Is 'Allah' the same god of the Jews and Christians?
Yes. The word in Hebrew came from "El" and in Arabic from "Elh". The word for "god" (note the small 'g' in English) is "Elah". Compare this to "Eloi" and "Eli" in the New Testament.
It seems like Christians should take this mindset. Monotheiststic religions don’t disagree very much on who God is. He is the good, powerful, all-knowing, holy, immaterial, creator. Sounds like the same God to me.
Christians generally don’t take this view. They want to be both salvation exclusivist and knowledge of God exclusivist. One way they maintain that Islam knows a different God then them is because of the name they use. Of course, “allah” isn’t a name, and my understanding is the the Old Testament used “Allah”, as the linguistic expression of the English “God”. Christians will claim a name like Jehovah or Jesus in order to keep other religions out of their club. But what is in a name? If I describe your friend Brad to a tee – I describe his attributes and who he is in the most basic sense, but I don’t know his name, don’t I still know your friend?
Another way is Christians will describe a God of particular deeds; like parting the red sea or turning water into wine. Again, knowing the event doesn’t mean you know God, and not knowing the event doesn’t mean you don’t know God. Presumably, God has worked in many ways that aren’t recorded in scripture, does that mean bible readers don’t know the true God? Hasn’t many people been witness to the deeds of God but still not knowing him. Minimally, creation would be a significant deed that many don’t recognize.
Perhaps the most common way for Christians to maintain knowledge of God exclusivism is by claiming a personal relationship. I’m not questioning whether they in fact have a personal relationship, but in what sense do they that isn’t the same way other religions have a personal relationship with God. Personal relationship is one of these undefined terms that sounds like they have daily telephone conversations with him, but they don’t. It sounds like they bring God grocery shopping with them, but only in the same sense that any monotheist brings God grocery shopping with them.
It seems to me that a personal relationship means I know you and you know me. There is no question whether God knows Muslims and Christians. Do Muslims know God? It seems so since they describe him quite well; the good, powerful, all knowing, holy, immaterial, creator. One can’t say that how we know God is through a personal relationship, when a personal relationship normally means a mutual knowledge of each other.
If God is not generally revealed then non-believers have an excuse for not knowing him. If they’ve never heard of Jehovah, or heard of the parting of the red sea, or had access to a personal relationship, then they have a pretty great excuse. If there is no reason to believe in a God, and much less know him, then they have a pretty great excuse. Christians believe that all will stand before God in judgment, what do they think God will say? “ I know you couldn’t know me even if you wanted to, but you’ll suffer punishment for it anyway.”
It seems like the root of this is Christian disgust for Islam in general. Christians find the Islamic religion offensive. I don’t think their judgments are sober. One might try to soften the bite of the knowledge of God inclusivism by reaffirming salvation exclusivism. Simply knowing God is not what brings salvation. They’re still sinners according to the New Testament, and they’re dead in their sins without redemptive revelation found in the gospel. By reaffirming the unique redemptive claims of Christianity, Christians might be able to give up some ground to the other monotheistic religions who have access to the general revelation of God.
