Monotheism/beatific Vision

[Justified Saint]

I am having to play catch-up on this thread, so I don't know entirely what is meant by the idea of an "abstract" but true God. If this is meant to imply that the error behind the CCC statement is that it reduced God merely to a principle of the knowledge of monotheism that by definition Islam displays on some intellectual or ideological level, I would have to disagree. On the contrary, the statement reveals the oft lived reality of coming to know God as one, but through the universal condition of linguistic and geographical division as well as cultural alienation do not know Him as fully revealed in Christianity. To say that God could only ever be experienced in a Trinitarian context would be the pinnacle of a vapid abstractionism.

[Apotheoun]

The most that abstracting from nature can tell a man is [i]that[/i] God exists, but this knowledge is not salvific because man cannot naturally escape the diastemic realm of created being. Thus, when I speak of an "abstract" god, I mean a "god" based upon human concepts abstracted from nature, which prescinds from supernatural revelation. Now, it should be noted that the Eastern Churches, following the teaching of the Greek Fathers, do not accept the Pelagian view presently holding ascendancy in the West that man can, on his own initiative, come to a true and living experience of God.

Now, when speaking about Islam, one must contend with the fact that the Islamic religion explicitly denies the divinity of Christ and the dogma of the Holy Trinity. Moreover, Islam is not a "natural" striving after God, but is instead based upon the false doctrines promoted by Mohammad.

[Apotheoun]

[quote name='Justified Saint' post='1312439' date='Jul 4 2007, 12:06 PM']If this is meant to imply that the error behind the CCC statement is that it reduced God merely to a principle of the knowledge of monotheism that by definition Islam displays on some intellectual or ideological level,[/quote]
Western speculation tends to say too much. That said, the demons are monotheists, as St. James -- writing under the influence of the Holy Sprit -- said in his epistle.

[Apotheoun]

It should be borne in mind that Islamic belief is not founded upon reason, but is founded instead upon Qur'anic "revelation" as Al-Ghazali taught (cf. his treatises entitled, [i]Iqtisad[/i] and [i]Tahāfut ʾal-Falāsifa[/i]).