The plan of salvation includes Muslims? Is Allah the same God as Yaweah?

[tomarin]

Well my attitude to the Jews is complicated I suppose. They are not saved as they reject the Saviour of the World, Jesus Christ. If they continue to reject Him, then in a way they are as guilty as their ancestors. I wonder why we all believe in Original Sin and that we retain the guilt and sin of Adam and Eve (Orthodox excluded here of course) and yet we cannot accept the idea that the Jews carry on the curse they gave themselves is unthinkable?

I’ve always liked and admired the Jews as a people. And I support Israel unreservedly. I think they share our values and are the only sane country in that entire region. They are a democratic state, allow freedom of worship, don’t torture political dissidents in gulags; a far cry from every other state in that part of the world, I’m sorry to say. Plus the Jews need a refuge from all the lunatics who are always trying to kill them.

I always liked the idea that monotheists can make common cause together to a point – though I’ll admit I’m in the process of questioning some of those assumptions when it comes to Muslims. I think the passage in the catechism that so concerns you and Dzheremi was written in that spirit (i.e. limited common cause) but probably has confused things more than helped because of the strange and ambiguous way it was written.It probably went a bit too far. Even I’m not sure what was intended by Muslims playing a part in the plan of salvation. Seems a bit odd. Unless it is meant in the sense that Bluegoat described it, that everyone plays a role in salvation history in some mysterious way. In any event it doesn’t keep me up late at night – in fact it seems like pretty small fish compared to a host of other issues.

 

[tomarin]

Since it isn’t, strictly speaking, CCC 841 territory, I suppose that’s a fair question to ask, Tomarin…though I hope I’m not being led into something…

Just an honest conversation, my friend. I respect your opinion quite a bit and have been coming around to your way of thinking on some of these issues lately. I have a strong feeling of solidarity with the Jews and would like to not have my allegiance to Christianity get in the way of that, if it’s possible.

I’m also glad that you’re back from self-imposed exile for however long you will grace us with your presence. Welcome back.

 

[gurneyhalleck1]

I’m not one bit convinced that the “everyone plays a role in salvation” is even remotely close to what the catechism is saying with CCC841. I don’t see any contextual clues to point toward that conclusion at all?

Obviously the last 50 years of the Catholic Church has been spent trying to get along with other religions. I applaud that a great deal. I also appreciate the Church’s stance on “invincible ignorance.” I feel that is consistent with the Law written in men’s hearts and basic fairness points my heart that way. So is it possible for non-Christian folks to be saved in the end? I say sure. But to say we worship the same god “TOGETHER” and give the Muslims a sort of primacy of honor “first among whom” in line after Christians for salvation is pompous and odd. I think it’s charity gone bad, taken to a level that is toxic. It waters-down the Great Commission and with 846 it doesn’t mesh very well?

I also have admired the Jews as a people. As I said, I find the Holocaust riveting and the heroic people that lived through it and the Oskar Schindlers and heroic rebels of Sobibor, etc. are inspiring whether Jew or Gentile. The Jewish people have been to hell and back, no doubt.

I’ve always liked and admired the Jews as a people. And I support Israel unreservedly. I think they share our values and are the only sane country in that entire region. They are a democratic state, allow freedom of worship, don’t torture political dissidents in gulags; a far cry from every other state in that part of the world, I’m sorry to say. Plus the Jews need a refuge from all the lunatics who are always trying to kill them.

I always liked the idea that monotheists can make common cause together to a point – though I’ll admit I’m in the process of questioning some of those assumptions when it comes to Muslims. I think the passage in the catechism that so concerns you and Dzheremi was written in that spirit (i.e. limited common cause) but probably has confused things more than helped because of the strange and ambiguous way it was written.It probably went a bit too far. Even I’m not sure what was intended by Muslims playing a part in the plan of salvation. Seems a bit odd. Unless it is meant in the sense that Bluegoat described it, that everyone plays a role in salvation history in some mysterious way. In any event it doesn’t keep me up late at night – in fact it seems like pretty small fish compared to a host of other issues.

 

[dzheremi]

Bro Dzheremi …What are your thoughts on the unfulfilled prophecy and Jesus having another flock they don’t know ? What about the time of the gentiles ? Do you see islam as fitting into end times theology ?

What about it? The “other flock” have been traditionally understood to the be gentiles who would come to follow Christ. This could include Muslims if they too would come to follow Christ, but to do so would mean that they would cease following Muhammad/the Qur’an and hence no longer be Muslims in the way that Islam demands them to be.

I’m not sure exactly how to take your question about Islam fitting into Christian eschatology, but my gut instinct would be to say that no, it doesn’t really fit in there. However, that is with the following huge caveat:

If Islam should be thought of at all, it is certainly as an aide in distracting us from what we should be focused on (Christ and winning souls to Him, both our own and others’). This is, however, not an entirely bad thing. I like to think of Islam sometimes, honestly. I find it helps me when I think I have made some big strides in my journey to the Lord. My model in this is Abba John the Dwarf (or “the Short”, as he is sometimes known by people who aren’t mean ). Read this, from the sayings of the Desert Fathers:

Abba Poemen said of Abba John the Dwarf that he had prayed God to take his passions away from him so that he might become free from care. He went and told an old man this; ‘I find myself in peace, without an enemy,’ he said. The old man said to him, ‘Go beseech God to stir up warfare so that you may regain the affliction and humility that you used to have, for it is by warfare that the soul makes progress.’ So he besought God and when warfare came, he no longer prayed that it might be taken away, but said, ‘Lord, give me strength for the fight.’

This seems to fit in with the interpretations of the earliest Christians to confront emergent Islam, the Syriacs, who saw Islam as a tool by which their community was punished for its sins and/or laxity. The patriarch of the Church of the East during the first days of Arab-Muslim rule in Iraq, Ishoyab III (d. 660), did not blame Islam for the loss of his flock in Oman to apostasy, but rather blamed the laxity of the clergy there. (source: Rassam 2005: 80)

I think this is the way that a Christian could tie Islam into the end times without having to make problematic predictions about the final days (e.g., “Islam will usher in the end times” or some such). Today throughout the world we are facing, as our Christian forefathers did, an ascendant Islam and waves of apostasy (not always towards Islam, but that is happening, too). Should we blame Islam? I suppose we could, but that does nothing to confront our own self-satisfaction and carelessness, which I think chalking up the current situation to some sort of predestined “end times scenario” does nothing but deepen. So long as Islam exists, even if it is until the last of the Earth, it will be false and as an enemy of Christ it will be my enemy. Let’s not listen to end-times scenarios that chalk up the ascendancy of Islam over the world to a sort of Christian fatalism, but instead concentrate on how we may use Islam and its oppression of our people to strengthen our faith. (I know you have not advocated anything like the fatalist position, but I have read plenty of well-meaning Christian apologetics that have, and I think they’re awful.)

 

[Hiskid1973]

Thank you Bro.Dzheremi…I was just curious how you saw end prophecy being fulfilled in
Israel before Christ returns…But yes I am straying from the OP…My thoughts about islam
started really kicking in when Iminajihad spoke about his desire to help the mahdi appear
in the end time…This guy is supposed to set Jesus straight…Made me think of antichrist spirit
and how islam is being coddled with political correctness…All hatred against against Jerusalem as a burdensome stone…I could easily see Damacus being nuked…God Bless…

 

[dzheremi]

Just an honest conversation, my friend. I respect your opinion quite a bit and have been coming around to your way of thinking on some of these issues lately. I have a strong feeling of solidarity with the Jews and would like to not have my allegiance to Christianity get in the way of that, if it’s possible.

I’m also glad that you’re back from self-imposed exile for however long you will grace us with your presence. Welcome back.

Thanks, Tomarin. I apologize for probably coming off as a bit paranoid and/or accusatory. That was not my intention, but I guess this thread brings up some bad memories of the thread I once started on this topic, and what a big mess that was.

I always hesitate to broach political topics, but if I may, your comment about the Jews has got me thinking… (Uh-oh…windbag alert…)

When thinking about such things, it is important to differentiate political or social common cause from religious or spiritual common cause. You or I may support the existence of the modern state of Israel (or not) on any number of grounds without trying or needing to forge religious common cause with Judaism. I think this is the mistake a lot of evangelical protestants make when interpreting the events of the Middle East through a very peculiar Biblical reading that actually helps to destabilize the region. Some apparently think that unless the warring parties in the Israel-Palestine conflict are drawn into a final confrontation with one another, Jesus will not return to Earth, and the result of this thinking is that “the Jews” are “right” by virtue of being the inheritors of the covenant of Abraham, and nothing can ever strip them of their rightness. Frankly, I think this is the height of dangerous and irresponsible pseudo-theology, and it scares the hell out of me that people who hold to these sorts of views may actually come into to some degree of political power in a way that affects the real world, far away from the reel of one of those cheesy “Left Behind” movies that is apparently playing in their heads 24-hours a day as they contemplate foreign policy. Yikes.

That said, there is nothing wrong with admiring Jews as people for their tenacity, commitment to learning, etc. One of my old Russian professors was born a Jew (though it was during the Soviet times when observance was, at best, irregular by necessity), and still stands out in my mind as the single most learned individual I have ever met. And of course the contributions of world Jewry to the sciences, philosophy, the arts, etc. are far too numerous to mention. I do not, however, let any of this praise interfere with my view of Judaism as a religion or the necessity that the Jews come to believe in Christ. That really is a must, and I live only in the struggle to keep the commandments of Christ first and foremost in my heart.

 

[Hiskid1973]

I think this is the mistake a lot of evangelical protestants make when interpreting the events of the Middle East through a very peculiar Biblical reading that actually helps to destabilize the region. Some apparently think that unless the warring parties in the Israel-Palestine conflict are drawn into a final confrontation with one another, Jesus will not return to Earth, and the result of this thinking is that “the Jews” are “right” by virtue of being the inheritors of the covenant of Abraham, and nothing can ever strip them of their rightness. Frankly, I think this is the height of dangerous and irresponsible pseudo-theology, and it scares the hell out of me that people who hold to these sorts of views may actually come into to some degree of political power in a way that affects the real world, far away from the reel of one of those cheesy “Left Behind” movies that is apparently playing in their heads 24-hours a day as they contemplate foreign policy. Yikes. .

Hey’s that my camp…Guess we’ll observe how it plays out…All the unfulfilled prophecy…Now I understand they way you answered my questions…God bless and thanks for your comments…

 

[OrdinaryMelkite]

I think Shoebat was taking about supposedly “Christian Denominations,” Carnelian, to clarify.

 

[Pax_in_Veritate]

But the catechism isn’t saying that they’re just vaguely in the “plan” just like any schmo on the street. They’re saying that, because they’re Abrahamic, they are “first” among people who acknowledge the Creator, according to 841. It says that they worship the same God “together with us” and that is indeed troubling. It is elevating them to a special place and I think this statement “plan of salvation” is more than just a vague recognition that they’re possibly, remotely able to be saved. It sounds far too charitable to a diabolical faith. I find it highly troubling.

Perhaps its the evangelical in me that thinks of

**“Whoesover loves me will be loved by my Father…” John 14:21

“There is no salvation through anyone else, nor is there any other name under heaven given to the human race by which we are to be saved.” Acts 4:12**

So I find the outreach to non-Christian religions troubling in the first place, but to Islam even more as it is a religion that is hell-bent on the conversion of Christianity (the “People of the Book”) and they turn Jesus into a sock puppet who will actually, ironically, condemn Christians on judgment day!?

The Catholic Church, if it holds the Truth, would step out and squash any notions of salvation for Islam. It is a diabolical attempt to divert people from the true faith of Jesus Christ.

There is no salvation through anyone else, nor is there any other name under heaven given to the human race by which we are to be saved Acts tells us. Makes me wonder which part of that the catechism doesn’t understand?

its almost Masonic.

 

[gurneyhalleck1]

What is? I didn’t mention any secret handshakes or funny hats!

its almost Masonic.

 

[Bluegoat]

I find this stuff so weird. But I actually think there is some political influence going on by this group of evangelicals. But that may just be me thinking the worst. But I’ve even seen that line of thinking here among Catholics.

 

[GaryTaylor]

My, Lord, I feel you. And one of these fellows, somewhere, will come to power somehow, somewhere. Let us pray they actually evolve past that thinking and its not a learned behavior they find impossible to seperate from?

The constant refrain must be Peace. And there lies the Hope to minimize the ignorance of violence to its smallest degree.

If we must focus on one Biblical prophecy lets go with Isaiah, and his prophecy of a time of World peace. Which from what I see in recorded history, has never happen to date.

 

[Contarini]

"The plan of salvation also includes those who acknowledge the Creator, in the first place amongst whom are the Muslims; these profess to hold the faith of Abraham, and together with us they adore the one, merciful God, mankind’s judge on the last day."

I know somewhere in the sacred vaults of CAF this issue has been debated. I couldn’t find it though. My hiney hasn’t been in a Catholic pew for more than two days and when re-reading the catechism, I run across section 841, quoted above.

We are told in Scripture that whomever denies the Son, denies the Father. This is the case with Islam. Those who know me on here well enough know that I rarely, I mean RARELY even mention Islam. But when I come across this in the catechism (along with indulgences and so forth ) I breathe a heavy, heavy sigh.

This is a type of universalism, a type of openness to other religions that I think crosses the line. I’m seriously concerned about it. Allah is a distortion of the historical Old Testament God we worship. It is like looking at God through five layers of cellophane. Not only is the lineage with Ishmael a distortion and the view of Original Sin and salvation history, but God’s personality and his very heart are warped in the Koran to be something He is not. How can we say that Allah and Our God are the same? And especially in light of how the Koran totally rejects and blasts the concept of Trinity as evil, that only further alienates identification between the two?

I’m pretty much fresh back in the CC after a long walk in the wilderness. It’s stuff like this that keeps making me walk.

I’m sure this has probably been debated but, for my sake, can someone explain a way to deal with this horrible part of the catechism? I’m dying here…

This subject comes up over and over again. Surely you’ve seen some of the discussions?

The basic logical problem with your position is that if you really say that Muslims don’t believe in the true God because they reject the Incarnation (obviously they don’t say that they reject Jesus), then you have to say that Jews do as well. And that requires you to believe that Jews stopped believing in the true God when they rejected Jesus. That doesn’t make any sense. If they believed exactly the same things before hearing Jesus’ claims as they did afterward, how can they have switched “Gods”?

It is far more likely that you are misreading 1 John 2:23. The mainstream Catholic interpretation of that passage would, I believe, be that anyone who rejects faith in Jesus not out of invincible ignorance/good faith but out of sinful pride, knowing in his or her heart that Jesus is the Son of God, cannot have a saving relationship with God the Father. Why are you so sure that this interpretation is incorrect?

And does the Diocese of San Joachim, or the ACNA generally, really have a different view of this matter?

As for God’s “personality” being “warped” in the Qur’an–it depends on what you mean by that. I take the Qur’an to be a seventh-century Arab’s human attempt to express the historic faith of Abraham, Moses, and Jesus (bearing in mind the possibility that, as some radical scholars have suggested, the Qur’an may be based on earlier material and/or may not have been written in its present form until a century or more after Muhammad). As such, of course it’s going to have plenty of distortions. It’s a human document, and human ideas about God are distorted. But do we therefore want to say that it doesn’t refer to the true God at all? I think that the implications of such a draconian linguistic strategy are much more disturbing than you have bothered to consider.

If you want to take a radical Barthian position and deny natural knowledge of God, then sure, you have a case. But acknowledge that that’s the real issue–you aren’t just quarreling with the CCC’s position about Muslims, but with the historic Catholic/Christian understanding of how imperfect human language about God is related to the ineffable Reality, and to the clearer knowledge of that reality that we have received in divine revelation.

The second-century apologists (and I think this applies to St. Paul as well) had no problem acknowledging the Supreme Deity of Greco-Roman pagans as the true God. Nor, as far as I can see, did informed, educated Christians during the Middle Ages ever suggest that the “Allah” spoken of by Muslims was something other than the true God. This really seems to be a modern Protestant hangup.

I grant that the “plan of salvation” language is a somewhat different (though related) issue. Your position really does seem to be Barthian in a way–non-Christians may be saved, but you don’t want to grant that their actual religious beliefs and practices have anything to do with it. That’s certainly not the Catholic position, nor do I find it at all convincing. How can Muslims be saved, and yet their sincere faith in an almighty, compassionate Creator have nothing to do with that salvation?

Edwin

 

[Contarini]

If God extends grace to Muslims, it is because they - like all the rest of us without His grace - are utterly distant from Him. They’re not “closer” to God because they claim an Abrahamic origin, and this 841 passage certainly seems to imply that they are. It’s hard to say that some without Christ are “more lost” than others. I know I’m not Catholic and should probably stay out of this one , but it seems to me that 841 is in desperate need of revision (at least) and removal/replacement (at most). Judaism must be addressed in any catechism setting for very obvious reasons, but elevating/recognizing/favoring one non-Biblical religion over another doesn’t seem like it should even be catechism material.

Well, you’re right that your rejection of historic Catholic Christianity affects your perspective on this. You aren’t just objecting to one paragraph–you’re objecting to the entire Catholic view of how nature and grace are connected.

Edwin

 

[Contarini]

Gurney----
Happy Savior’s Birth, You and Everyone, BTW!!!

Allah is in NO way like Yahweh/Jehovah/God. Allah is an Impersonal Deity and one cannot have a Personal Relationship with Him.

Do Muslims say that Allah is impersonal? Where can you point me to such a statement by a mainstream Islamic authority?

Muslims deny the Trinity, anyway.

So do the Jews.

 

[Bluegoat]

This subject comes up over and over again. Surely you’ve seen some of the discussions?

The basic logical problem with your position is that if you really say that Muslims don’t believe in the true God because they reject the Incarnation (obviously they don’t say that they reject Jesus), then you have to say that Jews do as well. And that requires you to believe that Jews stopped believing in the true God when they rejected Jesus. That doesn’t make any sense. If they believed exactly the same things before hearing Jesus’ claims as they did afterward, how can they have switched “Gods”?

It is far more likely that you are misreading 1 John 2:23. The mainstream Catholic interpretation of that passage would, I believe, be that anyone who rejects faith in Jesus not out of invincible ignorance/good faith but out of sinful pride, knowing in his or her heart that Jesus is the Son of God, cannot have a saving relationship with God the Father. Why are you so sure that this interpretation is incorrect?

And does the Diocese of San Joachim, or the ACNA generally, really have a different view of this matter?

As for God’s “personality” being “warped” in the Qur’an–it depends on what you mean by that. I take the Qur’an to be a seventh-century Arab’s human attempt to express the historic faith of Abraham, Moses, and Jesus (bearing in mind the possibility that, as some radical scholars have suggested, the Qur’an may be based on earlier material and/or may not have been written in its present form until a century or more after Muhammad). As such, of course it’s going to have plenty of distortions. It’s a human document, and human ideas about God are distorted. But do we therefore want to say that it doesn’t refer to the true God at all? I think that the implications of such a draconian linguistic strategy are much more disturbing than you have bothered to consider.

If you want to take a radical Barthian position and deny natural knowledge of God, then sure, you have a case. But acknowledge that that’s the real issue–you aren’t just quarreling with the CCC’s position about Muslims, but with the historic Catholic/Christian understanding of how imperfect human language about God is related to the ineffable Reality, and to the clearer knowledge of that reality that we have received in divine revelation.

The second-century apologists (and I think this applies to St. Paul as well) had no problem acknowledging the Supreme Deity of Greco-Roman pagans as the true God. Nor, as far as I can see, did informed, educated Christians during the Middle Ages ever suggest that the “Allah” spoken of by Muslims was something other than the true God. This really seems to be a modern Protestant hangup.

I grant that the “plan of salvation” language is a somewhat different (though related) issue. Your position really does seem to be Barthian in a way–non-Christians may be saved, but you don’t want to grant that their actual religious beliefs and practices have anything to do with it. That’s certainly not the Catholic position, nor do I find it at all convincing. How can Muslims be saved, and yet their sincere faith in an almighty, compassionate Creator have nothing to do with that salvation?

Edwin

This is what I was trying to say - you are much more eloquent than I.

 

[The_Sentry]

Well, you’re right that your rejection of historic Catholic Christianity affects your perspective on this. You aren’t just objecting to one paragraph–you’re objecting to the entire Catholic view of how nature and grace are connected.

Edwin

Huh?

 

[Contarini]

the Jews and Christains worship the tetragramitan. the yod he vav he. the unpronouncable name. the Muslims Worship Sin the moon god. whom they also call Allah.

No. This is a bit of fundamentalist pseudo-scholarship. Apparently some pagan Arabs referred to Sin as “el-ilah,” “the god,” because that was the term that Arabs used for whichever god they considered supreme, and that particular Arab group considered the moon god supreme. There is no evidence that I know of indicating that the Arabs of Mecca considered the moon god supreme. By “Allah” they seem to have meant a supreme being who created everything and could not be represented by images (though he did have daughters). Just as the ancient Hebrews identified YHWH with the Canaanite El, and just as the early Christian apologists identified the God of Israel with the Divine Nature acknowledged by Greco-Roman pagans, and just as modern evangelical missionaries identify the Father of Jesus with the supreme God acknowledged by African pagans (whose religion and culture, particularly in northeastern Africa, have a lot of similarities with the religion and culture of pre-Islamic Arabia), so Muhammad identified Allah with the Judaeo-Christian God.

If you have better evidence, please present it. But the above is what I have been able to find. I’m giving the fundamentalist propagandists the utmost benefit of the doubt, since I have it only on their word that any Arabs at all ever referred to the moon god as “el-ilah.”

Edwin

 

[Contarini]

Huh?

You’re saying that no non-Christians are closer to God than anyone else. In other words, you’re saying that people who don’t have explicit faith in Christ are all equally far from God. That implies that there’s a complete chasm between nature (the way God made us, to seek after God and perhaps find Him, although he is not far from any of us, for in Him we live and move and have our being) and grace (God’s gracious choice to reveal Himself to us in Jesus Christ and to move our sinful hearts to repent and believe). That’s not the Catholic position. Nor do I believe it to be the Biblical position (as my paraphrase of Acts 17 indicates), just a Calvinist misreading of the Biblical evidence.

Edwin

 

[Contarini]

Holy Bible is very clear when it talks of LIE. God is truth and lie has no nearness to Him. but than Quran is also clearly saying that Jesus was ever cruficied but someone else was replaced for Him. Mohammed says that that is what allah said.

Now how can that be? God hates lies, but Allah tells lies???

God Bless

You’re missing out the most obvious possibilities. Muhammad either told lies, or was sincerely mistaken.

I am baffled by why people with a very negative view of Islam assume that the Qur’an is the genuine record of what some being called “Allah” said.