Christians and Muslims have a different understanding of who Jesus is, and often do not make any progress in talking about this matter. This booklet helps Christians and Muslims address the necessary concepts and assumptions so that we can make progress in this area.
When Christians and Muslims talk about God the question of the Trinity often arises. This booklet helps Christians and Muslims to take steps towards the Trinity and address the necessary concepts, and our assumptions, along the way.
Download – Steps Towards the Trinity
Explaining the Trinity is a matter of explaining the unity and diversity of God. Typically, when Christians and Muslims talk about the Trinity, the Christian seeks to explain this unity and diversity, while the Muslim is critical, stressing that the unity and oneness of God makes any diversity impossible. At the popular level Muslim leaders stress that God only has unity and no diversity, and so this is the common Muslim assumption. This assumption needs to be challenged if you want to make progress explaining the Trinity. So how can we do this? How can we show that God has both unity and diversity?
We can do this by realising that the doctrine of the Trinity is not the only doctrine of God’s unity and diversity. Consider Genesis chapter 1: Here we see unity, there is only one God, but we also see diversity as this one God sends his Spirit, acts through this word, and has many attributes that he expresses in a variety of ways. In Christian theology this aspect of God’s unity of being and diversity of attributes is examined in the doctrine of God’s simplicity. However, this is not only an issue for Christianity, every religion has some understanding of the unity and diversity of God – including Islam.
In Islam the question is, how do the many distinct attributes of God coexist in the unity of God’s essence and maintain his oneness. Islam maintains that each of God’s attributes (his power, knowledge, speech, life, will, sight, hearing, breath, etc.) are a distinct attribute yet all of them share fully in the one divine essence. How is this unity and diversity to be understood? The doctrine of Tawheed, with it focus on the oneness and singularity of God, is unable to explain this diversity as the following quote shows.
The Ash`aris maintain that the attributes of God are not the essence [dhat] nor are they other than His essence. If it is said that the attributes are the very essence of God (as the Mu`tazilah and philosophers claim), then it means that the essence of God is without attributes since they would be one and the same as the essence (whereas the attributes and essence are understood to be two different things). However, it is also problematic to say that the attributes of God are totally other than His essence, since it would mean that the attributes may exist separately and die away – whereas this is certainly not the case given that his attributes are eternal. The reality is that there is a special connection between His essence and attributes. His attributes exist in His essence, are eternal in His eternalness, and everlasting with His everlastingness. They have always been with Him and will be that way for eternity. (Muhammad Salih Farfur, The Beneficial Message & The Definitive Proof in the Study of Theology, (Trans: Wesam Charkawi) 2010, p. 119, underline added.)
Therefore Islam solves the problem of God’s unity of essence and diversity of attributes by saying there is a special connection between them. However, saying a special connection is not an explanation; it is just acknowledging that both unity and diversity are true and there must be some connection between them. For the Ash`aris this was expressed with the famous Arabic saying bi-la kayfa (without asking how).
Therefore, if Muslims do not accept the unity and diversity of the Trinity they still must acknowledge that in Islam God does have unity and diversity, and that Muslim leaders disagree about how to explain this. That is, Muslim leaders do not agree about Tawheed, and Muslims are rarely encouraged to think about the diversity of God. If you want to make progress with the Trinity you need to make Muslims think about this!
Therefore, if a Muslim asks you to explain the Trinity do not start with the Trinity, instead, first establish that God, even in Islam, has both unity and diversity. Do not let a Muslim fool you by focussing only on the unity of God. Ask them, “Are you saying God only has unity and no diversity?” Then you can discuss with them the following areas to establish that God has both unity and diversity:
As we have seen already, in Islam God has many distinct attributes each of which share fully in the one divine essence, that is, God has unity and diversity.
Did Allah create the Qur’an? The orthodox Muslim answer is no, the Qur’an is the speech of Allah and one of his essential attributes. Yet the Qur’an is distinct from Allah, therefore, there are at least two eternals, which means God’s unity is diverse.
Did Allah create his Spirit? The answer may vary from yes, no, and I don’t know. The Holy Spirit in the Qur’an is Allah’s breath through whom he gave Adam life (Q. 15:29). Allah sends his Spirit with revelation (Q. 16:102), and the Spirit comes as a man to Mary (Q. 19:17). Again, this shows a diversity in Allah.
Jesus creates a living being (Q. 3:49) in exactly the same way that Allah does (Q. 38:71-75). How can Jesus share in this unique God defining attribute and maintain the unity of God?
Islamic theology believes in a unity and diversity of God, therefore, Christians must not be fooled when Muslims try to discredit the Trinity by saying the unity of God makes any diversity impossible. After you have established that God has unity and diversity it is then time to ask what is the nature and scope of this diversity and how can we know this? Explain that we must allow God to reveal himself to us, and invite them to read a gospel.
I still find this quote one of the best explanations as to why the West is scrambling to understand the actions of Jihad.
(Writing before Sept. 11, 2001) The Jihad, the Islamic so-called Holy War, has been a fact of life in Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Near and Middle East for more than 1,300 years, but this is the first history of the Muslim wars in Europe ever to be published. Hundreds of books, however, have appeared on its Christian counterpart, the Crusades, to which the Jihad is often compared, although they lasted less than two hundred years and unlike the Jihad, which is universal, were largely but not completely confined to the Holy Land. Moreover, the Crusades have been over for more than 700 years, while the Jihad is still going on in the world. The Jihad has been the most unrecorded and disregarded major event of history. It has, in fact, been largely ignored. For instance, the Encyclopaedia Britannica gives the Crusades eighty times more space than the Jihad. In the New South Wales State Library, where I did part of my research while in Australia, there were 108 entries listed in their catalogue cards for the Crusades, but only two for Jihad! The Jihad has been largely bypassed by Western historians, and this book is an attempt to right the situation, for the Jihad has affected the lives – and continues to do so – of far, far more people and regions in the world than the long-extinct Crusades ever did. (Paul Fregosi, Jihad in the West, New York: Prometheus Books, 1998, p.19)
Here is a new leaflet to help you explain the ministry of the Apostle Paul to your Muslim friends.
http://engagingwithislam.org/leaflets/Paul_Gospel.pdf
There are many other leaflets in the “Evangelism” menu item.
Bart Ehrman has been popular in Muslim circles as a reliable and authentic source for understanding Christianity. A typical quote from Bart used by Muslims is the following:
The argument based on Jesus as liar, lunatic, or Lord was predicated on the assumption that Jesus had called himself God. … I had come to realize that none of our earliest traditions indicates that Jesus said any such thing about himself. And surely if Jesus had really spent his days in Galilee and then Jerusalem calling himself God, all our sources would be eager to report it. To put it differently, if Jesus claimed he was divine, it seemed very strange indeed that Matthew, Mark, and Luke all failed to say anything about it. Did they just forget to mention that part? I had come to realise that Jesus’ divinity was part of John’s theology, not part of Jesus’ own teaching. (Bart Ehrman, Jesus Interrupted, 2009, pp. 141-142)
But now Bart has changed his mind.
Until a year ago I would have said – and frequently did say, in the classroom, in public lectures, and in my writings – that Jesus is portrayed as God in the Gospel of John but not, definitely not, in the other Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke. … I finally yielded. These Gospels do indeed think of Jesus as divine. Being made the very Son of God who can heal, cast out demons, raise the dead, pronounce divine forgiveness, receive worship together suggests that even for these Gospels Jesus was a divine being, not merely a human. … So yes, now I agree that Jesus is portrayed as a divine being, a God-man, in all the Gospels. But in very different ways, depending on which Gospel you read. (Bart Ehrman, ehrmanblog.org, posted 13-04-2014)
This is an enormous change in understanding and Bart is to be commended for his honesty, however, Muslims need to consider the changing nature of his arguments when they quote him as a reliable and authentic source for understanding Christianity.
When Christians and Muslims talk about God the question of the preservation of the Bible and Qur’an often comes up. Christians are regularly told that the Bible has been corrupted and that only the Qur’an is perfectly preserved. This new booklet deals with this issue. Print it out as an A5 booklet. Read it yourself and give a copy to your Muslim friend.
The Preservation of the Qur’an
I have just finished a new leaflet for Christians to give to their Muslim friends about the preservation of the Qur’an (see next post) and while writing it I considering the following familiar hadith:
Abu Harb b. Abu al-Aswad reported on the authority of his father that Abu Musa al-Ash’ari sent for the reciters of Basra. They came to him and they were three hundred in number. They recited the Qur’an and he said: You are the best among the inhabitants of Basra, for you are the reciters among them. So continue to recite it. (But bear in mind) that your reciting for a long time may not harden your hearts as were hardened the hearts of those before you. We used to recite a surah which resembled in length and severity to (Surah) Bara’at (sura 9). I have, however, forgotten it with the exception of this which I remember out of it:” If there were two valleys full of riches, for the son of Adam, he would long for a third valley, and nothing would fill the stomach of the son of Adam but dust.” And we used so recite a slirah which resembled one of the surahs of Musabbihat, and I have forgotten it, but remember (this much) out of it:” Oh people who believe, why do you say that which you do not practise” (lxi 2.) and” that is recorded in your necks as a witness (against you) and you would be asked about it on the Day of Resurrection” (xvii. 13). (Sahih Muslim: bk. 5, no. 2286)
This hadith mentions suras that were once recited but are now not part of the Qur’an. However, what I had not noticed before were the surrounding hadiths to the above hadith:
Anas b. Malik reported: I heard the Messenger of Allah (may peace be upon him) as saying this, but I do not know whether this thing was revealed to him or not, but he said to. (Sahih Muslim: bk. 5, no. 2283)
Ibn Abbas reported Allah’s Messenger (may peace be upon him) as saying: If there were for the son of Adam a valley full of riches, he would long to possess another one like it. and Ibn Adam does not feel satiated but with dust. 1413 And Allah returns to him who returns (to HiM). 1414 Ibn Abbas said: I do not know whether it is from the Qur’an or not; and in the narration transmitted by Zuhair it was said: I do not know whether it is from the Qur’an, and he made no mention of Ibn Abbas. (Sahih Muslim: bk. 5, no. 2285)
What struck me with these hadiths is the open way in which they say that major companions like Anas b. Malik and Ibn Abbas did not know whether this was part of the Qur’an. These hadiths lend support to the other hadiths which say the Qur’an was gathered together from different sources; it was not that the major companions had memorized the entire Qur’an and simply wrote it out.
A point of application for this is that sometimes Muslims attack the Bible by saying there were some books in the New Testament that the early Christians discussed as whether or not they were authentic while all of the Qur’an was universally accepted by all Muslims. Most of the New Testament was homologoumena, that is, accepted by all the churches without exception. However there were a few documents that were antilegomena, that is, spoken against by some but received by the majority. However, these hadiths show that Islam too had its homologoumena and antilegomena material.