Something that has been bothering me for a while now

[josie_L]

I agree with you Edward. God bless.

Oops, sorry Edwin I called you Edward.

 

[Contarini]

I acknowledge your observations and opinions and additionally note that you are being argumentative and confrontational. I thought you had stated in an earlier post that you wanted to help dzheremi? How can trying to pick a fight with me in any way help him? Please try to be more helpful. And, if I may be so bold, perhaps you could in future omit the snide remarks? There’s no call to assert that many Orthodox don’t care about history, is there? If you find it impossible to be civil perhaps you’d be kind enough not to post at all. Many thanks in advance for your cooperation.

You have some cheek asking people to be civil to you after a post suggesting that anyone who doesn’t hold all the right beliefs is worshiping a false god. I have no patience with such a wicked opinion. I backed off with dzheremi when I realized that he was genuinely troubled by this issue and searching for the truth. But you think you have found the truth. Your euphoria in the fact should give you a thicker skin.

Now how about addressing the problem of the Jews? Do they worship the true God or don’t they?

Yours truly,

Edwin Tait

 

[Hadi]

dzheremi, don’t you think that Jews can also take your line of reasoning and say that the Christians don’t worship the same God ? they can support this claim by quoting some verses in the NT and Church creeds.

 

[2nd_Adam]

dzheremi, don’t you think that Jews can also take your line of reasoning and say that the Christians don’t worship the same God ? they can support this claim by quoting some verses in the NT and Church creeds.

What did Jesus call the unbelieving Jews?

Answer: children of the devil

 

[2nd_Adam]

Originally Posted by 2nd Adam
As Christians, our only authority is God alone.

Again - please show me that in Scripture.

OR - tell me WHOSE interpretation is correct - since the Holy Spirit guides us ALL to ALL truth (John 16:13-15).

If you don’t think God is the final authority, then there is not much to discuss. You are still in rebellion with God almighty.

 

[elvisman]

If you don’t think God is the final authority, then there is not much to discuss. You are still in rebellion with God almighty.

Although I find your curt responses easy to read - there’s not much substance.

You’re avoiding my question because you can’t answer how EVERYBODY can be right since they are ALL guided by the Holy Spirit to ALL truth. It’s impossible.

Furthermore - you refuse to answer me because there IS NOT Scripture verse that backs you claim that Scripture itself is the final authority.
**
Sola Scriptura is a self-refuting doctrine because it has absolutely, positively no basis in Scripture. You’re wrong - not only because Christ’s Church says your wrong - but the very Bible you claim has the final authority says you’re wrong.

This is the tragedy of Protestantism. Tens of thousands of constantly splintering, bickering denominations that ALL claim to have the truth. But all they’ve managed to achieve is separation - ecclesiatical divorce- because they all trusted in prideful, rebellious men instead of Jesus Christ.

 

[dzheremi]

dzheremi, don’t you think that Jews can also take your line of reasoning and say that the Christians don’t worship the same God ? they can support this claim by quoting some verses in the NT and Church creeds.

Hello Hadi,

Yeah, I think you’re right here. The Jews could, and I have seen some Jews that do. I think maybe even most Jews who are religiously observant and not just “culturally Jewish” might have to conclude that, in the same way that I am forced to conclude that I don’t worship Islam’s Allah. It’s not a very nice thing to admit, and it doesn’t make me feel good, but I’ve got to do it if I care about living my Christian faith.

Incidentally, I don’t know how or why a Jew would quote from the NT. It is not considered scripture to them. It would about as convincing as I’m sure you find Christian deconstructions of the Qur’an to be.

 

[dzheremi]

If Mohammed is a precursor to the or is the anti-Christ ( I won’t deny this, but I have a hard time believing that the present Muslims are somehow going to Hell for not knowing He is, and furthermore, that they are worshiping a false God, i.e., a demon, which they cannot be faulted for) because of his false beliefs then couldn’t the same be said of Christian heretics (weren’t Protestants at one point in time viewed as heretics but are now considered as separated brethren)?

I’m not sure how to respond to something like this. At no point in this thread or any thread that I can remember posting in have I faulted Muslims for believing as they do, nor condemned they or anyone to hell. A lot of people in this thread are reading more into my posts than I’ve put there. Edwin asked for evidence from Christian history that it had been taught in the past that the Muslims were worshipping a false god, and I presented the best I could find at the moment (since all my books are in storage right now, I’m limited to Google searches): That Muhammad was thought of by many Christian writers of past ages to be either the anti-Christ, the forerunner of the anti-Christ, or at least a follower of the anti-Christ.

No one that I can remember until yourself, except for 2nd Adam and the people he has drawn into an unrelated argument, has mentioned Protestants. I’d like to keep it that way.

 

[josie_L]

I’m not sure how to respond to something like this. At no point in this thread or any thread that I can remember posting in have I faulted Muslims for believing as they do, nor condemned they or anyone to hell. A lot of people in this thread are reading more into my posts than I’ve put there. Edwin asked for evidence from Christian history that it had been taught in the past that the Muslims were worshipping a false god, and I presented the best I could find at the moment (since all my books are in storage right now, I’m limited to Google searches): That Muhammad was thought of by many Christian writers of past ages to be either the anti-Christ, the forerunner of the anti-Christ, or at least a follower of the anti-Christ.

No one that I can remember until yourself, except for 2nd Adam and the people he has drawn into an unrelated argument, has mentioned Protestants. I’d like to keep it that way.

Dzheremi, I’m not saying you (directly) said this but by dint of what you conclude, i.e., that the Muslims are not worshipping the same God as the Christian God makes me wonder who pray tell are they worshiping? A demon? I find it hard to believe that a good Muslim (someone with good morals and a righteous heart) is not praying to the very same God (no matter the differences in their theologically understanding of God) we pray to.

 

[dzheremi]

Dzheremi, I’m not saying you (directly) said this but by dint of what you conclude, i.e., that the Muslims are not worshipping the same God as the Christian God makes me wonder who pray tell are they worshiping? A demon? I find it hard to believe that a good Muslim (someone with good morals and a righteous heart) is not praying to the very same God (no matter the differences in their theologically understanding of God) we pray to.

Again, I’m afraid you are asking questions that are outside the bounds of what I intend with this thread. It’s not that I won’t answer them, it’s that they make absolutely zero impact on my Christian faith, while the implications of the relationship between Christianity and Islam as explicitly stated in CCC 841 ("…together with us they adore the one, merciful God") greatly impact my faith. So here are my answers to your questions to the best of my ability, but please keep in mind that this thread is NOT about who or what Muslims are worshipping, whether or not Muslims en masse or as individuals are to “blame” for worshipping in accordance with the Qur’an, whether or not Muslims are destined for hell, whether or not Muslims can be good people, or any other question that people have thought I had meant to ask when I wrote the OP. I am well aware by this point that I have been misunderstood by some in this thread who are honestly trying to help me. I apologize for not being more clear in my initial post, but hopefully another reiteration on my part that is my CHRISTIAN faith that I am worried about in light of CCC 841 will be enough to temper any subsequent replies to this post that might conclude that I mean something other than what I am about to write in reply to your post.

Dzheremi, I’m not saying you (directly) said this but by dint of what you conclude, i.e., that the Muslims are not worshipping the same God as the Christian God makes me wonder who pray tell are they worshiping?

Okay. It does not make me wonder. If I wondered that, the OP would have contained something about who or what I think Muslims are REALLY worshipping. Since my only concern in starting this thread is with my own faith and the impact of CCC 841 upon that faith, it does not contain anything about that, or anything that can be reasonably construed as hinting at that. This really is a question for another thread, and out of respect for Muslims I probably would not participate in it, especially in light of what a trainwreck this thread has turned out to be in several ways.

A demon?

I would not speculate. (see immediately preceding paragraph)

I find it hard to believe that a good Muslim (someone with good morals and a righteous heart) is not praying to the very same God (no matter the differences in their theologically understanding of God) we pray to.

Okay. I would say that the object of our worship is not determined by the state of our souls or our morals; rather, the state of our souls and our morals are ultimately determined by the object of our worship. But you are certainly free to continue to express that opinion. Don’t get me wrong, I wish all the best in every way imaginable for Muslims. I pray for their salvation, as I know that this, as everything, is within the providence of God. I love Muslims right now as I type this as much as I did before starting this thread. This is not an anti-Muslim thread. I have meant this to be nothing more or less than a unequivocally pro-Christianity thread. If it does not seem to be that way to you, I am sorry that our disagreements have cast my position in such a bad light. I don’t know what I can do about that. I think we’ve each tried to be intellectually honest and fair, at least.

 

[dzheremi]

Non sequitur. The passage you describe does not say that the God Muhammad proclaimed is an anti-Christ figure.

Am I to understand based on your reply that you think that it is possible to believe than an anti-Christ figure would somehow not proclaim an anti-Christ God? Or are you just saying that this passage does not contain the sentence “Muhammad proclaims a God who is an anti-Christ figure”?

The Antichrist would not of course *sincerely *worship the true God.

This is really hurting my head. In all seriousness, I’m not sure I was even this conflicted when I started this thread. To echo the above, please tell me that you are not seriously suggesting the that THE ANTI-CHRIST worships the one true God? If you are suggesting that, I refuse to have any further conversation with you. That is spiritual poison, sir. There is no nice way to say it. I am dumbfounded. I seriously don’t know what to say.

Again, the problem is that there is ambiguity in what we mean by “worshiping the true God.”

Is the idea of proper worship of God so ambiguous to you as a Christian that even the Anichrist may be somehow counted among His worshippers? I don’t think I need to be one of those theologians that you insist I bring to you to be able to say with confidence that this is NOT an idea that would be embraced by any orthodox (or Orthodox!) Christian in any century anywhere. This strikes me as strange, especially in light of your contention that it is the entire weight of Christian history that is against me for what I have written. The early Christians who drafted our creeds and the other liturgical essentials of our faith did so precisely to eliminate the ambiguity that existed in the early days of Christianity as to what was orthodox and what was not. To my way of thinking, I have a hard time seeing CCC 841 as being a continuation of that tradition (which it really should be, since it is in the Catechism that is supposed to be explaining the faith to Catholics, not confusing the heck out of them as this thread shows it has clearly done, and not just to me, but to many who have already left the Church as a result of ambiguities of this kind). Quite frankly, I do not think the ambiguity that you see in the idea of worshipping God would exist were it not for the promotion of such by passage such as CCC 841.

The early and medieval Christians seem to have believed what you find problematic, that if people worship one God (at least if that one God has certain basic attributes such as eternity, incorporeality, etc., and is the creator of the world) then that God should be spoken of as our God. Obviously if Muhammad was a false prophet (in the sense of a deliberate deceiver) or an Antichrist figure or a forerunner of the Antichrist or whatever, he wouldn’t genuinely worship God. But the God he spoke of would still be the true God.

I cannot see how any of this makes sense. It is a mess. It seems like you cannot even commit to the idea that Muhammad is a false prophet without qualifying that idea. It makes it kind of hard to address your points when you don’t commit to them yourself. What exactly is it that you are trying to say? That false prophets can instruct us all as to the proper worship of the one true God? That Muhammad can speak on behalf of a God that he does not worship? I am also confused as to your usage of “genuinely” here…it seems that the problem is not in the authenticity or genuineness of Muhammad’s belief. I certainly believe that Muhammad was genuine in his belief that he had received messages from the Divine and all that.

Again, you may have problems with this, but you need to deal with the fact that that is how medieval Christians spoke.

Please read everything I have written in response to you so far and then think deeply about why I choose not to address this.

I would say that most often a heretic does. The Gnostics arguably didn’t. The Mormons perhaps don’t. But generally a heretic worships the true God with mistaken ideas and practices.

If you believe that it is possible for some people who claim to be worshipping the one true God to not in fact be doing so, then why have you been arguing against me for so many pages? Why have you deemed me a heretic and written at length of all my errors? I have essentially written nothing more substantial than that. Apparently it is worth it to you to argue for many pages when I include in this group a particular religion (which is informed by and in some ways preserves gnostic heresies) that you would not. It is not worth it to me, but to see that you apparently might agree with me in principle after all is surprising to say the least.

 

[fbl9]

Did God lead any other nation than the Jews? The OT says no, God only lead the Jewish peoples.Is the God of the OT a diiferent God than the God of the NT? No. He is the same God. In the NT we have God revealing His true nature which is triune…
We read in the Gospel written by St.John that even though the Samaritians whorship the same God as the Jews they DO NOT KNOW HIM…St.John4:22…So it is with those that whorship God be they Muslims or Jew,they DO NOT KNOW HIM…but it is still God whom they whorship…
Seriously if those who whorship God knew Him to be who He is they would whorship in truth,as christians.

 

[robsully]

Hello fb19.

Please help me understand.

To know God “in truth” is to know and worship him as a Christian, a trinity.As revealed in the N.T.

Why would God select the jews as “the chosen”, and not reveal his true self?
Why would he form covenants, protect them, deliver them, supply laws, priests, and for thousands of years be their God,and yet not reveal himself “in truth”?

Thank you.

 

[fbl9]

Hello fb19.

Please help me understand.

To know God “in truth” is to know and worship him as a Christian, a trinity.As revealed in the N.T.

Why would God select the jews as “the chosen”, and not reveal his true self?
Why would he form covenants, protect them, deliver them, supply laws, priests, and for thousands of years be their God,and yet not reveal himself “in truth”?

Thank you.

But He did reveal Himself to the Jews for did not Christ teach almost excusively to the Jews, during His three yr ministry?Did not the Jews of that time look forward to the Messiah? So yes God did reveal Himself to the Jews it is their “fault” that they did not recieve Christ as God.

 

[robsully]

Hello fb19
Thank you for your response, but my question is prior N.T.

Why would God take the Jews through so much and not reveal himself “in truth”.
Abraham, before the concept of Messiah was introduced, blessed by a God who refused to reveal his “true” self?
God handed Moses the laws, yet refused to reveal his “true” self?

I am sorry as I am not well versed in biblical knoweldge, so I have the charity of others, such as yourself, to follow.

But I do not understand how Abraham, Issac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses asked for forgiveness, worshipped, were blessed and followed a God who did not reveal himself “in truth”.

Sorry I don’t understand.

 

[fbl9]

Hello fb19
Thank you for your response, but my question is prior N.T.

Why would God take the Jews through so much and not reveal himself “in truth”.
Abraham, before the concept of Messiah was introduced, blessed by a God who refused to reveal his “true” self?
God handed Moses the laws, yet refused to reveal his “true” self?

I am sorry as I am not well versed in biblical knoweldge, so I have the charity of others, such as yourself, to follow.

But I do not understand how Abraham, Issac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses asked for forgiveness, worshipped, were blessed and followed a God who did not reveal himself “in truth”.

Sorry I don’t understand.

But God did reveal Himself in the promise of the Messiah…Sorry i am too not as well versed in scripture as i ought to be…But the people (Jews) were expecting the coming of the Messiah, who is Christ Jesus…Part of the reason they did not recognize Christ is because they expected Him to be political king.Given the issues God had with His chosen people i think perhaps it would have been just too much for the people to handle at that time in their faith.

 

[robsully]

Hello fb19 and again, thank you.

Am I understanding you correctly? Prior to the promise of a Messiah, God did not reveal himself “in truth” because they(Jews) may not be able to handle it?

Even though Abraham was the first Jew, God refused to reveal himself fully? The promise of many children and a new nation God felt He should not reveal himself " in truth"?

If God was not revealing Himself “in truth”, what was he revealling Himself as?

Thank you again for your help

 

[benidict]

How about this…suppose Islam , when it first started, had no interaction with Christianity but only with Judaism. It broke off from Judaism and formed its own rituals and traditions but maintained two things. first, that there is only one God worthy of worship. Second, He is the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob who sent the Torah to Moses, hence the same God Jews worship. Do they in this case worship the same God or not ?

Egyptians at one point in time worshiped only one God. They were monotheistic. But they , unlike Muslims, did not consider themselves worshiping the God the Jews worship. therefore, they worshiped a different god

question, were there any polytheist Christians in the early centuries of Christianity ?

hello hadi. actually the jews and christians worship the same God, the tetragramitan or the name. yhvh. or yod he vav he. the muslims worship allah. who in ancient times was the moon god (sin) not the act of disobedience but thats the actual name. the egyptians worhipped rah, the sun god. so yes the jews and christians worship the same God but no the muslims do not. before islam came to the arab people, they were polytheistic. before christianity came to the roman world, the gentiles were polytheistic. the christians were brought under the banner of YHVH because of Christ. we are seperated from our jewish brothers by just a few degrees. the arabs were united by muhammed under allah. no disrespect intended. i just have a problem with people saying that muslims worship the same God as christians and jews. peace be with you.

 

[Hadi]

hello hadi. actually the jews and christians worship the same God, the tetragramitan or the name. yhvh. or yod he vav he. the muslims worship allah. who in ancient times was the moon god (sin) not the act of disobedience but thats the actual name. the egyptians worhipped rah, the sun god. so yes the jews and christians worship the same God but no the muslims do not. before islam came to the arab people, they were polytheistic. before christianity came to the roman world, the gentiles were polytheistic. the christians were brought under the banner of YHVH because of Christ. we are seperated from our jewish brothers by just a few degrees. the arabs were united by muhammed under allah. no disrespect intended. i just have a problem with people saying that muslims worship the same God as christians and jews. peace be with you.

these passages were fulfilled with the rise of Islam in the 7th century.
“But regarding Ishmael I have heard you: I have blessed him will make him fruitful, and will increase him most exceedingly; he will beget twelve princes and I will make him into a great nation.”(Genesis 17:20)

“Arise, lift up the lad, and hold him in thine [hagar] hand; for I will make him [Ishmael] a great nation.”(Genesis 21:18)

“The angel added,”I will so increase your descendants that they will be too numerous to count.”(Genesis 16:10)

Did Hager really want from God a promise of polytheist moon worshiping nation ?

 

[Zundrah]

Throughout my year or so here I have been disabused of a great many preconceived notions regarding religion, both Catholicism and other. But for the first time, starting about a month ago, I’ve actually come to disbelieve in something I previously believed in rather self-evident and hence elemental manner. That is to say, it seemed too obvious to need to be questioned. Given that I’d never even questioned it previously, I’m not quite sure where to go from here, or what it means overall for my faith.

I myself have quoted paragraph 841 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church on numerous occasions, and defended the position expressed therein quite strongly. It states:

I no longer believe this. I know, I know, so what, plenty of Catholics on here don’t accept this and not every sentence in the CCC is dogma, so why is this a thread…

Well, a few things bother me about the implications of this realization:

1. The CC has clearly taught error here in what can be reasonably deemed to be an official capacity. The implications of this vis-a-vis the veracity of other Catholic doctrines should be obvious.
2. While it does seem somewhat trivial in a way, the inclusion of such passages says a lot about the philosophy of some within the Church, and a lot of that makes me fairly uncomfortable (to put it diplomatically);
3. in other ways, however, it is NOT at all trivial. There is no triviality at all in what we believe about God, because the proper worship of God is supposed to be at the heart of everything that we do as Christians and everything that we believe as a Church. For example, we can say that God truly is as He is in the Christian Trinity and we are to worship Him as He has commanded us to in Christianity, or we can be mealy-mouthed in our approach to this dimension of our faith and say that anyone who gets a part of it right (whether that part is in number, or in form, or however else you can think of it) is somehow also to be included on an equal footing with Christians when it comes to the question of who is worshipping what God.

I have always maintained that the Muslims, for their part, get it right in terms of number ONLY (and only superficially so at that), as it is a basic truism of Christianity that there is, in fact, only one God. So, I thought to myself, as there’s only one God to begin with, it stands to reason that anyone who worships God must be worshipping that same God, however uncompletely or incorrectly. I can no longer hold this overly simplistic view, especially in light of the position I have expressed in threads like this one. I believe that the Trinity, and the CHRISTIAN Trinity at that, is the one true God. Not Islam’s Allah or Hinduism’s Vishnu or anything or anyone else. So I cannot, for the sake my own soul, say that these other gods, which are not the eternal and uncreated unity that is the Holy Trinity, Father, Son and Spirit, are somehow also my God.

I’m not so much concerned that this will have any practical effect on my relationship with Muslims or any other non-Christian, but unfortunately it and other incidents like it have already had a great effect on my relationship to my own Church. To be blunt: the cognitive dissonance created in the process of trying to make all this work is killing my faith in the Catholic Church.

Were it just about Muslims and whether not they’ll be saved, I probably wouldn’t have taken the time to write any of this. I think it is really symptomatic of some deeper problems. I just don’t really know how to deal with them.

Am the only one who feels this way? Not necessarily about this issue, but…just the Church in general? I don’t want to be a dissident or a heretic. I want to be a good Catholic. I just don’t know what to do.

Seriously, so what is the problem here?