The second area that must be examined to determine if there is hope for finding common ground between Islam and Christianity is love. If there are fundamental differences in the concepts and practices of love between Islam and Christianity, then love cannot provide a common ground.
Are the Islamic and Christian understandings of love the same?
As they did in addressing questions presented in Part II, the Yale Covenant authors point to the difficulties in identifying the similarities between the Islamic and Christian understandings of love. These difficulties include several issues. A major difference noted was whether God’s love was conditional or non-conditional. The Bible says that God’s love is unconditional whereas in the Quran it appears that Allah’s love is conditional. Another concern raised by the covenant authors was the difficulty of translating the meaning of words between Arabic and other languages which leads to difficulty in comparing the conceptions of love in the two religions. Other areas identified for further study and discussion were the meanings of the names for God with respect to love and whether God’s love is self-giving. The authors provide no answers to these questions but once again stress the need “for conversations and interactions on these crucial matters of love of God and of neighbor.[1]
Here again the covenant authors get caught up in details (important though they may be) but step away from the fundamental question as to the natures of the two Gods revealed by the Bible and the Quran. However, answers will not come from mere discussions about God’s titles, translations, interpretations, and definitions of love. Answers can be found only in an examination of the fundamental natures of the God of the Bible and the God of the Quran in relation to love and its application between God and man and man to man. Put another way, are the understandings and practices of love expressed by the nature of God described in the Bible and the Quran essentially the same or radically different?
The Christian’s God is love, not just a loving God (John 4:8). God’s love is unconditional which is revealed throughout the great meta-narrative of the creation, the Fall, and redemption. For the Christian, we must again return to the Trinity. In the Christian worldview, God did not create man out of need. Rather, it was a will to love, an expression of the very character of God, to share the inner life of the Trinity. It was a sacrificial love because rebellious man did not deserve it. But man’s rebellion was not a surprise to God for He knew the cost of His supreme love before he created man (see Revelation 13:8). No man was worthy or deserving of God’s love or capable of doing anything to gain His love. Therefore, God sent His incarnate Son to die on a Roman cross that made possible the redemption of mankind. God willingly gave his begotten Son’s life so that all of mankind through their individual freewill would have the opportunity to accept the gift of forgiveness and redemption.
God’s nature is love, and He commanded His followers to unconditionally reflect His love to others in this world. “But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return; and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High; for he is kind to the ungrateful and the selfish. Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful.” [Luke 6:35-36, RSV]
Contrast the love of the Christian’s God with Allah’s love as described in the Quran. The Quran states that God is Al-Wadud meaning that he is full of loving kindness. This loving kindness is well-demonstrated by many Muslims in the loving way they treat their children and in the great hospitality and kindness bestowed on those that visit their homes. But Allah’s loving kindness is limited to only a part of mankind. Islam does not love its enemies nor does it love the unlovable, and the Quran is very specific in its directives as to the harsh and violent treatment of infidels, the disobedient, and evil-doers. The Quran[2] specifically states in numerous verses that Allah’s love is restricted to those that deserve it, a concept that mirrors the very human reaction to love only those who love us.[3] Listed below are just three examples.
Allah will deprive usury of all blessing, but will give increase for deeds of charity: for He loveth not creatures ungrateful and wicked. [Sura 2:276. Quran]
Say: “obey Allah and His Apostle”: but if they turn back, Allah loveth not those who reject Faith. [Sura 3:32. Quran]
As to those who believe and work righteousness, Allah will pay them (in full) their reward; but Allah loveth not those who do wrong. [Sura 3:57. Quran]
A personal or an impersonal God?
As important is our understanding the different natures of God and Allah with regard to love, we must take one step beyond to determine the reasons for the differences and why those reasons matter to mankind.
In Islam, it is not possible to separate or differentiate Allah’s mind, will, and actions. He is described as absolute oneness in his nature and personhood. The distinguishing characteristic of Islam is the unity of Allah.[4] One of the most revered chapters in the Quran is Sura 112 which commands, “Say: He is Allah, the One, the Only; The Eternal, the Absolute; He begetteth not, nor is He begotten; And there is none like unto Him.”
When Mohammad was asked to describe Allah, Sura 112 was supposedly given to him by Allah. Islamic tradition states that Mohammad considered Sura 112 as worth one-third of the entire Quran. The verses weld together two fundamental doctrines of Islam: (1) Allah is an absolute, undifferentiated unity and (2) “in his unity, is utterly independent of anything. He is self-subsisting and self-sufficient.” But this conception of Allah’s greatness makes it impossible for man to relate to him and impossible for the human heart and mind to understand anything about him apart from the superficial. Allah is personal in that he is described as a conscious being with a will, but his personality is hidden and cannot be known to any meaningful degree by mankind. Therefore, it is not possible for his followers to have a personal, loving relationship with him.[5]
Because of this description of Allah as a self-subsisting and self-sufficient entity absolutely independent of anything, it is impossible for Allah to express or give love because his nature will not allow such. Therefore, Allah is unipersonal and his ultra-unified, self-contained, self-subsisting, self-sufficient, and self-centered being removes any hope of love flowing from his nature in spite of Mohammad’s claims in the Quran. Given Allah’s self-described nature in the Quran as an absolute oneness and independence from anything, to say that Allah loves or does not love is an oxymoron at best or a false claim shrouded in an incomprehensible, unexplainable enigma that demands blind faith from his followers.
In Christianity, the central theme of the entire Bible focuses on relationship and confirms the importance of His Trinitarian nature. Perichoresis is a word used to describe the triune relationship between the members of the Godhead. It explains the close inter-relatedness of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, each of which is clearly distinct but at the same time “…one in their own eternal and intense love for each other.”[6] Expressed another way, it is one heart beating within three persons.
Perichoresis shares its etymological roots with the word “choreography.”[7] With this in mind, Timothy Keller, in his book The Reason for God, wonderfully adds to our understanding of this relationship which he calls the Dance of God. The dance is about love and relationship which implies constant movement or flowing in which a “…self-giving love is the dynamic currency of the Trinitarian life of God. Three persons within God exalt, commune with, and defer to one another…a dynamic pulsating activity, a life, a kind of drama…a kind of dance…”[8]
And God has allowed man to share in this Trinitarian relationship. How can we know this? John’s gospel gives us the answer in Christ’s own words: “The glory which thou hast given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them, and thou in me, that they may become perfectly one.” [John 17: 22-23a. RSV] Historian George Marsden summarized Jonathan Edwards’s explanation of this passage. “The ultimate reason that God creates, said Edwards, is not to remedy some lack in God, but to extend that perfect internal communication of the triune God’s goodness and love…” Keller refines Edward’s statement when he said, “God did not create us to get the cosmic, infinite joy of mutual love and glorification, but to share it. [9] [emphasis added]
Is there common ground between Islam and Christianity with regard to love and relationship between man and God and man to man? When we examine the natures of Allah of the Quran and the God of the Bible, the answer is an indisputably no. In the areas of love and relationships, the differences between the unipersonal Allah of the Quran and the loving, personal God of the Bible are enormous and provide no basis for common ground between Islam and Christianity.
In the first three parts of this series we have discussed the end time apostasy that is engulfing many in the evangelical church, the Yale Covenant, and two areas identified as supposedly providing a basis for finding common ground between Islam and Christianity. In Part IV we shall examine how this modern apostasy of attempting to find common ground between Islam and Christianity has been embraced and promoted by some leaders in the evangelical church.
Larry G. Johnson
Sources:
[1] “A ‘Common Word’ at Yale: Frequently Asked Questions,” Yale Center for Faith and Culture, http://faith.yale.edu/common-word/common-word-yale-frequently-asked-questions (accessed April 27, 2016).
[2] All quotations from the Quran are from the textless edition of the English translation of the Holy Qur-an: A. Yusuf Ali, The Meaning of the Illustrious Qur-an, Published by: Dar AHYA Us-Sunnah, Al Nabawiya.
[3] Abdu H. Murray, Grand Central Question – Answering the Critical Concerns of Mayor Worldviews, (Downers Grove, Illinois: IVP Books, 2014), pp. 231-232.
[4] Ibid., p. 159.
[5] Ibid., pp. 159-161.
[6] Glenn T. Stanton and Leon C. Wirth, The Family Project, (Coral Stream, Illinois: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., 2014), pp. 82-83.
[7] Ibid., p. 82.
[8] Timothy Keller, The Reason for God, (New York: Dutton, 2008), pp. 214-215.
[9] Ibid., pp. 218-219.
