Common ground or agreed starting points?
Do Muslims and Christians have a common belief in god? Megabytes of type discuss whether both refer to the same being, and what they believe about him.
Do Muslims and Christians agree that there is one god who created us all? Yes.
Almost every ‘common ground’ turns out to be problematic if we dig down to underlying meanings. Not only ‘god’ but words like law, love, prophethood and salvation have different connotations. Might it be more helpful to think in terms of starting from what our nineteenth century predecessors called ‘truths admitted by both’ than in terms of finding ‘common ground’?
- Ida Glaser, ‘Towards a mutual understanding of Christian and Islamic concepts of revelation’, Themelios 7.3 (April 1982):16-22
- Ida Glaser, ‘The concept of relationship as a key to the comparative understanding of Christianity and Islam’, Themelios 11.2 (January1986):57-60
