Jim and I seem to think with the same brain when it comes to issues such as these. In fact, I have never heard Jim teach or preach anything with which I disagree. If he did, I would simply advise him of his errors, knowing that a full repentance was forthcoming :).
Plagiarized in its entirety, here is his excellently argued answer to this most contemporary question:
(Written by Jim B., PhD; Jim is currently serving as a US Army Chaplain in Afghanistan)
[Colleague’s name], here is the answer to your question, as to how I answer the question of whether Christians and Muslims worship the same God.
First, I admit that both Christianity and Islam believe that God has some of the same attributes, including:
- omnipotence
- omniscience
- omnipresence (in the sense that God's influence is present everywhere)
- spoken through prophets
- words recorded in a book (however, Muslims believe that the Koran is eternal, which brings up the logical problem of two eternal realities, God and the Koran)
I then ask, "In order for two entities to be the same, in how many ways to they have to be alike?" The obvious answer is "In every way." This is usually the answer that I get, though some try to wiggle out of it.
I then ask, "In order for two entities to be not the same, in how many ways to they have to differ?" The obvious answer is "One." If two entities differ in even one way, then they are not the same.
I then ask, "Are there any ways in which the god of Islam is different from the God of Christianity?" and of course there are:
(1) The New Testament makes clear that Jesus Christ is the God of the Old Testament. This is clear from many verses, just a few of which I will mention here:
- Colossians 2:9: "In Him [i.e., Christ] dwelleth all the fullness of the godhead bodily." That is, if you have Jesus, you have the Father and the Spirit also. If you do not have Jesus, you have neither the Father nor the Spirit.
- John 8:58, "Before Abraham was, I am." This is an obvious reference to God's words out of the burning bush to Moses in Exodus 3:14, "Tell them that I AM has sent you." Jesus' enemies clearly understood His meaning, they immediately tried to stone him for blasphemy. By the way, in the same conversation, Jesus makes the shocking statement in John 8:24, "If ye believe not that I am, ye shall die in your sins." Notice that most if not all major translations mistranslate this verse. The KJV is closest, adding an italicized "he" to the end of it, obscuring the meaning. The NIV is far worse, adding the words "the one I claim to be" in little L-brackets. In fact, in both 8:24 and 8:58, the "am" is not a grammatical copulative. Jesus was clearly stating in 8:24, in light of 8:58, that he who knowingly denies that Jesus is the God of the Old Testament is eternally lost. This applies not only to non-Christians, but also to so-called "Christians" who deny this connection.
- In summary, Muslims deny that Jesus is God, therefore their god and our God are of a different IDENTITY.
(2) The God of Christianity is triune, a complex Unity. Islam explicitly denies the Trinity. The god of Islam is a simple monolithic unity. Therefore their god and our God are of a different NATURE.
(3) The God of Christianity sent His Son to earth to die for sinful men and women. The god of Islam does not have a son, and he certainly did not die for us. Therefore, their god and our God are different in their ACTIONS.
Remember, in order for them to be the same, they have to be alike in every way. In order for them to be not the same, they have to differ in only one way. In fact, they differ in at least three fundamental ways, and more differences could be found. Therefore, they are NOT the same. Because God is sovereign, there can be only one God. They cannot both be true and at least one must be false.
Two common objections need to be addressed:
(1) The first is the argument from cognation. That is, because "Elohim" (the Hebrew Word for God) and "Allah" (the Arabic word) are supposedly cognate (i.e., related) words, it is claimed that they must be referring to the same God. However, cognation is an unreliable guide to meaning. Some examples:
- German "Tisch" is cognate with English "dish," but "Tisch" means not "dish," but "table."
- French "regarder" is cognate with English "to regard," but "regarder" means not "to regard" [i.e., to think about], but "to see."
- A particularly striking example: Spanish "blanco" is cognate with English "black," but "blanco" means not "black," but "white." Here we have an example where cognates have exact opposite meanings!
In summary, cognation is an unreliable guide to meaning, much less to identity. Cognation in no way proves that the god of Islam is the same as the God of Christianity.
(2) It is also objected that these arguments would also mean that Jews worship a different god. In fact, other than non-Messianic Jews (who heartily endorse that Jesus is the God of the Old Testament), this objection is valid. The New Testament makes clear on many occasions that the the Old Testament is about Jesus. This includes Jesus' own words, "they [i.e., the Old Testament scriptures] are they which testify of Me." If Jewish people have missed the fact that the Old Testament is about Jesus, then they have completely missed the point of their own Scriptures. Now one can obviously refuse to believe the New Testament, but the fact remains that either contemporary Judaism and Islam are completely wrong about the identify of the God of the Old Testament, or else the New Testament is completely wrong, but both sides cannot be right.
One more thing. The Koran clearly states that "people of the book" (i.e., Christians and Jews) worship the same god as that of the Muslims. Koran 29:46 instructs: ". . .say [to the people of the book], 'our god and yours is one.'" Here is the final issue: If the Koran clearly states that the Muslim god and the Christian God are the same, but the facts clearly show that they are not, then what does that say about the truth of the Koran in particular, and the truth of Islam in general?
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