DO MUSLIMS AND CHRISTIANS WORSHIP
THE SAME GOD?
By Andy Bannister
IVP. 188 pages. £9.99
ISBN 978 1 789 742 299
The title of this book demands an obvious answer: ‘No’! The question needs to be asked, since Muslims claim to worship the God of Abraham.
Bannister, an accomplished apologist and scholar of Islam, answers this by observing that the Biblical God is relational (Chapter 4). He enters His creation in the form of Theophanies to relate to man (p.48). In contrast, Allah is never immanent, and so cannot be relational. Following from that, whilst Yahweh (as Bannister habitually terms Him) can be known, one can only know about Allah (p.57). Yahweh is holy, but Allah is arbitrary (p.61). Crucially, Yahweh is love, reflecting His eternal triune nature (p.62), whereas Allah, being a monad, cannot be so. Yahweh loves sinners, Allah does not – indeed, Bannister observes (p.63) that most Qur’anic references concern those whom Allah does not love!
Somewhat controversially, in the light of historic debates about divine impassibility, Bannister states that Yahweh ‘has suffered’ (p.65), by which he means that Yahweh has experienced grief, etc. Ultimately, of course, this is expressed in the Incarnation and death of Jesus. Allah, however, experiences anger about sin, but there is no ‘hint of sadness or grief’ (p.68). Helpfully, Bannister shows how the differences between the Bible and Qur’an on the nature of humanity impact on the question. The Bible teaches that humanity is made in God’s image, and so has dignity and the ability to reflect God’s love (p.80). The Qur’an, however, simply portrays Man as a ‘ruler’, and one about whom the angels complain will ‘foment corruption’ (p.82). Man is not in the image of Allah. There is an idea of God’s image in the Hadith, but it is that Adam was created 30 metres tall, and humanity has diminished in height thereafter.
Bannister’s book is very accessible and will be an invaluable aid for all Christians encountering Muslims.
