Over on Parableman, Jeremy Pierce argues against the thesis that Muslims worship a different God than Christians. He presents a fairly strong case, but I'm not convinced. The George Bush clone is presented as an example of someone who can successfully refer to the current president even while denying an essential property (his origins). I see it as an illustration that ideas about the history of a referent do not carry as much weight as ideas about that referent's current state. So, the fact that Muslim ideas about the history of Allah coincide in many respects with Christian ideas about the history of God is not enough to override their denial of what God essentially is right now (and eternally); i.e., a triune being.
If the coincidence of ideas about referents were sufficient to make them numerically identical, then Paul's rebuke in II Corinthians 11:4 wouldn't make much sense: “For if someone comes and proclaims another Jesus than the one we proclaimed, or if you receive a different spirit from the one you received, or if you accept a different gospel from the one you accepted, you put up with it readily enough” (ESV). If this other Jesus had beeen presented as completely different, then there wouldn't be a problem. It is a problem because there is enough similarity between this Jesus and Christ to fool the Corinthians. They do not think that they're dealing with a second Jesus, but with the same Jesus that Paul had proclaimed. The apostle is using this opportunity to disabuse them of the notion. The differences between Christ and the Jesus they are now putting up with are enough to constitute different referents, the intentions of the Corinthians notwithstanding.
There is a valid distinction between worshipping a false god and the false worship of the true God. This, at least in Reformed theology, is the distinction between the first and second commandments. The incident with the golden calf while Moses was on Sinai is an example of violating the second. The idol itself was nothing, but they were (falsely) worshipping the true God. Even so, idols representing false gods are also nothing. Paul says as much in I Corinthians 8 when talking about eating food that just happened to be offered to idols. In chapter 10, he is considering actual participation in the offering. He encourages the Corinthians to flee idolatry, explaining in vs. 19 and 20, “What do I imply then? That food offered to idols is anything, or that an idol is anything? No, I imply that what pagans sacrifice they offer to demons and not to God. I do not want you to be participants with demons.” Even though he maintains his position that the idol itself is nothing, he also claims that there is a very real and personal presence behind behind each one. Consequently, while there may be Christians who agree with Jeremy's assessment of their argument that, by denying the Trinity, Muslims “must be talking about a different (and non-existent) being,” I contend that there is good reason to drop the parenthetical “non-existent.” Just as, per his first commenter, it changes everything in his argument if God doesn't actually exist, the same is true if Allah is an extant created being.
Concerning the point that, in claiming that a denial of the Trinity constitutes a denial of the true God, we would have to say the same thing of the Jews, I agree. While I do maintain that the minimal standards for belief in God can change with added revelation, I wouldn't argue that, when Jesus came, “the Jews suddenly were worshiping some fictional being.” Rather, it would seem that the first advent of Christ exposed the presence of those Jews who weren't worshipping the true God at all, even though they were worshipping something. The fact that there were also Jews who were worshipping the true God falsely does not rule out a tertium quid. Moreover, taking it even further, there is no reason to believe that, within the visible church today, all three possibilities don't exist.
Technically speaking, you can't speak of different referents unless both referents exist (put aside the demon issue; I'll address that separately). What you're saying is that we refer to Jesus and Muslims simply don't refer to anything when they use the term. They're using a proper name as a definite description, something like "the guy who did X, Y, Z, etc." It's just that no one fits the description in question.
Now I do think you can refer with definite descriptions that are empty. For instance, suppose I think John over there is drinking pepsi, and it turns out he's drinking coke. I could say "the guy over there drinking pepsi" and still refer to him, because you know what I mean. That's not an essential property, but you could do this with someone you think is a clone who isn't, and it then is about an essential property. You could think the guy is an alien, and thus deny his essential humanity, saying "the Martian over there with the pepsi is kind of funny looking, isn't he?" Successful reference is pretty common even with empty descriptions.
But I don't think I need to get into all that, actually. After all, my point was actual twofold. One side of it is that you can speak of Muslims talking about God, and they do talk about God. The other side of it is that they're getting it so wrong that it's wrong to speak of them as worshiping God if you mean a certain thing by that. I would add that it's perfectly ok to say that it's a different Jesus in Mormonism (as Paul would say, I'm sure) so long as you mean what he meant by it. I don't think he's making an identity claim, though. He's simply speaking about how the people who teach a different gospel have got Jesus so wrong that their description of him is unrecognizable. I don't think the solution to the tension is to take him literally when he says it's a different Jesus (because there is no different Jesus).
The trick is trying to make sense of both ways of talking. I think we can do that if we recognize that Muslims speak of God, the same God, but get him so very wrong. I don't think we can make sense of both ways of talking if we don't allow for any sense in which it's the same God. So to take the biblical data seriously I think we need to be able to speak both ways, without denying the tension between the two in the same way that we shouldn't deny either pole of the tension between God's immanence and transcendence or the tension between God's sovereignty and human responsibility.
Now on the demon argument, I don't think that will work. If the reason Muslims don't refer to God when they use the word 'Allah' is that they deny essential properties of God when they do so, then it's even less true that they get the essential properties of any demons when they use 'Allah'. So they can't be referring to any demon when they use that word, by the very argument you seem to be starting from. Maybe any connection with anything spiritual is connection with a demon, but the word itself can't refer to a demon according to the very reason you and others are giving for why it can't refer to God.
Besides, Paul speaks two different ways when speaking of demons and idols. He does say that the gods they worship are non-existent. He also says that it's connected up with demons somehow. I don't think he identifies the gods with demons, or he couldn't say the first thing.
Posted by: Jeremy Pierce at março 6, 2008 12:06 AMIt's one thing to say that the word 'Allah', when used by Muslims, refers to YHWH. It's another to say that Muslims worship YHWH (albeit wrongly) when do what they call "worshiping Allah". Maybe they are misdecribing what they are doing. Maybe they are not really worshiping the one God worshiped by Jews and Christians, even if they think that's what they are doing. Analogy: Supposing I meet the clone, thinking he is the original, and tell him, "George W. Bush, you are a great president!" I have not succeeded in praising GWB, even if the real GWB was eavesdropping and heard me say it. It's not just the referent of the word that matters: it also matters what relation I am in to whom when I speak. When a Muslim does what he calls praying to God, is he actually addressing God, or is he addressing a counterfeit? Do Muslims have a religious relation -- even a twisted one -- with the true God? If they do not, then they cannot succeed in worshiping him, regardless of what referent their word 'Allah' has. (I'd suggest that the reason they lack a religious relation with God has less to do with their denial of any doctrine, and more to do with the fact that God has not established his Covenant with them.)
Posted by: Chris McC at março 25, 2008 06:02 PMChris- If you're interested, this is being continued over on Islam and a Different Jesus. As of now, I have two comments after Jeremy's waiting for his approval to be posted. Although my focus is on the denial of revealed doctrine, I do like your suggestion about the lack of a Covenant relation.
Posted by: Kevin at março 25, 2008 06:43 PMChris, II Kings 17 says that someone can fear YHWH without fearing him. That means there are two senses of what it means to fear him. One is the proper and the other the improper kind of worship. In context, fearing has to mean worshiping rather than being afraid.
I never said there was a covenant relation. Worship doesn't require a covenant. If I worship at the altar of the NFL, I don't have a covenant with it. It's not even a person (and I don't think I've made a covenant with a demon either in such a case). In a religion that clearly involves a different (and either non-existent or demonic) deity, it doesn't necessarily require a covenant. It might just involve asking a deity (perhaps but not necessarily via a sacrifice) to do something for you. It might consist of hoping the deity will be favorable to you if you promote the deity's fertility by having sex with a prostitute. It might simply amount to yelling out to the deity many times in the hopes that you'll catch its attention. I don't think any of those necessarily involves a covenant in the biblical sense. The word 'worship' shouldn't be restricted to contexts when a covenant has been made.
Posted by: Jeremy Pierce at março 26, 2008 11:08 AMI certainly agree that it is possible to worship God wrongly. I don't think that has ever been in question. What's in question is whether this is what Muslims are doing. And I don't think the II Kings 17 will settle this debate. "Fearing the Lord but not fearing the Lord" could be cashed out as either 1) the one you worship is really the Lord even though you worship in an improper way, or 2) you are not really worshiping the Lord even though you are doing things that bear a surface resemblance to worshiping the Lord. The text of II Kings doesn't seem to me to give any indication, one way or the other, as to which analysis to give.
I think Kevin already brought up the possibility (on your blog) that Covenant may be needed for worshiping (rightly or wrongly) the true God, even if it isn't needed for worshiping what is not God. The following might help explain why the cases aren't parallel:
You can rather easily put yourself in the kind of relation to George Bush needed in order to address him: stand in front of him and speak (intending to address him). His being an occupant of space gives you that power to address him, by putting yourself in the right spatial relation to him, whether he wants to be addressed by you or not. If you wished, you could even address worship to him. But you can't address him at all by shouting into the air when he isn't there. It may not be in anyone's power to address worship to the living God unless he condescends to enter a relationship with them, for we cannot so easily put ourselves in a relationship with God as we can with occupants of space.
What about worship directed to a non-person like the NFL or a hunk of metal? I'm not sure if you can actually address a hunk of metal, since to address someone is an inter-personal sort of act. But you can do something like addressing it, with the intention of addressing it; and anyone who isn't being pedantic will call that "addressing it" in most contexts. In the same way, I'm not sure if those who worship hunks of metal are actually worshiping anything. But we can call what they're doing "worshiping", as I have in this very sentence. They are engaging in acts that are like worship. But those acts (regardless of what we call them) cannot have as their object the true and living God.
Posted by: Chris McC at março 29, 2008 03:58 PM