"The deeper your faith is - and by deeper I mean more intelligent, more informed - the more in harmony with others you will be," he argued. "A deep faith does not lead to clashes."
Prince Ghazi characterised the "Common Word" letter as "an extended global handshake" or religious goodwill, friendship and inter-religious peace. He said it was not intended to "trick Christians or force Muslim theology on them or even to convert them to Islam".
"Neither was it intended," he added, "to reduce both our religions to an artificial union based on the two commandments."
A few of the main concerns raised by Christian theologians - including R Albert Mohler Jr, president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and John Piper, pastor at Bethlehem Baptist Church - in their criticism of the Christian response letter were also addressed on Tuesday, during the first conference panel.
Earlier in the year, Mohler expressed his concerns that claims in the Christian letter did not "clearly define the Christian understanding of God as the Trinity". He also said he could not see why the letter had apologised for the Crusades, noting that he was "very thankful that the Muslim effort to reach a conquest of Europe was unsuccessful".
Piper also argued that what was missing from the Christian document was "a clear statement about what Christianity really is and how we can come together to talk with Muslims from our unique, distinctive, biblical standpoint". He further rejected the letter's emphasis on the common ground of the love of God, arguing that the love of God for Christians is starkly different from that of Islam.
But speaking on the topic "God is Loving", Christian panellists asserted their beliefs in the divinity of Jesus and the Triune God as necessary in understanding God as love.
"The centrality of love in Christian revelation ... stems directly from the startling fact that the revelation of God is in Christ," said the Rev David Burrell, Hesburgh Professor of Philosophy and Theology at the University of Notre Dame.
"So the telling similarity-come-difference of Islam and Christianity can be displayed in the parallel formulae: Christians believe that Jesus is the word of God made human while Muslims believe the Qu'ran to be the word of God made book."
Volf read from 1 John 4: 7-12, emphasising that Christians believe "God is love" as the basic claim and "God is loving" as the secondary claim.
God's love is not reactive, explained Volf, but originary. He went on to say that creation is the result of the already existing love of God.
He also affirmed that Christian belief in God's love cannot be understood apart from a Triune God: "God is the source; God is the word; God is the breath" or "God is the Father, God is the Son and God is the Holy Spirit.
"That is important for us as Christians because when we say that God is love, God can be love, self-giving love, only if God is internally self-differentiated. Because otherwise God would end up being the one who loves simply himself."
Other notable evangelicals participating in the panels included Geoff Tunnicliffe, international director of the World Evangelical Alliance, and Leith Anderson, president of the National Association of Evangelicals.
Tunnicliffe spoke on the subject of "Love and World Poverty" on Wednesday and is scheduled to deliver closing remarks on Thursday.
