St. Thomas on Allah?

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Someone asked me a little while ago what St. Thomas Aquinas’ views on Allah were, and asked for sources.

I’ve tried to do some digging, but as I haven’t the time to read all of Thomas’ writings expressly for the purpose of answering this question, and because it’s difficult to word the question in a way that a search engine actually understands what I’m talking about, I’ve turned to you all 🙂

Can anyone point me to some definitive sources that would detail, or even allude to, what St. Thomas thought of Allah, as such? Not Islam, not Mohammed, but Allah.

As in, did St. Thomas think Allah was a false god, or the True God worshipped falsely?

Thanks for your help 🙂
 
Gregory_Watson said:
Someone asked me a little while ago what St. Thomas Aquinas’ views on Allah were, and asked for sources.

I’ve tried to do some digging, but as I haven’t the time to read all of Thomas’ writings expressly for the purpose of answering this question, and because it’s difficult to word the question in a way that a search engine actually understands what I’m talking about, I’ve turned to you all 🙂

Can anyone point me to some definitive sources that would detail, or even allude to, what St. Thomas thought of Allah, as such? Not Islam, not Mohammed, but Allah.

As in, did St. Thomas think Allah was a false god, or the True God worshipped falsely?

Thanks for your help 🙂
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Hi, Gregory.

I found a blog where it apparently summarizes that St. Thomas Aquinas disagrees in how Muslims see Allah as directly interposing Himself at all points of causality (similar to how Calvinism sees souls as fated to be saved or not). Whereas, Catholics see that all creations of God, once created, are free to choose or not to choose on their own power.

The blog points you to the work you need by Aquinas for your study to find the specific questions and objections: QUAESTIONES DISPUTATAE DE POTENTIA DEI (On the Power of God).

Hopefully that document will also clarify any other questions. However, the document does not appear to use “Muslim” or “Allah” in its text.
**
Update**: I found another document that may help:

Aquinas Summa Contra Gentiles directly argues against Islam’s points. A web site may have summarized Aquina’s points here as well.
 
Gregory_Watson said:
Someone asked me a little while ago what St. Thomas Aquinas’ views on Allah were, and asked for sources.

I’ve tried to do some digging, but as I haven’t the time to read all of Thomas’ writings expressly for the purpose of answering this question, and because it’s difficult to word the question in a way that a search engine actually understands what I’m talking about, I’ve turned to you all 🙂

Can anyone point me to some definitive sources that would detail, or even allude to, what St. Thomas thought of Allah, as such? Not Islam, not Mohammed, but Allah.

As in, did St. Thomas think Allah was a false god, or the True God worshipped falsely?

Thanks for your help 🙂
Click to expand...
I don’t think it’s a question that ever would have occurred to him, because as far as I know no one in the Middle Ages who had anything like an accurate knowledge of basic Islamic belief ever thought of suggesting that “Allah was a false God.” So to answer this question, you need to look at Aquinas’s general doctrine of God. Nothing Aquinas says about God would make any sense on the assumption that Muslims did not worship the same God as Christians. In the famous “Five Ways,” he ends each argument with the phrase “and this all call God.” That assumes that anyone who speaks of a single ultimate God is talking about the same being Christians are talking about.

To say that Muslims worship a different God, you have to deny natural theology altogether.

If you want something more specific, you should look at his Summa Contra Gentiles. While most scholars no longer believe that this was intended as a manual for missionaries working among Muslims, the work does have more of an apologetics focus than the Summa Theologiae (and Book 1, chap. 2 explicitly mentions Muslims in that context). As I said, I challenge you or anyone to read Aquinas’s treatment of what reason can say about God and not conclude that he believed all monotheists (even including pagan philosophers who recognized some kind of ultimate divinity, so I think this would apply to Hindus as well) are talking about the same God by definition.

Furthermore, Aquinas frequently refers to Islamic philosophers when he is talking about God on the basis of reason. Never that I’m aware of is there any hint that the “God” they are talking about is somehow different than the "God’ he is talking about. But as I said, if you acquaint yourself with the basic presuppositions of Aquinas’s natural theology you’ll see that this would be nonsense anyway.

Edwin
 
Sam777, as I mentioned pretty specifically in my opening post, I mean St. Thomas Aquinas.

Spencerian, thanks for the links. I’ll have fun checking those out 🙂

Edwin, that was my opinion from the outset, and would have just left it at that for my enquirer, except that he asked me for specific sources, on which point I was a bit stuck. Thanks for your help.

God bless you all.
 
“Allah” is simply Arabic for “God”. Arab Christians use the word “Allah”.

Aquinas has written whole books on Allah.
 
Allah simply means “God” in Arabic. One could say “Yahweh” or “Jehovah”
 
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