Monthly Archives: March 2005

Allah

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Is it heresy to say the Muslims worship the same God that Christians worship?

Many respectable Christians have different viewpoints on this. To me, it’s more important to discuss the character, actions, and expectations of the Creator and Supreme Being of the Universe than to debate what He should be called. Jews do not believe that Jesus was God’s son; does that mean the Jehovah they serve is not the same God we serve? I don’t think many people would say the Jews believe in a different god; however, they don’t believe the right things about God. Some people believe the same principle applies to Muslims.

Does believing the wrong thing about God mean that you believe in a false god? Many people have taken offense at President Bush and others who have said something to the effect that Muslims worship the same God that we do. I have a problem with such a statement if it implies that Islam is an equally valid route to God, but I’m not so sure that it’s necessary to separate “God” and “Allah.” According to the Wikipedia entry on Allah, “The word Allah is not specific to Islam; Arab Christians and Arab Jews also use it to refer to the monotheist deity. Arabic translations of the Bible also employ it.” “Allah” is simply the Arabic word for “God.” Judaism rejects Jesus as the Messiah and therefore believes the wrong things about God, but we wouldn’t say they worship a false god. I know a couple of missionaries to Muslims who don’t try to get Muslims to stop worshipping Allah. Rather, they try to get Muslims to understand that Jesus IS Allah, and the things they have been taught about Allah all their lives are wrong. When Paul was in Athens, he didn’t tell them to stop worshipping the “unknown god” and worship the “true God” instead; he told them “you know this god you worship…let me tell you what He’s really like.” I wonder if that’s how we ought to approach the God vs. Allah debate.

Here are a couple of interesting links on the subject:
http://www.equip.org/free/DI220.htm
http://www.answering-islam.org/God/same.html

Evolution

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One of the debates between Creationists and Evolutionists is the age of the earth. Those who take the Bible literally believe the earth to be 6,000-10,000 years old, while evolutionists say the earth is billions of years old. My intent here is not to debate whether God literally created the earth in 7 days, but to address the discrepancy between the Biblical timeline and the claims of science.

Orginally posted 8/13/04 at bibleforums.org:

First, let me assume that we all believe in some form of Creation, and God created Adam and Eve as fully developed humans.

If Adam and Eve were created as fully developed humans, then they would have appeared to be 20-30 years old, when in reality they were only 1 day old. I think the same is true of the stars, various rock formations, etc. When God created the stars, they were immediately visible, despite the fact that they are many light years away. So scientists today may look at a star and say, “that star is a billion light years away, so it must have existed for billions of years in order for us to see the light.” Or they may look at a rock formation and say, “it takes billions of years for this sort of thing to form; therefore the earth must be billions of year old.” However, if God created the earth with “built-in” age, I see no problem accepting a young earth despite the fact that it may look older than it really is.

Heaven

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What will heaven be like? Will we “start over” with new bodies, new interests, new personalities, etc.?

Orginally posted 8/13/04 at bibleforums.org:

I’m fairly certain that life in heaven is not a “new existence.” We get new bodies, and our imperfections are eliminated, but we’re still the same people with the same spirits. It’s a continuation of our life, so I think to a large extent, our memories, personalities, etc., will survive.

There will be some differences; there is no marriage in heaven, so does that mean your relationship with your (former) wife will be the same as your relationship with your sister or any other woman, or is there still a unique bond? There is no more pain, so does that mean painful memories are wiped out, or just that we may remember the event, but it is no longer painful?

Orginally posted 3/9/2005 on bibleforums.org:

Our “soul” is not “another person inside of us,” it’s simply who we are. Our body is just the package. Our mind is how we think. Our soul encompasses our thoughts and emotions; it’s the “real us.”

When we get to heaven, we will not begin a “second existence.” Heaven will be a continuation of our lives here, except with the imperfections removed. Some conventions from our life on earth will no longer exist, such as marriage and family, but we’ll still be the same people. I think we will retain our memories and our personalities. Bad memories will no longer haunt us, and personality flaws will be gone, but the things that make us “who we are” will remain. We won’t all be converted into clones.