“The Same God?” Consultation took place at the Yale Center for Faith & Culture, in association with the Yale Divinity School, February 6 and 7, 2009.
Following the themes of the previous consultations, which have investigated what it means for human beings to flourish, this consultation focused on the question of the sameness of God in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam – the three great monotheistic faiths whose followers comprise over half of humanity.
This question has a significant bearing on human flourishing: if God is integral to human flourishing, then whether this majority of humanity is worshiping the same God is a poignant question. Many Christians agree that Jews, Christians, and Muslims worship the same God, although many more Christians agree with regard to Judaism than with regard to Islam. What remains rather unclear and is largely unexamined in scholarly literature are the grounds on which Christians claim that they do (or do not) worship the same God as Jews and Muslims.
This consultation sought to achieve greater theological clarity on whether Christians and Muslims worship the same God.
We hope that the papers resulting from this consultation will be published in a forthcoming volume.
Consultation participants:
Bruce Chilton, Joseph Cumming, David Kelsey, Amy Pauw,
Christoph Schwoebel,
Denys Turner, Miroslav Volf