When it comes to Christian apologetics, i.e. the presentation and defense of the Christian faith, we must recognize this overriding principle: you can tell a tree by its fruit. This principle follows on from all that has been said above. The psalmist cries out: « Their idols are silver and gold, the work of men’s hands… They are like them, those who make them, all those who trust in them. » (Psa 115:4-8). The idols of men transform them. Their actions and thoughts reflect what they love and adore! It is therefore possible to judge an idol by the actions of the men who worship it. Take Islam, for example.

Islam’s reductionism

For Nancy Pearcey, Islam (among many other religions) significantly diminishes the concept of human personality. Here’s what she says:

« All the religions we have considered, whether Eastern or pagan, correspond to the diagnosis in Romans 1: they worship the creature rather than the Creator. They absolutize something immanent in the cosmos. Because their God is inferior to the biblical God, they lead to an inferior view of the human person…

The exceptions to this rule are the other monotheistic religions, Judaism and Islam, which share with Christianity the concept of a transcendent Creator. They also accept at least some of the same scriptures… Today, Islam has become a powerful geopolitical force, and Christians seek to better understand it. Islam accepts certain passages of Scripture as divinely revealed (the Hebrew Torah, the Psalms of David, and the Gospels). Nevertheless, its concept of God is unitary and rejects the classical Christian concept of the Trinity.

The Quran teaches that Jesus is not divine but merely a « messenger of Allah. » Islamic scholar Seyyed Hossein Nasr writes that « the Quran continuously emphasizes the unity and uniqueness of God, and one can say that the very raison d’être of Islam is to affirm definitively and categorically the oneness of God and the nothingness of everything in the face of the majesty of this Unique. » Because of Islam’s emphasis on the oneness of God, some scholars even argue that it is closer to the pantheism of Neoplatonism and Hinduism than to Christianity.

A pantheistic or unitary concept of divinity lacks key elements of personality, particularly qualities associated with relationship. It is only within a relationship that God can express interpersonal attributes such as love, sympathy, intimacy, self-giving, and communication. It is only between distinct persons that giving and receiving, initiating and responding, sharing and revealing, uniting and communing are possible.

For God to be fully personal, capable of love and community, there must be genuine plurality within the divine being itself. Historic Christian theology teaches that these interpersonal attributes have been expressed from all eternity among the three persons of the Trinity. In this way, Christianity is able to maintain within the Godhead the highest conception of what it means to be a personal being.

All sorts of people love to repeat the Christian phrase « God is love, » writes C.S. Lewis, but they seem not to notice that the words « God is love » have no real meaning unless God contains at least two persons. Love is something one person has for another person. If God were a single person, before the world was made, He was not love. (Or if He had the capacity for love, He would create a world, in which case He would be dependent on the creation, which is not the kind of deity taught by Islam or Christianity).

Only a God of love is fully personal. The Trinity is therefore essential to maintaining a concept of a fully personal God. As theologian Robert Letham writes, « only a triune God can be personal… A solitary monad cannot love, and since it cannot love, it cannot be a person either. » Consequently, it « has no way of explaining or even maintaining the status of the human person. »

Surprisingly, the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy reports that Islam doesn’t even have a concept of person: There is no equivalent conceptual term of person in Arabic and classical Islamic philosophy as there is in Western philosophy. This fact seems to « confirm the specific Christian origins… of the term. »

If it is true that Islam doesn’t even have a clear concept of person, this would explain why it tends to be fatalistic and emphasizes sheer submission to the will of Allah (Islam means submission). As Udo Middelmann explains, « Islam is a religion of resignation… Allah has created the world, and you must accept the way He interacts with you, even if it kills you. You have no right to any questions, any doubts, any individual responsibility. Self-denial is your salvation. »

This also explains why a significant part of Islamic worship consists of quasi-mechanical rituals: Worshipers recite the Quran, in unison, word for word, from memory, in the original Arabic. (The word Quran means « that which is recited »). Again, quoting Middelmann, « its spirituality is repetitive and impersonal, not a chosen and deliberate love for God with all your heart, mind, and soul. »

Muslims are not even required to understand what they are reciting. Many of them are not Arab and do not speak the language. According to a book written by two Muslim authors, « it is not uncommon to encounter people who have memorized a large portion of the text but have no understanding of the worldview that it embodies. » But this is acceptable, say the authors, because in Islam « understanding is secondary » to recitation and ritual. Thus, Islam once again proves the reductionist principle that a lower view of God leads to a lower view of the worth, status, and dignity of the human person. »1

An Evalutation that goes both ways

If the actions of idolaters should give us an indication of the true face of the idol behind them, we also need to think in the other direction: do our actions really reflect the character of God? As we evaluate idols by their influence in the world, we need to consider that non-Christians do the same with our God, with the Lord! Israel was called to reflect the holiness of the holy God (Lev 20:26), so that the surrounding peoples could know God’s character. That’s what we’ll see in the next article.

1 PEARCEY Nancy, Finding Truth, 5 Principles for Unmasking Atheism, Secularism, and Other God Substitutes, David C. Cook, Colorado Springs, USA, 2015, p. 129-133 (translated via internet).