I have a topic to share here..nothing to do with the Friday Sermon today. This is taken in toto from a book called the Religious Experience of Mankind written by one Professor named N. Smart. The book was writen in 1970 (where we were in 1970). I found this book in a hostel in Kyoto. The rule in a Youth International Hostelling is..you can pick up a book in exchange for a book to be deposited there. He touched on the subject of Jesus as a prophet of Islam, he wrote: 1. The unity of God led Muhamad to preach abt Jesus in a way that was not in accord with orthodox Christian belief. No Muslim could hold that Jesus was divine, since this would be setting up someone else alongside Allah. Thus Gods Fatherhood was denied in the Quran. Jesus was described as a prophet, and as having been conceived in the womb of a virgin. He would reappear beofre the Final Judgement. He did not die on the cross, but some kind of apearance was substituted for him during the crucifixion and was raised up to heaven. ( the Quranic text is ambiguous- the foregoing is, however, a common belief among Muslims). Muhamads teaching reflects belief in the Virgin Mary, in Jesus Second Coming (though not as a Judge-the Judge was Allah), and in his ascension to heaven. Further according to the Quran, Muhamad believed that Jesus was strengthned by the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit was mentioned several times, but was not thought of as a seperate Person in the Godhead. 2. We can see from this that the picture of what Muhamad rejected in Christian belief is confused. Strictly, he did not deny the doctrine of the Trinity, but rather the notion that Jesus was son of God. A contributory factor was the fact that the Arabs understanding of Gods being Father was literal; it implied physical generation. This was blasphemous if ascribed to God. In this case Muhamad was denying something that the orthodox Christian had no wish to affirm .So the incompatibility was minimal. But the denial that Jesus suffered physically on the cross takes away the essence of Christian belief in Jesuss saving work. To Muhamadd mind it was paradoxical for Allah to allow a prophet to end his days in such ignomininous circumstances. Islam was a religion that prized success as a criterion of Allahs favour-not simple worldly success, but the holy success which crowned so signally, despite early tribulations, the life of Muhamad himself. Since the Muslims have taken the Quran to be an eternal and infallible document, there is no concession on the historical data of Jesuss life. Despite the wide area of agreement between them about Gods nature, despite the early favourable attitude taken up by the Prophet towards the Christians, this tend to create a collision between the Christian and Muslim faith. ...from page 487 and 488. I am not putting any comments now (tho I have a few). This extract is open to discussion
Posted on: Fri, 27 Jun 2014 09:24:43 +0000
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