The Need for Absolutes in Faith

I had a Muslim student in one of my classes recently and we had some interesting theological discussions. He is perfectly willing and happy to use thousands of years of critical scholarship applied to the Christian Bible (and the very fact that mutiple versions of the canon exist) to discredit and refute Christian belief. But there can be NO critical scholarship applied to the Qur'an, because it is a unified work by one author and clearly the revealed word of God/Allah. I think this young man may have been raised Christian (I didn't ask) but it strikes me that he is seeking absolutes. Things must be JUST SO. Christianity (and Judaism as well) are faiths chock-a-block with ambiguity, and some folks just don't want to have to deal with ambiguity. Heck, we have Christians who can't cope with it--that's why we have Biblical inerrants within Christianity, who believe the the King James Version of the Bible is the inspired word of God. But the fact remains that Christians and Jews must find their faith though thickets of ambiguity and many have difficulty doing so. Some may just make the choice to turn to faith of absolutes such as Islam. This is one of the things that makes dialogue between Christians and Jews on one side and Muslims on the other so difficult, even though we all believe in the same God expressed in different ways. Allah is a God of mercy, while the Triune God is a God of grace, and for some reason, I'll take grace over mercy anytime, even with all the ambiguity.

Posted by trygstad | Category: Personal | 03:30 AM