Christian-Muslim Dialogue The Oneness of God: Trinity or Tawhid? Tony Costa vs. Farhan Iqbal

The video of the dialogue between myself and Farhan Iqbal has now been posted. The topic was on the Trinity and Tawhid. I begin speaking at 27:42.

"Tawhid or Trinity: Do Muslims and Christians Worship the Same God?" Jonathan McLatchie & Rehan Khan vs. Bashir Vania & Ahmed Pandor

In April of this year, I participated in a panel debate in Alberton, South Africa, involving two Christians and two Muslims. On the Christian side were myself and ex-Muslim Rehan Ali Khan. On the Muslim side were Bashir Vania and Ahmed Pandor. The topic under discussion was "Tawhid or Trinity: Do Muslims and Christians worship the same God?" I have now uploaded the complete recording of the debate to YouTube, and you can view it at the link below -- enjoy! :)

Turning Tables on Muslim Objections to the Trinity: The Recording

On popular demand, I have started recording my Saturday "Advanced Apologetics" group for public consumption, and will from henceforth be uploading them to a dedicated YouTube Channel.

Here is this past Saturday's session, on "Turning tables on Muslim objections to the Trinity", with Sam Shamoun. Enjoy!

In this coming Saturday's session, we will be discussing the problem of evil with atheist Cory Markum (one of my former debate opponents). Click here for instructions on how you can join and participate in the conversation. 

The Divine Spirit in the Qur'an, and the Problem of Tawhid

Frequently, in debates with Christians on the doctrine of the Trinity vs. the Islamic concept of Tawhid (oneness of Allah), Muslims will try to maintain the focus on the concept of the Trinity. Much fewer time is spent trying to provide a rigorous defence and elaboration of Tawhid. Here, I am going to outline one Quranic problem faced by the Islamic doctrine of Tawhid.

According to various texts in the Qur’an (e.g. Surah 2:28; 22:6), Allah is the creator of life. Surah 15:23 tells us,

“It is indeed We, and only We, who give life and bring death, and We are the ultimate inheritor.”

Nabeel Qureshi vs. Shabir Ally: "What Is God Really Like, Tawhid or Trinity?"

Here's an excellent debate between Nabeel Qureshi and Shabir Ally that's sure to be a classic (though I suspect Christians will be sharing it much more than Muslims!).

Allah's Incarnation in a Heavenly Body According to Osama Abdallah

In the comment thread of a previous post, Muslim apologist Osama Abdallah graciously sought to educate us on the constituent elements of human nature, which he said are defined “accurately and logically” in Islam over and against “paganism”. According to Osama, man consists of a self (Arabic: nafs) and a physical body that are animated or made alive by Allah’s Spirit.

I found what Osama said about the self/nafs, ordinarily translated “soul” by translators, to be especially interesting. Osama said of the self: “This is what enters the flesh and blood or whatever other form it will enter. It will enter the Heavenly Body that it will live in in Heaven, or the Hell body in Hell that it too will live in.”

Intrigued by the implications of this, and in order to make sure I was accurately understanding him to be saying that every self/nafs “enters the flesh and blood or whatever other form it will enter,” I quoted Osama’s words back to him and then asked the following question: “You have said that Islam’s view is logical, and you have referred to the nafs, i.e. self, as that which enters flesh and blood and other forms. Does EVERY nafs/self enter into a body or other forms in either heaven or hell?”

In confirmation of the fact that this was his intended meaning, Osama gave the following terse reply: “It’s funny that you quoted me and then asked a question that is directly answered by the very quote that you quoted me on.”

With that in view, the reason Osama’s “logical” view of the self is so interesting is because of what it says in the following verse of the Qur’an:

And (remember) when Allah will say (on the Day of Resurrection): “O Iesa (Jesus), son of Maryam (Mary)! Did you say unto men: Worship me and my mother as two gods besides Allah?” He will say: “Glory be to You! It was not for me to say what I had no right (to say). Had I said such a thing, You would surely have known it. You know what is in MY inner self though I do not know what is in YOURS, truly, You only You, are the All Knower of all that is hidden and unseen. (S. 5:116, Hilali & Khan; cf. 3:28, 3:30, 6:12, 6:54, 20:41)

According to the above verse, Allah has an inner self/nafs. The same thing can be seen in several hadith, the following among them:

Narrated Abu Huraira: The Prophet said, "Allah says: ‘I am just as My slave thinks I am, (i.e. I am able to do for him what he thinks I can do for him) and I am with him if He remembers Me. If he remembers Me in himself, I too, remember him in Myself; and if he remembers Me in a group of people, I remember him in a group that is better than they; and if he comes one span nearer to Me, I go one cubit nearer to him; and if he comes one cubit nearer to Me, I go a distance of two outstretched arms nearer to him; and if he comes to Me walking, I go to him running.’" (Sahih Bukhari, 9.93.502; see also 9.93.501)

On the authority of Abu Dharr al-Ghifari (may Allah be pleased with him) from the Prophet (peace be upon him) is that among the sayings he relates from his Lord (may He be glorified) is that He said:

O My servants, I have forbidden oppression for Myself and have made it forbidden amongst you, so do not oppress one another. O My servants, all of you are astray except for those I have guided, so seek guidance of Me and I shall guide you, O My servants, all of you are hungry except for those I have fed, so seek food of Me and I shall feed you. O My servants, all of you are naked except for those I have clothed, so seek clothing of Me and I shall clothe you. O My servants, you sin by night and by day, and I forgive all sins, so seek forgiveness of Me and I shall forgive you. O My servants, you will not attain harming Me so as to harm Me, and will not attain benefitting Me so as to benefit Me. O My servants, were the first of you and the last of you, the human of you and the jinn of you to be as pious as the most pious heart of any one man of you, that would not increase My kingdom in anything. O My servants, were the first of you and the last of you, the human of you and the jinn of you to be as wicked as the most wicked heart of any one man of you, that would not decrease My kingdom in anything. O My servants, were the first of you and the last of you, the human of you and the jinn of you to rise up in one place and make a request of Me, and were I to give everyone what he requested, that would not decrease what I have, any more that a needle decreases the sea if put into it. O My servants, it is but your deeds that I reckon up for you and then recompense you for, so let him who finds good praise Allah and let him who finds other than that blame no one but himself. It was related by Muslim (also by at-Tirmidhi and Ibn Majah). (Hadith Qudsi, 17)

So according to the Islamic sources Allah has an inner self or soul, i.e. Allah has what Osama said enters “flesh and blood and other forms…the Heavenly Body…in Heaven…the Hell body in Hell….” In other words, since Allah has a self, and since every self enters flesh and blood and other forms in heaven or hell, then Allah must have a heavenly body. The logic is ironclad: 

Ø  P1: All selfs/nafs enter flesh and blood or other forms (i.e. heavenly body, hell body)
Ø  P2: Allah is/has a self/nafs
Ø  Conclusion: Allah entered flesh and blood or other forms

The problem with this for Osama is that the Christian doctrine of the incarnation is the chief reason he calls Christianity “paganism.” So if Christianity is paganism, and if Osama’s belief about the self/nafs is “logically” consistent with his own stated view of the self and the teaching of the Qur’an regarding Allah being a self or having a nafs, then Islam must be paganism by Osama’s own criteria. In other words, Osama has a contradiction on his hands (several of them).

Now sit back and watch Osama deny the implications of his own “accurate and logical” position.

To learn more about Allah’s "self" and the problems it poses for Islam, see the following article: 

Soul Man: Shall Allah Taste Death According to the Qur’an?

God OUR Father

One of the chief benefits of the Gospel is that God the Father adopts us as His children through Christ, His co-eternal and co-essential Son. Since Muslims do not believe in the Son of God, they neither know God as their Father nor do they worship the Father. Muslims will sometimes deny this and pretend that they believe in and worship the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, but those who know better say otherwise.



Since Muslims believe they are brothers and sisters but deny that God is their Father, the million dollar question is: "If all Muslims are brothers and sisters, then who is their common father?

Either Muslims must reckon themselves to be cosmic orphans, something Jesus said was not true of His followers (John 14:18), or they must own up to the fact that they are sons and daughters of someone else. But who could that be? As the old saying goes, this means they are stuck between the Devil and the deep blue sea.

Trinity or Tawhid?

Here are two recent shows by Dr. Tony Costa on the topic "Trinity or Tawhid?"

PART ONE

PART TWO

More Side-Splitting Humor From Muhammad

You've heard that Allah has two hands. You've also heard that both of Allah's hands are right hands (if not, see the video at the end). Perhaps you thought that this is where the inanity ends and things couldn't be any more bizarre. Not so fast. Read on...

The following passage of the Qur'an makes reference to Allah's "side".

(Lest) any self should say, "Oh, for (my) regret in that I indeed neglected my duty towards (literally: in the side of) Allah, and decidedly I was one of the scoffers." (S. 39:56, Muhammad Mahmoud Ghali translation)

A number of Muslims, such as Abu 'Abd Allah ibn Hamid, Qadi Abu Ya'la, Ibn al-Zaghuni, Ibn Khuzayma, et al., have taken this verse literally. Others have not, trumping up one excuse or another.

At least one Muslim was (apparently) so embarrassed by this verse that he changed it in his copy of the Qur'an (q.v. the Qur'an of Hafsa, which alters it to "in God's remembrance," as pointed out by Abdullah bin Hamid Ali in a footnote to Ibn al-Jawzi's The Attributes of God, p. 64.n33). 

The equivalent of this latter practice is found in most English translations of the Qur'an. Whereas other occurrences in the Qur'an of the underlying Arabic word are usually translated as "side" when not referring to Allah, the noun, side, when used for Allah in 39:56, is ordinarily turned into a preposition or verbal phrase or something else entirely. For example, here is Yusuf Ali's translation:

"Lest the soul should (then) say: 'Ah! Woe is me!- In that I neglected (my duty) towards Allah, and was but among those who mocked!'

Various justifications (i.e. excuses) for this are offered.

However one comes down on the above issue, there is little question that Allah's side is mentioned in the following hadith. In fact, the following hadith doesn't simply make reference to Allah's side; it makes reference to Allah's sides. And it even goes beyond that to tell us something else. But even this “something else” will hardly be surprising for those who are familiar with the rampant anthropomorphism found in the Qur'an and innumerable ahadith. For those who take into account the fact that Allah is said to have two right hands, while the following will not be surprising, I dare say most will not have thought of extrapolating to this extent.

The following hadith actually tells us that both of Allah's sides are....well, I will just let you see it for yourself:

It has been narrated on the authority of 'Abdullah b. 'Umar that the Messenger of Allah (may peace be upon him) said: Behold! the Dispensers of justice will be seated on the pulpits of light beside God, on the right side of the Merciful, Exalted and Glorious. Either side of the Being is the right side both being equally meritorious. (The Dispensers of justice are) those who do justice in their rules, in matters relating to their families and in all that they undertake to do. (Sahih Muslim, 20.4493; *)

As I have said before, given what the Islamic sources teach, the real reason Muslims should have a problem with the Word becoming flesh is not because it is impossible for God to become a man, but because their "god" already is a man-like being, and an odd looking one at that. 

If you missed it before, here is a video discussing another part of Allah’s anatomy.

All right, Muslims. This is your cue. The comments section is open, let the excuses begin.

Islam, Paradoxes, Dialectical Tensions and Squaring Circles

“At the center of Christianity are theological conundrums such as the Trinity and the hypostatic union. Islam knows nothing of such conceptual muddles; Islam’s message is pure, clear, and coherent, no paradoxical preservatives added.”

  

I recently saw a statement like the above for the umpteenth time in connection with Hamza Yusuf, who was being touted as someone who converted from Christianity to Islam because the Christian God is so unlike anything in human experience that he couldn’t wrap his mind around Him.

That the Islamic view of God is one that is simple and clear is a claim Muslims never tire of repeating, and many seem to think that the more they say this and get others to mindlessly chant it with them, that it will, somehow, magically become true; hence the reason some witty fellow coined the term dawaganda.

I don’t know if Hamza Yusuf is still repeating this old canard, but I can say for sure that he no longer has any excuse for doing so after finding out on his own that attempts to make sense out of the teachings of Islam amount to attempts to square a circle. According to Hamza Yusuf, when one looks at questions like the relationship of Allah’s essence to his attributes, as well as a number of other issues that have been fiercely debated by Muslims throughout the centuries, Islamic theology must be defined or described as:

“…a mental activity by nature and often involves paradoxes, in which seemingly insoluble problems…are dialectically entertained in the mind of the theologian, who then attempts to reconcile them, using sacred scripture and intellect—a combination made volatile and dangerous in the absence of a devout piety that would otherwise illuminate both the effort and the outcome. For this reason, true theology is, to a certain degree, the squaring of a circle within an enlightened mind.” The Creed of Imam Al-Tahawi, Translated, Introduced, and Annotated by Hamza Yusuf (Zaytuna Institute, 2007), p. 13.

This gives rise to another paradox: Muslims pretending on the one hand that God has to be so simple that a simpleton could have him all figured out, and Muslims who cling on the other hand to a theology that is admittedly fraught with mind-bending and logic-straining doctrines. Maybe someone characterized by "devout piety" and who has an "enlightened mind" could explain this paradox to us. 

For more on this theme, see the following video:   

Trinity or Tawheed?

Introductions and Readings from the Bible and Qur'an



Abdullah Kunde's Presentation



Samuel Green's Presentation



Rebuttals



Question Time

The Angel of the LORD vs. Yahya Snow - Part One

Yahya Snow has ventured to “refute” Sam Shamoun’s case that a particular “angel”, i.e. the Angel of the Lord (Heb. Mal’ak Yahweh), is divine, one of the persons of the Godhead. Over the course of several posts I will respond to Yahya’s article for Sam.

To begin with, it should be remembered that unitarianism as opposed to Trinitarianism is the view that God is a uni-personal rather than a tri-personal being. Islamic Tawheed is one (and the worst) of many versions of the former; Christianity uniquely proclaims the latter.

This is important to keep in mind for the following reason: whereas on unitarian assumptions one wouldn’t expect to find in the Bible distinctions drawn between multiple divine persons, this is just what would be expected on Trinitarian assumptions.

The first verse of John’s Gospel is a good illustration of the point. According to John’s Gospel:

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”

If the author of this passage was a unitarian, it would not be surprising for him to say “the Word was with God”, which he in fact does. But it also wouldn’t be surprising on Trinitarian assumptions, for Trinitarians also believe the Word was with God. However, that is not all the passage says; it also tells us “the Word was God”. This additional statement changes everything for the unitarian, but the Trinitarian is left unaffected by it: it is exactly what would be expected if the author of this passage was Trinitarian. And just as it would be incredibly inept for a unitarian to reply, “But the passage could not teach that the Word was God, because he could not be God and be with God at the same time”, since this is just what Trinitarians believe and is precisely what the passage says, so it would also be incredibly inept for a unitarian to approach similar phenomena in the Old Testament in the same way, as we will in fact find in the case of Yahya’s would-be rebuttal.

When we turn to the Old Testament passages that speak of the Angel of the Lord, we find that they upset and over-topple unitarian expectations in exactly the same way. They do so by identifying the Angel as God while at the same time distinguishing Him from another person who is identified as God. Consider as an example the first occasion in the Bible where this phrase is used – Genesis 16, which recounts what happened after Hagar fled from Sarai.

Now the angel of the LORD found her by a spring of water in the wilderness, by the spring on the way to Shur. He said, "Hagar, Sarai's maid, where have you come from and where are you going?" And she said, "I am fleeing from the presence of my mistress Sarai." Then the angel of the LORD said to her, "Return to your mistress, and submit yourself to her authority." Moreover, the angel of the LORD said to her, "I will greatly multiply your descendants so that they will be too many to count." The angel of the LORD said to her further, "Behold, you are with child, and you will bear a son; and you shall call his name Ishmael, because the LORD has given heed to your affliction." He will be a wild donkey of a man, his hand will be against everyone, and everyone's hand will be against him; and he will live to the east of all his brothers." Then she called the name of the LORD who spoke to her, "You are a God who sees"; for she said, "Have I even remained alive here after seeing Him?"

Since Yahya believes Muhammad was a descendant of Hagar through her son Ishmael, he should pay particular attention to what this passage says (and not just the later verses in the passage that say Ishmael will be a wild donkey of a man).

In the first place, the phrase “the angel of the LORD”, as well as the fact that the Angel speaks of the LORD in the third person in verse eleven (“…the LORD has given heed to your affliction”), seems clearly to distinguish the Angel from “the LORD”.

Secondly, at the same time, this same passage also identifies the Angel as LORD. Not only does the Angel issue imperatives to Hagar and conduct the whole conversation with an air of authority that exudes divinity, but the Angel promises that He will do the same thing for her that God promised to do for Abraham through Sarah, saying, “I will greatly multiply your descendants so that they will be too many to count.”

Finally, while all of this may be lost on those who think Muhammad was a descendant of Hagar, it wasn’t lost on Hagar herself, for “Then she called the name of the LORD who spoke to her, ‘You are a God who sees’; for she said, “Have I even remained alive here after seeing Him?”

Passing over the mention of the Angel of the Lord in Genesis 21:8-20, where similar observations could be made, what is said in Genesis 22 about the Angel of the Lord is particularly instructive. After Abraham goes to the place where God commanded him to take Isaac and offer him as a sacrifice, we read:

When they reached the place God had told him about, Abraham built an altar there and arranged the wood on it. He bound his son Isaac and laid him on the altar, on top of the wood. Then he reached out his hand and took the knife to slay his son. But the angel of the LORD called out to him from heaven, "Abraham! Abraham!" "Here I am," he replied. "Do not lay a hand on the boy," he said. "Do not do anything to him. Now I know that you fear God, because you have not withheld from me your son, your only son." Abraham looked up and there in a thicket he saw a ram caught by its horns. He went over and took the ram and sacrificed it as a burnt offering instead of his son. So Abraham called that place The LORD Will Provide. And to this day it is said, "On the mountain of the LORD it will be provided." The angel of the LORD called to Abraham from heaven a second time and said, "I swear by myself, declares the LORD, that because you have done this and have not withheld your son, your only son, I will surely bless you and make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as the sand on the seashore. Your descendants will take possession of the cities of their enemies, and through your offspring all nations on earth will be blessed, because you have obeyed me."

As in Genesis 16, this passage at once distinguishes the Angel from God and identifies Him as God.

That He is distinct from God is evident once again by his very title, i.e. the Angel of the LORD, as well as by the fact that he speaks in verse twelve of God in the third person (“Now I know that you fear God”).

That He is also God is evident not only from the fact that He speaks as God (“…you have not withheld from Me your only son…” [vs. 12]; “I will surely bless you and make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky [vs. 17]; and “…because you have obeyed Me” [vs. 18]), but because of what it pointedly says in verses 15-16: “The angel of the LORD called to Abraham from heaven a second time and said, "I swear BY MYSELF, declares the LORD,…”

In terms of the unitarian/Trinitarian debate, only Trinitarianism is consistent both with the fact that the Angel is distinguished from God and the fact that He speaks as God and is identified as God in the above (and many other) passages.

Yahya’s failure to understand all this is openly exposed in his response to virtually every one of the passages from Sam he tries to deal with. He somehow thinks the mere fact that the Angel is distinct from another person called God proves that He cannot also be God.

For example, Yahya says Zechariah 1:12-13 “shows the angel of the Lord communicating with God; the angel asks God a question and God answers the angel. Clearly this passage shows the angel not to be God as they are clearly shown to be distinct entities.”

He does the same thing with Numbers 22:31, saying:

“Shamoun fails to look further down in the chapter; after this event, the author identifies this angel as “the angel of the Lord” and not as “God” or “the Lord” (22:32 and 35) thus showing the author (said to be Moses) did not believe this angel to be God…”

We get more of the same on Zechariah 3:1-2:

"If you read further on in the chapter, the angel actually speaks and the author said to be Zechariah) identifies the angel as “the angel”. Surely if the angel was the Lord it would have been addressed as “the Lord” rather than “the angel”. So we notice the author draws a distinction between “the angel” and “the Lord”, thus to two cannot be the same!.... Essentially, Zechariah does not claim the angel to be God but draws a distinction showing the two are not the same."

And Zechariah 3:4:

"Shamoun misses another verse in this chapter which proves that this angel is simply an agent of God and not God himself, verse 6 shows the angel QUOTING the Lord and delivering the Lord’s message by saying “this is what the Lord Almighty says:…"

On Exodus 23:20, Yahya says:

“Thus we realise God sends the angel, therefore the angel cannot possibly be God! Shamoun misses this as this clearly shows this angel is not God!”….

“Clearly, in this passage, God sends the angel and speaks of the angel as a separate being (a creation of God). This angel is sent BY God, thus cannot possibly be God. Pure logic! Shamoun misses the verse and misses the logic due to his desperation to convince us of his personal beliefs.”

“The fact that God speaks of this angel as a distinct entity should be enough to realise that this angel is not God.”

All of this completely misses the point at issue, for in each of the passages where the Angel is distinguished from God He is also identified as God, showing that the prophetic authors were not unitarians. In effect, what Yahya is doing is reading his unitarian assumptions into the text rather than taking everything the texts say into account to see if they are consistent with everything unitarianism predicts we should find. Since Yahya assumes that God is uni-personal, any passage that distinguishes God from the Angel automatically rules out the divinity of the Angel as a matter of “pure logic”, as Yahya said in one of the quotes above. But it only follows logically if Yahya’s starting assumption, i.e. God is uni-personal, is true. Only if that assumption is true does the conclusion that the angel is not God follow from the observation that the Angel is distinguished from God. But Yahya’s starting assumption is the very point at issue, and this means that all of Yahya’s arguments on this score commit the fallacy of begging the question and reasoning in a circle, something we have seen from him before (here).

A Question About Allah

I know the question has been asked before, but I’m here to ask it again. I’d like to know why Allah refers to himself in the plural number. Why does Allah use the plural pronouns “We”, “Us”, and “Our” in the Qur’an?

To forestall any complaints from Muslims that this has already been answered before, let it be stated that I am well aware that such attempts have been made. My question stems from the fact that no conclusive or even satisfactory answer has ever been given or agreed upon by Muslims.

So, to return to the question, “Why, pray tell, does Muhammad put such words in Allah’s mouth?” Since neither the Qur’an nor the Hadith ever directly address the issue or explain the phenomenon any answer would have to be inferred from Qur’anic usage. What, then, is the explanation, and what are the relevant premises or facts that demonstrate it to be correct?

I take the explanation that its meaning is only known to Allah to be a non-answer, a convenient out for an issue on which the Qur’an gives no guidance. For those Muslims who think Allah's use of plural pronouns means something, and who further think the meaning of these words can be known from the “revelation” of the Qur’an, a word that means nothing in this regard if what is said in the Qur’an on this issue is only intelligible to Allah, then please speak up.

Nota Bene: If you are a Muslim, I am not asking what you think my view is. I’m looking for a positive answer to the question and not a “refutation” of what anyone thinks my view may be.

If you are a non-Muslim, feel free to share any answer from Muslim sources of which you are aware.