If Christ tells us that we should call God our Father because that is what our concept of God and our Relationship with God should be . Can we then in all honesty say this is the same God that the Muslims say cannot have a son. How can we say they are the same
It makes no sense .
The Church says it makes perfect sense, because the fulness of truth subsists only in the Catholic Church. When you don’t have the fulness of truth, you still have the same God, but you’re missing pieces of the truth about that God. The deficiency is not in God, but in human understanding. Otherwise, we would have to say that the Jews don’t worship the same God either. Where would that leave us?
If God ceases to be the same God, because of difficulties in understanding his nature, then we would also have to say that the Orthodox do not worship the same God as the Catholics. We believe that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son. The Orthodox believe that we’re wrong, that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father through the Son. The two concepts are not the same.
However, Pope Benedict has decided to bypass this debate. When he celebrates liturgy in an Orthodox dominated country, he skips this sentence in the Creed. He says, “I believe in the Holy Spirit, who with the Father and the Son is worshipped and glorified.”
One has to learn to choose one’s battles.
The issue between Islam and Christianity is not whether or not we believe in the same God. That may be your issue, but not the issue of the Magisterium. The issue is one of the differences in our understanding of the nature of God. God remains who he is, unchangeable.
Just think of how many thousands of years passed before the Trinity was revealed to Israel. Does that mean that they did not worship the true God? Does it mean that the Trinity errupts into existence at the Incarnation? Or does it mean that they did not understand the Trinitarian nature of God?
How long did it take Catholics to fully capture the Trinitarian nature of God? Do all Christians have the same understanding of the Trinitarian nature of God? Nope, we do not. But we all worship and adore the same God.
Then you have other ecclesial communities such as Mormons and Jehovah Witnesses who also worship the same God as do Catholics. They don’t understand the nature of God either. However, we don’t say that they worship a different God.
The essence of what God is has been made known to them by the Spirit. The details is what is missing. The Church calls us to draw people into the fuller understanding of the nature of God, not to push them away by saying things about them that are not true, such as saying that they do not worship God.
Because someone has a part of the truth rather than the whole, you don’t stip them of the part in an effot to get them to embrace the whole. That makes no sense.
Fraternally,
Br. JR, OSF
