I missed most of this debate, but I have read some interesting posts, in fact most of them are. Do Jews and Muslims worship the same God as the Christians?
Someone asked to define the "true God." I think that is a very important question. For, what makes the God of Abraham, or Allah, or Brahman different if the only criterion of a "true God" is that he is the only God?
What is really being asked is not whether God is one and the same no matter what we think, but whether we all worship the same idea of Who true God is.
I would say that we all worship a different divine idea, yet all those who call on one and only God call on one and only God there is!
but when praying to god for success in offesnive war are the prayers really going to God?
are the folks who suggest generations of Christians were in fact damned even though Christ promised to send the Holy Spirit (and thus are denying the capability of the Holy Spirit) REALLY worshipping God?
Or are they worshiping someone or thing that denies God’s omnipotence.
Even that doesn't really get at it, in my opinion, because I don't worship an idea of God; I worship God through (or by way of) my idea or concept of God.
I would say that we all worship a different divine idea,
I think there are many, myself included, who would take issue with the claim that we worship a "divine idea", meaning, our idea of the divine. If what we are worshipping is our idea of God, then unless our idea of God is identical to God, we are not worshipping God. My idea of God is developing, since I am learning more and more about God. But God is not developing. Therefore, my idea of God is not God.
Since idolatry is possible, therefore it is possible to worship something other than God. But the question seems to be: what is it that distinguishes worship of the true God (even with deficient concepts of God) from idolatry?
And it seems to me that one's worship is idolatry if within one's concept of that which one is worshipping is createdness or contingency. In other words, from Romans 1 we know that all men can know (and at some level do know) that God is the creator of all things, both from the evidence given by nature and from within our own hearts. Therefore, when we take something that is (in our conception of it) created or contingent, and we worship it (treating it as if it is the Creator which we know at this deeper level), we are engaged in idolatry. Romans 1 helps us distinguish worship of the true God (even with a deficient concept of God) from idolatry, by showing us that we know God first (not necessarily in the order of time, but in the order of reasoning), through His creation as the eternal, all-powerful and righteous Creator. Therefore, if our conception of what we are worshipping contains createdness (i.e. non-eternality, contingency, having come into being, not being the Creator of all things, injustice), then we are not worshipping God but an idol (whether real or fictional).
Given all this, it seems to me that Jews and Muslims worship the one true God, because their concept of God (though in other respect deficient) treats God as the all-powerful and eternal Creator of all things who will judge all men justly at the final judgment.
-A8