Do Muslims and Christians Worship the Same God? by Andy Bannister

Author:Andy Bannister [Bannister, Andy]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
ISBN: 9781789742305
Publisher: IVP
Published: 2021-03-17T16:00:00+00:00

Different diagnoses – different doctors?

When we experience a medical problem, the first step towards a cure is obtaining the correct diagnosis. One of my favourite hobbies is hill walking, and a few months ago I was descending a path through some woods below Skiddaw, the fourth-highest mountain in the English Lake District. Carelessly not watching where I was putting my feet, I trod on a tree root, slipped, spun simultaneously on three axes like a demented dervish, and landed heavily on one knee. There was a sickening crunch, a white-hot flash of pain and – after a visit to the doctor the next day – the diagnosis of an extremely bad sprain. It took several weeks of physiotherapy before I could walk without wincing.

The very same month that I bashed my knee, a friend was diagnosed with cancer. What had begun as a minor annoying pain, one he was tempted to dismiss, refused to disappear. After a visit to his doctor and a battery of tests, it turned out that he was facing a life-threatening cancer, and many months of chemotherapy lay ahead before he was finally cured.

Two different conditions; two very different diagnoses; two entirely different treatment regimes. And just as when it comes to our health we want to know whether we are facing a sprain or a tumour, similarly when it comes to the question of what has gone wrong with the world and especially our part in that wrongness, we want the proper diagnosis. Both the Bible and the Qur’an talk about human sinfulness, but is that problem more like a sore knee (so we need exercise and encouragement), or is it more like cancer (so we need real help and intervention)?

What has gone wrong with the world? The Bible’s diagnosis is that our rebellion and unfaithfulness have led to separation from God and the corruption and twisting of our very nature. And while God’s laws and commandments can highlight our predicament, they cannot solve the problem.

By contrast, the Qur’an’s diagnosis is not nearly so serious. Human beings were created weak, fallible and forgetful – and those frailties led to us being removed from paradise. All we need is to follow the right instructions, the right guidance, and we can find our way back.

But what does all of this say about God? Do these two quite different diagnoses shed any light on the question of whether Allah and Yahweh are in any sense the same? Absolutely they do, for these two very different understandings of what has gone wrong with the world flow out of the nature and character of God.

As we saw in chapter 4, Yahweh is a god who is relational, knowable and loving – a god who binds himself in covenant commitment to humanity, a god who created us for relationship and who invites us to call him ‘Father’. But Yahweh is also a god who is holy, utterly morally pure, and unable even to tolerate sin in his presence. Our sinfulness has

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