Compatibility

Lord, God, YHWH, Jehovah, Allah, Jesus

Editor's Comments

Most people seem to not realize that ALL of these Names refer to the very same Lord, the One True God Whom Abraham was the first person to Worship!

We think there is a broader, more complete, perspective that few Christians or Muslims seem to realize.

We each first believe the First Commandment, there IS exactly One, True God.
Christians have done a horrible job of explaining it, but that One True God Chose to join earthly society for 33 years, for reasons that only He would know. The ACTUAL God of the Universe spent 33 years Walking the Earth!
We tend to suspect that the Lord had been disappointed by Adam, by Aaron and others around Moses, and by others over and over and over, where He may have decided to actually JOIN human society in order to better understand why we seem to do so poorly at following what He Asks of us. This is essentially the same as when some Medieval Kings would dress up in peasant's clothing and then go wander around his Realm, a situation that occurred a number of times, where a caring King wanted to try to understand what life was like for his subjects.
God then would have had two choices about how He would join human society: (a) He could have arrived "spectacularly" in a public Miracle. But then no one would treat Him like a human, but people would have forever followed Him around asking for personal Miracles. So He chose (b) He entered human society in the quietest way that He could, by appearing to be Born of a human woman. Therefore, Mary was selected, but it did not necessarily mean that she had any Divine characteristics. She was NECESSARY in order that God could join human society in a quiet way, such that He would be able to experience as normal a human life as He could. Note that the Bible has VERY few references to Mary raising Jesus, and she was even somewhat surprised when Jesus was 12 and studying with the Rabbis.
Humans chose to call Him Jesus, but He was actually the One True God, the same God that Jews call YHWH or Jehovah or that Muslims call Allah, or that even Christians also call the Father. People of the time would never have believed that the One True God of the Universe was this "unimpressive" man! So, Christianity concluded that, since God is capable of anything, that He remained "One True God", but somehow simultaneously remained in Heaven (Paradise) [watching over the Universe] while also walking the Earth as Jesus. When later Christian leaders realized that this is what had happened, they eventually developed a "Trinity concept" that was supposed to explain how the One, True God could have remained in Heaven while also walking the Earth as Jesus. Everyone around was confused in thinking that Christians seemed to believe in "two Gods", and they thought the Trinity concept would fully explain the truth. It actually made most people even more confused!
Notice that Jesus, with a self-imposed Kenosis (amnesia), would never have even realized that he COULD do any Miracles, even though He always could have. Instead, He always felt it necessary to ask the Father to do Miracles that Jesus saw as necessary. As a child, He therefore could never have attracted attention by doing Miracles to impress other children or to cure someone's illness.
Please note that this reasoning meant that Jesus/God Existed before Mary! It is a Christian concept called the Pre-Existence of Jesus. Indeed, Jesus Existed (as God) in Creating everything in Genesis! Non-Christians and even some Christians seem to think that Jesus came into existence at the Virgin Birth by Mary. No, He had long Existed before that, and Mary simply enabled Him to join human society. Virtually ALL modern Theologians agree that Jesus always Existed, even being present at Creation, and certainly far before Mary was ever born.
In the early years of the Christian Church, there were many different opinions regarding Jesus, ALWAYS with the First Commandment in mind. Some people said that Jesus was NOT a God, because that would mean there were two! There were Devout Christians who felt the First Commandment required that Jesus be "an adopted human" (Adoptionism) and there were many Christian groups that argued that He could not have been Divine, or only "somewhat Divine", again because of the First Commandment. There were other early Christians who accepted that Jesus was the One True God, but then didn't see how Jesus would have Suffered on the Cross, or had any human feelings! Church leaders took quite a while to develop a "Trinity concept" that was meant to confirm that there was One True God, but that He was so Powerful that He had the capability of seeming to be more than one "Person". (They also agreed that Jesus was "fully Divine" but also "fully human", a slightly different subject!)
In the Bible, Jesus sometimes "talks to" the Father, which REALLY seemed to "prove" that there must be "two Gods". Many modern Christian scholars believe that Jesus was somehow given a sort of "amnesia" regarding His Divine existence. (One theory on this is called Kenotic Theology) Otherwise, as a child He would have done many Miracles (to clean His room, to repair something that He had broken, to cure a child friend of a cold, etc) and people would have quickly realized that He was unusual. By Jesus not really knowing Who He was, He was able to experience a very normal human life, but it resulted in His sometimes looking up and talking to "the Father", without realizing that it was actually Himself!

Few Christians seem to understand these things, and almost no Muslims seem to. Few Christians have a good understanding of the Trinity, and even they sometimes talk as though there are two or three separate Gods (a serious error, as there is ONE True God!). Muslims therefore believe that Christians believe in at least TWO separate Gods, and therefore (justifiably) express criticism toward Christianity. But Christians really believe in exactly One True God, the God of Abraham, the same God that Muslims call Allah.

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It is most accurate to think that there is NO difference between the Christian concept of Father and of the Son, as they were actually the exact same One True God. (Also the Holy Spirit.)

The result of this is wonderful! If Muslims studied Christianity deeply to realize the truth of the above, they would realize that the Allah of Muhammad actually walked the Earth just 600 years earlier, as Jesus. I have carefully read the entire Koran, and there is NO contradiction to this, of Allah walking the Earth as Jesus, the "One True God" Whom we all believe in!

The description above is entirely compatible with all Christian beliefs, and it is also completely compatible with all Muslim beliefs. Muslims certainly have the highest of respect for Jesus (PBUH), and they even expect Jesus to Return some day, just like Christians do! But this understanding would encourage Muslims to have even higher respect for Jesus, for He is Allah! And, hopefully, the Muslim criticisms of Christians for "believing in a second God, Jesus" would be seen as incorrect, and that we all really Worship the very same One True God!

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