Some call this question the “same God controversy.”[1] Former President George W. Bush said this in an interview: “I believe in an almighty God, and I believe that all the world, whether they be Muslim, Christian, or any other religion, prays to the same God. That’s what I believe.”[2] I agree with Jared Wilson’s response to Bush’s ecumenical statement:
I think we come at this answer too easily, too thoughtlessly, simply assuming that because these three religions—Judaism, Christianity, and Islam—are all monotheistic and share some historical heritage, they must worship the same God. Because lots of people worshiping one God does not mean they are worshiping the same God.[3]
John Piper and Rick Love Debate
The question, Do Christians and Muslims worship the same God? has ignited explosive controversies. This was the debate between John Piper and Rick Love, who declared: “Christian and Muslim views of God are similar in that we both worship the one true God, creator of the heavens and the earth.”[4]
Piper states his biblical rebuttal:
“Jesus makes a person’s response to himself the litmus test of the authenticity of a person’s response to God.”[5] As we shall see, the Jesus of Islam is not the Jesus of Christianity. Islam fails the litmus test. Like Islam, Judaism is monotheistic, claims Abraham as their father, and rejects Christ as the Son of God. To the challenge from the Jews, "Where is your Father?" Jesus answered, "You know neither me nor my Father. If you knew me, you would know my Father also.” The Jews failed the litmus test.
Rick Love also argued “that anyone who affirms monotheism—whether Muslim, Jew, Sikh or Tribal—are worshiping the true God. How can it be otherwise, since there is only one God?”[6] The Jewish Pharisees affirmed to Jesus: “We have one Father, even God.” Jesus responded. “If God were your Father, you would love me ... You are of your father the devil” (Jo 8:41, 44). Not only do Christians and Muslims not worship the same God, but Christians and Jews do not worship the same God. The majority of the Jews of Jesus’ day and our day reject Christ as the Messiah and Son of God. They fail the litmus test.
J. D. Greear’s use of John 4:22
J. D. Greear believes Jesus rebuked the Samaritan woman for not worshipping the wrong God but for worshiping the true God the wrong way, and this is what we can tell Muslims. Jesus said to the Samaritan in John 4:22, “Who you think you’re worshiping, you’re not actually worshiping.” Greear contends that Jesus confronted a Samaritan woman who was worshiping wrongly and had wrong ideas about God. He [Jesus] didn’t say, “You’re worshiping a different God.”[8] Then Greear concluded: “If somebody explains their statement in this way, I have less problems with them saying Christians and Muslims are attempting to worship the same God, but in two entirely different ways.”[7]
The god of the Samaritans was not the God of the Jews. D. A. Carson explains, [Jesus] “is saying that the object of their [Samaritans’] worship is in fact unknown to them. They stand outside the stream of God’s revelation, so that what they worship cannot possibly be characterized by truth and knowledge.”[8] The Jews, on the other hand, know and worship the true God who provides salvation in John 4:22. The Samaritans accepted only the first five books of the Old Testament. After the Assyrian captivity, the Samaritans intermarried with Gentile nations and integrated the Gentile religions. “These Israelites mixed with and married the pagan settlers …. They also blended enough pagan beliefs into the mix that Samaritan worship ultimately became something fundamentally different from either Judaism or paganism. It was a mongrel religion …. faithful Jews saw Samaritanism as corrupt, unclean, and treasonous to the God of Scripture.”[9].
You cannot compare what the Samaritan woman believed or thought she believed with what Muslims know about Allah. Muslims know they are worshiping a god who is diametrically different from the God of Christianity, as the quotes below from the Quran reveal.
Larycia Hawkins’ belief in the “same God”
Matthew Bennitt reminds us of another example of the false premise that Christians and Muslims worship the same God:
Larycia Hawkins, a professor at Wheaton College, posted a message to her personal Facebook page: “I stand in religious solidarity with Muslims because they, like me, a Christian, are people of the book. And as Pope Francis stated last week, we worship the same God.” This post initiated a chain of events that led initially to Hawkins’ suspension and ultimately culminated in her resignation.[10]
Robert Priest’s use of Acts 17:23
Robert Priest former professor at Trinity Evangelical Divinity defended Larycia Hawkins by appealing to Acts 17:23: “It is worth noting that Hawkins was using the word ‘worship’ in the same way the Apostle Paul used the term in Acts 17:23, where Paul referenced an Athenian altar to an unknown god who he said the Athenians ‘worship’, and then proceeded to treat this god as the same referent that he wished to tell them about.”[11] There are two compelling reasons the use of Acts 17:23 is a misinterpretation in defending the “same God” belief.
1. The Athenians were polytheistic. Paul was disturbed that Athens was a “city wholly given to idolatry” (Acts 17:16). “The Roman satirist [Xenophon] hardly exaggerates when he says that it was easier to find a god there [in Athens] than a man.”[12] So, the “unknown god” to the Athenians was not a monotheistic god, as the Muslims believe.
2. The Athenians did not know who this god was. The Athenians were similar to the Samaritan woman who did not know whom she was worshiping. The Muslims know exactly who their god, Allah, is, as shown below from quotes from the Qur’an. D. A. Carson fleshes out this argument in this post: D. A. Carson on Whether Acts 17:23 Can Be Used in the Muslim-Christian Same-God Discussion. Here is the conclusion of this post:
So this use of Acts 17:23, ripped out of its context, reflects a sold-out commitment to a kind of muddle-headed Western notion of tolerance that is not thinking clearly about what Paul is saying in the context. He is saying that “what you ignorantly worship this I declare to you,” not because he is making an ontological statement of identity, but because he is stressing their ignorance.[13]
In the next post, Do Christians and Muslims Worship the Same God? (Part Two), we will examine what Muslims believe about Allah as recorded in the Qur’an.
[1] Tim Deippe, “The Same God: Did Paul Claim the Athenians Worshipped Yahweh?” Foundations: No.77, 2019.
[2] Mona Moussly, “Bush denies he is an ‘enemy of Islam’,” Al Arabiya News, October 5, 2007.
[3] Jared C. Wilson, Do Christians, Jews, and Muslims worship the same God? TGC, June 16, 2016
[4] David Mathis, Rick Love Responds to Piper's Thoughts on "A Common Word," Desiring God, January 28, 2008.
[5] John Piper, How Shall We Love Our Muslim Neighbor? Desiring God, January 30, 2008.
[6] Rick Love, Apostolic Practice in a Globalized World: Rick Love Responds to Piper, Desiring God, February 22, 2008.
[7] J. D. Greear on Whether Muslims and Christians Worship the Same God, TGC May 7, 2019.
[8] D. A. Carson, PTNC on John Four in Logos.
[9] Faculty & Staff, The Master’s University, The Unlikeliest Ally.
[10] Matthew Bennitt, Do Christians and Muslims Worship the Same God? TGC, 2, July 30, 2020.
[11] Robert Priest, Wheaton and the Controversy Over Whether Muslims and Christians Worship the Same God, 32 Occasional Bulletin, Special Edition, 32, 2016.
[12] Conybeare, W. J. and J. S. Howson, The Life and Epistles of St Paul (Longmans Green, new edition, 1880). 280.
[13] D. A. Carson, “Together for The Gospel,” D. A. Carson on Whether Acts 17:23 Can Be Used in the Muslim-Christian Same-God Discussion, January 29, 2016.