XPost: alt.books.cs-lewis, rec.arts.books.tolkien   
   From: jwkenne@attglobal.net   
      
   darylgene@aol.com wrote:   
   > On Apr 21, 7:53�pm, "John W. Kennedy"  wrote:   
   >> darylg...@aol.com wrote:   
   >>> On Apr 16, 2:00?pm, Steve Hayes  wrote:   
   >>>> Allah IS the Christian God.   
   >>>> Tash is not.   
   >>>> --   
   >>>> Steve Hayes   
   >>> Does Allah exist as three persons in one Godhead? �If not then I think   
   >>> it would be difficult to say they are the same. One would think at   
   >>> least the Apostle's Creed would be necessary to define a Christian,   
   >>> otherwise (as Dorothy Sayers noted) you just have chaos.   
   >> It doesn't matter as long as Islam clearly insists that Abraham spoke to   
   >> Allah and that Jesus was sent by Allah. It is not necessary (or even   
   >> possible) for a Christian to maintain that Mohammed was wholly right,   
   >> but it cuts off all possibility of reasoned debate to say that Mohammed   
   >> did not mean what he said. I would excise the Mormons from the world of   
   >> (shall we say?) El Shaddai before Islam.   
   >>   
   >> --   
   >> John W. Kennedy   
   >   
   > Why does it not matter? It would seem to be a different sort of entity   
   > altogether, at least to me, that took His creation into Himself as   
   > compared to one that sent someone (Jesus) to speak for Him. As I have   
   > noted before, if Jesus was not divine, his pronouncements were   
   > presumptive and not particularly profound. If he were a prophet, what   
   > was his prophesy? If He was God, on the other hand, God's nature is   
   > quite different than it would be otherwise. Lewis does discuss some of   
   > the internal relationships within the Godhead, and their   
   > implications.   
      
   Αs someone else already said in this thread, a fan who insists that   
   O.J.Simpson is innocent is not, ipso facto, a fan of somebody else.   
   Islam says quite plainly that the God who ordered Abraham to sacrifice   
   Isaac is the same God who spoke to Mohammed, and it is useless to try to   
   maintain that they must be talking about some other Abraham.   
      
   > Aside from that, the character of God, at least as I percieve it,   
   > varies considerably among the Abrahamic religions. To be sure, it   
   > varies considerably within Christian traditions as well, but the God I   
   > deal with does not feel at all like what I understand the Moslem God   
   > to be like.   
      
   Islam of the better sort is nearer to Christ than the nauseating stew of   
   arrogance, greed, and outright devil worship that is often touted as   
   "Christianity" in the present-day United States.   
      
   > Sigh, our pastor says that relationship is much more important than   
   > religion, in the end; perhaps that is the key, but I struggle with the   
   > feeling that some are more barriers to that communion than   
   > facilitators of it.   
      
   Aut credo ut intellego aut intellego ut credo. But given the choice, I   
   know no mode of being but to prefer the latter.   
      
   --   
   John W. Kennedy   
   "Compact is becoming contract,   
   Man only earns and pays."   
      -- Charles Williams.  "Bors to Elayne:  On the King's Coins"   
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