In the recent events at Wheaton College (see previous post), action toward possibly firing Hawkins is said to be based on her assertion that Christians and Muslims worship the same God. Apparently, the Wheaton College president does not agree.
The view that Christians and Muslims do not worship the same God, is a rather curious position for Wheaton to take. I’ll readily grant that many conservative Christians agree with that position, but that does not alter its strangeness.
The God of Abraham
Both Christians and Muslims claim to worship the God of Abraham. So, on the face if it, one would think that they worship the same God.
There is no doubt that the way Christians characterize and describe God is very different from the way that Muslims characterize and describe God. For example, Christians claim that there God is a triune God, a unity of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Muslims reject that view of God. But so do Jewish people. Yet conservative Christians do believe that they worship the same God as is worshiped by the Jewish people.
It would be easy to understand Christians saying that Muslims mischaracterize God, and it would be easy to understand Muslims claiming that Christians mischaracterize God. But to say that the Muslim God is a different entity from the Christian God — that’s what is hard to understand.
The atheist view
To say Christians and Muslims do not worship the same God, seems to imply that there is nothing more to the Christian God than the way that he is described and characterized by Christians. But this is pretty much the atheist view — namely that man created God, rather than God creating man.
One wonders whether the president of Wheaton has thought his position through.
The Heretical Philosopher 