Chapter
XXVI
A
Comparison With The Mohammedan
Doctrine of Predestination
1.
Elements Which the Two Doctrines Have in Common. 2.
Mohammedan Tendency Toward Fatalism. 3.
Christian Doctrine Not Derived From Mohammedanism. 4.
The Two Doctrines Contrasted.
1.
ELEMENTS WHICH THE TWO DOCTRINES HAVE IN COMMON
While
Mohammedanism is a false religion and utterly destitute of power to save
the soul from sin, there are certain elements of truth in the system,
and we are under obligation to honor truth regardless of the source from
which it comes. "The strength of Mohammedanism," says Froude, "was that
it taught the omnipotence and omnipresence of one eternal Spirit, the
Maker and Ruler of all things, by whose everlasting purpose all things
were, and whose will all things must obey." 1 The striking
similarity between the Biblical and the Koranic doctrines of
Predestination has been noticed by many writers. Dr. Samuel M. Zwemer,
who in a very real sense can be referred to as "the apostle to the
Mohammedan world," calls attention to the strange parallel between the
Reformation in Europe under Calvin and that in Arabia under Mohammed.
Says he: "Islam is indeed in many respects the Calvinism of the Orient.
It, too, was a call to acknowledge the sovereignty of God's will. 'There
is no god but God.' It, too, saw in nature and sought in revelation the
majesty of God's presence and power, and manifestations of His glory,
transcendent and omnipotent. 'God,' says Mohammed, 'there is no god but
He, the living, the self-subsistent, slumber seizeth Him not, nor sleep
— His throne embraceth the heavens and the earth and none can intercede
with Him save by His permission. He alone is exalted and great' . . . .
It is this vital theistic principle that explains the victory of Islam
over the weak divided and idolatrous Christendom of the Orient in the
sixth century . . . . The Message of Mohammed, when he first unfurled
the green banner, 'There is no god but God; God is king, and you must
and shall obey His will,' was one of the simplest accounts ever offered
of the nature of God and His relation to man . . . . This was Islam, as
it was offered at the sword's point to people who had lost the power of
understanding any other argument."2
In addition
to the Koran there are a number of orthodox traditions which claim to
give Mohammed's teachings on the subject. Some of these tell in almost
identical language how before the person is born an angel descends and
writes his destiny. It is said that the angel inquires, "O my Lord,
miserable or blessed? whereupon one or the other is written down; and: O
my Lord, a male or a female? whereupon one or the other is written down.
He also writes down the moral conduct of the new being, its career, its
term of life, and its allotment of good. Then (it is said to him): Roll
up the leaves, for no addition shall be made thereto, nor anything taken
therefrom." In another tradition we read of a messenger of God speaking
thus: "There is no one of you — there is no soul born whose place,
whether Paradise or Hell, has not been predetermined by God, and which
has not been registered beforehand as either miserable or blessed."
3
But while
the Koran and the traditions teach a strict foreordination of moral
conduct and future destiny, they also present a doctrine of human
freedom which makes it necessary for us to qualify the sharper
assertions of divine Predestination in harmony with it. And here, too,
as in the Scriptures, no attempt is made to explain how the apparently
opposite truths of Divine sovereignty and human freedom are to be
reconciled.
2.
MOHAMMEDAN TENDENCY TOWARD FATALISM
As a matter
of fact, however, Mohammedanism places such an emphasis on God as the
sole cause of all events that second causes are practically excluded.
The idea that man is in any way the cause of his own acts has nearly
ceased to exist, and Fatalism, the normal belief of the Arabs in their
state of semi-civilization before Mohammed, is the controlling force in
the speculations and practices of the Moslem world. "According to these
traditions," says Dr. Zwemer, "and the interpretation of them for more
than ten centuries in the life of Moslems, this kind of Predestination
should be called Fatalism and nothing else. For Fatalism is the doctrine
of an inevitable necessity and implies an omnipotent and arbitrary
sovereign power." 4
Practically, Mohammedanism holds to a predestination of ends regardless
of means. The contrast with the Christian system is seen in the
following story. A ship crowded with Englishmen and Mohammedans was
ploughing through the waves. Accidentally one of the passengers fell
overboard. The Mohammedans looked after him with indifference, saying,
"If it is written in the book of destiny that he shall be saved, he
shall be saved without us; and if it is written that he shall perish, we
can do nothing"; and with that they left him. But the Englishmen said,
"Perhaps it is written that we should save him." They threw him a rope
and he was saved.
3.
CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE NOT DERIVED FROM MOHAMMEDANISM
But
whatever may be said about the doctrine of Predestination, no reasonable
person will charge that the Christian doctrine is borrowed from the
Mohammedan. Augustine, who is admitted by Protestants and Catholics
alike to have been the outstanding man in the Christian Church at his
time, and whom Protestants rate as the greatest between Paul and Luther,
had taught this doctrine with great conviction more than two centuries
before Mohammedanism arose; and it was aggressively taught by Christ and
the apostles at the beginning of the Christian era, to say nothing of
the place which it occupied in the Old Testament.
A study of
the history and teachings of Mohammedanism reveals that it is made up of
three parts, one of which was borrowed from the Jews, another from the
Christians, and the third from the heathen Arabs. Hence a part of the
system is nothing more nor less than Christianity at second hand. But
would any reasonable Christian give up certain articles of his creed
only because Mohammed adopted them in his? What great gaps such conduct
would make in our creed can be seen when we learn that Mohammed believed
in only one true God, that he utterly abolished all idol worship, that
he believed in angels, a general resurrection and judgment, a heaven and
hell, that he allowed both the Old and New Testaments, and recognized
both Moses and Christ as prophets of God. It is small wonder, then, that
elements of the Christian doctrine of Predestination were incorporated
into the Mohammedan system and united with the heathen doctrine of
Fatalism.
Furthermore, an historical study of this subject shows us that the
Mohammedans have had their sort of Arminians as truly as we, and that
the questions of Predestination and Free Will have been agitated among
the Mohammedan doctors with as much heat and vehemence as ever they were
in Christendom. The Turks of the sect of Omar hold the doctrine of
absolute Predestination, while the Persians of the sect of Ali deny
Predestination and assert Free Will with as much fervor as any Arminian.
4. THE
TWO DOCTRINES CONTRASTED
Although
the terms used in describing the Reformed and the Mohammedan doctrines
of Predestination have much similarity the results of their reasoning
are as far apart as the East is from the West. In fact, the further
investigation proceeds the more superficial does the resemblance become.
Their greatest resemblance seems to be in the teachings of each that
everything which occurs happens according to the will of God. Yet very
different ideas are meant by the "will of God." Islam reduces God to a
category of the will and makes Him a despot, an oriental despot, who
stands at abysmal heights above humanity. He cares nothing for
character, but only for submission. The only affair of men is to obey
His decrees, so that, as Zanchius says, Predestination becomes "a sort
of blind, rapid, overbearing impetus, which, right or wrong, with means
or without, carries all things violently before it, with little or no
attention to the peculiar and respective nature of second causes." And
concerning human freedom Dr. Zwemer says that in the doctrine of Islam,
"God's omnipotence is so absolute that it excludes all self-activity on
the part of the creature . . . . Whatever freedom is permitted is only
under the term Kasb; that is, the appropriation of an act as his
own which, after all, he is compelled to execute as a part of God's
will."
The Koran
and orthodox traditions have practically nothing to say about the
concepts of sin and moral responsibility, and the morality of the
Mohammedan system is notoriously defective. In Islam it is difficult to
avoid the conclusion that God is the author of sin. The origin of sin
and its character are wholly different concepts in Islam and in
Christianity.
In Islam
there is no doctrine of the Fatherhood of God and no purpose of
redemption to soften the doctrine of the decrees. God is represented as
having arbitrarily created one group of people for paradise and another
group for hell, and the events of every person's life are so ordered
that little place is left for moral responsibility and guilt. They deny
that there has been any election in Christ to grace and glory, and that
Christ died a sacrificial death for his people. They have nothing to say
about the efficacy of saving grace or about perseverance, and even in
regard to the predestination of temporal events the ideas are often
gross and confused. The attribute of love is absent from Allah. The
ideas that God should love us or that we should love God are strange
ideas to Islam, and the Koran hardly hints at this subject of which the
Bible is so full.
In
conclusion it may be said that the Arminian creed has little appeal for
the Mohammedan. So far as mission work is concerned, the Calvinistic
churches entered the world of Islam earlier and more vigorously than any
other group of churches, and for more than one hundred years they and
they alone have challenged Islam in the land of its birth. They have
occupied the strategic centers and today are carrying on far the larger
part of the mission work in the Moslem world. With God's sovereignty as
basis, God's glory as goal, and God's will as motive, the Presbyterian
and Reformed churches are peculiarly fitted to win Moslem hearts to the
allegiance of Christ, and are facing, with bright hopes of success, that
most difficult of all missionary tasks, the evangelization of the Moslem
world.
