A Common Word: Muslims and Christians on Loving God and Neighbor by Volf Miroslav

Author:Volf, Miroslav [Volf, Miroslav]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Eerdmans Publishing Co - A
Published: 2009-12-29T16:00:00+00:00

Differences and Stumbling Blocks

Properly understood, this text sums up the whole of the Christian faith. As it turns out, it also names a number of Christian convictions on which there are major differences between Christians and Muslims. Some may suggest that it is unwise to discuss in an interfaith setting a text which mentions these controversial Christian convictions in such a blunt way. But failing to discuss them will not make them disappear from the Scriptures or from the hearts of its Christian readers. Sweeping the distinctiveness of our respective faiths under the rug is mostly a form of (unintentional) falsehood and (well-meaning) dissimulation. Nothing good can come of it. Instead, motivated by care for those of other faiths as well as for the common good, we should bring those differences (as well as similarities) into the open, work to understand them accurately, present them without unnecessary stumbling blocks, and learn from each other.

Admittedly, the very designation of Jesus Christ as “the Son” and the description of God as sending “his only Son” is a major stumbling block to Muslims. The Qur’ān considers anyone who calls Jesus the “offspring of God” to resemble kāfirs (infidels) from the past (Surat al-Tawba 9:30). Most Muslims hear in the phrase “Son of God” a blasphemous claim that Jesus Christ was the offspring of a carnal union between God and a woman and that he is therefore an “associate” of God.

From the Christian point of view, this is a major misunderstanding — but unfortunately one whose force many Muslims feel at a psychologically deep level. Christians unambiguously and emphatically reject any notion that Jesus Christ, let alone the eternal Son, is the offspring of a carnal union between God and a creature, and they reject equally the notion that the eternal Son is God’s “associate.” In the Scriptures, “the Son” (as in “the Son of God”) is a metaphor for the particular closeness of Jesus Christ, the incarnate Word, to God and his special status as revealer of God (see Matthew 11:25-27; John 14:9). In later tradition, “the Son” (as in “God, the Son”) is again a metaphor expressing the conviction that the Word, which was with God from eternity (John 1:1), is not some lesser divinity associated with God but is of the same “substance” with God and therefore belongs to the very being of the one and unique God. The irony of this particular stumbling block is that Christians not only don’t mean by “Son of God” what most Muslims fear they do mean, but that Christians actually use the phrase to oppose what most Muslims fear it expresses!

The comments on 1 John 4:7-12 that follow will be robustly theological rather than strictly exegetical; they are informed by an overarching reading of the Scripture as a whole, as well as by a set of Christian convictions developed by great Christian teachers on the basis of such an overarching reading of the Scripture. They are less in line with approaches of modern exegetes

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