The Word of God: Revelation in Christianity and Islam. A search for the Divine is a common characteristic throughout the history of people

Transcription

1 Paper #5 1 The Word of God: Revelation in Christianity and Islam A search for the Divine is a common characteristic throughout the history of people groups. New religious movements begin when the Divine breaks into the world to reveal a bit of divine revelation. For Christians and Muslims, this Divine being is the God who led Abraham to faith. However, the two religions disagree on the ways in which God breaks into the world to reveal the Divine. Our knowledge of God is limited as it is completely reliant on God s self-revelation. 1 God is unknowable except for what God reveals to humanity. Therefore, the different ways each religion interprets God s self-revelation leads to different theology in the two religions. In dialogue between the two religions regarding the nature of God s self-revelation in each religion, both Christianity and Islam can expand their view of God while maintaining loyalty to their religious traditions. The Gospel of John begins, In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it. 2 The question of God s revelation in Christianity and Islam centers around who or what the Word of God is. Christians believe Jesus is the Word of God, while Muslims believe it is the message of Jesus, revealed to prophets since the beginning of 1 Volf, Miroslav. Allah: A Christian Response, Holy Bible: New Revised Standard Version, John 1:1-5

2 Paper #5 2 time and in completion to Muhammad as the Quran. For Christians, a divine man is the Word of God. For Muslims, the Word of God is the message, spoken aloud and then written down. First, we will look more closely at what this means for each religion. A few verses after those quoted above, John goes on to say And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father s only son, full of grace and truth. 3 This verse reveals the Christian belief that Jesus not only brings the word of God, but is the Word of God. The Word became flesh and lived among us. The Word of God took on the physical body of God s beloved creations and ate food, drank wine, slept on a lumpy mattress and got his feet dirty as he walked and lived among us. The Word exchanged the perfection and beauty of a heavenly dwelling for a human experience on a perfectly created but fallen, dirty and messy earth. While walking the earth, the Word taught and lived the message of God, crossing boundaries, bringing healing, preaching hope, showing love and offering salvation to every single person he encountered. The Word also chose a group of followers who he specifically discipled to follow his example. Along with these chosen, he welcomed a larger community of followers and commissioned them to follow his example of teaching and living. The transformational message of the Word threatened the powers of evil manifested in the corrupt religious institutions of the time and so they plotted to kill the Word. Their plot succeeded as the powers of evil watched the Word take his last breath hanging on a cross. However, death and destruction did not get the final say and on the third day, the Word rose again in bodily resurrection, forever defeating the powers of evil and bringing eternal salvation to all of creation. This person, Jesus, is the Word of God in Christian traditions, 3 Ibid., John 1:14.

3 Paper #5 3 who brings healing and hope for each person during their life and promises eternal salvation in their death. Since the physical manifestation of the Word no longer walks on the earth, the Bible carries the message of the Word to future generations. In the beginning of the twentieth century, a new movement of Fundamentalist Christians began preaching a literal and inerrant interpretation of the Bible, strikingly similar to the Muslim belief of Quranic inerrancy. 4 This movement, while perhaps not explicitly saying the Bible is greater than Jesus, tends to act as if the Bible is the Word of God, rather than a book revealing the actual Word of God. The Bible, while also called the word of God, is not to be read as inerrant, literal truth but as a book telling the story of God s self-revelation in the world coming to completion in Jesus. Though the final and fullest revelation of God, the Word becoming flesh was not the first time God revealed God s self to humanity. Jesus and the earliest Christians were Jewish and used the Jewish scriptures. Eventually, Christianity split into its own religion, but retained the Jewish scriptures, now called the Old Testament. These scriptures remain an integral part of the Christian scriptures in that they give the story of God working in the world prior to Jesus. The Old Testament is now reinterpreted through the lens of the New Testament. 5 Jesus himself affirmed that he had authority over the Jewish scriptures. 6 In Matthew 5, Jesus says I have not come to abolish [the law] but to fulfill and continues on with a series of antitheses with the pattern you have heard that it was said, but I say to you. 7 Several generations after Jesus, the New Testament became the authoritative text for 4 Phipps, William E., Muhammad and Jesus, Renard, John. Islam and Christianity, Peters, F. E. The Children of Abraham, Holy Bible: New Revised Standard Version, Matthew 5:17-48.

4 Paper #5 4 Christians, as it revealed Jesus, the fulfillment of Jewish scriptures. 8 Where inconsistencies and contradictions appear in the Bible, Christians turn to Jesus as the final and authoritative Word of God. Those inconsistencies and contradictions are a crucial part of God s revelation in the Christian tradition. God sends Jesus as self-revelation and trusts the message of this revelation with inspired, though very human, authors. Thus the Bible, and specifically the New Testament, has a variety of styles and perspectives on the message of Jesus. 9 In this way, the Bible acts, not as a list of rules handed down by God, but as a text leading towards Jesus that was written by humans who were inspired by God. This also raises questions, then, of the inerrancy of the Bible. Fundamentalists make the mistake of believing inerrancy to mean literal truth. Instead, the inerrancy of the Bible lies in the eternal Word of God, but exegetes and theologians are still left with the vexing problem of how and to what degree human interpreters must apply nonliteralist (or symbolic) hermeneutics in order to explain apparent contradictions in scripture. 10 The difficulty with this view of inerrancy lies in how to find that eternal truth that is separated from human error and cultural impositions. But it is a difficulty Christians must engage with and not push aside if they truly yearn for the truth revealed in the Bible. In summary, for Christians, the Bible uses a variety of perspectives to present God s eternal and inerrant Word that is the fully divine and fully human Jesus. In contrast, Muslims claim that the prophets deliver the Word of God, the eternal and divine message. Unlike the Christian perspective which claims the divine inspiration of a 8 Renard, John. Islam and Christianity, Ibid., Ibid., 47.

5 Paper #5 5 variety of voices and perspectives to proclaim the Word, an Islamic perspective believes God entrusts formal revelation to only one class of human representatives, his prophets. 11 The prophets are the channel through which God delivers self-revelation. Prophets in Islam have carried the Word of God from the beginning with Adam and continuing through Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Ishmael, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, Aaron, David, Solomon, Jonah, Job, Lot, Ezra and including a few other prophets unique to Islam. All of the prophets remain on equal status; none can claim a higher status over any other prophet. This is rooted in the fact that all prophets carried the same divine message. The essential message of all prophets works to bring people from darkness into light, a message that sounds similar to the message of Jesus. God needed to keep revealing the message to each of these prophets because the people refused to listen or change their ways. 12 In Islamic tradition, the early characters familiar to Judaism and Christianity served as prophets of God, delivering the eternal Word to the people but that Word was continually rejected by the people. In Islam, Jesus is another prophet in this long line of prophets bringing the rejected Word of God. Muslims affirm the virgin birth of Jesus, but see this as a sign of Mary and Jesus s prophet-hood rather than as a sign of Jesus divinity. 13 God s direct involvement in the conception of Jesus is an example of God s ability to create simply with the spoken word, Be. 14 The Quran uses the word ayah, meaning divine sign, to speak of the virgin birth. Interestingly, ayah could be interpreted as Word of God but refers to the message of Jesus as 11 Ibid., Ibid., Cragg, Kenneth. Jesus and the Muslim, Ayoub, Mahmoud. A Muslim View of Christianity, 12.

6 Paper #5 6 the Word, rather than Jesus himself. 15 The idea that Jesus could be divine is completely outside of Muslim theology, which we will return to later. Jesus, as a prophet, still appears as an important figure in the Quran. The miracles he performs in the Quran all bring healing or life. The sum of Jesus s message in the Quran is a message of salvation, defined as healing and bringing life to those in darkness. 16 Along with his message, Jesus acted as a faithful example for Muslims of complete surrender to God s will. The love and peace he offered to the poor and afflicted and the harsh word he offered the rich and haughty show the actions of someone completely surrendered to God in Islam. 17 Finally, the Quran asserts that Jesus did not die; he was taken up into heaven and lives with God. He will return at the end of time to bring his mission of healing to completion by defeating the anti-christ. 18 The original message of Jesus, according to Muslim thought, was later obscured by early church leaders who misinterpreted Jesus s sonship as meaning he was divine rather than a man who received high honor. 19 Since the original message was again rejected, God needed to send another messenger to proclaim the true Word of God. According to Islamic interpretation, Jesus foretells the coming of Muhammad. While Christians often interpret these sayings of Jesus such as John 14:16 where Jesus promises God will send an advocate as speaking of the coming of the Holy Spirit, Muslims see them as the coming of Muhammad Ibid., Ibid., Ibid., Ibid., Ibid., Renard, John. Islam and Christianity, 37.

7 Paper #5 7 So God sent Muhammad as a prophet and gave him the message of the Quran, the final and universal message for all people. While in the Christian tradition the New Testament fulfills the Jewish scriptures, in Islamic tradition, the message to Muhammad completely replaces any previous revelation. The Quran corrects and replaces entirely previous but corrupted revelations. 21 Since Christian and Jewish revelation is seen as contaminated, they are irrelevant to Islam; all the relevant and true parts of Jewish and Christian scriptures are incorporated into the Quran. Therefore, the Quran is completely sufficient in itself. Muhammad, like the other prophets, is the channel through which God delivered the Quran. Muhammad is unique in that he gave the final and complete revelation of God and is the sole person equipped with interpreting the Quran. His sayings and interpretations of the Quran are collected as the Hadith. 22 Some see the prophets, including Muhammad, as merely a mouthpiece for God s Word, as merely a vessel, their humanity having no influence on the message at all. From this comes the concept of a celestial imparting of syntax, vocabulary and word sequence, so that the prophetic speech verbally iterates the divine speech. 23 Not only is the message of the Quran divinely inspired, but the exact words and phrasing are divinely given to Muhammad. Others would say that Muhammad was not only [the Quran s] transmitter but also the embodiment of its teachings meaning that Muhammad, as a person, was relevant to the Word he delivered. 24 Either way, the eternal message of the Quran descended to earth through the Prophet Muhammad. Given the divinity of the Quran, 21 Ibid., Peters, F. E. The Children of Abraham, Cragg, Kenneth. Muhammad and the Christian, Phipps, William E. Muhammad and Jesus, 82.

8 Paper #5 8 Muslims ascribe literal interpretations to the Word of God. 25 So when hateful Christian pastors burn the Quran, they are defacing, not only a book, but the literal and divine Word of God. Thus far, we have looked at characteristics of the Quran, but have not looked at the actual message, the Word of God itself. The Quran, as the literal Word of God, purely consists of God talking to humanity. 26 The reality of God is a given assumption and is the central fact of the Quran and the central emphasis within it is the reality of will, rather than of nature. 27 The goal of the Quran is to reveal the will of God telling man how to act, not to reveal the nature of God. It can be symbolized in metaphor to a play: Creation is the stage, and history is the drama with revelation as the direction. The authority and the authorship are God s, and man s is to do his allotted part. 28 The language used with God in the Quran does not seek to define the nature of God, but rather to describe the actions of God. To illustrate, instead of saying God is merciful, is the only god, is the king, is holy, is peace, the Quran says He the merciful, the mercy giving. He God whom no god but He, the king, the holy, the peace. 29 In avoiding to be verb structure, the Quran avoids ascribing any description to God, only to God s actions. Because of this, God retains an untrammeled freedom over against any sort of moral or spiritual necessity. Man may hope for His mercy but cannot have it ensured to him. God may relate as loving ; He may not be said to be 25 Cragg, Kenneth. Muhammad and the Christian, Ibid., Ibid., Ibid., Ibid., 103.

9 Paper #5 9 love. 30 God is not bound by descriptions of human words and has freedom in the sovereignty ascribed to God. In God s sovereignty, the only response from God s creation is in submission. These are the foundations of the relationship between the divine and the human: God s sovereignty and humanity s submission. 31 In this relationship, idolatry is the worst sin for humanity. 32 When an idol takes the place of God, God is no longer sovereign and the human submits to something other than God. In idolatry, both foundational aspects of the human-divine relationship are broken. In this relationship, God gave humanity authority to rule over creation. 33 In humanity s interaction with creation, they may constantly see divine signs which evoke both attentiveness and gratitude. 34 As humanity follows God s will of their work in creation, they may see the beauty of God and are called into acts of worship. In summary, for Muslims, the Word of God is the eternal and literal words of God, revealed to humanity through the prophets and most fully as the Quran revealed through Muhammad. So far, these just seem like heady, theological ideas that do not really matter much in the daily living of the Christian or the Muslim. However, the way the two religions define the Word of God shapes the way they relate to God. While the Word of God in each religion share some interesting characteristics, such as their eternal nature, their finality and their inerrancy, the major differences have led the two religions down very different paths in how they relate to God. 30 Ibid., Ibid., Ibid., Ibid., Ibid., 107.

10 Paper #5 10 In my initial notes, I was surprised by how much the Quranic Jesus reminded me of the Jesus I was familiar with, and I wrote, Muslim and Christian beliefs about Jesus are really not that different, except that pesky issue of Jesus s divinity why is that so important? As I continued my research, I realized that the pesky issue of whether Jesus was human or divine or both is crucial to an understanding of God. For Christians, Jesus is the paradoxical blend of divine and humanity, eternity and historicity in the one person. 35 In this decisive action of God coming down to earth to enter into the human experience, we see the nature of a loving God offering grace and a relationship rooted in faith. In Jesus, the nature of God is emphasized, rather than the will of God which is emphasized in the Quran. 36 God s nature is one of love, indeed love is often seen as the central characteristic of God. God is love. 37 While Christians certainly speak of God s mercy, the grace of God is more often emphasized. In Christ dying on the cross, God once and for all defeated the powers of sin and death. In this act, God gave humanity the greatest, most undeserved and freeing gift of grace. 38 Through God s grace, humanity does not need to keep trying to please God with their actions, but seeks a relationship with God through faith. 39 In this search for relationship, Christians are free, perhaps even encouraged, to search the scriptures, to look for Jesus, to wrestle with the contradictions and inconsistencies in the Bible and ultimately to struggle with doubt and uncertainty. We see Biblical writers engaging in this relationship such as in the Psalms where the writer speaks to God, sometimes in praise and sometimes in the anguish of 35 Renard, John. Islam and Christianity, Cragg, Kenneth. Muhammad and the Christian, Volf, Miroslav. Allah: A Christian Response, Cragg, Kenneth. "Being Christian and Being Muslim, Peters, F. E. The Children of Abraham, 171.

11 Paper #5 11 lament. 40 Anne Lamott, a Christian doubter, famously says The opposite of faith is not doubt, it s certainty. 41 After this searching, the Christian determines they want to continue seeking relationship with God, not because they are certain it is true, but because of their faith. In Islam, God s divine Word breaks into the world, not in the form of a person, but in the form of human language. An Islamic reading of John s opening lines would say And the Word became Book and entered our history, to be shaped by it and to shape it. 42 In God s gift of sending the Quran, we see the will of God, sovereign and merciful. As stated above, the Quran emphasizes the divine will of God for the people to follow. The nature of God is firmly established as fully transcendent and sovereign; so established that God s transcendence is all we can know of the nature of God. 43 This emphasis on the transcendence of God does not prohibit God s involvement in human activity completely, since God frequently speaks to humanity through the prophets. Through this act, God shows Mercy to all people by telling them the will of God. 44 In response, this divine will needs people to follow. Rather than emphasizing faith, the Quran emphasizes fidelity to God s will, asking for a greater commitment to a list of behaviors and rituals to follow, which bring the Muslim more in line with God s will. 45 To the Christian, this may sound demanding and inferiorizing of man. 46 On the contrary, a freedom can be found in following God s will and Christians should be the first to recognize the freedom that comes when one obeys the 40 Cragg, Kenneth. Muhammad and the Christian, "A Quote by Anne Lamott." Goodreads. Accessed December 08, Ayoub, Mahmoud. A Muslim View of Christianity, Cragg, Kenneth. Muhammad and the Christian, Cragg, Kenneth. "Being Christian and Being Muslim, Peters, F. E. The Children of Abraham, Cragg, Kenneth. Muhammad and the Christian, 104.

12 Paper #5 12 will of God. Rather than feeling like the will of God hijacks the will of the person, Muslims choose to submit to this divine will, they choose to islam and in doing so, they find freedom in God s mercy. 47 In Islam and in Christianity, the transcendent God crosses the gap between God and humanity to reveal Godself, also calling for a response from the follower. The nature of this revelation and the response it calls for has led to generations of conflict between followers of Christianity and Islam. Although perhaps it is just an illusion from bias in popular media, it seems that the violence today is worse than ever before as the gap between the two religions widens. It seems that on one side, we hear of the extremist Muslims who bomb innocent people in Paris or who walk into a community center shooting fellow employees. Then we go all the way to the other extreme and we hear political leaders who claim ties to the Christian church spewing hateful anti-muslim rhetoric, and a president of large Christian university encouraging his students to arm themselves against Muslim attackers. Granted, these voices, though the loudest in the media, are in reality a minority and most likely ascribe to a more legalistic version of their religion than we have tried to lay out here. However, in these times of hate and division, those between these two extremes can break through the walls our society tries to build and can come to an understanding and mutual encouragement of the other, without compromising the integrity of their faith. This must start with the acknowledgment that each religion, while indeed having some impactful and deep truths, may also be completely wrong about certain subjects. In the beginning, we started with how our knowledge of God is limited to God s self-revelation. Taking this one step further then, it is impossible to know the fullness of God and thus 47 Ibid., 104.

13 Paper #5 13 impossible to claim, for certain, that one religion has the fullest revelation of God. The revelations of each religion themselves reject any claim of revealing God in full. While fully affirming their finality, both scriptures also hint at their own inability to contain the whole of God s communication. 48 Furthermore, while each religion tries to mitigate the human influence on their revelation, it would be nearly impossible for the revelation to remain completely untouched. For Muslims, the words of the Quran were passed down orally and were not written down until the reign of Uthman, the third caliph. To a certain extent, the purest form of the Quran existed only during Muhammad s lifetime. 49 For Christians, the fingerprints of our humanity are an integral part of the Biblical narrative. While through exegesis we can determine the best interpretation of the text, we cannot claim any one thing as the only interpretation. Thus, in dialogue, both religions are free to affirm the convictions of their religion while also being open to hearing the truth in the others as well as listening for guidance from their sister religion. In dialogue between the two religions, they can warn the other against falling into an extreme. Orthodoxy and orthopraxy are inextricably linked. Our actions are always motivated by beliefs and our beliefs come to be shaped from our actions. While Islam emphasizes orthopraxy and the ritual responding to God s divine will, Christianity emphasizes orthodoxy and the importance of believing rightly. The two extremes of each religion portrayed in our media today illustrate the dangers of falling into either extreme of overemphasizing action or overemphasizing belief. Islam calls Christians to remember that God s will demands obedience. Christianity calls Muslims to remember that in their action, they must also remember their faith in God and not lose sight of that. 48 Renard, John. Islam and Christianity, Ayoub, Mahmoud. A Muslim View of Christianity, 11.

14 Paper #5 14 Islam also calls Christianity to remember the sovereignty of God. Even as Christians find truth in revelation concerning the nature of God, Islam asserts the unknowability of God. Christians must remember that we never know God fully and should never claim to know God fully. To a certain extent, there is a beautiful humility in the Muslim admitting that they cannot know the nature of God while still trusting in God s mercy for them. On the other hand, Christians can offer a broader view of God s love to Muslims. If Islam ever becomes a list of rules and actions to follow, Christians can offer the love of God that motivates the obedience to the rituals. Finally, continued dialogue over the divinity of Jesus can sharpen each view about Jesus. The Quran engages the mystery of Jesus and challenges us to affirm, or at least not lose sight of, the humanity of Christ. 50 By studying the Jesus of the Quran, Christians can engage with questions about Jesus and discover his fully human nature, taking into account Jesus s actions and teachings, along with his fully divine nature, his salvific action on the cross. While Muslims may not be able to accept the divinity of Christ without compromising the tenants of their own religion, Christians call Muslims to consider the power in the suffering love of Christ, most fully revealed in the image of Jesus on the cross. The Christian gospel sees almightiness precisely where Islam excludes it. 51 In the Quran, we cannot find the vulnerability of God coming down to the earth, but it is the gift the Christian offers. I am making no claim that these interfaith dialogues would solve all conflict between the two religions. But I offer the suggestion that increased, and even public, interfaith dialogue among the followers of each religion would lead to deeper understanding of the 50 Ayoub, Mahmoud. A Muslim View of Christianity, Cragg, Kenneth. "Being Christian and Being Muslim,

15 Paper #5 15 other religion and a relationship of mutual trust. Perhaps even though these two major religions began with different revelations of God leading to different theology of God, this does not necessarily mean there must be conflict over truth. Instead, these two religions can stand united in our faith. 52 United by a mutual search for truth in the revelation from God and continually calling each other to lead stronger lives of faith. 52 Ayoub, Mahmoud. A Muslim View of Christianity, 15.

16 Paper #5 16 Bibliography Ayoub, Mahmoud. A Muslim View of Christianity: Essays on Dialogue. Edited by Irfan A. Omar. Maryknoll: Orbis Books, Cragg, Kenneth. "Being Christian and Being Muslim: A Personal Debate." Religion 10, no. 2 (1980): doi: / x(80) "Islam and Incarnation." In Truth & Dialogue in World Religions: Conflicting Truth- Claims, Philadelphia: Westminster Press, Jesus and the Muslim: An Exploration. London: George Allen & Unwin, Muhammad and the Christian: A Question of Response. London: Darton, Longman, and Todd, Holy Bible: New Revised Standard Version with the Apocrypha. New York: Harper Bibles, Peters, F. E. The Children of Abraham: Judaism, Christianity, Islam. Princeton: Princeton University Press, Phipps, William E. Muhammad and Jesus: A Comparison of the Prophets and Their Teachings. New York: Continuum, Renard, John. Islam and Christianity: Theological Themes in Comparative Perspective. Berkeley: University of California Press, Volf, Miroslav. Allah: A Christian Response. New York: HarperOne, 2011.