Are the Zoroastrian's God the Christian God

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I have this co-worker who's a christian and his girlfriend is zoroastrian.(I hope I spelled it correctly). He was wondering if their God was the same as our God. I believe they say there is only one God but he doesn't come down from the line of Abraham as the Christian or even the Muslim God. Anyways, it's because of this that I said that He wasn't the Same as our God. Was I wrong to say this?

-- D Joseph (newfiedufie@msn.com), June 27, 2004

Answers

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-- D Joseph (newfiedufie@msn.com), June 27, 2004.

Zoroastrians are the theological descendents of the Manicheans--a neo- Platonic sect that believes in equal and opposed forces of good and evil in the world. Augustine was a Manichean before his conversion.

In one respect, no, their god has nothing (historically, theologically) to do with our God, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. In truth, their god has more in common with the Platonic "demiurge."

But in the respect in which the Catholic Church opposes nothing of what is good and true in other religions, the Zoroastrian god as a principle of existence and a Being of pure goodness is indeed a ray of light shining upon them and a preparation for the Gospel.

-- anon (ymous@god.bless), June 27, 2004.


I agree with anon

Zorastrianism is one of the oldest religion in history of the world. Historically, their god (Ahura Mazda) may not have a lineage from Abraham, but in many ways share the holy attributes and goodness of our God (Christian god) and also much nobler than the impersonal Islamic god.

We ourselves had a very limited and varied image of our God until the Christ's coming, and even after His coming, we (the church and also individually) are to continuously uncover him from "one glory to another" by the Holy Spirit.

Some knowledge regarding the Parsis as I remember are: They are originally inhabitants from Persia. Their prophet is Zoroaster who formed their religion, maybe around 3000 B.C. They escaped to India (state of Gujarat) and other places to escape persecution hundreds of years (not sure exact date). They are commonly refered as Parsis in India. They speak Gujarati. They usually prefer a Western lifestyle. They worship at the Fire Temple. They offer their dead to vultures in a place called Temple of Silence. They are conservative about allowing anyone to convert to their religion, hence their numbers are very few. They prefer to marry only within their community, hence suffer from a great deal of genetic diseases. They have no much theological advances nor any have special progressive revelation unlike that of Judeo-Christianity. Hence, these are also their drawbacks regarding the full understanding of God and the Evil (e.g. considering them equal in power even though in opposition). They come close to Christianity even after all this in they sharing many noble elements with Christianity. They have a natural attraction towards Christians, I must say.

In the Bible, God calls a Zoroastrian and anoints him to do his will (see Isaiah.45)

This is all I remember.

Sincerely,

Philip

-- Leslie John (lesliemon@hotmail.com), June 28, 2004.


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