Why not read what I actually wrote:
What are some of the attributes that all three Abrahamic faiths affirm?
But you just insisted that Palestinians have a deficient knowledge of the faith! Besides, I got my information from a reference librarian who used academic databases.
I did. You haven’t said said anything useful.
Here, … Let me try to help you out.
A brief list of attributes that Yahweh and Allah have in common.
Now, let’s take a little walk down Memory Lane.
@Relates wrote:
You responded:
@Relates responded:
@Dale chimed in and asked:
To which you eventually replied:
Ding! ding! ding!
Your response there is “A Difference” between Allah and Yahweh, and not a minor difference, at that.
We Christians share in common with Jews, a belief in the God of Abraham, made known to us via the Bible. The significant fact here, is that the portion of the Bible from which Jews obtain their information about Yahweh is also, word for word, essentially, in OUR Bible. Muslims reject the Jewish Tanach and say that it has been corrupted, because the Qur’an says it has been corrupted and the Muslims reject the Christian Scriptures, which they call “the Injil” for the same reason. The important point, IMO, here is that Muslims affirm that Allah IS the author of the Qur’an (delivered to Mohammed by the Angel Gabriel).
Now, follow the dots:
Read what I wrote again. You’re confused.
I wrote:
Again, who, what was this Abraham? What has God as He is, as was incarnate in Christ, got to do with him?
Try reading Genesis 12. And read “God in Search of Man” by Abraham Herschel. Definitely ask a librarian for help.
What does Genesis 12 say that’s new? That’s been recently added? What have I missed? What does Herschel know that I don’t? That I need to know? Or a librarian? What help do I need?
It seems that “epistemic humility” is rather the antithesis of “I decided against belief in the supernatural."
In context with the above, it also appears that “I think the only safe way to handle God conceptually is as a mystery” still precludes whatever “God” is from being supernatural, so the antithesis with epistemic humility remains.
“I recommend asking the mystery what it thinks” is also antithetical to it because it is stated explicitly that the supernatural God has already revealed is excluded, since “Everything some dumb kid dreams up or which is written in a holy book or explicated by a scholar is necessarily speculation.” Where is this hypothetical humility please, with “some dumb kid” on a par with Bonhoeffer’s hermeneutic?
(I took the liberty of italicizing your I, @Terry_Sampson, because your “I could be sure” was not indicating a possibility but a certainty, since you followed it with the declaration, “I’d stake my life on it.”)
Seems I have to explain what I wrote…
There is just one true God and He was once known as the God of Abraham. So far so good.
If there are several groups who inform that they believe in the God of Abraham but provide crucially different teaching about how we can get peace with God, where is the problem?
Personally, I do not believe that the problem is multiple gods. I believe the problem is having different images of the one true God (descriptions of what God is like and what He expects from us). Christianity and Islam paint a different picture of God - not maybe the best choice of words as painting a picture of God is a nono, at least in Islam. I guess you get the meaning anyway.
It could be said that also within Christianity, different branches tell partly conflicting teaching about God, i.e. paint different images of God and His will. This is not a fatal error as long as we tell a correct message about how a person can be saved - our good life is not enough, we can find peace with God only through the saving act of God in Jesus Christ. Faith in Jesus instead of earning our salvation.
Islam does not tell this message. That is the fundamental difference that truly matters.
Why does it matter?
Look! If you want to believe that Judaism, Christianity, and Islam worship the same god, knock yourself out. You’re going to believe whatever you want to believe and I am quite sure that if you think I’m trying to persuade you to change your mind, you’re going to hold on tighter to what you believe than you would have if I said nothing. But the fact is that you and I have an apparently, irreconcilable difference between us, and if it is indeed irreconcilable, then we (you and I must accept that conclusion and decide separately and individually what you and I are going to do about it.)
Now, according to you, the fundamental difference that is the only difference that “truly matters” is how we can be saved. Thanks, but no thanks; that’s just another “irreconcilable difference” that we’re going to fuss over.
I say that the differences between the three religions do matter, and that the only thing about them that they have in common is the myth that they worship the same god, that each claims to be a monotheist religion, that each claims to trace it’s history back to Abraham, and that none of the things they have in common is as important as the fact that believers in God are typically believed to be human beings, insofar as that has been deemed probable to date.
So, is any difference between any two religions justification for going to war against each other? No, I don’t happen to think so at this time. I’ll get back to you if I come up with one.
So, why is it important to claim that the three religions worship the same God? I suggest that the sole reason for doing so is the last sentence of the following article:
Do Christians, Muslims, and Jews worship the same god?
Personally, I’ll believe that bit of wishful thinking as soon as I believe this:
Of course the differences between the three religions matter. Especially the difference between Christianity and Islam in what they teach about God and the fate and role of Jesus Christ.
Maybe my thinking is wrong but I can acknowledge the similarities without compromising my faith or the teachings of Christianity. Judaism, Christianity and Islam are classified together under the title ‘Abrahamic tradition’ because all accept that the God of Abraham is the only true God. The teachings of Islam have diverged from the teachings of Judaism and Christianity so much that it may be difficult to recognize the similarities. Yet, we are all humans created by the same God.
I believe that knowledge, good acts or our cultural background cannot save us, even if we are born in a Christian family. I believe that we need to turn towards God and receive the gift of God, salvation through Jesus Christ to find lasting peace with God - be saved, born again, or some similar expression. This is a very crucial point for me and therefore affects my opinion of religious teachings. Islam does not tell about the gift of God, salvation through Jesus Christ. For me, this is the most crucial difference between Christianity and Islam.
And again, why does it matter? What difference does it make?
I hope that as many as possible would find lasting peace with God (be saved), muslims included.
I know that all branches of Christianity do not have similar teachings about the need to turn towards God and receive the gift of God. That is my understanding and affects my opinions. I hope that muslims could get the same peace with God as I have received. Without the gospel of Jesus Christ, few can learn about the real Jesus Christ and the possibility to get this peace.
btw, what do the @moderators think? Do Muslims worship the God of Abraham? People want to know your opinions.
Speaking for only for myself, it surely seems that the God of the Christians is the same as that of the Jews, except with a continuation of the story which departs from Judaism.
From wiki I learned:
Hebrew Bible, also called Hebrew Scriptures, Old Testament, or Tanakh, collection of writings that was first compiled and preserved as the sacred books of the Jewish people . It also constitutes a large portion of the Christian Bible, known as the Old Testament.
The Koran does not seem to have found any place in the Christian BIble and neither do Christians (as far as I can tell) view it as related to the BIble.
Regardless I see no reason to assume each of the three worships a different God. As others have said the manner of the worship varies but each one worships a singular God. If indeed God is a singular being, it may well be that this being is what each religion worships in its own way., (In the interest of full disclosure, I don’t think God is a singular being apart from something that is in us which supports God belief.) So for me it isn’t really a question of whether the Jewish, Christian and Islamic God are the same being as it is a question about whether the same phenomenon which supports belief in each of the Gods is the same. I do think that is likely the case.
For a monotheist there is no other God for the God of Islam, or of Judaism, or of Christianity to be. One can insist that another group has an incorrect view of the one God. But saying that Muslims “worship a different God” while those who fail to subscribe to or those who do subscribe to the doctrine of the Trinity within Christianity have different ideas about the “same God” is to draw a line on a blurry continuum where no obvious place exists for such a line to be drawn.
I might have skimmed a few of the posts in this thread - and don’t think I’ve read very many in much depth - so my answer here may repeat a lot of stuff they may have already been said. And this is me writing with my own hat on (not as a moderator, but as just another participant here - hopefully my words will be weighed for their own merits alone. In other words - this is not put forward as any sort of ‘Biologos’ opinion, but only my own.
To the extent that anybody worships a “Creator” of everything and everyone, then they are worshipping the same (with respect to the worshipped being ‘Creator’) - no matter what different word they may have for such a being, and whether they do so from within a Christian tradition or not. To the extent that anybody worships an “ultimate Good”, then I would say their worshipped being also is yet another Christian understanding of God - and so then … the same, no matter what words or tradition their worship is embodied in.
To the extent that anybody attributes false attributes to God (I would say, making God out to be an evil tyrant or a deceiver, for example), I say that to the extent they do that, they are worshipping something that is not the Christian understanding of God (whether they do so from within a Christian tradition or not).
Furthermore, I think it necessary to concede (as has been said before), that none of us can have a complete understanding of all of God. We will have necessarily incomplete understandings, and certainly some wrong understandings too. So all of us, then are giving imperfect worship to God, probably some a lot more than others. The being we hope to have a relationship with is a forgiving one, if the Christian and the biblical narrative are true as many of us here see it. So thankfully we don’t all have to ace any “factuality” exams before God will relate to us. I think Christ is our true picture of God, but he doesn’t guarantee us that our understandings suddenly then become infallible.
In short, I think there are Muslims who (by evidence of their lives) worship the true God, and Muslims who worship false gods. I think there are Christians who worship the true God, and Christians who worship false gods. (and I think people, sinful as we are, can fluidly move between those categories as we variously resist or fall to temptations in our lives.) And since people will accuse me here then of suggesting that there are “many equal paths” to God and that all religions must therefore be right, I will pre-emptively correct them with this: I believe Christ, and Christ alone is our hope, no matter what religion we call ourselves. Whether or not people have uttered some set of “right words” in the “right language” addressing Christ by the “right name” is of no consequence. If Christ has not got hold of their heart, no right words or doctrines have saved them. Whether Christ has got a hold of a person’s heart - that is everything. If he has got hold of their heart, no lack of doctrines or lack of using familiar names or recognized religious language can hurt them, or stick with them for long - as Christ will teach them everything they need when they need it.
I have thought about this quite a bit because of the great Larycia Hawkins v. Wheaton College debacle. (If you will google it you will find many great minds weighing in on the topic.)
If we are talking about referents, I think the word Allah refers to the same referent as the God of Abraham. I believe all of the Abrahamic religions intend to direct their worship to the same entity, the one true God. So in that sense, yes.
However. I think the label triggers very different concepts for Muslims, Jews, and Christians. So in the sense of “Do Muslims, Christians, and Jews conceive of God in similar enough ways that their worship would be recognizable as directed at the same entity by an outside observer?” No, probably not. But if a Muslim comes to Christian faith, he or she does not exchange Allah for a different object of worship, he or she builds a different conception of who Allah is and what he wants from worshippers.
I think it is perfectly acceptable to say that I and a white Nationalist immigrant-hater follow different Jesuses. Everyone knows that means you are saying we have different concepts of who Jesus is and what he wants from us. I think it is also perfectly acceptable to acknowledge that when either of us talk about Jesus we have the same historical person as a referent in mind, so in that sense we are talking about the same Jesus.
We discussed the idea of different Gods a while back in a thread. What I remember from that was that it depends on the context. In some respects, it is the same God, in some respects not. We had the same discussion about whether the God another local church worshipped when their theology was non-trinitarian, was the same as ours. Our pastor ultimately said no, they were not the same, but it is a real gray area, as 90% of our theology was shared. I think that we have an infinite God, and whatever concept we have of him is limited and wrong in some respects.
I watched a video by an ex-Christian a while back, and he says he doesn’t identify as an atheist because there are so many concepts of god. He says that if someone asks him if he’s an atheist, he asks them to tell him about their god… and then decides whether he’s an atheist or not about that god. In that sense, as others have said, even Christians can worship very different iterations of God. Some Christians, like myself, have at times developed a view of God as someone who’s obsessed with our good behavior, but have subsequently recovered (and continue to recover) a sense of grace and mercy in how we view that God (and ourselves in relation). Still, I would like to believe that I’ve come to see God a little bit more clearly rather than switched to a different one, though some “raised in the church” Christians can still have what feels like a conversion experience later in life that probably feels that way.
Christians read both the Old and New Testaments The God of the OT is often seen as legalistic and certainly there is that aspect to the OT. Many Christians testify to a born again experience when they make the transition from the legalistic God of the OT to the Savior God of the NT.
I would hope that your God is first and foremost Jesus Christ, Who is the Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and the End of our faith and this should lessen the confusion over legalism. Love over obedience.
Christians believe in the God of the Bible. We understand that the God depicted in the OT is not exactly the same as the one in the NT, as do the Jews, but we say He is the same God, because Jesus says He is and demonstrates that the Father is… There is no such continuity and connection with Allah, the God of the Quran.
“Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.” -Colossians 4:6
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