The Same God 6

Miroslav Volf, Professor at Yale, on the dedication page of his new book — Allah: A Christian Response, says this:

To my father, a Pentecostal minister who admired Muslims, and taught me as a boy that they worship the same God as we do.

Volf’s quest is to build a theological basis for peaceful co-existence and peaceful cooperation among Muslims and Christians, and his quest is to contend that the God of the Christians and the God of the Muslims is the “same” God.

This means the Trinity is in the way. Muslims (and Jews) see the Christian belief in the Trinity as a massive, fatal compromise of monotheism. So their question is this: “Is the claim that God is the Holy One compatible with the claim that God is the Holy Trinity?”

I’m hoping some of you who know Islam well can help us here: Is the issue Muslims have with Christian beliefs in the Trinity the Incarnation as much as the oneness of God? How much does this belief in Incarnation shape our understanding of God so that we can answer the question of whether or not we have the same God?

Volf’s chp argues that if one properly understands the Christian doctrine of the oneness of the Trinity, one finds compatibility. I will have one criticism in this discussion of Volf’s but let’s get his ideas on the table first.

First, I will quote one Qu’ran text to make it clear how important this discussion is: “They do blaspheme who say: God is one of three in a Trinity: for there is no god except One God. If they desist not from their word (of blasphemy), verily a grievous penalty will befall the blasphemers among them” (Al Ma’idah 5:73).

Second, Volf presses hard — in nuanced and complex intricacies — to show that what Christians believe about the oneness of the Trinity is consistent with what Muslims believe about oneness. Christians may say things that betray ignorance but classical discussions reveal a oneness that is compatible with the Muslim claim about God. Thus “begotten” is about an “eternal generation” that distinguishes itself from “creation.” Christians don’t say “Christ is God” but that “God is Christ.” I think he presses this one too much, and leads to my major criticism in this chp. As I understand the Muslim texts it works like this: In saying God is Christ the Muslims concern is not so much the formula of direction [Volf allows Christ is God but not God is Christ as the latter is not typically a Christian formula, and I’m not entirely convinced he’s right on that but that’s not the point] but the rational impossibility of God being a human. In other words, and I may be wrong, but it seems to me that Muslims see incarnation as denial of the oneness because God cannot be human flesh. In other words, it’s not the direction of Christ is God so much as, in the words of Volf, “because then God would be a creature” (136).

Third, he shows that Christians do not divide the divine essence and “person” is not like human person and the unity of the persons is perichoretic — mutual indwelling of one another all the time so that what one does the other does. God in the Trinity is undivided and inseparable.

I agree with Volf on the unity of God in the Trinity, but it seems the Incarnation is the stumbling block as much as the problem of how to relate the three persons.

And Volf clearly emphasizes the centrality and identity-forming importance of Trinity.