Miroslav Volf on “The God of Jesus and the God of Muhammad”

Yesterday I attended a two-part lecture by the Yale theologian Miroslav Volf, hosted by the First Baptist Church of Ann Arbor. He was primarily addressing the question of whether or not the Muslim God and the Christian God are the same god, a topic he is apparently working on for a book. Partly due to Volf’s casual demeanor and partly due to the nature of open discussion, things naturally drifted around a variety of topics, frequently religious tolerance and ecumenical dialogue. I will summarize the most central (and on topic) portion of Volf’s presentation as I understand it, and then offer brief critical comment.

Volf framed the discussion using four basic dimensions according to which we might compare the Christian and Muslim gods.

1) Language: This is the simplest dimension, and Volf merely wanted to remind the audience that “Allah” is the Arabic term for God. For comparison, it would make no sense to say that in Mexico Christians believe in “Dios” whereas in the U.S. they believe in “God.” In this shallow sense, the Muslim and Christian gods are the same.

2) The referent: This was the most technical aspect of Volf’s presentation, as the concept and practice of referring has received rich philosophical attention. The question was whether or not Muslims and Christians refer to the same object when they speak of God. Volf used a couple of theological concepts packed into one to establish that Muslims and Christians use the same referent. Essentially, he said that both Muslims and Christians use the term God to refer to that which is the origin of all that exists and is ontologically separate (qualitatively) from all that exists. Volf pointed out that exactly one thing can meet these requirements, since not more than one thing can be the origin of everything else that exists and be wholly separate. If someone filled in any X for this, both the Muslim and the Christian would say, “That is God.” And so, according to Volf, Muslims and Christians are using the same referent, and are hence talking about the same “god” in this sense.

3) Divine attributes: Once we’ve established that Muslims and Christians are using the same referent, Volf says we can then proceed to see if they describe the referent in similar ways. This includes claims such as “God is merciful,” or “God is triune.” Volf says that the divine attributes in Islam and Christianity are indeed very similar, although not identical.

4) Worship: Volf asks whether Muslims and Christians relate to God in the same way. He describes worship of God as both vertical and horizontal, saying that we worship God by relating upwards to God (say, in a Sunday service) but also by being in loving relationship with our fellows (say, through giving alms). Volf claims that no one, including followers of Jesus, are in perfect right relationship to either God or humans. We neither behave perfectly nor understand perfectly. In this way, all of us, Volf says, could be partly rightly relating to a God that we partly rightly understand.

My only major complaint with Volf’s position is that the referent used by Christianity and Islam does not seem to me to have to do with esoteric concepts in philosophical theology. It is much more plausible to say that Christians point to the one who raised Jesus from the dead. Similarly, Muslims will point to the one who revealed the Qur’an to Muhammad. These in fact exactly identify God for each tradition. And as the doctrines are understood, I don’t see how as referents these are any less singular than Volf’s choice, which he claims is useful for its singularity. If I am right about this, how can we say both faiths make use of the same referent? In fact, it is likely that Christians will differ among each other much more with respect to doctrines of creation and ontological separateness than they will about God being the one who raised Jesus from the dead. I am much more persuaded by Trinitarian/Incarnation concepts as establishing the referent for Christian belief. In this context, I am reminded of a favorite statement of mine by Robert Jenson:

So what I have to say instead of what I first thought of saying, is that indeed we will not at any height or depth of God get past Jesus of Nazareth. But that does not mean that now or in all eternity we will capture or control God, because we will not in all eternity capture or control this man. There is indeed an abyss in God and since he is God this abyss is infinite. But the abyss is that of Jesus’ particular humanity.

I felt like Volf was essentially cherry-picking his choice of a referent concept with which to compare Islam and Christianity. In fact few Christians and Muslims even have a concept of this particular referent (and so, how could they identify God in this way?); moreover, within those traditions theologians will contest Volf’s description of divine ontological separateness and singularity.

So, although Volf’s answer along all four dimensions was generally “Yes” to the question of whether or not Muslims and Christians have the same God, I think we can only reach this positive conclusion (along the referential dimension) by what a friend of mine called a voluntary ignorance about what we (Muslims and Christians) otherwise refer to when we say “God.”

There was of course an abundance of interesting material in the two lecture/discussion sessions. But I refuse to allow anything more than moderate substance on a blog.