Is Allah, the god of Islam, the same as the God of Christianity and Judaism?

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Is Allah the same as YHWH, or is he a different false god?
 
thephilosopher6 said:
Is Allah the same as YHWH, or is he a different false god?
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Loaded question.

No, Allah cant possibly be YHWH as Allah begets not nor is he begotten.( that’s in the koran)

That said, they profess to worship the God of Abraham, maker of heaven and earth. So that’s why the catechism has such friendly language about Allah of Islam.
 
Philosophically, Catholics and Muslims understand God in much the same way. He transcends reality. He is THE ultimate reality. He is the source of all things, the foundation of all things, a being of pure spirit. He is not composed, He is not extended through time and space, he is eternal, etc…

Catholics and Muslims both recognize this truth about reality and what creates it. Both profess to have a relationship with this being and to know the truth of it. Compare this to, say, the way the Greeks understood their gods, or even the way Mormons understand what God is. Those are things that aren’t even on the same ontological level of God as Catholics and Muslims understand Him. In recognizing and directing their worship to that same truth of God as the ultimate reality, Catholics and Muslims do in fact recognize the same God.

That doesn’t mean all roads are the right roads or that Muslims have as much truth or a saving faith or haven’t been led astray into false revelation about this one being (they’d say the same about us). We disagree about revelation. We disagree in many respects about who God is personally. But in terms of the “what” of God, Catholics and Muslims have a lot in common, in ways we’d have nothing in common with the Greeks, Romans, Norseman, Mormans, etc… It’s the who of the what where the differences are between Catholics and Muslims. Mostly.
 
Also, Allah is the word for God in Arabic. Arabic speaking Christians have typically used the word “Allah” for God. It would be like me accusing the French of worshipping Dieu (the French word for God) and not my God.
 
How can it be in the new Catechism that Catholics and Muslims worship the same
God, but at the same time say it is safe to disagree?!
I agree with your points about the differences - the main one being the Trinity.
Islam teaches we are blasphemous in our belief in the Trinity.
Yet I know from other threads, that we are supposed to have this ecumenical view.
So I don’t know how we are supposed to rectify this in our brains.
 
There is only one God. There is only one ultimate reality beyond all existence who is divinely simple, uncomposed, pure act. This isn’t a squabble of one patron city god being compared to another. There is only one. There can be only one. Both Catholics and Muslims recognize this. They recognize that there is one author of all reality. Not one author among a group of possible authors, but just that there is only one possible ultimate author. It’s the fundamentals of monotheism. We don’t just worship one small “g” god and reject the others, we understand that there is only one God beyond all things. We both point towards the same thing. It’s metaphysically impossible that we are pointing to different things, at least in terms of natural philosophy.

We disagree about who this being personally is, who He is, and the specifics of what He’s told us. The natural philosophy that leads us to God is very nearly the same. It’s a disagreements over the personal revelation that’s been provided.

It’s kind of like how Socrates was seen as having discovered the true God through philosophy, even if he didn’t know of anything personally revealed by God. It’s a recognition of that ultimate author behind it all. We all see the same world and worship the author of it.
 
I know the roots of Christianity are in Judaism, but the Jewish people believe in one
God also. There are many scriptures in the Old Testament that point to Christ, but if we use the Trinity, both Judaism and Islam believe in one God and see Jesus as only a prophet.
 
Christians also believe in one God who is one, the Trinity not withstanding.

If my wife has revealed very personal secrets about herself to me but not to others, does that mean the woman I know is different than the woman others know?
 
Scott Hahn once described Islam as “The Last Great Christian Heresy.” I think they think they are, but here is the riff. If I say I know John Doe and describe John Doe as a very tall, morally upright, handsome man with big hand and I am quite sure this is how I know John Doe to be, and you also say you know John Doe and he is short and dumpy, is a thief and and rouge, with hideously deformed facial features, and missing both arms, and you are also quite convinced this John Doe you described is the real John Doe, do we know the same John Doe even if it is only possible for there to be only one John Doe in the entire universe?
 
BillTheSlink said:
Scott Hahn once described Islam as “The Last Great Christian Heresy.” I think they think they are, but here is the riff. If I say I know John Doe and describe John Doe as a very tall, morally upright, handsome man with big hand and I am quite sure this is how I know John Doe to be, and you also say you know John Doe and he is short and dumpy, is a thief and and rouge, with hideously deformed facial features, and missing both arms, and you are also quite convinced this John Doe you described is the real John Doe, do we know the same John Doe even if it is only possible for there to be only one John Doe in the entire universe?
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If John Doe is the author of a book, and two people recognize him as the author of the same book, they believe in the same author of the book, at least in terms of “what” the author is, even if they have different understandings of his character from different reports. They know HE is the author, and that the characters in the book didn’t author themselves, and that the book didn’t just come together without an author, and that the characters in the book won’t eventually become authors on the same ontological level of new books.
 
The book I refer to here isn’t the book of revelation but the book of nature: that is, the natural world; reality.
Mormon’s believe what we call God the Father Elohim had God parents and that Jesus and Satan are both Children of Elohim.
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Do they believe in the same God Catholics do?
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Do Mormon’s even believe in the one true God since for God to be truly the one true God he would have to be begotten not made as I Am that I Am or I am the alpha and the omega the beginning and the end?
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No, they do not. That was the point I’ve made in prior posts. What Mormons worship is absolutely nothing like what Christians, Jews, and Muslims worship. It’s like comparing Zeus to God. We worship the one uncreated, uncaused, eternal, immutable, being beyond being, ultimate reality that is the source of all that is, who is without beginning or end, who transcends all, who is one.
 
There are a lot of different opinions about this issue. The Qur’an says, in surah 112, that Allah is “The One”. The arabic word for “one” is “ahad”. One of Allah’s names is Al-Ahad, which means that He is a single Divine Person. Muslims are Unitarians and christians are Trinitarians, so for that reason, I believe we worship two different Gods.

Another difference is that the God of Islam does not show any sign of jealousy, but in Christianity, we know that God does show jealousy; this is mentioned several times in the Old Testament. Muslims worship a false god and they need Jesus to be saved. They need more than just to passively believe that He existed-- they need to believe that actually was crucified for their sins, was resurrected and they must surrender to Him. They must accept the finished work of Christ to be saved.

I know based on the Christian Scriptures that many muslims are in Hell right now. They need the finished work of Christ. It’s not enough to claim to follow the God of Abraham. We must share the Gospel with them because that is their only hope. The Jesus of Islam is not personal in any way. He’s a Jesus who can’t save anyone.
 
drac16 said:
…and they need Jesus to be saved. They need more than just to passively believe that He existed-- they need to believe that actually was crucified for their sins, was resurrected and they must surrender to Him. They must accept the finished work of Christ to be saved.
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What is needed to be saved has little to no bearing on this discussion. Saying that we direct our worship at the same Being does not imply that both forms of religion are equal in truth or in being a path to salvation or in teaching right morality.
 
Wesrock said:
Christians also believe in one God who is one, the Trinity not withstanding.

If my wife has revealed very personal secrets about herself to me but not to others, does that mean the woman I know is different than the woman others know?
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Correct One God, but Father, Son and Holy Spirit in One.
 
drac16 said:
There are a lot of different opinions about this issue. The Qur’an says, in surah 112, that Allah is “The One”. The arabic word for “one” is “ahad”. One of Allah’s names is Al-Ahad, which means that He is a single Divine Person. Muslims are Unitarians and christians are Trinitarians, so for that reason, I believe we worship two different Gods.

Another difference is that the God of Islam does not show any sign of jealousy, but in Christianity, we know that God does show jealousy; this is mentioned several times in the Old Testament. Muslims worship a false god and they need Jesus to be saved. They need more than just to passively believe that He existed-- they need to believe that actually was crucified for their sins, was resurrected and they must surrender to Him. They must accept the finished work of Christ to be saved.

I know based on the Christian Scriptures that many muslims are in Hell right now. They need the finished work of Christ. It’s not enough to claim to follow the God of Abraham. We must share the Gospel with them because that is their only hope. The Jesus of Islam is not personal in any way. He’s a Jesus who can’t save anyone.
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Thank you for your (name removed by moderator)ut and explanation.
 
Wesrock said:
What is needed to be saved has little to no bearing on this discussion. Saying that we direct our worship at the same Being does not imply that both forms of religion are equal in truth or in being a path to salvation or in teaching right morality.
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Quite the contrary is true. It has literally everything to say about whether muslims will be saved or not, because one must believe in the right God before they can engage in worship of said God (and be saved by that God). How can someone worship a God they don’t know?

Narrow is the gate that leads to eternal life. It’s Christ’s way or no way. You do a tremendous injustice if you say that muslims can be saved as is, because that is an insinuation that the Gospel is not necessary.
 
drac16 said:
You do a tremendous injustice if you say that muslims can be saved as is, because that is an insinuation that the Gospel is not necessary.
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…

Please do read my posts. I never said that Islam is a saving or right faith and in fact have basically said the opposite.
 
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