Wise words, and gracious, after taking heat especially. You’ve set a good example for all of us.
Of all the questions that have arisen and are yet to be answered concerning the Muslim religion, the question: Do Christians and Muslims worship the same God? - is most vexing. I’ve been following MavPhil’s extensive threads on the subject, and what I thought would be an easy answer - well it ain’t so easy. I’ve settled on my own opinion, but I’m going to go any further than calling it that. There is a reason I bring this up? Yes, two actually.
1.First, the main focus of the ‘same God’ problem (SGP) as between Muslim and Christian is, for many people, the tri-unity of the Xn and the strict monotheism of the Muslim. I think that’s a wrong-headed approach, but there is a lot of discussion centered around the SGP in trin/monotheist terminology and concepts. Too big a problem to go into here.
- It slowly dawns on one, going through the arguments concerning the SGP, that the question will eventually be asked - does that Xn worship the same God as that other Xn? That’s the cutting question.
The answers range from a curt “yes of course” to a curt ‘no’ to a whole lot of not-curt ‘maybes’ and ‘probablies’. One’s soteriology does play a part in how that question is answered.
Bob’s admonitions have been to the point (and some of you others as well of course). We must be careful to only add to our confession what is CLEAR in scripture, if we are addressing the SGP.
I hope we don’t go too far down that road - the SGP road - as that road can be disastrous if not handled with extreme care.