How can we say that? It goes against Christs own words that he is the only way? There basic teachings are far from christian, the quran explains god differently than are scripture. It was given in private revelation so I mean to say there god is the same as ours we would have to say that he really spoke to an angel and thus we would need to change are beliefs to this now doctrine God gave us. Just by saying there the same on the surface is all nice and all , but logic would dictate radical changes to our christian faith. From reading on the history of islam, reading the quran I could never say they worship the same God as we do. I am sure that when we they were putting us to the sword, sacking our cities and killing us by the thousands not one priest that was told he was supposed to renounce Christ thought for a second that they worshiped the same God. The church in history never thought this, how can we change that belief now?
This really bothers me.
I think you are just reading too much into the statement that we worship the same God. It certainly doesn’t mean that their religion is correct. It’s not.
Here’s a post that’s too long, but this is something I’ve thought about some as well. This is what I’ve come up with (and of course these are only my own musings, though I do obviously try to make them correct).
What it means:
-Both religions are monotheistic.
-Both religions recognize that the God that Abraham and others worshiped is in fact God.
-Both religions recognize that this God is absolutely sovereign over everything.
What it doesn’t mean:
-That we understand God in the same way.
-That we understand morality as revealed by God in the same way (though there are some similarities - and of course differences, depending on what flavor of Islam you look at).
-That we think God’s plan is the same
-That either religion think that the other religion has in itself any saving power. (Which is not the same as saying that all followers of the over religion are damned.)
-That we approve of any particular actions that followers of the other religion may or may not have committed, whether or not those actions were in accordance with that religion. (Sort of a given, since we don’t approve of everything that followers of our own religions do, but worth mentioning given your post.)
-Nearly anything else.
Really, when you talk about two monotheistic religions, it’s kind of an interesting question to ask whether the two Gods being worshiped are the same God. I mean, both groups obviously think that there is only one God, and so it isn’t actually possible to worship a different actual God, only a non-existent false idea. But the question is: at what point do you say that differences in our ideas about who and how God is makes it so that we can’t even claim to be worshiping the same Thing? At what point do I change from worshiping God imperfectly with imperfect (possibly very imperfect) knowledge of Him to simply not worshiping anything real at all?
For example, Mormons aren’t monotheistic or trinitarian. But they do believe that their idea of “God the Father” has some of the same characteristics that God actually does have, they just make the mistake of breaking God into three pieces and don’t identify any of those three pieces with the monotheistic idea of God as the act of “to be” itself and supreme sovereign (I am not clear if they actually believe in such an “Ultimate God” or not). Do they worship the same God?
Muslims and Jews are arguably closer than that. Neither recognizes the trinity, but neither do they break God into pieces and try to make some pieces above and below others. And arguably, given the Mormon beliefs about God’s actions in the Americas, both Jews and Muslims agree with us more on salvation history than Mormons, and many people call Mormon’s Christian.
But we can blur the line even closer than that. Some protestant sects claim that our salvation is predetermined in the sense that we have no influence on it or choice in the matter, as well as that humans are (after the fall) totally depraved and evil at birth (rather than good but damaged). God creates some people evil and gives them no chance to avoid damnation. That would be God directly creating evil, which goes against everything I know about God. The God Catholics worship only creates good. Do we worship the same God as those protestants?
But really, to me it seems to just come down to semantics. We will all stand before the true God and be judged individually, and I don’t think it will involve a theology exam (though of course the correct theology will certainly help prepare us, if we follow it). My view is that if someone says they worship the God of Abraham - even if they’re pretty much just wrong about what they think the God of Abraham says, wants or does - then they’re at least not as wrong as they could be, but they may not be terribly right either. It’s certainly not the same as saying their religion is true, and nowhere near saying that they are saved, since even professing the true religion won’t guarantee that. The main thing is not to read too much into the statement.
