Comparing Christianity & Islam
By
Peter Kreeft
17 March
2023
Islam neither Merely Simplifies Christianity nor
Merely Adds To It, but Reinterprets It—Somewhat As Christianity Does To Judaism
-------
Two Unsettling
Facts Dominate The Relations Between Christianity And Islam:
1. Dialogue is almost non-existent. Islam resists ecumenical dialogue
more than any other religion. To "proselytize" in any way in a Moslem
country is to go to prison.
2. Islam once nearly conquered the world, in the early Middle Ages when
its empire stretched from Spain to Indonesia, and it looks as if it could do so
again. Islamic growth rates in Africa and even America are phenomenal.
In other
words, Islam has the world's lowest rate of being converted and one of the
world's highest rates of converting.
What Accounts
For This Success? What Makes Islam Such An Attractive Creed?
In a word:
simplicity. Islam reflects the stark simplicity of the Arabian Desert where it
was born. A Muslem knows exactly where he stands. To a world more and more
confused, Islam comes with a sword that cuts through the Gordian Knot of modern
malaise in a single stroke.
That stroke,
the striking simplicity of Islam's creed, is summed up in the palindrome (i.e.,
it reads the same backward as forward) which shatters the silence daily from
every mosque and minaret: La Illaha Illa Allah! "There is no God
but Allah!"
Allah, of
course, is the same God Jews and Christians worship. Islam is not only a
Western, monotheistic religion rather than an Oriental, pantheistic religion,
but explicitly bases itself on the historical revelation of the God of the
Jews, tracing itself to Ishmael, Isaac's brother, to whom God also promised
special blessings according to Genesis. Isaac and Ishmael, Jews and Moslems,
have been engaged in sibling rivalry ever since.
The older
name that "infidels" gave this religion, "Mohammedanism,"
is inaccurate, for neither Mohammed nor any of his followers ever claimed
Mohammed was anything more than a human prophet. "There is no God but
Allah and Mohammed is His prophet," is the complete Moslem creed.
The code is
almost as simple as the creed. The "Five Pillars of Islam" define the
duties of every Moslem. They include a pilgrimage to Mecca at least once in a
lifetime, if possible, to commemorate Islam's beginning in 622 A.D. with the
"Hegira;" Mohammed's flight from Mecca; fasting; almsgiving; ritual
prayer five times a day; and professing the creed, "There is no God but
Allah and Mohammed is His prophet."
In one
sense Islam is a simplification of Christianity as Buddhism is a simplification
of Hinduism. But in another sense Islam adds to Christianity, for where Jews
have only our "Old Testament" Scriptures and Christians add the New
Testament, Muslims also add the Quran. They accept the claims of the Jewish
prophets to be sent by God. They believe Jesus deepened this revelation and
that Mohammed completed it. Mohammed is "the seal of the prophets."
He tells you how to live Jesus' ethic (Jesus is seen only as a man, an ethical
teacher).
Actually,
Islam neither merely simplifies Christianity nor merely adds to it, but
reinterprets it—somewhat as Christianity does to Judaism. As the Christian
interpretation of the Old Testament is not the same as the Jewish one, the
Moslem interpretation of the New Testament is not the same as the Christian
one; the Quran authoritatively interprets the New Testament as the New
interprets the Old.
The Quran
itself is the only miracle Mohammed claimed—though perhaps equally miraculous
is the fact that Mohammed's wife became his first convert. An illiterate
peasant, Mohammed received the Quran by word-for-word dictation from Allah,
according to the faith of Islam. When Moslems read the Quran, they become
ecstatic with admiration. They say no outsider can appreciate it, nor can it be
adequately translated out of Arabic. In this sense, Islam is a bit esoteric,
though it is a religion of public revelation in a book.
Islam
believes in a single, all-just, all-merciful, all-powerful God who created the
world and man, insists on obedience to His will, and promises salvation and
immortality to believers and obeyers. In all these ways Islam is like Judaism
and Christianity (Western) rather than like Hinduism and Buddhism.
(Eastern).
Allah is not a Force but a Person; not merely Being or even merely
Consciousness but moral Will. From the Will of Allah comes both the existence
of the world by creation and the rule over it, over nature and history by
Providence and over human free choice by moral law.
The three
crucial Christian doctrines Islam denies are the Trinity, the Incarnation and
the Resurrection. Like Judaism, Islam denies Christ's claim to divinity. Allah
is one; so how could He be three? Jesus is human; so how could He be divine?
"It is unfitting for Allah to have a son," wrote Mohammed, apparently
interpreting sonship biologically.
The Quran
believes in Christ's virgin birth, but not His resurrection; in His prophetic
function (teaching) but not His priestly function (salvation) or His kingly
function (ruling); in His moral authority but not His supernatural authority.
To Moslems, as with Jews, Christ is the stumbling block. The theology of God
the Father and the ethics of human living are essentially the same for Jews,
Christians and Moslems. What then is missing? Aren't these the two essentials?
No. What's
missing is the link between the two, the "missing link," Christ the
Mediator between God and man. Mohammed and the Quran are essentially another
Moses (lawgiver) and another law. What's missing is grace, salvation,
redemption. What's missing is precisely the essential thing.
There are
two kinds of Moslems today, just as there were in the Middle Ages: modernists
and orthodox, liberals and fundamentalist, Mu’tazilites (rationalists) and
Mutikalimoun. In the 13th century, Thomas Aquinas confronted "Latin
Averroism," the European copy of the Moslem philosopher Averroes' way of
reconciling the Quran with the philosophy of Aristotle by reducing much of the Quran
to myth and exalting Aristotle to the authority of Pure Reason. He taught that
a literal interpretation of the Quran (which the vast majority of Moslems hold)
is proper for the masses, who cannot rise to the level of philosophical
abstraction, but for those who can, Aristotle's arguments must prevail over
belief in divine providence, creation of the world and individual immortality
(all of which Aristotle denied). But Islam, by and large, has resisted this
"demythologizing" rationalism far more completely than Judaism and
Christianity have in our day.
We have not
yet mentioned the most important thing about Islam: What is it to be a Moslem?
How do Moslems exist religiously? Here too, as in Moslem theology and ethics,
there is a striking simplicity, summarized in the very title of the religion.
"Islam" means both "peace" (etymologically connected with
the Hebrew shalom) and "submission," or "surrender"; it is
the peace that comes from submission to Allah's will. Moslems would applaud
T.S. Eliot's choice of Dante's line: "In His will, our peace" as
"the profoundest line in all of human literature."
The famous
Moslem "fatalism" ("it is the will of Allah"), like the
Calvinistic doctrine of Predestination, makes them work harder, not less hard.
Moslems, like Christians, believe in man's free will as well as God's
sovereignty. Theirs is not the modern fatalism from below, a scientific
determinism, but from above. It is energizing and liberating, not squashing. Islam,
like Judaism and Christianity, has produced a rich crop of saints and mystics,
especially in the Sufi tradition, which is similar in many ways to the Jewish
Hasidic tradition.
Can Moslems
be saved? They reject Christ as Savior; yet they seek and love God
"Islam" means essentially the "fundamental option" of a
whole-hearted "yes" to God. Most Moslems, like most Jews, see Christ
only through broken lenses. If God-seeking and God-loving Jews, both before and
after Christ's Incarnation, can find God, then surely God-seeking Moslems can
too, according to Christ's own promise that "all who seek,
find"—whether in this life or the next.
Yet Christ
also insists that "no one can come to the Father but by me." Whatever
truth Mohammed taught Moslems about God is really present in Christ the Logos,
the full revelation of God. If Moslems are saved, they are saved by Christ.
Christians
should hope and pray that their separated Islamic brothers and sisters be
reunited with our common Father by finding Christ the Way. We cannot stop
"proselytizing," for proselytizing means leading our brothers Home.
-----
Peter
John Kreeft is a professor of philosophy at Boston College and The King's
College. He is the author of over eighty books on Christian philosophy and
theology.
Source: https://www.peterkreeft.com/topics-more/religions_islam.htm
URL: https://newageislam.com/interfaith-dialogue/comparing-christianity-islam/d/129341
New Age Islam, Islam Online, Islamic Website, African Muslim News, Arab World News, South Asia News, Indian Muslim News, World Muslim News, Women in
Islam, Islamic
Feminism, Arab Women, Women In Arab, Islamophobia
in America, Muslim Women
in West, Islam Women
and Feminism