Helpful Texts

Ernst Förster SJ
A Future 'Trinity'
of Jews, Christians and Muslims ?
Theses on a Matter of Life and Death
not only for the Three Monotheist Religions

1. From a lot of observations, respectively reasons the human mind concludes that there is one universe only and one God.
2. Since nothing can come into existence out of nothingness, the whole of the universe exists either from eternity with absolute necessity 'out of itself', or has its origin in an an absolute being that some religions call 'God'.
3. The one God of Jews, Christians, and Muslims must be one and the same God who has got different names: Yahweh, God (Father-Son-Holy Spirit), and Allah.
4. Those who believe in the One God of their religion believe de facto also in the God of the other monotheist religions. In a mankind growing towards unity there is hidden a big potential in the "One-God-Believers", which should be activated by their engagement for justice and peace, i.e. the poor.
5. If it is right - as Jews, Christians and Muslims assure - that there is only one God, then it is certainly wrong to 'pocket' in each case this God for one's own religion.
6. It has certainly been important - and will remain so - that each of the three monotheisms identifies with 'its' God, i.e. with its 'revelation' (reported in the holy writings) and with its tradition (which documents the dialogue of faith in the course of history), but the assertion that the one God would only identify with one's own religion is an evasive defence.
Die Frage ist, was durch so eine Behauptung geschützt werden soll, was geschützt werden darf und was nicht. Diese Frage sollte aus dem universalen Blickwinkel des einen Gottes beantwortet werden, nicht aus dem 'verengten Blick' e i n e r  Religion.
7. Hence the question arises which claims - necessary for the survival of the respective religion, e.g. the 'chosen people' - can be legitimated by taking recourse to the authoriy of (one's own) God and which not. {*} This question should be asked according to the universal view of the one God, and not to the 'narrow' view of one's own religion.
8. Nowadays this universal view of the one God is duplicated by the Declaration about the Human Rights (UNO), but there are both religious and worldly rulers (dictators) who do not acknowledge the human rights.
9. God is love. It cannot be the will of God that his believers fight or even kill each other in his name as it happens worldwide today. Hence those who still today legitimate the evil done by them with words of 'their' Holy Scriptures insult and blaspheme God.
10. In the Holy Scriptures evil deeds, wars, and inhuman orders are handed down to us as done or given "in the name of God". That is calling for a justification of God. This justification could - if sponsors are at hand - happen at universities in Jewish, Christian, and Islamic countries where professorships for the 'Justification of God' will be set up to promote harmony between the three religions founded on 'divine revelation'.
11. It will be the concern of scientific research - e.g. by a 'Professorial Chair for Trialogue between Jews, Christians, and Moslem' [Back to 'multi-millionaires'] - to put the Holy Scriptures as it were through the 'filter' of Human Rights (Ten Commands), and International Law, and to make understandable the reasons for the ungodly, i.e. inhuman parts in the scriptures; for example by scientifically proven comments on the historic and personal reasons.
12. If religions and religious leaders claim 'their' God only for themselves, which are their motives? Do they want to sanction their doings, their lust of power, and their evil deeds?
13. If you limit the one God to your own religion, you replace God by an idol; hence you will have to experience its impotence.

{*} The Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation of the Second Vatican Council stated that God's revelation is about the salvation of humankind, i.e. about the things necessary for achieving the 'eternal destiny'.