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Rev. Paul T. McCain
January 11th, 2010 | 5:56 pm | #1

This has been a fascinating issue to watch unfold.

There are quite a number of Christians who think that “Allah” is simply and nothing more than another word for “God,” bringing with it no more freight than that.

Muslims, it seems, at least in some parts of the world, recognize better than do some Christians that simply uttering vocables is pointless, but it is the meaning attached to them that makes all the differences.

I’ve come in recent years to prefer to be extremely concrete in any public prayer I’m asked to give. I try to conclude always by giving glory to the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, One God, world without end. Amen.

What is baffling and disheartening is why what has always been held to be so self-evident in Christendom, namely, Mr. Carter’s clear statement: “As an evangelical Christian I believe that those who don’t acknowledge Christ as God are not worshiping the true God” is now somehow held to be not quite right, or subject to debate, or worse, suffers from the death of a thousand qualifications from Christians no less!

Martin Luther put it well, this way, in his Large Catechism:

The articles of the Creed divide and separate us Christians from all other people on earth. Even if [or: even if we were to concede that] all people outside Christianity—whether heathen, Turks, Jews, or false Christians and hypocrites—believe in and worship only one true God, they dstill do not know what His mind toward them is and cannot expect any love or blessing from Him. Therefore, they abide in eternal wrath and damnation. For they do not have the Lord Christ, and besides, are not illumined and favored by any gifts of the Holy Spirit.

-Large Catechism
The Creed
par. 66

Cited from:
Concordia: The Lutheran Confessions: A Reader’s Edition of the Book of Concord, Second Edition, (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House), p. 406.

So, I’m with Joe on this one. Why would Christians want to use the word “Allah” to begin with, if that word is not part of their native language for God? Makes zero sense to me and lends itself to counter-productive confusion, and perhaps even leaves hearers with false understandings.

Jeff Schultz
January 11th, 2010 | 6:52 pm | #2

I’ve heard the argument by some evangelical Christians that Christians, Jews and Muslims all worship the God of Abraham (although they are worshiping what they don’t know, apparently like the Samaritans in John 4).

That argument sounds reasonable and seems to offer a platform for outreach, but it also flies clearly in the face of Jesus’ own warnings and statements. To the ones Joe lists, I’d add John 3:17-18; 5:22-23 and 45-46; 6:53; 14:6, and several others if time permitted.

Jesus really is the issue.

Fr. Bill
January 11th, 2010 | 7:47 pm | #3

I’m part of an extended family that uses “Allah” for God. One side is Lebanese/Syrian, but none of us is fluent in Arabic. Still, we say things like “nishkhil’ Allah” or Thanks be to God and “insh’Allah” or God willing. No one, even a Moslem, has the right- or, more important, is right – to take that away from us.

Really, its shameful that we can’t all back up our persecuted Christian brothers and sisters in Malaysia. Are you ready to throw your coreligionists in Baghdad, Cairo, Beirut and Bethlehem to the wolves, too? How about those few Jews remaining in the Arab speaking world, should they get their few synagogues firebombed for using the word, too? And why not get on our cases here in the US, as well? Maybe our prayers in Los Angeles, Cleveland, Dearborn, etc. are offensive, too.

Joe Z
January 11th, 2010 | 7:50 pm | #4

I have lengthy comments on the First Thoughts post, but for here:

Mr. Schultz, only the John 5:22-23 seems to be in tension with the claim that Christians, Jews, and Muslims all worship the God of Abraham, and it is far from clear that it contradicts it. Certainly it shows that we shouldn’t take a rose-tinted view about the sense in which Muslims (or Jews) worship or honor God. But Mr Carter’s claim is that Muslims and even Jews, after the Incarnation, are no longer even addressing God when they think they are. That’s a bit stronger (!) than saying that there is a deficiency in the worship that Jews or Muslims give to God.

I think that Rev. McCain is likewise making a mistake. The quotation from Luther seems to tell against the point, actually. The bracketed interpolation seems contentious – at least there needs to be some context. On the face of it, that passage is a counterexample to your claim that it used to be so uncontroversial in Christendom that “those who don’t acknowledge Christ as God are not worshiping the true God.” Luther looks rather to be pressing the point that believing in and worshiping the one true God is not nearly enough, if it is done without Christ. At the very least, this is far from a good example of the claim you endorsed from Mr. Carter.

Allow me to press the point a bit: if Mr. Carter’s claim is correct, then a Jew who today holds that God is the one who gave the law to Moses, that God is the one who created the universe, that God is omniscient, omnipotent, and one – and who, with this in mind, tries to pray to God – this Jew is not talking about God, but about a figment of his imagination, and he addresses only that figment in prayer. I submit that that position is not established by the consistent witness of Christianity.

As for dying “the death of a thousand qualifications,” it may be irksome that there are difficult and subtle questions that come up when talking about language, but it is no sign of infidelity or lack of Christian zeal to acknowledge them and try to deal with them. This also looks like special pleading for Mr. Carter, who gives a lot of Byzantine detail on his arguments for the position you favor.

Ranger
January 11th, 2010 | 8:07 pm | #5

As others have said, you are incorrect in your understanding of Bahasa Malaysia. Our church has primarily English and Chinese speakers (although every member learned Bahasa Malaysia in school and speaks it daily). I asked around and every one agreed that the only word in BM that can be translated as “God” is “Allah.”

The origins of Bahasa Malaysia come from a mixture of local languages with the languages of the Arab spice traders in the 14th-15th centuries. Thus it’s not surprising that a formerly animistic culture when confronted with Muslim culture and needed a word for “God” adopted Allah. As Christian missionaries came just after this (15th century), they used “Allah” as well.

“Tuhan” means Lord. Thus, as others have said, you run into all types of issues when you try to translate any reference to Elohim, Theos, etc. as “Lord.”

In English we use “God” to speak of the Trinity, but it’s origins are Anglo-Saxon pagan, or possibly Persian/Hindu (khodd, khodda). In popular Chinese usage, we always say “Shen” which is also the common word for any of the Chinese religious deities.

Thus, I see nothing wrong with people being able to use Allah (a word that was in usage long before Islam) as the common name of God in their native language. We have much less generic Christianity here, despite being much more diversity than the USA. A lot goes into becoming a Christian here, so there is much less “we all worship the same god” junk that has been imported from the West. Thus, I doubt there is any confusion between the Triune God and Allah, when someone from a Muslim background, who is in effect standing against their society, culture and family by even attending a Christian church.

Instead of bickering over this further, please spend your time praying for our Christian families here. It’s very tense. Nobodies even talking about the many, many cars that had Christian logos or something Christian hanging from the rearview mirror that have had their windows smashed in, or about how countless homes have had the crosses above their doors either desecrated or stolen. The church that was attacked by black paint on its walls and stained glass a few days ago, is a church where I have preached in the past and houses the school where my son goes. Please pray for peace.

Alison
January 12th, 2010 | 7:12 am | #6

I think this is a great post, particularly how you touch on the fact that Christians who use the word Allah to refer to God are confused. There is an Episcopal church near my home, and the pastor claims that Christ is only one way, not the only way. And she refers to God in many ways, one of which is Allah. I find that to be heretical, and I would not worship at that church.

Jeremy Pierce
January 12th, 2010 | 7:52 am | #7

Jehovah’s Witnesses use the word “Jehovah” for God and insist that any other name is idolatry. Therefore, Christians should stop using that word, because Jehovah’s Witnesses deny the Trinity.

(We should stop using that name because it’s historically inaccurate, but should we do so merely because someone who has false views about God happens to use it exclusively?)

The fact of the matter is that the word “Allah” is a descriptive name that functions in Arabic in a way that’s pretty much equivalent to how the word “God” functions in English. I’ve known missionaries in Muslim countries who have found it much easier to get into a Muslim’s world by speaking of God with the name “Allah” all the while explaining why they think the Muslim’s view of God is wrong. This is certainly not any worse than Paul’s insistence that those who worshiped the unknown God were worshiping God in ignorance and falsely but were referring to God nonetheless.

Read II Kings 17 closely. It’s very clear from the language of that chapter that the syncretistic worshipers who worshiped YHWH falsely were in some sense fearing YHWH and in some sense not. The expressions used amount to a contradiction if you don’t allow for both senses. In other words, you have to allow for some sense in which they were worshiping him and some sense in which they were not. It makes most sense to me that the sense in which they did fear him is that it was YHWH whom they were attempting to worship, and the sense in which they were not fearing him is that they weren’t truly worshiping him and truly fearing him. Why should the same not be true of a major religion that finds its origin in confused and false versions of actual biblical narratives about the God that Christians insist is the God we worship?

As for the essential property argument, that’s fallacious, as the following example shows. It’s an essential property of me that I came from the exact sperm and egg I came from and therefore that I came from the parents I came from. But someone can easily be mistaken about parentage. You can think something has property A, when it actually has property not-A, and it even has not-A essentially. Essential properties are a matter of metaphysics, not epistemology. It confuses reality with our understanding of it to think that having a false view about something’s essential property requires that you’re not even referring to that thing when you talk about it.

Frank Turk
January 12th, 2010 | 8:48 am | #8

Yet another reason to turn to the Catechism of the Catholic Church for guidance:


P841 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.”

Now that that’s settled, what’s for brunch?

Craig Payne
January 12th, 2010 | 9:23 am | #9

Jesus is the only way of salvation. Having said that, does that mean that Christ as the Light of all humanity is not working salvifically in those who do not know Him explicitly? How confident are you in your answer to that question?

Everyone here (including me) got pretty excited about the creation of C.S. Lewis College. Well, do we all remember one of the final chapters (I think it was Chapter 15) of “The Last Battle”? The one where Aslan says to the Moslem-like character (paraphrasing here), “I am of such a kind that any worship of the true Lord comes to Me, and I accept your worship and service.”

Of course, Lewis was just giving his theological judgment, but I think it is a good one. Not on the same level, of course, as the Catechism, as Frank has so helpfully pointed out. :) But still a viable option.

Rev. Paul T. McCain
January 12th, 2010 | 9:51 am | #10

It is precisely these kinds of statements that remind us why there was a Reformation. That’s one of the real jaw-droppers in the CCC.

Jeremy Pierce
January 12th, 2010 | 9:52 am | #11

Chris, I think a lot of people misread Lewis there. I did when I read it as a kid, but when I listened to the Narnia Chronicles recently I realized that Lewis is more careful than that. What I think he was saying is that there can be people who actually worship Jesus but in the best terms available to them, and it might mean not really accepting some of the things their own religion teaches. Notice the difference between the genuine followers of Tash and Emeth, who followed Aslan but wrongly called him Tash. The idea is that Aslan better fit this guy’s view of Tash than Tash did, whereas that wasn’t true of the genuine followers of Tash. It’s as if Aslan brought this guy to correct belief despite his not being exposed to the true gospel of Aslan, and he believed something close enough to that gospel to trust in Aslan under the wrong name. That view is not the kind of pluralism I thought Lewis had in mind when I first encountered it as a child.

Joe, one other thing. The conclusion of your argument is that Muslims don’t know the Father. I’m not sure why those who disagree with you (e.g. me) have to deny that. So you’re argument establishes a conclusion that’s completely compatible with the claim that Muslims, when they use the word “Allah”, are talking about the actual God but simply saying and believing false things about him. Not genuinely knowing him in a salvific sense is perfectly compatible with talking about him. Lots of atheists don’t know God but refer to God when they say they don’t believe in God. Similarly, Muslims, Mormons, and Jehovah’s Witnesses can at the same time not know God but still refer to God when they say false things about God.

Rev. Paul T. McCain
January 12th, 2010 | 9:53 am | #12

Craig, we can be very confident in what our Lord says about Himself and about the necessity and possibility of coming to the Father only by Him. One would have simply to ignore a good number of our Lord’s and His apostles’ statements in the New Testament to come to this “anonymous Christian” point of view. It is not a “viable option.”

Craig Payne
January 12th, 2010 | 10:33 am | #13

Dear Jeremy: It’s Craig, not Chris, but I do like Chris better. :) Having read your response, I do not think we are in disagreement. I am not at all a religious pluralist. Anyone who is in Heaven, now or future, is there because of Jesus, period. He is both Savior and Judge.

Dear Rev. McCain: I did start out with the Lord’s words: He is the only way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to God except through Him. I completely affirm all of this (as does the Catechism, by the way–we might read P846-848 as a follow-up to the quoted P841).

So the question becomes: Is “No one comes to the Father except through Me” equivalent to “No one comes to the Father except through an explicitly confessing Christianity”? This seems to me to be a straightforward yes, no, or “I don’t know; Christ is the Judge” question. I tend to lean toward the last response.

Can Christ as Creator work in all people’s hearts toward salvation even if they do not explicitly know Christ as Redeemer, Savior, or even as named? Could we not evangelize as pointing people toward a more accurate and explicitly salvific understanding of that which is already written in their hearts?

I don’t know why this requires a “Reformation” of belief. Plenty of Protestants argue for essentially the same view.

Jeff Schultz
January 12th, 2010 | 12:28 pm | #14

“Can Christ as Creator work in all people’s hearts toward salvation even if they do not explicitly know Christ as Redeemer, Savior, or even as named?”

Depends on what you mean by ‘working towards salvation.’ Bringing about biblical salvation? I wouldn’t think so from Scripture. Salvation is trinitarian in nature and experience. One must be born again, a work of the Holy Spirit who comes to witness to Jesus and bring spiritually dead rebels into a living, loving, obedient faith in Jesus Christ to the glory of the Father.

“Could we not evangelize as pointing people toward a more accurate and explicitly salvific understanding of that which is already written in their hearts?”

Yes, of course. That’s what evangelism looks like in the Bible. But unless and until one comes to recognize Christ and Savior, God, and Lord, one is not saved and does not know God.

On what possible basis can one have a relationship with God outside of Christ? Good works? Sincerity of heart? Best efforts? What is the gospel that Jews and Muslims believe in?

“I don’t know why this requires a “Reformation” of belief. Plenty of Protestants argue for essentially the same view.”

As was alluded to in re: Lewis and The Last Battle. Sadly, many evangelicals apparently believe there are multiple ways to be saved and no absolute truth. That doesn’t make Lewis, many evangelicals, or the CCC correct.

If there are anonymous Christians, why evangelize? Why send out missionaries? Why would Peter preach to Jews and proselytes on Pentecost and tell them their faith in the God of Abraham is deficient and they need to be saved?

I guess all this goes to the question of whether people are just a little bad and can reform themselves, or whether we are lost and dead, by nature objects of wrath, justly deserving condemnation, unable to do anything to justify ourselves before God, and needing rebirth from above.

Si
January 12th, 2010 | 1:00 pm | #15

I went to Indonesia (similar language), to teach Christians there. They tended to use Tuhan, but also used Allah occasionally.

I agree with Ranger – sometimes when working in Indonesian or Malaysian, you have to sometimes say Allah, as Tuhan would miss the point. (1Cor 12:4-6 would be one of these – one Spirit, one Lord, one God). They do say ‘Tuhan’ rather more than we say ‘Lord’ to make the difference, but sometimes they need to say ‘Allah’, for want of a less loaded and better word.

That said, there are sure to be many that make the mistake of Muslim Allah=Christian Allah. We should pray for them to see the truth.

We should also pray for religious freedom and liberty (conversion rights for those labelled ‘muslim’, ethnic Malays being allowed to be something other than Muslim, not having religion assigned to you from birth…) and a break from persecution for non-Muslims in Malaysia, especially our brothers and sisters in Christ there.

Rev. Paul T. McCain
January 12th, 2010 | 1:04 pm | #16

What God may do, or choose to do, that He has not revealed to me, is not mine about which to inquire.

I can only stick with what has been revealed; namely, “What must we do to be saved?” and “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved.”

I know many want, need, and perhaps even “enjoy” making these issues all much more complicated, nuanced, layered, and so forth, than they actually are.

I’m not one of them.

Rev. Paul T. McCain
January 12th, 2010 | 1:07 pm | #17

I would like to return to a point that Mr. Carter made that I think is getting lost in the shuffle.

Referring to “God” or “Allah” or “The Force” or the “Power That Is” or….the Great Architect, or whatever term one may choose to use is probably entirely missing the point, in no matter what language one chooses to use to refer to “God.”

In our day and age, rife with pluralism, syncretism and who-knows-what-ism, Christians do well to confess very clear and name, very specifically, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, One God, world without end. Amen.

There is no fuzz on that peach, when one speaks in Trinitarian language. And, I have a suspicion that one reason even some Christians prefer to speak about “God” or “Allah” is that they avoid all the “unpleasantness” that results when we speak of Jesus as our Lord and and our God, and refer to the Holy Trinity, into Whose name we are baptized, and blessed.

Jeff Schultz
January 12th, 2010 | 1:37 pm | #18

I would add that Islam, coming after Christ, explicitly rejects the Christian gospel, and knowingly denies Christ as God, Lord, and Savior.

One could be raised a Muslim, come to faith in Christ, and see Jesus as the one who keeps the law, satisfies God, and justifies me where I cannot, and thus be saved. But one cannot hold to the teachings of Islam and know the God of the Bible.

Jesus did not tell the Samaritan woman to be the best Samaritan she could. He told her she needed to know Him as Savior and Lord.

Yes, there was a cultural/religious foundation on which Jesus could build. But whether that was common or special revelation, it was insufficient in and of itself to bring people to know God and be saved.

Can people have knowledge of God outside of Christ? Yes, that’s common grace and general revelation. But Jesus is the revelation of God, the light to our darkness, the good shepherd whose sheep know his voice, the narrow door through which all must pass or be lost.

All who do not believe on the Son are condemned, no?

Jesus is the issue.

Joe Z
January 12th, 2010 | 2:49 pm | #19

Speaking of getting back to what Mr. Carter said…

Rev. McCain and Jeff Schultz,

With all due respect, it seems to me that you’re setting up strawmen. For one thing, the original post was not about universal salvation at all -the issue was whether non-Christians can worship God at all. Mr. Carter and you have denied that they can. Salvation is a further question – related, no doubt, but distinct. ‘Being the best __ you can be’ has not been proposed as true to the Gospel by anyone here.

Also, nobody has suggested that we shouldn’t boldly proclaim Christ, or that we should stop talking about the Trinity. Who ever said that?

(It’s also worth pointing out as an aside that in the particular case Mr. Carter brought up, he seems to be straightforwardly wrong about the language and the meaning and use of the term “Allah”, but I’ll leave that to those who know the language.)

And further still, it does no good in this debate to arrogate to oneself the virtue of taking Christ’s words seriously, if one isn’t taking all of his words seriously. Stephen Barr brought this up in the other thread – at John 4:22, Jesus clearly says that the Samaritans worship what they do not know. So it doesn’t follow from not knowing the Father that one can’t be worshiping the Father. Is there something wrong and deficient about that worship? Well of course! Nobody said otherwise, and the syncretists and fuzzy ecumenists you seem to have in mind have made no appearance in this discussion, except as your strawmen.

Further still, it’s fallacious to claim that a literal reading of Christ’s words means understanding each word He spoke without qualification of any kind. It’s simply untrue that a plain reading of “you do not know the Father” has to mean that those addressed have no knowledge whatsoever of the Father – still less does it have to mean that they can’t be worshiping him (John 4:22 again). That’s a distortion of the way language works, and making that move and then getting on one’s high horse about refusing to complicate the Word of God is thoroughly wrong-headed. And it is frankly absurd to think that honest disagreements about theological language, among Christians, will just cease to exist if we proclaim the Trinity. Of course we must proclaim the Trinity, but are you suggesting that there have never been disagreements among Christians about how to understand the Trinity?! No fuzz on that peach, indeed.

The question, to put it plainly, comes down to this: Christ says that if we don’t know Him, we don’t know the Father. Does it follow that non-Christians can’t worship the true God (albeit in a deficient way)? No, it does not, neither by logical argument nor by Scriptural proof. Mr. Carter’s arguments are invalid – they founder on his lack of attention to intensional contexts (to use the lingo of the philosophy of language), and his Scriptural interpretation can’t deal with John 4:22. The position has not been justified here Scripturally or by reasoning. I question how fair it is, then, for you to retreat to bromides about not making simple things complicated. That approach is singularly unhelpful when it’s not clear that you have even been addressing the question at issue consistently.

Craig Payne
January 12th, 2010 | 2:53 pm | #20

Many issues brought up here, so I’m going to offer some throw-away responses:

“Salvation is trinitarian in nature and experience.” I agree that this is what it IS; but is it always KNOWN as such? For example: The sinner cried out, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner.” And Jesus said, “This is why this man died and went to hell–not trinitarian.”

“If there are anonymous Christians, why evangelize?” I think I gave that answer; in fact, the answer was quoted in the same post.

“On what possible basis could one have a relationship with God outside of Christ?” I think there are two responses to this: first, that one has a relationship with God as one of His creations, and second, that this creator/creature relationship is not “outside of Christ.” Christ is the Creator; I think there is more to this “first grace” or “general grace” than we are allowing for. “General grace” is just as Christocentric as “specific grace,” if Christ is truly Creator as well as Redeemer.

“I guess all this goes to the question of whether people are just a little bad and can reform themselves, or whether we are lost and dead, by nature objects of wrath, justly deserving condemnation, unable to do anything to justify ourselves before God, and needing rebirth from above.” This strikes me very strongly as a false either/or, or at least a false implication: I can agree with this paragraph completely and still think that God is working through Christ in contexts outside of confessional Christianity. Again, I would stress that this is NOT religious pluralism.

“I can only stick with what has been revealed; namely, “What must we do to be saved?” and “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved.” I know many want, need, and perhaps even “enjoy” making these issues all much more complicated, nuanced, layered, and so forth, than they actually are.” Again, I dispute the implication here. To examine all of the Bible on the issue of salvation and God’s relationship with the nations, is not the same thing as needlessly “nuancing” one’s position. Believing on the Lord Jesus Christ is going to look different when one only has the Lord Jesus as the “light of the world, which enlightens every human coming into the world.”

“All who do not believe on the Son are condemned, no?” Yes, they are condemned. The argument, I think, revolves around what exactly “believing on the Son” is going to look like. I just don’t think it’s always going to look Baptist, or Lutheran, or even Evangelical.

But again, it’s not up to me to judge.

P.S. I apologize for the capitalization, which always LOOKS LIKE I’M SHOUTING. I still have not figured out how to italicize in these posts. In Christ, cp

Jugulum
January 12th, 2010 | 3:48 pm | #21

Craig,

To italicize, do this:
“I want to <i>emphasize</i> one of these words.”

Those are called “tags”, and they result in:
“I want to emphasize one of these words.”

You can do the same to get bold–use “b” instead of “i”. “U” is underline. Or to combine them, you could put the bold tags around the italics tags. Or underline tags around both. :)

Just make sure you preview before you post, in case you have a typo in your tags.

Daryl Little
January 12th, 2010 | 4:58 pm | #22

How does one call upon a name of which they have no knowledge?
Remember, the publican was a pre-cross believer, he was a Jew repenting to Yahweh, not a NT believer confessing Christ.

Further, while it may be true that Jews and Muslims (and others) worship the true God, worship is never what God requires for salvation. Repentance and belief in Jesus is the issue.

I’m not clear how it is not religious pluralism to say that one can be a Muslim (who perhaps disagrees with some Muslim teaching), and yet be saved “by Christ” with no awareness of Christ as Christ.
That sounds like double-speak to me.

In any case, Romans 10:14 makes it pretty plain:

How then will they call on Him in whom they have not believed? How will they believe in Him whom they have not heard? And how will they hear without a preacher?

No salvation without hearing the name of Jesus preached and believing in Him, specifically.

There’s no wiggle room there to believe that Jesus goes about saving those who don’t repent and believe in Him.

It seems to me that underlying the idea that people may be saved without hearing of Jesus, specifically, is that some people of just too good not to save.
Which, of course, is good ol’ Pelagianism/Islam/name-your-false-religion-here.

Alison
January 12th, 2010 | 5:26 pm | #23

I could not agree more with Rev. McCain’s comment in #17. I say Amen to that! I know of some churches that claim they cannot put God into a box, and instead they speak of service to others and love and mushy things. Now I agree that we cannot wrap our heads around who God ultimately is, but Jesus did not die so that we could do works of service for others or for unclear reasons. And churches that do not espouse the Trinity in their doctrines are not Christian though they may wrongly call themselves that.

Jeff Schultz
January 12th, 2010 | 5:48 pm | #24

I think salvation and worship are in fact absolutely connected. By what right or in what manner may we approach a holy and just God?

The entire OT worship was intended to reinforce the idea that nobody simply comes into God’s presence. Only the high priest could enter the Holy of Holies and only on the Day of Atonement, and only after having carefully followed the prescribed rituals and sacrifices, and even then he was in danger of immediate death.

The “the God of Abraham” whom all monotheists supposedly worship is a consuming fire, a God who over and over makes the point that we may not worship him in any way we please. He is a God who killed his own priests for offering strange fire on the altar. He is a God who says he hates and detests the false worship of his own covenant people. So how do Jews and Muslims know and call on that God?

The only way we may know, worship, and approach Him is through the blood of Christ.

A Jew or Muslim who has not knowingly rejected Christ might be worshiping and seeking God (and would still need to come to a saving faith in Christ), but anyone who says “Jesus is not Lord” cannot be worshiping the God of the Bible.

But ultimately, more important that what Muslims and Jews think about the God they worship is what the one, true God thinks of them and their worship. The splitting of semantic hairs may be interesting, but I hope in our discussion that we don’t lose sight of the sad reality that Jews and Muslims who think they are worshiping God are going to find they were tragically mistaken and will be eternally shut out of God’s presence because they do not know the Savior and are not reconciled to God.

Rev. Paul T. McCain
January 12th, 2010 | 6:25 pm | #25

The Rabbinic “God” of the Jewish movement post-Christ is not the YHWH of the Old Testament. We know who YHWH is. He revealed himself as the great I AM, who existed before Abraham was. The angel announced his specific personal name to Joseph: Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins.

He came to His own, but His own did not receive Him.

Again, those who want to try to wriggle past, around, over, or under the scandal of the peculiarity of the Gospel will find a way to do it, every time, even in Catechisms of the Catholic Church, and its defenders and advocates here.

Alison
January 12th, 2010 | 7:36 pm | #26

I guess I need to clarify what I said. I do agree that God revealed Himself to us in the Old Testament and in the person of Jesus Christ. But I mean that God, the Father, is beyond parts of our comprehension because of who He is. Nonetheless, I only worship the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. I do not call God vague things because that is not what is revealed in Scriptures. And I do not use other terms to refer the idea of the Trinity such as Creator, Sustainer, and Redeemer–which one church I know of does because it does not want to be offensive to women! The idea of the Trinity is a difficult one to grasp–one that I can’t wrap my head around completely–and books and churches that create cozy notions of the Trinity are sadly off the mark.

Joe Z
January 12th, 2010 | 7:50 pm | #27

Again, those who want to try to wriggle past, around, over, or under the scandal of the peculiarity of the Gospel will find a way to do it, every time, even in Catechisms of the Catholic Church, and its defenders and advocates here.

Rev. McCain, I applaud your commitment to Christ, but I’m done arguing with you. You seem to have no interest in responding to argument, even argument from Christ’s words in Scripture.

Jeff Schultz,

I certainly agree with you that worship and salvation are “absolutely connected.” That doesn’t mean that the question of who is worshiping the true God is the same as the question of who will be saved. But I see that you have presented some considerations in favor of that claim – I appreciate the fact that you are advancing reasons and texts in support of your position. The only thing you say that I disagree with is the strong claim that those who have not accepted Christ cannot worship God at all (and hence must be worshiping something else instead). Your examples from the OT show that lots of people have worshiped God in the wrong way, and that that is not ok, but I am not disputing that. I am claiming, not that it’s permitted or pleasing to God or proper to worship him without acknowledging Christ as God, but that the Jews, at least, still worship God, albeit not in the right way. Your own examples from Scripture show that worshiping God is not the same as worshiping Him in a way that He accepts – that proves my point, not yours. And you still haven’t responded to John 4:22, where Christ’s own words make it clear that someone can worship without knowing (that doesn’t mean it’s ok, just that it’s possible).

It looks to me that sometimes “worship” is used as a success term – meaning that unless you do it right, you’re not doing it at all. And that is what you’re pressing in your last comment – and that’s what gives force to your rhetorical questions. But sometimes it’s not used that way – John 4:22 is a clear example. And the language matters – it matters whether Jews are worshiping the true god vs. some idol, for example.

But ultimately, more important that what Muslims and Jews think about the God they worship is what the one, true God thinks of them and their worship.

Yes, that’s certainly true, but that doesn’t mean it’s a matter of indifference whether they are in fact worshiping the one true God or not.

Jeff Schultz
January 12th, 2010 | 9:18 pm | #28

“Christ’s own words make it clear that someone can worship without knowing (that doesn’t mean it’s ok, just that it’s possible).”

Yes, of course they are worshiping. My point (and I think Jesus’ point in John 4:22) is that their worship is deficient. Everyone (even atheists) worships something, because we are created to worship. The issue is, What is the object of that worship? For Jews and Muslims, particularly those who deny the divinity of Christ, it is not the God of the Bible.

Your example of the Samaritans in John 4:22 isn’t particularly relevant to the issue at hand. Jesus is presenting himself for the first time as the fulfillment of the Samaritans’ religion (just as He does with the Jews). If they knowingly reject Him, choosing to worship in their own way, will the disciples come back and repeat John 4:22 to them? I think it’s more reasonable to believe they would say, “You have rejected the Son, and in rejecting the Son you have rejected that Father.” They would no longer be worshiping in ignorance, but in defiant rebellion. They would have invented a god to suit them (which is, in fact, the universal human condition this side of Eden).

All truth is God’s truth. And any truth in any religion is a reflection of God’s general revelation. But the whole reason God chose a covenant people to whom He would reveal Himself is that by nature we are wandering around in the darkness and idolatry. Without special revelation, we cannot know or worship God.

Anyone who rejects Jesus (e.g., the vast majority of Jews and Muslims) is rejecting the Father and worshiping a god of their own invention.

Alison
January 12th, 2010 | 10:18 pm | #29

I have a question for Joe Z. You seem to be saying that non-Christians can worship the true God albeit in a deficient way. I have to ask what you make of Christ’s statement: “I am the Way and the Truth and the Life. No one shall come to the Father except through me.” (John 14:16). In addition, as I understand it, Muslims believe that the angel Gabriel appeared to Mohammed, who merely believed that Christ was a prophet and no more. How can this not be true deception from the Christian standpoint? As a Christian, I believe the angel Gabriel appeared to Mary/and or Joseph (depending on which gospel you read) and let it be known that Mary was pregnant with a child by the Holy Spirit.

Craig Payne
January 12th, 2010 | 11:22 pm | #30

Man, I turn my back for a couple of hours and people just go on writing without me. :)

I guess I’ve said pretty much what I had to say. I did want to point out that way back when, I posted this question:

“So the question becomes: Is “No one comes to the Father except through Me” equivalent to “No one comes to the Father except through an explicitly confessing Christianity”? This seems to me to be a straightforward yes, no, or “I don’t know; Christ is the Judge” question. I tend to lean toward the last response.”

I gave my answer. I didn’t notice any other takers so far? Except (maybe) Rev. McCain.

In case I left any doubts (from some of the posted comments, I think I did): Yes, Jesus is the only way of salvation. Yes, He is the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to God except through Him. Anyone in Heaven is there because of Jesus, period.

I hope I have made plain, or as plain as I can, why I can believe this wholeheartedly and also believe that Christ can work toward salvation in people who are outwardly non-Christian. I also hope I have made it plain why I think this is a biblical view as well as a “catechistic” view. The exact mechanics of this process, I do not know, not being Him.

Best regards, cp

Jeff Schultz
January 12th, 2010 | 11:35 pm | #31

Any Muslim (or Jew), on the basis of Islamic (or Jewish) teaching, would say to Jesus, “You are not the God I worship.” How is that person worshiping the God of the Bible?

Jeff Schultz
January 13th, 2010 | 12:04 am | #32

So the question becomes: Is “No one comes to the Father except through Me” equivalent to “No one comes to the Father except through an explicitly confessing Christianity”? This seems to me to be a straightforward yes, no, or “I don’t know; Christ is the Judge” question.

I’ll bite. Yes, they are equivalent, for a number of reasons biblically. Most importantly, our natural state towards God is enmity, guilt, rebellion, spiritual death. Jesus, John, Peter, Paul, et al. make it clear that all men are already condemned and without hope, and that amazingly, God has yet made a way for men to be reconciled, forgiven, restored, adopted, loved, and inheritors of his grace and riches. The Bible makes it clear that it is Jesus or nothing.

Is it theoretically possible that people could be saved without explicitly confessing Christ? I suppose anything is possible, except that God seems to have made it clear that is not an option.

I asked earlier, On what basis would such a person approach God (even if in their spiritual death and rebellion they wanted to)? Good works? Moral effort? Sincere (misguided) faith?

In the parable of the wedding feast, the king sends an army to destroy those who rejected his summons and killed his son. He sends out servants to call others. And then there is a man who shows up without wedding clothes. He wants to be there, he thinks he deserves to be there. Does the king welcome him? No, he is outraged that the man has no idea why he is there and would try to enter in his own garments, so he has him bound and cast into the outer darkness. “For many are invited, but few are chosen.” (Matt 22:1-14)

Daryl Little
January 13th, 2010 | 12:20 am | #33

Craig,

I thought I took the challenge…so I’ll just re-write what I said earlier.

Paul lays out the reason why “No one comes to the Father except through Me” is exactly equivalent to “No one comes to the Father except through an explicitly confessing Christianity” in Romans 10:13-14

“Whoever will call on the Name of the Lord will be saved. How then will they call on Him in whom they have not believed? How will they believe in Him whom they have not heard? And how will they hear without a preacher?”

You were suggesting (I think) that someone could be saved by Jesus, without ever know who Jesus is, or that said person needed to confess Him specifically, right?

Well, unless you can make a case that Paul was suggesting that, while calling on Jesus’ Name is only one way to get saved (and I think vs 14 totally eliminates that possibility), there’s your rebuttal.

Joe Z
January 13th, 2010 | 3:47 am | #34

Jeff Schultz:

Without special revelation, we cannot know or worship God.

Two responses:

1. Regarding knowing God, I’ll give you the KJV of Romans 1:20:

“For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse”

So there is some level of knowledge of God that doesn’t require special revelation.

2. God revealed himself to Abraham, our father in faith. Christ is the definitive revelation of God (of course!), but God revealed Himself before Christ as well. So it doesn’t follow that Jews (or Muslims, but let that be for the moment) can’t worship God. They received Divine revelation, that’s why they can worship God.

As to your discussion of John 4:22, I meant it primarily just to establish in general that someone can worship X even if their knowledge of X is faulty or lacking. It manifestly establishes that.

But your argument really does come down to this, I think:

Any Muslim (or Jew), on the basis of Islamic (or Jewish) teaching, would say to Jesus, “You are not the God I worship.” How is that person worshiping the God of the Bible?

There is absolutely nothing incoherent about saying that someone worships something unawares – and that’s really the reason John 4:22 applies here. Say I started worshiping you (God forbid), and then I encountered you wearing a different sort of clothing than I was accustomed to seeing you in. I might very well say that you were not the object of my worship, but of course I would just be wrong. I would explicitly reject you, but it would still be you that I worship (again, God forbid).

The reason that seems tricky is that it seems wrong to say that Jews worship Christ. But there are two things you can mean when you say someone worships (or knows, or understands) something. Jews worship God, and Christ is God, so in a sense they worship Christ. But that’s not how we usually use the word. They don’t worship God as Christ, they don’t worship God under that manifestation (which is the definitive manifestation, of course, I hasten to add). This comes down to a basic topic in philosophy of language, and that’s why I was bringing that stuff up – not to obfuscate Scripture, as Rev. McCain would have it! (Tristian’s comments on the cross-post at First Thoughts make the same linguistic point, and more concisely than I did there.) This is something that has to be dealt with in all language, not a special trick to get around the Gospel.

You may think this is just spinning subtleties, but have patience for a moment and consider the following. Your question can be reformulated as an argument like this:

Jews reject Christ.
Christ is the one true God.
Therefore Jews reject the one true God.

Compare to this argument:

My son (3 yrs old) knows that he drinks water.
Water is H2O.
My son knows that he drinks H2O.

Whoops! Something’s wrong here. It’s the same thing in both arguments: you can’t substitute in identically-referring terms (God, Christ or water, H2O) for each other when the context involves a word like “knows,” “understands,” “worships.” This is not a fluke of the examples – you can easily think of a million others with the same structure, as long as you have one of those words involved. Here’s another few, just for kicks:

I know Mark Twain wrote Huckleberry Finn.
Mark Twain is Samuel Clemens.
Therefore I know that Samuel Clemens wrote HF.

or flip it around:

Mr. Smith doesn’t know that Sam Clemens wrote Huckleberry Finn.
Mark Twain is Samuel Clemens.
Therefore Mr. Smith doesn’t know that Mark Twain wrote Huckleberry Finn.

or twist it into a contradiction:

I know who Mark Twain is.
I don’t know who Samuel Clemens is.
Mark Twain is Samuel Clemens.
Therefore I both know and do not know who Mark Twain is.

Fallacies all over the place!

So I agree with you that non-Christian worship is deficient, but the foregoing is why I don’t accept that it’s idol worship in all cases. The argument you come down to, which is basically the line of thought Mr. Carter was following as well, is fallacious, just like the examples I’ve given are fallacious.

Alison:

I don’t think anyone can come to the Father apart from Christ. I take that to mean, at least, that no one can be saved except by Christ. I don’t think those words of Christ mean this: no one can worship God at all, in any fashion without acknowledging Christ as God. All I’m saying is that Jews, at least, can worship the true God, though in a deficient way, etc. In other words, whatever is wrong with their worship (and what is wrong with it is important!), they are still worshiping God and not something else.

Daryl Little
January 13th, 2010 | 9:00 am | #35

Joe,

That sounds to me like it makes some sense.

Provided that you would add the stipulation (maybe you did and I missed it) that, while I may worship God, the true God even, but do it wrongly (a la the Samaritans or the Athenians) then while, in some sense, I am worshipping, if that worship is not the kind of worship God requires, then I’m no further ahead than if I didn’t worship Him at all, or worshipped something else.

That goes back to why I said that the issue isn’t so much worship as it is repentance. Or, to put is a better way, it’s not so much whether we worship, but HOW we worship.

Like how Paul said that the Jews had zeal without knowledge. That zeal is to be commended (I guess…), but the lack of knowledge completely cancels it out.

So…after all that…another place where Craig’s argument falls down, is that Scripture is pretty plain that to worship God, without naming Him Jesus, is to worship Him wrongly and therefore remain in your sins.

Jeff Schultz
January 13th, 2010 | 9:46 am | #36

Joe Z,

I understand your argument, and I appreciate the logic you bring to the discussion. However, I think the analogies fail in the area of worship.

Take your analogy and apply it to the issue of Jesus. A Muslim says he is worshiping God. You point out that Jesus is God. He thanks you for the information and now everyone is in agreement, right? I don’t think it will work out quote that way.

My point is that anyone who knowingly rejects Jesus as Lord, God and Savior and continues to insist that he is worshiping God cannot be worshiping the God of the Bible. It is a God of his own invention. “I worship God, but Jesus is not God” does not work.

As far as Romans 1:20, keep reading the rest of the chapter. Heck, read all the way to Romans 3:21. What do we do with the limited knowledge of God we have? We ignore and pervert it to our guilt. Again I ask, on what basis may anyone approach God in worship? Any God that can be approached outside of Christ is not the God of the Bible.

I’ve said above that all truth is God’s truth, so any element of truth in any religion is a reflection of God. And everyone worships. But that doesn’t mean everyone is worshiping God.

Islam is founded on the knowing, considered, intentional rejection of Christ. I cannot understand how you make a biblical argument that one can knowingly reject Christ and still be said to worship God.

Such a person is worshiping an idol, an idea of God invented by their own imagination — which goes to my earlier point that we cannot worship God apart from his special revelation. On our own, we will worship our ideas about God. If it didn’t matter to God what people thought of Him, there would have been no need for special revelation.

Craig Payne
January 13th, 2010 | 10:10 am | #37

Let me offer another formulation:

“No one comes to the Father except through Christ” is equivalent to “No one comes to the Father except through explicitly confessing Christianity,” according to some.

So Christ is equivalent to explicitly confessing Christianity.

I worship Christ.

Therefore, I must worship Christianity.

Now, before you get all steamed, I know this is not what you are saying. Except that this is what you are saying.

Jeff Schultz
January 13th, 2010 | 10:37 am | #38

No, I’m pretty sure that’s not what anyone is saying. What I’m saying is that no one comes to the Father apart from explicitly confessing Christ.

“I am one who testifies for myself; my other witness is the Father, who sent me.” Then they asked him, “Where is your father?” “You do not know me or my Father,” Jesus replied. “If you knew me, you would know my Father also.” (John 8:18)

“If they persecuted me, they will persecute you also. If they obeyed my teaching, they will obey yours also. They will treat you this way because of my name, for they do not know the One who sent me.” (John 15:20-21)

As Paul writes in Romans 11, the Jews are currently hardened, cut off, persisting in unbelief, and as far as the gospel is concerned, enemies on our account (yet beloved for the sake of the patriarchs). At some point, God will remove the veil covering their eyes, they will see Christ, and all Israel will be saved in spite of themselves. Currently, though, they sadly persist in unbelief and are enemies of the gospel. Writing of his own pre-Christian life as a Jew, Paul describes himself as a blasphemer (1 Timothy 1:13), a person whose Temple-centered, God-instituted “worship” yet defamed God.

To reject Christ is to reject the One who sent him, no? Please explain biblically how one can reject God (Christ) and still worship God?

Daryl Little
January 13th, 2010 | 10:52 am | #39

Or even better, can you (Craig) explain how one can worship Christ (rightly) without confessing Christianity.

And, further to that, how do you make the leap from “confessing Christianity” to “worshipping Christianity”?

Jeff Schultz
January 13th, 2010 | 11:01 am | #40

Craig,

I’m rethinking your point about “worshiping Christianity.”

I take it you are saying that Christianity is worshiping a certain understanding of God in the same way that I assert Islam is worshiping a different certain understanding of God.

The problem with that analogy is that there is an actual God who is the subject of this debate. I believe that God has revealed himself to us as the triune God of the New Testament. Any other “god” is literally not-God. So any worship which is founded on an explicit rejection of Christ is, de facto, idolatry. As noted above, Paul calls his zealous Jewish life before Christ — one founded on God’s own self-revelation and divinely instituted worship — blasphemous.

I do not worship my understanding of the triune God; I worship the actual being who is the one, true God in three Persons. The Muslim and I cannot both be right. We are not worshiping the same God.

Jeff Schultz
January 13th, 2010 | 11:08 am | #41

It seems that much is made of the Muslim or Jew worshiping “what they do not know.”

I will grant that a Jew or Muslim who does not explicitly reject Christ could perhaps be seeking after God and reflecting in his own faith an incipient hope in or search for what is ultimately revealed and fulfilled in Christ. I think such persons would be extremely rare, because Judaism and Islam both formally reject Christ and teach lies about his nature, character, and work.

So it seems clear to me from the Bible that any Jew or Muslim who rejects the NT witness to Christ is rejecting the One who sent him. That person is saying, “Jesus is not Lord. I worship a God who is not triune. And I can know and approach him apart from Jesus.” That person, it seems obvious, cannot be worshiping the God of the Bible.

Daryl Little
January 13th, 2010 | 11:10 am | #42

And…if they are worshipping the God of the Bible, to what end?

Even if they were, how would that benefit them in a way that worshipping clam shells or moon dust, or there image in the mirror, wouldn’t?

Craig Payne
January 13th, 2010 | 3:11 pm | #43

“Or even better, can you (Craig) explain how one can worship Christ (rightly) without confessing Christianity.”

I can try. (I’m going to let the other point go, the point about worshipping the idol of Christianity, because it’s too much to explain.)

Let’s say I am an aboriginal person who has never encountered Christianity in any form. However, by the light of Christ which enlightens every man (John 1), I dimly know that there is a Creator (Christ) and that there is a natural law within me instructing me on my relations with others (Romans 1-2 and many other passages). I don’t always obey that law or that light, but when I don’t, I feel ashamed. I pray and ask God the Creator (Christ) to forgive me and help me. I even worship Him (Christ) to the best of my knowledge.

If I am worshipping the Creator, I am worshipping Christ, without knowing of or confessing Christianity. When I die, I will be judged by Christ, Whom I worshipped and by Whose Light I tried to live.

Would this be enough? I don’t know for sure. But it is a scriptural possibility, despite the repeated and confident claims that it is not. It seems that the emphasis on Christ as Redeemer, which is good, has allowed some to discount any emphasis on Christ as Creator, which is not good. What I am arguing is that this position is just as Christocentric as the other positions being argued.

The situation of Islam, of course, is more complicated, because their history with Christianity is also more complicated. I can certainly see your points where explicitly rejecting Christ is concerned.

Joe Z
January 13th, 2010 | 3:17 pm | #44

Daryl,

I’m completely in agreement that to worship God without acknowledging Jesus is to worship wrongly.

As to how that worship benefits them, I don’t know. I honestly don’t. Maybe it’s to no avail. Maybe it doesn’t benefit them, but testifies to God’s faithfulness? But it’s worth being clear about it for our own sakes, I think. My concern is just that we don’t attribute idolatry where it’s not warranted.

Jeff,

I completely agree that it matters to God how we worship, and that everything is not ok for non-Christians just because they still worship or acknowledge the true God in some fashion. I completely agree.

Is blasphemy the same as idolatry? I didn’t think so, but I could be wrong. On the face of it, blasphemy is precisely what it is because it says something false, irreverent and terribly wrong about God, not about something else. You seem to leave no room for blasphemy that’s not idolatry, but that’s got to be wrong.

My point is that anyone who knowingly rejects Jesus as Lord, God and Savior and continues to insist that he is worshiping God cannot be worshiping the God of the Bible. It is a God of his own invention. “I worship God, but Jesus is not God” does not work.

As far as Romans 1:20, keep reading the rest of the chapter. Heck, read all the way to Romans 3:21. What do we do with the limited knowledge of God we have? We ignore and pervert it to our guilt. Again I ask, on what basis may anyone approach God in worship? Any God that can be approached outside of Christ is not the God of the Bible.

To the first paragraph: this is the same fallacy again. My son knows that he drinks water, but denies that he drinks H2O. That “works” just fine. He’s wrong about something, just as the Jew is wrong about something (important!), but the proper conclusion is NOT that he doesn’t know that he drinks water. He does know that. Here’s a challenge: put your argument in that paragraph into a form that doesn’t have the same fallacious structure as that example. You’ve made the argument many times and in many contexts, but as long as it relies on that structure, it’s still a fallacy.

(Your last response to Craig is shot through with that kind of argument. The fact that the Muslim and you can’t both be right doesn’t mean you can’t both be talking about God – any more than the fact that my son and I can’t both be right about H2O means that we’re not talking about the same water.)

As to the second paragraph, I don’t really disagree with most of it – but for the last sentence, it seems to me you’re confusing possibility with permissibility. When you say that only in Christ can one approach God in worship, you can mean that God accepts, approves of, or listens to worship only if it’s worship through Christ – fine. But your argument needs more than that – you need it to be strictly impossible (not just impermissible or blasphemous or unpleasing to God) to worship God at all, in however perverted a fashion, without acknowledging Christ as God. As I’ve said before, part of the difficulty here is that it seems impossible for there to be blasphemous worship of God – you seem to think it wouldn’t be worship at all. I don’t think that’s justified, and you’ve admitted that there can be deficient worship in general. Sometimes we use worship as a “success term” – to be worship it has to be good worship or acceptable or proper worshp. But that’s not the only way we use the term (and the words matter!) – and it’s not the only way Jesus uses the term either. Sometimes worship is blasphemous, but that doesn’t always mean that it’s worship of something other than God.

————————
Ok, backing up a little, I think I have a better grasp on where you’re coming from now – try this out:

Here is a valid argument that you seem to be making:

Jews and Muslims worship a God who can be approached without Christ.
The true God can’t be approached without Christ.
Therefore Jews and Muslims don’t worship the true God.

The problem is the first premise. They claim that they worship such a God, but they don’t, because there isn’t any such thing. And since they are also worshiping in response to God’s true revelation to Abraham, Moses, etc., they are in fact worshiping nobody other than God. They are wrong in thinking they are worshiping a God who is not triune. They are wrong about what and who it really is they are worshiping. And again, there is nothing contradictory about that – nothing whatsoever. All the attempts so far to derive some absurdity have been fallacious arguments.

You can use the hypothetical, to be sure:

“If your God is not Christ, then you’re not worshiping the true God at all.”

This is a point worth making, and I am not in favor of skating over this in the name of inter-religious dialogue, etc. So I’m with you there, one hundred percent. Let me repeat – this is a real disagreement, with real and unimaginable significance. IF they’re right about the God they worship, then they’re not worshiping anything but an idol. But the crucial point is that the “if” part of that hypothetical is false – they are simply wrong about that! You want to accept that they know what it is they’re worshiping, but why accept that? Why on earth should any Christian accept that? If you accept that, you have to say not only that they’re idolaters, but that they know that the God they worship is a product of their own imaginations! That’s absurd.

Daryl Little
January 13th, 2010 | 4:05 pm | #45

Craig,

The problem with your argument is that you put most devout believers in a god in a situation where they are accidentally believing in Christ.

You still haven’t dealt with Romans 10:13-14

““Whoever will call on the Name of the Lord will be saved. How then will they call on Him in whom they have not believed? How will they believe in Him whom they have not heard? And how will they hear without a preacher?””

So, in your scenario, how WILL they call on Him on whom they have not believed?
And, if you’re saying they believe by accident (wanting the Creator’s forgiveness and not knowing who the Creator is), how WILL they believe in Him whom they have not heard?

Paul leaves no room there for accidental Christianity.

Jeff Schultz
January 13th, 2010 | 4:47 pm | #46

My son knows that he drinks water, but denies that he drinks H2O. That “works” just fine.

Your argument seems to be, “We say ‘water,’ they say ‘agua,’ but there’s no real difference. It’s still water.” We’re not talking about water, but a person with whom one may or may not have a relationship and may or my not actually know.

For your argument about H2O to be right, it would have to be true that it doesn’t matter what we call God or believe about Him because it doesn’t change his nature. To you your analogy, what’s really happening is that someone has been shown H2O, told what H2O is, and chooses instead to reject your “version” of H2O and instead drink H2SO4, claiming that your knowledge of H2O is wrong and theirs is right.

But assume your argument is right. Why draw the line at monotheism? By your argument, everyone is worshiping the God of the Bible, because there is no other god. Mormons, Jehovah’s Witnesses, ex-Christians, agnostics, pagans, Buddhists, Hindus — they may deny that water is H2O, but there’s only one water, right? So if it “works” for them, that’s what matters.

The fact that the Muslim and you can’t both be right doesn’t mean you can’t both be talking about God … since they are also worshiping in response to God’s true revelation to Abraham, Moses, etc., they are in fact worshiping nobody other than God.

Actually, Jesus’ own words seem to force us to that conclusion. Jesus tells the Samaritan woman that the time has now come that those who worship God must worship Him in spirit and in truth (John 4:24). Since Jews and Muslims have rejected Christ, I am still at a loss to understand who is the God — who is not Christ — that they worship.

In rejecting the Son, they reject the One who sent him. The Father “has entrusted all judgment to the Son, that all may honor the Son as they honor the Father. He who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father” (John 5:22-23). According to Jesus, they are condemned, and God’s wrath remains on them (John 3:18, 36). Anyone who denies Christ is a liar, an anti-Christ who denies both Father and Son and has neither (1 John 2:22-23). One simply cannot divide the Trinity, accepting the Father but rejecting the Son and Spirit. Such people are not co-religionists, but “cut off” from God and “enemies for the sake of the gospel” (Romans 11:17, 28).

You’re right at least when you say this is monumentally important. But then you write, “As to how that worship benefits them, I don’t know … Maybe it’s to no avail. Maybe it doesn’t benefit them…”

Maybe attempting to worship God while rejecting Christ is to no avail? Maybe it doesn’t benefit them? What do you suppose God has to say to those who would reject His Son and try to come before Him on their own? (see Matt 22:1-14 or Luke 20:9-19 or Psalm 2:12). If you’re not sure about those propositions, we’re definitely farther apart than I supposed, and I’m not sure there’s much common ground for further discussion.

Joe Z
January 13th, 2010 | 6:06 pm | #47

Jeff,

Sorry, the “maybe” stuff was argumentative habit, not an expression of doubt as to those claims. I don’t doubt those claims. I’m a Catholic, and I don’t know if we would see completely eye to eye on the doctrine about salvation, but I’m really not meaning to argue about that at all, and I don’t think that’s crucial to our discussion. However, I fully admit that the “maybes” were misleading. If there’s something I’m doubtful about in that neighborhood, it’s the theological significance of the continuance of the Jews after the Incarnation. That’s probably just because I’m kind of ignorant about that. I suspect that made you a little upset at the outset of my comment, because as for the rest of my post, you seem to have completely misunderstood it.

You’ve totally missed the point of my example with the water and H2O, and I’m starting to wonder whether it’s really going to help to go through this again. No, it has nothing to do with “water” and “agua,” and the fact that you think it does confirms my judgment that you have never understood the point about language and the kind of fallacies possible in certain contexts. It’s not an analogy, it’s an example to show that your argument form is invalid. If you are serious about wanting to engage or understand that point – which you have no obligation to be, but if you aren’t I will stop forcing it on you – then I suggest, again, trying to put your argument into a form that’s not the same as fallacious examples like this:

Jews don’t believe that Samuel Clemens wrote Tom Sawyer.
Samuel Clemens is Mark Twain.
Therefore Jews don’t believe that Mark Twain wrote Tom Sawyer.

It’s a fallacy, ok? That means that it doesn’t establish the conclusion – not at all. And it remains a fallacy even if you substitute other terms for the names and terms here. Let me make the similarity more clear, if possible.

Replace “Samuel Clemens” with “Christ”. Replace “Mark Twain” with “YWHW.” Replace “wrote Tom Sawyer” with “is God.”

Thus:
Jews don’t believe that Christ is God.
Christ is YWHW.
Therefore Jews don’t believe that YWHW is God.

You have made that argument multiple times in this discussion. An argument of that form shows absolutely nothing. And it has nothing to do with “water” and “agua”. It’s an invalid form of argument – no matter what terms you use, the premises don’t imply the conclusion.

Since Jews and Muslims have rejected Christ, I am still at a loss to understand who is the God — who is not Christ — that they worship.

Focus on the “who is not Christ” part. I have to ask whether you even read the last part of my last comment. Honestly, I said very clearly that we shouldn’t accept the word of Muslims and Jews when they say they worship a God who is not Christ. How could I could say that more clearly? They are simply wrong. They think the God they worship is not Christ (of course!), but they’re wrong. You may disagree, but at this point you are not responding to my arguments at all. Nothing you say justifies the presumption that Muslims and Jews are correct when they say the God they worship is not Christ. Of course they think that, but they’re wrong. Maybe you can tell me why you think they’re right? (Using a non-fallacious argument, that is.)

Your other main strand of argument, which is much better than the foregoing one, is that Jesus simply says it. It seems like your best text so far is John 4:24: “those who worship God must worship Him in spirit and in truth.” But possibility and permissibility are not always the same thing. Is Jesus saying, “those who worship God must worship Him in spirit and in truth, otherwise they aren’t worshiping Him at all, in any way”? Or is He saying, “those who worship God must worship Him in spirit and in truth, otherwise they incur the wrath of God and are rejected by Him.” Your quotations seem to suggest the latter, actually, which favors my position rather than yours.

I think those are the two main arguments you have: the fallacious one, and the direct one from Scripture. The former is fallacious, the latter confutes permissibility with possibility. I don’t know if I can persuade you regarding the Scriptural point, but at this stage I’d be pretty happy if I could successfully convey to you why the first argument is a fallacy, and get you to stop using it over and over again.

Look, I’m happy to continue the discussion, because I think it’s worthwhile and you’ve brought up some important texts from Scripture that bear on the question. And I don’t mind vigorous argument and even a little heat. But I honestly don’t think this will do anybody any good if we don’t make an attempt to follow each other’s arguments.

Joe Z
January 13th, 2010 | 6:41 pm | #48

I suppose I should say something to your argument that my position implies that everybody (but an atheist) worships the one true God.

You have some fun playing around with what I said about something “working.” But as to the substantive point, you are saying that if I’m right, then everybody who worships a god must be worshiping the true God, since He’s the only one. Actually, I think you’re onto something important here. There is sort of a slide from worshiping God deficiently and worshiping something other than God. Blasphemy can indeed slide into idolatry. How to draw a bright line? I’m not sure there is one, and that’s not because I’m a wishy-washy Christian, it’s because if you believe more and more false things about any object, eventually you won’t be talking about that object at all. That holds true for all things we can name. So someone who thinks that God is the Creator of the world is on the right track as far as that goes, but might also think that God is some statue passed down by his tribe. Well, that’s certainly idolatry, but there’s still a shred of truth there.

I guess the take-away point from your remark is that it’s not enough just to say that God is the only god – if that were sufficient then it would be impossible to be an idolater. I think you’re right about that, and if I suggested that it was sufficient to say that God is the only god, then I retract that.

But I think there is a line that can be drawn between Jews (and perhaps Muslims, depending on their relationship to the faith of Abraham) and other non-Christians, and it’s not arbitrary at all. Jews received revelation from God. He told them who He was, even before Christ came. So the answer is pretty simple.

Jeff Schultz
January 13th, 2010 | 8:24 pm | #49

Joe Z,

I agree that we’re talking past each other.

I’ve tried to point out why your argument doesn’t hold from Scripture. In your example, yes, there’s a fallacy because Mark Twain = Sam Clemens. But as I’ve pointed out repeatedly, “God of the Bible” /= “Allah” or “(the Father – the Son).” The formal equivalence you’re assuming is what’s at question (and in fact I believe I’ve shown from Scripture not to exist), so your charge is groundless and your argument fallacious.

Additionally, I’ve given you multiple texts, one or two of which you’ve actually addressed. The one text which is alleged to support a “deficient worship” view of Muslims and Jews, John 4:22, I’ve pointed out is irrelevant because Jesus is there presenting himself to those who have not heard of him. It does not go to the issue of those who formally reject Christ. If the Samaritans reject Christ, then they, along with Muslims and Jews, remain in the state Christ and his apostles clearly describe. I can’t make it any more clear from Scripture that to reject the Son is to reject the Father, to not have the Son is to not have the Father, to deny the Son is to deny the Father, to not honor the Son is to not honor the Father, to be opposed to God, to be condemned, to remain under God’s wrath, etc., etc., ad nauseam.

I don’t understand the motivation behind the insistence that Muslims and Jews worship the God of the Bible in the face of overwhelming Scriptural evidence to the contrary, but I think your argument is with Jesus and his apostles, not me.

Jeff Schultz
January 13th, 2010 | 8:56 pm | #50

if you believe more and more false things about any object, eventually you won’t be talking about that object at all.

Yes, my point exactly about H2O and H2SO4. Which is also the case with all who deny that Christ is God. They are denying the central and ultimate revelation of God regarding Himself, and in doing so they are no longer worshiping God. Even demons are monotheists (see James 2:19) – so what?

Jews received revelation from God. He told them who He was, even before Christ came.

If it were still B.C., you’d have a point. Now that Christ has come, Jesus has made it clear that anyone who rejects Him rejects the Father, does not have the Father, does not know the Father, is under the wrath of the Father, is condemned by the Father, will be denied by Christ before the Father, etc., etc.

So the answer is pretty simple.

Finally we agree.

Joe Z
January 14th, 2010 | 2:02 am | #51

In your example, yes, there’s a fallacy because Mark Twain = Sam Clemens. But as I’ve pointed out repeatedly, “God of the Bible” /= “Allah” or “(the Father – the Son).” The formal equivalence you’re assuming is what’s at question (and in fact I believe I’ve shown from Scripture not to exist), so your charge is groundless and your argument fallacious.

No, you still misunderstand the point of that example. Nothing about that example’s relevant turns on “God = Allah” or the other identity you proposed, and I never suggested those as part of that argument. All that matters on this point, and all the water-H2O argument is showing, is that your argument uses a substitution of identically referring terms (which are “God” and “Christ” – and I know, if I know anything, that you believe that Christ is God) in an intensional context. And that makes it a fallacy. So when you say things like, the Jews don’t believe in Christ, but Christ is God, therefore they don’t believe in God, that’s a fallacy.

As for the Scriptural points, I agree that we’re at an impasse. The question is whether the rejection of Christ is sufficient to make it the case that the God Jews worship is not God at all. I don’t think it is, precisely because though Christ’s coming is indeed the definitive revelation of God, it doesn’t contradict God’s prior revelations, but rather fulfills them. And that being the case, if a Jew worships and has in mind the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, that’s still God he has in mind. I suppose you would say he doesn’t really have the God of Abraham in mind, though he thinks he does. I think we’re both agreed that’s a bigger Scriptural argument than can be handled in this forum.

Now that Christ has come, Jesus has made it clear that anyone who rejects Him rejects the Father, does not have the Father, does not know the Father, is under the wrath of the Father, is condemned by the Father, will be denied by Christ before the Father, etc., etc.

I just want to make it clear that I agree with this. I don’t think it follows that they’re ipso facto idolaters. Rejection by God is not just for idolatry.

And finally, as for the motivation, I think it’s just to be accurate when making charges of idolatry. I should think that’s a pretty good motivation, even if it’s not as significant as who’s worship is accepted by God.

Christina
January 15th, 2010 | 9:35 am | #52

Consider this way. Lets say a new religion starts up that claims that God is a duality. They develop an army and convert America to dualism by the sword. The world fears and cowers before the dualists.

Some Christians resist and continue practicing their religion, worshiping God as they have always done. They stand up against years of persecution, trials and martyrdom. Years later the dualists claim that the [consistent] Christian use of the word “God” is idolatry, since it gives yet another reason to attack.

Across the sea some other Christians who’ve been calling God “Jehovah” and, whose only “trial” involves waking up at 9am to go to church for an hour on Sunday, now criticize the American Christians for capitulating to the dualists. “How dare the Americans not give up their use of the word ‘God’ now that the dualists have sullied it.”

I think in this case it is perfectly acceptable for these Christians to call God “Allah”.

Jeff Schultz
January 15th, 2010 | 1:36 pm | #53

Christina,

If your last comment was about my statement that “God of the Bible” /= “Allah,” that comment was made in the context of a discussion regarding Muslims. It makes sense that an Arabic-speaking Christian would use the Arabic word for God to mean “the triune God fully revealed in Christ.” People can use the same word, pour very different meanings into it, and be talking about different things.

If your last comment wasn’t about my “Allah” statement, then please disregard.

Pastor Doug
January 15th, 2010 | 2:53 pm | #54

Christina nailed it. Thank you for your brevity.

orthodoxdj
January 15th, 2010 | 3:01 pm | #55

Related question: can a person be Godly and not be a Christian?

Craig Payne
January 15th, 2010 | 4:26 pm | #56

Can a person be Allah-ly and not be a Moslem?

akhter
January 17th, 2010 | 3:27 pm | #57

In Arabic, Allah means literally the one God. It is pretty easy to understand how different languages give the same thing different names. Is it that unusual to hear Muslims call God another name, like “Allah”, while you call him God or Lord? Some people have no minds; in the last decade, a growing phenomenon was seen on the internet and in published literature. Allah is said to be the “moon god” that Arabs worshiped, and Kaaba (The Muslims holiest place on Earth) is His temple. The evidence for this theory is the crescent that appears on the top of many mosques all over the world plus a fabricated picture of the “moon god”.

This idea is very dangerous. If you believe that Muslims are worshiping an idol, then there is no basis even to talk to them. They are pagan idolaters like Hindus and Buddhists. It is alleged that although Islam is a monotheistic religion, the Muslims’ only God is simply another idol that Muhammad (P.B.U.H.) chose (or in some versions of the story, he made it up).

To invalidate this foolish theory, one has to take the story from different angles.

The crescent is not a symbol of Islam, but of the Ottoman Empire. The Ottomans are those tribes that moved to Turkey from east and middle Asia. They converted to Islam and built a huge Muslim Empire that ruled the whole Muslim world for centuries. When they took Islam as a religion they started using the lunar calendar, the calendar that was used by Muslims, Jews and early Christians. Even today, the flag of Turkey has a crescent on it. There was no crescent on any mosque built before the Ottomans era.

Prophet Abraham built the Kaaba for people to worship God. While pagan Arabs admitted this fact and even kept the stone where he used to stand to build the Kaaba (Abraham’s station), they brought idols to the Kaaba and worshiped them to get closer to Abraham’s Lord, Allah, God of gods. Prophet Muhammad (P.B.U.H.) came with the monotheistic message of Islam. Arabs defended these idols and refused to give up the religion of their fathers and grandfathers. They offered to Muhammad a deal, that is to worship their gods for one year, and they worship Allah alone for one year. A chapter of the Quran came with the response from God to this evil invitation:

[Say : O ye that reject Faith! I worship not that which ye worship, Nor will ye worship that which I worship. And I will not worship that which ye have been wont to worship, Nor will ye worship that which I worship. To you be your Way, and to me mine. ]109:1-6

Later on, the Quran started calling Allah by other names. One of those holy names was Al-Rahman (the Gracious). Arabs wondered:”is this a new God?” The Quran responded again:

[Say: "Call upon Allah, or call upon Rahman: by whatever name ye call upon Him, (it is well): for to Him belong the Most Beautiful Names. ]17:110

It is not a new god; it is a new name for the same God. Allah has ninety nine names in Islam; all of them are holy and speak about different attributes of the same creator, almighty Allah. As an example, read these verses of the Quran:

[Allah is He, than Whom there is no other god; Who knows (all things) both secret and open; He, Most Gracious, Most Merciful.

Allah is He, than Whom there is no other god; the Sovereign, the Holy One, the Source of Peace (and Perfection), the Guardian of Faith, the Preserver of Safety, the Exalted in Might, the Irresistible, the Supreme: Glory to Allah! (High is He) above the partners they attribute to Him.

He is Allah, the Creator, the Evolver, the Bestower of Forms (or Colours). To Him belong the Most Beautiful Names: whatever is in the heavens and on earth, doth declare His Praises and Glory; and He is the Exalted in Might, the Wise.]59:22-24

When Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) came back to Mecca, he entered the city peacefully on the top of an army of 10,000 men, exactly as the Bible described him “pre-eminent above ten thousand.” (Solomon 5:10). He did not burn a single home; he did not harm a single person; he just went to the Kaaba and destroyed all the gods Arabs had there. He kept nothing in the Kaaba. Where is this picture of the moon god coming from? I don’t know. Did anyone of the pagan Arabs have a digital camera by then?

There is evidence that the word Allah existed before the birth of Muhammad PBUH for thousands of years. It is probably the oldest name man used to call God. Most likely, Adam used the word Allah to call the Lord. On the other hand, the word “GOD” was born with the English language, less than ten centuries ago. Can we say that all English speaking nations are pagans because they use the word “God”? What about Chinese monotheists? How should they call God?

Prophet Muhammad’s father’s name was Abdullah (The slave of Allah). This name was common among Arab pagans and Jews. Abdullah bin Salam was one of the first Jews to convert to Islam in Medina. When Arabs call Allah in prayer they say: “Ya Allah” or “Allahoma”. Aren’t these words familiar to you? “Alleluia” and “Elohim” are the words used to call Allah in the Bible. In Hebrew, the suffix im means many. So Elohim literally means many Allah(s). This is a known way to express dignity and respect to almighty Allah by calling Him pleural. This phenomenon is known in Hebrew, Arabic, English and other languages. In Quran, the same pattern is seen many times. For example, God says in the holy Quran:

[ We have, without doubt, sent down the Message; and We will assuredly guard it (from corruption). ]15:9.

In the English translation of the Bible, you read, “Let us make man in our image”-Genesis 1:26-KJV.

The word Allah is used in all Arabic translations of the Bible. It was used in some English translations of the Bible like the original “Scofield Reference Bible”-reference: what is his name? by Deedat. In the New Testament, Jesus is believed to cry before his death “ELOI, ELOI, LAMA SABACHTHANI?” Eloi is the exact Arabic word “Elahi” which comes from the same root as Allah.

I have no doubt that the word “Allah” is the oldest known name man called God with. For those who choose to ignore this fact and transgress, Muslims have nothing to offer. Allah says in the holy Quran:

[If any, after this, invent a lie and attribute it to Allah, they are indeed unjust wrong-doers.] 3:94

For Muslims, Allah is perfect. He has no partners. We worship Him and Him alone. Our faith is summarized in the holy Quran:

[Say: He is Allah, the One and Only; Allah, the Eternal, Absolute; He begetteth not, nor is He begotten; And there is none like unto Him.]112:1-4

Rev. Paul T. McCain
January 17th, 2010 | 8:56 pm | #58

Akhter, your “Allah,” is not the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jesus. The only true God the Father, who together with the Son, and the Holy Spirit, lives and reigns to all eternity, one God, now and forever. To the Most Holy and Blessed Trinity be all glory. Amen.

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