If one is to take the position that difference in methods of worship, and difference in attributes as written in "scripture" mean that we're describing two entities, then to remain consistent, one would have to also view the god of the Old Testament as a different god than the one described in the New Testament. Marcion took this very same position - founding a Christian sect that viewed the Old Testament god as an evil "god of this world".
The purpose of this thread is not to debate the actual existence of God, or whether Christianity or Islam is true
Bingo!!
Hence, the introduction of time demarcations (administrations/dispensations), spiritual understanding vs. carnal understanding and "to whom it's written" become tools for squeezing square pegs into round holes.
I like to say that the religions disagree with each other about the same God.
Historically, we're talking about the same God. Theologically, we are most certainly not. Christianity generally adheres to the Trinity. Jews do not accept that. To tell a Jewish that he worships the same God as most Christians is, theologically speaking, an insult. Likewise, to tell most Christians that they worship the same God as Islam, which rejects the divinity of Christ, is an insult. To the outside observer, they worship the same God but disagree with each other vehemently about his will, his plan and his attributes.
This is a neat question, it covers a lot of nuances.
My thought is that it is a question of how people understand each other. Is your view of reality similar to mine?
I tend to think language would be an analogous example. Do Brits, Americans, and Australians speak the same language? What part of America speaks the correct American English? Can they understand each other all the time, almost effortlessly?
Italian, Spanish, Romanian, and some others all evolved from Latin. Much like religion evolves into other religions and sects. If someone's spoken language is more similar in origin to another person's spoken language they might understand each other more easily, even if they can't speak exactly the same language. (And from here we could go into how your language affects how you think and see the world.)
Do Muslims and Christians worship the same God? They have a common origin. So yes and no. Yes they share some of the same understanding versus other religions. No, they don't see eye to eye in other ways.
I like to say that the religions disagree with each other about the same God.
Historically, we're talking about the same God. Theologically, we are most certainly not. Christianity generally adheres to the Trinity. Jews do not accept that. To tell a Jewish that he worships the same God as most Christians is, theologically speaking, an insult. Likewise, to tell most Christians that they worship the same God as Islam, which rejects the divinity of Christ, is an insult. To the outside observer, they worship the same God but disagree with each other vehemently about his will, his plan and his attributes.
I don't think there was as much anger about the suggestion that monotheists were all worshipping the same god twenty years ago...before 9/11; today there seems to be a more visceral loathing of Islam by most Christians, even non-fundamentalists who would have had no problem with the concept back then. The first time I ever heard anyone suggest in my hearing that Allah wasn't Yahweh was at a Word in Business, or maybe the Rock of Ages and it was Martindale's foam-at-the-mouth delivery of "Da Truth". The highlighted (by me) portion of your comment makes sense to me and is a good way to put it, but when you come down to it, isn't every Christian worshipping different gods? I say this because, despite what creeds and doctrinal positions put out there, most people have their own view of the biblical god that may or not be the same as the person sitting next to them at church.
One thing that I think that most Christians believe, even those who believe that the Islamic version of God is a different entity than their god, is that the god of the Jews is the same as the god of the New Testament
Look, in the 70s, long before 9/11, the fundies were adamant that we in TWI did not worship the same God as Christianity, so I think in lots of circles that offense would have predated 9/11. But yeah, it probably became more widespread after that.
Look, in the 70s, long before 9/11, the fundies were adamant that we in TWI did not worship the same God as Christianity, so I think in lots of circles that offense would have predated 9/11. But yeah, it probably became more widespread after that.
"Allah" really isn't much more than the Arabic word for God, and it's a very close transliteration of the Aramaic word for God. Perhaps the divergent issue in this question would boil down to defining what is and isn't "worship." After all, it is written that even devils believe that there is one God. Does that mean or say that they worship Him? No, I hardly think so.
Thus, it may be that different religions believe that there is one (and the same) God, the Creator of all men. They may even think or suppose that they, in their own way, give proper reverence and worship to Him simply by believing that He exists. But, what if what they are doing or offering is, in reality, nothing short of disobedience, and that which they do does not bring or give praise or honor or glory to Him, with either their lips or their hearts?
"But, what if what they are doing or offering is, in reality, nothing short of disobedience, and that which they do does not bring or give praise or honor or glory to Him, with either their lips or their hearts?"
You know, of course, there are those who would say this logic applies to The Way, as well.
In TWI and in CES afterwards, there was much hoo-hah about whether or not we would be praying to God if we were praying to Jesus.
My conclusion was this: God and Jesus know how to sort mail better than we do.
A few years ago there was a Coptic Christian from Egypt taking classes at the School of Theology. He said that "Allah" is the same word they use for "God" in Coptic Christianity as well as in Islam.
God can figure out whether a specific person is praying to Her/Him/It, whether we can or not...
A Sioux can pray to the Great Spirit, and if that Sioux intends her prayer to reach the Creator of the Heavens and the Earth, it will.
Love,
Steve
God IS NOT, NEVER HAS BEEN, and NEVER WILL BE, limited to us.
Recently at Wheaton College a professor was suspended for, among other things, making a statement asserting that Muslims and Christians worshipped the same god. Since then I have seen quite a few vehement denials that they are the same deity by a variety of Christians. This past week, President Obama's visit to a mosque occassioned more angry denials that the gods of the Quran and of the New Testament were the same.
Most of those who claimed that they were different entities cited differences between how the New Testament and the Quran described God. My position is that, despite differences in attributes between the descriptions in the two "holy" books, Muslims and Christians are each referring to the same god.
Even if one approaches the argument from the point of view that Christians, and their view of God, are correct, the fact that Muslims view him differently does not necessrily mean that these deities are actually different. If one is to take the position that difference in methods of worship, and difference in attributes as written in "scripture" mean that we're describing two entities, then to remain consistant, one would have to also view the god of the Old Testament as a different god than the one described in the New Testament. Marcion took this very same position - founding a Christian sect that viewed the Old Testament god as an evil "god of this world".
The purpose of this thread is not to debate the actual existance of God, or whether Christianity or Islam is true
since i know only a smidgen of Christian stuff and zilcho of Islamic stuff other than i think Muslims accept the first five books of Moses - so doctrine-wise on that point alone i tend to think we might find some common threads - at least up to a point; the topic does bring up an interesting idea though
and i guess even though there's still a lot to argue about over the distinctions and nuances in the respective systems of thought - it does make me wonder - in reality -if the same God is worshiped - to some degree...and i guess we'd have to discuss what is worship too.
and to say that i'm wondering what's happening in reality - is really to be curious about what God thinks about this.....i don't have a clue
since i know only a smidgen of Christian stuff and zilcho of Islamic stuff other than i think Muslims accept the first five books of Moses - so doctrine-wise on that point alone i tend to think we might find some common threads - at least up to a point; the topic does bring up an interesting idea though
and i guess even though there's still a lot to argue about over the distinctions and nuances in the respective systems of thought - it does make me wonder - in reality -if the same God is worshiped - to some degree...and i guess we'd have to discuss what is worship too.
and to say that i'm wondering what's happening in reality - is really to be curious about what God thinks about this.....i don't have a clue
I recently saw on Facebook where a Frank Ab****i told his friends he had earned a PhD and one part his dissertation (I think that's what it was) was writing a new expanded translation of Eph. 3:20. Hopefully, he doesn't have a copyright on it, but even if he does, I claim Fair Use.
"Now to God, Who is able and ready to perform on behalf of His people, Exceeding far more abundantly than we can think, or conceptualize, in the spiritual realm, in the cosmos,and in the earthly places. All this strength is utilized in accordance with the power of God who worketh in us."
What intrigues me about this new translation is the idea that God is ready and able to perform exceeding far more abundantly than we can conceptualize. Well, perhaps the Apostle Paul also realized that God actually also IS far more than we can conceptualize. Not only could s/he DO more, but BE more than we can conceptualize.
Which to me lends credibility to several of the comments on this thread, including those by Raf and Steve Lortz... and T-Bone. Because how the hell could we be so narcissistic and arrogant to think we could even come close to ascertaining what God might think about the question posed by Oakspear?
And I sure as... the fact that we live on Earth... do not believe that God is limited to what a bunch of computer illiterate sheepherders wrote down two millennia ago or more.
The downed pilot in the life raft, he's neither a Christian or a Muslim but prays to God to save him (and of course makes some bargain about changing); now who is he praying to?.
A Muslim would want to know if he prayed in the the name of Allah and a Christian would want to know if he prayed in the name of Jesus Christ.
So, does he have a chance that "God" will save him?
The downed pilot in the life raft, he's neither a Christian or a Muslim but prays to God to save him (and of course makes some bargain about changing); now who is he praying to?.
A Muslim would want to know if he prayed in the the name of Allah and a Christian would want to know if he prayed in the name of Jesus Christ.
So, does he have a chance that "God" will save him?
continuing the line of thought from my previous post i would have to say only God knows.
in my humble opinion i find it truly challenging to attempt to speak for God when dealing with most hypothetical situations;
i usually shy away from conundrums like that - it reminds me of the question "can God create a rock He cannot lift?"
BTW, just for fun, here's the 3 answers I know to the rock question
("If God is All-Powerful, can He make a rock so heavy even He can't lift it?"):
A) vpw's flippant answer:
"God is All-Knowing and wouldn't do a stupid thing like that!"
(Cute but evades the question.)
B) WordWolf's answer way back when:
"If God is Spirit (John 4:24) and a spirit doesn't have flesh and bones (Luke 24:39),
then the question is invalid because it presumes God has hands or a body with which to lift."
C) Answer from [name redacted] way back when:
"This question involves making something greater than infinity. Since infinity has no limits,
making something greater than 'unlimited' is logically contradictory and impossible.
So, no, God couldn't do that."
I still think B and C are respectable answers.
yeah i think B and C are acceptable too.
"Can God create a rock He cannot lift?"
I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say the answer is yes. I mean, why else were we always being told it was our responsibility to "lift" The Rock?
Ha - good one Waysider - /> however surely you must realize no matter upon which of TWI's limbs you place your trust you're putting yourself in a dangerous and uncompromising position and will find very little support from Grease Spot - /> !!!!!
(FYI - If i were a limb coordinator who had left TWI i think it would have been so cool if i had a long list of resignations signed by all the TWI followers in my state and have at the bottom of the letter a new state motto - like
Ha - good one Waysider - /> however surely you must realize no matter upon which of TWI's limbs you place your trust you're putting yourself in a dangerous and uncompromising position and will find very little support from Grease Spot - /> !!!!!
(FYI - If i were a limb coordinator who had left TWI i think it would have been so cool if i had a long list of resignations signed by all the TWI followers in my state and have at the bottom of the letter a new state motto - like
Texas - the tripped out state )
Does the question assume that all situations involve gravity equivalent to Earth?
How does variations in gravity (a variable factor) influence answers to the question?
This also goes back to God BEING and able to DO much greater than we can even conceptualize.
Which, to me, makes the question about God making a rock that he couldn't lift, absurd on its face.
My opinion? Yes. They each worship the same god they invented from the Hebrew Old Testament. Include the Jews and you have the core of what they call The Abrahamic Faiths. They are all high on Joseph Campbell's Power of Myth list. Three versions of the same god and Hebrew scripture.
My opinion? Yes. They each worship the same god they invented from the Hebrew Old Testament. Include the Jews and you have the core of what they call The Abrahamic Faiths. They are all high on Joseph Campbell's Power of Myth list. Three versions of the same god and Hebrew scripture.
don't know how anyone can be so sure and definitively say they are the same when Jesus Christ himself so explicitly told the Samaritan (woman) that they don't know what they worship...
don't know how anyone can be so sure and definitively say they are the same when Jesus Christ himself so explicitly told the Samaritan (woman) that they don't know what they worship...
Read his post again. He's "sure" because he believes all of them were "INVENTED" off the same source material.
He doesn't believe Jesus Christ said that (nor that "Jesus" was "Christ", for that matter.)
I think the answer to whether Christians and Muslims worship the same God has everything to do with how you approach it.
If you look at it historically, Christians, Muslims and Jews do indeed worship the same God, but they disagree vehemently on his attributes. Jews say God is one. Most Christians (present company excepted) say God is one-in-three-and-three-in-one. Muslims say no, Jews got that one right: God is one.
They are disagreeing about God's attributes, about his qualities, about what he wants, about his rules, about his restrictions, about what he allows and demands and requires, about who he saves, about who he condemns and how he condemns them.
Historically, for these three religions, the same God is being worshipped.
However, theologically each of these religions teaches that the other two are wrong about God in a way that disqualifies Him as "God."
Jews do not believe Jesus is God. Most Christians do (again, present company excepted, pca). So a Jew could not say "We worship the same God" and be theologically correct. Because the Jew would not agree that the Christians worship their God. The Jew would find the Christian worship blasphemous. Christians (pca) think Jews have lost sight of the true God they used to worship but rejected when he revealed himself in person. And Muslims, well...
Point is, the way I see it, if you put the emphasis on "God," then I think the answer is yes: they both (all) worship the same God.
But if you put the emphasis on "worship," the answer is no. They disagree with each other to a mutually exclusive extent. Only one of the tree (at most) can correctly worship God. The others are worshipping falsely, which disqualifies the object of their worship as God.
The Doctrinal forum is the forum where that's not off-topic.
This is the forum for discussing doctrine-from whatever perspective one wishes.
Agreement of others isn't a guarantee, and even the thread making a lot of sense is no guarantee
so long as it's on doctrine. So, whether I agree with it or not, this is the place that
comment belongs, if it's being posted.
Okay, but I seem to recall it being voiced (on some other doctrinal thread) that doctrinal threads were intended to discuss what might be the biblical position on a particular matter, and not a matter of whether or not scripture itself is fact or fiction.
I think the answer to whether Christians and Muslims worship the same God has everything to do with how you approach it.
If you look at it historically, Christians, Muslims and Jews do indeed worship the same God, but they disagree vehemently on his attributes. Jews say God is one. Most Christians (present company excepted) say God is one-in-three-and-three-in-one. Muslims say no, Jews got that one right: God is one.
They are disagreeing about God's attributes, about his qualities, about what he wants, about his rules, about his restrictions, about what he allows and demands and requires, about who he saves, about who he condemns and how he condemns them.
Historically, for these three religions, the same God is being worshipped.
However, theologically each of these religions teaches that the other two are wrong about God in a way that disqualifies Him as "God."
Jews do not believe Jesus is God. Most Christians do (again, present company excepted, pca). So a Jew could not say "We worship the same God" and be theologically correct. Because the Jew would not agree that the Christians worship their God. The Jew would find the Christian worship blasphemous. Christians (pca) think Jews have lost sight of the true God they used to worship but rejected when he revealed himself in person. And Muslims, well...
Point is, the way I see it, if you put the emphasis on "God," then I think the answer is yes: they both (all) worship the same God.
But if you put the emphasis on "worship," the answer is no. They disagree with each other to a mutually exclusive extent. Only one of the tree (at most) can correctly worship God. The others are worshipping falsely, which disqualifies the object of their worship as God.
Maybe. But if so, then were those at Ephesus (which worshipped Diana) simply (or primarily) in disagreement about the attributes of God?
Is there anywhere to draw the line and say it's possible to worship a different god, even if only from a position of ignorance?
If so, where is it? Or, should any and all worship (of anything) that somehow "misses the mark" be lumped into this same category of ignorance?
Or, can and do some deliberately (i.e., not ignorantly) choose to worship something that is not God?
Perhaps Acts 17:23 needs a closer look. Is Paul's statement simply viewed as an opener to his presentation at Mars' hill, and not something that paints any and all worship (of anything) anywhere in the world?
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waysider
Bingo!!
Hence, the introduction of time demarcations (administrations/dispensations), spiritual understanding vs. carnal understanding and "to whom it's written" become tools for squeezing square pegs into round holes.
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Raf
I like to say that the religions disagree with each other about the same God.
Historically, we're talking about the same God. Theologically, we are most certainly not. Christianity generally adheres to the Trinity. Jews do not accept that. To tell a Jewish that he worships the same God as most Christians is, theologically speaking, an insult. Likewise, to tell most Christians that they worship the same God as Islam, which rejects the divinity of Christ, is an insult. To the outside observer, they worship the same God but disagree with each other vehemently about his will, his plan and his attributes.
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Bolshevik
Do Muslims and Christians worship the same God?
This is a neat question, it covers a lot of nuances.
My thought is that it is a question of how people understand each other. Is your view of reality similar to mine?
I tend to think language would be an analogous example. Do Brits, Americans, and Australians speak the same language? What part of America speaks the correct American English? Can they understand each other all the time, almost effortlessly?
Italian, Spanish, Romanian, and some others all evolved from Latin. Much like religion evolves into other religions and sects. If someone's spoken language is more similar in origin to another person's spoken language they might understand each other more easily, even if they can't speak exactly the same language. (And from here we could go into how your language affects how you think and see the world.)
Do Muslims and Christians worship the same God? They have a common origin. So yes and no. Yes they share some of the same understanding versus other religions. No, they don't see eye to eye in other ways.
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Oakspear
One thing that I think that most Christians believe, even those who believe that the Islamic version of God is a different entity than their god, is that the god of the Jews is the same as the god of the New Testament
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Raf
Chris Geer used to teach that Allah was Baal.
Look, in the 70s, long before 9/11, the fundies were adamant that we in TWI did not worship the same God as Christianity, so I think in lots of circles that offense would have predated 9/11. But yeah, it probably became more widespread after that.
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TLC
"Allah" really isn't much more than the Arabic word for God, and it's a very close transliteration of the Aramaic word for God. Perhaps the divergent issue in this question would boil down to defining what is and isn't "worship." After all, it is written that even devils believe that there is one God. Does that mean or say that they worship Him? No, I hardly think so.
Thus, it may be that different religions believe that there is one (and the same) God, the Creator of all men. They may even think or suppose that they, in their own way, give proper reverence and worship to Him simply by believing that He exists. But, what if what they are doing or offering is, in reality, nothing short of disobedience, and that which they do does not bring or give praise or honor or glory to Him, with either their lips or their hearts?
So, I think it's a trick question.
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waysider
"But, what if what they are doing or offering is, in reality, nothing short of disobedience, and that which they do does not bring or give praise or honor or glory to Him, with either their lips or their hearts?"
You know, of course, there are those who would say this logic applies to The Way, as well.
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Steve Lortz
In TWI and in CES afterwards, there was much hoo-hah about whether or not we would be praying to God if we were praying to Jesus.
My conclusion was this: God and Jesus know how to sort mail better than we do.
A few years ago there was a Coptic Christian from Egypt taking classes at the School of Theology. He said that "Allah" is the same word they use for "God" in Coptic Christianity as well as in Islam.
God can figure out whether a specific person is praying to Her/Him/It, whether we can or not...
A Sioux can pray to the Great Spirit, and if that Sioux intends her prayer to reach the Creator of the Heavens and the Earth, it will.
Love,
Steve
God IS NOT, NEVER HAS BEEN, and NEVER WILL BE, limited to us.
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T-Bone
since i know only a smidgen of Christian stuff and zilcho of Islamic stuff other than i think Muslims accept the first five books of Moses - so doctrine-wise on that point alone i tend to think we might find some common threads - at least up to a point; the topic does bring up an interesting idea though
and i guess even though there's still a lot to argue about over the distinctions and nuances in the respective systems of thought - it does make me wonder - in reality -if the same God is worshiped - to some degree...and i guess we'd have to discuss what is worship too.
and to say that i'm wondering what's happening in reality - is really to be curious about what God thinks about this.....i don't have a clue
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Rocky
I recently saw on Facebook where a Frank Ab****i told his friends he had earned a PhD and one part his dissertation (I think that's what it was) was writing a new expanded translation of Eph. 3:20. Hopefully, he doesn't have a copyright on it, but even if he does, I claim Fair Use.
"Now to God, Who is able and ready to perform on behalf of His people, Exceeding far more abundantly than we can think, or conceptualize, in the spiritual realm, in the cosmos,and in the earthly places. All this strength is utilized in accordance with the power of God who worketh in us."
What intrigues me about this new translation is the idea that God is ready and able to perform exceeding far more abundantly than we can conceptualize. Well, perhaps the Apostle Paul also realized that God actually also IS far more than we can conceptualize. Not only could s/he DO more, but BE more than we can conceptualize.
Which to me lends credibility to several of the comments on this thread, including those by Raf and Steve Lortz... and T-Bone. Because how the hell could we be so narcissistic and arrogant to think we could even come close to ascertaining what God might think about the question posed by Oakspear?
And I sure as... the fact that we live on Earth... do not believe that God is limited to what a bunch of computer illiterate sheepherders wrote down two millennia ago or more.
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MRAP
The downed pilot in the life raft, he's neither a Christian or a Muslim but prays to God to save him (and of course makes some bargain about changing); now who is he praying to?.
A Muslim would want to know if he prayed in the the name of Allah and a Christian would want to know if he prayed in the name of Jesus Christ.
So, does he have a chance that "God" will save him?
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T-Bone
continuing the line of thought from my previous post i would have to say only God knows.
in my humble opinion i find it truly challenging to attempt to speak for God when dealing with most hypothetical situations;
i usually shy away from conundrums like that - it reminds me of the question "can God create a rock He cannot lift?"
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WordWolf
I agree completely.
BTW, just for fun, here's the 3 answers I know to the rock question
("If God is All-Powerful, can He make a rock so heavy even He can't lift it?"):
A) vpw's flippant answer:
"God is All-Knowing and wouldn't do a stupid thing like that!"
(Cute but evades the question.)
B) WordWolf's answer way back when:
"If God is Spirit (John 4:24) and a spirit doesn't have flesh and bones (Luke 24:39),
then the question is invalid because it presumes God has hands or a body with which to lift."
C) Answer from [name redacted] way back when:
"This question involves making something greater than infinity. Since infinity has no limits,
making something greater than 'unlimited' is logically contradictory and impossible.
So, no, God couldn't do that."
I still think B and C are respectable answers.
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waysider
"Can God create a rock He cannot lift?"
I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say the answer is yes. I mean, why else were we always being told it was our responsibility to "lift" The Rock?
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T-Bone
yeah i think B and C are acceptable too.
Ha - good one Waysider -
/> however surely you must realize no matter upon which of TWI's limbs you place your trust you're putting yourself in a dangerous and uncompromising position and will find very little support from Grease Spot - 
/> !!!!!
(FYI - If i were a limb coordinator who had left TWI i think it would have been so cool if i had a long list of resignations signed by all the TWI followers in my state and have at the bottom of the letter a new state motto - like
Texas - the tripped out state )
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Rocky
Does the question assume that all situations involve gravity equivalent to Earth?
How does variations in gravity (a variable factor) influence answers to the question?
This also goes back to God BEING and able to DO much greater than we can even conceptualize.
Which, to me, makes the question about God making a rock that he couldn't lift, absurd on its face.
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DontWorryBeHappy
My opinion? Yes. They each worship the same god they invented from the Hebrew Old Testament. Include the Jews and you have the core of what they call The Abrahamic Faiths. They are all high on Joseph Campbell's Power of Myth list. Three versions of the same god and Hebrew scripture.
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TLC
don't know how anyone can be so sure and definitively say they are the same when Jesus Christ himself so explicitly told the Samaritan (woman) that they don't know what they worship...
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WordWolf
Read his post again. He's "sure" because he believes all of them were "INVENTED" off the same source material.
He doesn't believe Jesus Christ said that (nor that "Jesus" was "Christ", for that matter.)
That's why he's so sure.
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TLC
As long as you're commenting on the matter, what place or value does that have here in a doctrinal forum?
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WordWolf
The Doctrinal forum is the forum where that's not off-topic.
This is the forum for discussing doctrine-from whatever perspective one wishes.
Agreement of others isn't a guarantee, and even the thread making a lot of sense is no guarantee
so long as it's on doctrine. So, whether I agree with it or not, this is the place that
comment belongs, if it's being posted.
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Raf
I think the answer to whether Christians and Muslims worship the same God has everything to do with how you approach it.
If you look at it historically, Christians, Muslims and Jews do indeed worship the same God, but they disagree vehemently on his attributes. Jews say God is one. Most Christians (present company excepted) say God is one-in-three-and-three-in-one. Muslims say no, Jews got that one right: God is one.
They are disagreeing about God's attributes, about his qualities, about what he wants, about his rules, about his restrictions, about what he allows and demands and requires, about who he saves, about who he condemns and how he condemns them.
Historically, for these three religions, the same God is being worshipped.
However, theologically each of these religions teaches that the other two are wrong about God in a way that disqualifies Him as "God."
Jews do not believe Jesus is God. Most Christians do (again, present company excepted, pca). So a Jew could not say "We worship the same God" and be theologically correct. Because the Jew would not agree that the Christians worship their God. The Jew would find the Christian worship blasphemous. Christians (pca) think Jews have lost sight of the true God they used to worship but rejected when he revealed himself in person. And Muslims, well...
Point is, the way I see it, if you put the emphasis on "God," then I think the answer is yes: they both (all) worship the same God.
But if you put the emphasis on "worship," the answer is no. They disagree with each other to a mutually exclusive extent. Only one of the tree (at most) can correctly worship God. The others are worshipping falsely, which disqualifies the object of their worship as God.
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TLC
Okay, but I seem to recall it being voiced (on some other doctrinal thread) that doctrinal threads were intended to discuss what might be the biblical position on a particular matter, and not a matter of whether or not scripture itself is fact or fiction.
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TLC
Maybe. But if so, then were those at Ephesus (which worshipped Diana) simply (or primarily) in disagreement about the attributes of God?
Is there anywhere to draw the line and say it's possible to worship a different god, even if only from a position of ignorance?
If so, where is it? Or, should any and all worship (of anything) that somehow "misses the mark" be lumped into this same category of ignorance?
Or, can and do some deliberately (i.e., not ignorantly) choose to worship something that is not God?
Perhaps Acts 17:23 needs a closer look. Is Paul's statement simply viewed as an opener to his presentation at Mars' hill, and not something that paints any and all worship (of anything) anywhere in the world?
Edited by TLCLink to comment
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