Are all religions worshipping the same God?

It is a question that often arises in interfaith conversations, school assemblies, radio phone-ins, and casual pub theology. Sometimes it is asked generously, as an attempt to affirm common ground. Sometimes it is asked anxiously, as if the answer might undermine the uniqueness of one’s own faith. And sometimes it is asked polemically, as a way of drawing hard boundaries between “us” and “them”.

Like many apparently simple questions, it conceals a tangle of assumptions. Before rushing to an answer, it is worth slowing down and asking what we mean by “God”, by “worship”, and by “the same”.

From a Christian theological perspective, one starting point is humility. If God is truly God, then no religion possesses God in full. Every tradition speaks about the divine from within particular histories, languages, cultures, and experiences. All theological language is provisional. We speak truthfully, but not exhaustively. As Paul puts it, we see in a mirror dimly. That applies just as much to Christianity as to any other faith.

At the same time, religions are not simply interchangeable. They make real and sometimes incompatible claims. Jews do not confess Jesus as Messiah. Muslims reject the doctrine of the Trinity. Christians claim that God is decisively revealed in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. These differences matter. To pretend otherwise is not respectful pluralism but a flattening of real faith commitments.

So are we talking about the same God, or not?

One helpful distinction is between referent and understanding. Two people can be pointing to the same reality while describing it very differently. A child, a poet, and a physicist may all be speaking about the sun, but their accounts will not sound alike. The differences do not mean they are talking about entirely different objects.

Judaism, Christianity, and Islam clearly intend to refer to the same God: the originator of heaven and earth, the God of Abraham, the one who delivers slaves from bondage and calls people to justice and mercy. Historically and theologically, it is hard to deny this shared referent, even though the understandings of that God diverge in profound ways.

Once we move beyond the Abrahamic traditions, things become more complex. Hindu traditions, for example, encompass a vast range of understandings of ultimate reality, from personal deities to impersonal absolute being. Some strands of Hindu thought might sit quite comfortably alongside Christian talk of God; others operate with a very different metaphysical grammar. Buddhism, in many forms, does not centre on God at all, but on liberation from suffering through awakening. Asking whether Buddhists worship the same God can therefore be a category mistake.

This suggests that the question itself may not always be the most helpful one. It assumes that all religions are primarily about “God” in the same way, which is not the case. Religions are complex systems of practice, story, ethics, ritual, and community, not just sets of propositions about the divine.

From a Christian point of view, another crucial issue is revelation. Christians claim not simply that God exists, but that God is known in particular ways. The claim that God is revealed in Jesus is not a claim about religious superiority, but about the character of God as Christians have come to know God. It is a confession of faith, not a neutral observation. Other traditions will quite reasonably see things differently.

The danger comes when such confessions are turned into weapons. History shows how easily claims about God slide into claims about power, purity, and exclusion. When Christians insist that others do not worship the “true God”, this has often been less about theological clarity and more about justifying domination, colonisation, or violence. Any answer to this question that does not reckon with that history is dangerously incomplete.

There is also a practical, ethical dimension that cannot be ignored. Jesus teaches that we will know a tree by its fruit. If people of different faiths are committed to compassion, justice, truthfulness, and the dignity of their neighbours, Christians might reasonably ask what it says about God that such fruits appear beyond the boundaries of the church. This does not require abandoning Christian convictions, but it does invite generosity about how God may be at work in the world.

Perhaps a better way of framing the issue is this: Christians worship God as revealed in Jesus. Other religions reach towards the divine as they understand and experience it. Sometimes those reachings overlap. Sometimes they diverge sharply. God is not confined to Christian language, but neither is Christian language dispensable.

In that sense, the question “Are all religions worshipping the same God?” admits of no simple yes or no. A flat “yes” risks erasing real differences. A hard “no” risks shrinking God to the size of our own doctrines.

A more faithful response might be to say: God is one, human understandings are many, and our task is not to police God’s boundaries but to bear truthful witness to what we have received, while listening carefully and respectfully to others.

In a plural society, that posture matters. It allows Christians to speak clearly about their faith without denying the integrity of others. It makes space for dialogue without collapsing into relativism. And it leaves room for the unsettling possibility that God may surprise us, including through those who pray, worship, and live differently from us.

That, perhaps, is not a neat answer. But it may be a more honest one.

Further Reading: https://www.christianity.org.uk/article/are-all-religions-worshipping-the-same-god