An overview of Islam: Won't Allah let me into Paradise if I am Really Good? *

One time I had been disusing with a Muslim for about an hour about many aspects of Islam and Christianity.  Eventually he asked:

"Don't you think Allah will let me into paradise if I am good?"

That was a turning point in my understanding of Islam. I finally understood what this whole discussion is about and why Muslims are often so obstinate in the face of clear reason.

Muslims fundamentally believe that you need to appease Allah needs to be appeased with prayers and good works, or else you will end up in hellfire.  There is really no assurance of salvation; it up to the arbitrary will of Allah.

In Christianity however, God lets people into heaven on a legal basis. After Adam's sin, all humanity is on the wrong side of the law, but God is actually helping us to justify us.  If we don't make it into heaven, that is not God's will for us.

In the news recently was the case of  a judge who ruled against a fashion clothing retailer who fired an employee who wore a hijab [headscarf] at work. This clothing store did not specialize in the particular clothes that Muslimas [a female Muslim] wear, so they felt this hurt their business.

The judge himself may have been strongly in favor of the right of the employer to hire and fire anyone they want, but in the office of the judge he has to do exactly what the law says.

There is also a case where a judge would not hear a case brought by a certain Muslima because she would not remove her headscarf in court.
The Judge said,

“The same rules need to be applied to everyone. 
I will therefore not hear you if you are wearing a scarf on your head, just as 
I would not allow a person to appear before me wearing a hat or sunglasses on his or her head, or any other garment not suitable for a court proceeding,” 

“I will not hear you, I have to apply the same rules to everybody.”

Here again, the views and personal preferences of the judge do not matter.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2015/02/27/quebec-judge-refused-to-hear-case-because-muslim-woman-wore-a-hijab/


Below is the verse so often quoted by Muslims to try to disprove the Trinity:

God is not a man, that he should lie,
    nor the son of man, that he should repent.
Has he said, and will he not do it?
    Or has he spoken, and will he not make it good?
--Numbers 23:19


This verse really means that what God has set in motion cannot be undone.  What God says is eternally true.  If God decreed a penalty for sin, then it is absolutely certain to happen.

We believe that Jesus made a narrow legal way for Man to escape the judgment for Sin and joining the rebellion of Satan against God.

And so we Christians do good works and pray, as Muslims do also, but the reasons and motivations are very different.