Recently, when I was a panelist on Michael Enright’s CBC show, Sunday Edition, on the Public God, he asked us to describe God. The Christians spoke of God as a person, while I said that as a Muslim, God was the Creator, a force or light with no human aspects.
This exchange stayed with me as Easter approached and I considered the Christian view of God. To believe in a God with three distinct parts but within a single understanding of One God requires faith for such a “mystery.”
Although I am usually hesitant to write about another faith, as I may inadvertently make mistakes, today I will take the plunge and write about different understandings of God.
Mostly, I am more aware of the similarities between Christianity and Islam, but Easter seems to be a time when the differences appear more markedly. This is because part of the Godhead – Jesus the Son – dies as a human, with all the physical suffering.
Last weekend I was aware of the significance of Easter for my Christian friends. It starts with tragedy because Jesus was crucified on Friday, died, but then arose joyfully from death to life on Sunday. For Christians, Jesus is part of the Godhead – the Father, Son and the Holy Ghost – one in a Trinity and yet an integral part of God.
Am I correct that most Christians seem to focus more on Jesus than on either God the Father or the Holy Spirit? It is Jesus’ loving sacrifice which is fundamental to the faith. To me it seems that this aspect is more marked during Easter, and does it make Christian beliefs more Trinitarian than monotheistic?
In contrast, Islam, like Judaism, has the fundamental belief in a God, who is indivisible and unique, with no partners. God is not a person and has no human traits, and is described in the Quran as “beyond comprehension” as God does not resemble any of His creation.
God states that though human understanding and language are limiting, God still tries to explain himself in concepts understandable to us. For example, although we refer to God as “he,” we need to remind ourselves that God has no gender, nor does God have any physical attributes.
In the Quran, God describes himself as Light: “God is the Light of the heavens and the earth. The parable of God’s light is, as it were, that of a niche containing a lamp; the lamp is enclosed in glass, the glass shining like a radiant star …”
The Quranic verse –Surah Ikhlas – is the touchstone of belief for Muslims. The translation is: “There is no god but God, the Eternal, the Absolute. God begets not, nor is He begotten, and there is none like God.”
God is also a very personal God who is closer to us than our “jugular vein” and is keenly involved in our lives.
Other religions, such as Buddhism teach us the Eightfold Path to salvation, and although many think of Buddha as God, he did not proclaim divinity for himself.
For many, Hinduism is polytheistic, but there are strong elements of the one reality within Hinduism, as expressed in the Bhagavad Gita. The 9th Century sage, Adi Shankara explains Vedanta teachings through a beautiful hymn – Chidananda Roopa Shivohum – about God and His attributes.
The hymn is God explaining Himself:
“I am not mind, nor intellect, nor ego. I am not the five senses, I am beyond that. I am not the five elements, I am that eternal bliss, love and pure consciousness…I have no hatred or dislike, nor affiliation or liking, nor greed, nor delusion, nor pride or haughtiness, nor feelings of envy or jealousy…I do not fear death…I have no father nor mother nor did I have birth…
“I am all pervasive. I am without attributes or form…I have no wishes for anything because I am everything, everywhere, every time, always in equilibrium. I am indeed that eternal knowing and bliss. Shiva, love and pure consciousness.”
This concept of God is very monotheist and again stresses that God is not like us humans.
However, even with these differences in our perspectives of the Godhead, all religious teach that their paths lead directly to God. How God is defined may cause differences but the journey and its end remain the same.
As God states in the Quran:
“For every community faces a direction of its own, of which God is the focal point. Vie, therefore, with one another in doing good works. Wherever you may be, God will gather you all to Himself: for verily, God has power to will anything.”
God also states in the Quran that “There shall be no coercion in matters of faith.”
If only all religious people would hold to these truths, maybe there would be less intolerance of each other. Sadly at this time of Easter and spring renewal there are atrocities being committed, based on religion and ethnicities across this troubled world.
