Do Christians and Muslims worship the same God? Since the devastating attacks of 9/11””when the world saw afresh that religion has geo-political consequences, and that Islam is the most volatile religion on the world’s stage””more and more Christians have been asking this question.
Yale theologian Miroslav Volf answers the question in a recent book (Allah: A Christian Response) with a nuanced but insistent Yes: Christians and Muslims do indeed worship the same God. In a review of Volf’s book, Baylor historian Thomas Kidd faults Volf for sidestepping the question of salvation””and therefore the question of true worship””and for not being critical enough in his evaluation of the identity of the God or gods of these two religions.
Kidd is quite right; indeed, there are deeper problems with Volf’s thesis. His argument for the identity of the Muslim and Christian Gods collapses under its own weight. Volf’s own logic underscores what the Qur’an itself suggests””that the God of the Qur’an is radically different from the God Christians worship.
Thanks for posting this Kendall. I wanted to draw T19 readers’ attention to one of the comments at the First Things article. I think that comment articulates the reality very well:
[blockquote]I think we can say, as Kenneth Cragg’s explains in “The Call of the Minaret” that Christians and Muslims worship the same referent. This does not deny, as McDermott put it, “that God as described in the Quran is very different from the God of the Bible”. I have met people who have knowledge of a person I know quite well that they have never met, and it is clear they don’t know the person. They are even wrong about certain facts. [b]These people and I are both talking about the same person, but we do not have the same understanding of that person.[/b] They speak of someone they do not know. Thus, Muslims worship the same God in one respect as Chrisitians, but they worship that which they do not “know”. Wasn’t that Jesus point with the Samaritan woman? I think it better to say that Muslims have an idolatrous and heretical or blasphemous view of God than to say they worship a different God. God is Creator and God is Sovereign are affirmed by both traditions. But God as a Triune Redeemer and Lover of sinners is not. [/blockquote]
(emphasis mine)
I have often tried to make the same point: same God, different understanding, but this writer has said it much better than I can, and I like the reference to Jesus’ discussion with the Samaritan woman.
Thanks for the reference Karen. Kevin Higgins has a wonderful teaching on Islam using the Samaritan parallel, for it was an analogous jewish heresy that Jesus engaged. i think the analogy works. I would add that though we agree in some respects about the subject ( one true Creator God, etc) we disagree about the predicates (revealed truly and fully in the face of Jesus Christ). Reminds me of the wizard of Oz. The Lion, Tin man, and the Scarecrow were all wrong about the wizard but it was the same wizard they were wrong about. CS Lewis has some apropos things to say on this score as well.
Sorry, I don’t buy into Tashlan. Shema.
Applying the same criterion of “the understanding of the character of God”, here are two tougher questions:
1. Do Christians and Jews worship the same God?
2. Do Muslims and Jews worship the same God?
1. Yes
2. No