The Same God 8

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.

In chp 8 of his book, Volf asks if God is love in both religions. Is the God of Islam a God who is love? Is the God of the Bible a God who is love?

For Christians, it is not enough to say God loves; for Christians, God is love. God’s essential attribute is love. Do Muslims believe God is love in this way?

Here Volf distinguishes the theologians in Islam from the spiritual masters, and he appeals to the Sufi masters for whom God is love — that is, that love is an essential attribute of love. He appeals to Reza Shah-Kazemi, who knows that some didn’t see love as essential to God.

Volf observes that with a non-Trinitarian God, Islam sees God’s love as self-love, and God’s own self-love overflows into love for his creation. Christianity’s God is about other-love within the Trinity.

The difference, then, between Christians and Muslims is about what kind of love is ultimate: self-love or other-love. Volf knows the distinction and knows the implications: it has to do with God’s creation of the world. Creation of the world spills not from self-love but from other-love within the Trinity.

There is a debate between Christians and Muslims over whom God loves. The Christian view is that God loves even the ungodly, but that God distinguishes between loving sinners but not their sin. Among Muslims there are strong traditions that affirm that God loves the obedient, etc., but not the sinners. God loves some but doesn’t love others. On p. 175 Volf has a helpful chart. (I can’t produce it here.)

For some this indicates conditionality in God’s love in Islam, but Volf observes that there is conditionality in God’s love in the Bible (eg. Exod 20:6; John 15:9-10). Volf resolves the tension in this: “when people do God’s will, God loves the doer and the deed; when people fail to do God’s will, God loves the doer but not the deed” (177).

What about love of enemy, a distinct Christian teaching of Jesus? Clearly, Jesus teaches this, even if many Christians have not practiced this. But Islam, while teaching God as Merciful and that such is an option for Muslims, is not as strong on this one. But he finds a strong spiritual tradition in Islam that values even love of enemies.

There are differences between Islam and Christianity. But God loves creatures; God is just; and justice is an aspect of God’s love for creatures; humans are called to love neighbors.

This sets the stage for how Christians and Muslims can work together. Check back next Tuesday.