Written by R.C. Sproul |
Saturday, December 17, 2022
Islam has no cross and no resurrection, articles of the faith that are of the essence of Christianity and of ultimate importance to the plan of the God of the Bible. Mohammed made no atonement for our sins when he died. And when he died, he stayed dead. There are other crucial differences we could explore of how God is understood in orthodox Christianity and how He is understood in orthodox Islam. It is enough for now to say that Allah and Yahweh are not the same. One is the living God; the other is an idol.

A rose is a rose is a rose. This dictum reinforces the adage that a rose by any other name is still a rose. The idea is that the essence of the rose is not conditioned by what name is attached to it. It is its res, not its nomina, that determines what it is. In different languages, the same flower is known by different names, but it is still the same flower.
When we apply this idea to theology things get a bit more complicated. Indeed the rose adage has been transferred indiscriminately to religion in order to create a theological concept. The concept is: “God by any other name is still God.” Now certainly, it is true that the immutable essence of God is not changed by the alteration of His name. In English, we may say “God,” in German “Gott,” in Greek “Theos,” yet all these names or words are used to point to the same Deity.
Beyond this, however, things get murky. It is a quantum leap to go from saying that God by any other name is still God, to saying that all the great religions in the world believe in the same Being though they call Him different names.
This irrational leap is prodded by the popular analogy of the mountain. This analogy notes that their are many roads up the mountain. Some progress on a more direct route, while others wind about on more circuitous roads, but sooner or later they all arrive at the same place, at the top of the mountain.
Do all roads lead to God?
So, it is argued, there are many roads that lead to God. They may be different routes but they all end up in the same place—with God Himself. That is, the differing roads indicate no difference in the God who is found. God’s being, then, becomes the lowest (or highest) common denominator of all religions.
The road analogy is buttressed by the democratic truism that all religions are equal under the law. The fallacy in this axiom is thinking that just because all religions enjoy equal tolerance under the civil law, they therefore are all equally valid. That might be true if there were no God, but then it would be better to say that with respect to their ultimate affirmation they are all equally invalid.
To argue that all religions ultimately believe in the same God is the quintessential nonsense statement. Even a cursory examination of the content of different religions reveals this. The nature of the Canaanite deity Baal differs sharply from the nature of the biblical God. They are not remotely the same. This sharp distinction is also seen when comparing the God of Israel with the gods and goddesses of Roman, Greek, or Norse mythology.
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The habit of fixing upon a dogma and calling it “settled science” is a kind of idolatry that places “science” in the seat of God, appoints certain scientists as priests capable of giving answers no fallible human can offer, and feigns certainty where real questions remain. The great irony is that this image of scientist-as-infallible-priest makes them seem like the caricature of medieval monks charging their hero Galileo with heresy for his dissent from the consensus. As challenges to Darwin mount, we should be able to articulate why “settled science” makes such a poor god.

In 1973, evolutionary biologist Theodosius Dobzhansky wrote that “nothing in biology makes sense except in light of evolution.” Almost 50 years later, an increasing number of scientists are asking whether evolution makes any sense in light of what we now know from biology.  
A recent long-form essay in The Guardian signals just how urgent the problem has become for the most dominant theory in the history of the sciences. In it, author Stephen Buranyi gives voice to a growing number of scientists who think it’s time for a “new theory of evolution.”   
For a long time, descent with slight modifications and natural selection have been “the basic” (and I’d add, unchallengeable) “story of evolution.” Organisms change, and those that survive pass on traits. Though massaged a bit to incorporate the discovery of DNA, the theory of evolution by natural selection has dominated for 150 years, especially in biology. The “drive to survive” is credited as the creative force behind all the artistry and engineering we see in nature.   
“The problem,” writes Buranyi, is that “according to a growing number of scientists,” this basic story is “absurdly crude and misleading.” For one thing, Darwinian evolution assumes much of what it needs to be explained. For instance, consider the origin of light-sensitive cells that rearranged to become the first eye, or the blood vessels that became the first placenta. How did these things originate? According to one University of Indiana biologist, “we still do not have a good answer. The classic idea of gradual change, one happy accident at a time,” he says, “has so far fallen flat.”  
This scientific doubt about Darwin has been simmering for a while.
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Christians have good reasons to insist on addressing God as Father, especially in the liturgy, where the Christian story is reenacted. Father is not a culturally conditioned term but the proper name of God given by divine revelation. It is how God is primarily identified or named in relation to his Son. At stake is the Trinitarian identity, which inevitably affects the church’s identity. Playing the inclusive language game has a high theological cost that far outweighs any gains.

Do we need to remake God to keep the trans activists happy?
Here is a truth you can take to the bank: every stupid and idiotic idea, trend, fashion and ideology that the world is pushing will eventually find its way into the Christian church. Happens all the time. Take the issue of human sexuality: if easy divorce is pushed in the world, the churches will soon buy into it.
If homosexuality is pushed big time in the world, sure enough, plenty of churches will soon push it big time as well. If the radical trans agenda is being championed all over the West, then you know Western churches will hop on board as well. Instead of the church leading the world, it merely slavishly follows the world.
So it is no surprise that so many “churches” and so many “Christian leaders” are now fully into things like trans activism. And it is always the same old lame excuse: ‘Well, we have trans people in our congregations and we must support them and affirm them and celebrate them. We dare not call out their lifestyle – that would be unloving. Jesus accepts them just as they are, and so should we.’
Thus it was only a matter of time before major church bodies started saying we must be inclusive and accepting of such folks, and if need be, we must change our millennia-old theology to accommodate them. So we now must ask if God is a he or a she – or something else.
Of course this discussion has been around for a while. As feminism came to the fore in the West, the churches bent over backwards to accommodate, so they too asked about God and gender. But with the trans revolution sweeping the West and so much of the church, that debate has been reignited.
We are again having church enquiries about if the Christian God is inclusive enough, or if we need to change things to make people feel more comfortable. To be “compassionate” we need to push for gender-neutral language and the like. Many churches are now heading in this direction, including the Church of England. Consider one recent news item on this:
The Church of England is considering alternatives to referring to God as “he” after priests asked to be allowed to use gender-neutral terms instead. The Church said it would launch a new project on the matter in the spring to decide whether to propose changes or not. Any potential alterations, which would mark a departure from traditional Jewish and Christian teachings dating back millennia, would have to be approved by synod, the Church’s decision-making body.
The Rt Rev Dr Michael Ipgrave, Bishop of Lichfield and vice-chair of the liturgical commission responsible for the matter, said the Church had been “exploring the use of gendered language in relation to God for several years”. “After some dialogue between the two Commissions in this area, a new joint project on gendered language will begin this spring,” he said. “In common with other potential changes to authorised liturgical provision, changing the wording and number of authorised forms of absolution would require a full Synodical process for approval.”
The specifics of the project are as yet unclear. The bishop’s comments came in response to a question asked at synod by the Rev Joanna Stobart, vicar of Ilminster and Whitelackington in Somerset, about the progress on developing “more inclusive language” in services.
It is currently unclear what would replace the term Our Father in the Lord’s Prayer, the central Christian prayer which Jesus Christ is said to have instructed his followers to say together down the generations. Conservative critics have hit back at the possibility of changes, with the Rev Dr Ian Paul telling the Telegraph that they would represent an abandonment of the Church’s own doctrine. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/church-of-england-god-gender-neutral-b2277911.html
As mentioned, this idea of reassessing who God is in regards to the issue of gender has been around for a while, so I have dealt with it before. Eight years ago for example I wrote a piece on this very matter, with a female bishop – also from the CofE – raising the matter: https://billmuehlenberg.com/2015/10/29/god-and-gender/
What I said there in response to her remarks seems to be fully relevant to the current form of the debate, so instead of reinventing the wheel, I will simply post here part of what I wrote back in 2015. All that follows here is from that earlier piece:
The short answer is that God is not gendered, nor a sexual being. God is a spirit, as we are told by Jesus himself in John 4:24: “God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.” Divine beings are not male nor female. But, God is also a personal being. God is not a human being, but is nonetheless personal.
God is an individual being, with a self-consciousness, volition, a mind, the ability to feel, and the ability to enter into personal relationships with others. He is not just an object or a force. And in the Trinity we have three persons. The emphasis is on social relationships. God has relationships among himself, and we can have a personal relationship with God.
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