Is there a difference between the Calvinist and Arminian understanding of God? Yes. Are there similarities between the Calvinist and Arminian understanding of God? Yes. Is there a difference between the Calvinist and Open Theistic understanding of God? Yes. Are there similarities between the Calvinist and Open Theistic understanding of God? Yes. Is there a difference between the Jewish, Christian, and Muslim understanding of God? Yes. Are there similarities between the Jewish, Christian, and Muslim understanding of God. Yes.
I have suggested that the differences between Calvinist and Arminian Christians or Calvinist and Open Theistic Christians is more than merely a qualitative distinction when juxtaposed to the Christian and Islamic understandings of God (see here and here). James McGrath and Ekaputra Tupamahu responded with observations that I found valuable, yet misleading. Both replied with the suggestion that if I make a distinction between the God of Christianity and the God of Islam that is not merely theological but ontological I am close to making a mistake similar to that of Marcion.
Of course, Marcion was a second century heretic who argued that the God of the New Testament was not the same God of the Old Testament. The God of the NT is loving and kind and He sent Jesus to save us. The God of the OT was cruel and evil in that He created our world. I make no such assertions which I think James rightly noted.
The God revealed through Jesus in the NT is the God revealed to Israel in the OT as the one who delivered His people from Egypt, parted the Red Sea, secured rights to the Promise Land, established the Davidic dynasty, sent His people into exile, and called prophets to speak His oracles. Jesus is the pinnacle of this action because in Jesus God has spoken His finalized authoritative word as the author of Hebrews wrote (1:1).
So no, I do not deny that the God revealed to Israel is the God revealed through Jesus Christ. Instead, I affirm this very thing.
Therefore, the question that must be asked is whether or not Jews and Muslims worship the true God but from a different, maybe ignorant, perspective or if the God that they claim to worship is their own ideology and therefore distinct from the true and living God of Christianity. If I deny this am I making the same mistake as Marcion?
Ekaputra suggests that Muslims worship the same God as Christians. He likens God to his father. To Ekaputra this man is his dad. To Ekaputra’s uncle this man is “brother”. It is the same individual who is related to from different perspectives. I do not know if Ekaputra affirms the exclusivity of Christ but I do see this as being greatly in danger of becoming some sort of Christian pluralist.
James on the other hand observes that Muslims claim to worship the God of Jews and Christians. In theory this may be affirmed though I think there are plenty of conservative Muslims who will says that the Jews and Christians no longer worship the true God, Allah. But that is neither here nor there.
The point James is trying to make appears to be this and I am open to correction. Muslims believe in One God who is absolute and shares a lot of the characteristics of the Christian God who is also understood to be the One, true God. Therefore, while there are differences between Islamic and Christian depictions of God, like Ekaputra states, this is still the same being.
Neither Ekaputra nor James indicate whether or not there understanding of what it means to “worship” the same God is equated to being in a sufficient relationship with Him or if one can worship the true God while being utterly defiant against Him by denying something about Him. To clarify, do Ekaputra and James suggest that Muslims worship the God of Christianity yet because they reject His Son they are not in right standing with the true God? Or do they see Islam as another equal approach to God?
I acknowledge that the true God is the God of all. Therefore it is true that the Christian God is the God of Jews and Muslims. But I do not know if this should be seen as saying that Jews and Muslims worship the true God.
The error that I think both Ekaputra and James are making is equating similarities with identity. Yes, Jews, Christians, and Muslims claim a lot of the same things about God. But similarities do not mean identity. All three of us have mothers. There may be a lot of similarities between our mothers. Our mothers may even have the same name. But our mothers are different ontologically and this is best understood through the life actions of our various mothers. These are three different women.
I do not find it outside of the Jewish tradition to argue that those Jews who are apostate are no longer rightly “knowing” God. While I am not able to venture in Qumran’s polemic against their fellow Jews it should be noted that Johannine Jews had no problem going as far as to say, through the words of Jesus, that those who are not following the move of God in Christ should no longer call God Father, but rather the devil (Jn. 8:44). Or that those who reject the Son no longer have the Father (1 Jn. 2:22-24). Or Paul who argued that the Jews had a zeal for God but not according to knowledge (Rom. 10:2) and that God’s way of not rejecting His people was through a remnant (therefore, non-remnant Jews are in essence, for now, are rejected) (Rom. 11:1-2). If there is no knowledge of the true God then our semantics about “worship” are somewhat insignificant. To know God is to know Him according to special revelation.
The critique of Pauline and Johannine churches is not that the God of the NT is different from the God of the OT, but that the God of the NT is the God of the OT and to deny the God of the NT is to reject the God of the OT. If one rejects the God of the NT how is it possible to still worship Him?
When Paul addresses the Athenians (Acts 17:23) he may be able to say that they “worship” the true God ignorantly as the “Unknown God” but this use of “worship” is by no means the same as what I seem to think Ekaputra and James are suggesting. If Ekaputra and James can say “worship” means that there is an ignorance and a lack of salvific relationship, but the ultimate object of their worship is the God who is God of all, then we may have common ground.
My problem is that the God of Islam is a God identified. Allah is not merely an unknown God. The worship of Allah is not merely hopeful prayers toward heaven. The identity of God is assumed and it does not include any mention of the God who was incarnate in Jesus or the God who raised Jesus from the dead.
Therefore, I wonder whether or not Ekaputra and James think that Paul could have suggested Jesus was son of Zeus, but that there were some slight differences. Or that Jesus is the same as the God of Hinduism, but the Father and Spirit are revealed in thousands of manifestations. I do not want to put words in their mouth, but I’d like to know their thoughts.
My question to both gentleman, and I am all ears on this, is if one worships the true God ignorantly does this mean (1) that although their object of worship is indirectly correct their understanding of God is greatly diminished, (2) their relationship with God, as regards salvation, is not established, and (3) their “worship” is not satisfactory, in the same sense as the redeemed, since it is not according to “knowledge” of the true God? Or do you two see this as just another approach to God, equal with Jesus but different?
I wouldn’t even affirm that. I’d say that the true God is the creator of all, but he’s only the God of those who recognize and worship him as such.
That said, I don’t believe that (non-Christian)-Jews, Christians, and Muslims worship the same God. I wrote a short (and I do mean short!) series about it a couple of years back.
Brian,
I have some brief comments here. First, we need to clarify all the terms we are using. It seems like you make a sharp distinction between these two terms: “knowing” and “worshiping”. Correct me, if I am wrong. For you, knowing is taking place in ‘cognitive’ level, and worshiping is in the ‘relational’ level. Is this right? This means that if someone knows something, it doesn’t have to mean that he has the relationship with that thing. But, the problem with your distinction is that I cannot see its contribution to the main discussion. The question about whether God of Islam is the same being with the God of Christian is an ontological question. It is not the question of how we respond to HIM. If I know my father but I reject to have relationship with him, it doesn’t have to mean that he is ontologically a different being. My father in my knowledge and my father that I reject to worship is the same person, the same being. Muslim knows the same God that we all know, by virtue of general revelation. But the way they approach that God is very different. I don’t think because the approach God in a different way then it means that ontologically their God is different.
Second, when you see my view as “being greatly in danger of becoming some sort of Christian pluralist”, i think you have taken it too far. I simply affirm the availability of general revelation in other religions, which almost all conservative theologians do as well. The God that reveals himself to us, Christians, is the same God who reveals himself to the whole human beings. Whether this revelation will lead to salvation or not, it is a completely different issue.
Third, your analogy of “three different mothers” does not fit to this discussion at all. Why? Because your mother does not reveal herself to me or James. Your mother is not the only mother. The mother of this discussion reveals herself to me and James. She is the only true mother. The mother of this discussion wants to build relationship with both of us. The mother of this discussion reaches out to me and James. That means that if we all know about a ‘Mother’, it must be your mother, because she is the only mother we know. So, i think your analogy is misleading.
Fourth, regarding your statement, “I wonder whether or not Ekaputra and James think that Paul could have suggested Jesus was son of Zeus”, I just want to let you know that in Indonesia we call JESUS, the son of Allah (anak Allah). What is wrong about it? You, in America, call Jesus the son of God. You have to remember that Muslims, Jews, Christians, or even Atheists, all use this word “GOD”.
Fifth, since your field of studies is in the biblical studies, I want you to read and reflect of Amos 9:7. I wonder what would the Philistines and the Arameans think about their experience? They probably would have a different understanding of who their deliverer is. But the deliverer is still one and only true God. Their understanding does not make any ontological difference to the existence of the deliverer. James Dunn has beautifully discussed this in his Theology of Paul the Apostle (pp. 43-5).
Sixth, if we hold to your view, then the inter-religious dialogue will be totally hopeless because we will be discussing two different things. It is like I sit with you talking about my dog, and you think that I am talking about a cat. This becomes completely ridiculous.
In the start of this debate Brian objects to James say, “I understand the angle that you are taking, but I think it is a slippery slope.”
But, isn’t the slippery slope argument slippery? Isn’t it a logical fallacy, no matter how tempting. As Brian said, concerning Theology: “That would leave as many schisms as there are individuals in the church, for no two of us see God exactly alike.” And thus we would have people worshiping all sort of Gods. His slope leads to everyone worshiping different gods — Marcion on steroids, while the slope of both James and Ekaputra (according to Brian) may even have me (an Atheist) worshiping the same god as you guys but just real abstract (call that god “EXISTENCE”). Well, OK, maybe not, but maybe they could allow in Hindus and after a few beers maybe they’d both let Buddhists in.
Ouch, this hurts !
This discussion seems to hinge on epistemology.
Brian believes that “right belief” is essentially who we are. Others view the heart as much deeper than right belief and with the heart being the natural seat of each person. (I intentionally use the metaphor because a discussion would be too entailed)
Hi Brian and everyone. I’ve posted a response here:
http://exploringourmatrix.blogspot.com/2009/10/talking-about-god-near-emmaus.html
Just in connection with one point I neglected to address there, Paul in Acts 17 is presented as applying poems about Zeus to the God that he is connected with. I assume that may have some bearing on this question. A Jewish perspective along similar lines can be found in the Letter of Aristeas, which has a non-Jewish individual state that Jews worship the supreme God, just under a different name, and the author doesn’t have any character Jewish or otherwise disagree with or correct this assertion.
But what it comes down to is this, I suppose: Christians, Muslims and Jews disagree among themselves about whether they worship the same God or not. And so ironically, some Muslims would agree with you that we don’t really worship the same God, and some Muslims would agree with me that it makes more sense to say that we do!
Nick,
All I mean by this is that God is truly their God since He is God of all. I am not saying that God is recognized. I am saying that God as Savior and Judge is the God of all people, as He is the Creator of all people, and therefore the God over all. This does not equate to right worship or recognition.
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Ekaputra, you said:
“The question about whether God of Islam is the same being with the God of Christian is an ontological question. It is not the question of how we respond to HIM. If I know my father but I reject to have relationship with him, it doesn’t have to mean that he is ontologically a different being. My father in my knowledge and my father that I reject to worship is the same person, the same being. Muslim knows the same God that we all know, by virtue of general revelation. But the way they approach that God is very different. I don’t think because the approach God in a different way then it means that ontologically their God is different.”
My thought to this is if God has revealed Himself in Jesus Christ (that is, Jesus is both fully God and fully human), and the Muslims reject this revelation, then it is problematic. I do think your analogy with your father is a great one. Even still, it seems tricky to me to reject who God has revealed Himself to be, and to still approach Him another way.
“Therefore, I wonder whether or not Ekaputra and James think that Paul could have suggested Jesus was son of Zeus, but that there were some slight differences. Or that Jesus is the same as the God of Hinduism, but the Father and Spirit are revealed in thousands of manifestations. I do not want to put words in their mouth, but I’d like to know their thoughts.”
I still haven’t heard a clear answer from EITHER James -or- Ekaputra on this… I’m just a poor young semi-ignorant person. Could either of you spell it out a bit more for me?
I suppose my response was in my question about Acts 17. When Paul says that the God about whom the Greeks’ own poets wrote, i.e. Zeus, had appointed a man to judge the world and raised him from the dead, I don’t think he was either saying what Brian seems to mean, namely that “Zeus and Yahweh are different gods”, nor that the two are simply identical. Rather, I think many early Christians believed that there was only one God, and as a result, various depictions of a supreme deity might contain some approximation of the truth, without always being correct or complete. But inasmuch as Paul quotes literature about Zeus in reference to the God he himself worships, it seems that the language of “two different gods” doesn’t accurately reflect the nuance of the position taken by the author of Acts.
I have given my answer in the fourth point of my comments.
Ekaputra,
As I understand the biblical language “knowing” God, as the Apostle would say it, is the equivalent to being in a relationship with God. It appears that worshiping God is much more vague since even the Athenians in the Luke 17 account are said to worship the “Unknown God”. Therefore, I am suggesting that it may be possible to worship the true God unknowingly but salvation is something of knowledge. The would further mean that if you claim to know a specific deity, and it is not the one revealed through Jesus Christ, you are not worshiping the same God.
I am thankful for your clarification that your argument is based on general revelation. But even as far as general revelation is concerned I think it only leads to condemnation. The worship of Allah is an example of this. Rather that leading to the knowledge of the true God it has lead to deity that while similar to the true God is not the true God. But I understand the point you are making.
Of course, all analogies at some point are misleading, especially when it comes to speaking of God. Therefore, neither of our analogies perfectly reflects reality. But I think the problem with your statement about revelation is that I do not think Muslims (who are not part of the elect yet to become Christians) have received revelation, other than the aforementioned general revelation which has only led to the construction of a similar, yet not true, deity.
As regards calling “Jesus, the Son of Allah” in Indonesia I understand this is a linguistic issue. God was called “theos” in the Greco-Roman world. This is why I made such a big deal about asking if someone can confess that “Allah raised Jesus from the dead”. If so, then “Allah” may have the same set of letters to represent Him as dos the God of Islam, but it is not the Allah of Islam, for as you know they deny Jesus’ death and resurrection!
Amos 9:7 only reflects the point that I made that Nick was unsure of above. See my response to his comment.
Finally, as regards inter-religious dialog I am not saying that we cannot point out those aspects of Islamic theology that are correct and that point toward the true God, but let us use Paul in Athens as an example once again. He did not see the Athenians as worshiping the true God through the gods seen and named. He understood the Athenians to know some true things about the true God, and this was the starting point.
We can acknowledge that Islam is correct that God is One, all-powerful, sovereign, all-knowing, good, loving, the judge of the world, and so forth. But to say that Allah, as defined by Islam, is God the Father, makes one major mistake. How can you know the Father without the Son?
Sabio,
I do not think it boils down to right epistemology. I think it boils down to right relationship, standing, acceptance. I am not hinting at Gnosticism nor Marcionism. If anything it is Paulinism.
By the way, what dog do you have in this hunt?
James,
I think the problem with your point about Zeus is confusing characteristics with identity. Paul did not equate the God in whom we live, dwell, and have our being. He simply states that the poets were right in what was noted about God.
I think it does apply and I think you are right to note that this is an similarity based on similar depictions, not identity.
Brian (these heirarchy replies are hard to follow – just had to say again),
I am often asked, “What stake do you have in these discussions” but I enjoyed your way of saying that — I had not heard that before. I will have to write a post to reply. But I would love you to role play and take guesses at how you think I would reply. That would help me see how you view me.
Peace.
You said, “Fourth, regarding your statement, “I wonder whether or not Ekaputra and James think that Paul could have suggested Jesus was son of Zeus”, I just want to let you know that in Indonesia we call JESUS, the son of Allah (anak Allah). What is wrong about it? You, in America, call Jesus the son of God. You have to remember that Muslims, Jews, Christians, or even Atheists, all use this word “GOD”.”
I could be wrong, but this does not really answer the question. The word “God” translated into Arabic is” Allah.” We all understand this, but this is not a response to the question posed by Brian. Let me clarify.
Do you believe Paul would have called Jesus the Son of Zeus?
Would you say that Jesus is the same as the God of Hinduism, but the Father and Spirit are revealed in thousands of manifestations?
Or does your above answer imply that the answers to both of these questions are a resounding “YES” ?
It seems to me that the original post did in fact treat “Allah” as something other than simply the Arabic word for God. And so for consistency let’s ask about the “Greek supreme God” rather than Zeus. And I think I’ve already addressed that point: Paul seems to accept that there is only one God, and so there is no “other God” for the Greeks to have. And so the issue is to what extent specific individuals or groups agree about the concept, characteristics and attributes of God.
The question about Hinduism is a particularly interesting one. On the one hand, Hindus today tend to regard themselves as monotheists, since they believe that reality is ultimately one. And they also believe that God can become manifest, and so interesting conversations can take place about the notion of incarnation, and whether God can be incarnate more than once. That’s a question that comes up not only in conversation with Hindus, but when Christians think about the topic of extraterrestrial life. But it is also there in ancient Jewish Christian works, which often spoke of the Spirit dwelling in the prophets down the ages before finally “coming to rest” in Jesus.
To be honest, I would like clarification of your question “Would you say that Jesus is the same as the God of Hinduism, but the Father and Spirit are revealed in thousands of manifestations?” It seems to me that either it is not worded very clearly, or it doesn’t in fact reflect a clear understanding of the nature of Hinduism (the term itself is a relatively modern invention, and the pluralistic nature of “Hinduism” makes it even more problematic to generalize about Hindu theology than about what Christians or Muslims believe). But this discussion thus far hasn’t really addressed the flip side of the question. There are Christians whose view of God is panentheistic rather than adhering to classical theism. And so is the God of Christians the same God as the God of Christians?
@Sabio,
I am going to assume that since you hold to an atheistic world-view, and you know you will not convert all theist into atheist, the second best option is that all theist would somehow become theistic relativist. Therefore, if I am a Christian but I accept Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, and this and that -ism as true, then at least religion becomes manageable.
Am I close?
James,
While I agree that the Apostle would have understood that there is only one God and that the One God is the God of the Greeks, Jews, Romans, and all people everywhere, I do not think he would have identified one of their named deities with God the Father. As I have stated elsewhere when Paul uses the poem about Zeus he is not saying that the great God, Zeus, is really another name for God the Father. He is saying that the Greeks correctly understood something about God when they spoke of Zeus, so why do these other idols which are gold, silver, stone, and wood contradict what “you Greeks” already assume about deity.
As with Hinduism I am asking if you think that it is acceptable language to assume that yes, Jesus is a manifestation of the one God, yes the Father may be represented by another manifestation, yes the Holy Spirit another, and in fact there may be a million more manifestations on top of that. In other words, if a Hindu includes Jesus as part of his “monotheistic” pantheon, is he speaking of the same god?
As regards Christians who are panentheistic and Christians who are classically theistic I think there would need to be much more discussion. The central tenant is the incarnation of the Son of God. That Jesus Christ is God made known in human existence. That he is the way, truth, and life and that no other way is available to approach the Triune God except through Jesus.
I think we’re still talking past each other, in the sense that I simply don’t find myself able to express what I think in terms of “you believe in god X but I believe in god Y.” My own thinking is in terms of having different beliefs about God, different concepts of God, sometimes radically different. I think that, if we want to use the language of “a different God”, then we should indeed say that Christians who are panentheists and Christians who are classical theists worship “different gods”, and perhaps also that most British Evangelicals worship a “different God” than conservative Evangelicals in the United States do. If that language is to be used in cases where there are different ways of depicting God then why not do so across the board? Why assume that all who bear the label “Christian” are “worshipping the same God”?
James, I find what you are saying quite interesting. Would you mind briefly spelling out the differences you see between classical Christian theism and Christian panentheism? One class I took last year had touched on this in a discussion regarding the Indian theologian Rayan but I was not able to see any major difference as to the God both have their eyes on.
James,
I think part of the difference between how I am approaching this question and how you are approaching this question is I am thinking primarily through a Christological lense while it appears (and correct me if I am wrong) that you are more concerned with basic theological “categories”, per se. In other words I am not as concerned with things like omniscience, sovereignty, and so forth. I am concerned that to know the true God He can only be known through the person of Christ.
So let us start from there. As regards a Muslim, do you see them as worshiping the same God as Christians yet believing something different about this God (namely, that he was incarnate in Christ) than Christians do and that this is an important enough difference to separate Muslims from Christians as regards right relationship with God? Let me assume you perspective for a minute and say that Christians and Muslims worship the same God, I would go further to say that Muslims are still not in right relation with that God because they reject His Son.
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