God in Christianity and Islam

Much has already been said about whether or not Christians and Muslims worship the same God. Why another drop in the ocean? Because I haven't seen anyone make this point, or at least explicitly make this point, and so that justifies me adding to the noise. That point is that the distinction between de re and de dicto is relevant here. 

Take the following syllogism:

1. Mary Jane believes Spider-Man is a hero
2. Spider-Man is Peter Parker 

The temptation is to conclude that 

3. Mary Jane believes that Peter Parker is a hero

But this would not be true if Mary Jane does not know that Spider-Man is Peter Parker. So how do we account for this? We do so by making the semantic distinction between de re and de dicto. De re means "of the thing" and de dicto means "of what is said." (3) follows from (1) and (2) on the de re interpretation, but not on the de dicto. 

For example, take the proposition, "Adrian believes that someone is a friend." This is ambiguous. Does this mean that Adrian believes that there is at least one person out there who is a friend, even if he is not sure who that person is, or does this mean that Adrian believes Devin is such that he is a friend, and so someone is Adrian's friend. The first interpretation is de dicto, which is to say that we are just focused on the word "friend", which is not applied to any one specific person. On the second interpretation, the de re interpretation, Adrian's belief is about one specific person, and so the word "friend" is particular. 

When we look at Mary Jane and Spider-Man, we ask, is her belief about Spider-Man about Spider-Man, whomever he is, which is the de dicto interpretation, or about Spider-Man specifically being Peter Parker, which would be the de re interpretation. 

Now, take this and apply it to the controversy going on right now about whether or not Christians and Muslims worship the same God. It seems like, in one interpretation, we do worship the same God, yet in another sense, we don't. Many nay-sayers insist that we do not worship the same God because we worship Jesus as God and Muslims do not. That would be an insistence of the de re interpretation of "God" but not de dicto. But even in a de dicto sense, we are still referring to the same God, as I would refer to the same general friend, and as Mary Jane refers to the same general Spider-Man. And so, we worship the same God. 

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