Dickinson briefly mentions that sometimes Jews are included in the first part of his discussion, and I think this is actually a steelman argument for this first part, simply based on the fact that it is likely that more people will say that Jews and Christians worship the same God (see below for more), as opposed to those who would answer in the positive for the same question regarding Muslims, because Christians include the Old Testament (Tanach) as part of our sacred text, which is not true for any Islamic writings. I want to clarify and elaborate on this.
Before we get to that though, the reason I want to do this is because disagreement is not necessarily a bad thing. The question is arguably still a good question in how it is worded. First, we wouldn’t know that it is a “BAD” (perhaps incomplete or ambiguous are better descriptors) question without spelling out the idea of reference (the second part of the discussion), versus the idea of quality (the first part of the discussion). Second, it is a good question to ask if Muslims and Christians worship the same God in the first sense because in some theological facet, we can arrive at beneficial and useful truth (It seems at this point there could be a discussion concerning the correspondence theory versus the coherent theory of truth, but I digress), such as distinguishing between unitarianism and Trinitarianism as established in the video. Dickinson states at the beginning of the video that “there is a clear sense in which the answer is “yes,” and there is a clear sense in which the answer is “no” indicating that we can arrive at truthful conclusions in both senses. The badness of the question then seems to be such because it is incomplete or ambiguous, but are these the only options, but does it amount to being so bad that we should stop asking it? My question is, what is the real value of the second sense.
The Steelman Argument
In asking the question if Jews and Christians worship the same God, in my own experiences, a majority of people (often even untrained Christians) argue for the positive. But the problem is, the Old Testament does not describe God to the fuller extent that that the New Testament does. There are missing ingredients for the complete picture. Like a puzzle that is missing pieces, conjecture fills in the gaps. This is also true of what many Jews now do in their theology. An artist discovered that a puzzle manufacturer uses the same jigsaw cuts on different pictures and so placed the contents from two different boxes together and created this picture below. What we ultimately have here is a distortion of reality.
Consider Colossians 1:24-29.
“Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church, of which I became a minister according to the stewardship from God that was given to me for you, to make the word of God fully known, the mystery hidden for ages and generations but now revealed to his saints. To them God chose to make known how great among the Gentiles are the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. Him we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom, that we may present everyone mature in Christ. For this I toil, struggling with all his energy that he powerfully works within me.”
Paul begins this section with the idea that he became a minister of God “to make the word of God fully known, the mystery hidden for ages and generations but now revealed to His saints.” This implies that before, the word of God was not fully known, and that much of it was a mystery. They wondered how God would save them, in other words. They were missing information. The puzzle is incomplete.
The Messiah has been revealed in the New Testament, but many Jews reject the Messiah. They fill in the mysteries of the Old Testament by replacing Christ with conjecture. Since I briefly worked in a Jewish synagogue 20+ years ago, I have had a lot of time to process my time there, and it seems to me that because Christ is replaced with conjecture, the Jews who are without Christ are ultimately committing idolatry (see John 14:6; Romans 9:1-6; 10:1-4; Hebrews 1:1-3; Revelation 21:8; etc.), because the Christ has been revealed, yet they choose fill in the missing puzzle pieces with ideas that match their misunderstanding. They refuse to be set free by the truth. This conjecture constitutes another gospel (Galatians 1:6-9). The puzzle that they have is a different picture than the gospel. They have a distorted view of the complete picture, and this type of conjecture is eternally dangerous.
Why it is Not a “BAD” Question
The Bible draws a strong line of division between truth and fiction, between the Kingdom of God and the kingdom of Satan. Jesus says in Luke 12:49-53,
“49 I have come to bring fire on the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled! 50 But I have a baptism to undergo, and what constraint I am under until it is completed! 51 Do you think I came to bring peace on earth? No, I tell you, but division. 52 From now on there will be five in one family divided against each other, three against two and two against three. 53 They will be divided, father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law.”
Why did Jesus come to bring division? Because Jesus is the truth, and He is dividing those who live in the truth from those who live in fiction. This is the reason for familial division. This is also why Jesus divides the sheep from the goats in Matthew 25:31-46:
“31 When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his glorious throne. 32 All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. 33 He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left… 41“Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. 42 For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, 43 I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.’
44 “They also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?’
45 “He will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’
46 “Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.”
Some will be consumed by joy, love, selflessness, reverence, and the gospel transformation in the work of Christ, and some will be the opposite. Each will have their place.
The Question in Question: Do Muslims and Christians worship the same God?
It is still a good question in how it is worded because it brings this strong, good division. This is the reason there will always be passionate disagreement even with clarifying the question itself in a philosophical light. Since everyone who answers “no” to the question in question is answering this in the first sense, this is always good, because of the clear conclusion that divides the one, true religion from a false one. Answering “yes” is not always good, as Dickinson pointed out through the lenses of religious pluralists who arrive at false conclusions. Sometimes then, answering “yes” will cause one to arrive at false conclusions, which is never good, but in answering “no” one will never arrive at a false conclusion because they are answering with the first sense in mind. It is not a “BAD” question in light of healthy division.
The Bible teaches that to condone sin is evil. We should be dividing the truth from fiction. Ephesians 5:11 says, “Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them.” It seems that any blurring of the lines on something that is very clearly marked out in the Bible is unfruitful. The question is, are we taking any part in unfruitful works by claiming agreement on the philosophical issue here?
In Romans 1:28-32, Paul says in speaking of those who do not acknowledge God that,
28 God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. 29 They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, 30 slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, 31 foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. 32 Though they know God's righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them.
So, to condone or approve of the sinful practices (such as “haters of God,” see also Matthew 12:30) is also sin. Perhaps even giving one philosophical inch in this regard is therefore problematic.
The Main Issue
The Bible teaches that idolatry is sin in the Second of the Ten Commandments in Exodus 20:4-6:
“You shall not make for yourself an image in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. 5 You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, 6 but showing love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments.
Islam is also idolatrous because it sets up a different (false) god in the place of (the true) God. So, it seems that the question in question stands complete from the perspective of division. This further seems to perpetuate the distance of the theological from the philosophical in weightiness. The ultimate question is, in regard to eternity, why does the philosophical perspective even matter?
If there is a question whether this is an essential issue or a non-essential, I think we can show how it is an essential issue. It is an essential issue based on the true object of worship. False gods and doctrines will end in what Jesus says, “depart from me for I never knew you.” At the end of the Day, the philosophical sense of the question in question will not matter.
The first sense of the question is the one that is clearly weightier. I cannot stress enough how much I love philosophy for how I have learned a deeper appreciation and articulation for truth (see the mission of Apologetics and Evidence below the brand at the top), but almost no one but philosophers are concerned with the second sense of the question. On the other hand, everyone else is concerned with the first because of the eternal implications of the first sense of the question. The first sense concerns eternity, but the second sense concerns simple philosophical clarity.
In Acts 17:22-23, “22 Paul then stood up in the meeting of the Areopagus and said: ‘People of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious. 23 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.’”
In other words, they did not know the one, true God, but Paul set them straight. The same is true for Muslims and Jews. The key difference here is that Muslims and Jews are claiming to know the one true God Jesus says In John 5:39-40 to the Jews, “39 You study the Scriptures diligently because you think that in them you have eternal life. These are the very Scriptures that testify about me, 40 yet you refuse to come to me to have life.” The Jews in the John 5 passage claimed to know the one, true God. We would never want to “get on the same level” (see 1 Corinthians 9:20-22) with Muslims and Jews by saying that we worship the same God. This is very clearly delineated scripturally. Getting on the same level in witnessing clearly has its limitations. In 1 Corinthians 9:20-21 Paul speaks on such limits: “20 To those under the law I became like one under the law (though I myself am not under the law), so as to win those under the law. 21 To those not having the law I became like one not having the law (though I am not free from God’s law but am under Christ’s law), so as to win those not having the law…”
At the end of Paul’s discussion, Luke records in Acts 17:32-34 that “32 When they heard about the resurrection of the dead, some of them sneered, but others said, ‘We want to hear you again on this subject.’ 33 At that, Paul left the Council. 34 Some of the people became followers of Paul and believed…” “Some”! This means that some also denied what Paul told them. They were ignorant, yet Paul never crossed any heretical lines in witnessing to them. Some saw the truth, but some did not.
Another factor that should be discussed here is rejection. Those in Acts 17 were not denying or rejecting any doctrines by worshiping “an unknown God” but then Paul spelled out what this meant, and at that point they must either deny or accept the truth of such doctrines. Abraham did not deny the dual nature of Jesus, for instance, because it was not revealed yet. But Paul then holds them to the fire… Acts 17:30 says, “In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent.” Rejection of revealed doctrines, which is what Jews and Muslims do, is ultimately what matters.
Should we really be comfortable saying that Muslims and Christians worship the same God? No, because theologically, where it matters, they don’t. Neither do Mormons, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Jews, Christian Scientists, Scientologists, Baha’i, and all other false religions. The Bible makes strong division between true and false doctrines, and this is one of them. 1 Thessalonians 5:22 says, “Abstain from every form of evil.” Blurring the lines of essential doctrine is something we should not do. The question is still a valid question as it stands.
Written by Nace Howell through the grace of the Lord Jesus
© Nace Howell, 2025
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