How can I reconcile Nostrae Aetate with my faith and common sense?

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Okay everyone…take a deep breathe, breathe in breathe out 😃

I would like to say here is I wonder what people think about how Muslims pray to the One God?

Im sure many are sincere worshippers and then again maybe some angry ones who reject Jesus and pray with a heavy heart. However, ive heard that there were some former Muslims who have asked in their prayers to God to reveal who he really is. Several have had this prayer answered by being brought in to the knowledge of Christ.

I think the knowledge of Christ came from their real sincerity and God answered appropriately.

Thus I would say a sincere prayer to God the who is all Merciful will answer and I think Muslims do belong in this category.

Peace

MJ
 
montfortian said:
How can I accept the statement in Nostrae Aetate that Catholics and Moslems adore the same God as compatible with my faith and common sense?

(Emphasis mine)

How is this possible? For example, if I have a friend with a son named Robert, who is thirty-two years old, this characteristic becomes a part of my friends identity. Therefore, if I met a man who looks identical, but has six kids under the age of ten, then I would know he isn’t my friend because my friend has only one thirty-two year old kid.

The same applies to the Moslem religion. My God has a Son who is also God: Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. But Jesus is only a Allah’s “prophet”. Therefore, because this prophet lacks two things in relationship to Allah–the father/son relationship and divinity–Allah lacks essential characteristics belonging to my God and is not God.

Then we also have the words of Our Lord:
(Emphasis mine)
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Mont,

To accept that a person believes in one God is a big first step. They got this right. All else they get wrong. Mormon’s believe in many Gods and they believe they will become God…so in the scheme of things believing in one God is a major first step.
 
SteveVH said:
Okay, you’re misunderstanding me completley. Anyone who rejects Jesus, after knowing the truth of who he is, is probably condemned, yet we would still commend them to the mercy of God. Jesus was in their presence and they definitely heard the truth. Those that rejected that truth will pay the consequences.

We are speaking of 1.62 billion people, many of whom live under circumstances that are, shall we say, less than friendly to Christian evangelization. It is a crime in nearly all Muslim countries to even have a Bible, or wear a cross. So please don’t tell me that they all understand the truth about Jesus and reject that truth.
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Sura 5:72-73, 5:75 “They do blaspheme who say: “God is Christ the son of Mary.” They do blaspheme who say: God is one of three in a trinity: for there is no God except one God Allah. If they do not desist from their word of blasphemy, verily a grievous penalty will befall the blasphemers among them. Christ the son of Mary was no more than a Messenger; many were the Messengers that passed away before him.”
 
Our CAF friend Cavaradossi had a great insight when I was bickering with the quite intelligent Byzantine_Wolf about this issue.

In my humble opinion, all sides of this issue should listen to him:
If I may step in here, I think there are two different concerns being expressed here. benjohnson’s concern seems primarily to be preserving the identity of God. That is, the God who led the Jews out of Egypt and who was worshiped by the Jews is the same God worshiped by us, and by extension is the same object (to use a rather crude term) of worship of even modern day Jews. Byzantine_Wolf’s concern seems to be protecting the Scriptural affirmation that one must worship The Father through the Son. I don’t think the two are necessarily contradictory, however, especially, if we examine Jesus’ exchange with the Samaritan woman at the well in John 4. Specifically, he remarks to her (in a somewhat cryptic fashion) that she worships what she knows not (benjohnson’s proposition about modern Jews), and that the day will come when the true worshipers will worship the father in spirit and in truth (Byzantine_Wolf’s concern that those who worship the Father through the Son are the only true worshipers).
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MartinJordan said:
Thus I would say a sincere prayer to God the who is all Merciful will answer and I think Muslims do belong in this category.
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Those muslims who are brought to the Christian faith…are guided there by the mercy of the Trinitarian God…the true God. This does not prove that they worshipped the true God as muslims. Some muslims have become saints after their conversion. Some pagans…who worshipped idols…were brought to Christ and became saints.
 
Gaelic_Bard said:
Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him. John 3:36

He already has judged, Steve…
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“I tell you the truth, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you” (John 6:53).
 
Mickey said:
There’s an understatement. They reject the existence of Christ as the Son of God.
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So do a great many Christians- there are dozens of little Christian sects that actually don’t believe that Jesus is God - they see His role as being what we would consider Mary’s role - to have been born without the stain of sin, and to sacrifice and pray for us.

But they certainly don’t believe or teach that He created us - they see His title of Son of God in much the same way that the Greeks called Zeus the “son of Kronos” - that God begot Jesus separately and distinctly from Himself - not that God is simply Jesus’ original name, and that God and Jesus are identically the same one - they would consider that to be quite absurd.
 
Mickey said:
There’s an understatement. They reject the existence of Christ as the Son of God.
“Whosoever denieth the Son, the same hath not the Father.”( 1 John 2:23)
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Absolutely. They are so wrong about this.

But they are right about so much as well.
 
Mickey said:
No. This is what I am confirming…I will post it again.

**The Koran says: “**Allah forbid that he should have a son!” (Sura 4:171)
The Bible says: “Whosoever denieth the Son, the same hath not the Father.”( 1 John 2:23)
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How does this make them worshiping a different God? Than you do believe that Jehovah Witnesses do not worship the same God?
 
SteveVH said:
“I tell you the truth, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you” (John 6:53).
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Again, if you want to argue that failing to believe in the eucharist is dangerous…fine.

but it is not a disagresenent over WHO Christ is
 
Gaelic_Bard said:
No parallel at all.

Christ is God. To not worship Christ (or the Spirit) is to not worship God.
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The Eucharist is Christ.

To not worship Jesus in the Eucharist is to not worship Jesus, then? Yes? Is that what Catholics ought to be saying about you?
 
Gaelic_Bard said:
Sura 5:72-73, 5:75 “They do blaspheme who say: “God is Christ the son of Mary.” They do blaspheme who say: God is one of three in a trinity: for there is no God except one God Allah. If they do not desist from their word of blasphemy, verily a grievous penalty will befall the blasphemers among them. Christ the son of Mary was no more than a Messenger; many were the Messengers that passed away before him.”
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Yes.

“Your faith was not given by God, but by a simple man named Muhammad, whereas our Orthodox Christian religion was given to us directly by God through Jesus Christ.”
St Dimitrii from Sliven
 
Gaelic_Bard said:
Sura 5:72-73, 5:75 “They do blaspheme who say: “God is Christ the son of Mary.” They do blaspheme who say: God is one of three in a trinity: for there is no God except one God Allah. If they do not desist from their word of blasphemy, verily a grievous penalty will befall the blasphemers among them. Christ the son of Mary was no more than a Messenger; many were the Messengers that passed away before him.”
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Okay, you have shown that Islam is a false religion. No one is questioning that (at least not so far). This does not translate into damnation for those, who through no fault of their own, have never been taught anything different.
 
PRmerger said:
The Eucharist is Christ.

To not worship Jesus in the Eucharist is to not worship Jesus, then? Yes? Is that what Catholics ought to be saying about you?
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I could care less, PR. Catholics can say about me whatever they like.

Denying the exclusivity of worshiping Christ to worship the one true God, wholly another story.
 
adrift said:
How does this make them worshiping a different God?
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Um…because they deny the true God… the Trinitarian God…they deny Christ…they deny the Holy Spirit…and St John tells us that “whosoever denieth the Son, the same hath not the Father.”
 
Gaelic_Bard said:
Again, if you want to argue that failing to believe in the eucharist is dangerous…fine.

but it is not a disagresenent over WHO Christ is
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Do you mean disagreement? Then you too believe that the Jehovah Witness do not worship the same God?
 
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