Q. How can it be true, as Pope John Paul has said, that Christians and Muslims believe in the same transcendent God? The God of Islam, Allah, is a distant God who is not a God of love. Muslims deny the triune nature of God and call Christians infidels because they believe in the Trinity. They claim to believe in Jesus Christ, but assert that He was not God’s only begotten Son, but only one of God’s endless prophets or messengers. How can we say that Muslims and Christians adore the one God? – J.H.G., Illinois, D.G., Pennsylvania, and D.P.M., Virginia

A. Because they do, even though their respective views of God may differ. Islam is a monotheistic religion that professes “to hold the faith of Abraham, and together with us they adore the one, merciful God, mankind’s judge on the last day” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, n. 841). Beyond that, however, there is very little common ground. In his 1994 book Crossing the Threshold of Hope (Random House), Pope John Paul described how great is the gap between Islam and Christianity:

“Whoever knows the Old and New Testaments, and then reads the Koran, clearly sees the process by which it completely reduces Divine Revelation. It is impossible not to note the movement away from what God said about Himself, first in the Old Testament through the Prophets, and then finally in the New Testament through His Son. In Islam all the richness of God’s self-revelation, which constitutes the heritage of the Old and New Testaments, has definitely been set aside.

“Some of the most beautiful names in the human language are given to the God of the Koran, but He is ultimately a God outside of the world, a God who is only Majesty, never Emmanuel, God-with-us. Islam is not a religion of redemption. There is no room for the Cross and the Resurrection. Jesus is mentioned, but only as a prophet who prepares for the last prophet, Muhammad. There is also mention of Mary, His Virgin Mother, but the tragedy of redemption is completely absent. For this reason, not only the theology but also the anthropology of Islam is very distant from Christianity” (pp. 92-93).

While the religiosity of Muslims, as demonstrated by their fidelity to prayer, deserves respect, the Holy Father continued, “nevertheless, concrete difficulties are not lacking. In countries where fundamentalist movements come to power, human rights and the principle of religious freedom are unfortunately interpreted in a very one-sided way – religious freedom comes to mean freedom to impose on all citizens the ‘true religion.’ In these countries, the situation of Christians is sometimes terribly disturbing. Fundamentalist attitudes of this nature make reciprocal contacts very difficult. All the same, the Church remains open to dialogue and cooperation” (p. 94).