Any thoughts, Edwin? Is this really the God of Abraham?

Vickie