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I say that we should distinguish between four questions which have arisen in this “same god” controversy.
- Is naive pluralism true – the thesis that there are no important differences between Christianity and Islam?
- Are Christians and Muslims referring to the same being?
- Do Christians and Muslims worship the same being?
- Do all people in religions which officially reject Jesus go to Hell?
In addition, there’s an important ambiguity in “worship” in question 3; there are in effect two different questions there, depending on what is meant by “worship.”
In this episode I answer these questions and compare notes with six other Christians – five present-day and one historical – Hawkins, Mohler, Qureshi, Stackhouse, Watts, and John of Damascus.
Do you agree with my answers?
PS – Sorry about my voice in this episode! Can’t seem to shake this cough.
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Links for this episode:
- “Theories of Religious Diversity” (On theories of religious pluralism and their exclusivist and inclusivist rivals.)
- Dr. Larycia Hawkins
- Dr. Al Mohler, “Do Christians and Muslims Worship the Same God?“
- Dr. Francis J. Beckwith, “Do Christians and Muslims Worship the Same God?“
- Nabeel Qureshi, “Do Muslims and Christians Worship the Same God?“
- Dr. John Stackhouse
- Joel L. Watts, “Christians, Muslims, heresies, and “the same God”“
- This week’s thinking music is “I dunno” by grapes.
tt
I am puzzled that Unitarians and Trinitarians don’t find the lordship of Christ to be a greater unifying force between them than it is. Regardless of differing views about Jesus’ ontology, aren’t the biblical commands to trust and obey h/Him held in common by Unitarians and Trinitarians?
Mike,
Good point. 🙂
Mike,
This past weekend I attended a apologetics event sponsored by a nearby christian university. One speaker came up with the little ditty- ” You ain’t right with God , if Your wrong about Jesus!”- He kept repeating that saying and prompting the crowd to repeat it back, as he was going over the proof texts for the full divinity of Jesus.
Unfortunately there was no Q and A time, so I didn’t get to ask a question.
It appears that the classical Trinitarian understanding of Christ is some type of necessary entailment (or conflation) between Christs function and ontology. In other words, in order for Christ to fulfill his function as redeemer of mankind, it is necessary that he have a certain specific ontology- full divinity and co-equality with God. However, this only follows if you presuppose a certain means or model of the atonement. But presupposing a certain means/model of the atonement seems to result in a second conflation between- the necessary and sufficient beliefs required for salvation with that presupposed means/model of the atonement.
So it appears that in the Trinitarian case – ontology trumps function.
I personally believe that there will be people in heaven, who were certain about Christs role and function in their lives- as their Lord and Savior, but who might have been uncertain about his specific ontology- whether God, God-man, or merely a man.
When either Trinitarians or Unitarians think of Jesus primarily and merely as a ticket to the afterlife, it tends to obscure the obvious import of “Jesus is Lord” and its many implications for the present life as well as the one to come. I can see why this is one factor which reduces the potential unifying force of His lordship among Unitarians and Trinitarians.
I’m a completely unsavable Orthodox Jew who subscribed to your excellent podcast after listening to some episodes with Oliver Crisp and Brian Leftow in preparation for meeting them at the conference on divine perfection held in Jerusalem a couple months ago. I haven’t yet listened to all the episodes on the “same God” question, but I think that Christians might find *On Idolatry* by Moshe Halbertal & Avishai Margalit (Harvard Univ Press 1994) useful on this issue.
Excellent summary of the issues. Had this podcast gone viral back in early December, evangelicalism could have avoided a morass of confusion. Oh well, better late than never!
I love this episode, its really Nice to see the apologists arguments condensed.
Albert Mohlers response to the point about Abraham is completely nonsense. Abraham had never heard of the Trinity, God was a single person to Abraham, and moses, had someone told him about the Trinity, and he rejected it, would that suddenly have changed the Identity of the God he worshiped? I doubt it. A more interesting question however is whether modern Jews and Trinitarian Christians worship the same God (a lot of evangelicals, I believe, at this point would start showing their true colors, i.e. it’s more political than theological for them).
About Nebeel Qureshi calling Miroslav Volf’s commentary judgementalism is a little strange considering he’s supporting suspending a professor for taking a side in a very difficult theological question (even for conservative christians). Qureshi then makes a kind of strawman, he gives the reason why some muslims might say why Muslims and Christians worship the same God, but not why some Christians do, which is kind of the Whole point of the controversey. (That being said, I might be biased against Qureshi, I don’t think much of his theological or exegetical capability, he’s not careful at all, some of the worst arguments for the Trinity that I’ve heard have come from him, and he strikes me as someone who is more anti-Islam than anything else).
I think it’s a great point about Qureshi praying to Allah and getting an answer from God. As far as the Whole Muslims think Christians are going to hell for believing Jesus is God, many Jews think that Christians are Idolators, many Christians think other Christians are going to hell for holding wrong beliefs about God, many Christians think Jews are going to hell for not holding the right beliefs about God, but that says nothing about whether the God being worshiped is the same God.
Modern Jews also reject the Trinity, the question was about modern Jews, not ancient Jews. As far as the Whole thing about ancient Jews believing in the possibility of multiple persons is Complete nonsense, the Jews did not believe in a Being of God which may hold one or more People, they believed that God was a person.
I think it’s very sad how in the United States especially Evangelical Christianity has become so political, that it has started to take theological positions on the basis of politics, and often cheap and knee jerk politics.
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