POSITION PAPER - SAME GOD 1

POSITION PAPER:

DO CHRISTIANS, MUSLIMS, AND JEWS WORSHIP THE SAME GOD? (Four Views)

Ronnie P. Campbell Jr. And Christopher Gnanakan

Emmanuel IBINGIRA

Mid-Atlantic Christian University

INTRODUCTION

Christians, Jews, and Muslims all allege to worship God: the one God who disclosed himself to

Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, Joshua, and Gideon, along with to other Old Testament

characters. However, do they actually do it? After reading the book, I realized that asking the

same question was important even though essentially I believed that there was nothing to debate

because I knew what I believed in, and I didn't care about other people's beliefs. The book's

arguments helped me think hard about the issue and actually question my beliefs. After reading

the four different views on whether Muslims, Jews, or Christians worship the same God, I

believe that Jerry Walls made the best view. None worship the same God: Different Conceptions

View. I support this view of Jerry Walls because it gives a mandate to Christians who realize the

truth to engage in evangelism to talk to those who do not grasp the gospel so that they can trust

God and the one who sent them. If we believe that we worship the same God, we will not be
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encouraged to approach them because we bring nothing new to them. We will not grasp the

urgency of the message and the gospel because the problem is mixed with this understanding; it

appears like nothing much is missing when we worship the same God. It is accurately the fact

that these distinguishable words of worship are based on completely various beliefs about who

God is and how He has uncovered Himself in a way that leads us to the conclusion that Jews,

Christians, and Muslims do not worship the same God.

As far as I know, Christians worship a Trinity, one God in three persons: Father, Son, and Holy

Spirit, whereas Muslims and Jews refuse the idea of the Trinity and just worship “one Almighty

God." Furthermore, Christians worship Jesus Christ as Son of God, Lord, and Savior, whereas

neither Jews nor Muslims do this. They do not worship Jesus. Therefore, their god is a different

deity. Christians worship a God whose primary attribute is love and who calls us to forsake

revenge, love our enemies, and forgive the sins of others, whereas Jews and Muslims worship a

god whose primary attribute is power, honor, and purity and who does not call upon them to love

their enemies or forgive the sins of others, where punitive revenge is a religious duty. Christians

worship a God who became incarnate in human flesh and who died for their sins on the cross,

whereas this idea is considered blasphemy in Islam and is denied in Judaism. Christians worship

in spirit and truth and not in any particular sacred location (John 4:4), while Judaism and Islam

have sacred cities such as Jerusalem, Mecca, and Medina, and they will even pray toward them.

Christians worship according to the Spirit and not according to the letter; we have died to the

law, whereas Judaism and Islam place literal obedience to written religious laws at the very

center of their religions. Christian worship consists of people who are already saved and who
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already possess eternal life, going from glory to glory through beholding the face of Christ (2

Corinthians 3:16–18). For Christians, worship is not a means to salvation but rather a celebration

of a salvation that is already secure, whereas worship in Judaism and Islam is necessary for

salvation, which is partly attained via worship. Neither Jews nor Muslims worship by being

transformed by beholding the face of Christ. To repeat, Christian worship is after salvation,

while Jewish and Islamic worship is prior to or part of salvation. Hence it is not the same

worship! Judaism and Islam both persecute or ostracize converts to Christianity. If we are all

worshiping the same Father, why then do they do this? They deny the Son and then persecute all

who worship Him!

If you deny the Son, then you do not have the Father, so obviously you are not worshiping the

Father (even if you think you are). The apostle John says that if you don't confess Jesus as the

incarnate Son of God, then your spirit is "not from God." The religions that deny the incarnation

of Jesus Christ are not of the right spirit; they are of the wrong spirit, which is why they are

opposed to the gospel. If you don't abide in the teaching of Christ (and neither Judaism nor Islam

does), then you don’t abide in God. Jews abide in Moses, and Islam abides in the teaching of

Mohammed. So then they do not have God. So Judaism and Islam are in deception. They are not

truly worshiping the Father. Instead, they are setting up their own standards of righteousness.

Since both Judaism and Islam deny the Son, they do not have life. On top of which they are

refusing the testimony of God and thus calling God a liar. Now you simply cannot be worshiping

God if you are also calling Him a liar! So we see that there is no salvation and no eternal life in

either Judaism or Islam. There is only salvation through Christ. So our response to Jews and
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Muslims should be to pray for the removal of the veil and for the salvation of all who are trying

to justify themselves by works, so that they may come into the freedom that is in the Holy Spirit!

They are blinded by the god of this world. Unwittingly, they are sons and daughters of

disobedience. They think they are serving God, but in fact they are serving the Devil! (Ephesians

2:1-4). The major difference is that most Christians believe that Jesus was divine, the son of

God. Muslim reveres Jesus as a prophet only and that he was not crucified but raised to heaven

by Allah. Jews do not think Jesus is the Son of God. The major difference is that Christians

believe that Jesus was divine, the son of God, and that God is the Trinity: Father, Son, and Holy

Spirit. Salvation for Christians can be gained through faith in Jesus and his resurrection and love

for one another. Salvation for Muslims and Jews can be attained through good works.

This made me agree a little bit more with McDermott (Jews and Christians worship the same

God: Shared Revelation View); he was the closest so far to my own view, mainly where he

described whether pagans also worship the same God as Christians, case study: Cornelius and

Melchizedek (Page 107), but I disagreed with many of his arguments about how Jesus' viewed

the Old Testament. The reality that Muslims, Christians, and Jews all believe in only one God

doesn’t demonstrate that they all worship the same God.” But I am not arguing from the

monotheism of each faith to the conclusion that they all worship the same God. Rather, I am

asserting that because there can only in principle be one God—the absolute underived
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unconditioned source of all contingent existence—and because the theologies of each of these

faith traditions refer to that one God, it stands to reason that they all worship the same God, even

though they disagree about aspects of that God as a result of what each believes is special

revelation. I don’t genuinely agree with Francis J. Beckwith (All worship the same god:

referring to the same god view) and even the view of Wm. Andrew Schwartz and John B. Cobb

Jr., “All Worship the Same God: Religious Pluralist View. It is even hard to grasp this view; it

appears like they utter that Muslims worship Allah; Jews and Christians worship the God of

Abraham, but there is a “greater being” behind the God of the Bible/Allah of the Qur’an whom

people worship and which connects these three religious groups together all together.

CONCLUSION
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Each chapter was well described. Each author affords their view within 20 pages, the other

authors give a short 5 -or-so page response, and the original presenter offers a final response. I

agreed with almost nothing of these views of the same God, and I can support a little bit the view

that Jews and Christians may be worshipping the same God, but I strongly support the view that

none of these worship the same God. Furthermore, Christians, Jews, and Muslims do not worship

the same God. The Christian God is a Trinity, and the Jewish and Islamic God is not a Trinity.

Christians have an entirely different mode of worship; we worship in the Spirit, after salvation,

while Jews and Muslims worship by the letter as a means to salvation. He who denies the Son

denies the Father also. Denying the Son is calling God a liar. Denying the Son is of the anti-

Christ spirit, a demonic spirit. Denying the Son is denying the Holy Spirit. There is absolutely no

salvation for anyone who continually denies the Son. Islam and Judaism persecute those who

confess the Son. The true God would not persecute those who confess the Son; therefore, they

are worshipping an anti-Christ spirit and not the true God. They are blinded and their eyes are

veiled. They are under God’s wrath and will go into condemnation. We should pray for their

eyes to be opened and for them to be saved.