By Steven Tsoukalas, Ph.D. Dr. Tsoukalas is the Founder of Sound Doctrine Ministries, Guest Assitant Professor of World Religions at Wheaton College and former Associate Professor of Apologetics and Christian Thought at Wesley Biblical Seminary. Dr. Tsoukalas holds a PhD from the University of Birmingham, ThM from Harvard University, and an MDiv from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary.
There is a tendency to view Christian theology as a series of events / teachings / doctrines that can be understood one in isolation from the others. This unhealthy model can lead to Christians divorcing articulation and understanding of the doctrine of (for example) the person of Jesus and his work, from the Trinity.
This has led to certain theological discussions (particularly related to other religions) unwarrantedly employing, quite loosely, “God.”
What has been revolutionary to me through being in conversation with the Church ancient and modern is discovery of the biblical foundation through which to view / articulate / live Christian theology. It is this: All theology should be set in the context of the life of the Triune God.
I cannot stress enough this important “ground of theology.” Failure to adhere to it has caused some to discuss the person of Jesus (and God the Holy Spirit) apart from the Trinitarian theological framework, and this has led some to conclude that, for example, the Islamic view of Jesus is only “deficient” or “incomplete” or that one can have the Father while not believing in the Son.
On this point many have argued, “Christians and Muslims worship the same God.” I suggest a better way to frame it, and it comes as a question: Do Quranic Muslims worship God the Father?
Here is the way I address this question. I glean from T. F. Torrance, who learned from Athanasius in Athanasius’ “On Luke 10:22.” Luke 10:22 reads in part, “No one knows who the Son is except the Father, and who the Father is except the Son, and anyone to whom the Son wills to reveal Him” (NASB). Torrance then paraphrases Athanasius’ insight: Knowledge of the Father and knowledge of the Son arise together. One cannot possess belief / faith in the Father without the Son. Thus, one cannot worship the Father without the Son. We also see this theological truth at work in John (John 5:23; 14:6; 1 John 2:22, etc.), where one cannot have the Father without the Son. Further, implied in Luke 10:22 is the notion that believers in the (biblical) Son, through God the Holy Spirit, enter into the epistemological circle of knowing (though not, of course, infinitely) between the Father and the Son. Therefore only believers in the Son truly worship and truly know the Father. See John 8:42.
Finally, but powerfully, John 1:18 reads, “The only begotten, God, who is in the bosom of the Father, has exegeted (Gr. exegesato) him.” Jesus is the “walkin’ talkin’” exegesis of the Father. (This accounts for Jesus’ answer to Philip in John 14:8-9.) To know Jesus is to know the Father. Thus, knowledge of the Father arises with knowledge of the Son.
Since Quranic Muslims deny who Jesus is (see Quran, Sura 4:171), they do not worship the same God, who is Triune; and they do not worship God the Father.
