Christians, Muslims, and Jews, Oh My!

The Church regards with esteem also the Moslems. They adore the one God, living and subsisting in Himself; merciful and all- powerful, the Creator of heaven and earth, who has spoken to men; they take pains to submit wholeheartedly to even His inscrutable decrees, just as Abraham, with whom the faith of Islam takes pleasure in linking itself, submitted to God. Though they do not acknowledge Jesus as God, they revere Him as a prophet. They also honor Mary, His virgin Mother; at times they even call on her with devotion. In addition, they await the day of judgment when God will render their deserts to all those who have been raised up from the dead. Finally, they value the moral life and worship God especially through prayer, almsgiving and fasting. (Nostra aetate)

It is very easy to draw an implication from these words: that Christians and Muslims worship the same god. Here it says Muslims “submitted to God,” caveats immediately following. They “adore the one God,” attributes listed thereafter. In short, for all our differences, Nostra aetate seems to affirm that, indeed, we all worship the same deity.

And yet, this seems hard to swallow. Those who are not with Christ are supposed to be against Him; no one can come to the Father except through the Son; there is but one mediator and his name is Christ Jesus, and so on, and so on.

Debate abounds. And, as far as I can tell, arguments tend to fall along two lines.

Those who believe that Christians, Muslims, and Jews worship the same god tend to argue that imperfect worship is still a form of veneration. The Trinity may be the true, revealed form of the one deity, but Jews and Muslims, as peoples who trace their religious traditions back to Abraham (all that matters is that they say they do), in fact do pay homage to the same divinity. In short, while Christians have the fullness of revelation, their shared patrimony with Jews and Muslims makes for a special relationship, a love of the same god, something not shared with Hindus, Buddhists, Jains, pagans, and others.

On the other hand, those who deny this co-worship often appeal to the Trinity. If one gets this fundamental feature wrong, it makes no sense to say that the same god is venerated. The differences are simply too vast: ontological differences in divine constitution make for massive differences in understandings of the world. As a result, the gods of the three religions ask for different things; this abundance of variations implies further incongruity.

There are also ideological considerations that seem to make the two sides incapable of disagreement. Ecumenism abounds among the former group, a desire for brotherhood and “tolerance” (even if ill-defined and sloppy). The latter are often more traditional, and, if I’m being honest, are not always immune from a desire to cast Islam (especially, though also Judaism) in the worst light possible for political and social reasons.

So, which is right?

Perhaps a parable can help us understand:

A man is walking down a thin road in the desert, and, trudging along, beaten down by the hot sun, he sees another man on the horizon. Sand is blowing every which way, and so, it’s hard to get a look at him. Once they do come upon each other, they stop, the stranger offering the weary traveler food, drink, and a place to rest. He, of course, agrees, and spends the night with this kind desert dweller. Our traveler, struck thereafter by this amazing man, by his hospitality, the tales he shares, and so on, tells his son, who then tells his son. Now, rather unfortunately, the story gets mixed-up over the generations. The original traveler loses something of the memory in his older age; his son gets it well enough, and, in fact, meets the desert dweller’s son, who himself describes his father, and explains the story from their perspective. Unfortunately, the traveler’s own son (the original man’s grandson) hears only bits and pieces of what his father offers, and muddies the waters all over again.

This analogy isn’t perfect, but the idea ought to be clear. The traveler’s son (Christianity) wouldn’t have access to the story without his father (Judaism), the person who originally met the desert dweller. But he gets the story the best; he listens closely, and even meets the son of the mysterious hermit. Alas, his own son (Islam) goes off track again, whether because of lapses in memory, selective listening, whatever. All three men trace their knowledge of this wonderfully generous man back to the same story, the same encounter. Only one gets the best description, understands the truth of what the man looked like, what he did, etc. But all three are talking about the same man, remember the same hospitality, and, if imperfectly, pay him honor.

The same could be said about many things. As I recently saw someone put it, physicalists believe there is only matter; substance dualists effectively believe we are spiritual or intellectual substance trapped in a radically-other material world. That said, both can speak about President Trump and be talking about the same man, even if they understand him fundamentally differently; both speak to a reality and share an acknowledgement of that reality (Donald Trump), even if one is right and one wrong.

I don’t know if those examples help, but, yes, it seems to me that, indeed, we all do worship the same God, and that, even if I think we Christians have the fullness of revelation, there are others whose traditions imperfectly and lovingly regard the God of Abraham.

And that seems to me a good thing, a reminder of our fellowship and common heritage, perhaps a means of not, well, yelling at and killing each other. Disagreement is fine (really it’s necessary). But there’s disagreement and then there’s disagreement. And I’d rather we practiced love and patience, not fury and wroth.

Heck, most medieval Christians held Islam to be a Christian heresy (and popes ordered the protection of Jews from violent, vulgar pogroms on more than one occasion). In other words, even our forebears, not known for being fans of non-Christian religions, implicitly held that the same God lay behind the three faiths.