But it is not the Trinitarian God…hence they are worshipping a god other than the God of the Christians.
Dear Mickey,
Cordial greetings and a very good day. Hope all is well.
Incontrovertibly, there are serious and insurrmountable obstacles to any effective dialogue with Islam, for Muslims reject the Holy Trinity and thus many other core tenets of Christian orthodoxy, chief among them being the Divinity of our Blessed Saviour. The Catholic Church does recognise these fundamental issues, but does, notwithstanding, believe that the plan of salvation includes all who acknowldege the Creator. *The Catechism of the Catholic *
Church says that Muslims “…together with us…adore the one merciful God, mankinds judge on the last day” (para. 841, quoting
Lumen Gentium, 16). The Church is, my dear friend, only seeking to be affirmative and to look for points of contact with Islam where that is possible, but by no means approving of its false doctrines.
With Judaism and Christianity, Islam is one of the three great monotheisitc religions of the world, all in way or another looking to Abraham as the founder of their faith. Islam is not only a Western, theistic religion rather than an Oriental, pantheistic religion, but is based explicitly upon the historical revelation of the God of the Jews (another point of contact), tracing itself to Ishmael, to whom also God promised special blessings, according to Genesis. All if this surely admits of no doubt. Another point of contact with the Christian religion is that Islam believes in a single, all-just, all-perfect, all-powerful God who created the world and man, insists on obedience to His will and promises salvation and immortality to those who believe and obey. In all these ways Islam is like Judaism and Christianity rather than like Hinduism and Buddhism. From the will of Allah come both the existence of the world by creation and rule over it, over nature and history by providence and over human free will by moral law.
Whilst I acknowldege, my dear friend, that Muslims reject the doctrine of the Holy Trinity, I do not think it follows that they worship “a god other than the God of Christians”. In the final analysis it does not really matter what sort of god that they
think that they are worship, because it cannot alter the fact that in
reality they do worship the the Triune God, even if they refuse to acknowledge it. Moreover, they do worship the Triune God because the God of the O.T. has always existed as “God in three persons, Blessed Trinity”. Their disbelief in this doctrine can never change that immutable truth and so you could say that they are worshiping the Trinity whether they like it or not, because their religion bases itself on the historical revelation of the God of the Jews, who is also the Triune God of Chrsitianity.
Hope that has made some sort of sense, Mickey, and that you can follow my line of reasoning, old chap.
God bless.
Warmest good wishes,
Portrait
Pax