From Karen Armstrong’s A History of God: The 4,000-Year Quest of Judaism, Christianity and Islam: The problem of predestination and free will … indicates a central difficulty in the idea of a personal God.  An impersonal God, such as Brahman, can more easily be said to exist beyond “good” and “evil,” which are regarded as masks […]

From Karen Armstrong’s A History of God: The 4,000-Year Quest of Judaism, Christianity and Islam: Politics is not extrinsic to a Muslim’s personal religious life, as in Christianity, which mistrusts mundane success.  Muslims regard themselves as committed to implemented a just society in accord with God’s will.  The ummah has sacramental importance, as a “sign” that God […]

From Karen Armstrong’s A History of God: The 4,000-Year Quest of Judaism, Christianity and Islam: Nobody in the new empire was forced to accept the Islamic faith; indeed, for a century after Muhammad’s death, conversion was not encouraged and, in about 700, was actually forbidden by law: Muslims believed that Islam was for the Arabs as […]

From Karen Armstrong’s A History of God: The 4,000-Year Quest of Judaism, Christianity and Islam: The image of the olive tree in [certain Koranic] verses has been interpreted as an allusion to the continuity of revelation, which springs from one “root” and branches into a multifarious variety of religious experience that cannot be identified with or […]

From Karen Armstrong’s A History of God: The 4,000-Year Quest of Judaism, Christianity and Islam: Denys’s God has two aspects: one is turned toward us and manifests himself in the world; the other is the far side of God as he is in himself, which remains entirely incomprehensible.  He “stays within himself” in his eternal mystery, […]