Do Christians, Jews, and Muslims worship the same God?

[Charlemagne_III]

If they do not worship the same God, what distinguishes each God from the other?

Your thoughts?

 

[NekoNecro]

I cannot direct you to the exact numbered section but I can confirm with absolute certainty that the CCC affirms that there is no doubt that Orthodox Christians, Muslim and Jews worship the same God as Catholics.

Protestants however I believe aren’t mentioned. Wherever that’s deliberate or not I don’t know since many appear to, but then you get branches like the Mormons who clearly don’t.

 

[isaacalsop]

I cannot direct you to the exact numbered section but I can confirm with absolute certainty that the CCC affirms that there is no doubt that Orthodox Christians, Muslim and Jews worship the same God as Catholics.

Protestants however I believe aren’t mentioned. Wherever that’s deliberate or not I don’t know since many appear to, but then you get branches like the Mormons who clearly don’t.

Wait…your saying protestants DONT beliee in the same God? They do too…mormons do not but they are not even christian. Muslims and Jews deny Christ so how can they? Protestants are the CLOSEST to our faith. Where did the CCC say what you said?

 

[NekoNecro]

Wait…your saying protestants DONT beliee in the same God? They do too…mormons do not but they are not even christian. Muslims and Jews deny Christ so how can they? Protestants are the CLOSEST to our faith. Where did the CCC say what you said?

Oh, I think they do, I just don’t think they were included in that section.

I’ll update this box as I look for it, I’ve got a copy of the CCC here with me

Orthodox and Non-Catholics

838 "The Church knows that she is joined in many ways to the baptized who are honored by the name of Christian, but do not profess the Catholic faith in its entirety or have not preserved unity or communion under the successor of Peter.Those “who believe in Christ and have been properly baptized are put in a certain, although imperfect, communion with the Catholic Church.”. With the Orthodox Churches, this communion is so profound “that it lacks little to attain the fullness that would permit a common celebration of the Lord’s Eucharist.”

Jews

839 “Those who have not yet received the Gospel are related to the People of God in various ways.”

The relationship of the Church with the Jewish People. When she delves into her own mystery, the Church, the People of God in the New Covenant, discovers her link with the Jewish People, “the first to hear the Word of God.” The Jewish faith, unlike other non-Christian religions, is already a response to God’s revelation in the Old Covenant. To the Jews “belong the sonship, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, and the promises; to them belong the patriarchs, and of their race, according to the flesh, is the Christ”,3"for the gifts and the call of God are irrevocable."

840 And when one considers the future, God’s People of the Old Covenant and the new People of God tend towards similar goals: expectation of the coming (or the return) of the Messiah. But one awaits the return of the Messiah who died and rose from the dead and is recognized as Lord and Son of God; the other awaits the coming of a Messiah, whose features remain hidden till the end of time; and the latter waiting is accompanied by the drama of not knowing or of misunderstanding Christ Jesus.

Muslims

841 The Church’s relationship with the Muslims. “The plan of salvation also includes those who acknowledge the Creator, in the first place amongst whom are the Muslims; these profess to hold the faith of Abraham, and together with us they adore the one, merciful God, mankind’s judge on the last day.”

Well, they’re in imperfect communion, so I guess they must do. I’m still fairly sure Quakers and Jehovah’s witnesses are excluded from this due to their lack of a Baptism of water in the case of Quakers, or a difference in Baptism formula in the cases of Mormons and Jehovah’s witnesses.

The other issue with the protestants is that they don’t have valid holy orders in Catholic eyes, so they cannot offer Mass, most of the sacraments or any form of acceptable public worship.

 

[isaacalsop]

Alright, makes sense. So I agree Muslims worship the same God the Father, but…can they go to Heaven, if Jesus said all are saved through him? Your thoughts?

 

[NekoNecro]

Alright, makes sense. So I agree Muslims worship the same God the Father, but…can they go to Heaven, if Jesus said all are saved through him? Your thoughts?

Hrrm…This is actually been a fairly contested topic across history, but this is what the Second edition of the CCC has to say about it.

Non-Belivers

847 This affirmation is not aimed at those who, through no fault of their own, do not know Christ and his Church:

Those who, through no fault of their own, do not know the Gospel of Christ or his Church, but who nevertheless seek God with a sincere heart, and, moved by grace, try in their actions to do his will as they know it through the dictates of their conscience - those too may achieve eternal salvation.

According to the CCC they absolutely can, provided they have not heard the words of the gospel and chosen to have reject it (this being the doctrine of “Invincible Ignorance”). That said, in the next line Catholics are told they are obliged to evangelize the unbelievers so as to avoid this situation. The mercy of invincible ignorance is only a doctrine, a hope for Gods mercy and it is not a Dogma. It’s why in older allegorical works like Dante’s Divine Comedy you can read about all the babies and Good pagans in the first Circle of Hell who, while they were good people or simply didn’t live long enough to have a chance to hear the Gospel and accept both baptism and Jesus as their Lord so hence suffer eternal damnation. (I’m personally glad times have moved on since then)

**Evagelization **

849 The missionary mandate. “Having been divinely sent to the nations that she might be ‘the universal sacrament of salvation,’ the Church, in obedience to the command of her founder and because it is demanded by her own essential universality, strives to preach the Gospel to all men”. "Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you; and Lo, I am with you always, until the close of the age.

Invincible Ignorance shouldn’t be mixed up with the Infallible statement from Boniface XVI steps (Extra Ecclesiam nulla salus or in English outside the church there is no salvation). Again, this is hotly contested by the wider christian community but the current teaching from the Magisterium is that this statement only addresses Catholics who leave the Catholic Church.

 

[phil19034]

Same God but different understanding of God, His nature, and His commandments for us.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

So far as I understand it, only Christians (and not all of them) worship the Trinity.

Is a Trinitarian God to be regarded as equal to a Unitarian God?

 

[Jim_Baur]

I think this is a huge point: trinity is a post biblical metaphor. Benedict, St. Thomas and therefore many other saints teach that it is an analogy or metaphor.

 

[Stillsosola]

wow I could get flamed for this but no we do not Christians worship the One True God in His three persons Father Son and Holy Spirit

Muslims worship Allah an ancient arabic creator deity

Jews worship God in his Father aspect alone thus excluding the full aspect of God which is The Father, Son and Holy Spirit

Any religion that denies Jesus as the second person of the Holy Trinity is heretical and does not worship the One True God.

 

[Sam_777]

THE MOST HIGH is a Spirit, unfortunately few people from those religions you have mentioned have discovered that.

The only possible way to discover that is to open our hearts to THE MOST HIGH’ WORD who descended from Heavens for us, then we will be worshipping the same true GOD despite the earthy religions names.

 

[tdcjco]

I’ll get flamed for this, but, here goes…If you believe in Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and you believe Jesus is the Christ, the only Begotten Son of God The Father and you accept that he humbled Himself to be born of flesh and dwelt among us and suffered and died for the sins of all mankind and arose from the dead and ascended, then your my Christian brother/sister. We’re on the same team. Label yourself Catholic, Baptist, Presbyterian or whatever.

 

[GaryTaylor]

I think this is a huge point: trinity is a post biblical metaphor. Benedict, St. Thomas and therefore many other saints teach that it is an analogy or metaphor.

A conceptual reality claimed Suarez.

 

[NekoNecro]

I’ll get flamed for this, but, here goes…If you believe in Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and you believe Jesus is the Christ, the only Begotten Son of God The Father and you accept that he humbled Himself to be born of flesh and dwelt among us and suffered and died for the sins of all mankind and arose from the dead and ascended, then your my Christian brother/sister. We’re on the same team. Label yourself Catholic, Baptist, Presbyterian or whatever.

Why on earth would you get flamed?

Of all the denominations of Christianity Catholicism is amongst the least willing to suffer the existence of other denominations, but you can still see in the Catechism itself non-Catholic Christians are knowledged as followers of Christ (if somewhat misguided ones).

 

[Charlemagne_III]

I think this is a huge point: trinity is a post biblical metaphor. Benedict, St. Thomas and therefore many other saints teach that it is an analogy or metaphor.

How is the Trinity post-biblical?

Didn’t Christ charge the apostles to go forth and “baptize all nations in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit”?

 

[Genesis315]

According to the Catholic philosophical and theological tradition, it is right to say that Muslims and Jews worship the one God. First, I think there should be noted the difference between worshiping God in Spirit and in truth, offering Him “true worship” being in the grace of the Father or "having Him,’ etc., and worshiping God according to the virtue of religion (which is not a theological virtue, but a natural virtue that falls under justice).

St. Thomas defines this virtue in the Summa as “to show reverence to one God under one aspect, namely, as the first principle of the creation and government of things.” newadvent.org/summa/3081.htm

Can Muslims and Jews do this? They certainly worship “God” as First Principle and Supreme Governor of all things, but is it the same God we know? Can one acknowledge the one God without acknowledging the Trinity?

First, it needs to be pointed out that faith is required to acknowledge the Trinity. The Trinity cannot be reasoned out, as St. Vincent Ferrer explains:
St. Vincent Ferrer:

Concerning the use of the intelligence with regard to the Trinity, St. Thomas asks whether the Trinity of the Divine Persons can be known by natural reasoning. He answers: “It is impossible to attain to the knowledge of the Trinity by natural reason.” For man can obtain the knowledge of God by natural reason only from creatures. Now creatures lead us to God as effects do to their cause. Accordingly, by natural reason we can know of God that only which of necessity belongs to him as the principle of all things. Now, the creative power of God is common to the whole Trinity; and hence it belongs to the unity of the essence, and not to the distinction of the Persons. Therefore by natural reason we can know what belongs to the unity of the essence, but not what belongs to the distinction of the Persons. Whoever, then, tries to prove the Trinity of Persons by natural reason, derogates from faith.

Therefore, we can know of God, as the Principle of all things, from reason alone, apart from faith, but we can only know of the Trinity with faith since it is a revealed dogma. The First Vatican Council also defined that God can be known from natural reason alone (Dei Filius, Canon 2.1) and St. Paul says, on account of this, those who do not acknowledge God (but worship idols, are atheists, etc.) are without excuse (Rom. 1:20).

Therefore, one can acknowledge the one God and Creator of all things without having faith and acknowledging the Trinity. But do Muslims and Jews do this?

How can we say whether or not we are talking about the same thing? It is the essence of the thing that determines what it is. If we acknowledge the same essence, we acknowledge the same thing. What we can say about the essence of God is that it is the same as His existence. This is summed up as “God is” or, in His own words, “I AM” or “I AM who AM.” (Exo. 3:14)

This concept is formally referred to as the “aesity” of God. Essentially, aesity means self-existence. Aesity explains the metaphysical nature of God as a purely self-existent being that exists in complete actuality. God is not a being that is created by another god; neither does God create Himself into existence. Rather, God has always existed as an unchanging, completely actualized being. God has his Being of himself and to himself such that he is absolute being and the very definition of existence (Acts 17:22-28). Since God’s existence is the same as his essence, it follows that God is existence. (Note: this is not to assert pantheism. All other beings participate in his existence on a contingency and thus do not possess the essence of God. Therefore, no other being can be said to be a god or share a part in godhead since they exist solely on a contingency.) This concept is at the root of the definition of all of God’s other perfections because if God is absolute being he must logically contain in Himself all perfections of being.

Since God’s essence is existence, if one acknowledges His essence, one can only acknowledge He who exists–it is impossible to acknowledge a completely actualized being that is not the true God. Similarly, there cannot exist two of such beings, because then neither would contain in Himself all perfections of being.

The Catholic Encyclopedia article on Essence and Existence explains this:
Catholic Encyclopedia:

-If essence and existence were but one thing, we should be unable to conceive the one without conceiving the other. But we are as a fact able to conceive of essence by itself.
-If there be no real distinction between the two, then the essence is identical with the existence. But in God alone are these identical.

Since Muslims and Jews do conceive of God as being completely self-actualized, of being non-contingent, as having aesity (see here for a Muslim article on this, al-islam.org/GodAttributes/need.htm , the Old Testament is sufficient proof of Jewish belief), then they therefore can only be said to acknowledge the one God who exists and it is to Him that they honor and worship as First Principle and Creator according to the virtue of religion.

I would say therefore that we know God; they know of God. This is the difference between affective and speculative knowledge. St. Thomas makes this distinction in his commentary on John to reconcile Biblical passages where Jesus says one must know Him to know the Father with those where people without faith are said to know or worship God (such as those passages cited above from Acts and Romans). We worship God in Spirit and in Truth and serve Him in supernatural faith, they worship only in a natural way–but they do adore Him, despite their other errors.

 

[Jim_Baur]

The words PERSON and TRINITY are not in the Holy Bible when applied to God.

They were words that were later used to explain Father, Word/Son and Holy Spirit.

Furthermore, if my memory is correct, PERSON was first used and said to be heresy.
Then with some clarifications–it was accepted.

 

[Thorns]

I wonder what a Muslim has to say on this topic.

The few Ive talked to say that Allah is not the same as the Christian God.

 

[ThinkingSapien]

If they do not worship the same God, what distinguishes each God from the other?:

Well, if there is only one God in existence then for any set of god-directed prayers there is at most a total of 1 god that could be listening.

I think a better question may be what are the differences in how God is conceptualized in the abrahamic religions.

 

[ccmnxc]

I’d say that the religions listed (and possibly Hinduism to some extent) share a rough philosophical framework of God. For example, He grounds and sustains all being, He is metaphysically simple, and He tends to have similar if not identical attributes as the ones ascribed to the Christian God. In that sense, I would say yes, we believe in the same God. However, when it comes to more specific regarding His nature, as well as revelation & God’s relation to the world, I’d say no, we do not believe in the same God.