Are Allah and YHWH the same?

[jpholding]

The situation here brought to mind Harry Turtledove's alternate history of America in which the South won the Civil War and the two Americas went on to become enemies in the World Wars.

One of the big differences is the history of George Custer. In real history, Custer was killed at Little Bighorn. In Turtledove's history, Custer never went to Little Bighorn, from the looks of it (at least it is never mentioned) and went on to become the lead general for the Union in the first World War. But Custer's history before the place where Turtledove comes to his fork in the road was the same as it is in ours.

If some group came to think Turtledove's fiction were true history, I would be hard pressed to say that they believed in the same Custer I did. And it would hardly change things if they claimed that the Custer I believed in was their "intended" reference. Their intentions might be earnest but they would also be seriously awry. And it could not be argued that it is the "same" Custer as is found in real history.

The best that could be said is that Muslims (or Mormons, or JWs) worship the "same" God as Christians do in the same way that Turtledove presents the "same" Custer as is found in real history -- theirs is a YHWH "from an alternate universe." (Albeit, theologically, that would have problems of its own.)

[jpholding]

Let me ask you this: Does the referent "The God of Abraham" exist?

Semantically, the phrase is loaded in each person's mind with different freight, so the question is not a valid one for the context of this discussion.

[themuzicman]

The situation here brought to mind Harry Turtledove's alternate history of America in which the South won the Civil War and the two Americas went on to become enemies in the World Wars.

One of the big differences is the history of George Custer. In real history, Custer was killed at Little Bighorn. In Turtledove's history, Custer never went to Little Bighorn, from the looks of it (at least it is never mentioned) and went on to become the lead general for the Union in the first World War. But Custer's history before the place where Turtledove comes to his fork in the road was the same as it is in ours.

If some group came to think Turtledove's fiction were true history, I would be hard pressed to say that they believed in the same Custer I did. And it would hardly change things if they claimed that the Custer I believed in was their "intended" reference. Their intentions might be earnest but they would also be seriously awry. And it could not be argued that it is the "same" Custer as is found in real history.

I disagree entirely. The actual Custer existed. Whether you have the right information about him or not is irrelevant to the fact that he existed and you knew he existed. It's still the same guy.

The best that could be said is that Muslims (or Mormons, or JWs) worship the "same" God as Christians do in the same way that Turtledove presents the "same" Custer as is found in real history -- theirs is a YHWH "from an alternate universe." (Albeit, theologically, that would have problems of its own.)

No, theirs is simply a wrong/incomplete/inaccurate description. If you trace back their worship of Allah, you wind up at Abraham. Same God. They will even tell you that they worship the God of Abraham. Inaccurate information doesn't make Allah different from who they trace Him back to be.

[themuzicman]

Semantically, the phrase is loaded in each person's mind with different freight, so the question is not a valid one for the context of this discussion.

Really?? Are Muslims referring to a different Abraham?

[ApologiaPhoenix]

Nick, you're simply repeating your assertions without really interacting with my post. That's not generally like you.

Actually, I think I did interact.

You're just assuming right from the outset that the intended referent of 'Allah' in Muslim use is different from the intended referent of 'YHWH' in Judeo-Christian use.

No I'm not. I'm basing it on the evidence. The concept of God in the mind of the Muslim is fundamentally different from that in the mind of the Christian. The Muslim worships a being who is fundamentally a monad. The Christian worships one who is fundamentally a Trinity.

The closest thing you've provided to an argument is: the description of Allah is at variance with the description of YHWH.

Yes. That's how we can tell that they're different. We look at the concepts themselves. We don't look at the intention of the people with the concepts.

But obviously that isn't enough to determine that the intended referents are distinct.

Who they intend to refer to is irrelevant to me. What matters to me is ontological equality. The god of Islam and the god of Christianity are ontologically different.

A person can obviously refer to the true God while having markedly false understandings of his nature. I doubt you'll claim that Maimonides did not intend to refer to YHWH; yet, of course, Maimonides did not believe that God was triune.

Maimonides did intend to refer to YHWH, but did he? If YHWH is the triune God who has revealed Himself in Jesus Christ, then how could Maimonides have been referring to him regardless of who he intended to refer to?

For that matter, before his conversion, Paul would not have had a trinitarian concept of God. Yet Paul does not regard his conversion as a switch from one God to another (for more, see Zeba Crook's excellent monograph Reconceptualising Conversion).

Because he didn't. He realized that this is how the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob has always been and that the Jewish opponents have zeal but it is not according to knowledge. He would say that they do not know God.

Therefore, it is possible to have a concept of God that is off-base in quite a few areas, and yet have the intended referent be the same.

Again, the intended referent does not matter to me. You don't determine if two concepts of God are the same by looking at intentions, but looking at the concepts.

Therefore, the unitarian concept of God in Islam is insufficient to establish that Islam has, in the sense in question, a different deity.

If you don't see a monad as different from a Trinity, I really don't know what I can do to help you.

[QUOTE] Furthermore, as said previously, it is plainly obvious that the early Muslims did indeed intend to refer to YHWH. The intentional object of their worship was, in fact, the God worshipped by Christians. [QUOTE]

Again, I don't care about what people intend. I care about the concepts themselves.

That is a very real sense in which, yes, Allah and YHWH are the same; those terms have the same intended referent in their respective spheres of use, and that is the relevant point here.

Each of them refers to the ultimate for each system, but the identity of that ultimate is not the same as one is a monad and one is triune.

Yes, it of course must also be added that Muslims have in many ways a highly defective and distorted picture of God, both in his essential nature and in his narrative revelatory history. But that is not sufficient to sustain your erroneous assertion that Muslims worship a different God; instead, it is correct to say that they worship the same God but in a defective manner through distorted concepts, to such a degree and in such ways that their worship is not such as God desires.

No. I say they worship a different one because Allah as revealed in the Koran does not exist. YHWH, as revealed in the Old and New Testaments, does.

[ApologiaPhoenix]

Well, from a Hebrew perspective, you just said that you don't believe that God exists, but you believe that God, when he calls himself YWHW exists. You're comparing apples and oranges. YWHW is the name God have to Himself when revealing Himself to the Jews. Allah is just one Hebrew/Arabic word for GOD.

In my blog, I stated that Allah is a fine Arabic word for God and how John 1:1 could read in an Arabic Bible. I have no problem with just calling God, Allah. I have a problem saying the one described in Islam is the same as the one described in Christianity.

The fact that Muslims don't have a name for God other than God clearly indicates that what they are missing is further appropriate revelation of him.

No. The problem is not lack of revelation but denial of revelation. Islam explicitly teaches that one does not add partners to God and that God does not have a son. Each of these is built on a denial of the revelation of Christ.

Let me ask you this: Does the referent "The God of Abraham" exist?

Yes. The one Abraham worshiped who revealed Himself in Jesus. Let me ask you this. Did the God Abraham worship reveal Himself in Jesus and has He always existed as a Trinity?

Second question, did the God Abraham worshiped reveal himself to Muhammad in the Koran?

[themuzicman]

In my blog, I stated that Allah is a fine Arabic word for God and how John 1:1 could read in an Arabic Bible. I have no problem with just calling God, Allah. I have a problem saying the one described in Islam is the same as the one described in Christianity.

OK, so, if someone inaccurately describes God, then they aren't worshiping the right god?

No. The problem is not lack of revelation but denial of revelation. Islam explicitly teaches that one does not add partners to God and that God does not have a son. Each of these is built on a denial of the revelation of Christ.

Which means they are wrong about some aspect of God.

Yes. The one Abraham worshiped who revealed Himself in Jesus.

Who is this other Abraham, then? Who are the Muslims referring to?

Let me ask you this. Did the God Abraham worship reveal Himself in Jesus and has He always existed as a Trinity?

Later on, yes. Abraham didn't know this.

Second question, did the God Abraham worshiped reveal himself to Muhammad in the Koran?

Nope. They're still working on the concept of God that has been handed down (and inaccurate descriptors added) from Abraham.

All this means is that the Jews were God's chosen people, and descendants of Ishael and Esau weren't. It doesn't speak to whether Islam tracks its worship back to the same Abraham and the same God the Abraham worshiped.

[ApologiaPhoenix]

OK, so, if someone inaccurately describes God, then they aren't worshiping the right god?

It depends on the gravity of the error. If you talk about god who revealed himself to Joseph Smith and was once a man and became God, then no. If you're talking about the embodied god Kenneth Copeland has described, no. It should be consistent with what has been revealed. Some views are aberrant. Some are heretical.

Which means they are wrong about some aspect of God.

It means the God concept is different. Are you going to say the monad concept is the same as the triune concept

Who is this other Abraham, then? Who are the Muslims referring to?

The identity of Abraham is not under question but the identity of God is. That same God revealed Himself further. Did the God Abraham Isaac offered his son up to reveal Himself to Muhammad?

Did He reveal Himself in Jesus?

Later on, yes. Abraham didn't know this.

And note a distinction I made. Each could only worship God as he had revealed Himself thus far. Jews and Muslims today deny that He has revealed Himself this way saying that He is not this way.

Nope. They're still working on the concept of God that has been handed down (and inaccurate descriptors added) from Abraham.

Then who is the god who revealed himself to Muhammad?

All this means is that the Jews were God's chosen people, and descendants of Ishael and Esau weren't. It doesn't speak to whether Islam tracks its worship back to the same Abraham and the same God the Abraham worshiped.

That Islam tracks itself back to them doesn't mean they worship the same god any more than Joseph Smith tracking himself back to Ephraim means he worships the god Joseph, son of Jacob, worshiped.

[Adrift]

It depends on the gravity of the error. If you talk about god who revealed himself to Joseph Smith and was once a man and became God, then no. If you're talking about the embodied god Kenneth Copeland has described, no. It should be consistent with what has been revealed. Some views are aberrant. Some are heretical.

How far do you believe must one move away from orthodoxy for someone to suggest that another God is the referent? What is the level/line between aberration and heresy? And who makes that deciding factor?

[ApologiaPhoenix]

How far do you believe must one move away from orthodoxy for someone to suggest that another God is the referent? What is the level/line between aberration and heresy? And who makes that deciding factor?

I would say views like those of the JWs and Muslims are heretical because if those are true, Christianity cannot be true. Others are aberrant because while they have some disagreement, they don't affect Jesus being fully God, dying for our sins, and being resurrected. They're still highly problematic however.

[themuzicman]

It depends on the gravity of the error. If you talk about god who revealed himself to Joseph Smith and was once a man and became God, then no. If you're talking about the embodied god Kenneth Copeland has described, no. It should be consistent with what has been revealed. Some views are aberrant. Some are heretical.

Seems a rather subjective standard. Who gets to decide what's good enough, and what's not?

It means the God concept is different. Are you going to say the monad concept is the same as the triune concept

I'm saying that the monad/triune concept of God doesn't change who one is attempting to worship. Abraham worshiped God as a monad, because he was ignorant of God's triune nature. So to Muslims.

The identity of Abraham is not under question but the identity of God is. That same God revealed Himself further. Did the God Abraham Isaac offered his son up to reveal Himself to Muhammad?

Nope.

Did He reveal Himself in Jesus?

Yup.

But all this distinction tells us is that God chose to reveal Himself through the line of Isaac and Jacob, not Ishmael and Esau.

And note a distinction I made. Each could only worship God as he had revealed Himself thus far. Jews and Muslims today deny that He has revealed Himself this way saying that He is not this way.

So, are you saying that Muslims who worshiped God before Christ WERE worshiping God, but those who worshiped the same God after Christ weren't?

Then who is the god who revealed himself to Muhammad?

No god revealed himself to Muhammad. That doesn't change who Muslims worship.

That Islam tracks itself back to them doesn't mean they worship the same god any more than Joseph Smith tracking himself back to Ephraim means he worships the god Joseph, son of Jacob, worshiped.

Except that they all do. They all attempt to serve the God of Abraham. Granted that they have been misled by false prophets in the means by which to do so, and even in the descriptions of what God is like. But each bows down to the God of Abraham.

[themuzicman]

Let's say that we both know a guy named Fred Jones.

However, I describe Fred as an athletic guy, a bit over 6 feet tall, 200lbs, energetic, a real go getter.

You describe him as a man who is over 300 lbs, depressed, lazy, and in a wheel chair.


Different guy?

Well, I'm describing the guy I remember from 5 years ago, before he was in the accident that paralyzed him from the chest down. You're describing him after.

You can't say that descriptions of an individuals characteristics based upon one's current knowledge of that individual makes them a different individual from how someone else describes them. They just have different information, and thus a different concept.

[Bill the Cat]

So, are you saying that Muslims who worshiped God before Christ WERE worshiping God, but those who worshiped the same God after Christ weren't?

There were no Muslims before Christ.

[Bill the Cat]

Let's say that we both know a guy named Fred Jones.

However, I describe Fred as an athletic guy, a bit over 6 feet tall, 200lbs, energetic, a real go getter.

You describe him as a man who is over 300 lbs, depressed, lazy, and in a wheel chair.


Different guy?

Well, I'm describing the guy I remember from 5 years ago, before he was in the accident that paralyzed him from the chest down. You're describing him after.

You can't say that descriptions of an individuals characteristics based upon one's current knowledge of that individual makes them a different individual from how someone else describes them. They just have different information, and thus a different concept.

Height, weight, and energy levels are not accurate ways to compare to how Muslims and Christians believ in God's attributes.

[themuzicman]

Height, weight, and energy levels are not accurate ways to compare to how Muslims and Christians believ in God's attributes.

People don't believe in God's attributes. They believe in God, even if their concept of his attributes aren't all correct.