There are problems in NH Chan’s arguments.

There is no contention that Jews, Christians and Muslims share common Abrahamic traditions. In terms of ancestry, Jews trace back to Isaac, son of Abraham. Like wise, prophet Mohammed also trace back to Ismael, son of Abraham. [Abraham was promised by God to be the father of a huge nation. Abraham and his 1st wife Sarah failed to have a baby. He had a child (Ishmael) by Hagar. God subsequently intervened and Sarah (she was 90 then) became pregnant with Isaac]. Thats the common heritage/history.

The descendents if Issac and Ishmael then went different ways in worship, rituals etc, interpretation (Muslims, for example, don’t believe in the Trinity because they don’t believe Jesus is the son of God).

However the fact that there is common historical ancestral roots tracing back to Abraham, does it necessarily mean that Muslims and Christians each view they share the same God, ie. Abraham’s God?

NH Chan says “The Jews and the Christians have always considered that Islam’s God is the same God of Abraham and of Jesus Christ”. Is that a fact? I don’t think that just because Jews, Christians and Muslims have common ancestor in Abraham, and Abraham believed in God, it is safe to say, as NH Chan does, that Abraham descendents on Sarah’s side (Jews and Christians) consider Islam’s God “ of descendants on Hargar’s side is the “same God of Abraham and of Jesus Christ” (anymore than the opposite is the case of Muslims considering Christians’ God as theirs) !

NH Chan says “only the approach or method of worshipping the same God is different depending on whether you are a Muslim, a Christian or a Jew.”

However the difference in “approach or method of worshipping” makes all the difference and ought not to be trivialised when Judaism of Jews, Christianity of Christians and Islam of Muslims are each based on monotheism.

Monotheism means that there is only one God. [Unlike polytheism of the Chinese (generally) worshipping on their altars more than one deity]. This also implies from the monotheistic faithfuls’ point of view – “if our God is true God, then the others’ cannot be, whether common tradition or not!”

Yes there can exist tolerance for other’s pursuing their beliefs – and for some, whats harm in the other using same name to describe God – but this does not change the monotheistic equation and in no way implies any group believing that they share the same God as the other groups.

Not only does that hold true here but world wide. See for example the conflict in the Middle East between Israelis (Jews) backed by Americans (Christians) and Palestinians and Arabs (Muslims) or (historically) the Crusades between Muslim Saladin and Christian Richard the Lionheart. If they believe they share same God would they be fighting each other, often in the name of God???

So NH Chan’s premise – “But the God of the Muslims is the same God as the God of Abraham. The God of Abraham is the same God of the Jews and of the Christians” – and therefore his conclusion “so that the name Allah is more appropriate for the Christians who worship the same God” may not necessarily hold from perspectives of certain other Muslims who question the factual accuracy of the first premise, and therefore do not agree that the conclusion that follows from it!

The better argument then to defend use of “Allah” by Christians using the Malay language is not the thelogical argument of “same God – same description” – but the practical logic raised by Dr Chen in subsequent thread “Catholic use of Allah is prompted by demand of East Malaysian Christians living in Peninsular Malaysia” as
when he cited Bernard Dompok as explaining “many East Malaysians have gravitated to Peninsular Malaysia to look for work. Many have stayed in the Peninsula for over twenty years or more. They go to church and because their language is Malay, the Christian churches have been conducting masses and services for them in the national language.The East Malaysian Christians call the Almighty ALLAH..”and they will be confused if they use another word “Tuhan” in Peninsular where they work. As Dr Chen Man Hin correctly stated, “It is also clear that the use of Allah is not meant to confuse Muslims or to poselytise (to convert) the muslims. It is to serve the need of East Malaysia Christians to pray to Allah.”

Unless you don’t want them to come to peninsular to work and have their religious service here or stop them from using the national language on matters religious, what other practical option is there to avert confusion on their part if Nazri’s half way compromise of usage of Allah in East Malaysia and something else in Peninsular were implemented???

We’re already a laughing stock internationally over the dispute of the word and will be laughed even more when a dichotomy of two different terms for God is prescribed for and dictated to the same set of people (East Malaysian Christians well versed in Malay) of a same country (Malaysia), supposedly galvanised by one national ideology the supposedly inclusive “1 Malaysia”, and which word is to apply and when depending on an extraneous and whimsical geographical factor whether they have crossed the South China Seas!

This is what we are telling the world what we want to do. The world will think we’re absurd, and out of our minds!

///The incontrovertible fact is that the word was first used by Christian to refer to their trinitarian God///. However to ordinary Muslims theirs (whom they also refer to as “Allah” as the Christians) is not a trinitarian God, hence not “same God” based on common Abrahamic heritage as NH Chan puts it to justify why its usage by Christians is ‘appropriate’.

///Given that ‘Allah’ was first used by Christians to refer to their trinitarian God, doesn’t it make more sense to say that Muslims should not use that word to refer to their different God?/// (Lee Wang Yen)

We don’t have to go that far but if ‘Allah’ was first used by early Christians to refer to their trinitarian God pre-dating even Islam, then that is the reason why Christians can share use the same word for referencing.

This is different from the “same God argument” that ordinary people of both faiths would find it hard to accept.

Thanks for the comments & contributions to the debate, Wang Yen.

Our problem now is how to resolve the ban controversy, calm the situation after 9 churches, one mosque, three suraus, one Sikh temple and one convent school have been damaged from arson arising from this ‘spiral of madness’ as Kit describes it.

It entails canvassing the most persuasive of a range of arguments calculated to exert the best practical effect that all sides can accept as a solution.

The argument that “we must distinguish between sense (meaning) and reference. Christians and Muslims use the word Allah with different senses, but they do refer to the same God by it, given the historical chain originating in the initial reference-fixing” is an argument though appreciated by logician, philosopher or theologian or an educated layman, is, I surmise, not an argument (even if right by “the causal theory of reference”) that UMNOputras or the suspected arsonists (dispatch riders, office boys and clerks) will either understand or buy to concede their positions.

I like the practical argument made by Tan Sri Bernard Dompok/Dr Chen Man Hin in the other thread “Catholic use of Allah is prompted by demand of East Malaysian Christians living in Peninsular Malaysia”.

He says: “Many East Malaysians have gravitated to Peninsular Malaysia to look for work. Many have stayed in the Peninsula for over twenty years or more. They go to church and because their language is Malay, the Christian churches have been conducting masses and services for them in the national language. Hence there is a demand for Herald, the Catholic weekly, to print church news not only in English but also in Malay, and they have to use the word Allah. The East Malaysian Christians call the Almighty ALLAH.It is clear therefore that the Herald must use the word Allah to keep East Malaysia Christians happy.”
The key point made is that “it is also clear that the use of Allah is not meant to confuse Muslims or to poselytise (to convert) the muslims. It is to serve the need of East Malaysia Christians to pray to Allah” (when in peninsular as well), consistent with 1 malaysia motto. It also directly addresses the official reason for the ban : possible confusion and poselytisation of the muslims by Christians’ use of the same word in Malay.

Re Nazri’s “offer of a way out” – on the issue of confusion, it seems to me that East Malaysian Christians working in Peninsular are more likely to get confused by God being referred to as Allah in East Malaysia but Tuhan in Peninsular, not understanding why there’s such a difference in reference just because of the South China Sea. On the issue of poselytisation of the muslims, Nazri himself is quoted to have said “Actually, in my opinion, I prefer to let it be….If everyone prays to Allah, they’ll all be Muslim. It’s a good ploy for Muslims to convert non-Muslims” thus obliquely admitting that the chances of poselytisation of the muslims by use of common reference are as equal or remote as conversion of Christians to Muslims!

So where is left of any other argument in support of sustaining the ban?

If what N H Chan says “The Jews and the Christians have always considered that Islam’s God is the same God of Abraham and of Jesus Christ” is correct, it does not mean the converse is true that Muslims also consider that Islam’s God is the same .

However a “God” like other concept is defined by attributes and characteristics as commonly understood. Here Christian God and the Muslim God are “one and the same” in attributes of being all powerful, benevolent, and the Creator but they are also different in salient aspects, one of which is Christians believe in trinitarian God but not Muslims…There are other major differences but we’ll not go through them here. Based on these differences those who want to believe that the Gods are different, they will cite these differences.

However those who want to defend the position that they are one and the same could also argue so. They’d say that these are mere differences of beliefs about God. Just because a person or groups of people view God in different ways doesn’t mean that God is a different God. Especially so when the referencing fixing is based historically on Abraham’s God. Wang Yen has argued cogently in these respects.

Judaism and Christianity have vantage point of being earlier than Islam. Based on monotheistic view (that there is only one God and no other) it is only logical that from many (not all) Christians’ perspective claims to knowledge of God from another monotheistic religion that came after like Islam should be a reference to the same God as theirs especially derived from same Abrahamic roots. They even argue that many of Prophet Mohammad’s teachings appear to have been based on what earlier Jews and Christians believed and shared. As Loh has argued logically in #33, if Islam recognises Jesus as one of the prophets then the God that made him prophet must be one and the same.

The line of argument could take off (nicely) based on the main advantage of Chistianity being earlier having gained some foothold in Mecca by the time of the Prophet Muhammad, so it is ventured to be argued that his teachings might have been so influenced to the extent of any parallelism in beliefs between the two great faiths.

It explains clearly how it is entirely plausible that the word “Allah” was used by Christians even in Arab lands well up to the time of Islam and after.

The trouble is – as I said about the surveys if conducted amongst groups of Christians or Muslims –the perception of the majority of each group (which is what really counts) will likely not accept (from monetheistic standpoint) the same God argument, and I doubt the philosophical, theological or historical arguments above discussed in support of it will be accepted for any meaningful and practical solution to this controversy. People understand concepts based on similarities or differences comparing one entity to another – thats common sense- and here there are significant differences in meaning of God between the 2 faiths (trinitarian versus unitrian). [And this is the root problem (different God perception) that denies the earlier group usage of “Allah” since time immemorial!].

Wang Yen is correct in saying that NH Chan’s argument for the propriety of Christian usage is based “on common reference, not common meaning/sense”. However it is, in practical terms, difficult to resolve a controversy amongst contending groups via public discourse urging a “common reference” argument when majority of people, who need to be influenced for resolution of conflict, proceed on a different platform of “common meaning/sense”, which one cannot say is wrong or unreasonable either.