George,
Pius XII did refer to Barth: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Barth

I think we worship the same God as Jews, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. There is a Trinitarian structure to OT belief, the prophets are endowed by the Spirit of God, the suffering servant figure in Isaiah is the image of Christ.

Thanks for the reference to Galileo and Bacon, I will chase them up.

Sells wrote: “I think we worship the same God as Jews, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. There is a Trinitarian structure to OT belief, the prophets are endowed by the Spirit of God, the suffering servant figure in Isaiah is the image of Christ.”

Dear Sells,

You started out with a preconceived notion and then either manipulated the Jewish Bible or consulted Christian scholars who had manipulated the Jewish Bible to find a Trinity there..

I am not a Christian. However, if I want to find out what Christians believe I will either ask a knowledgeable Christian or consult Christian writing on the subject. You should have done something similar if you want to comment on Judaism. I have read the New Testament. Even though I quote it I will ask a Christian how she or he interprets it before I say what Christians believe.

Jews do not accept a trinity. It is that simple whether you can interpret the Jewish Bible that way or not. Jews do not have the multiplicity of creeds that Christians have. However, they do have a basic statement of faith. It follows:

“Hear, O, Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One.” That is a clear denial of Trinity.

Because you can find a Trinitarian structure in the Jewish Bible does not mean Jews worship a Trinity. I doubt that you can find a rabbi who worships or accepts a Trinity.

The concept of God is different in different religions. It is even different in different branches of western Christianity. The Socinians rejected both the divinity of Jesus and the Trinity. Although denial of the Trinity was made a capital crime in England in 1648 under Cromwell’s Commonwealth attempts to get all Christians to follow the doctrine have never been completely successful.

I have recently read “The Protestant Revolution” by Naphy who is Director of Teaching and Learning in the School of Divinity at the University of Aberdeen. All Protestants do not even worship the same God.

Dear david f,

Nobody doubts that there are differences between the three Abrahamic religions, and even between “subreligions” of each one of them. As far as God/YHWH/Allah is concerned, these differences can be seen both as describing (or modelling, as I like to say) different Gods or as differently describing the same God. Some people (e.g. Sells and you) prefer the first, some others, including myself, the other possible interpretation. However, I think there is a consensus among Christians, as Sells points out, that the Jewish God of the Torah/Old Testament is the same as the Christian God, although differently “modelled” (e.g. with or without the Trinitarian “structure”).

Perhaps this is not a good comparison, but the phenomenon that makes apples fall of trees, was studied by Newton as a (gravitational) force, by Einstein as something making space-time warped and perhaps transmitted by gravitons, is the same thing, although described, modelled in different ways.

>>One can ask where was God during the Holocaust.<<
This is a non-trivial, not only Jewish, question. There is probably no answer to that, the same as to the equally humanly unanswerable question “What were God’s intentions with humanity (or the Jews) when He let the Holocaust happen?”

Sells,

>>Pius XII did refer to Barth: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Barth<<
Yes, this is exactly the source I consulted when I wrote that Pius XII endorsed Barth. By the way, the same Pius XII accepted the advise of a scientist - actually the very Georges Lemaître - not to claim Big Bang as evidence that the Universe was created.

George,
More detail can be found on Galileo and the two books from Biagioli:Galileo's instruments f credit. P232. It can be seen on Google books. It appears that Galileo only used the phrase for political purposes.

Do you have a reference for Georges Lemaîtr's advice to Pius XII. I have thought that the use of astronomical observations to support an instant of creation by God very suspicious. It is part of the problem that occurs when the theological and the natural scientific gets confused.

Sells,

>>Galileo only used the phrase for political purposes<<

If by political purpose you mean Galileo responding to Bellarmine and others who thought they had to resolve the seeming conflict between the Bible and science by proclaiming Bible the sole holder of truth about this world, then you might call Galileo’s heritage political.

Today it is not cardinal Bellarmine but professor Dawkins and his apostles who think they can resolve this superficial conflict by proclaiming science the sole holder of truth about human life and the Universe. The difference is that today we already have a Galileo platform to stand on when defending both the “books” against modern day Dawkinses as well as Bellarmines.

>>Do you have a reference for Georges Lemaîtr's advice to Pius XII<<

Googling “Lemaitre, Pius XII” gave 27,400 results, e.g.

“the close relationship between Pius XII and Georges Lemaître, who enabled the Pontiff to understand from closer to hand at the beginning of the 1950s the meaning of the new cosmological models which were by then beginning to become established in the scientific world, and the philosophical, or even theological, questions which at first sight appeared to be involved.” (http://www.disf.org/en/Voci/93.asp)

>> the problem that occurs when the theological and the natural scientific gets confused.<<

Many problems can occur if two different perspectives are confused, which does not mean they cannot be combined to render a richer, “multifaceted” insight - in our case into Reality, (within and without us), with God at its center trying to communicate with us on two different platforms to make it easier for us to accept (not comprehend) Him.

Dear George,

It is not my main difference with Sells that the two religions worship the same or different gods. The depiction of God from the arbitary creature at one from another place in scripture means to me that the same God does not even exist in the entire Bible. The reasonable God that Abraham can argue with about the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah is not the unreasonable God that demands Abraham murder his son.

My difference with Sells that in trying to make out that the Jewish Bible has in it a Trinity he is finding in those scriptures what he wants to find rather than consulting a Jew to find out what Jews believe.

The God of the Bible is inconsistent. One of the reasons that I am an atheist is that the God of the Bible is not an entity I can accept as existing. Those who can accept such an entity can argue that the ways of God are beyond the understanding of men. I do not accept that. He is a mythical creature.