An ongoing debate concerns whether Muslims and Christians believe (I say believe rather than worship because I believe there is a difference) in the same God. I am not going to give my opinion here (although if you search my blog you will find it), rather I want to tackle the logic used in one of the common arguments.
When I talk about this subject, the most common response is that they cannot be the same God because Christians believe in a trinitarian God and Muslims believe in a unitarian God. Case closed. You cannot be one God in three person and a simple unity at the same time. Therefore they are two different Gods.
Fair enough. Then I ask if Jews believe in the same God as Christians. Most will say of course. Jesus was a Jew and the Hebrew Scriptures are part of our canon, therefore Jews worship the same God as the Christians. Then I challenge them to go to their local synagogue and ask any Jew there if they worship the same trinitarian God as Christians. Jews will deny that God is trinitarian as zealously as any Muslims.
My point is you cant’s say that the deciding factor of issue is that we believe in the Trinity unless you are willing to acknowledge that modern Jews also worship a different God. I respect people like Greg Koukl who follow the logic all the way through and separates the Christian God from that of both the Muslims and Jews. I am not telling you what to believe. I am just saying follow the logic. Jewish denial of the Trinity is still denial even if we feel brotherly affection for them. So our options are Christians alone believe in the true God or all three do. You can’t have two out of three.
