Hi Reuben,
Sorry for the delayed response. I got myself a little preoccupied with some of the other posts.
Islam – perfect faith would never fall into major sin or even come near them.
Christianity – human fall into major sin regardless of who / what they are. To overcome sin, they need grace of God – a gift freely given as result of Jesus’ redemption by death on the cross.
Regarding this, i would also include in the beliefs of islam that humans fall into major sin regardless of who they are, except the Prophets and Messengers and those whom Allah has favoured such as Mary. The point about perfect faith is that if a person had perfect faith they would never fall into major sin, however no human can guarantee he will achieve that. Rather we are obligated to
strive for it always even if we know we wont reach perfect faith.
As for overcoming sin, here is where we differ slightly. We both acknowledge we need the grace of God to overcome sin, however the manner in which we believe in this is different. In Islam we overcome sinning through repentance, obedience, consciousness of God, and calling upon Him to guide us against ourselves and satan. Thus, every human is soley responsible for themselves. In christianity, the grace is through believing in the sacrifice of Jesus. If there is anything im missing please do comment.
Islam & Christianity – God forgives those who repent.
Agreed.
What about if a person dies in major sin without repentance?
Islam – under God’s will who either punish them by His Justice or forgive them by His mercy.
Christianity (Catholic) – He will receive punishment according to the severity of sin committed. (hope this will answer your question).
I should add here that, in Islam, so long as a person’s sins is greater than his good deeds, they cannot enter Paradise, unless God either forgives them of their sins or punishes them for it as an expiation. However, after a person dies, the sin that will absolutely not be forgiven is disbelieving in God or associating partners with God in worship. So, even if a person claims hes a muslim but he willingly worships others along with God (ie. saints, pious men, as is the case today in many parts of the muslim world) and he does so KNOWING that Islam prohibits this, then they are also not be forgiven and will actually die as a disbeliever, even if he prayed and believed in the Prophets and messengers.
I would like to ask here if u could also elaborate more on the christian belief on this question.
Purpose of God’s creation:
I guess basically we agree but differ in emphasis. I don’t dismiss entirely your proposition that God created us to test us on whether we worship Him or not. There were incidents where God’s people were put to the test in the Bible e.g. Abraham sacrificing his son Isaac and the affliction of Job.
But I guess our difference is, for Christian, testing is not purpose of God’s creation, but like I said, it’s His love so that His creations can experience the goodness He had planned for them.
Yes. Infact every prophet and messenger was tested by his people. And every people whom a messenger or prophet came to them ordering them to believe, those people were also tested to see if they would accept the message.
A persons entire purpose on this earth is to worship God and be thankful to Him. His entire Afterlife depends on whether he believes or disbelieves. A persons success in both this life and the hereafter all depends on his beliefs and actions. So if he fails the test of accepting revelation and disbelieves and rejects to obey God, it doesnt matter what he accomplished in this life, he is still among the loosers in the next life.
If we speak of God’s Love for us, God will only love those who are righteous and believe and obey Him. He will not love a disbelieving wicked person. The Goodness God has planned for those He loves is Heaven/Paradise as a reward for their righteousness.
continued…
