Face to Faith: Michael Nazir-Ali | World news | The Guardian 10/15/19, 16)18

The Cross and the Crescent

Michael
Do Muslims Nazir,Ali
and Christians believe in the same God? A recent remark by President Bush to that

T
effect
Fri 9 Jan caused
2004 21.11aEST
furore in some American churches. But why?
he Bible teaches that all human beings have some knowledge of God - from nature
and their consciences - though it also reminds us of the "falleness" of human nature,
the selfish reluctance to listen to the divine.

However, while the fall may obscure our awareness of God, it does not destroy that
awareness, and the eternal word of God (revealed fully in Jesus) illumines everyone. There is
enough remaining awareness of the divine will for us to seek a moral ordering of society, living
according to a discernment of God's purpose and aspiring to the fulfilment of our deepest
spiritual longings.

How does this relate to the Islamic belief about God? For some, Islamic belief is so far removed
from the God revealed in the Bible, and in Jesus Christ, that no common language is possible.
Others, recognising that Christianity and Islam have different ways of understanding and
speaking about God, still allow for a certain amount of continuity and similarity.

In the course of dialogue, for example, it emerges that each party can affirm some of the
language used about God by the other, though not all. There is irreducible difference.

The usual Muslim term for God, Allah, is pre-Islamic and related to both Jewish and Christian
terms widely in use at the time. It is true that the Prophet Mohammed gave it a particular
significance in his preaching of monotheism, but the term is still the ordinary word for God
used by many Arab Christians.

There is also social, as well as etymological, significance. In most parts of the Muslim world,
language about God is common currency, used in greeting and thanking people, in praying for
their welfare and so on. If Christians and Muslims were not referring to the same supreme
being, daily conversation, let alone theological dialogue, would become impossible.

As far as I can tell, the Koran claims continuity with the Judaeo-Christian tradition, and with
the revelation given to the Hebrew prophets and to Jesus. If dialogue is even to begin, this
claim must be taken at face value; the dialogue itself will reveal the extent of similarities and
differences.

Belief in the divine unity, a purposive creation, the notion of destiny, and of time moving to

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Face to Faith: Michael Nazir-Ali | World news | The Guardian 10/15/19, 16)18

fulfilment, are just some of the important commonalties among Jews, Christians and Muslims.
All three believe, moreover, that God sends his messengers to communicate his will, and that
human destiny is affected by the response to such a disclosure. It is only Christians who believe
that God also comes in the person of Jesus, thereby overcoming the distance between the
divine and human.

Again, while Islam's emphasis is on the guidance and correction of human beings, that of
Christianity is on atonement and reconciliation. This is because the latter understands the
human predicament as an endemic wilfulness, both personal and social, which separates us
from God.

Along with Judaism, both Islam and Christianity teach that human fulfilment is to be found not
simply in a spiritual survival after death but in that renewal of the whole person that is called
resurrection. In all three faiths, this belief is related to a positive evaluation of the world, and to
God's purpose of renewal for it.

For Christians, belief in the general resurrection springs from their belief that God brought
Jesus back from the dead to a new kind of life. In Islam, it arises from an observation of the
natural world and how God renews creation from season to season and year to year.

These differences are not just of marginal importance, but they can be explored if we
acknowledge that we hold some things in common. President Bush was right to say Christians
and Muslims are referring to the same supreme being, however different their understanding.
This is not, though, the end of the story.

· The Rt Rev Michael Nazir-Ali is Bishop of Rochester

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