Does God
care what we call Him? Do Muslims and Christians worship the same god? These
are questions many Christians are asking these days, and for good reason.
For some
time now, feminist theologians and a host of others have suggested that
Christians should adopt new names for God. One denomination went so far as to
affirm names like “Giver, Gift and Giving” in place of the “Father, Son and
Holy Spirit” to be used in worship. Feminist theologians have demanded that
masculine pronouns and names for God be replaced with female or gender-neutral
terms. But to change the name of God is to redefine the God we reference.
Changing the name of God is no small matter.
As a matter
of fact, God takes His name very seriously, and the Ten Commandments include
the command that we must not take the name of the Lord in vain. We are to use
the names God has given for Himself, and we are to recognize that God takes His
name seriously because He desires to be rightly known by His human creatures.
We cannot truly know Him if we do not even know His name.
Moses
understood this. When he encountered the call of God that came from the burning
bush, Moses asked God, “If I come to the people of Israel and say to them, ‘The
God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’
what shall I say to them?” (Exodus 3:13). God answered Moses, “I Am who I Am”
(Exodus 3:14). God told Moses, “Say this to the people of Israel, ‘The Lord,
the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of
Jacob, has sent me to you.’ This is my name forever, and thus I am to be
remembered throughout all generations” (Exodus 3:15).
As these
verses make clear, we are not to tamper with God’s name. We are to use the
names whereby God has named Himself, and we are to recognize that any confusion
about the name of God will lead to confusion about the nature of God, if not to
idolatry.
Christians
must keep this central principle from the Bible constantly in mind as we
consider some of the most urgent questions we face in the world today. We must
certainly have this principle in mind when we think about Islam.
Several
years ago, a bishop in the Netherlands attracted controversy when he argued
that Christians should call God “Allah” in order to lower theological tensions.
He also argued that calling God “Allah” would be commonplace in Christian
churches within a century and that this would lead to a synthesis of Islam and
Christianity.
More
recently, an Islamic court in Malaysia ruled that only Muslims can use the name
“Allah” in print publications. “The usage of the word will cause confusion in
the community,” the chief judge ruled. Oddly enough, Christians may well agree
with this Islamic judge. To call God “Allah” is to invite confusion.
In the
Bible, God reveals Himself to us in many names. These names are His personal
property. We did not invent these names for God. To the contrary, God revealed
these names as His own.
We have no
right to modify or to revise these names—much less to reject them. Jesus Christ
made this abundantly clear. In the simplest way imaginable, Jesus teaches us to
know God as Father, and to use this name in prayer. The Lord’s Prayer begins
with the words, “Our Father, who is in heaven.” By the grace that God has shown
us in Christ, we can truly know Him as Father.
Muslims do
not speak of God as their heavenly Father. In the Islamic faith, Allah is not
only a different name for god; the deity it designates is far more impersonal
than the God of the Bible. Father—the very name that Jesus gave us as the
designated name for use in prayer—is a name that simply does not fit Allah as
depicted in the Quran.
Furthermore,
Muslims claim that Allah has no son. This represents a head-on collision
between the God of the Bible and Allah. For, as the Bible makes clear, the one
and only true God is most perfectly revealed as the Father of the Son, Jesus
Christ. In the Gospel of John, Jesus repeatedly teaches that no one has truly
known the Father, except by the Son. In one of the most clarifying verses in
the New Testament, Jesus declared Himself to be “the way, and the truth, and
the life,” adding, “No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6).
Because
Muslims deny that God has a son, they explicitly reject any Trinitarian
language. From the very starting point, Islam denies what Christianity takes as
its central truth claim: the fact that Jesus Christ is the only begotten of the
Father. If Allah has no son, then Allah is not the God who reveals Himself
through the Son. How then can calling God “Allah” not lead to anything but
confusion—and worse?
Islam
teaches that the doctrine of the Trinity is blasphemous. But the Christian
faith is essentially and irreducibly Trinitarian. The Bible reveals that the
Father is God, that the Son is God, and that the Holy Spirit is God. Jesus is
not merely a prophet, as acknowledged by Muslims, He is God in human flesh.
This is precisely what Islam rejects.
The
Trinitarian language is the language of the Bible, and it is essential to
Christianity. Indeed, the Christian faith points to Christ and announces that
we can only know the Father through the Son. Confusing the God of the Bible
with Allah of the Quran is not only a mistake, it is a dangerous distortion of
the Gospel of Christ.
The
Trinitarian nature of God is embedded within the Great Commission. Jesus tells
His disciples to go into the world and make disciples of all nations and to
baptize them “in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit”
(Matthew 28:19). Christians are those who bear the names of God even in our
baptism, and those names are Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
This has
become a matter of significant controversy in recent years as some Christians,
including some serving with mission agencies, have argued that Christians can
use the name “Allah” in talking about God. In some languages, especially those
based on an Arabic source, there is no generic word for god. In such a
situation, it might be necessary to begin a conversation by using this word,
but the Christian cannot continue to call God “Allah.” It is hard to imagine
that anyone can hear the name “Allah” without thinking of him as claimed in the
Quran (see following article). Indeed, Muslims who speak languages other than
Arabic use “Allah” as the name of god. But as soon as the Christian begins to
explain that the true living God is the Father of Jesus Christ the Son, the
Christian is making clear that the true living God is not Allah, but our
Heavenly Father.
Continuing
to use the name “Allah” to refer to the God of the Bible in such situations
invites deep confusion. Some now argue that Muslims who come to faith in Christ
can even remain within the mosque and continue to worship God as Allah. It is
hard to see how that is anything other than a theological disaster.
We can now
see that the name of God is no small matter. The deity we name is the God we
believe in. Christians believe in only one God, and He is the Father who sent
the Son to save us from our sins. Allah has no son, and, thus, Christians
cannot know God as Allah. In this light, Muslims and Christians do not only use
different names for God; in reality, these different names refer to different
gods.
God takes His
name with great seriousness, and so must we. Thankfully, we are not left in the
dark, groping for adequate language. God has revealed His names to us, so that
we can rightly know Him. We are not called to be clever or creative in
referring to God, only faithful and accurate.
We are
living in challenging days. One of the most pressing challenges of our times is
the task of speaking rightly about God. This is particularly challenging when
Christians encounter Muslims, but it is also a challenge when Christians
encounter secular people in Western cultures. But this really isn’t a new
challenge. It was the same challenge faced by the children of Israel as they
encountered the Canaanites, and the same challenge faced by the Apostle Paul at
Mars Hill.
Our challenge
is to speak truthfully about God, and the only way we can do that is to use the
names God gave Himself. The God of the Bible is not Allah, and Allah is not the
God of the Bible. Any confusion about that undermines the very Gospel we
preach.
©2013 R. Albert Mohler, Jr.
Scripture quotations are taken from
the Holy Bible, English Standard Version.
R. Albert Mohler, Jr., is president of
The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, in Louisville, KY.
