Why atheism fails

So I mostly focus on Islam here, but I wanted to share something interesting I recently read about an atheist who became a Christian.

Here is the part of the article that really caught my attention:

Briefly, I grew tired of the lack of explanation for: the existence of the universe, moral values and duties, objective human worth, consciousness and will, and many other topics.

Bravo for an atheist who wanted to really think. I have never met an atheist who can really answer the question, why do I believe that good and evil are real? Or, Why prefer good over evil?

Most atheists will give a pragmatic answer, like, prefer good over evil because it will lead to a more enjoyable life, or living at peace with others. But that's is a lousy answer. Why prefer good over evil when evil will benefit me? Why care about the well-being of others?

I have yet to meet an atheist who can answer these questions...

Read it all HERE.

New research on contextual theology and Christian converts from Islam

Hi All,

Well, it's not light reading, but here is a new doctoral dissertation about Christian converts from Islam. The focus is on field studies of some Arab believers in the Middle East, and some Iranian congregations in the West.

The title is Living among the Breakage: Contextual Theology-making and ex-Muslim Christians, from the University of Edinburgh by Dr. D A Miller.

Download the PDF from his academia website, HERE.

Myths about the Middle Ages

I get tired of hearing from Muslims and (more recently atheists) about how bad and terrible the Middle Ages were. Here is a good summary of the myth we were taught, and which is wrong:

 One fable that most of us absorbed, usually in childhood thanks to school teachers, was the pretty fable of "the Renaissance".  It tells of how the Greeks and Romans founded western civilisation and invented things which were good, like science and reason and realistic art and nice buildings.  But then the Roman Empire collapsed and Europe fell into the "Dark Ages" when everyone was ignorant and stupid and superstitious and dirty and feudal.  But luckily along came the glorious Renaissance, where Leonardo invented flying machines and paintings became realistic and therefore good again and everyone became much cleaner and more rational.

Read more here at Armarium Magnum.

Apologetics is holiness and beauty

The only really effective apologia for Christianity comes down to two arguments, namely the saints the Church has produced and the art which has grown in her womb.

Better witness is borne to the Lord by the splendour of holiness and art which have arisen in the community of believers than by clever excuses which apologetics has come up with to justify the dark sides which, sadly, are so frequent in the Church's human history.

If the Church is to continue to transform and humanise the world, how can she dispense with beauty in her liturgies, that beauty which is so closely linked with love and with the radiance of the Resurrection?

No. Christians must not be too easily satisfied. They must make their Church into a place where beauty—and hence truth—is at home. Without this the world will become the first circle of hell.

Guess who said this...

Abdul Asad: How Islam sharpens our theology

Yes, thanks to Islam, I have delved back into Church history and been forced to re-examine the creeds and confessions of the Church, and to be able to articulate their nuances not merely for the sake of theological reflection with other Christians, but for the sake of the salvation of many people who need to understand these distinctions!

Indeed. Since moving to dar al islam I have vastly expanded my knowledge of the Trinity and the Incarnation. Part of that, I suppose, is the natural process of learning more with time. But really, When you are living in an Islamic context knowing the Trinity becomes not a simple hobby or curios, but something central to your witness.

The whole post is at Circumpolar. I left a comment over there too, check out the whole thing.

Joseph Kenny OP: Using the Church Fathers to Answer Muslims' Questions

Well, what can I say, I love this guy. His translations are very straight forward and readable, while still being technical enough to not lost some of the philosophical foundations. I also think that his project of supplying sections of basic historical documents to answer Muslim questions is great. It looks like it's a work in progress, but give it a visit:

Muslims Query Christian Beliefs

Aquinas responds to Muslims

Holy Schnykies! I almost fell out of my chair just now. How in the world did I not know about this text?

DE RATIONIBUS FIDEI (REASONS FOR THE FAITH AGAINST MUSLIM OBJECTIONS)
(and one objection of the Greeks and Armenians)

By St Thomas Aquinas, OP

And guess what, it's all online right HERE.
Will let you all know how this reading goes. If you read it (or have read it) let me know what you thought.

--AD

People You should Know: Karl Pfander

Karl Pfander is a giant in the history of Christian mission to the Muslim world. I mean, he's way up there, with guys like Sam Zwemer and Henry Martyn and Temple Gairdner. You know, just a notch below Blessed Raymond Lull (Ramón Lull), who is just a notch below Our Lord.

When you deal with life in the Middle East, you need heroes.

Pfander's brilliance was displayed in what is still one of the most important Christian refutations of Islam, The Balance of Truth, aka, mizan ulhaqq. A section from Wikipedia on his life and work:

[...]Pfander's chief legacy to posterity is undoubtedly his book Mizan ul Haqq (The Balance of Truth), modelled on the style of Islamic theological works, and attempting to present the Christian gospel in a form understandable to Muslims. He offered reasons to believe that the Bible is the inspired word of God, neither corrupted nor superseded, and argued that the Qur’an itself testifies to the reliability of the Christian scriptures and the supremacy of Christ. He attempted to prove from the Qur’an and other Islamic writings some alleged [fallacies] in Islam and its prophet, noting a historic contrast between the violence of Islamic expansion and the peaceable spread of the early church. The Mizan ul Haqq stimulated a number of carefully argued refutations from Islamic scholars, followed by further writings from Pfander himself. It marked an important new phase in Muslim / Christian relations, when profound theological issues were addressed for the first time by recognised scholars.

In his history of the CMS, Eugene Stock described Pfander as "the greatest of all missionaries to Mohammedans." Temple Gairdner remarked that Pfander possessed the three great requisites for public controversy: absolute command of his subject, absolute command of the language, thought and manner of the people, and absolute command of himself. Samuel Zwemer defended his dogmatic and controversial methods, pointing out that Christ and his apostles engaged in similar public debate with individuals and crowds.[...]

[Abu Daoud is listening to Come on Pilgrim by the Pixies.]

Islam, Apologetics, and 'the weight of critical investigation'

…during most of the 1400 years since Mohammed’s time Muslims have enjoyed such total control in North Africa and the Middle East that few people ever dared ask them to justify anything. Times are different now, and Muslims are trying to develop apologetic skills. But they have yet to encounter the full weight of critical investigation of which free Western minds are capable. In other words, the ground has just begun to heat up under Islam’s feet.

Don Richardson, Secrets of the Koran, p. 35
Regal, 2003

Apologetics: Why did the Messiah die?

My good friend From the Middle East has started writing on Islamic apologetics over at SBCImpact! He tackles the question of why did the Messiah die, and what does the Quran have to say about it.

Check it out here. One section:

Inconsistency with the Generous Qur’an: Many beliefs that Muslims hold are not actually consistent with the Book they hold so dear (I have found this to be no different than many “Christian” beliefs and the Bible). While it is my contention that God’s Messiah was not defeated by unbelievers, it is important to note that at least three times in the Generous Qur’an it is written that prophets and messengers of God were not only persecuted but also murdered.

Truth: What really happened? Ultimately Jesus was not murdered or crucified by the Jews or Romans. Rather Jesus laid down His life and took it up again in accordance with the divine will. Did they put him on a cross? Did he die? Yes and yes. But it was his choice to follow the divine will, not theirs. Therefore, he sacrificed himself.

Zakaria Botros: Fight Fire with Fire

In my discussion with Sherry (below) I mentioned this priest, whom I have met personally, as a good example of fruitful and excellent witness to Muslims that is confrontational and antagonistic. Like I said, ninceness is not a virtue. Courage is.

Islam’s ‘Public Enemy #1’
Coptic priest Zakaria Botros fights fire with fire.

By Raymond Ibrahim

Though he is little known in the West, Coptic priest Zakaria Botros — named Islam’s “Public Enemy #1” by the Arabic newspaper, al-Insan al-Jadid — has been making waves in the Islamic world. Along with fellow missionaries — mostly Muslim converts — he appears frequently on the Arabic channel al-Hayat (i.e., “Life TV”). There, he addresses controversial topics of theological significance — free from the censorship imposed by Islamic authorities or self-imposed through fear of the zealous mobs who fulminated against the infamous cartoons of Mohammed. Botros’s excurses on little-known but embarrassing aspects of Islamic law and tradition have become a thorn in the side of Islamic leaders throughout the Middle East.

Botros is an unusual figure onscreen: robed, with a huge cross around his neck, he sits with both the Koran and the Bible in easy reach. Egypt’s Copts — members of one of the oldest Christian communities in the Middle East — have in many respects come to personify the demeaning Islamic institution of “dhimmitude” (which demands submissiveness from non-Muslims, in accordance with Koran 9:29). But the fiery Botros does not submit, and minces no words. He has famously made of Islam “ten demands,” whose radical nature he uses to highlight Islam’s own radical demands on non-Muslims.

The result? Mass conversions to Christianity — if clandestine ones. The very public conversion of high-profile Italian journalist Magdi Allam — who was baptized by Pope Benedict in Rome on Saturday — is only the tip of the iceberg. Indeed, Islamic cleric Ahmad al-Qatani stated on al-Jazeera TV a while back that some six million Muslims convert to Christianity annually, many of them persuaded by Botros’s public ministry. More recently, al-Jazeera noted Life TV’s “unprecedented evangelical raid” on the Muslim world. Several factors account for the Botros phenomenon.

First, the new media — particularly satellite TV and the Internet (the main conduits for Life TV) — have made it possible for questions about Islam to be made public without fear of reprisal. It is unprecedented to hear Muslims from around the Islamic world — even from Saudi Arabia, where imported Bibles are confiscated and burned — call into the show to argue with Botros and his colleagues, and sometimes, to accept Christ.

Secondly, Botros’s broadcasts are in Arabic — the language of some 200 million people, most of them Muslim. While several Western writers have published persuasive critiques of Islam, their arguments go largely unnoticed in the Islamic world. Botros’s mastery of classical Arabic not only allows him to reach a broader audience, it enables him to delve deeply into the voluminous Arabic literature — much of it untapped by Western writers who rely on translations — and so report to the average Muslim on the discrepancies and affronts to moral common sense found within this vast corpus.

A third reason for Botros’s success is that his polemical technique has proven irrefutable. Each of his episodes has a theme — from the pressing to the esoteric — often expressed as a question (e.g., “Is jihad an obligation for all Muslims?”; “Are women inferior to men in Islam?”; “Did Mohammed say that adulterous female monkeys should be stoned?” “Is drinking the urine of prophets salutary according to sharia?”). To answer the question, Botros meticulously quotes — always careful to give sources and reference numbers — from authoritative Islamic texts on the subject, starting from the Koran; then from the canonical sayings of the prophet — the Hadith; and finally from the words of prominent Muslim theologians past and present — the illustrious ulema.

Typically, Botros’s presentation of the Islamic material is sufficiently detailed that the controversial topic is shown to be an airtight aspect of Islam. Yet, however convincing his proofs, Botros does not flatly conclude that, say, universal jihad or female inferiority are basic tenets of Islam. He treats the question as still open — and humbly invites the ulema, the revered articulators of sharia law, to respond and show the error in his methodology. He does demand, however, that their response be based on “al-dalil we al-burhan,” — “evidence and proof,” one of his frequent refrains — not shout-downs or sophistry.

More often than not, the response from the ulema is deafening silence — which has only made Botros and Life TV more enticing to Muslim viewers. The ulema who have publicly addressed Botros’s conclusions often find themselves forced to agree with him — which has led to some amusing (and embarrassing) moments on live Arabic TV.

Botros spent three years bringing to broad public attention a scandalous — and authentic — hadith stating that women should “breastfeed” strange men with whom they must spend any amount of time. A leading hadith scholar, Abd al-Muhdi, was confronted with this issue on the live talk show of popular Arabic host Hala Sirhan. Opting to be truthful, al-Muhdi confirmed that going through the motions of breastfeeding adult males is, according to sharia, a legitimate way of making married women “forbidden” to the men with whom they are forced into contact — the logic being that, by being “breastfed,” the men become like “sons” to the women and therefore can no longer have sexual designs on them.

To make matters worse, Ezzat Atiyya, head of the Hadith department at al-Azhar University — Sunni Islam’s most authoritative institution — went so far as to issue a fatwa legitimatizing “Rida’ al-Kibir” (sharia’s term for “breastfeeding the adult”), which prompted such outrage in the Islamic world that it was subsequently recanted.

Botros played the key role in exposing this obscure and embarrassing issue and forcing the ulema to respond. Another guest on Hala Sirhan’s show, Abd al-Fatah, slyly indicated that the entire controversy was instigated by Botros: “I know you all [fellow panelists] watch that channel and that priest and that none of you [pointing at Abd al-Muhdi] can ever respond to him, since he always documents his sources!”

Incapable of rebutting Botros, the only strategy left to the ulema (aside from a rumored $5-million bounty on his head) is to ignore him. When his name is brought up, they dismiss him as a troublemaking liar who is backed by — who else? — international “Jewry.” They could easily refute his points, they insist, but will not deign to do so. That strategy may satisfy some Muslims, but others are demanding straightforward responses from the ulema.

The most dramatic example of this occurred on another famous show on the international station, Iqra. The host, Basma — a conservative Muslim woman in full hijab — asked two prominent ulema, including Sheikh Gamal Qutb, one-time grand mufti of al-Azhar University, to explain the legality of the Koranic verse (4:24) that permits men to freely copulate with captive women. She repeatedly asked: “According to sharia, is slave-sex still applicable?” The two ulema would give no clear answer — dissembling here, going off on tangents there. Basma remained adamant: Muslim youth were confused, and needed a response, since “there is a certain channel and a certain man who has discussed this issue over twenty times and has received no response from you.”

The flustered Sheikh Qutb roared, “low-life people like that must be totally ignored!” and stormed off the set. He later returned, but refused to admit that Islam indeed permits sex-slaves, spending his time attacking Botros instead. When Basma said “Ninety percent of Muslims, including myself, do not understand the issue of concubinage in Islam and are having a hard time swallowing it,” the sheikh responded, “You don’t need to understand.” As for Muslims who watch and are influenced by Botros, he barked, “Too bad for them! If my son is sick and chooses to visit a mechanic, not a doctor — that’s his problem!”

But the ultimate reason for Botros’s success is that — unlike his Western counterparts who criticize Islam from a political standpoint — his primary interest is the salvation of souls. He often begins and concludes his programs by stating that he loves all Muslims as fellow humans and wants to steer them away from falsehood to Truth. To that end, he doesn’t just expose troubling aspects of Islam. Before concluding every program, he quotes pertinent biblical verses and invites all his viewers to come to Christ.

Botros’s motive is not to incite the West against Islam, promote “Israeli interests,” or “demonize” Muslims, but to draw Muslims away from the dead legalism of sharia to the spirituality of Christianity. Many Western critics fail to appreciate that, to disempower radical Islam, something theocentric and spiritually satisfying — not secularism, democracy, capitalism, materialism, feminism, etc. — must be offered in its place. The truths of one religion can only be challenged and supplanted by the truths of another. And so Father Zakaria Botros has been fighting fire with fire.

Al Kimel on Purgatory

Since Erik just wrote about Purgatory, I thought I'd post a section of Al Kimel's apology for the Catholic doctrine of Purgatory, which Eastern orthodox tend to not accept either. But I think as far as apologetics go his is the best one could present:

[...] But the punishment [of Purgatory] is not primarily or exclusively retributive: its purpose is the sanctification and perfection of the sinner. The punitive dimension of purgatorial suffering must be interpreted through its medicinal purpose. The person is truly being “punished” for his own good—to heal the disorder of his heart and liberate him completely from the power of sin.

The language of “punishment” in this context should therefore be recognized as a form of figurative speech. The torment individuals suffer in Purgatory varies, Bonaventure explains, “according as they took with them from their earthly life more or less of what must be burned away. … The more deeply a man has loved the things of the world in the inner core of his heart, the harder it will be for him to be cleansed.” With Augustine and Caesarius of Arles, Bonaventure affirms that the sufferings of Purgatory exceed the sufferings of our present life, but “because those who are being cleansed possess grace which now they cannot lose, they neither can nor will be completely immersed in sorrow, or fall into despair, or be moved to blaspheme.” Two hundred years later St Catherine of Genoa would remind the Church that though the sufferings of the poor souls may be great, their joy and happiness is greater still: “No happiness can be found worthy to be compared with that of a soul in Purgatory except that of the saints in Paradise; and day by day this happiness grows as God flows into these souls, more and more as the hindrance to His entrance is consumed.” [...]

Section XIV: Islam and Tahriif

Section XIV: Islam and the "Corruption" of the Bible

The Arabic word referring to this corruption is "tahriif", and the teaching is that the Christian (and thus Jewish) Scriptures are profoundly flawed and are thus not reliable indications of God's will, commandments, prophets, or of the history of his people. (Note: I am particularly occupied with questions regarding Jesus' teaching--the injiil--in this article.)

Tahriif is a very wide-spread belief among Muslims today, though it is not universal. It places Muslims in a very powerful position regarding the Bible because for anything they agree with already they can say, "This is from Allah, do you see that we believe in the Prophets? Why do you not accept Allah's final prophet (Muhammad) as well?" But if they are confronted with anything that challenges Islam or the Qur'an, they can say, "Clearly the text has been corrupted, for Jesus would never have said such a thing and this goes against the Qur'an."

So how can a Christian react to this? There are several paths that come to mind, all of which have been used with some degree of success in the past, I will outline three of them for you and indicate which one I generally prefer:

a) Historical Weakness of Tahriif: The traditional doctrine of tahriif tells the following story: Prophets like Jesus and Moses received genuine verbatim revelations from God like Muhammad. But perfidious Jews and Christians later corrupted these texts to suit their purposes. Now this story is found nowhere in the Qur'an, which most Muslims don't know, but it is based on certain hadiith and most Muslims simply don't know the Qur'an very well. This story is problematic from an historical point of view and prompts raises more questions than it answers:

• The New Testament took form on three different continents (Asia, Africa, and Europe), how were Christians able to collect all the valid versions of the injiil (the book Jesus received from God) given that it was recorded and spread over such a broad area?
• Languages: Sections of the NT had been translated from Greek into Latin, Syriac , Hebrew, and probably Amharic and Coptic by the end of the 2nd Century. Did the tahriif of the injiil take place before or after the translations? If before, then it must have been in the 1st Century, but there were still people alive then who had known and listened to Jesus personally, which means that there would be some record of people objecting to this corruption of the injiil. If the tahriif occurred after the translations, then we would have to believe that EVERY COPY of the true injiil which was present in three continents in (at least) half a dozen languages was destroyed.

b) Motive of Corrupters: The Gospels as we have them today give a rather unflattering picture of the Apostles. They are often foolish, proud, and faithless. It is thus unlikely that they would have "corrupted" the injiil without revising the many events which make them look foolish and weak.

It is also unlikely that one would corrupt a text without removing all the promises of persecution and familial strife, and the advocacy of poverty--hardly the kinds of things you put in a religious message if you want it to be popular. Rather, one thinks that a religious message crafted to gain popularity would include the promise of riches, women, and power--promises we do find explicitly in the Qur'an.

Moreover all the Apostles minus John were martyred for their faith. If they had corrupted the injiil and knew it to be a false message, it is inconceivable that they would all die rather than denounce it's validity. Who then corrupted the injiil? People will not die for a message they know to be corrupted. By the end of the Apostolic era the texts of the four Gospels were too wide spread and and existed in too many languages for a unified and viable tahriif to be possible.

But historical reasoning and evidence will generally get you nowhere at all with most Muslims because in Islamic culture the entire discipline of history has largely been subsumed as a sort of devotional exercise to prove the Qur'an is correct. Trying to argue from historical evidence that the Qur'an is not true is like me trying to convince you from the hymnal that the Bible is false.

c) Corruption in your Heart: This is by far my preferred apologetic. I like this approach because in many ways it mirrors Jesus' Sermon on the Mount and the interiority of the Kingdom of God. Fasting is not about letting other people know you are fasting, it is about God knowing you are fasting, for example. Similarly, I start by explaining that tahriif is very real and it is a significant problem. We say that God knows the heart of all men, and that he is all powerful--no Muslim will disagree. Then I explain that when the Jew knows the Torah and its commands, and he disobeys it, he has corrupted the Torah in his heart. Likewise the Christian who knows the commands of the injiil and disobeys it has corrupted the injiil. And finally, the Muslim who knows the commands of the Qur'an and disobeys it, is it not true that he has corrupted the Qur'an? The answer, in my experience, is always yes. Muslims are very aware that most Muslims aren't very strict in their obedience.

In conclusion I usually ask, "Is Allah powerful or weak?" Powerful! "Is Allah wise or foolish?" Wise, the answer comes. "Yes my friend, and Allah is more powerful than the Jews and the Christians, and no one is capable of corrupting God's words to his prophets! If anyone says that his words corrupted IN THE TEXT of the Torah and Gospel, he is a man who believes that God is neither wise nor powerful. But you see that corruption is in our hearts."

This is not simply a play on words. It does accommodate the Muslim who already believes in tahriif. All you have done is to reformulate the doctrine of tahriif in a way that is very much based on Jesus' teaching. But this apologetic also gets to a very foundational weakness in the Islamic view of God. God is always connected with power in Islam--Allahu Akbar! God is the greatest. Yet the Islamic narrative proposes that Jesus was not crucified, for God would not let than happen to a prophet of his. Yet we are also told that the word God gave to this prophet was not preserved? To preserve the true injiil would have been easy for God. Why did he not do it? Why did he allow 600 years of humanity to operate under the assumption that this corrupted injiil was in fact valid and accurate? And given that even from the beginning Christianity was riven with heresies and fanatics, how is that not even one copy of the real injiil was preserved by a dissenter.

All good questions. But they are not to be used to as a weapon to assault a Muslim. Whether the tone is light and conversational, or adversarial--which is sometimes necessary--we must always speak the truth in love. It is a sign of God's love to us that his true Word is in fact his Son who came to live with us, hunger with us, eat with us, cry with us, and suffer for us. His Word is not some book that one can close and place a shelf, but one who is alive and whom death could not hold down. Because of his life we have hope for eternal life: "And this is everlasting life, to know you the one true God and Jesus Christ whom you have sent."

Chesterton on Islam

GK Chesterton was one of the most influential popular Christian authors of the 20th C. He was an Anglican-turned-Catholic and he wrote on Saint Francis, Saint Thomas Aquinas, the basics of the Christian faith, and many other topics. Here is a fascinating quote of his on Islam:

Unitarians (a sect never to be mentioned without a special respect for their distinguished intellectual dignity and high intellectual honour) are often reformers by the accident that throws so many small sects into such an attitude. But there is nothing in the least liberal or akin to reform in the substitution of pure monotheism for the Trinity. The complex God of the Athanasian Creed may be an enigma for the intellect; but He is far less likely to gather the mystery and cruelty of a Sultan than the lonely god of Omar or Mahomet. The god who is a mere awful unity is not only a king but an Eastern king. The heart of humanity, especially of European humanity, is certainly much more satisfied by the strange hints and symbols that gather round the Trinitarian idea, the image of a council at which mercy pleads as well as justice, the conception of a sort of liberty and variety existing even in the inmost chamber of the world. For Western religion has always felt keenly the idea “it is not well for man to be alone.” The social instinct asserted itself everywhere as when the Eastern idea of hermits was practically expelled by the Western idea of monks. So even asceticism became brotherly; and the Trappists were sociable even when they were silent. If this love of a living complexity be our test, it is certainly healthier to have the Trinitarian religion than the Unitarian. For to us Trinitarians (if I may say it with reverence)–to us God Himself is a society. It is indeed a fathomless mystery of theology, and even if I were theologian enough to deal with it directly, it would not be relevant to do so here. Suffice it to say here that this triple enigma is as comforting as wine and open as an English fireside; that this thing that bewilders the intellect utterly quiets the heart: but out of the desert, from the dry places and, the dreadful suns, come the cruel children of the lonely God; the real Unitarians who with scimitar in hand have laid waste the world. For it is not well for God to be alone.

(Quote is taken from the article Allah and the Trinity)

(Originally posted 27 Jan 07, but a great quote and thought it would be good to repost.)

We...are born without sin

From an Islamic Website. Gives a good example of Islamic apologetics which is to simply say, you are wrong and that's that. There is no appeal to history or to our religious sources (the Gospels). Nor is there any discussion of what sin is, and without that there is no ability to discuss forgiveness and what that might mean. I have not corrected the grammatical mistakes:

Q. Jesus sacrificed himself to save mankind and deliver us from the sin, why did not Muhammad do so?

A. You did not study history enough and you did not know unfortunately what happened to Jesus, peace be upon him. Jesus, peace be upon him, did not sacrifice his life for our sins. And if it were to be true, Jesus would have been sent by God as the first child of Adam to save our sins. We human beings are born without sin, pure. Again, Jesus, peace be upon him, was not crucified. Go back and find who the one crucified was. If you don’t know, we will tell you. Jesus in as much as God brought was a hypocrite whose name was Juda, became his look like and then people crucified him thinking he was Jesus.

Do Catholics Believe That Muslims Worship the True God?

Thanks to Taylor Marshall over at Canterbury Tales (cantuar.blogspot.com) for notifying me of this interesting article he wrote. I have read the section of the Catholic Catechism that he discusses here. Following his short article is the response I left at his blog.

Do Catholics Believe That Muslims Worship the True God?
by Taylor Marshall

Some Protestant readers have alleged that the Catholic Church teaches a certain form of universalism or relativism and they quote paragraph #841 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church in order to prove it:

841 The Church's relationship with the Muslims. "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."

A few observations. The plan of salvation includes Muslims. This is common sense. God desires all men (including Muslims) to be saved. This does not mean that all Muslims are saved by virtue of their being Muslims. This passage should be read in context of the entire Catechism which teaches that salvation is received through Christ alone through the means of grace provided through the Church of Jesus Christ. One cannot wrench this paragraph from the catechism and let it stand alone.

One could easily take certain passages out of the writings of St. Paul and make false assumptions that Paul was a universalist. For example: St Paul teaches universalism because he wrote:

"Then as one man's trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one man's act of righteousness leads to acquittal and life for all men." (Rom 5:18)

This is a misguided argument because one must read the verse above in light of all the writings of St. Paul. In the same way, one cannot isolate paragraph 841 from the rest of the Catechism.

The Church recognizes that the object of worship is Islam is the God of Abraham and thus the one true God. Thus, we might say that Muslims worship the true God wrongly. They attempt to find access to God in a means that is not sacrificial, and worse, not Christological. It is like men trying to hunt deer with a slingshot. They are technically "hunting deer" but their method is never going to put venison on the table.

The Catholic Church also honors the conscience of men and leaves judgment to God. If God seeks to justify a non-Christian Arab through Jesus Christ in some way, who are we to object to it? Yet the Church remains firm that salvation is through Christ alone. I believe the Church does not presume to limit how God can and must save human beings. The Church does believe that God has definitively revealed through Christ that salvation is through Christ alone. That is not negotiable. The question remains, can someone be saved through Christ and not know it? The answer is clearly: Yes.

A baby can be saved through Christ without a "saving knowledge of Christ" or without a knowledge of the mechanics of salvation. A person who is mentally handicapped can be also be saved in a way that does not require a formal intellectual understanding of Christ and redemption. Perhaps this can also be the case for certain Muslims. The qualifier is "perhaps". The Church does not teach that this is the case, but it does not rule out the possibility.

The reason I wanted to post on this subject, because there are some Catholics who are embarrassed or unnerved by Paragraph #841. The Catholic should not blush with embarrassment when someone cites #841 as an example of the Catholic Church's "liberalism" or "relativism".

Abu Daoud's Response:

Hi Taylor,

Thanks for leaving this link over at my blog, islamdom.blogspot.com.

If there is anything deficient in the Catechism it is that it tries to be very nice and does not address the fundamental deficiencies in Islam.

Now I understand that the Catechism is not a book about Islam or world religions or whatnot, but what it does communicate, though it may be, strictly speaking, not false, is done so in a way and manner that, as a missionary to Muslims, I find decisively unhelpful and awkward.

No mention of the fact that the religion is very much based on the rejection of the doctrines of the incarnation and the Trinity? So what do you end up with? God as Creator and Sender of prophets.

And also, the phrase "the plan of salvation includes Muslims," is very weak. I like, "God desires the salvation of Muslims and in his grace grants it to all who turn to Jesus Christ: 'Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me' (Jn 6:45)."

Christians are Tri-theists

Well, we Christians can insist up and down that we believe in one God, but that doesn't matter. Muslims know what we believe better than we do. Here in fact is the proof that you (if you're a Christian) do believe in three gods, even though you don't know it.

How do you respond to the critique? And can you outline how he has misrepresented the doctrine of the Trinity?

From Answering Christianity:

Trinitarians often like to claim that they have a monotheistic belief, and that the Trinity is not the worship of 3 Gods rather it is the worship of One God. Basically they say the Trinity doctrine is as follow:

1- God is made up of 3 persons

2- The three persons are the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit

3- All three persons are distinct from each other, The Father is not the Son, nor is the Son the Father etc.

4- Each person in the Trinity has a role of their own

5- Jesus is the Son in the Trinity

So basically that is the dogma of the Trinity.

Now let us show exactly why Christians do in fact worship three God's. As I said, the Trinity is made up of THREE people, these three people are all different than one another, it is basically exactly like having 3 people in an office, Tom Dick and Harry.

Now Christians say that Jesus is God, the Father is God, and so is the Holy Spirit. So therefore if you have three people, and each one of them is God then what are you left with? You are left with THREE Gods! This is logic!

If Tom Dick and Harry are each managers, how many managers do you have? You have three! Remember Trinity has THREE different persons, and each person is God, therefore you have three Gods and not one, there is no way around this mess.

Muhammad in Habakkuk?

From Answering Christianity, what do you think about this prophecy? (I have not edited all the spelling and grammar and punctuation mistakes.)

Here is some Further proofs about Prophecies of the Bible about Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him)..

Habakkuk
3:3 God came from Teman, and the Holy One from mount Paran. Selah. His glory covered the heavens, and the earth was full of his praise.
3:4 And his brightness was as the light; he had horns coming out of his hand: and there was the hiding of his power.
3:5 Before him went the pestilence, and burning coals went forth at his feet.

In fact This is a Clear Prophecy about Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him), as he was the Only Prophet coming from "Mount of Paran" in Mecca..This is a Clear Verse.

Paul's False Miracles

Also from Answering Christianity:

"The “miracles” attributed to Paul are myths, based on hearsay, not eyewitnesses (who are they?). But the Hadith (based on eyewitnesses) narrates the Holy Prophet did over 300 miracles. The Hadith are based on isnad (chain of narrators) yet the Gospels have no isnad."

Here is a fine example of the mediocrity of Islamic apologetics (of course there is plenty of Christian apologetics that is mediocre). I mean, really, this is anachronism at the worse. Isnaad refers to the links show in that various hadiith are valid. John said that Jim said that Abdullah said that he heard Muhammad say... That is how the hadiith all begin. And is that not entirely "hearsay"? I mean, Isnaad IS hearsay, and nothing more.

Of course there is no need for isnad with Acts. The claim of Acts is that it is written by Luke, who saw these things personally and knew Paul personally. That seems pretty straight forward and, um, more convincing than, five or six people saying they heard it from someone else. But Islam is never wrong and never open to criticism.

Even reason must submit.

Paul the False Apostle

"Christians worship Christ, not Jesus. Christians follow Paul, not God. The false apostle believed Jesus rose from the dead as a spirit, not a physical body."

From Answering Christianity