Sermon Illustrations
The Koran and the Bible on "God's Wounds"
In his book If I Were God I'd End All Pain, John Dickson recalls speaking on the theme "The wounds of God" at a university campus. After his speech, the chairperson asked the audience for questions. Without delay a man in his mid-30s, a Muslim leader at the university, stood up and proceeded to tell the audience how preposterous was the claim that the Creator of the universe would be subjected to the forces of his own creation—that he would have to eat, sleep, and go to the toilet, let alone die on a cross.
Dickson and the man went back and forth for about ten minutes during which the man insisted that the notion of God having wounds—whether physical or emotional—was not only illogical, since the "Creator of Causes" could not possibly be caused pain by a lesser entity, it was outright blasphemy, as stated in the Koran.
Dickson later wrote,
I had no knock-down argument, no witty comeback. The debate was probably too amicable for either approach anyway. In the end, I simply thanked him for demonstrating for the audience the radical contrast between the Islamic conception of God and that described in the Bible. What the Muslim denounces as blasphemy the Christian holds as precious: God has wounds.