A Responsible Comparison of Christianity and Islam

For obvious spiritual and geopolitical reasons, the importance of the topic under discussion in this post is self-evident. While nothing I say will be news to those who are far more educated in the field of comparative religion than I, my hope is that this post will be helpful to laypeople who are grappling with whether constructive dialogue can occur between Christians and Muslims regarding their respective faiths. If by 'dialogue' we mean the resolution of all differences between the two religions, the answer is most definitely 'no'. But if by 'dialogue' we mean something better than misunderstanding, mutual suspicion and antagonism, and talking past each other, than I think the answer is 'yes' based on the below.

The best way to begin constructive dialogue between different parties is to try and locate some important area upon which there is either agreement, or some mutually understandable similarity. The latter indeed exists between Christian and Muslim doctrine. The specific area of doctrine where similarity exists is in the area of God's most complete revelation to humanity. Justin Holcomb has effectively discussed this in some length in a paper that is available to read at ThirdMill.

Now on the surface, it might sound logical when comparing Christianity and Islam to compare the Bible and the Quran, and/or Jesus and Mohammed. It sounds sensible to compare book and book, or leader and leader. But in this case, such comparisons are actually counterproductive because they confuse doctrinal categories. This is the major reason why Christians and Muslims don't understand each other, and look down upon each other when dealing with doctrine. The proper comparison to be made is between the respective faiths' source of God's highest revelation to man. For Christians, this revelation is the Incarnate Word, Jesus Christ. For Muslims, this revelation is not Mohammed, but the Quran. We need to be comparing Jesus Christ and the Quran.

While we must be careful not to mistake similarities or commonalities with elimination of all differences, there are indeed similarities that can serve to foster responsible dialogue. In Christian doctrine, the means of the great revelation of Christ was the Holy Spirit visiting the virgin who became pregnant with the Incarnate Word. In Muslim doctrine, the Quran was supernaturally recited to Mohammed by the angel Gabriel. Both the illiterate Mohammed and the sexually pure Mary point to the miraculous nature of each faith's ideas about God's greatest revelation to man.

In addition, in both Christian and Muslim tradition, similar debates have raged about the eternality of the great revelation. In Christian tradition, early church councils were convened which debated the question of whether Christ was created or uncreated. This is known primarily as the Arian controversy. Similarly in Islamic tradition, debates have taken place about whether the Quran, as the great revelatory word of Allah, was created or uncreated (eternal). Structurally, as Martin and Woodward have said, the basic issue that causes this debate is similar to both faiths - how can the eternal and transcendent divine exist within the confines of human history? For Christians, the resolution is in the Incarnate Word. For Muslims, it is in the Quran.

As an evangelical, I must emphasize again that just because there are some similarities between Christianity and Islam regarding the most vivid revelation of God, we should not think for a minute that they mask the significant differences that have and will always continue to exist between the two religions. The most obvious difference is that there is a qualitative difference between the two faiths regarding this most vivid divine revelation. For Christians, God's fullest revelation to humanity is thoroughly personal, because his revelation is in the form of a Person. For Islam, Allah's fullest revelation to humanity is not through a Person, but through words in a book. This explains a great deal about how Christians and Muslims view their relationships with God. The Christian emphasis on God as Father, and we as his children is personal, familial, and relationally intimate. It is no accident that Christians stress 'a personal relationship' with God, because it is through a Person that God most revealed himself to mankind. This is not Islam's idea of intimacy with the divine.

This is demonstrated, as Holcomb has done, in the respective anthropologies of the two faiths. In Christian doctrine, humanity's chief problem is the sin problem. This take on the human condition corresponds to the Christian understanding of God as personal and concerned to take away the sins that create the broken relationship between God and man. But in Islam, humanity's chief problem is ignorance and forgetfulness. As Holcomb points out, in Islam, man is ignorant of his obligation to submit to Allah, and he is also ignorant about how to do it. Enter the Quran, which remedies this problem. The fullest revelation of Allah in Islam is not only ontologically different from the Incarnate Word of Christianity, it is functionally designed to achieve a different result. In Islam, Allah's fullest revelation is not designed to salvifically reconcile sinners to a holy God, as Christ does in Christianity. Instead, its purpose is to instruct people in how to understand Allah and his will better through disciplines in order to overcome their ignorance. This is very different from the Christian diagnosis of the human condition and its divine remedy.

To acknowledge similarities is not to deny significant differences. To the contrary, to get a working grasp of the similarities puts us in a far better position to accurately and responsibly highlight the differences that exist. I hope this post has marginally succeeded in that endeavor.