I'm interested in a hypothetical scenario where two people, one Protestant, the other of non-specified faith, are discussing their concept of God. What would be a reasonable minimum set of communalities needed for the Protestant to agree that the God described by the person of non-specified faith was the same as their own?
It's easy to come up with the extremes;
- If the person of non-specified faith adheres to the first sentence of the niceane creed, and identifies the biblical Jesus as God, then it seems clear that both people speak of the same God. That doesn't make the person of non-specified faith a Protestant, maybe they don't hold that a person can be pardoned by faith alone, but must do good works. Other conditions of Protestantism are not met, but there is a belief in the same God.
- If the person of unspecified faith describes God as a state that every soul has the potential to reach, and is not responsible for the creation of the universe (roughly Jainism, apologies for inaccuracies), then the Protestant will probably not feel that the two of them describe the same God.
But there are lots of steps between those points. Is the Sunni and the Protestant God the same God? They seem similar, but there are things that a Sunni would say that preclude the trinity (and Jesus being the son of god). For a Trinitarian Protestant, that would be more than just a minor variation. I'm not sure if it is so large a difference as to make the Protestant feel that praising that God would be to praise a false idol? Do they think the Sunni is worshipping a false idol?
I'm interested in this, because I'm interested in how religions conceptualise worship in other religions. In particular, how monotheists see other branches of monotheism. Do they perceive the worship of other branches as worshipping false idols, or just worshipping with different dogma? I chose Protestantism, because I know a little about it in general, so I have more context to understand answers with.