32 of 37 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Whose Submission?, March 20, 2010
This review is from: Between Allah & Jesus: What Christians Can Learn from Muslims (Paperback)
This is an excerpt from an excellent review from the current issue of Books & Culture magazine:
Whose Submission?
A Muslim-Christian dialogue.
Stan Guthrie | posted 3/04/2010
"It is November 22, 1963. Three luminaries--John F. Kennedy, Aldous Huxley, and Clive Staples Lewis--have just died and will soon commence a great debate about issues of ultimate significance. In the first line of Peter Kreeft's classic 1982 book, Between Heaven and Hell, JFK asks, "Where the hell are we?" Reading the prolific Boston College philosophy professor's latest work, Between Allah and Jesus: What Christians Can Learn from Muslims, I had a similar reaction.
[This book seems to stand Kreeft's 1982 classic, Between Heaven and Hell] on its head--or at least its spine. In Between Heaven and Hell, Lewis the Christian apologist ... steers his nominal Catholic and liberal intellectual compatriots toward the truth of Christ. In Between Allah and Jesus, however, it is the Muslim protagonist who serves as the primary light-bearer in religious matters ... This character's name is 'Isa (the Muslim name for Jesus). Just as Lewis the Oxford don served as a representative for Christ, so 'Isa the college student can be seen as one of "the least of these," a stand-in for the Lord. In several instances, 'Isa even claims to be a better Christian than his Christian foils. Further, 'Isa's nickname is Jack, which of course happened to be Lewis's nickname, too.
...
Like Kreeft's Lewis, the Muslim "Jack" is a voice of reasoned religious debate--even presenting a variation on the famous "trilemma" argument for Muhammad. He passionately discusses submission to God, the evils of abortion, and other issues with a cast of less well-formed Christian characters. There's Libby, the liberal Christian; Evan, the intelligent but emotionally cold fundamentalist evangelist; Father Heerema, the Jesuit professor who seems to come closest to speaking for Kreeft; and Father Fesser, the liberal priest.
In the introduction Kreeft openly admits his approach:
I have unfairly "stacked the deck": I have made 'Isa a very smart and articulate Muslim, an "idealized" Muslim (though he has conspicuous social and psychological faults of insensitivity and bluntness), while I have made the Christians, especially Libby, less than flawless Christians.
Kreeft does this to highlight a trait that he sees more in Muslims than in Christians--"spiritual toughness" or "strength of will." And indeed 'Isa seems more confirmed in his beliefs than the Christians do in theirs. 'Isa outspokenly critiques the decadent West, condemns abortion as evil, and matter-of-factly believes that societies should base their laws on the Qur'an.
'Isa says that the core of all true religion is surrender (in Arabic, islam) to God. "Because I am Allah's slave," he tells Libby in the chapter about surrender, "I am not the slave of any man or woman, or any society or culture, or any ideology or philosophy, or any drink or drug, or any thing at all. I am totally free because I am totally Allah's slave. That is the proudest boast of any Muslim: to be Allah's slave." Such words resonate with serious Christians, who experience freedom as faithful bond-slaves of Christ. As Dietrich Bonhoeffer said, "Only he who believes is obedient and only he who is obedient believes."
Much of Between Allah and Jesus offers such resonances between biblical and Qur'anic faith. Kreeft suggests that Christianity and Islam face common enemies--sin, Satan, and secularism, for starters. Might Christians and Muslims find common cause in the current culture wars?
Kreeft's book is a strong encouragement to look past our theological differences, create bonds of friendship and trust, and work together for the common good ...
[But] when questioned about violence and terror done in the name of Islam, 'Isa deflects critics by saying the perpetrators are not acting as good Muslims--and he points out that Christians did much the same when they had the opportunity. Yet there is no wrestling with problematic Qur'anic texts, such as Sura 4:89: "But if they become those who deny (Faith), catch them (by force) and kill them wherever you find them; And do not take friends or helpers from their groups."
'Isa says that the cause of Muslim violence is not the Qur'an but bad people, and Father Heerema also praises the Muslim holy book. If their take is accurate, then such passages need explanation. Christianity's book and history have faced much scrutiny over the years. Why not Islam's? Whitewashing Islam's troubling elements is no way to advance real dialogue, which must be based on truth.
Nor do Kreeft or his characters acknowledge the centuries-long persecution and abasement of Christians and Jews living in Muslim-controlled lands--abuse done in the name of Islam that continues to this day. Kreeft muses that perhaps the next St. Paul will be a Muslim. He fails to consider that perhaps the next Paul was a Muslim--before being martyred as an apostate.
While there are countless examples, I am thinking particularly of Zia Nodred, a blind Afghan linguist and Bible translator who was murdered in 1988 for his allegiance to Christ. "I have calculated the cost," Zia said when warned that his life might be in danger, "and am ready to die for Christ, since he has already died for me on the cross." Now that's spiritual toughness.
In Kreeft's commendable attempt to help Christians see Muslims as our neighbors rather than as the Other, Between Allah and Jesus blurs some vital theological distinctions. No, the author does not dispute that Islam's Trinity-denying unitarianism contradicts God's revelation. But ultimately he doesn't see it as much of a problem.
"I believe General God is issuing new battle plans today," Father Heerema tells 'Isa, Libby, and Evan after a multifaith ministry to homeless people. "I think he's trying to weld us together. Perhaps that's why he's letting us become less insistent about our old categories, about the old divisions among us."
Father Heerema takes pains to assure 'Isa he is not trying to convert him. Why not? Respectful dialogue should not preclude respectful witness between members of the world's two great missionary faiths. Are those who risk life and limb to share the gospel with Muslims misguided? Kreeft doesn't say. Kreeft's characters, however, repeatedly indicate that relationships come before theology. In the chapter on Jesus and Muhammad, we have this exchange between 'Isa and Father Heerema, starting with the Jesuit:
"I think an agreement about motives is an even deeper agreement than an agreement about theology. Jesus and the Pharisees had the same theology, but very different motives, very different states of soul.
"You are saying that religion is far more important than theology.
"Yes. Theology is the road map; religion is the journey."
So where the heaven are we? The difference between Christians and Muslims on Christ's identity--God Incarnate or simply another human prophet--is presented as real and regrettable, but hardly decisive. Father Heerema says 'Isa can get to heaven based on his surrender to the God of Abraham, whatever his misunderstanding of Jesus. But understanding who Jesus is and what he has done for us in his death and resurrection (both of which Muslims deny) is not theological frosting that some of us can do without. It is the cake. Islam sees itself as a path guiding us out of ignorance. As Sura 1 prays, "Guide us to the Straight Path." In contrast, Jesus said, "I am the Way." In Islam the Word is a text; in Christianity, a Person. This Person is the sine qua non of our salvation.
Putting the focus on our submission, as Kreeft does, rather than on Christ's submission, risks making religion all about our futile efforts to please God. Our inability to do so as lost, helpless sinners is the reason Jesus had to die, and why salvation must be by faith. No amount of striving--whether by Muslims, Christians, Jews, or atheists--can do the job. Only Christ can. Since Kreeft is searching for spiritual toughness in this book, one wishes he could have shown more of it on this point.
When Between Allah and Jesus ends, 'Isa, who lives suspended between heaven and hell, is no closer to his namesake. Well, that's not strictly true. While confirmed in his Islam--after all the arguments and counter-arguments, speaking and listening--he does seem closer to his flawed friends who also bear Christ's name. And where relationship exists, deeper understanding may follow.
Dialogue may not be everything, but it's a start." -SG
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4 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Hope-filled Desire for Widespread Moslem Acceptance of Freedom, May 4, 2010
This review is from: Between Allah & Jesus: What Christians Can Learn from Muslims (Paperback)
It's a commonplace observation that many Americans wish that all Moslems would be loving and peaceful as they worship the same Deity in the midst of living a virtuous life. And in "Between Allah and Jesus: What Christians Can Learn from Moslems," by Peter John Kreeft (a professor of philosophy at Boston College and The King's College, and author of countless books on Christian theology, apologetics, and philosphy; He propagated with Ronald K. Tacelli "Twenty Arguments for the Existence of God.") one finds a devout Moslem who reflects a life that honors such possibility thinking.
In contrast, the Christians in Kreeft's story largely lack a robust faith and practice. So the Moslem is the more consistent and faithful adherent as the author reveals many of the positive aspects of Islamic observance. Kreeft notes the many ideas that Islam received from Jewish, heretical, and Christian sources as he muses that this might help move the Moslem world into more freedom including the discovery of the deeper truths about Jesus Christ. Evangelical theology tends to reject such hopeful expectations, save real a conversion to Jesus as Redeemer and God, but RCC theology appears to be more open to such promising notions.
In contrast to the author's position I maintain that The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit: the One God is sufficient and necessary for salvation and applied ethics.
The doctrine of a unitarian god is untrue and one can discover this just by a quick perusal of the OT. If one reads the Old Testament, one will very quickly find that the term "God" is plural in Hebrew (Elohim) more than 85% of the time it is employed. Yet, it is surrounded by singular pronouns and other singular grammatical forms. This opens the door wide open for a unity in a diversity within God: the Trinity.
Further problems arise because a monad deity would depend on men and angels to fulfill some inner deficiency: love and communion. This unitarian god would lack love, communication, and equality in his essential nature and being. Without the attributes of love and fellowship, he could not even be a personal being. If this solitary god needed to create angels, jinn, or men (to give and receive love) that would imply that he depends on his creation. A dependent god is not God at all. Love, fellowship, equality, and personhood are essential to God's being. Only the biblical God has these attributes as essential to His being. God is God, and He does not depend on His creation for anything. Without people and cherubim, God would still love and have fellowship, and not lack anything. Francis Schaeffer rightly summed up the solution that the Trinity provides:
"The Nicene Creed--three persons, one God. ... Whether you realize it or not, that catapulted the Nicene Creed right into our century and its discussion: three Persons in existence, loving each other, and in communication with each other, before all else was. If this was not so, we would have had a God who needed the universe as much as the universe needed God. But God did not need to create; God does not need the universe as the universe needs Him. Why? God is a full and true Trinity. The Persons of the Trinity communicated with each other before the creation of the world. This is not only an answer to the acute philosophic need of unity in diversity, but of personal unity and diversity. The unity and diversity cannot exist before God or behind God, because whatever is farthest back is God. ... The unity and diversity are in God Himself--three persons, yet one God. ... [T]his is not the best answer; it is the only answer. Nobody else, no philosophy, has ever given an answer for unity and diversity. ... Every philosophy has this problem, and no philosophy has an answer. Christianity does have an answer in the Trinity. The only answer to what exists is that He, the starting-place, is there."
The Koran states: "Allah, the one and only Allah, the eternal, absolute: he begetteth not, nor is He begotten" (Sura 112).
The Bible says: "No one has seen God at any time. The only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him" (John 1:18). And "But when the fullness of the time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption as sons. And because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying out, `Abba, Father!'" (Galatians 4:4-6).
Islam is a strict unitarian religion, whereby the supreme doctrine is the absolute and indivisible unity of Allah: Al-Wahed, the One (Sura 13:16, 74:11). Islam forbids the affirmation of God as Father. Allah is rigid, inflexible, unknowable, and capricious. One cannot have a personal relationship with Allah. Christ came to reveal the Father so that all His children can know God the Father through the Son by the Holy Spirit.
Jim Halsey recognizes that the Triune God is "the key to genuine epistemology." Non-Christian thought cannot supply the necessary preconditions for the rules of logic; thus, it is false. The contrary of the Trinity is impossible, and all non-Christian worldviews fall into absurdity because they cannot explain the universe and are self-contradictory. They lead to conclusions that contradict their own primary assumptions. Without the one God--the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit--nothing can make sense. The true and living God is the precondition for knowledge and the understanding all of human experiences, including the problem of the one and the many. One God in three persons is the inescapable truth.
Notice the singular words employed with plural terms: "Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit" (Matthew 28:19).
The former Agnostic, and Christian convert, Mortimer Adler said that "a God without mystery would be a projection of man, a man made god." C.S. Lewis said of God, the Trinity is a "thrilling mystery." Lewis further noted that space can move three ways:
* Left or right, backwards and forwards, or up and down. Every direction is either one of these or a compromise between them.
They are called the three dimensions.
* A straight line: one dimension.
* A square: two dimensions.
* A cube: three dimensions.
* A world of one dimension would be a world of straight lines.
* In a two dimensional world, you still get straight lines but many make a figure.
* In a three dimensional world, you still get figures but many figures make one solid body.
Humans have souls that transcend this world but retain, and understand, the finite, three dimensional world. So, not only is the Trinity true; but God's word reveals God as the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. In order to make sense out of anything in the world, we must have God as a precondition. In other words, as you advance to more real and more complicated levels, you do not leave behind the things you left or the simpler levels; you still have them, but combined in new ways, in ways you could not imagine, if you only knew the simpler levels. Human beings have souls that transcend this world, and yet retain and understand a three-dimensional world. Therefore, the diversity has unity; and the Trinity is true. God's word reveals God as Triune.
Why are there so many religions? Because, as Calvin taught, man's heart is a fabricum idolarum (sorry, I love the way it sounds in Latin; it means an idol factory).
The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit, be with you all. Amen (2 Corinthians 13:14).
There Are Moral Absolutes: How to Be Absolutely Sure That Christianity Alone Supplies
or
"One Way to God: Christian Philosophy and Presuppositional Apologetics Examine World Religions"
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