Talk About Allah

Praise be to Allah, the Cherisher and Sustainer of the worlds;

Most Gracious, Most Merciful;
Master of the Day of Judgment.
Thee do we worship, and Thine aid we seek.
Show us the straight way,
The way of those on whom Thou hast bestowed Thy Grace,
those whose portion is not wrath, and who go not astray.




This is the beautiful prayer that is probably the most recited sacred text, with the Lord's Prayer a second.  This prayer could easily be a Christian or Jewish prayer, having the same theology as either of the other two main monotheistic religions. 


God is shown to be loving, merciful and generous.  He is the Creator of the Universe. God is going to judge the earth, depending on people's lifestyles, just the same as the New Testament.  But most of all, God is the one who answers prayer, and shows his utmost care by answering prayers.


Let's deal with one issue right away: the name "Allah" for God.   It has been said that it was the name of a moon god which was adopted by Muhammad later on.  This is certainly not the case.  


Allah has two roots: al, which means "the" and ilah, which is "God".  Ilah is from the same root that Elohim in Hebrew is-- that is the Hebrew term "God". 


In fact, we need to remember just how close Arabic and Hebrew is.  For instance the basic greeting "peace" in Hebrew is Shalom, and in Arabic it is "Salaam"-- that's pretty close.   So that fact that they share the same name for God shouldn't be surprising. 


Could the name for God have pagan origins?  Well, the word Elohim certainly had pagan uses.  Actually, the word is plural, so in most contexts it would be translated "gods".  (It is translated as singular because in most places in the Hebrew Bible Elohim is matched with a singular verb, which means Elohim, which has a plural ending, is meant to be understood as singular.  The plural form is retained in order to show God's greatness over other gods.)  The word for God in the New Testament is Theos, which certainly had a pagan origin.  A strong possibility for the root of the English word "God" is a general term for an idol. 


What am I getting at?  The root of a word doesn't make its meaning.  Meaning of a word is determined by context.  In the context of the Quran, even just the first Sura, Allah is the Creator, the Judge, merciful and powerful.  Yes, we are talking about the same God as the Bible here.  No one else fits the bill.

A Nod To Muhammad

I haven't done regular posts for a while here and thought I should.  I'll keep posting about the five points of Calvinism, but I've been considering what text I should work on?  I've been pretty exhausted, and so I don't want to do something difficult and unfamiliar.  I will eventually be doing M. Alder's volume How To Think About God, but I thought I'd do something easier (for me) for now: The Quran.

Many people might ask why I am bothering doing the Quran.  By Christians this book is generally considered, at best, a heretical text.  And it is ultimately sacred to a billion people on the planet.  Most people in my position wouldn't touch it.

Here's some reasons why I want to comment on the Quran:
1. I've read it a few times already, including a commentary and I've done some Quran studies.  It's pretty familiar to me already, so it's easy.
2. It is easily accessible.  I'm going to be using Yusuf Ali's translation primarily, which you can find online at this location. 
3. The Quran is much misunderstood and maligned both by those who haven't read it and by some who have.  It is good to read it in light of how it was originally intended.
4. I'd like to comment some on Christian assumptions about Islam, if it applies to the Quran.

Here's some introductory notes before we get started:

The Quran is not the same as Islam
The Quran is where Islam began, and it the source of it's most important traditions, but Islam is not limited to it's most holy book.  We will be discussing the book, not Islam as a whole.  Islam, like all world religions, can't be distilled in a single point of view or theological summary.  It is a variety of viewpoints and many interpretations of many texts.   It is best not to judge the whole religion based on one text or one point of view. To talk about the Quran is to focus on one slice of Islam, a much bigger pie.

The Quran is Organized Differently
The Quran is divided into Suras, not chapters or books.  The Suras aren't organized chronologically, but roughly by size.  For the novice, reading the Quran from front to back is misleading, because there is no sense of development.  In fact, most of the longer Suras, found in the front of the Quran, are dated later than most of the others.  And many of the shorter Suras, at the back of the Quran, are dated early.  Thus, my recommendation, if you don't have a list of the chronological arrangement of the Quran, and if you are reading it for the first time is to read the Suras from back to front.  This way you have a better sense of the development.  In this read of the Quran, I won't follow a strictly chronological order, nor will I be commenting on all the Suras, but I will be referring to this chronological list.

The Real Quran is in Arabic
Every Muslim and every Quranic scholar will tell you that the Quran should really be read in the original language.  To hear the Quran recited in Arabic, even a little bit, you can understand why.   (Get a taste of it here)  The poetry and the language is a part of the experience of the Quran.  To read the Quran in English is to grasp a meaning of the Quran, but not to experience it fully.  Of course, here we will have to settle for the English.  I don't know Arabic and I doubt many (or any) of the readers of the blog will know Arabic.

The Historical Context is Important
Each Sura is a poem which was given to Muhammad on a particular occasion.  Each Sura is God speaking to Muhammad about that occasion.  Thus, to understand a number of Suras, we have to know the occasion to which the Sura is speaking.  This is where we use Quranic commentaries.  I have found Yusuf Ali's commentary most helpful in providing a context for each Sura.

I am NOT a Quranic Scholar
Just like the other texts I discuss in this blog, I am not necessarily an expert on the subject.  I am just expressing my opinion from my particular theological viewpoint.  I will agree with some parts of the Quran and I will disagree with others, just like any other theological text.  If I were Muslim, that would be unacceptable, but I am a Jesus-centrist and so my viewpoints come from that perspective.  I might get my understanding of the Quran wrong, just like I might any other text, especially ancient.  Just blame my ignorance, and please correct me.

Limited Understanding

We move from one of the most biblically substantiated points of Calvinism to the least.

Limited atonement is the idea that salvation is not for all people, but only for those whom God has chosen.  This makes sense with the logic of Cavinism.  If all salvation is based on God's sovereignty,  and it is effected by God's choice, then it is only logical that not all have the opportunity of salvation, but only those who are chosen originally.

But this idea is opposed by the biblical text.  The second most quoted Bible passage in the world (the Lord' Prayer is first) clearly teach this: "For God so loved THE WORLD that He gave his only begotten Son that WHOSOEVER believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life." (John 3:16, in case you didn't know).

Titus 2:11 says that God's grace and salvation is for all humanity.

Romans 5:18 says that all men are condemned, but that all men could be justified.

There are many passages like these, which confirm that while all humanity will not be saved, yet all humanity at least has the opportunity for salvation.  Jesus didn't die for a few select people, but for all humanity.  This is how Jesus is a new Adam, creating a doorway for all humanity to participate in a new life.

So how could formal Calvinism get something so wrong?  Especially because Calvin was so biblically oriented?  Because the logic of theology is so easy to be misled.

God is famously quoted as saying, "My ways are not your ways, nor are my thoughts your thoughts."  This doesn't mean that God's plans for humanity can't be tracked or considered by human beings.  Rather, it means that we have to rely carefully on God in order to understand God's thoughts.  The problem with theology comes when we are considering our own thoughts about God instead of God's thoughts about His plans.

Frankly, we know nothing about God.  We don't know God's plans.  We don't know how God works.  God's work is logical and it makes sense, but we have to allow God to tell us how He works and stop trying to figure it out ourselves.

Sure, it's fun to try to understand God's thoughts.  Cool speculation is fine.  But the reality of God is only to be supported by the word of God only.  The rest of it is in the realm of fiction.  The Real of reality is based only on what God says, not on our speculations.

God save us from normalizing our speculations.

The Best Democracy: Unconditional Election

When I was in Bible school there was a fellow student of mine who was a serious Calvinist, a five-point dogmatician.  One day he went out to pass out some tracts, got into a conversation with an unbeliever who rejected his ideas of Christianity, and possibly his attitude.  He came back, dismissing the whole argument by saying, "It doesn't matter.  He simply wasn't chosen."  I neglected to point out my friend's arrogance, putting his attempt of evangelism in the place of God's choice.

Of the five points of Calvinism, I think that this is the one that is most "secure" biblically.  This is the basic idea that every individual who is "saved" is chosen from before the foundations of the world, and this by the sovereign choice of God, without any act of a person being taken into account in that choosing.

Here are some passages about God's choice:

We should always give thanks to God for you, brethren beloved by the Lord, because God has chosen you from the beginning for salvation through sanctification by the Spirit and faith in the truth. (2Thessalonians 2:13)


Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, to those who reside as aliens, scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, who are chosen  according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, by the sanctifying work of the Spirit, that you may obey Jesus Christ and be sprinkled with His blood.
 (1Peter 1:1-2)

He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before Him. (Ephesians 1:4)

There are a number besides, but we get the idea.

Then there are a couple passages about how God's choice doesn't have anything to do with our actions:


 For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, that no one should boast.  For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.
 (Ephesians 2:8-10)


There was Rebekah also, when she had conceived twins by one man, our father Isaac; for though the twins were not yet born, and had not done anything good or bad, in order that God's purpose according to His choice might stand, not because of works, but because of Him who calls, it was said to her, "The older will serve the younger." Just as it is written, "Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated."  What shall we say then? There is no injustice with God, is there? May it never be! For He says to Moses, "I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion." So then it does not depend on the man who wills or the man who runs, but on God who has mercy.  For the Scripture says to Pharaoh, "For this very purpose I raised you up, to demonstrate My power in you, and that My name might be proclaimed throughout the whole earth."  So then He has mercy on whom He desires, and He hardens whom He desires.
 (Romans 9:10-18)

So there are a number of passages that speak of God choosing his people.  And we have a couple Pauline passages that seem to indicate that God chooses according to His own standard, and no one can gainsay Him for his choice.

When we add this Calvinist foundation to Total Depravity (spoken of in the previous post), it logically adds to the idea that God's plan of salvation is pretty arbitrary.  Everyone is equally evil and God just picks some folks, by who-knows-what standard.  This doesn't of course mean that God's standard IS arbitrary, but simply that we don't know it.  Strict Calvinists, then, spend their time determining what the indication is that one is saved, rather than spending an overt amount of effort in getting people saved.

However, I have a couple caveats to the Calvinist interpretation of these passages:

First of all, these passages probably do not speak of individuals, but of nations or peoples.  Jesus didn't come to die for me or for you.  He came to die to create the nation of the Kingdom of God.  And it is the plan of salvation, the love of Jesus, and the acceptance of Jesus' people that is determined before the foundation of the world.  We have no indication in Scripture that God spent time before the foundation of the world saying, "Hmmm, Mary will be born in 1999, she's history.  Josh will be born on the same day, yeah, he's in."  Instead, before the foundation of the world God established a plan, which included Jesus and the kingdom of God, but not necessarily specifically each individual who gets in that kingdom.  Look at these passages:

The King will say to those on His right, 'Come, you who are blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. (Matthew 25:34)

Father, I desire that they also, whom You have given Me, be with Me where I am, so that they may see My glory which You have given Me, for You loved Me before the foundation of the world. (John 17:24)

Here we know that the kingdom was prepared for the inheritors of the kingdom from before the foundation of the world.  Also we have indication that the Father loved Jesus before the foundation of the world, but it sounds as if Jesus is asking a favor to allow certain people in.  If they were already chosen, it seems pointless to ask.

When Paul brings up the point of Jacob and Esau, he is not speaking of individuals, but of nations.  This makes sense within Paul's general arguments about the nation of Israel and the nation of Jesus.  Paul is not saying that God is arbitrary, but that God's mercy extends to all and excludes none.  It may look like God is rejecting Israel for not (his point in chapter 9), but it is only to show mercy on them in the long run (his point in chapter 11).

The main problem I have with the use of Calvinism is that it is often used to speak of God's judgment, not God's mercy.  We all want to know who God is excluding.  But that's not really up to us to know, is it?  If God wants to save some Muslims and Buddhists and agnostics and even some Mennonites, that's up to Him.  Jesus makes that same point in the parable of the day-workers (Matthew 20:1-16).  If God wants to be generous and allow in the kingdom some people that we think don't deserve to go in, that's none of our business is it?

If we take the idea of unconditional election to recognize that there will be many people who will be pleasantly surprised to be included (Matt. 25:37ff), then all is good, isn't it?  God's choice truly is a surprise-- but it will more frequently be a surprise at His mercy instead of his judgment.

The 'T' in TULIP: Depravity

John Perry of Stanford University recently said, "Original sin is the most factual contribution of Christianity."  While this may or may not be true, certainly the idea of original sin is a concept that has caught the imagination of most Protestant believers.  The basic idea is that every person is born with evil already in their genetic code.  Some have more serious sins they are bound to do, but all have corruption in their bones.

The idea of total depravity is not just that sin exists in the soul of every person, but that every action that every person does is founded in base motives.  This means that even a good action is done with evil motivation.  In other words, a person who saves an infant from drowning may be doing it simply from the glory he or she might get from doing it and a mother sacrifices for her child because it is her progeny, her future existence on earth.

What the Bible actually says is that every person sins.  It doesn't actually describe how this is so.  It could be completely environmental-- that the fact we are raised in a sinful society that keeps sin going.  It could be because of how we are raised.  It could be that sinning is at first an accident that we find works. Personally, I lean toward the idea that our society connects with genetic factors which encourage us to act in evil ways, even when our thinking is right.  Have you ever seen someone speak all the right words about helping and hope and love but still do things that harm others?  This self-deception has to be learned, I think.

The total depravity concept is that we are born with self-deception.  It is in every person's basic nature.  This also means that no person can tell the truth.  For if we are all self-deceived, how can we possibly tell the truth to another?  How can we even tell any truth from a lie?  

Total depravity seems like an unnecessarily negative viewpoint of human nature.  Sure, all humans are sinful.  We all screw up and we all hurt others on purpose on occasion.  A few of us make a habit of it.  But is the main characteristic of humanity sin and evil?  Isn't it an equal part of humanity that we want to see our motives as good?  Are we such complete failures as a species?  Isn't it possible for us to improve?  It says in Scripture about humanity, "They can do anything they set their hands to" Genesis 6.  I agree that our track record is spotty at best, and that as a group we only can respond in the most Neanderthalian of ways.  But we intend to do good.  We may not know what the good is, but we try.  That's not total depravity.  Total stupidity, maybe.

BTW, The Human Centipede is shown simply because it was the most depraved movie I could think of. 

Calvinism: The Great Antichrist?

Some people see Calvinism as a problem.  Certainly it has led, in the past, to a lot of unbiblical thinking.  Just as people have used Catholicism, Darwinism and even Jesus himself to promote their hateful, bigoted ideas, so they have done with Calvinism. Calvinism isn't about a certain kind of economy, nor is it about plain clothes or stoicism.  Rather it is a certain view of God's sovereignty and the implications of such thought.  It is closely aligned with Augustinian thinking.  Calvin himself was a lawyer who specialized in prosecuting heretics and a biblical scholar. Calvinism may have escaped from his strict biblical grasp, but it closely resembles his thinking. 

The foundation of Calvinism as a theology is the idea that God is under complete control of all that happens in the universe: past, present and future.  There is nothing that happens outside of God's power and direction.  This does not mean that all is in accordance with God's desire.  Certainly God does not desire sin, but God is ultimately in change of every atomic particle and the direction of even the smallest movement.  This leads to a number of conclusions that we will discuss later.

The alternative that is often discussed is Arminism, named after Jacob Arminius a Dutch theologian who lived soon after Calvin and opposed Calvin's ideology on a biblical ground.  The most famous proponant of Arminism was John Wesley, the founder of Methodism and the theological grandfather of the Nazarenes, American revivalists, the Pentecostals and the Charismatics.  The Arminian position emphasizes human responsibility along with God's sovereignty.

For the most part, however, I wonder about the questions that both Calvinism and Arminism ponder. Their answers go back and forth and they both seem to be focusing on their presuppositions instead of the Bible.  In the end, I wonder about whether they are asking the wrong questions.  Are they focusing on the subjects focused on in the Bible, or are they speculating on the unknowable?  What does this have to do with loving God, loving your neighbor, doing kindness and walking humbly with one's God.  In fact, the discussion seems to have little to do with humility whatsoever. Instead, pronouncements come from the minds of those discussing as if they had come from the Mount. 

Of course, I will be sharing my opinions about the main topics here the next week or so, but I think we need to remember-- these are opinions.  You are welcome to disagree with them.  We can approach theology differently, as long as we are serving God with all our heart and we are loving all humanity and meeting the needs of the poor.  All else goes by the wayside.

The Problem With Paul

Paul the Apostle has always been a controversial figure since the time he was very young.  As a young man, he persecuted the small group of Jesus disciples that grew up after Jesus' death.  He considered himself a "zealot" at that time, or one who does violence for the sake of God.  Then he claims to have seen Jesus face to face after Jesus had died, and Jesus helped him realize how wrong he was and gave him a commission: to bring Gentiles to Jesus.  That certainly didn't do much for his reputation, for either the Jews or the Jewish followers of Jesus.

Today, Paul isn't in much better shape.  Sure, he's really honored by many, especially evangelical Protestant Christians, but anyone who isn't of that fold seem to consider Paul a real problem.  He's been accused of creating Christianity, of stealing Jesus' religion away from him.  Paul has been considered a misogynist, an anti-Semite, a religious hypocrite, a bigot, and many other nasty sounding things.

The biggest part of the problem with Paul isn't what he himself did or said, but how he has been interpreted over the years. Peter summarized it the best:  "In them (Paul's letters) there are some things hard to understand that the ignorant and unstable distort to their own destruction, just as they do the other scriptures."  (2Peter 3:1).  The fact is, Paul is difficult to understand.  Perhaps this is because Paul wasn't a really great writer-- I mean, sentences that go for ten or more verses?  A good portion of the problem is because Paul was writing letters: thus, he was speaking to a particular context, and without that context some of his writings can be used for anything.  And Paul occasionally uses some strong language, which need to be taken in their own context.

Paul himself was a pretty simple person, and his whole theology can be summed up in the experience he had with Jesus, which is described three times in the book of Acts and referred to in Galatians 1.  There are two things that really shook Paul's thinking in that experience, that can summarize his entire approach to theology.

1. Jesus is Lord.  What Paul realized, immediately, is that Jesus is a great spiritual power.  This isn't the same as saying Jesus is God (although Paul might as well have said that in his statement on creation in Colossians 1), but that Jesus is worthy of being followed and obeyed and honored as king of creation.

2. Gentiles are accepted to be followers of Jesus.  Because Jesus commanded Paul to go to the Gentiles to make disciples (which Paul refers to many times), his outlook on the gospel was different than most of the other followers of Jesus.  He demanded that Gentile believers could have their own customs and traditions because they were not under Moses' law.  He also demanded their equality in the Jesus synagogues that were popping up.

If this is Paul, he sounds more like a Christian civil rights leader than a bigot.  And if he is pointing people to Jesus, then how can he be creating a new Christianity?  This is because it isn't Paul, but people who use Paul who are the  problem.

The problem began with Marcion, the first Christian heretic.  His understanding of Paul's letters is that there were two gods: the Old Testament God and the New Testament God and that Jesus defeated the OT god.  The idea of the OT presenting a "wrathful" God and the NT presenting a "merciful" God continues to this day.  The fact is, all throughout the OT, God is presented as "compassionate, forgiving, slow to anger."  The NT helps us realize that WE need to act that way as well.

Patriarchalists also make use of Paul.  They take passages that seem to say that Paul is refusing women leadership in the church and to remain submissive (interpreted as "under their husband's thumbs") and ran with it.  In doing this, they had to ignore all the women who Paul praised in the church's leadership (Romans 16, I Corinthians 16), and the fact that they didn't understand the context in which Paul wrote (in I Cor. 14:34 Paul is quoting a letter from the Corinthians, not presenting a personal view, which he strongly disagrees with immediately after).

Antinomians, who oppose the use of any law, also make use of Paul.  Paul does oppose the specific use of Mosaic law to the Gentiles, but he certainly approves of many laws in the church, including sexual purity, no vengeance or violence, caring for the needy, and no greed, all in accordance with what Jesus teaches.

Anti-Semites have used Paul (and John) to speak against "the Jews".  However, when Paul was speaking about "the Jews" in I and II Thessalonians in negative, even harsh, terms, he was speaking of a certain kind of Jewish person (of which he was himself). More accurately the term "Jew" in the NT should be translated "Judean", or one who holds to a Judea-centric form of Judaism.  These are nationalists, who opposed and persecuted Paul because he was decentralizing Judaism.

Others, such as Augustine and Calvin, used Paul to create a new orthodoxy, and a new vision of God, who not only rules the universe, but has control over every single event.  This is not the teaching of Paul, who claimed that God controlled certain aspects, but also recognized that God gave rule to human beings, who made their own decisions.

All this to say, we should allow Paul to speak on his own, within his own culture.  Let's not put on Paul all the misunderstandings and mistakes of Christianity, simply because people want to use the ancient writings for their own purposes.