4/16/26

Today at CSUF, I had a conversation with *Theo, who is Muslim that we've talked with previously, and the question on the board was, "Tell us what you think... Who from history has contributed a lot to peace? How can we emulate them?" So, *Theo came up to look at the answers that were already on the board: Nelson Mandela and Jesus. We talked about these two for a little bit, and *Theo agreed that both of these figures significantly contributed to peace, but then we asked him who he thought. Though he agreed with the Jesus answer significantly, he decided to write Martin Luther King Jr. As an answer to the second part of the question, *Theo wrote a quotation from MLK's letters from jail. He quoted, "To help people rise from the dark depths of discrimination and racism, to the majestic heights of unity and brotherhood." 
So, we started talking with him about that answer, asking, "Okay, so what does that look like? How would we do that practically? To help people rise from the dark depths of discrimination and racism, to majestic heights of unity and brotherhood. What would that look like?" As we began to discuss this, he said that Islam brings peace as Islam means "submission to God", and submission to God is how we find peace. In many ways, I agree with the principle he has given here; however, this assumes that the will of your god is towards peace and not violence. We talked about this idea for a little bit, but then I asked *Theo if he knew where Martin Luther was inspired from. He told me that MLK was a Christian pastor, so I affirmed him in this and explained how this radical way of peacemaking was uniquely tied back to the way of Jesus - the way of peace to those who hate us, and enemy love. And that way of peace is profoundly distinct from what I understand of Muhammad and Islam. *Theo then said that there was a time when Mohammad was being beat by his enemies and said to forgive them because they don't know. *Theo said that there is dispute about whether Muhammed was saying this or quoting another prophet, so Thomas and I showed *Theo the place where Jesus says this exact thing hundreds of years prior. *Theo was very surprised at this exact saying of Jesus and concluded that it was likely a quotation of Jesus, and so we continued to lean into the differences between Christian love and Muslim love.


I moved the conversation into a more fundamental level of love by highlighting the nonviolent and peacefully subversive approach to peace that Jesus and MLK had. I said that MLK and Jesus are so radically different because of their unusual love for their enemies - a quality not taught by Islam in my understanding. The only way to peace in a world of violence is through sacrificial love extended to all people - even those who oppose you. If this kind of love is the way to peace - enemy love - then there are some religious systems and teachings that are more oriented around that than others. And it would seem that Christianity is far more oriented around that than Islam. 


As we continued the conversation, the particular point that I pressed on specifically was that the Christian God loves all people even when they're enemies to Him, hate Him, abuse Him, and reject Him, whereas the god of Islam, Allah, only loves the believers and he hates disbelievers. This means that Allah expects people to love him before he loves them, whereas the Christian God doesn't expect that. YHWH extends love before expecting love back, and that's how the Christian God can actually bring peace, because He loves people before they love Him. He can love His enemies, whereas Allah doesn't love his enemies. So, if I were to follow Allah and try to love my enemies, I would actually end up being more loving than my god. 
And it's absurd to believe that you could be better at love than your God.

(Small tangent...) There are a number of philosophical arguments for the existence of God, but one that I've never really found to be profoundly helpful is the Ontological Argument. Ontology is the study of "being", so this is an argument based on the nature of God's being. Here is one way of putting the original argument:

"Major premise: God is that than which nothing greater can be conceived.

Minor premise: A being that exists in reality is greater than one that exists only in the understanding.

Conclusion: Therefore, God exists in reality."

While the original aim of this argument isn't my goal in this conversation, I find that the major premise is applicable in the comparison between these two divinity claims. If this is a true premise - that God is the greatest conceivable Being, then this God must also be the greatest at all conceivable things - naturally including love. Therefore, YHWH far surpasses the greatness of Allah in His love for all people and seemingly proves to be the Greatest Conceivable Being. I am not trying to disprove the existence of Allah necessarily - as I believe what the Bible describes regarding opposing spiritual forces - but rather to prove that YHWH is the only true God and far greater than Allah. If I can conceive of a God greater than Allah, it draws the question of Allah's divinity altogether as the ontological nature of God is to be the greatest conceivable Being. Just for clarity's sake, I didn't bring this argument up with *Theo, but in reflection on the conversation came to think of the potential application. I'm not sure how waterproof this argument is, but it is certainly interesting to consider. Instead, I went a much more practical and pressing route with *Theo: the fruit of the followers.

Following these two religions devoutly inherently produces distinctly different people and distinctly different ways of life. If I follow Allah, then I have no obligation to love more than Allah does and actually would only love those who love Allah and who serve him. *Theo told me that there are seven types of people that the Quran teaches that Allah loves: a just person, a righteous person, a devoted person, and various things like that. I'm not sure *Theo understood how he was hurting his own case by telling me these things, but I wasn't complaining as it gave me additional internal critiques of his position - regardless of its correspondence with orthodox Islam. I pointed out to him that the Christian God is far more loving than Allah and that the Christian God actually loves all people, whereas Allah doesn't. So, if I try to imitate Allah in my love, I won't love everyone, and I'll actually hate some people. Whereas if I imitate the Christian God, I'll love all people and bless them even if they persecute me, attack me, and kill me. So, I just pressed him on that and left him with that, saying, "Which God do you think we should serve? A God who loves all people, and blesses all people - 
even his own enemies? Or should we follow the god who doesn't love those who don't love him? Allah's love is conditional based on our love for him. 
Should we expect God to be the "bigger man" in loving us when we don't love Him, or should we be expected to be the "bigger man", in loving a god who doesn't love us? It is inescapable that someone will have to love their enemies - either God or humans. The question is whether you think you can love better than your god or not. If so, I'm not sure you really want to follow him.

Later, *Theo began talking to me again after talking with other people for a while, so I pressed him this time on why we should trust Mohammed as a true prophet from God. There was a whole conversation here, but my main pressure point was to have *Theo explain to me why I should reject Joseph Smith as a legit prophet and still accept Mohammed as one. These two false prophets are extremely similar in their claims and lifestyles, so I've been curious to see how Muslims or Mormons might disqualify the other without disqualifying their own guy. After discussing for some time, *Theo said that he would need to think about this as he didn't have an answer for me regarding this question.

Please pray for the conversion of *Theo - that God would do His work faithfully through us as He has faithfully done before!