Do Christians and Muslims Worship the Same God?

Footnote

Steven Tsoukalas, "Do Christians and Muslims Worship the Same God? Use of Predicates and Homoousios as Foundational to the Answer," Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 63, no. 2 (2020): 307-330

Bibliography

Tsoukalas, Steven. "Do Christians and Muslims Worship the Same God? Use of Predicates and Homoousios as Foundational to the Answer." Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 63, no. 2 (2020): 307-330

Publication life cycle / General notes

This article utilizes Torrance's Christology and Trinitarian theology and applies it toward answering "no" to the question, "Do Christians and Muslims Worship the Same God?" The article also gleans from Torrance's reliance upon Athanasius, citing several treatises from Athanasius. The doctrine of homoousios, and Torrance's use of it, plays a major role in the answer to the question.

Abstract

The question of whether or not Christians and Muslims worship the same God has received much attention of late, from laity to biblical scholars, theologians, missiologists, and philosophers. Answering yes to the question stems from three widespread errors in Christian thought: failure to add proper predicates to “God”; failure to see as foundational the doctrine of homoousios as it relates to the three persons of the Trinity, especially the Father-Son, Son-Father relation; and doing theology partitively by severing theological categories from their ontological and theological mooring, which is the triune God. Conversely, when predicates and homoousios are given proper place in the undivided Trinity, two theologically proper questions arise, to which the answer is “no.”