It's a popular belief in the West (that we borrowed from the East) that the flow of each religion really comes from the same Source. After all, when it comes to something like conceptualizing God, how much can we really nail down? Isn't God, even as a concept, bigger than we can wrap our minds around? Doesn't this muddy the waters of all faiths to such a degree that the very name of God is inconsequential or at least less important than our forefathers believed? Thus, does it really matter if we refer to God as Allah or Yahweh? Aren't we really talking about the same Being that is shrouded in linguistic mystery?
Daniel Janosik's post of 12/13 entitled " Is Allah of Islam the same as Yahweh of Christianity " generated some good dialogue about the meaning of the name "Allah" and the character of God. This conversation brings to light several points in this discussion that bring clarity to the nature of God and shows that a god by any other name... may not be the same god...
(Thanks to Jason, Frank and Ahmed for the dialogue!)
Jason - Commenting on Daniel's Original Post
Thanks for making these valid points. Where I still have doubts regarding this debate is in the tradition to which Islam subscribes: that is the Abrahamic line of prophets. This is where the name of God and what his nature actually is gets a little messier. Is it possible that the name of God (in Arabic Allah) is meant to refer to the same person as the Christian God, though with a different understanding of who that God (His person and nature) is? Similar to Jesus in the Quran: meaning that Isa el-Massih (Jesus the Messiah) is the name for Jesus used by Muslims, and we know that it is not a different Jesus, but rather a wrong understanding of the person and work of Jesus. Therefore, the name of Jesus is not the point of conflict (though I understand that “Isa” has no apparent meaning in Arabic, and thus most Arab Christians refer to Jesus as “Yesu'a el-Massih” as Yesu'a means Joshua and Savior) rather it is who he was (God's Son/God/Savior of man) and what he did and came to do. In a casual to formal conversation about Jesus, there is no contradiction of connotation, rather a disagreement on doctrine. Do you agree with this and if so, how does this affect the debate about God v. Allah?
Frank - Adding to Jason's Point
I believe that Jason has hit the salient point: "...a wrong understanding of the person and work of Jesus." And likewise, of the great I AM. Our Creator was content to start with the native name "El" and "Elohim" (roughly equivalent to Allah), and reveal more about Himself from that point.
Muslims have misunderstood this further revelation, but then again so have many, many cultural "Christians." The God mistakenly called Jehovah by many of my Western Christian forebears and contemporaries continues to reveal Himself to people from all times and places, willing to begin with their limited or distorted understanding. Indeed, there is no other place we humans can start. The great I AM is even now being revealed to many Muslim hearts through the definitive revelation, one of whose many valid names is "Isa el-Massih."
Daniel - Replying to Jason
Is a “napkin” what you use to wipe your face during a meal or is it what you put on a baby after you wipe its bottom? In America it is the former, in England it is the latter. The reason I use this analogy is that the connotation of a word is extremely important. You have asked, “Is it possible that the name of God (in Arabic Allah) is meant to refer to the same person as the Christian God, though with a different understanding of who that God (His person and nature) is?” In other words, could Muslims really be referencing the same God as Christians, only with a more limited, perhaps even heretical understanding? The first problem that one encounters with this train of thought is that the Muslims believe that they have the more accurate understanding of God and it is the Christians who have the heretical view! This is also true in regard to their view of Jesus (or Isa). They believe that Christians are not only wrong about who Jesus is but are worthy of hell for believing that Jesus is God himself. Therefore, when Muslims talk about Isa according to the Qur’an, they are not just expressing a limited view (from the Christian perspective), they are talking about a different Jesus, one who is not in the Bible. This is similar to the “different Jesus” that Paul warns us against in I Corinthians 11. This came home to me a little more clearly when in one of the Islamic classes that I was in a female Christian student from the Middle East stood up and in response to the discussion on the status of Allah and Yahweh stated that the attribute that we were talking about described the “Allah of the Bible,” but it did not describe the “Allah of the Qur’an.” In other words, even though she grew up with the word “Allah” in her Arabic Bible, she understood that the “Allah” that she was worshiping was not the same as the “Allah” that the Muslims worship.
It is true that the Muslims want to say that Allah is the same as the Christian God because they believe that their view of Allah is the most recent and most accurate. In other words, they believe that Christians need to listen to the Muslims in order to understand that Jesus is not God, that God cannot have a son, that God should not be called Our Father, that the concept of the Trinity is blasphemous, and that Jesus, as God, did not die on the cross for our sins. Well, the Muslim God is not my God. I would trust that he is not your God either.
Ahmed - Commenting on Daniel
“…It’s interesting to observe that, in rejecting the Athenian’s erroneous concept of God, Paul did not reject the word they used for God, Theos, which was the common Greek word for God.
Some Christians unthinkingly say 'Allah is not God.' This is the ultimate blasphemy to Muslims, and furthermore, it is difficult to understand. Allah is the primary Arabic word for God. It means 'The God.' There are some minor exceptions. For example, the Bible in some Muslim lands uses a word for God other than Allah (Farsi and Urdu are examples). But for more than five hundred years before Muhammad, the vast majority of Jews and Christians in Arabia called God by the name Allah. How, then, can we say that Allah is an invalid name for God? If it is, to whom have these Jews and Christians been praying?
And what about the 10 to 12 million Arab Christians today? They have been calling God ‘Allah’ in their Bibles, hymns, poems, writings, and worship for over nineteen centuries. What an insult to them when we tell them not to use this word ‘Allah’! Instead of bridging the distance between Muslims and Christians, we widen the gulf of separation between them and us when we promote such a doctrine. Those who still insist that it is blasphemy to refer to God as Allah should also consider that Muhammad’s father was named Abd Allah, ‘God’s servant,’ many years before his son was born or Islam was founded!”
--excerpted from BUILDING BRIDGES by Fouad Accad (Colorado Springs, CO: Navpress, p. 22).
Frank - Replying to Ahmed and Daniel
I'm really resonating with what Ahmed has quoted from Fouad Accad. It is easy to take potshots since there is so much history and different usages of words and concepts through that history, but the key point may be in the title of the book quoted: Are we trying to build bridges of understanding or further perpetuate divisive misunderstandings?
It is necessary to say with Paul, "We would like to explain this Theos, this unknown God, and how He is revealed definitively in Jesus (Isa)." But the discussion has to begin / continue with some "give" on both sides, rather than drawing lines in the sand which curtail any further meaningful dialog.
There are times when I as an Evangelical wonder if I am seeing the same things in the self-revelation of our Creator as do my Catholic or Orthodox brothers. But I will not say that they worship a completely different Power, only that our various perceptions and understandings are different. Likewise, many Hindu and Buddhist friends with whom I discuss have what I consider very mistaken ideas about our Creator/Redeemer, but there are also times when I am quite sure that their hearts have known what their theology does not. And on this basis I believe that we can continue to talk: not by saying that certain people are using the wrong Name, but by knowing that they have part of the Light which enlightens all peoples and can come to know and understand more. (as can I)
Daniel - Replying to Frank
In your first post you accept the name “Isa al-Massih” as a valid name for the Jesus of the Bible. If the phrase is used by a Muslim who has converted to Christianity and believes that Jesus is God and has died on the cross for his sins, then I would agree with you. If, however, a Muslim, who rejects that Jesus is God, that he died on the cross for our sins and that he rose from the dead, refers to “Isa al-Massih,” then I would not agree with you. The Muslim’s conception of Isa is totally different from the convert to Christianity. For the Muslim, Isa is merely a man who was given a revelation from God. For the Christian, “Isa al-Massih” is the son of God, the second person of the Trinity and the savior of the world. The denotation of the word “Isa” may be the same, but the connotation is totally different. Furthermore, when Paul was speaking to the Athenians, he could have used the term “Zeus” if he wanted to when he filled the unbeliever’s “Theos” with additional meaning by calling their “unknown” god the creator of the whole universe. In other words, Paul was packing the word “Theos” with meaning beyond the range of the pagans. They may have used the word the same way denotatively, but Paul was adding truth upon truth and giving it a much richer, much fuller connotative understanding. Arab Christians have done the same with the term “allah.” They have taken a general Aramaic word for God, once represented as “al-illah” (the God), and filled it with new meaning: the one true God of the universe in triune form, Father, Son and Holy Spirit! For Muslims who later adopted this Aramaic word (denotatively) their understanding of the word in its context (connotative meaning) was vastly different. For them Allah CANNOT be in triune form. Neither can Jesus be the eternal son of God and “very God of very God.” Therefore, according to the Muslims themselves, the “Allah” of the Arab Christians CANNOT be the “Allah” of the Qur’an. It doesn’t matter if you want “Allah” to also represent the same God that is spoken of in the Bible. Muslims reject the God of the Bible. They do not believe that Jesus is God, nor do they believe that God is a Trinity. Muslims believe that Christians have an erroneous view of God, and therefore must look to the Qur’an (“the final revelation”) for the true understanding of God. Muslims will not give in. Therefore, why should Christians make all the concessions? Too often Christians will build their bridges half way, expecting their Muslim friends to do the same thing, but in the end the Christians realize that there is no bridge from the other side and they only have a “bridge to nowhere.”
Frank - Replying to Daniel and Ahmed
OK, let's go back to the original question, and let's ask it of believers of Muslim background (MBB). What does the term Allah now mean to MBBs?
Daniel - Replying to Frank
If you go to MBBs who are from an Arabic background, they may prefer to use "Allah" when they refer to the God of the Bible, but (and note this well) the term “Allah” no longer means the same thing for them. Now they can say “Jesus is Allah”! As I said before, the “Allah” of the Bible for an Arabic Christian is very different than the “Allah” of the Qur’an for the Muslim. Context is everything. I would say the same thing of a Jehovah’s Witness who rejects the idea that Jesus is Jehovah and also rejects a Trinitarian form of God. They have a defective view of the true God. While a JW may have a strong belief in some of the attributes of the true God, their overall understanding of God is not the same as Orthodox Christianity teaches. In other words, they have rejected the truth about God (see Romans 1:25) and worship a different god. However, a true Trinitarian Christian who uses the name “Jehovah” (which is probably a 16th century construction – see the original blog) instead of Yahweh (such as in singing the song “Jehovah Jirah”) understands God correctly and can be said to worship the true God. Thus, it is not so much the name that we use as it is the connotation of that term.
Now, I would agree with an earlier point that was made that many Christians do not understand God very well and they certainly could not defend a doctrine such as the Trinity. However, they do believe that Jesus is God, that he died on the cross for their sins and they believe that God is triune. These are essential beliefs that set them apart from the JWs as well as the Muslims. In this case, connotation trumps denotation. I would also add that a Muslim may be worshiping the Allah of the Qur’an in his mosque and begin to understand God in a fuller way. He may want to have a relationship with God, and as he seeks counsel from others, including Christians, he may realize that the Christian God is the God that he is seeking. He may even be counseled by Arabic Christians who use “Allah” in their own translation of the Bible. The point is that if this Muslim ends up believing in the God of the Bible, then his journey from the Allah of the Qur’an to the Allah of the Bible will be life-changing. He may use the same name in his reference to God, but as a Christian he will now have a relationship with the true God and he can say that “Jesus is God.” He will also understand why the Allah of Muhammad can never be the Father of Jesus!
Frank - Replying to Daniel
Daniel, your additions and qualifications to your original post have made the thought more complete, and if I may say so, more palatable. Thank you for taking the time to do so.
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