VIDEO: 'Was Islam ever a religion of peace?'

While it is still possible to post theological refutations of Islam on the internet, let us not hesitate to do so, for the day is fast approaching when Truth will be banned from the public square, as seen in the recent sharia law enacted in Minneapolis, and in the new resolution criminalizing free speech put forth in the US Senate.

Was Islam ever a religion of peace?

Excerpted from the writings of St Sophronius of Jerusalem and St Gregory Palamas
From the YouTube Channel of Gregory Decapolite, February 22, 2015.

Follow these links for more on the writings of St Sophronius and St Gregory Palamas on Islam...




Let us repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand...

The 'Same God' Belief: a Fatal Heresy and a Theological Trojan Horse

Time again for an extended refutation of the "Same God" position.

The “Same God” belief is a "Theological Trojan Horse" for Christians, as it contains within it the seeds of apostasy, and predisposes its adherents to deny Jesus Christ.

I recently enjoyed a correspondence with a fellow who goes by the name of Giorgio, and who is quite a thoughtful theological writer. He asks:

Dear Zosimas, I was reading your blog and noticed in your featured post, you refer to the “Same God Heresy” – I assume by this you mean “Muslims and Christians worship the same God” is heretical. I was surprised to see this, since this seems contrary to what our saints have taught and also to reason (not that there is a difference, since the saints were very reasonable people). 

I argue this here, if you care to look... I would be interested in hearing your opinion about it. Sincerely, Giorgio

A couple of excerpts from Giorgio's article (do read the entire piece for his closely reasoned argument):

...whoever does not know God’s essence cannot love God, and it is clear that whoever does not love God cannot worship Him. But whoever does know God’s essence can, to at least a certain extent, love God and in this way be said to worship Him. 

By essence we mean that which makes God, God. But God is not God in virtue of being triune, or in virtue of being omnipotent, but by the fact that there is no distinction between His existence and His essence. For this reason, when Moses asks God who He is, God responds by saying: I am The One Who Is (Exodus 3:14, LXX). 

This is not to say that God being triune, His omnipotence, or His holiness are mere accidents, but rather properties which flow from His essence without being included in it, as St. John Damascene says in the fourth chapter of his exposition on the Orthodox faith: 

"All that we can affirm concerning God does not show forth God’s nature, but only the qualities of His nature. For when you speak of Him as good, and just, and wise, and so forth, you do not tell God’s nature but only the qualities of His nature. "

Now since Muslims generally acknowledge that God is He Who Is, they therefore grasp His essence and so can be said to know Him and worship Him. 

Like Muslims, the pagans were unaware of the Trinity, yet St. Paul did not say [in Acts 17:22-23] they worshipped a different God, but rather applauded them for worshipping God to the best of their abilities. The Apostle writes elsewhere: 

"For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made "(Romans 1:20). 

Here he clearly states that one may attain knowledge of God without revelation – therefore Muslims can be said to have some knowledge of God and worship Him. This is also clear from what St. John Damascene writes about knowledge of God’s existence and essence in the beginning of his exposition on the Orthodox faith, especially when he says in the eighth chapter that: We believe, then, in One God … believed in and ministered to by all rational creation.

First of all, it is not clear that in Islam there is any sense of "loving" God, hence some of the terminology used is wholly inappropriate to an honest discussion of Islam and Allah. In Islam, Allah is classically presented as being so "other", so utterly transcendent and beyond, that he is ultimately beyond the grasp of humans to know him, let alone love him. Islam calls man to be slaves of Allah, not to love him.

Secondly, there is no consistent, universal teaching of the saints in the Orthodox Church on the god of Islam being the same as the True God who sent His Only Begotten Son into the world for our salvation. In fact, a few quick quotes makes clear that several great Fathers of the Church seem to repudiate the "Same God" position:

"It is true that Muhammad started from the east and came to the west, as the sun travels from east to west. Nevertheless he came with war, knives, pillaging, forced enslavement, murders, and acts that are not from the good God but instigated by the chief manslayer, the devil." ~ St. Gregory Palamas (14th c.)

"...the vengeful and God-hating Saracens, the abomination of desolation clearly foretold to us by the prophets, overrun the places which are not allowed to them, plunder cities, devastate fields, burn down villages, set on fire the holy churches, overturn the sacred monasteries... Moreover, they are raised up more and more against us and increase their blasphemy of Christ and the church, and utter wicked blasphemies against God." ~ St. Sophronius of Jerusalem

St John of Damascus writes very strongly against Islam and Muhammad at the start of his section on the new religion in his Fount of Knowledge, which leaves it open to debate as to whether or not he would agree with my description of the Same God position as a heresy. Indeed, in our time, it may need to be defined in Council as a heresy, due to the danger it poses to the faithful who carelessly adhere to it.:

How Do Apostolic Fathers Present A Problem For Islam?

This is a wonderful, theologically rich article, which we Orthodox Christians should both approve, as well as use as a catalyst for even deeper explorations of the Apostolic, Sub-Apostolic, and Patristic eras in our refutations of the false prophet Muhammad and his heresy, which St John of Damascus called "the forerunner of the Antichrist."

In addition to St John of Damascus, you might also explore what Irenaeus of Lyons, Sophronius of Jerusalem, Gregory Palamas, and other Church fathers have to say about Muhammad and Islam.


How Do Apostolic Fathers Present A Problem For Islam?
by Jonathan Mclatchie, AnsweringMuslims.com, November 30, 2015

In previous posts, I drew attention to the problems presented to Islam by the contents of the Torah and the gospels, and the letters of Paul. Here, I want to build a similar argument from the works of early church fathers. I have previously pointed out that the Qur'an maintains that Jesus' own disciples were Muslims (Surah 3:52 and 61:14). This is a problem for Islam because the historical evidence is quite strong that Jesus' disciples approved Paul's message -- and Paul's message was most certainly not Islamic. But are there any other individuals in the early church, whose writings are still extant, and who had the stamp of apostolic approval? There most certainly are. Here, I will consider a few of these.

St. Irenaeus of Lyons: 2nd Century Church Father refutes the heresy of Islam

Irenaeus' classic refutation of the heretics, "Image of the King, versus the image of a Fox," anticipates Muhammad's heresy by nearly 500 years.


St Irenaeus, Against Heresies, 1.8; CCEL, ANF01, Ch VIII

Such, then, is their system, which neither the prophets announced, nor the Lord taught, nor the apostles delivered, but of which they boast that beyond all others they have a perfect knowledge.  

They gather their views from other sources than the Scriptures; and, to use a common proverb, they strive to weave ropes of sand, while they endeavour to adapt with an air of probability to their own peculiar assertions the parables of the Lord, the sayings of the prophets, and the words of the apostles, in order that their scheme may not seem altogether without support. In doing so, however, they disregard the order and the connection of the Scriptures, and so far as in them lies, dismember and destroy the truth.  

By transferring passages, and dressing them up anew, and making one thing out of another, they succeed in deluding many through their wicked art in adapting the oracles of the Lord to their opinions.  

Their manner of acting is just as if one, when a beautiful image of a king has been constructed by some skilful artist out of precious jewels, should then take this likeness of the man all to pieces, should rearrange the gems, and so fit them together as to make them into the form of a dog or of a fox, and even that but poorly executed; and should then maintain and declare that this was the beautiful image of the king which the skilful artist constructed, pointing to the jewels which had been admirably fitted together by the first artist to form the image of the king, but have been with bad effect transferred by the latter one to the shape of a dog, and by thus exhibiting the jewels, should deceive the ignorant who had no conception what a king’s form was like, and persuade them that that miserable likeness of the fox was, in fact, the beautiful image of the king.  

In like manner do these persons patch together old wives’ fables, and then endeavour, by violently drawing away from their proper connection, words, expressions, and parables whenever found, to adapt the oracles of God to their baseless fictions. We have already stated how far they proceed in this way with respect to the interior of the Pleroma*. 

* Pleroma: The divine fullness of the Godhead, see Colossians 1:15-20, esp. v19, "For it pleased the Father that in Him all the fullness should dwell".

St. Irenaeus' metaphor is devastating to Islam because it describes — five centuries before Muhammad — how heretics have always distorted the Hebrew and Christian scriptures, teachings and traditions. 

To begin with, the Koran retells Old Testament stories out of sequence, with no historical context, imparting completely different lessons, and confusing names, places and epochs. For instance, the Koran calls Miriam, the mother of Isa, the "sister of Aaron", even though that Miriam lived centuries earlier. Would the God of all make such a mistake? 

Secondly, with even greater brazenness, the Koran presents a bizarre, wholly false picture of Jesus. It provides no historical context for its prophet "Isa" (the Koranic name for Jesus), and regurgitates infancy myths clearly lifted from the gnostic false Gospel of Thomas and other spurious sources, while explicitly denying historically verifiable facts, including especially the crucifixion of Jesus. 

In contrast, from a purely secular standpoint alone, Jesus the Christ is written of by numerous Roman and Jewish historians from the mid first-century onwards, including Thallus (who wrote circa 52 AD about Jesus’ crucifixion and the darkness over the land), Mara Bar-Serapion (writing ca. 70 AD), the renowned Jewish historian Josephus (ca. 93 AD), the Roman historian Tacitus (ca. 110-120 AD), and others. The Evangelist Luke frames his gospel narrative with historical references to people, rulers, places and events to such a thorough extent that he is clearly writing a verifiable historical narrative; Luke, even more than Matthew or Mark, holds up quite well to historical fact-checking. Whereas in the Koran, there are simply no facts to check.