Yea, the sparrow hath found an house, and the swallow a nest for herself, where she may lay her young, even thine altars, O Lord of hosts, my King, and my God.
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Saturday, November 13, 2010
"We wouldn't do that for money..."
"The first bishop to accept a government grant was Bishop Judas Iscariot." (starting about 1:38)
Kreeft and Spencer discuss Islam.
The video is almost two hours long, which is odd for Youtube, and it takes an age to download, but it's worth the wait.
___
...I've listened to about half of it so far, and I think I am coming to the same conclusion that I have come to before. If Dr. Kreeft were right in one of his major premises, that the god of Islam and the God of Abraham are one and the same, then his arguments would be correct. He says that the Muslims worship the same God, but they understand Him imperfectly, and therefore worship Him imperfectly, but that this imperfection is merely a lack of understanding of the true nature of God.
This would support the theory that Mohammedans who behave badly, by Christian standards of morality, are being "bad" Muslims, in that they understand the nature of God even less perfectly than their slightly more enlightened co-religionists who do not behave badly. Dr. Kreeft then goes even further and says that in the areas where the Mohammedans are correct about God, they are better "Christians" than most Christians because they are more "pious" in their behaviour towards the things about God that are true. In these areas, he posits (and bizarrely, he presents their sexual morality as an example) that we lapsed and modernist Christians have "much to learn" from our Mohammedan friends.
But the entire argument rests on the assumption that the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, of Mary and John the Baptist and Jesus, is the same as the one the Mohammedans call "Allah".
But Dr. Kreeft has failed to establish the truth of his greater premise.
If we say that our pet is a mammal because it is a cat and all cats are mammals, we have started the syllogism from the bottom and worked up. In the case of Winnie's species and phylum we would be correct. But starting the syllogism upside down in the case of Islam is dangerous.
He says that the basic premise of Islam, the total submission to God is the same as that of the saints. The Catholic Church knows that total submission to the God of Abraham turns a person into a saint. The greater the submission, the greater the saint.
What we have seen from the evidence of the last 1300 years, however, is that total submission to Allah turns men into monsters. And the greater the submission the greater the monster.
How then, can this be the same god?
Islam is a heresy. One of the things it is doing for our times is re-teaching the Church just how dangerous heresy really is. It is only too easy to chastise the nasty old imperialist medieval Church for the violent opposition to heresy. But if we look back into that history with the eyes newly cleared by our contact with Islam, we will come to understand why it became necessary to stop the spread of Catharism with force of arms. If we look at the videos of men and women being beheaded, of buildings being blown up, we come to understand just how deadly a thing heresy truly is.
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Can't see the video as my service provider blocks youtube (sob!) but the Bishop Judas Iscariot quote is money.
ReplyDeleteHilary, I couldn't finish reading what you wrote, so I know that I would never be able to listen to two hours of that *&^%$#$%^&*((!!
ReplyDeleteYou probably said it in the paragraphs that I didn't read, but, if Allah of Islam and the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are the same divine person, he is lying like H--- to one of us.
I am saddened that Mr. Kreeft is writing such nonsense.
Ummm, the God of the Muslims is the One Creator of the Universe, omnipotent and omniscient, merciful and compassionate.
ReplyDeleteMen can worship God and not believe the entire Truth about Him, without worshiping "some other God".
ok, CAREFUL !
ReplyDeleteImagine an Arab pagan. He reasons to the conclusion that there must be a God, the Creator of all, all good, all powerful, one, true, living and personal. That he can do this, that humans can do this, is a DOGMA of our Catholic Faith, defined at the Vatican Council of 1870.
His intention is to worship this one true God. Unfortunately he is introduced to Islam and believes it. He *thinks* that the "Prophet" is speaking for this God.
As he rolls out his carpet, is he not therefore worshiping, although wrongly, the same God as do we, although he knows not about the Most Holy Trinity.
It's just that I'm afraid that in saying Muslims do *not* worship the same God, that we are in danger of denying that reason can prove God's existence.
Of course, whoever communicated with Mohamed (if he was not lying) was not the true God, but either his own delusions or the devil.
Fr PJM
But we are not talking about an innocent Arab pagan. We are talking about the followers of a specific creed whose founder claims that he received particular revelations from a divine or otherwise supernatural being. The "religion" of Islam was not one that was created by an innocent Arab one day sitting down and working out using his reason that there must be a Prime Mover.
ReplyDeleteThe attributes of the "god" of Islam are totally antithetical to what we know of God. They are, in fact, perfectly opposed.
Islam does not describe the God of Abraham.
Right off track.........I hear that Youth Defence (Catholic/Pro-life/Ireland) Conference was a great success & that you spoke. Can you give Y.D. a big plug,please ? They are a small group and Ireland is in a bad way and they need money.They are all good Catholics and need support. Can you help them ?
ReplyDeleteAnon. You should read lifeisite. It's all I've been doing for a week.
ReplyDeleteFulton Sheen said they worship the same God if the question is: Who? and a different God if the question is What?
ReplyDeleteIn this respect, they share a lot with later heresies such as protestantism. Belloc called Islam a proto-Calvinism.
I get so incensed when I hear some expert say that Islam is in need of a Reformation! What for?
Sola Scriptura = Sola Koranica
Predestination..Got it
Divorce-just say "I divorce you thrice"
Sacraments-Gone!
Celibacy- bye-bye
Reason-banished
Women=chattel
And then there's the teetotaling... Heresies aren't any fun.
St. John the Damscene, pray for us.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Tom Ryan that "Islam needs a Reformation" is a maddening trope. However, let's remember what happened with the Reformation.
ReplyDeleteA heretic opened up a can of worms in Germany, cozied up with German princes and kicked off a wave of mass apostasy in Europe, giving way to anticlericalism and spawning the twin sons of atheism and cafeteria religion.
The Catholic Church did not reform (much to the consternation of Orthodox like myself).
Saying "Islam needs to reform" is a veiled way of stating one's desire for mass apostasy from Islam. But liberals (save Communists) are rarely so straightforward.
"As he rolls out his carpet, is he not therefore worshiping, although wrongly, the same God as do we, although he knows not about the Most Holy Trinity."
ReplyDeleteCan't the same thing be said about the worshipper of Krishna, Ra, even Moloch as the poor peasant throws his infant into the fire? Is sincerity the measure by which we measure worship? And if the quoted statement is true, why can't a Catholic worship in the mosque, bowing to Mecca with his Muslim neighbors, as long as he truly believes in his heart that Allah is really just another name for God, the First Person of the Holy Trinity? I guess the answer is "yes" since God can see sincere worship in his heart, but then maybe the same thing could be said about the golf course.
I think such a statement as above is very dangerous at a time when clarity is most important to understanding the dangers of the present conflict. Anon. 1
Anon, your comment is interesting and appreciated...
ReplyDeletewhich is why I didn't delete it for flagrantly violating the rules regarding real or plausible-sounding names.
I am feeling inexplicably magnanimous. Perhaps I should see the doctor.
Please read the commbox rules posted to the side bar before you post again.
Perhaps a good analogue of Islam is Mormonism. They believe in the one personal perfect all-powerful all-knowing infinite God who created the universe out of nothing. That alone is a sufficient identification. Jews, Muslims, and Christians share this.
ReplyDeleteKrishna worshippers, Moloch worshippers, and so forth do not but their beliefs are intertwined with polytheism, and I doubt that Krishnaites believe in the creation of the world with much rigor.
The analogy with Mormon is this -- some true revelation with historical references, plus a false prophet.
Islam, Judaism, and Catholicism have enough in common that Thomas could quote with respect Maimonides and Avicenna. Thomas certainly thought they were referring to the same Supreme Being when they said they were.
I beg pardon for failure to identify myself (the author of the above comment) --- as Hugh McDonald, brother of Fr. Paul.
ReplyDeleteMy sincerest apology for not using my name. Henceforth I will use my name Maggie. Thank you for your generosity and patience.
ReplyDeleteI guess I could have let Mr. McDonald take the blame for all the "Anon" comments, but that wouldn't be fair. Mine were the first, at 9:57 PM and third at 2:45 AM.
Without a Google account, is there a way to put one's name at the top of the comment as well as in a signature?
Maggie.
You click "Name/URL" option, and just type in a name.
ReplyDeleteWhat I would like to know is how, exactly, Muslim men manage to be married to four women at the same time, without drinking?
ReplyDelete