By Imam Shamshad A. Nasir and Jonathan M.A.Ghaffar
(Baitul Hameed Mosque — 11941 Ramona Ave., Chino, CA 91710 — Ph. 909-627-2252 Email: shamshadanasir@gmail.com — JonathanMAG@Gmail.com )
The Christmas season is here, and with it, the focus turns to Jesus (peace be upon him). Over this past year, I have read numerous essays from ministers proclaiming Jesus is God, that he was God in the flesh when he walked this earth 2,000 years ago, and that he was also — at the same time — God’s physical son who came to die as payment for our sins so that all who accept him as their Lord and Savior can go to heaven.
This is all very confusing and raises many questions, a few of which I humbly pose to Trinitarian Christians: Who do you focus on as God when you pray? Is it the Father, the Son, or the Holy Spirit? Do you pray to each one equally, unequally or all together? Calling them “three-in-one” doesn’t make it so. The classical definition of Trinity — “God the Father, and God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit” — creates three separate “gods” in your mind. Saying they are all still “one” doesn’t change this. The language still defines them as three separate gods. And I’m guessing for most Christians, their focus on God comes mainly through Jesus.
Now, all Muslims are taught to respect and believe in Jesus as a true prophet sent by God to the Israelites as their messiah. But no Muslim considers Jesus to be God incarnate as a human being and/or the literal Son of God whose purpose was to die an accursed death for anyone’s sins.
The truth is that Paul knew these ideas came from Greek religion (see Acts 14:11 and www.POCM.info) and he merged them with Judaism to successfully preach to the Greeks, Romans and Gentiles. The result is the Christianity we have to this day — be it Catholic or Protestant — which tells Christians they must believe Jesus is God and/or the literal Son of God, who died for their sins and was resurrected. If Christians reject any or all of these beliefs, they lose their salvation. Paul understood this and stated (in 1 Cor.15:14) that: “If Christ is not risen, our preaching and our faith are in vain.”
This Holiday (Holy Day) Season, I ask our Christian readers to ask themselves: “Who is really God?” Is He God the Father? This is what Jesus, being a practicing Jew, believed. Jesus was a humble servant who bowed down and prayed to God the Father, not to himself. Jesus never said (or seemed to know) he was God in the flesh who came to die for our sins or that we must worship him as God. Christians can only present a few statements by Jesus — such as “The Father and I are one” and “If you have seen me you have seen the Father” — as “proof” that Jesus is saying he is equal to God or God Himself in the flesh. But these statements can easily be understood as metaphorical allusions, not literal pronouncements. Here is what Jesus said on who God is and who he is that is not metaphorical: “God is spirit so worship Him in spirit and truth. . . I am the Christ [i.e., the one anointed by God as His prophet and messiah ]. . .” (John 4:24-26)
Here are two more statements by Jesus that every Christian should study and reflect on: “. . . I desire not sacrifice, but mercy; I came not for the righteous, but for the sinners to repent.” (Matt. 9:13) And: “This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom You have sent.” (John 17:3) It doesn’t get any clearer than that. Jesus says he came for sinners to repent, not for him to die for their sins. And Jesus says clearly the only true God is his spiritual Father, Who (in Matt.15:24) sent His spiritual son to “only gather the Lost Sheep of the House of Israel.”
And speaking of God, He speaks for Himself as to who and what He is — Christians must decide who they are going to believe and follow: God or Paul. God states clearly in the Old Testament in Numbers 23:19 that He is not a human being [because they lie and God doesn’t ], nor is He a Son of Man [i.e., a prophet ] that He repents. What does “repent” mean? Exodus 32:30-34 explains this when it relates the story of the Israelites who, after being freed from slavery in Egypt, built and worshiped a golden calf. When Moses pleaded before God to be punished instead for their sin of idol worship, God tells Moses He does not punish the innocent for the sins of the guilty — it is the sinners who must repent of their sins in order to achieve atonement (at-one-ment) with God.
A common response by Christians who believe that Jesus is God is to say that, since God can do anything, He can choose to manifest on earth as a human being. Why is this so objectionable? The reason is simple: for God to be All-Powerful, All-Knowing, Ever-Living, and possess all the divine qualities we expect in the Supreme Being Who created the universe and everything in it, God cannot be “put in a box.” In Christianity, the box is called Jesus. In reality, there is no “box” that can hold Him – no fire or man or animal or celestial body or even the entire universe. When other religions claim their gods are human beings, cats, cows, the sun, moon and planets, etc., no Christian declares these gods are real or true — except when the claim is about Jesus. Then the same falsehood is suddenly true.
In Isaiah 43:10 God says that before Him there was no god formed, and there shall be none formed after Him. Since God has no beginning and no end, this can only mean that God is telling Isaiah that at no time in the past was there any god formed, and there shall be no god formed at any time in the future. Every Christian believes Jesus was conceived and formed in the womb of his mother, Mary, who bore him nine months later as a helpless infant totally dependent on his mother for his existence. The fact that Jesus was physically created — weak, helpless and dependent on others — means he cannot be God because God is none of those things.
If God is limited by physical dimensions, He becomes finite instead of infinite, created instead of uncreated, corporeal instead of non-corporeal. Only God lives forever and has no beginning or end. All else is His creation — including Jesus. To expunge idolatry from the hearts of the Israelites, God forbade them to worship any created object or being or to make any image of Him. Christians who believe Jesus is God in the flesh and have created images of him have broken the first two of God’s Ten Commandments in Exodus 20:3-17.
Islam says God is One. He has no partners, no equals, no children. There is no Trinity or worship of human beings in Islam. We only worship God, five times a day. God’s Final Law, the Holy Quran, answers every social, moral and spiritual need of mankind for all times and all situations. Salvation is available to all from God directly through His infinite Grace and all-encompassing Mercy. He has all power to forgive, without requiring the murder of His son or Himself as His son to pay Himself for your sins. It’s all a matter of focus. God can put His focus on you alone. Can you put your focus on God alone? As Muslims, that’s our focus. What’s yours?
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The Ahmadiyya Muslim Community is a dynamic, fast-growing international revival movement within Islam. Founded in 1889, the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community spans 200 countries with membership exceeding tens of millions. Their motto is: “Love for All – Hatred for None.”
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Categories: Catholicism, ISLAM
I must say a very resourceful article. author gave some excellent logics that god can not be three. He is only one. Ennjoyed reading it.
God is One. I wonder where from the church got the idea of three Gods. Jesus a.s. did not preach the theory of three gods. I read the four gospels. That is the life story of Jesus. There I do not find any trace of three gods. Jesus a.s. life story was based on One God, the God of the Jews. The church cannot prove three gods.
Thank you for taking the time to consider the doctrine of the Trinity. Your summary of Christian belief, though, involves some misunderstandings. We believe that Christ is uncreated. He was not made as a man. He was already God, and chose to become a human being. See John 8:58, where Jesus says “Very truly I tell you, before Abraham was born, I am!” As a Catholic Christian, I believe that God’s nature is Love. God is also eternal, and so God must have existed as at least two persons, the Father and the Son, in order for that Love to exist. Love cannot exist alone. It requires another person to love. We also know that Love is fruitful. God’s love is infinite, and so the love between the Father and the Son was so great that another person proceeded from it, who is also God. This is the Holy Spirit. We can see the Holy Spirit proceeding from both the Father and the Son in John’s Gospel as well. John 20:22 quotes Jesus as breathing on his apostles saying “Receive the Holy Spirit.”, and in John 15:26 where Jesus says that he will send the Holy Spirit, the Paraclete, who comes from God the Father. The Nicene Creed says that we believe in “God from God, Light from Light, True God from True God, begotten not made, one in being with Father.” There can only be one God, but God’s nature is such that there is a union of three persons within that one God. This arises out of God’s nature as Love, and this is a mystery beyond human comprehension. It is not accurate to speak of Jesus as a being created by God in physical form. The three persons of the Trinity are of one substance existing because that substance is Love. God’s nature as Love gives rise to this.
In response to the question of who we pray to, we may pray to any or all of the persons of God at any time. We sometimes do a similar thing with people when we may address someone’s rational side, or their emotional side. We may say “As a parent, what would you do?” or “As a doctor, what would you do?” or “What does the baseball coach want you to do?” This doesn’t mean that there are three people: a doctor, a parent, and a baseball coach. A person can be doctor and a parent and a baseball coach. In the same way, addressing God the Father and God the Son and God the Holy Spirit doesn’t mean that there are three gods, but that God is Father, and Son, and Holy Spirit just as the man can be parent, and doctor, and baseball coach. This is a simplification, but a useful one. Because God is infinite, and a mystery, all powerful, and loving, God exceeds what a man can do. In my example, the man has three vocations. God is so great that there are not merely three aspects of God, but three entire persons without ceasing to be one single God. And so we can address God as Father, Son, or Holy Spirit, or all of them together just as we can address a man as a parent, a doctor, a coach, or simply says the man’s name.
Thank you for your forbearance for my clarification of what Christians believe. I pray that God blesses you immensely.
The discussion on trinity reminds me of a pamphlet I saw in Africa, Ghana I think. The title was ” how to convert a Muslim (to Christianity) “. And it started with the sentence: Do not speak about Trinity to a Muslim. He will not understand it. As far as I am concerned the pamphlet was right. I just don’t get it. And consequently I am so happy with the Islamic description of Allah: “He is Allah, the One, He begets not nor is He begotten, and no one is equal to Him”…
this is why i dont believe in people who claim to be son of God, or progeny of God or image of God.
Doug, you say that man can be a parent, a doctor, a player (a coach). Do you mean that God has different functions, nature of jobs? Then it can be more than three also.
A man can be a father, a gardener, a farmer, a decorator and a performer at the same time. That will not be a Triune God. It will be five gods in One.
I had asked for the proof of Trinity from the 4 gospels. I do not need any persons theory. It should be from Jesus a.s. Not someone’s ideas.
Church has used secret words, for too much, too long. i.e. begotten, risen etc. without explaining them. Now I hear that Trinity is mystery. That is not good. Let us not make the religion mysterious. Let us have real rational beliefs. Please try again, for Trinity.
Rafiq, even St. Augustine had a vision of a child who told him understanding the Trinity was like trying to empty the ocean with a little cup. But we can understand some of it. I think that even if God were as Muslims understand Him to be that we would still be unable to peer into His nature. The lack of understanding is a human limitation, but not something that disproves the Trinity. Do Muslims have a teaching that encompasses the entire being of God, His existence and mode of being?
Ghulam, it is admittedly not an exact analogy. My intent was not to debate, but to clarify what it is that Christians, at least Catholics and most Protestants believe about the Trinity.
But I would like to answer you question. While Christ did not specifically say that God was a Trinity, the Gospels do speak of God as being a Trinity. The Gospel of John opens with “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God.” The Word is Jesus Christ. If there is one God, but the Christ both IS God, and IS WITH God, then God must be more than one person existing in one substance. Everything else in the Gospel of John, and in the other Gospels is read in that light. And so it is not irrational. It is revealed that God is both the Father and the Son in that opening sentence in John’s Gospel, which then goes on to describe that the world was created through Christ. It goes on to say “The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us.” This means Christ was not created, but chose to be with us in a form that we could be with, befriend, and understand. He did not come to write a book. He came to save us from our sins, and those who were with him passed on His words to us. And so later it is revealed that God is not only the Father and the Son, but breathes forth the Holy Spirit in the passages I had previously cited, who comes from the Father through the Son. The opening of the Gospel of John is the basis for the doctrine of the Trinity. I do not know the etiquette regarding speaking of your religion, and so I will only speak of my own so as not to inadvertently offend. But I do know that the Trinity is often misunderstood even by Christians who have not been well educated.
The words used are not secret. They simply need to be defined for what they are. Languages change over time, and older terms are retained to avoid misunderstanding. Sometimes precise words are borrowed, such as the idea of “substance” was borrowed from Aristotle to describe the Trinity. Words are used with a particular understanding specifically so that misunderstandings are less likely to happen. The meanings can be understood by reading the Church councils or books on theology. I myself did not understand it until the internet came along and I had the means to learn. I found St. Thomas Aquinas’ Summa Theologica and the early Church Fathers to be useful in understanding. But they are not necessary, only helpful for addressing objections. The Gospel of John is sufficient.
In the Name of Allah the Most Gracious Ever Merciful
Very Frail God of Christianity: head
With due apology from Christian: A critical analyses of the dogma of 2nd god
A poor god who devolved for 9 months on the periodical (dirty) blood of Holy Mary like any other human being.
A god who came out of the ovary of Holy Mary like any other human being.
A god whose birth according to Jews an illegitimate birth.
A pity god in the hands of Jews, like a rat in the possession of a cat to abase him to spit on his face while dragging him on the cross with thorny hat on his head.
A painful god crying with pain and praying, Eli Eli lima shabeqtani
Where as our Universal God Allah is Omni potent.
I do not mean to injure feelings of any person this analyses is just thought provoking and I beg apology from Christian people.
Zarif Ahmad
In the Name of Allah the Most Gracious Ever Merciful
Very Frail God of Christianity:
With due apology from Christian: A critical analyses of the dogma of 2nd god head
A poor god who devolved for 9 months on the periodical (dirty) blood of Holy Mary like any other human being.
A god who came out of the ovary of Holy Mary like any other human being.
A god whose birth according to Jews an illegitimate birth.
A pity god in the hands of Jews, like a rat in the possession of a cat to abase him to spit on his face while dragging him on the cross with thorny hat on his head.
A painful god crying with pain and praying, Eli Eli lima shabeqtani
Where as our Universal God Allah is Omani potent.
A god who could die on the cross, and hence as per Holy Bible and as per Christian dogma was accursed for three days and three nights and became satan for the same period of time?
I do not mean to injure feelings of any person this analyses is just thought provoking and I beg apology from Christian people.
Zarif Ahmad
Read more: http://www.themuslimtimes.org/2013/12/islam-2/god-is-one-not-three-in-one#ixzz2nhN7fGlv
To make a LONG STORY SHORT, to all brothers around the world who are seekers of truth please listen its easy to hide yourself behind computers screens propagating the same nonsense over the Christian belief of the Trinity you begin to sound like a bunch of parrots, no offense to you but I want Muslims whom I find to be for the most part pretty nice people but so are atheists, whenever you enter an endeavor to discuss a subject which you don’t understand you first have to put your biases away and look objectively at what the Christian point of view is reflecting is it absurd and if so why.
Unfortunately Muslim apologetics have gotten bogged down into repetitious name calling and attempts of make Christians look like fools for believing in a Trinity. Let me ask you a question if I may.
The Bibles first verse Genesis 1:1 is a declaration of God (the Source creating the Heavens and the Earth yes or no you have
3 abstracts but 1 God who brings all things into being the Universe the heavens,earth, and the seas
3 abstracts 1 place called, filled with many things, irrefutable” unless you wish to remain double ignorant. Chapter 2 says God takes Adam from the dust of the earth breaths life into him with the breath of life.
Next Genesis 2:21-23 a rib is used to create Havah the woman given to the man to be fruitful” and to multiply Yes but multiply what well children of course so from the Father and Mother we get families the product of their union, eternal trinity.
Now you know as well as I do that God is one but just as all artist leave a distinguishable imprint upon their creation just a unique to the Creator is his divine fingerprint, Everything you can think about from the very structure of your brain is triune, language root structure are triune, philosophical syllogism and argumentation are triune, even the way we talk, sing, are just as triune in structure as the triune universe we live in described and time, space and matter which are also triune. Hope that you are able to take an honest look at the world that God has given us and see the intricacies of his triune creations my friend asa’lamu leikum Peace be with you my brother in the Mighty name of Jesus”