What does the Catholic Church believe about Islam and about Muslims? This question flares up periodically on the internet and sometimes in real life. Clearly, Muslims reject Jesus and are not a part of the Church. On the other hand, what (some will ask) about certain statements made in the Second Vatican Council’s dogmatic constitution on the Church, Lumen Gentium? There, they read (or are told), Muslims worship the one God with Catholics and are even included in the “plan of salvation.”
Is the Triune God the Allah discussed in the Qur’an? And is Islam just another path to salvation like Catholic Christianity?
Let’s take these topics in order. But first, a word about the passages to which people object and their context. Lumen Gentium (LG) is about how Christ calls all to union with Him through His Church. Chapter 1 treats the Church not merely as a visible institution, but as the very “kingdom of Christ now present in mystery,” a kingdom that “grows visibly through the power of God in the world” (LG 3). The Body of Christ travels through the world until the end of time, mysteriously communicating salvation to the whole world so that all might come to know Christ.
Chapter 2 approaches the Church from a slightly different viewpoint—but to the same end. The Church is now seen as the people of God, a new and expanded Israel that is no longer limited according to genealogy. Now, it is a body of Jews and Gentiles together seeking to bring all people into this new communion with Jesus and each other. After discussing this marvelous people, composed of the ministerial priesthood and the laity, all of whom are nourished by Christ in the sacraments and brought to perfection by their practice of the virtues under the Holy Spirit’s power, LG 14-17 closes the chapter by discussing the Church’s membership and how “the Catholic faithful, all who believe in Christ, and indeed the whole of mankind” either “belong to or are related in various ways” to the people of God, “for all men are called by the grace of God to salvation” (13).
This section suggests an image of concentric circles. At the very center is Christ, and closest to Him are those fully and visibly united with His Body the Church (LG 14). Interestingly, despite worries about Vatican II’s “laxity,” this is the first Ecumenical Council to discuss the interior and further requirements of communion with Christ and the Church. A few lines demonstrate this:
He is not saved, however, who, though part of the body of the Church, does not persevere in charity. … All the Church’s children should remember that their exalted status is to be attributed not to their own merits but to the special grace of Christ. If they fail moreover to respond to that grace in thought, word and deed, not only shall they not be saved but they will be the more severely judged.
After this somewhat unsettling treatment of those in “full communion,” LG 14 closes by declaring that the Church “already embraces” catechumens “as her own.” For those wondering about this disparity in tone, it might be remembered that our Lord declared that those to whom much has been given will also have much demanded of them (Luke 12:48).
Nevertheless, LG 14 lays down the law that anyone who, “knowing that the Catholic Church was made necessary by Christ, would refuse to enter or remain in it, could not be saved.” This shapes how we understand the circles further out from the Church.
LG 15 discusses other Christians who are “in many ways linked” with the people of God through their baptism, their reception of the Holy Spirit’s “gifts and graces,” and their witness to Christ’s saving power—some even by the great sacrifice of martyrdom. These other Christians are truly Christians, even if they “do not profess the faith in its entirety or do not preserve the unity of communion with the successor of Peter.” As we know from LG 14, if these Christians become aware of the fullness of truth and communion in the Church, they are required to join her or else perish.
LG 16 is where we find Muslims. After describing the Jews and God’s continuing love of this people from whom Christ was taken, LG says that “the plan of salvation also includes those who acknowledge the Creator.” In other words, those who believe in the one God have it right. And that includes “the Muslims, who, professing to hold the faith of Abraham, along with us adore the one and merciful God, who on the last day will judge mankind.”
These are the lines that cause people to worry. How could the Council say that they adore “with us . . . the one and merciful God” and “hold the faith of Abraham”?
It’s important to note a few things here. First of all, LG says they “profess to” hold Abraham’s faith. It does not endorse Islamic thought as fully consonant with Christianity or even Judaism.
But second, this passage appears in a section about those who “acknowledge the Creator.” Muslims certainly hold that there is one God who created heaven and earth. Insofar as there is one God, and they hold and worship that one God, it can only be the same God that Catholics worship.
While some people think this statement is a Vatican II innovation, the approach to Muslims is fairly standard. St. John of Damascus and other theologians from the beginning treated Islam as a Christian heresy that sawed off the divinely revealed truths of the Incarnation and the Trinity from the doctrine of God. Indeed, that position is what one would find in standard sources from before the Council.
The old 1913 Catholic Encyclopedia, for instance, says, “The doctrines of Islam concerning God — His unity and Divine attributes — are essentially those of the Bible.” This doesn’t mean that the Islamic understanding of God is perfect, but there is much truth to it on the philosophical level. As with Jews, who also deny the Incarnation and the Trinity, we can acknowledge that they do indeed worship God even if imperfectly.
Some might still object: “I’ve read the Qur’an! There is so much that is wrong about this character. How can this be the same God?”
Consider an analogy. You and I both know who Bob is because we see him at work and in the neighborhood. You know that Bob is a gentle father of many grown children who is full of kindness but has said some tough things to people at his job who are not doing their work.
Through a series of inferences from these “tough” moments, along with some bad information from others, I might think Bob is a cold figure who has no children and doesn’t really like people. We would both know some basic truths, but you would know the deeper truth about Bob’s character. That is how it is with Muslims. They know who the one God is, but they have many mistaken impressions of his nature and character.
So, are Muslims part of the “plan of salvation”? As should be clear by now, all are part of the plan of salvation. God desires that all men come to know Him and enter into communion with Him through Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit. He wants us to become fully part of the people of God by entering into the Church. And all the truths that Muslims hold are a preparation for the fullest truth of Christ.
As to whether Muslims (or anybody not visibly in the Church) can be saved, God alone is the judge. But LG 16 gives us the criteria by which God judges:
Those also can attain to salvation who through no fault of their own do not know the Gospel of Christ or His Church, yet sincerely seek God and moved by grace strive by their deeds to do His will as it is known by the dictates of conscience.
While many people boil this down to having “invincible ignorance” or “following your conscience,” it’s important to see what the passage really says. For people to have invincible ignorance means they don’t know Christ or His Church “through no fault of their own.” Only God knows whether someone truly doesn’t know or is hiding from God. Only God knows whether people have followed their consciences or have just ignored them and whether they have responded to the grace God provides for them to find the Way, Truth, and Life.
How should Catholics think of Muslims? As part of God’s plan of salvation, called like all of us to be holy in Christ. They are aware of God and seek to worship Him but cannot do so fully because they do not know His Son. Let us pray for them and for opportunities to introduce Him to them.
(This article appeared originally in The Catholic Servant in slightly different form.)
If you value the news and views Catholic World Report provides, please consider donating to support our efforts. Your contribution will help us continue to make CWR available to all readers worldwide for free, without a subscription. Thank you for your generosity!
Click here for more information on donating to CWR. Click here to sign up for our newsletter.
Christians and Muslims have been fighting for centuries. Radical Islam preaches Jihad against Christians and Jews. Until Islam repudiates the radicals, I see no easy solution.
Thing is, you use a word too many there, “radical.” *Islam* preaches jihad against Christians. It is foundational and mandated in the Koran.
It is not the radicals that pursue jihad as war to make the world submit (a war that takes different forms, not just weapons, as Ibrahim observes). It is any truly believing faithful person. The faithful must. It is a religious command. See historian R. Ibrahim on the subject. See also a scholarly interview by Fr. Connolly on the subject. Ibrahim, a historian with access to Arabic sources, shows the misconceptions on the subject, some of which are evident in the article.
The Many Faces of Jihad:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wnPU_mE-Jbg
See other articles and videos by R. Ibrahim (scroll down)
https://www.raymondibrahim.com/articles
The best Christian theological analysis is still that of Saint John of Damascus, who lived under the first Caliphs after the death of the “Prophet.” See
http://orthodoxinfo.com/general/stjohn_islam.aspx
Some excerpts:
“This man, after having chanced upon the Old and New Testaments and likewise, it seems, having conversed with an Arian [a Christian heresy that denied that Christ was God and claimed Jesus was just a creation of God] monk, [101] devised his own heresy. Then, having insinuated himself into the good graces of the people by a show of seeming piety, he gave out that a certain book had been sent down to him from heaven. He had set down some ridiculous compositions in this book of his and he gave it to them as an object of veneration.
He says that there is one God, creator of all things, who has neither been begotten nor has begotten. [102] He says that the Christ is the Word of God and His Spirit, but a creature and a servant, and that He was begotten, without seed, of Mary the sister of Moses and Aaron. [103] For, he says, the Word and God and the Spirit entered into Mary and she brought forth Jesus, who was a prophet and servant of God. And he says that the Jews wanted to crucify Him in violation of the law, and that they seized His shadow and crucified this. But the Christ Himself was not crucified, he says, nor did He die, for God out of His love for Him took Him to Himself into heaven. [104] And he says this, that when the Christ had ascended into heaven God asked Him: ‘O Jesus, didst thou say: “I am the Son of God and God”?’ And Jesus, he says, answered: ‘Be merciful to me, Lord. Thou knowest that I did not say this and that I did not scorn to be thy servant. But sinful men have written that I made this statement, and they have lied about me and have fallen into error.’ And God answered and said to Him: ‘I know that thou didst not say this word.” [105]
There are many other extraordinary and quite ridiculous things in this book which he boasts was sent down to him from God. But when we ask: ‘And who is there to testify that God gave him the book? And which of the prophets foretold that such a prophet would rise up?’—they are at a loss. And we remark that Moses received the Law on Mount Sinai, with God appearing in the sight of all the people in cloud, and fire, and darkness, and storm. And we say that all the Prophets from Moses on down foretold the coming of Christ and how Christ God (and incarnate Son of God) was to come and to be crucified and die and rise again, and how He was to be the judge of the living and dead. Then, when we say: ‘How is it that this prophet of yours did not come in the same way, with others bearing witness to him? And how is it that God did not in your presence present this man with the book to which you refer, even as He gave the Law to Moses, with the people looking on and the mountain smoking, so that you, too, might have certainty?’—they answer that God does as He pleases. ‘This,’ we say, ‘We know, but we are asking how the book came down to your prophet.’ Then they reply that the book came down to him while he was asleep. Then we jokingly say to them that, as long as he received the book in his sleep and did not actually sense the operation, then the popular adage applies to him (which runs: You’re spinning me dreams.) [106]
An important distinction is to be made between individual Muslims and Islam as a religion—as a natural religion like so many others.
Four points and a new question:
FIRST, the complication comes because Islam might be better approached not through theology or ecclesiology, but instead as a product of cultural anthropology. That is, as a collection of diverse parts including borrowed elements from Christian sources, notably the apocryphal writings of Barnabas and James. And, from the “Law of Moses” lifted from the Torah. So, yes, monotheistic.
SECOND, the self-understanding of Islam—the “germ of Islam”—is “fitrah” or the inborn orientation toward God. Remotely like what is differentiated and more completely understood under Christianity as the Natural Law. But, Islam rejects the inseparable elements of free will original sin (original to ourselves) and, further, the Qur’an omits explicit reference to the six prohibitive Commandments (not totally unlike some Western “process theology”!). Instead, cobbled injunctions to exterminate or at least outlast the infidels—external jihad. Also, the more substantive use of reason—another element of Natural Law—is beyond the pale since this presumption establishes a separate “autonomy” from the autonomy of God who alone is great. (And distantly inscrutable and deterministic). Instead of the non-demonstrable first principle of non-contradiction…patterns of contradiction or “abrogation.”
THIRD, allegedly Abrahamic (through Ishmael), but is Allah the same God? Or, more of an amalgamation that is more pre-Christian (not chronologically) than heretical? And, as a natural religion–with some pagan carryovers including the warrior code (jihad); polygamy, and other accommodations (not totally unlike Fiducia Supplicans!); and tribal consensus-based truth (ijma and ijtihad, not totally unlike fluid “synodality”!). A God who might or might not dispense mercy, but in either case—and by his very Divine Nature—is not love through and through by his very being. Not much room in Islamic culture for the self-donating LOGOS as the Truine One who is freely Self-disclosing.
FOURTH, about interreligious dialogue and beliefs (not really inter-faith), on the agreed fact of Creation, and on the remaining chasm between Islam and Christianity, von Balthasar offers this:
“The responses of the Old Testament and ‘a fortiori’ of Islam (which remains essentially in the enclosure of the religion of Israel) are incapable of giving a satisfactory answer to the question of ‘why’ Yahweh, why Allah, created a world of which he did not have need in order to be God. ‘Only the fact is affirmed in the two religions, not the why.’ The Christian response is contained in these two fundamental dogmas: that of the Trinity and that of the Incarnation.”
QUESTION: Maybe the more interesting question is NOT so much whether Islam worships the same God as Christianity, but whether some versions of Christianity are regressing to resemble Islam…?
A Year Zero approach to Vatican II is now firmly out of date. Any discussion of the Catholic attitude to other religions like Islam and Judaism should also consider Church teaching throughout the ages. What does Saint Thomas Aquinas say?
I pray for their defeat and conversion. Islam is inherently violent and supremacist. It has been called the “pagan monotheism” with good reason.
That is a great phrase – pagan monotheism.
The theological virtue of Charity is paramount.
Professed by the Church, made manifest, amongst other ways, in Matthew 28:19, and underpinning all missionary activity to all those outside the Church.
Lumen Gentium would seem to have diminished this urgency of Love towards non Catholics and non Christians and concern for their salvation somewhat.
Hence the Abu Dhabi declaration.
In Islam there is faith, hope perhaps but no divine love for those outside Dar Al Islam .
And an injunction forbidding any investigation of the Bible.
A hermetically sealed political religion that permits no understanding of Christ.
Lumen Gentium is somewhat complicit in this.
Perhaps not?
Islam embraces the theology that Allah is capable of will both good and evil in stark contrast to Christianity and Reason that God is All Good thus mutually exclusive.
The root issue is the Catholic response to evil. This begins with an understanding of our understanding of evil and our response to it. Today, Catholics are being slaughtered, en masse, by fundamentalist Islamists because the victims practice their faith, e.g. Nigeria. What should the “civilized” world do to stop this? Pray? Yes. Then what?
Islam, like Christianity, like Catholicism, is not homogeneous in this life or death struggle. The Quran orders some Islamists to kill infidels, non believers in Allah. Should martyrs fight back? Collectively, e.g. militias?
This issue should be considered in any doctrinal writing on the Catholic relationship with Islam.
We have a right to defend ourselves. We also have a moral obligation to defend the weak. France intervened militarily on several occasions in the Maghreb. Christian nations should intervene. The issue today is a lack of religious conviction.
I’m sticking with Gavin Ashenden and Tim Dieppe.
There is but One, True God revealed by Himself to the Hebrews and its terminus — the fulfilment of that revelation is revealed in Jesus Christ. The Most Holy Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. There are confected deities inhabiting the imaginations of men and confected by men for the purpose of men. The Gospel of Jesus Christ defines the fulfillment and terminus of Revelation. There was no Islamic revelation, therefore there is no Islamic religion or deity reflecting the nature of God.
Islam ascribing itself a monotheistic character saying they worship the same God revealed to Abraham does not mean that they do. Allah is not Yahweh. Were it otherwise they would not seek the antihalation of Judaism and Christianity. Despite an articulated respect for Jesus and Mary they deny their actual nature. Mendacity is a tool of war.
Islam was confected for the sole purpose of lucre and power. It was a cut and paste operation of Judaism, Arianism and the cults of Northern Africa and Arabia to provide a cohesive belief system for diverse tribes in order to unite them in the service of conquest. The tyranny of Islam in antiquity is alive and as blood thirsty today, having allied itself with Nazism and Marxism in the last century.
How should Catholics think about Islam? The way Catholics think about Arians.
I think there are groups of Muslims who are peace-loving who don’t subscribe to the “jihad view” who are vulnerable to radicalizers; and they know this.
Conversion stories in general reveal the motives in people’s searches: sense of dignity, trust, stable society, meaningful identity. People often believe they have found these things or have them already, in their professed religion or state in life.
I strongly feel some Muslims if not many do NOT have the full view of the Koran and the untranslated parts. They are attuned to what the local imam has to offer.
There are aspects in the Koran etc., that need to be appropriately brought to light. I do not mean the jihad business alone but things to do with indignity, illicit marriage, disgusting acts posed as something to do with piety, etc. It could well be that some imams deliberately avoid these because of their disgraceful nature.
Also to note that individuals -Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, etc- are attracted in varying ways to spiritual things which they would tell you in everyday discussion. Paul VI describes approaches in NA bringing out the themes in LG -it is not meant to say we are obliged to accept all religions, as considered in DH 8.
Spiritual things can be clear. Or they can be in confusion amidst a stable interest.
I was trying to locate the passage from Paul VI concerning the natural piety in Hinduism. Can’t find it right now.
There are the two broad and over-arching dimensions of work and the call to holiness where the everyone is addressed for the sake of their own true good and uplift.
I suggest that a focus on Islam “from VATICAN II” because of its “monotheistic” belief system, is not meant to institute or intuit some kind of automatically well-ordered priority for evangelization.
We should look to God for inspirations on these things and this is what Paul VI was attending to in VATICAN II for evangelization, whether with other Christians or non-Christians of atheists, etc. This thread runs through from LG into the other documents.
Or take some insight from Scripture. For example the Wily Steward, Our Lord knows we will function in different situations with some of them amicable, some difficult, some indifferent and most of them mixed. At times debts can be foregone in the same way as with non-believers -and why not when that can be so! -rather, exactly so except we would be looking for the light of God to be seen.
That’s ONE example. I do not mean to merely land upon forgiveness of debts, you understand.
I respect Muslims for their piety. We could learn something from that even if we don’t agree on theology.
Edit: forgone not “foregone”. Foregone is for like foregone conclusion not as in forgoing a claim on something.
I am suggesting consideration be given to how the “bulk agreement approach” demonstrated in Pope Francis’ Document on Human Fraternity for World Peace and Living Together, could fall short of the Gospel and therefore of VATICAN II. Freedom of religion in NA also applies to Roman Catholicism and VATICAN II never meant to subjugate or confine itself and the Church into a platform or landscape of purely collaborative religions.
The Church is the guardian of the consciences of the People of God -the people of the mission LG 9. But the particular document is communicating on a set of mere transitory norms apparently partly at odds with the faith; so as to calm a highly charged and often contradictory political milieu.
Happening alongside that Document was the so-called Abraham Accords which it is said was President Trump’s idea and initiative and achievement. There seems to be some competition set up between them or alternatively some kind of affinity or alignment? Concomitant, there is a strong anti-Muslim sentiment when it comes to Iran and it necessarily sets up difficulties for Holy See trying to build bridges in the mid-east and with Russia.
Edit: NA and DH not “NA” alone – Nostra Aetate, Dignitatis Humanae
Mention of Lumen Gentium and the later Abraham Accords leads to a question….
Lumen Gentium reads: ““But the plan of salvation also includes those who acknowledge the Creator. In the first place among these there are the Moslems, who, PROFESSING TO hold the faith of Abraham… ” (n. 16).
My memory is that the wording “professing to” (not clearly holding?) was added as an intervention by Pope Paul VI. So, now about the Abraham Accord and Fratelli Tutti, what does the term “fraternity” actually mean in the two different–Christian and Islamic–cultures?
In the Church, the graced fraternity of membership in the supernatural/sacramental Mystical Body of Christ, while in Islam the natural fraternity of cosmopolitan membership in the brotherhood of the umma? The feeling of “fraternity”–absent the Incarnation, how durable a bridge between what remain parallel universes?
How should Catholics think about Islam? Studying the lives of Saints Francis and Anthony are a good start.
Lost someone I loved on 9/11. Heard with disgust the aftermath of the October 7th attacks on young teen civilians in Israel. Until murder and intolerance and hate leave their religion and culture, my guess is that most civilized people will want nothing at all to do with them.