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The believer asks no questions while no answer can satisfy the unbeliever.

—Yiddish Proverb

Mountains cannot meet, but men can meet.

—Yiddish Proverb

Mount Sinai and Mount Calvary

For Christians, differing theological assumptions affect how they view the main ideas of modern Judaism. One student commented on a statement I (Fuller) made in class about God’s mysterious nature by saying: “He believed God makes mistakes. I found that statement rather off-putting. The two ideas do not fit together.”30 The sum of my one-hour lecture was boiled down into the notion that I saw God rife with flaws, citing the decision to destroy the world during the flood, and later Sodom and Gomorrah. I have no way of knowing how that student came to that conclusion.

For some, Judaism and Christianity are two sides of the same coin. One student wrote: “When I went to the temples of other religions, I felt like I would be sinning if I went there. Here [at the synagogue], it was a bizarre feeling of connection that I cannot describe. Their God was my God, our God.”31 Another student explained: “Even though the temple felt like a library, and the scriptures that they read from is the Old Testament, but still, they see God the same way that we do.”32 This willingness to focus on common ground provides a sturdy starting point for further respectful Jewish-Christian interactions.

The notion that God is something of a schizophrenic combination of Old Testament justice and New Testament grace has been a common refrain that is often heard in contentious Jewish-Christian debates. For two millennia, Jews and Christians have battled over this contested ground while invariably concluding that followers of both faiths worshipped the same God (in contrast to Wotan, Vishnu, and others). Furthermore, no one can deny that Christianity springs from its parent religion, (pre-rabbinic or biblical) Judaism, a fact that implies a clear interrelationship. Theological tensions between these religions have been frequent, but Christians have consistently agreed with Judaism that there is only one God.

In the Academy Award-winning film Chariots of Fire, the proctor of an elite English school muses that Jews are different from Christians because they worship a “different god from a different mountaintop.” The “God of Mount Sinai” is a vindictive God who hides from individuals while the compassionate “God of Mount Calvary” extends mercy and love. This assumption advances the notion that, even if Christians and Jews worship the same God, the Jewish worship of God is somehow deficient. The God of biblical Judaism, according to this narrative, is a forbidding judge while Jesus is a loving intermediary standing between the wrath of a volatile God and the wretched sinfulness of humanity. Christianity, it is claimed, offers the promise of an intimate relationship with a merciful, loving God while the Jewish path of ritual and formalism offers no such promise. The God of Mount Sinai demands fidelity to the strict law of Moses while the God of Mount Calvary can offer a free pass for eternal forgiveness through Jesus.

This “Two-Mountain Theology” held by some Christians as they define “the Jew” is rooted in negative assumptions about the ultimately spiritual bankruptcy of Judaism. The harsh “Old Testament” ethics of Mount Sinai are caricatured by the stern commands of YHWH and contrasted with the inclusive and embracing love of God in Christ. For some, the demanding God revealed on Mount Sinai is portrayed as a vindictive judge—a celestial terrorist—who calls for individuals to be stoned to death for being gay or for disobeying their parents. One student at Messiah College wrote, “In the past I have advocated for capital punishment and many other Old Testament style beliefs. I now question the legitimacy of this to a New Testament Christian who is taught mercy and commanded to turn the other cheek.”33 This student has driven a wedge between the Old Testament God, who demands harsh justice, and the New Testament Christ, who is forgiving. This view of a volatile and unpredictable God offers one way to explain the relation between the Old and New covenants while also leading conservative Christians to view Judaism as an incomplete, insufficient pathway to eternal life.

Jewish and Atheist?

Students have found it hard to grasp that there are some Jews who deny the existence of God and yet remain as members in good standing within the larger faith tradition. One student pondered “the idea that a Jew could be an atheist and still be Jewish was a little perplexing.”34 For most conservative Christians, such a concept is unfathomable because faith is seen as connected to correct doctrine and a commonly agreed upon litany of theological assertions. At the same time, the fact that an individual can be both Jewish and atheist is an insight that can help some Christians appreciate that being Jewish is very different from their own views when it comes to the need to affirm specific doctrines. (The question of how the “death of God” movement relates to Judaism is beyond the scope of this book. Indeed, this movement, rooted in Christian scholarship, is based on the ideas of the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche.)35

Students are sometimes confused at the large number of “secular Jews” (hilonim [חלונים]) they encounter in our shared North American cultural landscape. “Secular Jews” refers to individuals who identify themselves as Jewish (and are accepted by other Jews) but may never set foot in a synagogue. Some “secular Jews” either openly question God or claim that, after the Holocaust, they are—implicitly or overtly—atheists. These same individuals may also be active in Jewish organizations without being “religious.” To further complicate issues for those who are looking for simplistic characterizations, there are some synagogues that describe themselves as “humanistic congregations.” They consist of individuals who “strongly identify themselves as Jewish but do not believe in God.”36 They note that none of the Torah’s 613 laws prohibits atheism. Nicholas de Lange explains that Jewish atheism has its roots in the Haskalah (השכלה), the Hebrew Enlightenment of nineteenth-century Europe, which “shared the antireligious and anticlerical sentiments of the European Enlightenment in general.”37 This movement was active in advancing the cause of Zionism. One rabbi, Adam Chalom, said that one of the primary goals of this movement, which focuses on cultural identification over theological unity, was to “strengthen the community overall.”38

God Described

There are countless ways that various Jews or Christians describe their view of God’s nature. In fact, the notion of a systematic view of “theology” is far more of a Christian idea than a traditional Jewish one. Leffler and Jones suggest that Christians in conversation with Jews replace the term “theology” with the term “religious ideas” since the two fields of concern, while similar in many ways, are not identical; confusion arises when terms are used interchangeably, allowing for incorrect assumptions.39 Throughout history, for example, Jewish religious leaders (apart from Maimonides) have rarely systematized their religious assumptions into strict theological categories.

While many assume that both traditions pray to the same God, throughout history there have been thinkers, both Jewish and Christian, who have questioned this underlying premise (for example, the second-century heretical dualist Marcion, who claimed that the Gods of the two testaments were distinct). Moses Maimonides, one of Judaism’s most renowned theologians, argued that Christians were not monotheists who worshipped the God that was revealed to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Maimonides believed that Christians were idolaters and that Jews should avoid business dealings with them for this reason. He thought that Jews had much more in common with Muslims than with Christians when it came to describing the unity of God’s nature. Maimonides concluded that the Christian doctrines of the Trinity and the incarnation of Christ associate (Hebrew, shittuf [שתוף]) another being (Jesus) with God, which meant that Christians were claiming that there was another being who shared in the divine nature.

Variant views about the nature of God among Christians and Jews provide opportunities for energetic discussions of how these differences relate to other shared ideas. David Ellenson states: “Jewish views of God diverge, in several significant ways, from Christian conceptions. Christian worship is not a viable religious choice for Jews. Indeed, there is no reason it should be.”40 For Jews, God is Ribbono Shel Olam (ריבונו של עולם), the Master of the Universe who is also the essence of all righteousness (Ps 19:2, 8). Samuel Sandmel explains that, in traditional Jewish theology, “God was not a physical being but was intangible and invisible.”41 Both faiths agree that God alone is the sovereign of the universe and has all power. The divine is all-knowing and all-present. God is zealous for justice and calls followers to a life of moral purity. At the same time, the fact that God has all power also means that God is responsible for creating all that is in the world, both good and evil (Isa 45:7).

Jewish and Christian scholars have taught, albeit in different ways, that God is an indivisible unity who is distinct and apart from humanity. At the same time, according to Jacob Neusner, “Judaism locates God’s concerns within the realm of human society, and mundane issues such as worship are elevated to questions of divine moment.”42

Both traditions affirm that God is known by various names, and each of these helps us to know more about the divine nature. The Bible teaches that God is compassionate (Ps 145:8–9) and like a parent to a child-like humanity (Ps 103:13). There is no other God (Isa 45:22) and this God is close to all who call out in prayer (Ps 145:18). God will help us when we are in trouble (Ps 121:1–2) and guide us for eternity (Ps 48:14). These affirmations not only explain something about God but also provide an ethical portrait of how holiness should be expressed within our daily lives of faithful devotion.

Judaism and Christianity teach that God is holy and creates humanity in the divine image so that humanity will strive towards ethical and moral holiness. The divine is met within history; human encounters with God call individuals to a more reverential pathway of worship. The worship of any other “god” will lead to an individual straying from the truth and falling into error. In both traditions, when one speaks of God, they should speak with reverent measure. God’s ways are beyond human understanding and categories, such as ideas of gender or other human characteristics. Moses Maimonides, in The Guide for the Perplexed (1:59, 88), explained “if I could describe God, God would not be God.”43 Even so, individuals throughout the ages (such as Moses) have asked YHWH (the unpronounceable four-letter Hebrew name of God) to show humanity something of the divine nature (Exod 33:13–20). While humanity will never fully be able to comprehend the mysterious ways of divine providence, believers are called to trust (emunah [אמונה]) God and rely upon divine goodness for the various challenges of life.

Every act of revelation is, to quote Elliot Dorff, the “continual entry of God into the experience of each individual’s life.”44 Because God loves all within the created order, a divine desire is loose in the world to help creation transcend the temporal with that which is eternal. Judaism does not call followers to escape into fogs of escapist mysticism but to live ethical lives in concrete realities. The best way to understand the nature of God in Jewish thinking, according to the great Hasidic philosopher and writer Martin Buber, is dynamically through relationships with people and in relationship with the world around us. God is not a remote abstraction or a theoretical idea but has a unique personality and is in distinct and direct relationship with all of creation. Because we seek to honor God, we also honor each other with a willingness to live lives that are open, mutual, present, and equitable.

God’s Oneness

The declaration of the Shema Israel (שמע ישראל) (Hear, O Israel) rings out with the bold assertion that God is One (Deut 6:4). Franz Rosenzweig claims that the revelation of God’s oneness is the truth that outlives all who acknowledge it and outlives any name that can be given to God.45 Jewish monotheism is not a negotiated exercise in mystical obtrusion but a rational conviction that the oneness of God is a foundational truth revealed in scripture. God’s oneness means that there is no place for the worship of any other as a complementary or secondary deity (Deut. 4:4, 35–39). This belief is not only to be embraced intellectually but is to be “cleaved” to (Deut 4:4) in the same way that a wife and a husband cleave to each other (Gen 2:24).

Most Jews and Christians readily acknowledge that the concept of God within these two traditions is radically distinct. As mentioned earlier, some Jews throughout history have felt that the Christian doctrine of the triune nature of God (or “Trinity”) is idolatrous (avodah zarah [עבודה זרה]). Although many Jewish scholars know that Christianity speaks of the Trinity, most also appreciate that the doctrine does not portray three distinct and separate forces with different and conflicting wills. Rather, the Trinity represents three aspects of one God. While Jews are forbidden to hold such a belief, it is not avodah zara. The discussion of how idolatry relates to the concept of God is a discussion that few Christians have considered from a Jewish perspective. While teaching at Messiah College in Grantham, PA (van Gorder, 1997–2003), one of my students wrote that “because polytheists are equal to pagans, I was shocked, personally, to find out that some Jews consider some Christians to be pagans. Obviously, the belief that Christians are cannibals is a misconception, but the way some people talk about Communion it is nonetheless understandable.”46

Widely held theological assumptions can also influence relational dynamics between Jews and Christians. While many prefer a “live and let live” approach, such a view may be naïve given the negative implications of Christian supersessionist assumptions. It may even be impossible because some conservative Christians may feel that they have no choice but to obey the command of God to evangelize Jews until they accept Jesus as their Savior. One student explained how this mandate frustrated him after the rabbi visited class:

The Jews do not believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God sent to the world to save us and that only through him do we receive eternal life and enter into eternity. This, for me, is an incredibly tough thing to understand. Rabbi Fuller seems like an incredibly intelligent and kind man and yet he has a complete lack of acceptance of Christ as Savior. That is just mind-boggling to me. However, although I am a believer, I am also a believer in good people and Rabbi Fuller is obviously a good person.47

In this student’s worldview, the only consolation that he could find was a bridge of ethical respect while the larger issues of the rabbi’s faith forever consigned the rabbi—and all non-Messianic Jews—to an eternal torment because they have failed to accept Jesus Christ as Savior.