What does it mean to say that Muslims and Christians worship the same God?

Wheaton College fired a professor for claiming that Muslims and Christians worship the same God, or so Wheaton's official justification was.

I'm trying to wrap my head around what means, about what theological claims are being made here. The answer I can come to is it's about whose prayers God hears and responds to, and I suppose there are some denominations that might want to put God in a box in that way, it strikes me as weird. I suppose maybe that's my atheist background, on how prayer seems so ineffective*, combined with my view of what God the Merciful, the Compassionate should be.** Does not God hear the prayers of the Hindus and the Navahos, and does he not take mercy upon them?

That's one interpretation, surely. Another interpretation is simply the fact that there is one God, and thus any monotheist, no matter how weird and nonBiblical, is praying to that God. But it does not seem to be something that has one clear interpretation; trying to peg apostasy on someone for claiming it seems weird.

* "There is futility which is done on the earth, that is, there are righteous men to whom it happens according to the deeds of the wicked. On the other hand, there are evil men to whom it happens according to the deeds of the righteous. I say that this too is futility."

** Ramble on: I've also been thinking about how the Germans put "Gott mit uns" on their soldier's belt buckles, and the Americans put "In God we trust" on their money, but instead of pure nationalism, the Iranians put "In the name of God the Merciful, the Compassionate" on all of their official state works.

I don't think Muslims and Christians worship the same God. Not if Jesus is thought to be a deity by Christians.

They have different paths to achieve the goals of their faith, and I think there are different goals.

Christians need a savior.

Muslims need to submit.

If someone thinks that all religions, all paths, lead to the same truth, then they might think that Muslims and Christians have the same God.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perennial_philosophy

It seems painfully obvious to me that there is a great overlap in "hierohistory" between the aptly-called "Abrahamic religions." One of the names for Islam is the din al-Ibrahim, i.e. the "religion of Abraham." Inasmuch as Abraham is viewed as a founder figure by Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, all three claim to worship the God of Abraham, and to dedicate their own observances to the the god who established the Abrahamic covenant.

While Christianity incorporates the body of the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh), Islam does not. Nevertheless, the Quran includes many narratives and pericopes regarding Biblical figures such as Moses and Mary the mother of Jesus. Islam regards Jesus as a prophet of the same God who was the source of the Quran and the benefactor of Muhammad.

Christianity and Islam certainly disagree about the theological status of Jesus, but I think it's rather a stretch to say that they worship "different gods," and more productive to wrestle with the evident fact that they have very different approaches to a godhead which has a deep common history.

I think a better questions is do all Christians believe in the same God? I hear people like Ted Cruz or Franklin Graham, Mike Huckabee or Ralph Reed and I wonder if I worship the same god they do.

paradoxosalpha,

Do the gods of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam look for similar paths to the ultimate religious goal. This is a similar question to that asked here.

> 1

Default position - all gods are equally imaginary.

Problem solved.

Your welcome.

>1 prosfilaes:

There is a very similar thread here which seems to me to address the same issue. A number of people have responded there explaining why it can be said that the three Abrahamic religions worship the same God, while clearly their understanding of that God has diverged greatly.

>4 Arctic-Stranger: I think a better questions is do all Christians believe in the same God?

As a practitioner of the "original and true pre-Christian Christianity," I'd have to say "no." Most Christians couldn't start to imagine the God I "believe in." And it's not my role to instruct them.

Notwithstanding what y'all have said, I do wonder to what extent this controversy arose because Dr Hawkins is a 1) young 2) woman 3) of colour who announced and explained her gesture of support for Muslims in 4) social media.

Did Wheaton's administration naïvely think that they could accomplish diversity without actually having to accommodate diversity?

>9 librorumamans:

How cynical and probably correct of you!

> 9

Being right vs. being wrong - vis a` vis god - is just an academic or trivial difference - unless there are serious and unfortunate consequences to being wrong.

The people who are not getting it right - i.e., the non-paradoxosalphas of the world - is there some ultimate or absolute unhappy result, i.e., hell or something similar?

No? Then what is the big deal?

Yes? Then you are either one lucky sumbitch - or you are somehow predestined as god's favorite - or you are just a silly ass that intelligent people should just ignore.

So - which is it, do ya think?

Perhaps the issue is that Dr Hawkins is young, female, black, and uses social media. Although I would then be surprised then at her initial hiring, if the college does not want young, female, black professors who use social media.

It may be that the college thinks a different religion implies a different God. And I think that is correct, that a different religion implies a different God.

Whether her spoken belief that Allah and the Christian Trinity are the same God justifies dismissal or not, I am not sure. It does not seem a justifiable reason for dismissal to me.

>12 richardbsmith: a different religion implies a different God

Why? Why not simply different understandings of the same God?

It does not seem a justifiable reason for dismissal

Agreed.

>11 JGL53:

I think your > 9 was really > 8 (to me), right?

I am a silly ass, god's favorite, and some other things besides.

But my point is not that I am "right" in any absolute sense about some ultimate divinity, just that the god to whom I am devoted (who does not operate a general-admission inferno or paradisio) is very different than that of the Jesusolaters.

John,

For me the first question is whether there is just one true God?

If there is just one true God, then do Hindus and Buddhists and Zoroastrians and everyone else worship the same God as well as Muslims, Jews, and Christians?

>15 richardbsmith:

They probably do; who am I to judge? But at least for the three Abrahamic religions there is a common background, respect for the same prophets, a certain amount of scriptural commonality.

Does the sharing some of the same cycles of myths and legends mean the religions worship the same God?

My first question is whether any of these religions worship the actual one true God.

Did God do the things that are in these cycles of stories? Or are these cycles of stories man made legends and myths?

If they are man made accounts, then how is God understood by these different interpretations? Israel is chosen by God to be a nation of priests. Christ is God made man to pay the debt for sins of the world, or perhaps of believers. Allah is the one God and Muhammad is his prophet.

Each religion borrows from those accounts and interprets their own God.

How do we claim the three are the same? Do we extend Jesus' sacrifice to the other religions with a patronizing tolerance? Do Muslims allow that the works of Christians will earn them acceptance on the Final Day, despite their idolatry of believing Jesus to be God? Do the Jews accept that YHWH will accept Christians and Muslims into the covenant despite the Christian acceptance of Jesus as a God and the Muslim rejection of Israel as the chosen people?

I think to consider that the three worship the same God ignores their distinctions that make them different religions. I also think to consider the three to worship the same God leaves aside the other religions, including the great religions of the East.

Judaism, Islam, and Christianity do share some of the same cycles of storied. I think though their Gods are different.

>17 richardbsmith: Judaism, Islam, and Christianity do share some of the same cycles of storied. I think though their Gods are different.

I don't see how it helps you to say that. To multiply entities just to accommodate a diversity of perspective (or even difference in values) tends to obfuscate rather than to clarify the distinctions at issue.

If you want an example where someone shares the cycle of stories, but actually has a different god, look at the Gnostics of antiquity. They (typically, there was a lot of doctrinal variety) acknowledged the existence of the god of Moses, but rather than proclaiming their belief and worship to be the ones most suited to that god, they claimed that the god on Sinai was an evil, deceiving spirit (albeit the creator of this world!), and dedicated themselves to a genuinely other, higher divinity to which they claimed access was possible.

Gnosticism seems more of a world view that found homes in multiple religions, not just Christianity or Judaism.

If a group interprets a story differently, is it a different story.

Isaiah 7:14 is about Christ for Christians. For Jews it is about God's help for Judah.

And I think, if we are going to pursue this question, it would help me to clarify whether we are discussing the one true God who created the universe and guided Moses and the Israelite people from exile in Egypt through the desert into the promised land.

Or if we are talking more about human traditions which have ancient origins and have been picked up by different people and reinterpreted over the ages.

What is the same for Judaism, Islam, and Christianity other than sharing some cycles of tradition?

>19 richardbsmith: the one true God who created the universe ... OR ... human traditions

You're comparing apples and oranges, theology and epistemology. Give me a choice where the roads actually cross! Like:

the one true God who created the universe ... OR ... a superhuman entity of dubious intent

personal mystical experiences ... OR ... human traditions accumulated in institutions

paradoxosalpha,

It does not matter to me whether we are discussing the true God or human traditions. I just prefer to stay consistent.

The question is whether Muslims and Christians worship the same God. As we discuss this, it would help me to understand whether we are discussing the God who in person on Earth destroyed Sodom or whether the God we all worship is an idea of God from some shared and borrowed human traditions.

Our question has different directions for me depending on that difference in perspective.

>21 richardbsmith:

You've thoroughly confused me, sorry. Can I infer from your last couple of posts that you believe that there is a person who both created the universe and destroyed the city of Sodom by his individual agency? And that this is something that can be postulated so easily as a basis for conversation, that we might all take it for granted?

And that the notion somehow stands outside of "human traditions"?

My apologies. I certainly did not intend to confuse.

I accept that Jews, Muslims, and Christians worship the same God. And we can defer any consideration of other non Abrahamic religions.

>17 richardbsmith: Judaism, Islam, and Christianity do share some of the same cycles of storied. I think though their Gods are different.

It has been pointed out to me on Slactivist that to say that the God of Abraham (the first Jew), Moses and Ezekiel is a different god from the God of the Christians is heresy, similar to Marconism.

OK.

I may be closer to Arianism, if anyone is searching the right heresy to charge me with. Marcion is not a good fit for me.

That said, claiming that Judaism and Christianity worship different Gods is not the same as rejecting the Old Testament scriptures. I don't think anyway. Calling the Old Testament the Old Testament suggests to me that there is something different.

Judaism does not accept Jesus as God. That is different. Not the same.

If Christianity grew out of Judaism, there is a reason that it became a different religion. And I think part of that reason is Jesus is believed to be God.

>25 richardbsmith:

Accepting your frame for a moment: Did Jesus reject the God of his Jewish ancestors?

I don't think Muslims and Christians worship the same God. Not if Jesus is thought to be a deity by Christians.

First the reasoning is very different based on whether we do or do not believe. If there is no God, then the question has no "real" answer, but only answers appropriate to various other disciplines—history or aesthetics, or whatever. Consider, for example, if we asked whether Artemis was the same God as Diana. There's no right answer, but merely a mixed one, depending on context.

If we believe Christianity, however, there is a real answer. And, I think, you really can't deny they are the same, either by referencing Jesus or mentioning the Trinity as Wheaton did.

For starters, whatever applies to Muslims, applies to Jews. Christians generally don't deny that Jews worship the same God—either Jews today or Jews back when. Indeed, asserting that would cut the legs out from under Christian theology generally. (Of course Marcion did—he actually believed the God of the Old Testament was a separate and inferior being.)

After that you have serious logical and philosophical problems. And it flies in the face of two millennia of Christian theology—a puerile notion that is both modern and exclusively Protestant. But the Jewish problem is unsurmountable.

>26 paradoxosalpha: "Accepting your frame for a moment: Did Jesus reject the God of his Jewish ancestors?"

He did not.

Was Jesus a Christian?

Of course, I am not rejecting the God of the Hebrew Bible either.

I am teaching Genesis in Sunday School starting this Sunday. And reading Richard Friedman in preparation.

We can approach this from your position paradoxosalpha. Do Jews accept that salvation is from Jesus by his sacrifice on the cross?

Tim,

I guess being called childish is better than being called a heretic. So thank you.

It is more difficult for me to distinguish the Gods of Islam and Judaism that Christianity and either of them. Jesus is not worshiped as divine in either Islam or Judaism.

I do not know how to avoid considering the worship of Jesus as worshiping a different God.

>29 richardbsmith:

So, again, do you think that Jews then or now worshipped a "different God"? That isn't at all compatible with the Christian faith—either its tradition or the New Testament itself.

We could do other arguments, but that's a good start.

I think the Jews worship a different God than do Christians.

I do not think that the Jews worship Jesus.

I also do not think that Jews believe that the New Testament fulfills the Old.

No, I want that in the past.

I want to hear whether pre-1c Jews believed in a different God, whether Jews of Jesus' time, or the Jews converted by Paul and later, believed in a different God. What's the break? Were Jesus and Paul telling people to stop worshipping another, false God, and worship a new one? If so, why did they use the same prayers and theological formulations? Take the Shema of Deuteronomy, the NT and Jews since. Different Gods?

OK.

For Christians, Jesus understood that he is God and Isaiah's prophesy about the virgin or young woman giving birth was a foretelling of the virgin birth of Christ. Paul came to understand all that on the road to Damascus.

He spent decades trying to convince other Jews of their error. Even those Jews who believe Jesus to be God still hung to their old Jewish ways.

If the Jews worshiped the true God who is Jesus and the Father and the Holy Spirit, they did not understand what they were doing. And their worship was not consciously worshiping Jesus. And once it was revealed to them that their God is Jesus they continued to worship under their wrong understanding. They continued to worship a God that was not fully God and fully man.

For Jews, the God they worship is one. That God did not in the past, nor at the time of Jesus nor now include a concept of the Trinity or the one time sacrifice of Jesus.

Do we as Christians think the Jews are truly worshiping Jesus, only they are not aware of it, because Christians believe that Jesus is God and the Jews worship the same God as Christians?

Just a suggestion, but it feels like you guys are talking past each other, each trying to address slightly different question based on what part you think important.

The same God is worshipped by all monotheists in a philosophic sense - There can only be one sole creator God. And with Jews there is an additional biblical sense - Christians believe the Old Testament is true and that its God is the Triune God.

On the other hand monotheists can understand their God so differently, that from that POV it can seem more relevant to talk of how they are not the same. As a Catholic I would speak of a single shared God, of which other faiths lack the fullness of truth. But as long as others are clear what they are doing, I don't think it is worth objecting if they jump straight to the second part as being more interesting or whatever.

>33 richardbsmith:

Wrong understandings of God do not make one worship another God. Again, check your Bible. There are a hundred thousand directions to improve or correct one's understanding of God—none are saying "switch Gods."

Christians believe God is someone. If I know you, and then I learn more about you—even radically more—do I know someone else? Sure, one can say "When he got drunk and violent, I got to know another Bob," but we understand it's just a metaphor. It was the same Bob.

>34 hf22:

This is ultimately about Wheaton and the claim that Muslims do not worship the same God. When that professor, Pope Francis, Vatican II, two millennia of Christian tradition, and I claim that the Muslims worship the same God, we are saying something either true or false about a real thing. We're saying something like "Did Elvis Presley and Mao know the same Nixon or did they know different Nixons?" We're not having a conversation about similarities and differences between conceptions of the divine.

The other aspect of this question which might be interesting is the position of Islam, which is not the same as Judaism from a Christian POV.

As a Catholic, while I am bound to accept the Scripture of Judaism, and am not bound to that of Islam. However nor am I bound to think it was all made up.

Accordingly when their prophet says he received his revelation from an Angel, I could dismiss it as made up, or I could accept it happened. Indeed Catholic belief has precisely a class of entity who could have revealed such things - A fallen Angel.

A similar openness to the possible reality of other spiritual ideas, if not their wholesomeness, can be seen in St Augustine's ideas on idols (i.e. they could just be clay, but they equally could as their users claimed capture and give power over some spirit or another).

Mere speculation, but it does take the various faith claims seriously at least.

>36 timspalding: Edited.
>37 hf22:

FWIW, I find the idea that Islam is literally Satanic to be pretty nasty stuff. And contrary to much church teaching.

In either case, it's notable that early Church fathers debated pagan Gods as mere idols and as demonic—Augustine is late to the party here—yet made no such claims about the God of the unconverted Jews, or the God of the Arians.

>36 timspalding:

It is far from clear Wheaton and you are not talking about different things.

The Catholic philosophic and Biblical arguments for it being the one God are equally common place in evangelical circles. But so is skipping to the differences as being more salient than the rather abstract commonalities, without denying those commonalities.

Ultimately we don't get to decide what evangelicals want to talk about, or Richard for that matter. And if they want to talk about differences in the conceptions of the divine as that divine not being the same, I don't see why we should object. It does not deny the point you are making, it just is a different discussion using a similarly worded but differently understood question.

>38 timspalding:

Nastier than straight out calling their prophet a liar? Evil can be subtle. A distorted and half truth is perfect for the father of lies. From a Catholic POV those falsehoods did not come from God. Whatever non divine source you pick, it does not make the falsehoods better or worse.

Indeed I would think to be told you have been deceived is less nasty than to say you are the deceiver.

As to the Jews and Arians, that is why I specifically noted Muslims are not in the same theological position for Christians as the Jewish people. Which is why the discussion of the Fathers on demons and idols is relevant to them, but not the Jewish people.

And what Church teaching is it contrary to? Certainly not required by any, but equally not contrary to Nostra Aetate and that which has followed, which just notes the truths we share.

The Catholic philosophic and Biblical arguments for it being the one God are equally common place in evangelical circles.

Oh, please. Read the Wheaton statement and all the evangelical noodling on this topic. It's a commonplace in Evangelical circles that it's simply not the same God at all—or that God is different from "Allah," a lexical imbecility is hurts to even write—not that "it's a different God" is some fancy way of talking about differences in conceptions of the one God. I'll find you 1,000 links.

I don't see why we should object.

We should object because, as Christians, we are obliged to tell other Christians when they are

1. Making stupid arguments.
2. Make anti-Christian arguments.
3. Build castles of bullshit to justify hatred.

>40 hf22:

I think one can see various heresies as being twisted version of the truth. But it's generally said--and for good reason--that the devil is not truly creative, and can only twist good things, not make any.

As for teachings, I think it's hard to square "Islam is by nature demon-created" with the nice things said in Vatican II and so forth. Of course, it's within bounds to involve Satan down the line, but pinning its very origin and the words of its central holy book—for Gabriel's purpose was to dictate the Koran itself—on Satanic intervention is hardly consonant with that.

Which is why the discussion of the Fathers on demons and idols is relevant to them, but not the Jewish people.

No, you're slipping gears here. Idols and pagan gods are not the same thing as God at all. Zeus is not like God, but nonexistent or a demon. He's fundamentally different—not one, not alone, not all powerful, all seeing or all good, not the creator of the universe, etc.

A better comparandum would be Manichaeanism, with which St. Augustine was obviously well familiar. I think a very good case can be made for that being a "different God," since their "God" was not one or omnipotent. That said, from what I can see, it looks like St. Augustine speaks of them having wrong ideas about God, not addressing a different God.

FYI: This is fairly good—advances the argument some, I think.
http://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2015/12/christians-muslims-and-reference-of-god....

>42 timspalding:

Thanks, Tim. Very interesting article.

Let me throw in a quote from Nostra aetate (3), from the Catholic Church's Second Vatican Council:

The Church regards with esteem also the Muslims. They adore the one God, living and subsisting in Himself; merciful and all- powerful, the Creator of heaven and earth, who has spoken to men; they take pains to submit wholeheartedly to even His inscrutable decrees, just as Abraham, with whom the faith of Islam takes pleasure in linking itself, submitted to God. Though they do not acknowledge Jesus as God, they revere Him as a prophet. They also honor Mary, His virgin Mother; at times they even call on her with devotion. In addition, they await the day of judgment when God will render their deserts to all those who have been raised up from the dead. Finally, they value the moral life and worship God especially through prayer, almsgiving and fasting.

>41 timspalding:

Oh, please. Read the Wheaton statement and all the evangelical noodling on this topic. It's a commonplace in Evangelical circles that it's simply not the same God at all ... not that "it's a different God" is some fancy way of talking about differences in conceptions of the one God. I'll find you 1,000 links.

Yes, there is a 1,000 links, and yet you have I think failed to understand what they are saying. "It's a different God" is not some fancy way of talking about differences in conceptions of the one God - It is a really simple way of doing it. Which is why their discussions relate to things like the Trinity and Jesus. Differences in conception, not difference in referent directly.

Your article at >42 timspalding: understands this - For example when it notes "Lydia McGrew says that the reason Christians and Muslims cannot in her view be said to worship the same God is that the differences in the ways they conceive of God are “important” and “sufficiently crucial.”

or that God is different from "Allah," a lexical imbecility is hurts to even write

Please Lord, save us from ignorant pseudo-intellectual nonsense like this#.

The Old Testament Hebrew words for the one God, such as El and Yahweh, were scholars tell us initially names for different pagan gods within the Canaanite pantheon. And yet the Canaanites and Israelites were quite able to use them in relation to what, in our shared schema, would be different gods. Similarly a neo-Platonist monotheist could quite happily use Zeus for the one God, despite and indeed because Zeus was in common usage a different god.

We should object because, as Christians, we are obliged to tell other Christians when they are ...

Very well. You are participating in the maintenance of a stupid and unneeded argument, which is unchristian, and your bullshit is being used to justify hatred against our separated brethren. Happy now?

I think one can see various heresies as being twisted version of the truth.

Almost all errors contain SOME half truth. I can't even think of an ideology or faith completely devoid of a half truth which makes its attractive, even Nazis and Islamic State.

But it's generally said--and for good reason--that the devil is not truly creative, and can only twist good things, not make any.

Syncretism and twisting of what already existed is a pretty good fit for Islam. I mean, it explicitly acknowledges it is lifting and "fixing" various previous attempts at God revealing himself, including from Judaism, Christianity or the native Arabian practices.

As for teachings, I think it's hard to square "Islam is by nature demon-created" with the nice things said in Vatican II and so forth.

Not at all. Evil is subtle, not comic book. And certainly no harder to square than with it being a man made error. And the Church today (and I in fact without much trouble) could say nice things about people who think they are genuine Satanists, or others who believe they deal with demons.

Of course, it's within bounds to involve Satan down the line, but pinning its very origin and the words of its central holy book—for Gabriel's purpose was to dictate the Koran itself—on Satanic intervention is hardly consonant with that.

Meh, if it is a error, it is a error. And error come from sin and evil. If that evil came directly from a demon, or as admittedly far more likely from a man, so what? Its central holy book is still full of error, and we can still say all the nice things we said at VII, and a few more besides*.

No, you're slipping gears here. Idols and pagan gods are not the same thing as God at all.

No, because I didn't say they were. I said we believe that revealed in the Hebrew Scriptures to be true, whereas we believe nothing of the sort regarding Islam. And thus while we know an Angel represented to be from God in the Hebrew Scriptures is precisely that, we don't have that assurance from the Koran, and thus there is an outside possibility (which need be accepted by no one) it might have been the other sort of angel.

Zeus is not like God, but nonexistent or a demon. He's fundamentally different—not one, not alone, not all powerful, all seeing or all good, not the creator of the universe, etc.

Except when he is, like with my neo-Platonist monotheist. Or going the other way, like with an Islamic entity such as their Gabriel or the Jinn, who must from a Christian POV must be either nonexistent or a demon. Like what I was talking about.

That said, from what I can see, it looks like St. Augustine speaks of them having wrong ideas about God, not addressing a different God.

Even better the Gnostics, who now we actually have some genuine documents, seem to have been reaaaaaaaaaaaaaly far out. But the Church Fathers seem to have been happy to treat them as merely heretics, beside not sharing much more than the name of Jesus, and thus being possibly even further apart from Christianity proper than Islam.

But as I say, I share your view Islam worships the same God, differently understood. I just think those you are having a go at skip to the differently understood part, where in substance you don't disagree. That is, it is a semantic argument, and therefore like many semantic arguments stupid and unneeded.

# Though I agree with the conclusion this argument is used to support, I object to the stupidity of it being presented as determinative.

* On Church teaching, there is an interesting story in the pre Islamic sayings of the Desert Fathers, about the devil coming to a monk in the form of the Angel Gabriel, but being sent on his way by the monk who suggests he is unworthy of such a visitor.

I think Jews and Muslims know Jesus. It is just they don't accept him as God. They don't accept his as God, only differently than Christians. They don't accept Jesus as God at all.

I do not know how we can worship the same God if they reject the Christian God. It seems to be a difference.

The difference between Islam and Judaism is less obvious. There is sufficient difference to require a new religion.

Any way I will here close out my stupid and anti Christian comments. I certainly did not intend to build hatred. That accusation as a description of my intent is quite false.

>45 richardbsmith: They don't accept Jesus as God at all.

But Jews and Muslims do accept the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob as God, just as Christians do.

There is sufficient difference to require a new religion.

Yes, certainly a new religion. But that doesn't mean it's a different God.

Richard, your comments are neither stupid nor anti-Christian and it should be clear to all of us that you are not a hate-monger.

I am led to wonder aloud whether Abraham worshipped the same God post ram-in-the-bush as he had worshipped previously when he was planning Isaac's sacrifice; and what it means, therefore, to say it is the same God (and the same Abraham).

Edited to clarify

Did the Romans and the pagan races they conquered and assimilated worship the same gods?

Well, in one sense, no.

But in another sense, yes.

The important point to be made is that it doesn't make a fucking bit of difference. It is just a matter of trivial opinion and every Jack and Jill has an opinion on every abstract and ephemeral subject under the sun.

Q.E.D. this thread.

>48 JGL53: Then why do you waste your time monitoring the thread at all?

One does wonder.

Yes, there is a 1,000 links, and yet you have I think failed to understand what they are saying. "It's a different God" is not some fancy way of talking about differences in conceptions of the one God - It is a really simple way of doing it. Which is why their discussions relate to things like the Trinity and Jesus. Differences in conception, not difference in referent directly.

I'm not sure what evidence you'd accept for this, there are so many statements that say exactly the opposite of what you want them to say. Certainly they derive the different referent from the differences in conception, but they aren't making the argument you're making.

What to do? How about statements that both deny they are the same explicitly use derivations of your "refer" and "don't refer"? Here's Billy Graham, a moderate, especially compared to his hateful son(1):

We can now see that the name of God is no small matter. The deity we name is the God we believe in. Christians believe in only one God, and He is the Father who sent the Son to save us from our sins. Allah has no son, and, thus, Christians cannot know God as Allah. In this light, Muslims and Christians do not only use different names for God; in reality, these different names refer to different gods.

Much of this nonsense is related to the "Allah" being-a-differnet-name issue--something Graham, whose no idiot, also trots out. And there's a large contingent who go with the "Allah is really a moon God" explanation. Indeed, some poll said that 10% of Americans believe that, and you can bet those are mostly evangelicals, since this theory is their creature (see https://www.cair.com/images/pdf/american_public_opinion_on_muslims_islam_2006.pd....

Almost all errors contain SOME half truth. ... Not at all. Evil is subtle, not comic book. And certainly no harder to square than with it being a man made error.

Right. But admitting that there is error in Islam is very different from asserting that central belief, the visitation and dictation of the Koran by the Angel Gabriel, was in fact a literal visitation and dictation by a actual demon. That is comic-book evil, or nothing is.

Meh, if it is a error, it is a error. And error come from sin and evil. If that evil came directly from a demon, or as admittedly far more likely from a man, so what?

You no doubt think I believe many errors.(2) At some level, fallen angels are involved in error. Fair enough. But that is a very different thing from believing I, that the person on the other end of the wires, is in fact a demon.

That is what you're asserting might be true with Islam. "Meh" indeed!

Even better the Gnostics, who now we actually have some genuine documents, seem to have been reaaaaaaaaaaaaaly far out. But the Church Fathers seem to have been happy to treat them as merely heretics, beside not sharing much more than the name of Jesus, and thus being possibly even further apart from Christianity proper than Islam.

Gnosticism was such a spectrum, though, so it's hard to know really. There were some Gnostics who were mistaken Christians—and, given the not-yet-decided state of key issues, not necessarily even heretics. And there were some who were way out there.

Richard, your comments are neither stupid nor anti-Christian and it should be clear to all of us that you are not a hate-monger.

Agreed.

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1. Franklin:

Can you believe this Wheaton College professor who says she’s going to wear a hijab for the holidays this year to show solidarity with Islam? Shame on her! She said that Muslims and Christians worship the same God. Well she is absolutely wrong—she obviously doesn’t know her Bible and she doesn’t know Islam. ( https://www.facebook.com/FranklinGraham/posts/1058897530833094 )

2. I'm sure of it, but, alas, I don't know which are errors.

>50 timspalding:

I'm sure we've been through this before. For much of the last 30 years I have been to Catholic Mass regularly where we pray to Allah. As everybody should know (including Franklin Graham, whose Samaritan's Purse organisation was working in the old Sudan when it was still a single Arabic-speaking nation prior to 2011), Allah is the Arabic word for God. It is not unique to Islam but is widely used by Arabic-speaking Christians.

>43 John5918: There is also section 16 of Lumen gentium.

Sed propositum salutis et eos amplectitur, qui Creatorem agnoscunt, inter quos imprimis Musulmanos, qui fidem Abrahae se tenere profitentes, nobiscum Deum adorant unicum, misericordem, homines die novissimo iudicaturum.

Both these passages leave enough wiggle room that Gerhard Ludwig Müller could write in 2005, „Insofern ist der Gott der Christen etwas ganz anderes als Allah, der Gott der Moslems.” And in a 2007 interview, somewhat anticipating the arguments linked in >42 timspalding:

Natürlich kann man auch auf einer philosophischen Ebene gemeinsam sagen: Es gibt nur einen Gott. Wir alle sehen in unserem Gottesverständnis nur den einen Gott. Aber durch das Verständnis der christlichen Offenbarung ist es nicht der gleiche Gott.

and „Die Muslime und die Christen glauben nicht an denselben Gott.”

The quoted section of Nostra aetate also has a footnote referencing a letter from Gregory VII to Anzir, King of Mauritania. Which is a difficult precedent for those who see Vatican II as the start of all the trouble. When the topic at hand comes up on anti-Novus Ordo sites, it is not uncommon for someone to relate their failed attempts to locate this letter online, even though the reference is completely unambiguous, PL 148, col. 450f.

>50 timspalding:

I'm not sure what evidence you'd accept for this, there are so many statements that say exactly the opposite of what you want them to say. Certainly they derive the different referent from the differences in conception, but they aren't making the argument you're making.

The point I am making is precisely that they "derive the different referent from the differences in conception". Because in doing so, and approaching indirectly the referent, what they MEAN by referent is different. And therefore not necessarily contradictory to the Catholic view in substance. You know, how we approach ecumenical matters, to ensure we do not create pretend differences? Well try that here, and you will see what I mean.

As an example, see Scott McKnight (http://www.patheos.com/blogs/jesuscreed/2015/12/16/the-same-god-12/):

" I would contend that while all three faiths are monotheistic, there are dramatic — religion-splitting — differences on Who God is and How God is understood. "

That is, he is not rejecting their abstract commonality, he is insisting that is not the real point. That differences and similarities in conception are what really make Gods the same or different. Basically, he is answering a different question.

Much of this nonsense is related to the "Allah" being-a-different-name issue--something Graham, whose no idiot, also trots out. And there's a large contingent who go with the "Allah is really a moon God" explanation.

As I indicated at >44 hf22:, the name issue is stupid either way, and cannot determine the question. If it did the Judeo-Christian name for God Yahweh, which is really both the proper name for the one God and the name of a pagan Canaanite god, would cause the difference to arise the other way around.

But admitting that there is error in Islam is very different from asserting that central belief, the visitation and dictation of the Koran by the Angel Gabriel, was in fact a literal visitation and dictation by a actual demon. That is comic-book evil, or nothing is.

No, because a demon needs not dictate a literally demonic faith, like they worship Satan or something. Simply introducing error, the ones you personally would find in Islam, is sufficient. Evil is subtle, and so is the father of lies.

At some level, fallen angels are involved in error. Fair enough. But that is a very different thing from believing I, that the person on the other end of the wires, is in fact a demon.

But you have not explicitly stated you received your errors from an Angel. If you did, like Islam does, then the outside possibility would arise. If you take Islam seriously, at least.

Medjugorje is another example in a Catholic context. If the Church decides they are not genuine Marian messages, which seems likely, a supernatural origin still remains an outside possibility. And I don't think anyone thinks Medjugorje is comic book level evil - Just the subtle introduction of error, and the separation from God that entails.

Gnosticism was such a spectrum, though, so it's hard to know really. There were some Gnostics who were mistaken Christians—and, given the not-yet-decided state of key issues, not necessarily even heretics. And there were some who were way out there.

Yes, but we can now post Nag Hammadi read some of the Gnostic documents the Church Fathers were commenting on. And while the Fathers were clear those documents were heretical, they are surprisingly generous given the level of distance, particularly given how harsh they could be about very small differences.

Not much turns on it, but they do seem to have adopted a different point of view. A similar thing can be seen in the treatment of Islam as a heresy, rather than a different faith, by the Church Fathers. A view which did not arise I think from their failure to understand Islam, but just from the perspective they brought to it.

Which is one reason why I think the Catholic way of approaching the "same God" question is better, even though I understand the frame being adopted by others.

Richard, your comments are neither stupid nor anti-Christian and it should be clear to all of us that you are not a hate-monger.

Well now you have abandoned the reason you gave for arguing with him, can we drop the stupid non-argument?

>52 MMcM:

Thanks for the references from Cardinal Muller. They summarise well the two different questions being answered here, which seem to be creating the argument.

>51 John5918:

As I noted at >44 hf22:, the Christian use of a word does not evidence anything as to the Islamic understanding of God. It is a red herring. Just like it would not mean Muslims worshiped a different God if Arabic Christians had chosen to avoid the term Allah for whatever reason.

It is the same God because it is ONE, which would be sufficient, and as an added bonus because it is the God of Abraham who Jesus proclaimed etc. The language choices don't add or subtract anything.

>52 MMcM:

Thanks, Mike, for reminding me that Lumen gentium also speaks to the topic. In the past I've usually gone there first and only later to Nostra aetate; this time I did it the other way round. Must be getting old.

>53 hf22:

I think you've confused Tim with me in your last paragraph.

>56 John5918:

Sorry, I bolded that paragraph as Tim agreed with it at >50 timspalding:, and I was still addressing my response to Tim.

I can see however that it was a misleading way to go about it. Apologies for the confusion.

I'm sure we've been through this before. For much of the last 30 years I have been to Catholic Mass regularly where we pray to Allah. As everybody should know (including Franklin Graham, whose Samaritan's Purse organisation was working in the old Sudan when it was still a single Arabic-speaking nation prior to 2011), Allah is the Arabic word for God. It is not unique to Islam but is widely used by Arabic-speaking Christians.

As everyone should know, but a large percentage of Americans, and especially American evangelics, do not. Indeed, a large percentage of evangelicals deny it.

You can start with a standard Google search—here for "Allah is not God." https://www.google.com/search?q=%22allah+is+not+god%22&client=safari&rls...

Now, if all these people thought what hf22 wants them to think, they'd be saying "The God muslims worship is conceived of so differently that we can speak of him as being a different God." But that's not what they're saying.

As to Billy Graham, you need only read this:

"This has become a matter of significant controversy in recent years as some Christians, including some serving with mission agencies, have argued that Christians can use the name “Allah” in talking about God. In some languages, especially those based on an Arabic source, there is no generic word for god. In such a situation, it might be necessary to begin a conversation by using this word, but the Christian cannot continue to call God “Allah.” It is hard to imagine that anyone can hear the name “Allah” without thinking of him as claimed in the Quran (see following article). Indeed, Muslims who speak languages other than Arabic use “Allah” as the name of god. But as soon as the Christian begins to explain that the true living God is the Father of Jesus Christ the Son, the Christian is making clear that the true living God is not Allah, but our Heavenly Father."

When the topic at hand comes up on anti-Novus Ordo sites, it is not uncommon for someone to relate their failed attempts to locate this letter online, even though the reference is completely unambiguous, PL 148, col. 450f.

Pro- or anti-Vatican II, scholarship is in short supply. Also, last time I checked, not all of PL was online yet. Maybe it is now. Edit: I see you linked to it.

As an example, see Scott McKnight (http://www.patheos.com/blogs/jesuscreed/2015/12/16/the-same-god-12/):

If your point were good, you ought to have better sources. The gold standard would be to have the major figures who've been beating the "different Gods" point, and strenously arguing that Wheaton was right to discipline the professor, conceding that although in one sense he's the same God, in another sense (and a more important one), he's not. It would help to show the view was common too.

Instead, you've surfaced someone who has not publicly supported Wheaton at all, and indeed seems to show support for the professor, contending only that the differences between the conceptions of the divine are "religion splitting" (which nobody dies) and that the words "same God" "muddies the waters."

It's obvious that, if someone is to defend the evangelical take without being ignorant or bigoted, one must take the sort of line you advocate. It does not follow that evangelicals take that line. And in a religion where there is no central authority or dogma settling such questions, you can't prefer the voices you agree with and ignore the ones you don't.

I noticed, by the way, that you skated over the "Allah is a moon God" stuff. It is, of course, stupid. As an idea, it is not worthy of our attention. But it is a very common view among evangelicals, and therefore relevant for a discussion of what evangelicals believe and are being taught by their pastors. You will even find it promoted on Catholic fora. Again, Google it up; it's everywhere.

Incidentally, to all those saying that this is NOT about her choice to wear the hijab, you need only read Franklin Graham. ( https://www.facebook.com/FranklinGraham/posts/1058897530833094 )

"Can you believe this Wheaton College professor who says she’s going to wear a hijab for the holidays this year to show solidarity with Islam? Shame on her!"

Yes, he goes on to throw a "shame on her" for the same-god bit. But for this evangelical leader, as for many evangelicals, her wearing of the hijab was a shameful act in and of itself.

No, because a demon needs not dictate a literally demonic faith, like they worship Satan or something. Simply introducing error, the ones you personally would find in Islam, is sufficient. Evil is subtle, and so is the father of lies.

So, for example, would the devil teach a group of pagans to be Christians, so long as he made them Seventh Day Adventists? Are there any of the demon-dictated books which, if followed, lead a pagan much closer to God than they were?

A view which did not arise I think from their failure to understand Islam, but just from the perspective they brought to it.

Right.

Cardinal Muller

Does someone want to do the German for me? Mine is long dead now.

Well now you have abandoned the reason you gave for arguing with him, can we drop the stupid non-argument?

While I don't think richard is intending to be hateful, his views of Islam are wrong, and have been time and again a powerful support for bigotry.

Take something like "Christians need a savior. Muslims need to submit," allegedly at the heard of the difference between religions.

But is that really an accurate dichotomy? Do Muslims believe they don't need salvation? (Yes they do, they just don't think Jesus saves.) Do Christians not submit, but Muslims do? Of course not. You can find hundreds of quotes from the Bible about God requiring submission, and in other contexts, evangelicals are happy to trot these out and put the best spin on "submission." Salvation requires submission to Jesus, etc. But with Islam, two theological commonplaces are made a sharp contrast.

The result of this sort of silliness is not far to seek. "Islam is submission" is a regular linch pin to the idea that Muslims are zealous robots—religious automatons who "submitted" their consciences to their false God, and must follow him to whatever evil he wills.

>58 timspalding: Billy Graham... It is hard to imagine that anyone can hear the name “Allah” without thinking of him as claimed in the Quran

Graham obviously never thought to ask the millions of Arabic-speaking Christians who hear the name Allah every day and don't associate it with the Qur'an.

>58 timspalding:

Of course. And it doesn't matter than we all know this is stupid, if large numbers of evangelicals take their religious beliefs from these individuals. And this is Billy Graham, the gentle, moderate old comforter of Presidents, not Franklin Graham, the fiery bigot "defender of truth."

>60 timspalding:

Yes, it does surprise me a bit because I have always had great respect for Billy Graham as opposed to many other evangelical preachers.

Billy Graham has become quite the ecumenist at the quickly-nearing end of his life, i.e., he endorsed Mittens Romney, a non-christian, against Barack Obama, a christian, for the office of POTUS.

B.G.'s son Franklin, OTOH, is still radically sectarian and thus rather a repulsive slug.

Addendum: Oops. I just remembered - Billy Graham is a filthy racist, not to mention an Anti-Semite. Well, that explains it.

>58 timspalding: Does someone want to do the German for me?

Das ist aber etwas ganz anderes als der muslimische Gott. Die Dreifaltigkeit von Gott wird 600 Jahre später im Islam abgelehnt. Dass Gott einen Sohn haben soll, ist für Muslime Gotteslästerung. In mehreren Suren des Koran gibt es eine ausdrückliche Ablehnung der Trinität Gottes. Insofern ist der Gott der Christen etwas ganz anderes als Allah, der Gott der Moslems.

But this is something completely different from the Muslim God. The Trinity of God was rejected 600 years later in Islam. That God should have a son is blasphemy for Muslims. In several suras of the Koran there is an explicit rejection of the Trinity of God. In this respect is the God of Christians something completely different from Allah, the God of the Muslims.

(I haven't heard anyone yet propose that Unitarians worship a different God. Maybe I just haven't been listening closely enough.)

Natürlich kann man auch auf einer philosophischen Ebene gemeinsam sagen: Es gibt nur einen Gott. Wir alle sehen in unserem Gottesverständnis nur den einen Gott. Aber durch das Verständnis der christlichen Offenbarung ist es nicht der gleiche Gott.

Of course one can also on a philosophical level say: There is only one God. We all see in our understanding of God just the one God. But through understanding of the Christian revelation, it is not the same God.

Die Muslime und die Christen glauben nicht an denselben Gott. Obwohl es nur einen Gott gibt, lässt der prinzipielle Gegensatz im Gottesglauben ein gemeinsames Gebet nicht zu.

Muslims and Christians do not believe in the same God. Although there is only one God, the fundamental contrast in belief in God does not permit a common prayer.

>58 timspalding:

This:

"The God muslims worship is conceived of so differently that we can speak of him as being a different God."

Equals this:

"It is hard to imagine that anyone can hear the name “Allah” without thinking of him as claimed in the Quran ... But as soon as the Christian begins to explain that the true living God is the Father of Jesus Christ the Son, the Christian is making clear that the true living God is not Allah, but our Heavenly Father."

Therefore they ARE saying what I indicated. Which is blindingly obvious, when you actually read their comments.

In some languages, especially those based on an Arabic source, there is no generic word for god. In such a situation, it might be necessary to begin a conversation by using this word, but the Christian cannot continue to call God “Allah.”

This is not the traditional position of Arabic speaking Christians, but it is the position of a great many Muslims, who do assert Allah is the proper name of God (with consequences like that Malaysian case where the Government prevented a Catholic newspaper from using the word Allah, for similar reasons to that which evangelicals provide actually, being that it causes confusion).

There a very good reasons to accept the traditional Christian position, and I do, but none of them are definitive doctrinal requirements (doctrine not being able to control the language choices of non-Christians).

And therefore, while as I have noted the language issue is a red herring to the actual question at hand, there is nothing stupid or hateful in choosing to accept Islamic Arabic usage as, well Islamic Arabic usage. The proper response to this argument is to point out it is irrelevant, not to make even more irrelevant counter claims.

If your point were good, you ought to have better sources ... conceding that although in one sense he's the same God, in another sense (and a more important one), he's not.

Scott McKnight is a good source because he actually steps though logic being adopted by evangelicals, where as many others just skip through. And where they skip through, YOU ARE READING IN STUFF WHICH SIMPLY IS NOT THERE. They are not denying the sense in which they are the same God, they just don't think it matters enough to mention, particularly as avoiding confusion is one of their main aims.

It would help to show the view was common too.

That is shown by the fact evangelicals are not jumping down the throats of notable people like Scott McKnight when they make this point. Which they would be, if they actually wanted to deny this point, rather than just not thinking it the important point.

And the fact the quotes you keep providing actually support what I am saying, when you actually bother reading them.

It's obvious that, if someone is to defend the evangelical take without being ignorant or bigoted, one must take the sort of line you advocate. It does not follow that evangelicals take that line. And in a religion where there is no central authority or dogma settling such questions, you can't prefer the voices you agree with and ignore the ones you don't.

Nor can you, but you clearly are. While I can of course find ignorant and bigoted evangelical takes on this question, though no more bigoted and hateful than your own comments here, the common thread in the evangelical responses (including those you have quoted here) is the different conception in the divine. The motivation of Richard's comments here were the different conception in the divine.

And therefore I think this characterises the average evangelical response. You however want, like you have in other contexts, to smear and read into a whole group with a position based on the worst dregs on the internet. It is bigoted and hateful.

I noticed, by the way, that you skated over the "Allah is a moon God" stuff. It is, of course, stupid. As an idea, it is not worthy of our attention.

I didn't skate. I said it was stupid and irrelevant. As are all the arguments used to counter it, except that it is stupid and irrelevant. Because even it if were true, so what? Do we worship a Canaanite storm God? No? Then irrelevant.

Yes, he goes on to throw a "shame on her" for the same-god bit. But for this evangelical leader, as for many evangelicals, her wearing of the hijab was a shameful act in and of itself.

I expect both some evangelicals and Muslim leaders would say similar things, if one of their own decided to wear a crucifix or something. And many others would express stronger words if someone decided to wear Nazi or KKK clothing.

Symbols, identify and belief are closely tied up together. What else is new?

So, for example, would the devil teach a group of pagans to be Christians, so long as he made them Seventh Day Adventists?

Sure. A trick works best the closer it imitates truth. Would not be much of a trick otherwise.

Are there any of the demon-dictated books which, if followed, lead a pagan much closer to God than they were?

A pagan who was going to stay pagan, is going to stay pagan. The pagan who might accept Christ's truth however, may be mislead by the false imitation offered by heresy.

While I don't think richard is intending to be hateful, his views of Islam are wrong, and have been time and again a powerful support for bigotry.

Not in this case. His position is not wrong. His view is just that Christian and Islam have different conceptions of the divine, and that from his point of view therefore it makes no sense to talk of them having the same God.

You don't disagree with the substance - The difference conceptions of the divine. You just want to have a stupid and hate causing argument about terminology and framing.

And thus YOU are the one creating bigotry.

Take something like "Christians need a savior. Muslims need to submit," allegedly at the heart of the difference between religions.

Any attempt at "synthesis-words" for religions, as the Pope calls it, are stupid when you push them too far. Richard's are stupid if you take them too far, but so is your attempt at "love" as one for Christianity stupid, or the Pope's "mercy" for the Gospel stupid.

But they have their limited place, and Richard's amorphous navel gazing does not appear to over step the bounds, at least any more than yours.

The result of this sort of silliness is not far to seek. "Islam is submission" is a regular linch pin to the idea that Muslims are zealous robots—religious automatons who "submitted" their consciences to their false God, and must follow him to whatever evil he wills.

I rather suspect pious Muslims think their faith informs their consciences and actions, rather as I hope pious Catholic think so.

And to the extent their faith, or ours for that matter, is false it will cause evil in the world. As error generally does.

>64 hf22: choosing to accept Islamic Arabic usage as, well Islamic Arabic usage

But it is not "Islamic Arabic usage". At best it is some Islamic Arabs. And the example you give of Malaysia is not "Islamic Arabic usage"; it is Islamic non-Arabs who are taking that position. I would suggest that the concept of the People of the Book, which implies worship of the same God, is the more common Islamic position.

>65 John5918:

Please refer to what I actually said - "it is the position of a great many Muslims". Nor does "Arabic usage" specify the ethnicity of the Muslims in question, just the faith and language in question.

Further, for Muslims, the fact that Allah is the proper name of God is generally held together with the idea of the People of the Book. Because as I keep repeating, word usage has bugger all to do the question of "same God", even if some evangelicals want to associate the ideas.

But that is their usage. The Islamic Arabic usage, of a great many Muslims. Despite the historical pre-Islamic usage of the word by Christians and others, and the continuing use of it by Christians as a generic name for God.

Therefore they ARE saying what I indicated. Which is blindingly obvious, when you actually read their comments.

It's agreed by both of us that the evangelical claim that Christians and Muslims do not worship the same God is based primarily on arguments about the religions' different claims about God, especially whether or not God is a Trinity.

Most evangelicals do not, however, engage in the sort of "in one sense/in another sense" discussion you want and, in McKnight, have partially found. They aren't saying that speaking of the same God "muddies the waters." They're flatly stating that Muslims worship a different God, providing Islamic denials of the Trinity as evidence of that difference.

Scott McKnight is a good source because he actually steps though logic being adopted by evangelicals, where as many others just skip through.

McKnight is his own man, with his own ideas. He does not speak for all evangelical Christianity by any means, and insofar as he directly contradicts many evangelcials, he can hardly be said to be "explaining" them. Take, for example, this comment of his--made on another blog post:

I do not in fact think they worship different Gods, nor have I ever said that, nor do I think it does any good to say they worship the same God (or deny they worship the same God). That’s the point. I think their view of God ought to be distinguished from one another. The word “same” confuses everything.

How can someone who rejects the claim that muslims worship a different God, can be really be said to "explaining" evangelicals, or "stepping through" their logic, when they say exactly that? How can his repeated statements that the language of "same" and "not same" "muddies the waters" and "does not good" explain the repeated and intentional use of that very language?

That is shown by the fact evangelicals are not jumping down the throats of notable people like Scott McKnight when they make this point. Which they would be, if they actually wanted to deny this point, rather than just not thinking it the important point.

I guess I find the many statements by evangelicals that contradict his reasoning more powerful than the lack of attacks on him. In general, people don't have fights with people when they agree with them on the end result--suspending the professor and rejecting her language. He's "on their side." But just because ten people are on the same side does not mean that one can pick one, and their logic, as representative of the whole.

I didn't skate. I said it was stupid and irrelevant. As are all the arguments used to counter it, except that it is stupid and irrelevant. Because even it if were true, so what? Do we worship a Canaanite storm God? No? Then irrelevant.

We agree it's stupid, but it's not irrelevant because it's frequently trotted out by evangelicals and others as an attack on Muslims. It is therefore no more irrelevant than other stupid and hateful claims that inform people's opinions of others, for example Trump's assertions that Mexican immigrants are mostly rapists and murderers.

By contrast, the notion that Christians and Jews worship a Canaanite storm God is not revelvant because almost nobody says that. See?

I expect both some evangelicals and Muslim leaders would say similar things, if one of their own decided to wear a crucifix or something. And many others would express stronger words if someone decided to wear Nazi or KKK clothing.

That evangelical leaders freak out when a Christian wears a hijab in the way that you might freak out if a neighbor wore a swastika speaks volumes about how they feel about muslims. It's notable that other groups don't freak out this way over hijabs. And these statements don't come in a vaccum. It's notable that Graham was among the first to call for refusing Muslims entry into the country—before Trump—and makes wild, stupid, bigoted claims about Obama:

The President, his entire life, his whole influence has been Islam. His mother was married to a Muslim. His father's a Muslim. Then she married a man from Indonesia. He was raised in Indonesia, went to Islamic schools. I assume she was a Muslim. So his whole life - his experiences - have been surrounded by Islam. He only knows Islam.

Any attempt at "synthesis-words" for religions, as the Pope calls it, are stupid when you push them too far. Richard's are stupid if you take them too far, but so is your attempt at "love" as one for Christianity stupid, or the Pope's "mercy" for the Gospel stupid.

"Synthesis words" work very differently for your own religion than for another. There is nothing wrong with Pope Francis summing up Christianity with "love." Good grief, Jesus Christ himself was asked to "sum up," and, like Hillel, was perfectly willing to do so. But negative summaries of another religion are quite another thing.

I rather suspect pious Muslims think their faith informs their consciences and actions, rather as I hope pious Catholic think so.

Indeed. But, again, Christians negatively focusing on Islam as "submission" is a malign trope and, again and again, the first step to an argument about terrorism and so forth.

>67 timspalding: "Synthesis words" work very differently for your own religion than for another. There is nothing wrong with Pope Francis summing up Christianity with "love." Good grief, Jesus Christ himself was asked to "sum up," and, like Hillel, was perfectly willing to do so. But negative summaries of another religion are quite another thing.

I don't know a lot about Islam outside the media, but I've found the Basmala ("In the name of God, the merciful, the compassionate") to be an interesting self-summary of Islam.

Wheaton being process to fire her. (There has to be a process apparently, because she has tenure.)

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/ct-wheaton-college-professor-f...

It's notable that Wheaton also fired a professor for converting to Catholicism. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/acts-of-faith/wp/2016/01/05/wheaton-is-plann...

>67 timspalding:

It's agreed by both of us that the evangelical claim ... based primarily on arguments about the religions' different claims about God

Indeed.

Most evangelicals do not, however, engage in the sort of "in one sense/in another sense" discussion you want

No, nor do I claim they do. But neither do they DENY the other sense, which is what your view requires. They just mostly just talk about the sense they want to talk about, not the sense you want them to talk about.

What I suggest is when they DO discuss the other sense, they don't make the denials of the other sense your view requires. Indeed, they do the opposite, as shown by the Washington Post link you provided at >70 timspalding::

“While Islam and Christianity are both monotheistic, we believe there are fundamental differences between the two faiths ...

Oksnevad, an evangelical, told the Post that Christians and Muslims worship the same God “in a very generic sense,” in that they believe that God is eternally existent and all powerful.

“But when it comes down to specific revelation,” Oksnevad said, “there is a huge difference in that (the Christian) God shows himself as a Trinity. Islam says, ‘Sorry, he is not personable nor is he knowable.'""

Basically, your scorn has got ahead of the facts, and you keep reading in stuff which is not there. Time for you to concede.

McKnight is his own man, with his own ideas ... I guess I find the many statements by evangelicals that contradict his reasoning more powerful than the lack of attacks on him.

Then see the quotes above from Wheaton and its head of Muslim Evangelism. It is the same approach. They just don't hold the view you ascribe to them. It is all about different conceptions of the divine, and does not seek to deny the philosophical sense in which the same God is the referent.

In general, people don't have fights with people when they agree with them on the end result--suspending the professor and rejecting her language.

They do when the fight is all about beliefs. The end result here is not the professor for these guys, she is just incidental, a marker in a larger and pre-existing fight.

We agree it's stupid, but it's not irrelevant because it's frequently trotted out by evangelicals and others as an attack on Muslims.

My point is that your counter to it, "a lexical imbecility it hurts to even write", is even stupider than the initial stupidity. That the proper counter to the moon god argument is that it is irrelevant to the question of same / different God.

Not that the existence of the moon god crap amongst evangelicals is irrelevant as a sociological fact.

That evangelical leaders freak out when a Christian wears a hijab in the way that you might freak out if a neighbor wore a swastika speaks volumes about how they feel about muslims.

It is a confessional university. It puts a view as true. It does not want to have teachers who adopt alternatives, be that Islamic or indeed Catholic (as you note at >70 timspalding:). Which is, and should be, its right.

And symbols and beliefs are closely linked. Now I don't think that was the message the professor was trying to communicate - I presume she was going more for common humanity. But neither symbolic or social media communication are exactly known for avoiding miscommunications.

"Synthesis words" work very differently for your own religion than for another ... But negative summaries of another religion are quite another thing.

As I said, synthesis words have their place, if not pushed too far. For both one's own faith, as well as for those of others. But I see no evidence Richard was attempting a negative summary of any faith, and I think you should withdraw the imputation that he was doing so.

But, again, Christians negatively focusing on Islam as "submission" is a malign trope and, again and again, the first step to an argument about terrorism and so forth.

Heh, I would think submission to God is a Christian virtue, not a vice. Anti-theist types might see it as a vice however.

I'm coming to this conversation a little late, but here's my understanding of what the confusion is all about.

When answering the question "Do Christians and Muslims worship the same God?" your answer will depend on what kind of question you think is being asked:

* A metaphysical question - Christians and Muslims both believe that God is One, by definition. If a thing is one by definition, then you cannot have multiple competing instances of it. Therefore, Christians and Muslims worship the same God, but either religion might have very mistaken ideas about what God is like and how He wants to be worshiped.

- or -

* An epistemological question - Christians and Muslims believe some similar things about God, but have entirely different views of how we can know who God is. Since the religions each have such different theories of how to know about God, their beliefs inevitably contradict each other. Therefore, the Christian concept of God and the Muslim concept of God describe two different gods entirely. It is possible that one of them describes the true God, but they cannot both describe the true God. Therefore, at least one of them is not really worshiping God at all.

Many Christians are adamant that the only valid answer to this question is an epistemological answer. The reason for this is that Christianity identifies God as a real, living human being who walked the earth and was known to those around Him as an ordinary person. For Christians, to worship God is to know Him as that person, Jesus. This gives Christianity an inescapable empirical mandate, demanding that our knowledge of God be grounded in history and in interpersonal relationships. We are not free to treat God as a metaphysical abstraction that we hypothesize about; He gave Himself to us as a person to be known in the concrete.

Hope this helps!

>72 KalebAxon: I think you are partially explaining some of the confusion. But the connection between the God of the Christians, Muslims and Jews is not simply a belief that God is one. All three are specifically affirming that their God is the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Even though they have obviously diverged in their understanding of that God, this is not the same claim as just any religion which happens to believe that God is one.

>72 KalebAxon: It is possible that one of them describes the true God, but they cannot both describe the true God.

Is the picture of Alexander Hamilton on the 10 dollar bill that of the Alexander Hamilton born in 1755, or the Alexander Hamilton born in 1757? Are the people who are talking about the Alexander Hamilton born in 1755 talking about the same Alexander Hamilton as those who believe he was born in 1757?

If two people are arguing whether Homer was male or female, in some epistemological sense, they're talking about two very different people who lived very different lives. On the other hand, the very fact they can have the argument says they're talking about the same person, that they know who they're talking about.

I don't think that saying it's an "epistemological question" advances it very much. I suppose I would say that two people are talking about the same being if presented with that being, they would agree that's who they were talking about.* So most monotheists would be talking about the same God; if you get to the afterlife and discover the Muslims were substantially right, would you deny that the Creator was God?

* This is not a proper relation, of course, because it is not necessarily transitive.

My apologies for returning to post in this thread. I truly intend not to participate except as a reader. Just a brief question about our ISIS co religionists. I will be satisfied to read your responses.

Do the Muslims affiliated with ISIS worship the same God as Christians, Jews, and other Muslims.

And to be fair, we can ask the same of Westboro or Nazis or KKK or any other Christian example of religious extremists that anyone wants to offer as the Christian equivalent of religious extremism. I do not want to be accused of tweaking my word selection. Please change my word choice to something that will suit everyone should there be any suggestion of bias in the wording of my question.

Do Muslims, Jews, and Christians worship the same God as the God who calls for a believer to kill his mother?

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/syria-jihadist-kills-mother-after-she-asked-...

I think that the caliphate of ISIS accepts that God spoke to Abraham. If this is wrong please correct me on that point.

>75 richardbsmith: to be fair, we can ask the same of Westboro or Nazis or KKK or any other Christian example of religious extremists that anyone wants to offer

That's the crux of it, though, isn't it? The diversity of views regarding God's moral imperatives is as great within the big Abrahamic religions as it is between them. And how does it help to elevate such disagreements about the character of God into a plurality of gods?

>75 richardbsmith:

The God worshipped by Christians, Muslims and Jews, including ISIS and KKK, is the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Their understandings of that God are vastly different. Some would argue that some understandings are erroneous. But it is the same God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

I am part-way through Thomas Römer's The Invention of God. It's a fascinating read. For those who'd like a briefer account, here he is speaking to Hillel at Brown University. His talk sticks close enough to his book that some sentences are word-for-word.

What he outlines suggests that only after the destruction of the first temple and among dispersed groups of aristocratic Jews did a monotheistic conception of Yhwh develop, and for largely political reasons.

So I'm not sure what it means to talk of the god of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Instead there seem to have been multiple gods, and, among them, Yhwh had multiple origins and was embodied differently in different temples and shrines.

One could discuss the theology that consolidated in Judaism in the couple of centuries around the turn of the era. To what extent is Islam derivative from it? But that theology seems to be broadly different from the Jewish religious practices of the second and early first millennia BCE.

Edited to fix touchstone

>78 librorumamans:

I don't think that such a genealogy (which I suspect of being roughly true) voids or makes incoherent millennia of actual talk of the god of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

Since the religions each have such different theories of how to know about God, their beliefs inevitably contradict each other.

You go wrong here, at the premise. Yes, both religions have ideas about how to best know God. That is not the same thing as having fully incompatible ideas about how to know God.

Take Christianity. Christianity certainly asserts that God is a Trinity, so to know God "best" (as well as a human being can know God), is to know God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit.

But Christianity does not assert that one may have no knowledge of God apart from this. There's much to say here, but we can start with the fact that knowledge of God without belief in the Trinity is not only possible but absolutely required by theology, as Christians must believe that Jews before Jesus came did in fact "know" God. It is similarly required by statements in Acts and St. Paul about the conversion of Jews after Jesus' death and resurrection. Unless one is prepared to claim that Jewish worship was of a "different God"—the notion advanced by the the heretic Marcion—then this claim is quite wrong.

Therefore, the Christian concept of God and the Muslim concept of God describe two different gods entirely.

The conclusion doesn't logically follow. But even if it did, the premise is mistaken.

It is possible that one of them describes the true God, but they cannot both describe the true God.

Imagine you and I believe everything correct about God. We both worship him. Then change one thing for me alone. For example, I believe that God is a God who prohibits dancing.

Do we believe in different Gods? Do we worship different Gods? Clearly not, or no two Christian denominations, and indeed probably no two Christian individuals, would worship the "same God." Like it or not, to hold wrong ideas about God is not sufficient to establish the notion that one has created, and worshipped a different God.

Here again, although the argument scarcely needs it, we have NT evidence. Speaking to a Samaritan, Jesus indicates that, in the future, God will be worshipped neither in Jerusalem nor on Mt. Gerezim (ie., as the Samaritans did). Clear he believed Samaritan worship to have been worship of God. But the Samaritans held numerous divergent beliefs, for example the location of the temple and that that only the Pentateuch was scripture. If you're right, how could Jesus have done that?

Therefore, at least one of them is not really worshiping God at all.

Conclusions does not follow from false premise.

Thought experiments are fun, aren't they?

Here's a good one:

If frogs had pockets could they carry guns with which to shoot snakes?

Hmmmmm.

Well, I suppose in theory there could be a muslim take on this question, a christian one, a jewish one, a Hindu one, etc., etc.

In the end, though, if we all get carried away and somehow lose sight of the fact that we are just manipulating thoughts in our heads and comparing and contrasting our created abstractions to those created by others in their heads - well, then, we are making fucking fools of ourselves - besides the danger of crossing over into some very bad place wherein live such nasties as mania, solipsism, bipolarism, schizophrenia, hysteria, etc.

A word to the wise.