How does the Christian understanding of God differ from Islam?

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The fundamental distinction between Christian and Islamic theology centers on how God’s nature is understood. The God revealed progressively through Scripture—Yahweh in the Old Testament and continuing through Christ and the apostles—differs fundamentally from Allah as presented in Islamic teaching.1

The most significant theological divergence involves the Trinity. Christians affirm God as triune—one in essence yet three in person—where the distinctions between Father, Son, and Spirit do not create three separate deities.1 While both faiths claim monotheism, Islam understands “one” to mean Allah is a singular spiritual being without internal plurality, and Muslims explicitly deny the Trinity as implying polytheism.2 The Qur’an categorically rejects any notion of threeness in God, treating the Trinitarian confession as blasphemy.3

This doctrinal disagreement extends to Christology and redemption. Islam denies both the incarnation of a second person of the Trinity who accomplishes salvation and the work of a third person who applies redemption, resulting in radically different understandings of Christ and the Holy Spirit.1 The crucifixion and resurrection—foundational to Christian faith—find no parallel in Islamic theology.1

A secondary but important distinction involves God’s relational nature. Islam emphasizes God’s justice and power but lacks the concept of God as love, which requires internal distinction within the Godhead to express itself; Christianity grounds God’s love in the eternal relationships of the Trinity and demonstrates it through the incarnation.4

Because Islam and Christianity contradict each other fundamentally regarding God’s nature, they cannot both be correct—and when adherents discuss “God” or “Allah,” they are not discussing the same being.2

  1. 1
    R. C. Sproul, “Right Now Counts Forever: A Rose Is A Rose,” Tabletalk Magazine, April 1998: Exposing Islam, ed. R. C. Sproul Jr. (Lake Mary, FL: Ligonier Ministries, 1998), 8.
  2. 2
    Rick Kline, Sorting through Worldviews: How to Give Reasonable Responses in Defense of Christianity (Eugene, Oregon: Wipf and Stock, 2022). [See here, here.]
  3. 3
    Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen, Doing the Work of Comparative Theology (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2020), 65.
  4. 4
    Samuel Waje Kunhiyop, “The Trinity in Africa: Trends and Trajectories,” in The Trinity among the Nations: The Doctrine of God in the Majority World, ed. Gene L. Green, Stephen T. Pardue, and K. K. Yeo, Majority World Theology Series (Grand Rapids, MI; Cambridge, U.K.: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2015), 61.

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