McDermott: Muslims and Christians Worship Different Gods

The God of the Qur’an is a very different God from the God of the Bible, says Gerald R. McDermott in today’s column .

There simply is no command to love one’s neighbor in the Qur’an. One can talk about love for neighbor in the Islamic tradition , but not as something commanded by the God of the Qur’an. Hence we cannot infer that what [Miroslav] Volf calls “the character” of the God of the Qur’an is the same as that of the God of the Bible. In fact, we would have to conclude, using Volf’s own reasoning, that these are two different gods, for the difference in the two love commands suggests—by his own logic—two different characters. (Not that two different Gods actually exist, of course, but that Muslim and Christian understandings of the one God are radically different.)

Read the full column here .