The Same God 4

Miroslav Volf, Professor at Yale, on the dedication page of his new book — Allah: A Christian Response, says this:

To my father, a Pentecostal minister who admired Muslims, and taught me as a boy that they worship the same God as we do.

Volf’s quest is to build a theological basis for peaceful co-existence and peaceful cooperation among Muslims and Christians, and his quest is to contend that the God of the Christians and the God of the Muslims is the “same” God. He nuances this very carefully, and I want to begin that discussion in earnest this morning.

What do you think of his view of the meaning of “same” as “sufficiently similar”? Are they “sufficiently similar” for to use the word “same”?

There has been a dust-up in Indonesia over whether or not Christians in those countries can use the word “Allah” for their God in their Bibles and in their worship. And many Christians in the West, and Volf draws on statements made by Al Mohler, contend that Christians ought not to use the word “Allah” because that word is used for a God unlike the God of the Bible.

Volf’s contention gets technical, arguing that “same” does not mean “identical.” Instead, what Volf argues that what is needed is that they are “sufficiently similar.” Clearly affirming that the Gospel of John equates God with Jesus and knowing God through knowing Jesus, Volf observes that those who rejected Jesus — Jesus’ Jewish opponents — still were considered as people who were connected to the one true God (John 5:18; 8:39-58). Volf is illustrating what he means by “sufficiently similar” to be called the “same” God.

Which now leads him to the specific beliefs, and after sketching the sufficiently similar claims by Gregory VII and Nostra Aetate from Vatican II, he sketches four sufficiently similar themes about God:

1. There is only one God, the one and only divine being: Mark 12:29; Muhammad 47:19.
2. God created everything that is not God: Genesis 1:1; Al Shura 42:11.
3. God is different from everything that is not God: 1 Timothy 6:16; Al An’am 6:103.
4. God is good: 1 John 4:16; Al Buruj 85:14.

Therefore, the God of the two is sufficiently similar. “Whoever agrees on these four convictions about God refers to the same ‘object’ when talking about God” (101).

But “belief” is not “worship,” and so Volf carefully spells out the meaning of “worship”: and here he departs from the populist mode of thinking, which sees worship as raising hands in a “worship” service and expands the word to its biblical proportions: it is how we live. What we worship and how we worship tell us who our God is. I totally agree with him here: our worship reveals our God.

He argues this can be reduced, as I do in my own work, to loving God and loving others. He appeals to Deuteronomy 6:5 and to Al Zimar 39:45, which only says “God, One and Only” and from this he sees a basic total devotion to God. And then clearly the Bible and Qu’ran are the same on loving others: Matthew 7:12 (Golden Rule) and The Hadith: “None of you has faith until you love for your neighbor what you love for yourself.” If love is central, the God of that worship is a God of love: worship reveals the character of the God we worship.

He shows the Ten Commandments are essentially parallel.

Therefore: “to the extent that God’s commands express God’s character, Muslims and Christians worship the same God” (108-109).

Summary:
1. There is only one God.
2. God is creator.
3. God is radically different.
4. God is good.
5. God commands we love God.
6. God commands we love others.

“When Christians and Muslims agree on the above six claims about God, then in their worship of God they refer to the same object” (110-111).

[I’m not convinced Volf is sufficiently christological here; but he’s not done.]