PAPER NO. 91

CHRISTIANITY AND ISLAM

The Difference

The difference between Christianity and Islam is not merely a few isolated doctrines but a worldview (systematic) difference rooted in their different view of the Logos, the Word of God, which first comes to man as reason. This root difference becomes more apparent as each position becomes more conscious and consistent.

There are several interrelated levels in a worldview, beginning with what presents itself more immediately and reaches to what is most basic.

The first level concerns Christ and him crucified, the Scriptures, the Trinity, predestination, divine law, view of the good, civil liberties, and human dignity.

The second level of differences can be summed up in understanding the biblical worldview of creation–fall–redemption.

The third level of differences arises at the philosophical level of general revelation in the assumptions of epistemology, metaphysics, and ethics.

At the fourth and deepest level the question of common ground (for all thinking and discourse) arises. What is the highest authority? What is the self-attesting Word of God?

In the 10 points that follow, all these levels will be addressed; points 1–7 address issues on the first level.

  1. Islam denies that Christ died on the cross. Islam professes to build on the Old Testament (OT) and the New Testament (NT), yet denies what is central to both: in the OT, vicarious atonement on Yom Kippur (the Day of Atonement) and in the NT, which fulfills the OT, the death of Christ on the cross to atone for the sin of the world. If there is no redemption in Islam, then God is not great in justice and mercy and Allahu Akbar! is empty of meaning.
  2. Islam professes to build on the OT and the NT. While the OT and the NT are commonly believed to be given by God, accordinng to Islam the OT and the NT are not preserved by God, whereas the Quran is both given and preserved by God. Why the latter is preserved and the former is not, has not (and cannot be) explained on the shared assumption of being given by God: either God has changed, which is impossible, or no scripture is given by God, which is also impossible for Islam, or the Quran contains error where it disagrees with what is given by God earlier. If the Quran were given by God, it would not contain error, therefore the Quran must not be given by God.
  3. Islam denies the Trinity as error. It denies that Jesus is the Son of God the Father by Mary his mother. But it is an error to say the NT teaches this. The gospel of John says: “In the beginning was the Word (Logos), and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” The Word of God, who is eternally with God, and is God, is the eternal Son of God. It is the Word of God, the eternal Son of God, who became flesh: “And the Word was made flesh . . . .” The Son of God took upon himself human nature by being born of the Virgin Mary. If the Son of God is co-eternal with the Father (no Son without the Father and no Father without the Son—Father and Son are relational terms), then the Quran is in error to argue against a straw man. What contains error cannot be the Word of God.
  4. Islam and Historic Christianity both teach the doctrine of predestination but in very different ways and with very different outcomes. In Islam, the end is decreed apart from the means (second causes in the nature of things). In Christianity, both the end (salvation) and the means (through human desire and beliefs grounded in the use of reason) are predestined. The Islamic view of ends without means is partial predestination and results in paradoxes of freedom and responsibility. Rather than question uncritically held assumptions about freedom and divine omnipotence Islam moves to give up reason. However, the failure is not in reason but in the failure to use reason critically. The injunction to submit to scripture and not to reason is uncalled for, and ends in the use of force rather than reason.
  5. Islam believes in divine law embodied in sharia and obligatory upon all to whom it comes. Islamic law is entirely from direct divine command apart from any supposed nature of God or man. It is known from testimony alone and cannot be and must not be questioned. Biblical law is summed up in the Ten Commandments, but is first written in the hearts of all men (i.e., in human nature). It is therefore objectively clearly revealed to all men and is easily knowable by all who seek. In Islamic law there is no distinction between church and state or between crime and sin. Sharia law is totalitarian; it is to be enforced upon all persons and in all aspects of life.
  6. In Islam God is pure will, unconstrained by any divine nature, so creation cannot be revelation. The good in Islam is virtue or piety as an end in itself, expressed in behavior of obedience or submission. The reward for virtue is happiness or pleasure, conceived of as a sensual paradise, in which women are for the pleasure of men. In Christianity man’s chief end is to glorify and to enjoy God in all that by which he makes himself known, in all his works of creation and providence. Through the cumulative work of dominion, by all human beings through all of history, the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. Eternal life for Christianity is knowing God.
  7. Islam means submission. Man’s will everywhere must be made to submit to God’s will, and through submission comes peace. Force (jihad) may be used to bring about submission (Islam). The force may be either the force of law (civilizational jihad) or the force of violence (terrorism). No one is free to make converts out of Islam, and the penalty for any person who converts out of Islam is death. In Christianity man is made in the image of God, with the ability and the responsibility to know God. The inherent consequence of not using reason to know what is clear about God is meaninglessness and boredom and guilt. Because of its theology, Islam has relied on force rather than reason. The use of force in the place of reason in forming basic beliefs is a violation of man’s dignity as the image of God. What violates human dignity can never be a lasting foundation for civilization.
  8. Islam and Christianity differ in their understanding of creation, fall, and redemption. Because creation is understood differently, Islam denies the reality of the fall and the necessity for redemption.

Creation in Islam:

  1. Creation is not revelation; there is no nature of God to be revealed in the acts of creation.
  2. Man is not the image of God understood as a rational being. Therefore, the good for man cannot be the knowledge of God through the work of dominion.
  3. Original creation of all things cannot be said to be very good because there is nothing in God that requires it to be good. Physical death was present in the original creation of man.

The Fall in Islam:

  1. There is no Fall of man in Islam.
  2. There is no covenant of creation with Adam in the beginning. Adam’s act does not affect all men.
  3. Death does not come by one man; it was there from the beginning of the creation of man.

Redemption in Islam:

  1. There is no redemption in Islam through curse and promise.
  2. Natural evil (the curse of toil and strife and old age, sickness and death) is not imposed as a call back from moral evil. It was there at the creation of man.
  3. Moral evil does not serve to deepen the revelation of God’s justice and mercy.
  4. There is no promise of Christ to come in the place of Adam to undo what Adam did (Christ is not the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world), and to do what Adam failed to do (rule to make God known).
  1. There are fundamental differences in philosophical first principles based in general revelation, between belief and unbelief, wherever they occur, especially between the theistic faiths of Islam and Christianity.
  1. In Epistemology: Islam does not affirm the Principle of Clarity, that the basic things about God and man and good and evil are clear to reason.
  2. In Metaphysics: In Islam there is no infinite, eternal, and unchangeable nature of God. Man is not therefore the finite, temporal, and changeable image of God, who is rational in essence.
  3. In Ethics: In Islam there is no rational justification for the good as the knowledge of God. The good in Islam is not teleological, distinguished from virtue (as means to the good), and happiness (as effect of possessing the good). Ethics is either deontological (virtue is the end in itself) or consequential (happiness/pleasure is the good and virtue is the means to happiness, extrinsically given by God).
  1. At the deepest level of difference between Christian theism and Islamic theism lies the doctrine of the Logos as the Word of God in its fullness. The Logos is Truth.
  1. The eternal Word of God, the Logos, comes to man first as reason, the laws of thought. Reason as the laws of thought is the test of meaning. It is therefore authoritative and self-attesting. Reason applies to being as well as thought, to all being, to the highest being, to God’s being. God is not both eternal and not eternal in the same respect at the same time. What violates reason cannot be the Word of God.
  2. Commitment to reason as a concern for consistency is integrity, which is necessary and sufficient to know the truth. Lack of integrity disregards what is existentially absurd or logically absurd.
  3. Thinking by nature is presuppositional: we think of the less basic in light of the more basic. Reason as most basic must be applied as a test of meaning to basic beliefs. This epistemological process is called Rational Presuppositionalism. If we agree on the more basic, we can and will agree on what is less basic. Where critical thinking has been disallowed disputes have festered for centuries.
  4. The Logos is present in creation as clear general revelation: the basic things about God and man and good and evil are clear to reason. What is clear objectively is not seen subjectively because of sin: left to oneself no one seeks God and no one understands.
  5. Consistent with the disregard of reason and clear general revelation, the Logos comes to the people of God as Scripture in the Old Testament, which also is disregarded.
  6. The Logos comes once more to man, incarnate in Jesus Christ, full of grace (to forgive sin) and truth (to make God known).
  7. Christ sends the Holy Spirit to lead the Church objectively into all truth (through its councils and creeds) and to bring believers subjectively into the truth by regeneration and sanctification.

The Logos is Truth in its fullness, coming to man through general revelation, Scripture and Historic Christianity, both objectively and subjectively. The Logos distinguishes Christianity from Islam.


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