Find God's Truth: Understand God's Actions in History
The faith that God acts in history is the central claim of Islam, Judaism, and Christianity. What escapes agreement is how God acted. For Muslims it is the divine writing of the Qur’an. For Jews it is the story of the Exodus. For Christians it is the enfleshing of God in Jesus. Each tradition sees God’s action in its history as supreme. Even within the Christian tradition there is no agreement on how God acts in history. Each grouping within Christianity claims that its understanding of how God acts is supreme. The choice seems clear. Either we choose an absolute position as supreme or we agree that we all really make our own decision about how God acts for us. Once we surrender the absolute supremacy of our position there is no turning back. Every position becomes intertwined with our own personal values and we become conscious of the supremacy of human choice in all such claims. Unfortunately, those who advocate absolute positions rarely see how much their position in shaped by their own desires. As long as these three great religions start with the assumption that there is a second universe from which each has its own special message, peace on this planet will elude us. Once we acknowledge that the great meanings and values of each religion are human creations, we will then be able to abandon the absolute and uncompromising certainties from some assumed second universe. The God who acts in history is the name we can give to the best of human meanings and helpfulness that throughout human history has helped to advance the dream of justice and peace. This God is acting, not only in these three great religions, but wherever any person does a helping action to improve themselves or to benefit others.
