How can Muslims worship the same God as Christians?
I have witnessed Muslims first-hand and their beliefs. They do not believe in Jesus the way we do or in the Trinity. They have radical views on God and can be very intolerant of other religions. How is it possible we worship the same God?
Answer
Indeed, Muslims do not believe in the Trinity, and neither do many other religions. Particularly the Jewish religion, they do not believe that God is a Trinity. Yet, we cannot conclude we do not worship the same God. Remember when St Paul learned that the Greeks he went to evangelize worshipped an unknown god :
“For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: to an unknown god. So you are ignorant of the very thing you worship—and this is what I am going to proclaim to you”.
He identified their unknown God as our God. They worshipped him as much as they knew him. This is what happens in world religions, every one of these major religions is directed towards the same God, but their understanding of him is much more limited than ours.
We not only believe in the God we learn from reason, but a God who has revealed himself to us in the Scriptures. This is a gift most people do not have.
Talk about intolerance; this is not true with every Islamic sect. Many preach peace and the advancement of interreligious dialogues. You forget that even in Christian denominations, we have very diverse interpretations of God and Jesus. To the point that if we did not have a specific name for Christ, no one would believe we preached the same God.
