This is a talk Jay gave to the ICMDA (International Christian Medical and Dental Association) on the major contrasts between Christianity and Islam, pointing out each time that the primary reasons for these contrasts is due to our relationship with God, which has existed from the very beginning.

He uses as his key Genesis 3:8-9, two small verses which he believes are the most important verses to use with Muslims because of what they say about who we are, who God is, what it was like at the very beginning and what needs to be rectified at the very end.

To begin with he points to 3 ideas which we can pick out in these verse, namely:

1) The God of the Bible LIMITS himself to come down to us:
We read that this omnipotent God came down and was walking in the garden, which unlike the Islamic garden that is located in space (see Suras 2:30; 7:19-25; 20:116-123), the Biblical Garden is definitely on earth. That shows us that God lowered Himself by entering our 'Time and Space' and took on the limitations of His creation (i.e. he was walking and talking "in the cool of the day"). He was looking for Adam. Therefore, He restricted Himself, casting away His omnipotence to walk, search, and talk in the same fashion as His created humans did.

2) The God of the Bible wants a RESPONSE from us:
This omniscient, all-knowing God called out “Where are you?” Certainly God knew where Adam and Eve were. He knows everything, he’s omniscient. Yet, in this verse we find that He gave Adam and Eve the chance to respond. He humbled Himself to come down to their level, and now He was calling out to them to return to Him. This suggests that the God of the Bible wants a response from all of us who are hiding from him.

3) The God of the Bible wants a RELATIONSHIP with us.
Finally, and most importantly, from the fact that God was casually walking and looking around in the garden, implies that this was something that He did often with Adam and Eve, possibly taking walks with them in the evening. What is astounding about this act, however, is that this all-powerful and almighty creator God seemed to have a personal relationship with Adam and Eve at that time. The possibility that He did this suggests that He cared about them, and sought out their companionship. He was looking for them, which implies that He wanted to spend time with them. More than that, this proves that He was in relationship with them. In other words, here we find an infinite creator-God who walks and talks with His finite creation face-to-face. Do you know of any other concept or belief in a God who claims to walk and talk in the context of a loving relationship like this?

The reason this is important is that from this item alone we can build a theology of not only who God is, but who we are, what purpose we have here on earth, how we are to model our lives, our families, our societies, where it is that we are headed, and what we will find once we get there.

It is these verses that show us the unique relationship which Adam and Eve shared with their creator which Islam knows nothing about. Therefore, it is this relationship which must be the ‘hermeneutical key’ with which we can measure almost everything else.

Jay then goes into a number of comparisons proving just how different Christianity and Islam are using this Hermeneutical Key.

He contrasts not only the Garden of Eden, but the differences we can find between Yahweh (the Biblical God) and Allah (the Qur'anic god).

He shows how God as 'Triune' helps us understand why we are relational as Human Beings, proving that these important aspects of our nature can only come from an eternally relational God in that the relationship within the Godhead is the source of our social and relational nature, derived entirely from Him, since we are created in His image (Genesis 1:26-27).

Yet, where do Muslims, who are equally relational, derive this nature from, since their Allah god is only one, a monad? To understand who they are they are going to have to come home to our Triune God (God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit).

Jay then uses this Hermeneutical Key to contrast our relationship to our Father God, pointing out that we are His Sons and Daughters, in contrast to Muslims who are "Abd-Allahs" = Slaves of Allah.

He then ends his talk with Paradise contrasting the very carnal and sexual Paradise of Islam (see Surahs 55-56) where Allah doesn't exist, to the Biblical Paradise, which is not carnal nor sexual at all, but is a beautiful place where we finally return to that relationship with God which was lost in the Garden of Eden. Thus, now because of what our God accomplished by coming to earth and dying and rising from the dead 2,000 years ago, we can once again "Walk and Talk with God face-to-face" for eternity!

Following his talk he responded to 4-5 questions relating to this theme posed by Dr. Peter Saunders, the moderator for these ICMDA talks.

© Pfander Centre for Apologetics - US, Dec. 14, 2023
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