Do Muslims and Christians Worship the Same God? It all Depends on How we Understand "Same-ness" and Why John Hick is a Helpful Interlocutor

First let me note that I speak as a theologian, looking at the broader sweep of traditions and communities, rather than a biblical theologian who seeks moral meaning through appeal to biblical narratives in an effort to guide us to those morals.

Do Muslims and Christians Worship the Same God: What do we Mean by “Same God” and why we should Consider where that position points us.

There has been a lot of blog posts and Facebook posts going around in recent days about the dismissal of a Wheaton College professor who wore a hijab. It has ignited a debate about whether Christians and Muslims worship the same god.

While well-intentioned evangelicals have attempted to come to the aid of professor Larycia Hawkins, there is still a notable problem with many of the responses I’ve seen, the primary error being that these Christian intellectuals cannot move into the bigger picture of how communities shape personal identity and what it means for an outsider to accept the grace and honor of upholding their identity through another community.

A few blogs have compared the situation to Paul’s speech on Mars Hill and in which he grants some semblance of knowledge of God to the Greeks but ultimately reproves them for their insufficient understanding of God.

Another blog brings up a similar story in Jesus’ meeting of the woman at well who is a Samaritan. Here Jesus has no quarrel with telling her that the Jews, and not the Samaritans, also know who their God is because they are the chosen. Though he ends the conversation saying that one day nobody will worship from either mountain but in spirit and truth, this has served some to make a point about relations between Christians and Muslims, who while having different customs and practices, serve the same God.

Of course the problem is that systematic theology has cast an ominous shadow over both traditions, and more conservative pundits find that the essential meaning of God in Jesus cannot be given up for a more “watered down” view of God’s essence.

I think what is more important is that John Hick answered a similar objection against Karl Rahner who labeled all those who seek after certain “positive” core values in their religious traditions to be anonymous Christians, given the realization that the God of Jesus simply doesn’t reach everyone in every place and at every point in history. While Rahner’s argument was an honest attempt to bring everyone into the sphere of Christian salvation for lack of its genuine geographical reach, Hick moved that this was an insult to all those who were well-embedded into their own religion, and a meaningless gesture. Consider this: How many Christians think of themselves as gar toshav or of Noahide righteousness? There is an entire strain of Jewish thought set aside for righteous gentiles that we have no interest in learning. In fact, we would much rather be validated by the means of our own religious rituals and practices and beliefs, then by the gestures of another community. A Christian would say I am saved by Christ, not I am a gar toshav! He would say, "I am sufficient in my salvation, and nothing lacks!"

Why? This is because  gestures meant to say Muslims and Christians and Jews are all alike are meant for those who manufacture them. When they originate in the faith community to validate another faith community, they are self-reflexive in nature, and are not intended for the Other for whom this grace appears to be extended. They continue to treat the Other as a thing to be honored because it is structured within their religious compass of righteous activity, not as someone who is honored for their own sake. And perhaps this is the problem of my tradition. Christianity can only go so far in saying Muslims worship the same God without giving something up of their position. Thus, this gesture to reach out to the Other proves only to turn the Other into an object of curiosity that must be met with pedantic moralism rather than true genuine immersion.

Perhaps it would be better to say we are different, not just in practical matters but epistemological-ontological-theological understanding and we must find a way to avoid mutual destruction.

But there is  another way I want to offer... 

Perhaps it’s time to get back to the ineffability of God and stop fighting so hard for theological and metaphysical truth. We probably don’t worship the same God, but each according to his own expression. Of course, any concept brings up the problem of meaning. What do we mean by “same God”?

If we are speaking according to God’s actions, we know that everyone from Aquinas (Christian) to Maimonides (Jewish) to Averroes (Muslim) understood that God’s essential nature was unknowable. These thinkers therefore appealed to analogy to understand his action on earth extracted from his nature on high. There was a tacit understanding that language was an insufficient tool to completely decode revelation.

Ineffability, while it fits in some contexts, certain runs counters to the kinds of biblical passages being thrown around on the internet these past number of days. Like the story of Paul on Mars Hill and the Samaritan at the Well, Paul and Jesus take comfort in knowing that they are the bearers of a revelation that lacks no deficiency.

Returning to a language of ineffability means that we allow some doubt, some room for expansion or contraction in our understanding, primarily because we understanding the ineffable nature of God, not because we claim to know of an irreducible core to God’s being that all of us share in common. That is our commonality.

The Persecuted Majority: Examining Two of the Most Popular Ancient Claims for Defending One's Religion

Auctoritas maiorum is a fancy Latin phrase associated with the tradition of ancestral authority. Appeals to ancient authorship are no different than we find today. When I write a paper or present at a conference, I often support my thesis by appealing to others who have agreed with me. In the tradition of the great religions, this was important.

I thought it interesting that when making their cases for the seminal origin events that helped conceive of Christianity and Judaism, Paul the Apostle and Judah HaLevi appeal to this concept. In these cases, there is an appeal to numbers. Defending one's position became a matter of how many followers one could boast.

Speaking about the evidence for the resurrection of Jesus, Paul concatenates a list of followers who saw the risen Lord. Including in this list, he writes, "After that, he appeared to more than 500 of the brothers and sisters at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep." (1 Corinthians 15:6)

In another passage, not entirely different, but more theologically sophisticated, the gospel writer of Matthew records that "the tombs of were opened, and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised; and coming out of the tombs after His resurrection, they entered the holy city and appeared to many..."  (Matthew 27:52)

Again, we see the apologetic emphasis on sheer numbers.

Judah HaLevi, in the famous medieval work, the Kuzari, puts on the mouth of his antagonist Al Khazari, the admission that the Exodus story was "irrefutable" because "a thing which occurred to six hundred thousand people for 40 years," is not easily undone. Top that Paul! (The Kuzari, 60)

Earlier, Al Khazari admits that agreement among the Jewish people in a similar Jewish calendar was an amazing show of unity. "Not ten people could discuss such a thing without disagreeing, and disclosing their secret understanding. (The Kuzari, 50)

In 2011,  Miroslav Volf wrote an article for the Huffington Post about the continued need for Muslims and Christians to work together. Interestingly, he appealed to the very argument we've been looking at here, noting, "Christianity and Islam are today the most numerous and fastest growing religions globally. Together they encompass more than half of humanity. Consequence: both are here to stay." Certainly, this was not an apologetic meant to argue for divine truthfulness, but the responsibility to do what is right seems to originate from a meaning often used for this very purpose.

Certainly, there is a completely "other" strain of religious self-perception in the world. The "truth" of one's religion, while supported by numbers, in some way or another is put up in contrast to the persecution of that religion in the world. Muslims complain about their persecution in Western countries and Israel. Christians complain about their persecution by their own secular culture. And Jews have historically complained about their persecution everywhere and for just about everything perceived as Jewish. Surprisingly, persecution is ALSO considered a top-tier contender in ancient religious apologetics. "My religion is persecuted; therefore, God is on my side," has been a particularly effective campaign platform to bring in converts, at least where conversion is important.

Nevertheless, we can see the problem. Appealing to mass numbers and claiming you are persecuted by those around you who do not hold the power to do so creates an awkward intellectual relationship. Progressive thinkers in the United States often scoff at the travails of Evangelicals this time of year who decry a "War on Christmas."  This is true of Muslims in some Arab countries who must look to the "temptations of the West" as a power too strong for them to resist, as propaganda that is destroying their culture. But this marriage of sheer numbers and a persecution mentality shows us that where there would seemingly be illogic, a logic of its own can form. A persecuted majority rises up against the power of the Other.