1

But what about the early Old Testament fellows like Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob? Clearly they worshiped the same God we modern Christians believe in, but did they have a view of a Triune Godhead?

(I agree with your position on Christians and Muslims worshipping different Gods. I just have to poke a bit at this incarnation of your justification of the point.)

2

That's a valid point and one that someone brought up in a previous post. My opinion is that since God's word is a progressive revelation the claims of Jesus can only take effect *after* he took on human form.

Before he came this argument could not have been valid. But once we know Christ we cannot go back to the old way of thinking and ignore the present reality.

3

To clarify, Muslims could not possibly be attributing Allah to the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob as you state, but rather, Abraham and ISHMAEL. They believe that Ishmael was the one almost sacrificed by Abraham, not Isaac, and that the promises given to Abraham are passed down to Ishmael and his seed, which Arab Muslims claim to be descended from, not Isaac and Jacob, of which the Jews are descended from. Since God cannot make contradictory promises, their version of God cannot be reconciled to the Judeo-Christian version.

The fact is, the Muslims have developed an image of the true God that is more to their pleasing. Since this image is ultimately a false representation of God, they do indeed worship a false god.

4

Mac,

Muslims do not believe that the same promise given to Isaac was actually for Ishmael. In fact, Quran confirms the promise to the jews: "I decided to make them [the Jews] the heir to the world and the leaders of the people [toward faith]."

Muslims' belief is that the Jews (and later, Christians) gradually moved off the true path and because of this betrayal, the original promise was nullified.

In another posting you say that the God worshipped by Muslims have many different characteristics than the Juedo-Christian God. Would you mind naming a few? The Characteristics of God in Islam is very much similar to that of Judaism.

5

Also, Mac, remember that Muslims do acknowledge all Jewish prophets, including Isaac and Jacob.

6

Here's a link that goes far into demonstrating notable differences between Allah and the God of the Bible better than anything I can say right now. Note there's a link at the end to another exceptional source on the issue.

Though the Koran clearly shows that the Holy Land spoken of belongs to the Jews (Sura V, "The Table"). my understanding is that the belief of Ishmael being sacrificed rather than Isaac is important in Islamic faith because it demonstrates that the covenant God made with Abraham extends not only to Isaac, but to Ishmael as well. My mistake was that it applied ONLY to Ishmael. To conclude, this would mean, as you readily state, that since Jews and the Christians have fallen by the wayside, only the descendants of Ishmael now have a legitimate claim to the covenant promises of God.

7

Finally, I just read this timely excerpt from a LA Times article in Dec., I think it may have been the very same article that sparked this debate from the beginning, but I'm not sure:

One of the nation's leading evangelical Christian seminaries has launched a federally funded project for making peace with Muslims, featuring a proposed code of ethics that rejects offensive statements about each other's faiths, affirms a mutual belief in one God and pledges not to proselytize.

Brilliant. So let's watch the Muslims march lock-step to their destruction because the truth might offend them. It escapes me how this can be justified, since a religion that rejects Christ as our God and Saviour cannot possibly bring about their salvation.

The Bible states that love rejoices in the truth. Forsaking crucial elements of Christian faith for the sake of unity is not an act of love, but cruel hatred of the worst kind.

8

I think the problem is not that the Jews and Muslims worship the wrong GOD, but that they don't WORSHIP God. Whether or not they have confused ideas of God doesn't settle the matter. Many Christians have confused and even contradictory ideas of God, especially children. Yet I do not think this invalidates their worship. You don't need to have a perfect or even adequate conception of God in order to properly refer to him. Simply stating "The God of Abraham" is enough to create a proper reference, or similarly by stating "The Creator of All" or many other such names. Those who attempt to refer to God by such a means do indeed refer to God. It doesn't matter if they believe all sorts of wrong things about God, any more than if I believe all sorts of incorrect things about George W. Bush I don't in fact refer to him when I say "George W. Bush." Otherwise, Howard Dean would be incapable of referring to Bush.

The actual problem for Jews and Muslims is, I would venture, that they don't worship him, though they think they do. God has given us commandments about how to worship him properly and what we will do if we genuinely worship him, and so the worship of Muslims, even if it is of God, is not counted as worship by God because it is done according to their own ways and not His ways. This is the way out of the dilemma you pose, that either Muslims worship the Triune God without knowing it or worship God without worshipping Christ - they do not worship God at all but perform ceremonies that they imagine count as worship. (In parallel fashion, if I suddenly decide that I will worship God by burning bull carcasses to him, I will not be worshipping him at all but in fact setting myself up above him in my mind, and I suppose be worshipping myself or whatever spirit suggested this idea to me if I am worshipping anything at all).

Hence they do not know him, though they know about him. Christians know God through knowing and worshipping Christ, but Jews and Muslims do not know Christ and so do not know God. They still know some things about him, though, such as that he created the universe out of nothing, is just, is merciful, etc. Similarly, I know a lot of things about Bush, but I don't know him.

9

The above arguments only deal with the view of the individual believers who may have found Christianity, not what Muslims believe in or of their mythical “Crescent” crusade to win converts by the sword, deprivation or guile. Regardless, of how it is being promoted it is the object of the believed that is the “subject” not what and how errant believers choose to believe. Our God is well documented with over 24000 piece of evidence with in a hundred years of Christ death. One hundreds years after Mohamad non but a few scraps were existing. There religion was created from word of mouth and myth. Baal the moon God of the crescent is their God. Their God is not our God.
Islam: Myth or Truth
http://www.bible.ca/islam/islam-allahs-daughters.htm
"Daughter-gate": Allah’s Daughters: el-Lat, el-Uzza, and Manat Muslims today do not worship Allah's daughters and view them as pagan deities. Having said that, it is important to note that Muhammad himself commanded his followers offer prayers to these "Allah's daughters". He later retracted it and blamed it on the Devil. It is this true event in Muhammad's life which was the topic of Salman Rushdie's book, "The Satanic Verses." (a book we certainly do not recommend reading for its profanity and racism.)
Historical notes:
1. It is an undeniable fact of history that before Muhammed was born, the moon( The Muslim Cresent) (Baal) god "al-Ilah" Now (ALLAH) had three daughters named al-Lat, al-Uzza and Manat. The first two were even named after their father. Each daughter had a separate shrine near Mecca, where Allah's shrine was located.

Islam: Myth or Truth
http://www.bible.ca/islam/islam-allahs-daughters.htm
"Daughter-gate": Allah’s Daughters: el-Lat, el-Uzza, and Manat Muslims today do not worship Allah's daughters and view them as pagan deities. Having said that, it is important to note that Muhammad himself commanded his followers offer prayers to these "Allah's daughters". He later retracted it and blamed it on the Devil. It is this true event in Muhammad's life which was the topic of Salman Rushdie's book, "The Satanic Verses." (a book we certainly do not recommend reading for its profanity and racism.)
Historical notes:
1. It is an undeniable fact of history that before Muhammed was born, the moon( The Muslim Crescent) (Baal) god "al-Ilah" Now (ALLAH) had three daughters named al-Lat, al-Uzza and Manat. They are named in the Koran. The first two were even named after their father. Each daughter had a separate shrine near Mecca, where Allah's shrine was located.

10

Joe,
Are you implying that the forefathers (and foremothers) Abraham & Sara et al. had less of an understanding of G-d than people do today after Jesus?
If not, then are you saying that G-d changed after the birth of Jesus? This would be odd in my eyes in that G-d says that he was not changed by the creation of the world.

If the Jews worship the same G-d that Abraham, Issac and Jacob did (as the opening of the Amida states) and worships in the same manner that Jews did since the giving of the Torah at Mt. Sinai, how are they not worshiping the same G-d, unless Christians are worshiping a different G-d than the G-d of Abraham?

11

Hey Leah,

I still have another post I need to write to clarify matters. But in the meantime I'll add this...

From the Christian perspective, God didn't change he simply revealed more of himself. The question is whether Abraham, Sara, and the gang would have recognized Jesus as God. Christians would say yes, Jews would say no. One of the two groups is obviously wrong.

Personally, if I were Jewish I would have to say that Christians do not worship the same God.

I'm curious, though, how you would interpret it.

12

In reponse to Mac Swift's January 2, 2004 post: Muslims do not believe that they are the "chosen people" in any way and therefore, do not believe that God established a covenant with Ishmael or even Muhammad.

13

The argument that Muslims and Jews do not worship the "true God" because they do not believe in the divinity of Christ, you have to agree is a completely biased, Christian viewpoint. From the Muslim viewpoint, when it said that Muslims and Christians believe in the same God, this most likely refers to "The Father" of the trinity or the ONE God, free of the doctrine of trinity, that Christian sects like Unitarian Universalists worship. A Christian who worships the trinity in its entirety as being divine does not worship the same God as a Muslim.