Jeffrey Lang – The Concept of God 171
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AI: Transcript ©
That's
May I have your attention, please?
Ladies and gentlemen, I'd like to, thank you
very much for coming to tonight's program.
And I hope that you will enjoy the
program, and you will learn,
a lot from this,
program.
This program, in fact, is the first of
its kind,
as far as I know, in recent history,
have not seen it done in any place
else in the format we're proposing tonight.
Unfortunately,
we as Christians and Muslims, we
have lots in common.
Unfortunately,
many people do not realize that, do not
realize that. And the point is we all
believe
in the,
in the one God who created you and
me, and created everybody else, who created the
heavens and the earth. And this belief is
being shared by,
both sides.
There are lots of myths and lots of
misunderstanding that come from both sides.
And I
think that this meeting will help us a
lot in terms of understanding and communicating
with one another.
In fact, when we when I thought about
this,
this dialogue,
I
first time that came in mind, was when,
doctor Woodbury was here
3 years ago in Kansas City, and we're
making a dialogue. And I suggested to him
that we make a Christian Muslim,
Christian
Muslim conference.
And,
I proposed after that,
since we had lots of,
of dialogues between Christians and Muslims,
and it seemed that
we learned the hard way. We learned through
mistakes. There were lots of mistakes in the
dialogue that were made.
People were
kind of
oriented towards winning or scoring some points.
And hence,
somebody might come at the end of the
program and throw a point that needs
a whole session by itself,
leaving no time for the other side to
make comment or
or at least make a good explanation for
the point.
And hence, I suggested,
at the time to,
doctor Woodbury and, to doctor Jamelle Bedouy,
to doctor,
Robert Douglas, to doctor,
that we should have
a conference in which
the papers will be presented.
And in, that one, I suggested that each
team sends his papers to me, and then
I send it to the other side. They
would review it and send it back to
the other side.
And then during that conference itself, everybody makes
presentation of the paper
and, defends his paper, like anybody who's defending
a PhD or master thesis.
Same similar to that. I mean, you know,
it's not that way, but I'm just trying
to make it simple.
And, that was the idea. However,
time passed and, we could not make it
that way because of, you know, everybody is
busy. So I suggested
to the people who are here,
to doctor,
Douglas, that we should make it simpler
just by having this kind of meaning, this
kind of dialogue, a get together, a discussion.
And that's how this dialogue was brought about.
And hence, you
I hope now you realize that it's gonna
be a friendly,
and it's gonna be,
a dialogue that is based on
trying to understand
one another.
For the, dialogue itself,
we will start with presentations.
I'll talk to you now about the format.
We'll start with presentation
by each side,
during the next session, which is titled the
concept of God. As you see in the
program, we have 4
basic, titles, and the first of them is
the, concept of God. Then we'll move into
prophethood and divinity of Jesus tomorrow, and the
divinity,
revelation and divinity,
of the books, and then on Sunday, we'll
discuss
salvation. So the first one here, we'll start
with,
10 minutes presentation by each side, presenting his
views on how
they understand
the concept of God, on both sides. And
after that, we'll start an interactive discussion,
during among the panel
members themselves.
And at the end, during the last
half an hour,
we're gonna start taking comments and reactions from
you.
That's the way it's gonna be. And tomorrow,
we'll
talk to you about, just to save time
now, we'll we'll,
you know, we'll delay talking about the rest
of the program till tomorrow.
So,
one point I wanted to mention that, this
program is being
organized by the
Center For Islamic Information International, which
is the people who are working on that,
and they have experience in that, including myself,
including,
Sheikha.
And, this is the committee of the religious
dialogue. And hopefully, depending on that dialogue,
I hope
you will let us pass the test,
because we
are hoping to have a better understanding, so,
we'll
do the best we can to have this
understanding.
And,
we'll have a break between 8 and 9.
We'll make it 8, 10 till 9.
So now we'll start the first session by
presentation
of each side
would you like to start or would you
like to start?
It doesn't make any difference?
You want to okay.
We must start some other time.
Alright.
Most Christians and Muslims in my understanding,
worship the same God, although we understand Him
in some ways differently, in many ways,
the same.
The
Christians in in Arabia use the word Allah
for God before,
the time of Mohammed.
The Christians in the Arab world still use,
the word Allah for,
God.
Furthermore, this would be in, keeping 46.
I
46.
I can't quite get that. Could you get
that on me?
Quran verse 46 in the Egyptian,
45 in the pugel edition. It says, we
believe in what has been sent down to
you, our God, and your God is 1.
So we are talking about the one creator
being of the universe even though the Christian
would see him,
incarnated,
revealed through,
Jesus Christ.
Furthermore, for the attributes,
we identify
essentially
the same attributes,
in the names of God
and, in the attributes that we stress.
However, in my understanding, we sometimes stress different
attributes.
Orthodox Muslim theologians
stress the sovereignty of God.
Christians often stress,
the love of God.
And,
however, the difference is not that,
we don't believe both believe in the love
of God. 1 of the 99 names of
God is the Wadud, the loving one.
What I see as the difference is that,
in the Koran and the Bible,
we have a difference in the,
the direction of love. That is, in the
Bible, God
loves us even when we are unlovely.
For example, Romans 5:8, God shows his love
for us and that while we were yet
sinners, Christ died for us.
Or 1st John 4:10, here in his love,
not that we loved God, but that he
loved us
and gave himself to be the propitiation
for our sins.
Whereas,
in my reading of the Quran,
God's love is a reciprocal
love.
That is in Surah
3 verse, 29 and Flugel 31 and 30
2 in the Egyptian edition.
If you would love god, follow me. God
will love you and forgive your sins.
God is forgiving and merciful.
But if you turn your backs, God loves
not the disbelievers
or the ungrateful.
Furthermore,
there are similar attitudes
towards God.
The whole
concept of
if God wills, is certainly a biblical principle
too,
in James 415.
The concept of Islam itself that is of
submission to God is certainly a biblical principle.
Again, in the epistle of James,
we are told to,
that Christians are to submit,
to God.
The basic
difference then seems to come more in the
area of the trinity or the trinity
in unity.
One thing we have to note at the
very beginning is that Christians do believe in
the unity of God.
Deuteronomy 64 says the Lord our God is
one Lord.
Mark 12,
28
through 30,
here is where Jesus is speaking. He says,
the Lord our God, the Lord
is 1.
And so we do believe in the unity
of God and whatever we say about his
revelation,
in three ways or through what have been
called three persons,
this is still a way of expressing,
the unity of God.
Now I am not at all sure that
the Quran
is rejecting
an Orthodox Christian view of the Trinity.
First of all, when,
apparently in Surah 5 verse 116,
it talks about,
Allah, Jesus, and Mary as it would seem
to be the 3 persons of the Trinity,
this certainly is not talking about a
orthodox Christian understanding. It says, oh, Jesus, son
of Mary, didst thou say,
unto mankind,
take me and my mother for 2 gods
besides Allah.
Furthermore, when the Quran in Surah 4 verses
169
or 171
depending on your translation,
says, say not 3.
I
if we are thinking of 3 gods,
the Christians don't believe
in, 3 gods. So that would seem to
be, very possibly a rejection
of tritheism or the belief in 3 gods,
which,
Christians do not,
believe in.
Now when we come to,
how do we understand or how might we
explain
to the extent that we can explain,
how god can be 1 and yet express
himself,
through 3 persons or in 3 ways,
let's indicate what
the concept of the Trinity
does for the Christian.
The Christian, like the Muslim, is very interested
in worshiping god aright.
And to worship god aright, there is the
need to understand him,
rightly.
And, we feel that we can understand
him,
as he has revealed
himself through a person rather than just revealing
his will,
through a law.
Furthermore,
the Holy Spirit
in John 1613,
Jesus says the spirit of truth is coming.
When he comes, he will lead you into
all truth.
And so the function of the Holy Spirit,
again, is to help us understand God better
so that we can worship him better. The
very thing that both Christians and Muslims
want to do.
Secondly,
we need to look at
experience in the lives of the,
disciples.
They sit certainly did not sit down as
philosophers
theologians in the Hellenic or Greek world of
a later date,
how God could be 1 and free. But
they experienced
living with a man, Jesus Christ, who was
a man,
and they knew at the end of this
time that somehow God was in Christ.
And, they experienced a power after the day
of Pentecost when the Spirit of God came
upon them that could only be
explained as a divine,
power.
See,
we're talking about unity, but, there are various
kinds of unity and the higher the form,
the more complex. For example, there's a unity
in plant life, in, animal life, in human
life? And is it not,
logical to expect that in God, the highest
form of all life, there would be even
a more complex form of unity.
Now the medieval
theologians
in Islam, when they did not understand something
about God, they often said, we believe it,
and then use the term literally
without how.
And so in both our faiths, there are
many things that we don't fully,
understand.
But let me just suggest,
a model in the Quran,
or certain lines of thought that might make
it more easy to understand a Christian view
of how God can be 3 in 1.
I don't think Muslims would have, trouble thinking
of God
as a spirit because they certainly do not
want to think of him in material terms.
And then the Quran
in surah 4 verse 1,
71 or 169, depending on your translation says,
Jesus is a spirit from God. Now I'm
not saying that it means the same thing
as Christians would understand here. Yet, nevertheless,
in some way, God so breathed up his
spirit
into Mary and upon Christ or into Christ
that he could be called a spirit
from,
God.
And then although the Quran in different places
seems to mean different things by,
spirit,
Certainly, in many places, it is of a
being
higher than the angels that is personal.
This is what, your early commentators,
Muslim commentators on the Quran,
would say. And so you have verses like
Surah 16 verse 102 or 104, depending on
your translation, which says, the Holy Spirit was
made to descend
from his Lord.
Well, if we think of God as a
spirit, and his spirit can be in different
places,
I think it helps us to see,
the relationship
that we have,
in scripture between a father, a son, and
the holy spirit,
which is not to be thought in anthropomorphic
terms,
that is in human terms, but in relational
terms.
And I think I've used my 10 minutes.
Well, thank you very much. Would it be
appropriate for my side to add anything at
this time? Yeah. Sure. Would
you like to add anything? Any of the,
members of the panel, please?
Well, I guess I would only say one
thing that You get the mic closer to
you.
I think there are a couple of places,
and I would just take one from the
Old Testament and one from the New Testament,
where Okay.
Okay.
I will take one place from the Old
Testament and one from the New,
where in a sense, I think God is
giving us an answer to this question. What
is god like in the, in the Christian
view?
And in the old testament, you get a
very lovely and beautiful picture.
It talks about the creation,
and God is
with Adam and Eve.
And he comes down into the garden
and is that as it were, he holds
hands with
them. He wants to relate to them. He
walks with them,
enjoys the creation that he has made,
and he is in close fellowship. And what
grieves him is when Adam sins
and then,
he hides himself.
And, basically, this is the problem of all
Muslims and Christians.
Ultimately,
we have a a gulf or a gap
between us and God, and there is some
sense in which our sin has turned us
away from God. Now that is a picture
where God is the one who comes down
and holds hands with us
and wants to have fellowship with us in
the cool of the evening.
Then there's another picture in the new testament
in Luke 15. It tells a story
where you have
a father
who,
permits his son or one of his sons
to take away the wealth
or his inheritance
and go off and waste it on,
in evil and, and with his friends and
as far as he can get from the
father.
And what is the response of the father?
Does he hate the son, you ingrate?
Does he respond to the son as one
who,
is unworthy to come back into the house?
Or when the son runs out of friends
and runs out of money, which happens at
the same time as usual,
Then
we find the son coming back, sensing he
is unworthy.
And does the father receive the son?
The father is, as it were, waiting on
tippy toes
for that son to come back. And then
when the son comes back, he embraces him.
Now these, I think, are 2 pictures that
tell us a bit of what God is
like in the Christian view.
Well, thank you.
You're welcome. Maybe just just 2 quick comments.
1 is in the Lord's prayer.
Our father
in heaven,
and for us, both of those phrases are
very important.
The father image
suggests relationship,
suggests love, nearness, many things
to us, but it's also in heaven. There
is the sovereignty,
the greatness, the power, the majesty of God,
that even the, in a sense, the Lord's
Prayer, the first phrase,
reminds us of 2 very important aspects of
God.
And a second quick comment is that many
Muslims have wondered why
in the New Testament there isn't more emphasis
on the oneness of God.
And I think at stake there was not
so much the oneness of God,
because the Jewish community already believed
in the oneness of God. That was not
at stake.
It was not a question of paganism
of many gods.
At stake was the question of the sovereignty
of God.
So what if you believe that there is
one God? Allah ahad la ilaha illallah.
So what? What difference does it make
in the society,
in
the human community itself?
Even the devil believes in the oneness of
God.
So at at stake really was not so
much, you know, the unity of God, but
the sovereignty
of God and how that was to manifest
and, show itself.
May the peace, blessing, and mercy of Allah
be with you.
I'd like to start with 3 very quick
preliminary
observations.
One is that, this kind of dialogue is
on a totally different level,
and that means to me 2 things 3
things. 1 is that we can delve directly
in the topic,
as we did and we are doing now.
Secondly, that we can afford to present things
in a very brief and capsulized way, leaving
best for the discussion.
Thirdly,
we can be more frank and candid and
make the presentation in a comparative way so
that we can quickly come to points
of understanding.
And I do expect from my colleagues, both
on the Muslim side and the Christian side,
to
feel free to challenge whatever is being said,
because my approach in this and several other
topics would be to look at the areas
of commonality
and discuss also the areas of difference. And
it's quite conceivable
that someone may say, hey, you think that
this is an area of similarity? It's not.
Or you did not mention a very major
and crucial area of difference. So this is
just a preliminary
discussion structure.
To apply that approach, then my first question,
where do we meet
as Muslims and Christians? I would summarize that
in 10 points. I run them through them
very
quickly. 1, is the reality of god.
God is not an imagination,
is not a myth,
is not an entity created in man's own
image.
2,
Allah and the universe are not one and
the same. So there is the separateness even
though we can speak also about imminence imminence
of God. But god and the universe are
not equal, and as such, there is nothing
like
or pantheism
in either religions.
3,
god is not a mere concept or philosophy.
That's why I wasn't too comfortable even with
the topic concept of god. God is not
a concept. Maybe conception,
our conception about God. God is not a
concept
or dry idea.
God is a is living God. He interacts
with us, we interact with him, there is
a mutuality of response throughout history.
4,
god loves us and cares for us and
is ready to forgive us. We have only
to seek his ample mercy and great wishes
available.
5, god also require us to show some
mutuality in that expression of love
through faith in him
and good deeds,
and as such as professor Vogler said to
show, not just to say that there is
one God, but to show that also in
society and in action.
Number 6,
our obedience to God is for our own
benefit because he doesn't need us. Allah is
Samad means the one on whom everyone depends,
but he does not depend on anyone.
And in the meantime, our disobedience to him
hurts us, it doesn't hurt him. So it's
our for own benefit.
7,
rebellion
against god without
repentance has its own negative consequences
in this life
or the hereafter
or both.
Not because God is a vengeful God who
loves to torment
and punish people but as the Quran
says
What would God do with punishing you, if
you are simply grateful and have faith in
him. But we cannot say that rebellion and
obedience are to be equated. Each one has
its own,
consequences.
Number 8.
In my understanding also in both communities,
we admit that we cannot fully understand everything
about god
or his actions and wisdom in history
and in the universe.
Yet we have complete faith in him,
in his justice,
and his mercy.
And but in the meantime, we also believe
that God does not want us to accept
something
that can be proven false,
that is self contradictory
or impossible. He may ask us to believe
in something that is beyond our grasp, but
not self contradictory,
prepositions.
And that means
also that when God communicates to us, he
communicates in a language
that we can understand, which cannot convey the
true meaning,
and as such, it is an analogical
wording that we have to be quite careful
how we read it and not to be
too literal, unnecessarily.
Number 9,
I believe there is agreement between the two
communities on
the fundamental attributes
of god. I just mentioned a dozen very
quickly.
Supremacy,
creation,
eternity,
omnipresence,
being
omnipotent,
being omniscient,
transcendence
of god, holiness,
justice,
righteousness,
love, compassion,
forgiveness, you can go on and on, and
I believe these are commonly shared attributes.
Number 10,
that Allah or God is 1,
at least in the sense that neither community
believe in dualism,
tritheism,
or polytheism.
There's no question about that.
Any
learned Muslim
should know that.
But this last point, I didn't put last
even though it's the most important
because it's least. It is the most important,
but paradoxically
speaking, it is an area of similarity, but
it is an area also that relates to
a fundamental area of difference, and that moves
me to the issue of difference. Where do
we differ?
Now, the basic difference is that in my
understanding, and I hope I'm not misrepresenting the
Christian faith by any means,
is that our Christian brethren
claim that God chose to enter history in
a given time, 2000 years ago, in a
decisive way,
by becoming a man and dwelling among us,
having a fellowship
with us,
and through the Christ events,
particularly the crucifixion
and resurrection,
we are we are giving the formula for
overcoming sin. I hope that this is an
honest summary.
A Muslim would respond to that basically by
saying, no,
God did not become man, but the man
Jesus Christ, the human being, the prophet, was
made God
through human
philosophy
and theology.
I believe that this issue and the issues
related to Trinity, especially some of the points
made by doctor Woodbury, I'd like to comment
on, but I feel that the topic fits
here and fits also in the discussion on
is Jesus God, so I'd like to reserve
some of these for later times as well.
But what I'd like to address here in
the remaining minutes
is to explain the essence of that difference
by explaining what tawhid in Islam means.
The word tawhid has been imperfectly translated as
monotheism,
but this is not the way the Muslim
understand it, and the term tawhid is much
more comprehensive than the term monotheism.
To explain that, we can say that there
are 3 essential conditions for tawhid.
One is
which means
unity of lordship,
that means God alone is the sole creator,
sustainer and cherisher of the universe
and all in between.
And I believe that point is a point
of agreement not only with the Christian faith,
but with Jews, and maybe other world religions.
Even the pagan Arabs before Islam
did not deny that there is only one
creator of all the universe.
The second condition
is
which means that since God is the sole
creator and sustainer of the universe,
then he alone is the one who is
worthy of worship and devotion.
Which means that none is to be worshipped
instead of him,
alongside with him, nor is God to be
worshipped through any of his creatures,
Jesus, Abraham, Muhammad or anyone else, and I
believe that this could be an area perhaps
of difference.
In fact, as the Quran says, say
O
Muhammad, if it were true that God had
a son, I would be the first
to worship.
And then it continues,
may glory be to God from what they
associate with him.
The third aspect of tawhid which is very
crucial,
is the unity of,
you might say, the essence
and attributes of God
that God is 1 in person, that there
is no
persons in the one Godhood,
which requires that God is to be described
with all perfection,
to be free from all deficiencies,
that there is no parts within godhood,
but there is also no persons in that
Godhood whether it is called,
trinity or triunity.
Even that has been negated in the Quran,
not only the
streams that has been rejected by the Christian
faith.
Muslims accept the attributes
of God, not only as tree, and there's
no reason to stop at 3, but 99.
But these are taken as attributes,
but not persons. One quick word before I
finish,
is the issue of shirk.
Any
deficiency in the conditions of tawhid is regarded
in Islam as shirk.
Shirk literally means to associate with
or to join with.
And this has been mistakenly translated in some
christian literature as polytheism.
No, Sherk includes polytheism but not restricted to
that, it does include any deficiency in the
condition which mean, Trinity also would be, according
to Muslim theology, part
of the broader concept
of shirk.
To conclude,
the question of shirk is very serious in
the Quran,
and it says in the Quran that God
is willing to forgive anything but He will
never forgive
that anyone associate others with Him, that means
in His exclusive
divine attributes such as eternity,
or creation,
or acting as judge. In fact it quotes
Prophet Jesus as
warning the children of Israel that they should
worship
God,
their Lord, and his Lord, and that anyone
who associates others with God, God will forbid
paradise to him. So to conclude then,
muslims feel that they are the restorers of
the true monotheism taught by all of the
prophets including Jesus, peace be upon him. Thank
you. Any of the other
you wanna add some? Yeah.
I
just wanted to have a couple of points.
I noticed the speaker
said that, at one point that the Quran
seems to be condemning tritheism,
confusing the idea of trinity with the belief
of, belief in,
there being 3 gods.
And also it seemed to confuse the trinity
with the belief that God and Mary and
Jesus,
made up the trinity.
And that, this seems to be the Quran
or prophet Mohammed's attention.
I read it differently.
Let me just refer to a couple of
statements,
very quickly. The Quran does strongly denounce certain
doctrinal statements of Christianity.
It rejects and certain doctrinal statements of Judaism
as well or certain, types of statements. It
rejects, for example, the use of Jews and
Christians of the phrase, son of God.
Even though they used them in a different
sense.
For example, in one verse, the Quran says,
the Jews say that Uzaira is the son
of God and the Christians say the Messiah
is the son of God. Then goes on
to say that this is the saying from
their mouth.
In this, they but imitate
the deniers of truth of all what the
deniers of truth or the ungrateful
or the rejecters of truth used to say
of all.
It singles out Christianity in particular for formulating
the concept of, Christianity for formulating the concept
of trinity. It says, don't say 3.
Desist.
It'll be better for
you. For God is 1. Glory be to
him above having a son.
And it also criticizes very strongly the wide
spread,
practice among some major Christian sects of worshiping
Jesus and his mother, Mary.
It says, and behold,
God will say, oh Jesus, son of Mary,
did you say unto mankind, worship me and
my mother as gods and derogation of God?
He will say glory be to you. Never
could I say what I had no right.
Had I said such a thing, you would
indeed
have known it. Now, these were the 3,
verses I think that were addressed.
Now it very well be that Prophet Muhammad,
peace be upon him, had little personal knowledge
of these enigmatic tenets.
But the conclusions that the Quran is assuming
that the Christians,
believe in a certain type of tritheism,
or that Mary, and Jesus, and,
God made up the trinity,
is only an interpretation,
a conjecture.
And it's very difficult to prove based on
the Quran itself.
It's quite obvious from the text that the
issue for the Quran And the Quran is
very pragmatic.
As doctor Jamal Bedouy said, and it is
Some of our Christian friends have said, revelation
isn't there to reveal all there is to
know about God.
But from the Koranic standpoint, it's there to
guide us to correct worship of God and
towards spiritual growth.
The problem for the Quran and these statements
is clearly with the wording.
Thus it stresses, the Jews say,
the Christians say, and don't say, in the
above verses I quoted. Because these expressions in
the words of the Quran,
imitate.
They imitate idol worship. And we and it
would be better to avoid such language.
Even in the if, even though the 2
religions use the expression,
son of God, in different ways and in
different senses,
they are warned of the inherent dangers in
the words.
This is the Quran's approach towards religion. It's
very pragmatic, very practical.
The fact that the Quran does not substitute,
they believe
for they say,
in these references,
argues for an awareness on the part of
the Quran, that the symbols are open to
a range of theological interpretations.
Thus, we find other passages that include some
Christians and Jews as true believers in God.
I'll just finish up now because Hamid's
Alright.
The Quran is not so much concerned here
with theological postulates,
as it is with the effect of these
formulations
I'm a common man.
For the common Jew may come to believe,
in the Jewish sense of understanding the word
son of God, that the Jews, to the
exclusion of all others, are god's beloved people.
And the average Christian could very easily mislead,
misread these doctrinal statements and conclude
or understand
that Jesus is god, or the begotten son
of god in some literal sense.
And even that his mother should be objects
of prayer and worship.
To this day, if you ask any Christian
if Jesus is literally God's son,
and if he should be worshiped, he's more
than likely to respond in the affirmative.
And Christians are likely to say, or Catholics,
the same about Mary.
That Mary is the mother of God. And
they pray to him, oh, Mary, mother of
God.
Thus, these references,
especially the one to the trinity,
are aware of this very real
hazard.
That the Quran's concern is with the misleading
character of the above mentioned doctrinal phrases. It's
further evidence This is my last sentence.
By its own references to Jesus as a
messiah,
a spirit,
and a word from God.
In effect, indicating that these descriptions
used by Christians
are acceptable. Yet not exclusive to Jesus. Exclusive
to Jesus.
But really, I think we're mis misreading the
point. The Quran is very concerned with the
danger of these doctrinal statements
formulated by men because they could mislead their
communities
away from submission to God. This seems to
be a very big concern. I just wanted
to,
emphasize that
point. Sorry it took so long.
Well, we'll try to talk. Can you hear
me at the time?
You hear me alright?
I think everybody has the same level as
me so.
Yeah?
Well as long as you can communicate with
me the rest can do the same thing
without, needing to use the this mic anyhow.
We finished this,
this for
this portion now. They might wanna respond.
We'll have to
you have to forgive me because we running
out of time, but I will let you
talk if you have any comment to make
and then we'll move to the second part
sorry
kind of was
taken away by the time Would you like
to add any? The only comment that I
would like to make in regards to the
Trinity
and with all the philosophical Can can you
speak a lot? Sure.
With all all the philosophical
points
that we can add
in regard to the definition
of the trinity.
The fact remains
that Jesus, peace be upon him,
never
thought
anything. Jesus, peace be upon him, never mentioned
anything
about 3
divine persons
combined in 1 godhead.
The doctor of Trinity was established
by father Athanasios
in the council of Nicea,
325
years after Jesus.
And Athanasius creed reads,
there is one person of the father,
another of the son,
and another of the holy ghost.
These are the words of father as in
ages.
These are not the words of Jesus.
Thank you.
You wanna add anything?
Okay. Good. That's what I wanna get to.
So
can we start with Let me just mention,
2 verses.
Do you need to speak into the mic?
Yes, please. For the recording.
Let me just,
mention 2 verses which, would show that Jesus,
was talking in terms of three centers of
consciousness.
Athanasius
was not,
putting together,
making something up in his own mind 300
years later.
In Matthew 2819,
the disciples are told to baptist
baptize in the name of the Father and
the Son and the Holy Spirit.
And in John 14/16,
Jesus says, I will pray the father, and
he will give you another
counselor,
comforter.
So that,
certainly,
whether or not we agree with the way
that the Greek mind,
tried to put these facts together,
our lord was talking to someone
that he called father and talking about
a, spirit
that had
among his functions,
the function of being a comforter.
Do
you have any comment here? We'll move back
to you. Okay.
That's okay. We'll just take one here, one
one comment here, one comment here, and maybe
we can change it later or so.
That's what we're doing now. He he made
a comment, and, doctor Woodberry made a comment,
and then doctor Jamal Badewona
made a comment. Okay. I have quite few,
but again, in terms of time, it'll take
almost equal time also.
Just since the doctor Wilbury mentioned that, and
that's fresh in our mind.
About the baptismal formula, according to a new
Catholic Encyclopedia, they say that this formula is
not known as to whether this actually were
the word of Jesus or were
another earlier baptism formula. So again, the question
of and that will come of course in
the question of the Bible,
and the discussion of the authority and authenticity.
But even if you take it, when it
says, baptized in the name of the Father
and the Son and the Holy Ghost, it
didn't say which are 1, and I think
there could be a major difference there.
The John 1416
about the
comforter or paracleteus,
that
he will will come down.
I think there have been other interpretations, other
legitimate interpretations,
some of the early Christians even believed that
the Paracletus is a person, not a spirit.
And they have been people already who claim
to be paraclete throughout history, and Muslim would
claim actually that this paraclete is a reference
to prophet Muhammad, peace be upon you. Of
course, that's a big topic, but maybe you
can discuss that also, is prophet Muhammad a
prophet? So I'm just making it quick. My
third quick point also,
doctor Woodbury mentioned earlier that, we, muslims and
christians, believe in the same attributes of God,
but we emphasize different ones.
Muslims or classical theologians emphasizing the might
and transcendence of God, while a Christian emphasizes
love.
I would say that it is not the
difference between Islam and Christianity,
but it may be a difference within the
religious community.
Because when you look at the Sufis for
example, I'm not talking about diverted Sufis, our
people who went too far.
True Sufism,
that is in line with the Quran and
Sunnah, actually emphasizes so much of the love
of God than the might of God,
as was reported by a lady, Muslim saint
Rabbi Al Aduyya, when she said, O God,
if I am worshiping You only because of
Your
paradise,
forbid that paradise to me. If I am
worshiping bliss
of
your
presence,
in
the
hereafter,
then
and the aspiration to enjoy the bliss of
your presence, in the hereafter, then deprive me
not of that privilege.
In fact, in muslim daily life, the 5
daily prayers, it's nothing but the expression of
that outpouring
of love and direct and personal relationship with
God, if we go beyond the formalism, which
is not the essence. The same applies to
fasting, charity and others. So I don't think
there is really,
relative emphasis. I don't think this is the
case in Islam,
and I hope also in Christianity,
at least among some,
there is some degree of balance between both.
Well, my comment had to do rather with
the
well, my comment would go on to the
Quran itself,
where I see see in the Bible a
love of God for those who are unlovely.
Whereas,
even Daoud
under whom I studied
when he was still a Muslim, he later
on became a Christian. But in his book,
God of Justice,
where he, as a Muslim, was studying the
Quran,
he,
in his study of the Quran, said God
in the Quran only loves those who love
him. He does not love those who,
do not love him. And I could give
many verses, but the passage I referred to,
would,
I think, express this.
If you love God, follow me. God will
love you and forgive your sins.
But if you turn your back, God loves
not
the disbelievers
or, ungrateful.
So,
that was the purpose of my life. Okay.
Before before you move, doctor Jamal Badu, would
you like to do you share him the
same opinion, would you like to add any
point to the same point?
To the same point, please.
Then let's let's, Jen, finish this point. May
I speak to that? No, we're now talking
about God loves those who love Him, so
this is the point we're dealing with right
now. Okay. I'd like to respond to that,
actually because this was on my list also
of points.
In fact, the ayah has nothing to do
with saying that God loves only those who
love Him. If the context of the ayah
is quite different, the context of the ayah
is to provide an acid test
for devotion to God, because it says say
o Muhammad to people, if you truly love
God,
show it, let us follow me, God will
love you more and forgive your sins. On
the other hand, the opposite of that, if
you want to rebel against God,
If they turn their back away, reject that
grace of God, then it says we did
not send you O Muhammad as a guardian
over them. So it has nothing to do
with the question of God only loving those
who love him, because, indeed, as the prophet
Muhammad indicates,
he says if this whole world
is worth even a wing of a fly
in the sight of God, he would have
not given a drink of water to unbeliever.
Which means that even the unbeliever, God cares
for him. God cares for him, provides for
him, and still give him our heart ample
opportunities and chances to turn back to him.
So that notion
interpreted by mister Rapper, it is his interpretation,
it's not the understanding of Muslims, it's not
the context of the Quran.
Just a second, we we're getting we're getting
heated, so that's that's good, it's getting better.
It's getting better.
Well,
and then,
same point, please. We'll we'll move. Same point.
We'll come back to you. Okay. Yeah.
But there is no one single verse to
translate into that particular statement.
Not to my memory and I do the
words that Quran, and I do really think.
But there is one thing I would like
to share with
you, and I would like an interaction here.
If God sends somebody to help fight, does
he send it to a fight out of
love?
Out of compassion?
I want your
answer. I don't know.
Okay. The unity in Christianity,
does God have a head fire?
Yes. He does. According to the Bible. And
I read here
Matthew 529,
Matthew 187,
Mark 943.
Matthew 1341.
1342.
1348.
4950.
Mark 944.
Luke 1249,
Luke 13:3
and 5. In all of these verses,
there is a great deal of mention
of people being sent to hellfire sent to
hellfire. Is this out of love
to the disbelievers? Yeah.
With you, please.
We have to back up. God made provision
before that person did go to hellfire for
him to be delivered from that. And then
there's another fact, I I think, that you
need to notice that man's response
cannot really change the essential nature of God.
God was ever love at all.
What a person does in his response is
not going to change the essential nature of
God. And in Christianity,
God is love. But in Islam,
the basic seven attributes
of God,
which have historically been recognized
by Muslims, and I I presume you accept
them too, or as stated by Al Nasafi
in his creed on God, it says, he
has qualities from all eternity existing in his
essence.
They are not he nor are they other
than he. Now then it gives the list.
Here,
they are knowledge and power and life and
strength
and hearing and seeing and doing and creating
and sustaining and speech.
Now
love could have been stressed in that. This
is a Muslim speaking, not a Christian. He
gives things that are very good things, but
he does not stress in the same way
that Christianity does, that God is love.
Alright. If I may answer that, please.
No. No. It was my turn. Okay.
Can I suggest that maybe we should have,
a strict team leader
I believe it was? Either he speaks or
give to one of his teams, I think
that would make it,
more organized. I think we we will just
allow everybody to talk, provided you just help
us
do this program.
Jeffrey Land. I,
tend to, have a slightly agree with the
other side in a certain sense.
In a sense that the Quran, when it
talks about love,
between God and,
human,
it does sort of speak of a reciprocating
relationship.
Giving and receiving
reciprocating sort of relationship. So God loves the
believers and the believers
love God.
It emphasizes this. It doesn't say God loves
only the believers, but I think it does
emphasize that point. And I I have a
tend to have to say that's true. The
Quran talks about another type of love though
which God gives and encompasses
all things, and this is very comes out
very clearly in the prophetic hadith
is that God's mercy
is one of his often most mentioned,
qualities in the attributes in the Quran,
Ar Rahman and Arraheem.
They're the 2 of the most mentioned. They
appear 100 of times in the Quran. And
this is the way the Muslim pictures got
in his faith. He sees God's mercy embracing
all things and above all things. But the
relationship that the human has with God, this
reciprocating and give and take relationship between the
believer and God is,
is love. So, you know, the point of
it is is that the Quran is not
going to tell the
the disbeliever that God loves you. Because he's
trying to save his soul, to direct him
to submission to god and to surrender to
god. Because isn't that is what his salvation
depends.
So he doesn't wanna mislead him away from
that. He promises that his mercy extends over
all things. And the Muslim concept of mercy
is something that's given like a mother gives
mercy with expecting nothing in return.
So you're talking about mercy? Yes. So it's
the concept of mercy in Islam includes this
love given freely.
Okay. The restricted sense of love to give
and take relationship, I believe the Quran does
stress that between the believer and God. Thank
you.
I think we should also
give him a chance to go ahead. Yeah.
Let me just, because,
the statement was said that,
nowhere in the Quran does,
god
does god
not love Right. Certain people.
And,
just this one verse was exegeted.
And I,
I fully admit and appreciate the fact that
most of the surahs of the Quran that
start out with Bismillahrafahrafahrafah
Anurahi,
in the name of God, the beneficent, the
merciful.
But,
you have many verses like this.
God does not love those who transgress,
Surah 5 verse 87.
He does not love the unjust, Surah 3
verse 140. And both there are many examples
that could be given of both of these.
He does not love those who disbelieve,
Sura 30 verse 45. Yes. So,
my
my question
you know, I Yes. His mercy embraces all
things. Different But that dress. Dress. Yeah. But
that
very special
reciprocating love, that highest form of love exists
between the believer and God. You say something.
You just said it. Something.
Different. Let's finish this point quickly, wrap it
up, and then we'll move to the other
point, doctor. Doctor Vagola, you had something to
say? We'll come back to you.
I would say on this that, within the
Christian community,
we've had a lot of,
debates, internal debates on many of these same
issues.
And,
Still are. Yeah. Still are.
That in a sense, we we
some of us have spoken of
double predestination.
Some are predestined to
heaven and some are predestined to *.
In other words, those that go to *,
this sort of solves that problem. They they
were destined for that.
Many in the Christian church didn't exactly appreciate
it. It preserved the sovereignty of God. For
sure, God was, ruling
over all.
Then there is the other side which would
be sort of universalist.
God wills that everyone be saved.
And in fact, finally, everyone will be saved.
Ultimately, you cannot say no to the love
of God.
This is also something that appeals deeply, I
think, to scripture and also to something very
deep within us that
God's will, God's mercy
will somehow
certain problems.
Then we had what we call Pelagian,
who believe that, yes, God wills to save
all, God wants to save all, but it
still depends on man to respond.
Man needs to
initiate,
and God will respond. Man needs to have
faith. God will, you know, answer this.
The church finally said that plagianism is is
a heresy.
Because in a sense, it
finally perhaps makes man in control of his
own destiny.
It says that man has truly the freedom
to respond or not to respond.
Man is, in a sense, even more powerful
over his own destiny
than God him
that it becomes very dangerous and has many
ramifications
that, you know, man is not the measure
of all things.
In a deeper sense,
man is not really free to choose.
There is a sense in which
we don't have the freedom within ourselves.
We are not truly free individuals
to make
a choice about our own destiny. There are
so many factors involved
that we don't even know about.
That
somehow, what I think the Christian church has
finally come to say is that God himself
needs to set us free.
See? It's not that we are free, but
that God,
in his mercy, in his love, in his
grace, through his prophets,
he
he takes the
initiative. He must set us free. God must
set us free.
And then, in a sense,
we we respond
or we are open to him.
So we have the images of the of
the good shepherd. Right? Yeah.
The the good shepherd going out.
He leaves the 99 and goes out after
the 1.
So that's in in other words, god's love,
god's mercy, initiates
the action.
And it's not so much us then that
have the freedom to to call
for God's mercy or his anger.
Thank you, doctor Maghala. I think we should
wrap this point up and move to the
other point. So this is the last we
we not gonna, you know A reference was
made earlier to one of the muslim writers
who in a given context mentioned 7
of the paramount, what he considered to be
paramount attributes of God.
But muslims are not obliged
to accept one particular opinion or one particular
expose.
The reference for muslim is the Quran. The
Quran speak about 99, not 7, 99. So
the author was dealing with certain
aspect in a certain context, so that should
not be an argument really against Islam as
such. And as doctor Woodbury mentioned earlier,
one of the most beautiful names of God
in the Quran, Al Wadud, to me that's
better than saying God is love. Because God
is love is a very ambiguous statement. Al
Wadud actually has been translated correctly by Yousef
Ali, as one who is
most intense
in loving compassion.
So this actually is an issue which is
quite clear in terms of the expression
of the Quran. The second thing,
the references that doctor Woodbury made to the
Quran that Allah loves
pious people, Allah doesn't love evildoers.
It doesn't mean God doesn't care about them,
but this is only the logical thing to
do.
Or else do we expect the Quran to
say God loves even doers. So somebody says
if God loves me because of that, I'm
I'm going to do some more some more
evil. No. Obviously.
So, the context in which the Quran says
God loves those who do good, who are
charitable,
who are pious, who are kind to others,
the purpose behind it is to stress
the importance
of those acts, good acts so that the
person would do it to achieve that divine
love. And when the Quran say Allah does
not love this, does not love that, does
not love this kind of behavior, actually it
refers to the behavior really, rather than saying
he doesn't care about the person. As far
as caring for people, as the prophet
once explained when he looked at a woman
carrying her baby very compassionately,
he said God is more loving
and caring for you than this woman
love for her own child. And final, one
final remark.
We should not get to into this sometimes
area of the statistical calculation, how many times
the word love appears in the Quran. That
would be rather
a surface way really of looking at it.
Because love is not a slogan in the
Quran as doctor Woodbury indicated.
Each and every begins
with the attribute of mercy of Allah, not
might.
Not paramount,
omnipresent
and omniscient. Arrahman al Rahim, most compassionate, most
graceful.
With this kind of and that appears in
113 out of 114.
If you add the other ayaat in the
Quran that takes this attribute of mercy of
Allah, which is connected to love, organically connected
love, you get more than 260
places.
In fact, one of these attributes
that the Quran describes
connecting with love,
is that God
is forgiving
and most intense
in His love and compassion. Which means that,
the fact that Islam is saying that God
is willing to forgive
without bloodshed, shed, actually is a manifestation
of that Defying Love. Okay. Thank you.
Okay. You have one more comment for this
side.
One of you, I'll make it. You or
doctor Mosi?
Check if you can make the comment, and
then I have to come.
We'll have to move to the another time.
Thank you. Go ahead,
sir. My comment here is
just I have to read some of the
verses I got here in the bible. I'm
quoting,
Matthew,
1341,
where Jesus
gave the parable and the example of
God my command who has a net.
He threw the net in the sea to
fish. He got in the net, fish, that
is good and fish at the back.
He will take the good and he will
throw away what is bad.
That example is given in the Bible. Does
he love the bad? Why does he throw
it away?
Not only that,
but it goes on on Mark 9 44,
where Jesus said, if your hand
gives you,
sin and pain,
then better cut it and be maimed
rather than,
and
better cut it and be maimed, and get
to the paradise,
rather than going with 2 hands to *
that is unquenchable.
* that is unquenchable.
Does this mean love to the sinner?
Does this mean love to the sinner? Okay,
Keith.
Yeah. As he's asking a question,
You're giving me a hard time. Go ahead.
So I I would like really to move
to, sir, another point. I mean, you know,
we got discussed the concept of God, so
Can we ask this? Well, I might have
some related Yes, please. Go ahead, doctor. Move
to another point. Yes.
Those ten points, where do we meet?
And
I think I think
we we do meet at these points.
However,
I just want to pick up the 4th
and the 6th point. In the 4th point,
you mentioned that God loves us,
cares,
and is ready to forgive.
And in the 6th point,
our obedience is for our benefit because god
does does not need us.
And I think that is is fundamental both
for Muslim and Christian.
However,
when we think about God's love and care,
it seems to me this is at least
how I understand the the
the the biblical witness,
of the Christian tradition. The Hebrew scriptures are
what we call the Old Testament and and
the New Testament.
That,
there is a is a quality to this
will of God to love
that not only has consequence for us,
but also
has consequence
for God.
Let me,
say a little bit more.
A fundamental metaphor, social metaphor for understanding God
in the Christian,
tradition
is the metaphor of
parent
and child,
and you have also made use of that
metaphor,
the mother and child.
And our most common prayer is our father
who art in heaven.
Now
we understand,
at least
the way I understand,
God's love and mercy
is within the framework framework
of this parent child
image.
When the child,
goes astray,
that has consequence for the child, but it
also has consequence for the parent.
The parent is is is distraught.
The parent seeks for that child.
It has consequence.
Now there is another metaphor whereby to understand
mercy,
and that would be a,
a master servant
metaphor.
There too, you can have mercy.
The master can choose to forgive
the servant or the slave
if the slave has done wrong.
But
the master is not obligated
to do so.
It,
the the the the master may choose not
to forgive.
And,
I think of a biblical parable where a
a a servant
owed a lot to the master, and the
master said, pay up.
And the servant said, I ain't I haven't
got the money.
And the master said, okay. You're going to
jail. And the and the servant begged, have
mercy on me. And so the master had
mercy upon him and forgave him his debt.
But then he went to another person who
owed him money. That is the servant went
to another person and said, pay up. And
the guy said, I haven't got the money,
and threw him in jail.
And when the master heard about this, the
master said, I forgive you your threw him
into jail. So the master is not obligated,
threw him into jail. So the master is
not obligated,
in in any sense to the servant. That's
a different
image whereby to understand mercy.
So I I just want to throw this
out. How do we deal with with that?
And it it connects also with,
this question about
throwing into * and and love.
The way
we Can we just make it shorter, please?
It'll be short. The way we need to
understand these
passages of judgment, I think, is in the
context of
Jesus as he relates to the question of
judgment.
As he was in drew at Jerusalem, he
looked over the city
and,
he wept.
And he said, how I have called you
and urged you and you would not.
And then he said, judgment is coming.
And it was in the context of pain
and weeping
that those words of judgment were were were
were spoken.
So I don't know,
if if this makes some Yes.
Okay. I don't see that as a major
area of difference really because I was speaking
in a different context than you saw. I
don't think we're different than that.
When I was saying that God does not
mean our worship, and when we disobey him,
it is us who are hurt.
I was saying that in the context that
God is a that he doesn't depend on
us. In other words, his existence, his might,
his powers, will not be affected if all
mankind obey him or disobey him.
So it is not somebody like an image
of someone who is a tyrant who want
to satisfy his evil that people are bowing
down to him, or anything of that nature.
But on the other hand, I agree with
you and that's not different from my understanding
as a Muslim also,
that when we do the right thing,
we there is consequences for God, not that
he would be affected in the human sense,
but he would be pleased with that. And
that's why we speak always in Islam about
achieving the pleasure of God. That when we
do the right thing, he's pleased with us.
There is consequence in that particular meaning, and
I don't disagree with that at all.
But not consequence that his existence would be
affected one way
or the other. And the fact that we
achieve God pleasure, the consequence is simply because
he loves us, and that's why he's pleased,
when he see us going in the right
direction.
The other comment I'd like to make on
the question of master servant relationship.
Again like I mentioned in my presentation, it
depends of course on the kind of analogical
language we use.
But even if you take God as master,
and we are as servants, it's quite different
from the human nature
of slavery.
Because number 1, in human slavery, there is
compulsion. Somebody is taken and put into under
slavery.
In the case of Islam, one chooses
to be a servant, to serve God, as
all prophets including Jesus spoke about serving God,
consciously.
Number 2, in the human sense,
beside compulsion, a slave
toils, so that the master can benefit. He
does work for him. He helps him.
Yet, in the case of Islam,
the the servant of God
is doing something,
obeying God, yet he is the beneficiary. God
doesn't need anything, but he gets all the
kind of benefit for that. So in that
sense, whether you took it in the imagery
of father and son, which by the way
could be problematic because even relationship between father
and son is not always good.
There might be lots of conflict, there might
be lots of problems, might be one way
of looking at it, legitimate way perhaps,
but on the other hand, the true
meaning, the of the servitude to God, which
all prophets use that term, is quite different
from the human analogy, and that's that we
could possibly be still on the same line.
As far as the question of mercy, as
the Quran puts it beautifully,
whether he's obligated or not. Yes, nobody can
obligate God, and I think as christians probably
believe
that. But as the Quran says, Allah ordained
on himself to be merciful. Not that anybody
Self obligation. Self obligation.
I think since he has a question, I
guess he has an objection that he, we
are kind of getting out
out of the subject, or out of the,
topic we're discussing. So You're talking about God?
Yeah. Well, since he has a he has
a phone, so we'll get a question from
here and a question from here, and we'll
see how it goes. Okay. My question to
relates to what Jesus
himself,
we are told that have said in the
new testament.
In Matthew chapter 4 verse 10, Jesus
said, thou shall worship the Lord our God
and him only.
And in the old testament, in Deuteronomy chapter
6, Leviticus chapter 19,
Moses said, hear O Israel, the Lord our
God is when God.
When Jesus was asked
what is the first to all the commandments?
He said, here, oh Israel, the Lord our
God is when? God.
When someone told him good in Matthew chapter
19, he said why do you call me
good? There is only one that is good
and that is God.
And when the disciples asked him to whom
shall we pray?
He said, you only pray to our father.
So he identified only 1 individual to be
prayed to.
Now if the council of Nicaea and father
Athanasius
did not develop
the trinity creed,
who didn't develop it? Can you put it
for me in the letter of Jesus?
Yeah.
Doctor. Bagularo?
Well, right now it's quite clear historically that
Christians do believe in the Trinity. Now you're
saying you began at the abenatious or at
some point in time.
Now just think of the,
historical improbability of what you're,
suggesting here.
Did at some point the Christians come together
and say,
let's manufacture some belief that no one can
understand,
that really no one's gonna believe in, that
we really don't need.
And, now let's find a way to get
all the Christians together
and accept this teaching.
And couldn't event like that ever happen
and no one in the Christian church ever
raise a hand and say, hold it. I
don't agree with that. Now you all know
how Christians tend to disagree with each other.
That is. Could have could you have a,
an event of this magnitude
actually occurring? And what would be the motivation
for it? Now I would suggest to you
the reason why Christians have
formulated the wording of something which they already
experienced and believed in,
The formulation of words is not the same
thing as creating the belief.
The formulation of words is after the Christian
church
experiences
that there is one God, they experience also
in their lives, there is a Holy Spirit.
This God that they worship is not one
who is without a spirit. He is a
spirit and this God has promised to import
that spirit to humans, to those who believe
upon him. And then they find as they
look at the person of Jesus Christ and
what he does for them,
they find that it is insufficient just to
reduce him to a mere man. He is
a man. But at the same time, they
find that there is some unusual link.
And so they try to find a way
to
put together their experience
and also what these scriptures teach about this.
And you have something which states what the
church has already
been committed to, but hasn't been articulated
with specific word or wording. So there's no
motivation for creating a trinity out of out
of nothing.
So what you are saying is it's developed
by the church, not taught by Jesus. No.
No. No. You you missed it. Okay. I
asked you for a quotation from Jesus which
he teaches But let me explain just verbally
again.
The articulation of the word Trinity comes at
some later point in history.
The belief in the experience was already there.
Indeed, you find
pictures of this even into the old testament
where there is this God has a spirit.
I'm sure you would not say that God
is devoid of spirit.
And, therefore, well, if God is God but
he has a spirit, we've just heard he
has 99 attributes.
Well,
how do you relate that to the essence
of God too? There there are some problems
that you face that we face too. If
you are honest with your problems, you will
find that
our problems are understandable.
Okay. Well,
we'll we'll have a we'll have a question
here and we'll have an answer from both
of you.
I think you could I comment on Yeah.
I wanted to comment actually on what, Okay.
Is is the comment on the same this
This topic really should come under maybe is
the the divinity of Christ. It would fit
more adequately there.
Oh, I know. Actually, that was one of
my feeling, and actually before the meeting, we
had some discussion. And,
quite legitimately,
discussion of the question of trinity or claims
about Jesus,
or by Jesus, allegedly,
also,
might fit both under the discussion of concept
of God, but I think I agree with
my, colleagues on both sides, really, that
it might fit best in the discussion on
the question, is Jesus God. Even though I
feel very tempted to make a comment on
this, but I'll hold myself and if we
can move on to that point side, I
have other comments, if it's our chance. Let's
listen to doctor Jeffrey Adams.
Yes.
Excuse me. Would there not to be a
question though from this side? I do have
a question. I think Is this about the
2 questions from that side? Thank you. He
has a question. We'll we'll come back. I
just have a one question to, to our
Muslim friends.
From what I hear,
would you say that it's possible
for us to sin against God?
We sin against neighbor. We sin against ourselves.
We sin against nature. But,
I'm thinking, for example, of David in the
Psalm 51. Against thee and thee alone have
I sinned.
Well, how in in, from a Muslim perspective,
how does 1 or can one sin
against God? Is it even a possibility? And
what what might it mean? And what is
the significance of it? What do you mean
by sin against God?
You can repeat it.
The question is the biggest question. David David's
comment in in in Psalm 51,
against thee and thee alone Mhmm. Have I
sinned. I think the the the biblical image
is very much
that that we do sin and can sin
against God.
And it would relate to what Paul was
saying that,
if God can rejoice at our obedience, can
he also be Yes. Angry or hurt or
pained at our disobedience? Not in that human
sense. Yeah. Can,
but
I'll I'll let you speak because, doctor Jeffrey
is raising his hand long time. So let
him
Well,
the emphasis in the Quran
when it talks about sin
is that when one sins,
he sins primarily against himself.
This is the emphasis in the Quran.
The idea is that the human on earth
is in a creative
stage of his existence,
where he is trying to grow in virtue,
compassion,
mercy,
love,
all the attributes really that really originate from
God. He's trying to grow in these in
a human sense.
When he submits to God
and directs his growth in that way,
then
his he's growing in his spirituality. He is
fulfilling his purpose on earth. When he rebels
against God or does not submit to God
or commits evil acts, the primary casualty
of that sin is himself. So the Quran
repeatedly
emphasizes that when man sins, he sins against
himself. The word used for sin is dong.
In Arabic, that means to oppress, to rob,
to destroy, to do violence.
To commit oppression. So when the human sins
in the Islamic sense, he is oppressing himself,
destroying himself, depriving himself of his spiritual growth.
So, you know,
when this is a very deep subject, but
we have to come back and maybe this
will be taken up in the next couple
of days. The Muslim concept
of what is man's purpose in life? Why
is he here? Why didn't God just pop
him into heaven in the first place, for
example?
And as we work out that question, we'll
come to see that that is where the
central concept of sin lies in Islam. When
you work against the purpose for which you
were here, when you work against your spiritual
growth, you're committing sin,
then you are indeed hurting others. But the
primary casualty
of that, as the Quran says every deed
will be seen on the day of judgement.
Every the effect of every deed will be
seen. So the primary casualty of our single
deeds is
ourselves. Yeah. You wanna re I was just
a reinterpretation
that,
the doctor referred to. Go ahead. Go ahead.
You're referring to David,
Psalm 51. Right? David explained what happened.
Okay? He said, have mercy with me, oh,
God, according to thy steadfast love. According to
thy abundant mercy,
blot out my, transgressions.
That's what he's doing. And he continue to
say, wash me thoroughly from my inequity,
and cleanse me from my sin.
For I know my transgressions, and my sin
is ever before me.
Against thee, thee only have I sinned,
and done that which is evil in thy
sight.
So,
as a prophet and all prophets humble themselves
before God. They always ask it for mercy
even without doing sins. We believe the prophets,
they might have done mistakes.
That they
being prophets, they will call it sin, and
they will take it seriously. Yes, sir. And
they will take the mercy of God in
a very humble way. But that doesn't mean
that he did a sin against
God. But he accepted and said, I did
which is,
inequity
in God's sight.
So it is a sin. He called the
transgression.
So he explained it is not something that
he did to god.
It is something he did against the more
of god. Okay. Just that you have you
will have 3 chances. Just no. I I
think this Yes. Can can we just finish
it? And then you have 3 chances on
this side. Just Yeah. 20 seconds really, not
no more.
Well, I just like to look to look
at this from another perspective. I can easily,
relate to the comment that you made earlier.
And I fully agree also with with Jeffrey
on this,
that
when you sin against a neighbor or against
a friend,
in a way you're sinning against God because
you're disobeying him. So in in that sense,
I can relate to that. I have no
difficulty with it. But again, I come back
to my remark I made earlier. I understand
that one whole topic is
set aside for the question of sin and
seem there seem to be a tendency among
both groups really
to get into to stray from the mainstream.
I think since sin will be covered,
Jesus and salvation will be covered. So I
think, perhaps, if we focus more on issues
that were raised, because I do have comments
directly related to the things that were said
to come. Okay.
Well, you have Yes. Go ahead. This, of
course, does relate to the question of God.
And
the ruling metaphor,
of
parent child
casts the whole question of wrong
in a somewhat different light. The prodigal son
story that was mentioned earlier,
the young man sinned against himself,
but the far greater
sin
was that he he pained his father.
So it's it's both, but the far more
consequential
dimension is that god
has,
has been,
drawn into this suffering
of
the disobedience
that which our disobedience Thank you. Go ahead.
Ultimately, if the idea is that man sins
against himself, there's a stress on that.
Sin doesn't become sin at all as I
see it. Because if a man decides that
something will be considered sin,
tomorrow he can change his mind on it.
And what's the authority for it? It's just
merely a matter of of opinion.
And so sin then loses
any, criminality or evil. So since I said
it, I'll respond. So we're saying that, if
if,
if if if man sins against himself, well,
you actually do not have a firm hold
on any concept of sin at all because
then
Well You could just be a matter of
opinion. You choose this, but sin becomes sin
when an authority
says something is is in in discord with
a standard.
If man sort of sets up some kind
of arbitrary standard and say, if I do
this, it's sin. If I, do not do
that, it's sin. But then, he may be
wrong in his choice. But God will give
it,
activity. Let me answer your question. As I
mentioned, I said 3 things. 1 is he's
to submit
to God's will. By submitting to God's will,
as revealed in the Quran,
he feels that he is going to achieve
his spiritual growth.
Now those are the 2 things he's trying
to achieve. If he sins,
he's working against that spiritual growth and he's
working and he's and the primary casualty of
that sin is himself. He is destroying
himself. See,
we can't take an Islamic concept and just
translate it into a Christian concept.
We have a different view of the purpose
of life. What is man's struggle on earth?
That'll come up in another lecture. But the
point of this is the Muslim concept of
life, it is a necessary
stage in a man's development.
And when he defeats himself
in that development, he's the primary casualty of
his sin is himself. God does not suffer
anything. He doesn't lose
anything of himself in that. He very well
knows man is going to commit errors in
this life. This life was made so that
that those type of things are he knows
full well that those are going to happen.
But this is a prove this is a
ground from which another stage of ours this
is a place, an environment,
virtue and spirituality.
When we do not do that, when we
defeat ourselves in that process, we sin against
ourselves. I think you're just taking my words
and twisting them out of their context. Thank
you.
We'll just,
Well, just to say that that is not
that that is also a a Christian,
understanding.
The theology by Rheneas, for instance, the
the stages and the development, and that's also
fundamental. But still, it's the question of
this this deeper wrong with respect to God
as over against with respect to myself. Yes.
But Because God has an investment in my
own destiny. Right. The reason why this question
won't be dealt fully here is because we
haven't really gotten at
the Muslim and Christian concept of what is
life all about.
You know, well, I think when we get
into that subject, we'll see we have a
different view of man's earthly struggle.
Well, thank you.
We'll just take one
let us take 2 comments, and then we'll
conclude this part of the session.
Can I,
go ahead? I'm sorry. I was just
Just go ahead. Yeah. If you Sure. No
problem.
The,
I'm not sure it fits exactly here, but
we we, of course, speak of the covenant.
God makes a covenant God's faithfulness. In in
God's mercy, God's love, he is it's a
faithful love. It's, an endearing love.
And I'm thinking here of, of this passage
from Ezekiel, which is,
for us that are so poignant.
Can I just read it to to you
from, Ezekiel 20?
My people, the people of Israel rebelled against
me in the desert. They did not follow
my decrees, but rejected my laws.
Although the man who obeys them will live
by them, and they utterly desecrated my Sabbath.
So I said I would pour out my
wrath on them and destroy them in the
desert.
But for the sake of my name,
I did what would keep it from being
profaned in the eyes of the nation in
whose sight I had brought them out.
And he goes on. In other words, even
for the sake of his name that he
has,
what,
given to the people,
he will not
destroy them for their sins,
though they deserve it, but for the very
sake of his name,
he will deliver them. Now that's a powerful
image for us. It's it's a love that
in a sense will not let us go.
It's a love that that law itself
will not,
understand.
It it goes beyond law.
There's some kind of faithfulness of commitment of
God to his people
that even for the sake of his name,
you see, he will not let them go.
Thank you, doctor Vaghula. Doctor Jamal Belo is
gonna make a comment now, and we'll conclude
this part. We'll come back. This high level
type of discussion is that while you might
get spurred to a little bit of
a heated discussion,
sometimes we discover more similarities than we have
hoped for. In fact, I can very easily
relate to what, doctor Barkula said and doctor
Martinson as well, both.
And we're discovering now we have similarity in
concept. For example,
doctor Martinson was speaking about the notion of
God, the image of father son, as it
relate to someone who sinned, but still being
received by God.
This is a truly Islamic concept and the
prophet explained that in a very nice way
when he said, that one person killed 99
people. And then he went to a holy
man and he said, do I have a
chance to repent? He said, my God, you
killed 99 person?
No chance. No chance. So he killed him
to make it 100 even.
And then he went to another person.
He said, do I have a chance to
repent? He said, why not? Why not go
to such and such place, there are holy
nice people there, believing people, live with them.
And then it says, he died on the
way before he reached the destination.
So whether symbolically, Allah God knows what exactly
the meaning of that. They say that angels
of punishment and angels of mercy came to
fight who's to take his soul? To *
or to paradise?
The angels of mercy said, look, he had
the good intention and he started already on
his way. The angels of prophecy, they said
he never done any good in his life.
He doesn't deserve it. Then it says, God
revealed that the earth should expand
to make him closer to that land of
good people and actually sent an arbiter,
another angel, who said measure it, if he's
closer to the land of the good people,
then he's safe. So I think without the
imagery in Islam necessarily of the father, son,
which is one way, but not necessarily the
exclusive
one, the same concept, the essence of the
love of God, even caring
and opening a chance for a sinner, is
is also an Islamic concept.
What doctor
say, I can relate to without any problem
at all,
that
state God does not destroy. In fact, there
is a verse in the Quran, it says,
that if God,
yeah, Zalman, both, there are 2 ais. So
Zalman, another aya of Zalman, with their oppression
or wrongs.
If God really was to hold people because
of them in one area or what because
of what they earned, I. E. Sins, He
would have not left anything living on earth.
If the wrath of God is tit for
that,
God, the vengeful God, the punishment,
nothing could have been left on this earth
because we have so many sins.
Thank you, doctor Jamal. We'll have the, we'll
start for the break and then,
for Muslims, we're gonna pray the
According to the schedule starting from tomorrow morning.
And,
I'm
gonna start with,
the names of each team because I
forgot to do that at the beginning, so
I apologize for that. And,
to my
immediate right is doctor Dudley Woodberry,
and, all of you might have taken a
chance to look at the,
flyer we have here for the whole
dialogue. And doctor Woodbilly is,
professor at Fuller Theological Seminary,
and he has a PhD in Islamic studies,
a Master's in Arabic Studies, and a vast
experience in research on Islam.
And, currently he's writing a book
titled, Islam from a Christian perspective,
together,
with,
another colleague of his.
And,
doctor Harold Bagular,
and he's a visiting professor at Lutheran School
of Theology Theology in Chicago.
He spent, 16 years in Egypt
and, 10 years in the Gulf area.
And he has a PhD from Columbia University
in Middle Eastern Language and Cultures
with an emphasis on Islamic Studies.
And,
we have,
Doctor
Paul Martinson
and, unfortunately, I did not have a chance
to get the full credit of what he
did, but he's now teaching at
Sampo
School
Lutheran Theological
Seminary. And,
Sampo
Minneapolis.
Am I right?
And we have, Mr. Warren Chastain,
the, Director of the Strategic Project at Zwemer
Institute For Muslim Studies.
And, he's currently working to finish his PhD
in history
and he has a vast experience in dealing
with Muslims and he spent more than 20
years in dealing with,
Muslims.
And to
my extreme to my left here is Doctor.
Jamal Badawi. He's a professor at Saint Mary's
University in Halifax, Canada,
and he has,
written and, has produced many TV programs, more
than 200
TV programs which are aired all over the
Muslim world, and he's considered a leading Muslim
scholar in comparative
religion.
And, we have doctor Hussain Mosi next to
him,
who's a cofounder of the Christian Muslim dialogue
and research committee in Chicago.
And, he
has a very good experience in dialogues, and,
he, in fact, participated,
more than one dialogue before including a dialogue
with, mister Warid Chastain before.
And, then Imam Shaikh Al Sayed, and
he's co founder of the organization that is
funding or that is organizing this activity,
and he's the director of Al Ghazali Islamic
School, and he participated
in, many
dialogues,
Christian Muslim dialogues.
And, then we have doctor Jeffrey Lang
who's a professor at KU in Lawrence,
and he became a Muslim in 1982,
and he did a extensive research on Islam,
and Christianity,
and atheism.
And,
finally he's
here
to share with us his experience and his
knowledge in this field.
Now we're going to continue
the session we started,
And, at the end of the discussion,
we'll go
to
about 10 o'clock.
And, after between 10 and 10:30, we're gonna
take your reactions or your comments or your
questions
if you want
to. So we'll continue the discussion we started,
and,
I
would kindly ask
a comment or a question from here, response
from here, question from here, and a response
from here.
Okay? So,
whosoever has an immediate question about what was
said from both sides, please
bring it up. Go ahead.
Sure, and then you will have the response,
and then you will have your turn to
ask a question and they'll response.
Yeah, go ahead sir.
Doctor Woodbury, in your presentation,
you mentioned that and speak aloud, please. Sure.
Doctor Ubeda, in your presentation you mentioned
that
to Muslims
it seems that God revealed himself himself
in the form of a book or law
that they have to abide by.
To us Christians, you mentioned that he revealed
himself
in the form of a man
that represented God incarnate walking on earth
and shaking hands with people.
I would like to share
I would like to read
a passage
from
the book of Acts chapter 17
verses,
24 and on.
It speaks about God and it speaks particularly
about
the attributes of God, who God is, the
image of God,
and so on. So I would just like
to read it,
and
then I will ask my question.
The verse is going to say the God
who made the world and everything in it,
being Lord of heaven and earth,
does not live in a shrine made by
man,
nor is he served by human hands
as though he needed anything,
since He Himself gives to all men life
and breath and everything.
And He made from one every nation of
men
to live
on all the face of the earth, having
determined allotted periods
and boundaries for their habitation.
They had shown the I'm sorry. That they
should see God in the hope that they
might
feel after Him and find Him. Yet He's
not far from each one of us, for
in Him we live and move and have
our being,
as even some of your poets have said,
for we are indeed His offspring.
Being then God is offspring, we ought not
to think that the deity is like gold
or silver or stone,
a representation by the art and imagination of
man.
The times of ignorance
God overlooked,
but now he commands all men
everywhere to repent.
My question,
to anyone maybe you or anyone,
here the verse seems to me that
there is a a clear suggestion
that God cannot
fit the imagination of man,
nor can he be walked by the representation
of art,
nor can he live in a shrine,
which suggests that God is in heaven as
Jesus spoke about him.
Then
what does this have to do with God
revealing himself in a man form?
It seems to my understanding that whatever
man can imagine is not God, that's how
I read into this verses.
Well,
I I can maybe just, I would just
like to read the last verse to go
on with the next verse. Okay? Just to
and then make a comment here. Mhmm.
For he has set a day when he
will judge the world with justice by the
man he has appointed. He has given proof
of this to all people
by raising him from the dead.
I'm referring, of course, to to, Jesus. Okay.
I'm just
wondering whether,
in a sense,
when God's word
is spoken even through a prophet,
when the prophet has the word of God
within him,
and it becomes part of him.
Does that word, is that in a sense,
is that word of God then incarnated
in
the human being? Is
it
I mean, just by being part of the
prophet, by being part of that human,
is is that
word of God,
that dimension of God as it were,
found in human form already,
you see.
I don't know. It seems to be that
in the Old Testament, there are many instances
where God is almost
almost,
going to break into history himself. It's it's
so close,
but his word is certainly there, and He
can only use words that we can understand.
So already he has to use human form
or human ways and means for communicating.
And then when his word is given to
a prophet, it's part of the prophet.
Isn't that as in in a sense, even
within Islam,
a form of of the word of God
incarnated in human form?
Thank you.
We lost we lost to hear a response.
So I'll just, let you pick up that
question, man. By the way,
for 1 of
you. Well, from your comment.
I think what you, raised is a very
important point,
and it seemed to relate to,
one of the areas
of common
surface misunderstanding
between Muslims and Christians.
When the comparison is made between
the word that became book versus the word
that became flesh.
I can relate to what you said only
in one sense, and that's again a discovery
of a new area of similarity.
If you go back for example to
the question that was raised or post to
Aisha, the wife of the prophet.
What was the character of prophet Mohammed?
Her answer was,
his character was the Quran.
But the Quran, according to Muslims,
is the word of God.
And if prophet Muhammad was the embodiment of
the teaching of the Quran, so you might
say he was the embodiment
of the words of God.
But Muslim take it in a very
very careful way.
Not embodiment in a sense of incarnation.
For in the Christian sense, of course, when
you spoke about the the word or the
locus, the word that became flesh,
It has a totally different connotation.
You're not really speaking about the word as
one of the attributes of God, but as
one of the person
in Godhood.
And as such incarnation here takes or assumes
a different meaning where
the person
within whom the word is becomes
divine.
But like I said, a Muslim would accept
the prophet being the embodiment of the word
of God, but only in the allegorical sense.
And that would not be restricted to prophet
Muhammad or Jesus, it would apply to all
of the prophet. That's one point. The second
point that's very relevant to that also, very
interesting to me,
is that the revelation of the Quran does
not seem to indicate that it's just word,
that the Prophet was like a tape recorder
through whom the Quran was just dictated by
Gabriel, and he speaks.
The Quran also says,
the prophet of Allah has the best of
examples, which mean the embodiment again,
and the exemplification of the word of God
in the Quran, you can find it in
the life of the prophet. But again, it
doesn't have any incarnation in a sense. So
in one sense there is similarity, but I
think when it comes to question of incarnation
and the nature of the world as an
attribute or person in Godhead, is the area
perhaps that I can see is different understanding.
Can I talk and can I do this?
Okay.
If you want we can take 2 from
this side and then we can talk here
too. I just thought if we were gonna
follow this reasoning through Go ahead. On this,
not on something new. It's you who decide
that. So
let me just say that, you read a
verse that talks about the incomprehensibility
of God.
However, revelation becomes,
useless
unless there is also a comprehensibility
of him.
And if we overemphasize
the one or the other,
I think we are in danger. There would
be no value in having the Koran
in many ways if,
or of having the names of God, unless
to a certain extent those names
were expressing
something about God
that went beyond just the will of God.
Now let me at least refer to the
Quran without suggesting that the Quran means the
same thing by Word of God that is
meant by,
the Bible.
It seems to me you at least have,
some possibility
of of 2 shades of meaning
in the Koran.
In Surat At Tauba,
in penance 96,
then protect him so that he may hear
the word of Allah. So this is talking
about about a word written or spoken.
But then in
Surah,
Ali Imran, the family of Imran,
Surah 3 verse 45,
when it says, lo,
Allah give it the glad tidings of a
word from him whose name is the Messiah.
I'm not implying that,
this is a fleshly
kind of word.
Nevertheless,
to even call Jesus a word,
suggests that in some way,
the word is a is
a attached
to him.
Now I realize in our Christian understanding, we
take that far further. When, in John 1
it talks about the Word of God,
becoming flesh.
We mean far more than the Quran does.
But, my major point here is that if
God wants to,
God has revealed
Himself
to a certain extent in the names of
God, I would feel beyond just saying he
revealed his will.
Yeah. One comment on this. I think it's
I appreciate
the point that you raised, and I appreciate
also that,
you were careful to say a word.
Because unfortunately, in some of the other mission
Christian mission in writing,
sometimes, it is mentioned that, the Quran recognizes
that Jesus is the
word of God.
And I think, that's quite significant in terms
of the different meanings attached to them by
both communities.
Of course, in the Christian theology, if I
understand it right, Jesus is not simply a
word
of God, he is that word of God,
the locust that became flesh and with in
us.
And that's such there's uniqueness in that, and
that's, like I mentioned before, it's not simply
an attribute of God. It is,
you know, the second person in,
in Godhood.
But nowhere in the entire Quran does it
ever mention that Jesus is that word of
God.
A word from God. What a word means?
A word could mean a promise. Because like
I say, I gave you my word, a
promise. That's one.
Secondly, in within the physiology of the Quran
also,
it says that the command of Allah,
whenever he decides anything, it's simply to say
to it, be and it is. Which mean
God's creative power
comes even by mere utterance of the word
be. In that sense, when God created Jesus
in the womb created, I'm not emphasizing the
word created according to the Quran, in the
womb of his mother, it was simply the
divine command of God. Even without intervention of
man, Allah creates as you will, and he
said to him, be.
Thirdly,
again within the,
phraseology of the Quran,
we find that there is not only one
word of God, but many words of God.
You are the word of God, I am
the word of God because we are all
signs of the power of God. Just like
the word or sign, the word of God
is the same. And let me quote you
one verse from the Quran.
It says,
if the trees on the earth were to
be thin,
and if all the oceans
and behind it even 7 oceans were to
be ink,
the words in plural
of God would not be exhausted. In Surat
in Kas, surah number 18,
also the word of God is used in
in the plural. So in that sense, they,
that word, and a word would have a
totally
different meaning. When my turn comes, I'd like
to comment on a similar issue also,
on the question of a spirit from him
versus the spirit of God. But again, I
relent for the time being. Thank you. Gotcha.
We we already finished your question, so we'll
have to get a question from you Right.
To them.
Oh, a question?
Well, may I was gonna comment on this.
You see, we started with a question from
them Alright. And
it now we have we get a question
from you. The comment doesn't matter.
Well, I know it doesn't matter. You know,
it's it's very hard for me. You're giving
me understand a hard time. You have to
forget.
Thing. Well, let me formulate my response in
the form of a question.
Danny. But I was thinking
of your initial
comment.
If I
if I understand Islamic history correctly,
as Muslims
reflected upon the status and meaning of the
Quran,
they had to finally
speak of it as uncreated
word of god.
And
as as Christians reflected upon,
their encounter,
with God and Jesus Christ, they had to
reflect upon the status
of Jesus
and also,
found they were compelled to use the word
uncreated.
It seems to me that,
the Word of God,
if if it is an uncreated word of
God, it is eternally
with God.
And God is somehow
obligated
has obligated God's self,
to that word. It is not changeable.
Same as it is with Jesus Christ,
as the Christian understands it, that god is
this
uncreated
reality
that goes by the name of Jesus Christ,
is is itself expressive of the very nature,
quality
of God's
will.
And a difference here, and this maybe this
is how I can put the question,
for clarification, perhaps.
There seems to be a suggestion here that
these are two ways of understanding,
the reality of God.
And from the Christian perspective,
it is
there is a sense
of God as
ultimately
relational,
that God did not have to create the
world to be in relationship,
that
love is a word that requires relationship. God
didn't have to create a world to be
love.
So the the import of word
as uncreated and
person
as uncreated,
has has a different nuance here.
Yeah. I don't wanna contradict what you're saying,
and I don't think we're gonna philosophically,
prove either of our positions. This has been
a long philosophical
debate and refinement in the history of Christianity.
And I think that it has,
I don't think it's logically absurd or something
like that. I think it's, you know, it
has been very carefully philosophically debated by Christians
for a long time. I only wanna present
a different perspective. But before I do, I
would just like to make a comment just
for the Muslims in the audience. Try to
just reemphasize what has been said on the
other side just so that they'll,
get some appreciation of what's going on here.
They're probably lost.
But in any case, as
our panelist said, for Muslims, the Quran is
the,
uncreated eternal,
word of God
revealed as script or scripture.
And,
for Christians,
Jesus is the uncreated,
quote me if I'm wrong, an eternal word
of God revealed as
Christ.
Is that right?
Not that he only verbally communicated,
revelation, but for Christians is every action, every
emotion I would assume, every every word, every
impulse
revealed the eternal word. Is that more or
less,
accurate?
I think it'll get developed more tomorrow. Yes.
In any case, that seems to be the
idea though. Jesus in his humanity revealed
the eternal word. As much as he is
the eternal word revealed, he is divine as
much as he is that revelation is human,
he is man. Is that more or less
right?
Okay.
We only want to. Alright. Okay. But in
any case, I wanted to point out that
Muslims have a slightly different idea the word
of God as doctor Bedawi pointed out.
Though, I think for the Christian,
the I they were somehow influenced by neo
platonic thought. And the word for them is
very much a personality,
almost an individual personality.
And I think that comes out in the
writings of John and etcetera. But for Muslims,
in any case, you may disagree with that.
The word of God is not a separate
personality.
It is that by which God creates.
It is the idea which becomes reality more
or less. These are hard things to define
because none of us fully understand God. But
for the Muslim, the difference is
is that everything that comes into existence comes
into existence by the word of God.
Everything
that comes into existence, in some sense, manifest
the word of God.
And the Muslim, even though the Quran for
him is the eternal word of God revealed,
it is not an object of worship for
him.
As much as Mohammed, peace be upon him,
or any prophet received that divine word in
some mysterious way and communicated to mankind, the
prophets themselves are not objects of worship
or no or nothing in creation because all
that exist comes in to existence
through the word of God.
So, you know, the Muslims would not distinguish.
They wouldn't say and the Quran says it
clearly, we do not distinguish among the messengers.
They all communicated the divine word. They all
received the divine word, but none of them
are objects of worship. Neither anything that is
brought into existence or is revealed to man
or made manifest to man through the divine
word. So I think that's the distinct,
something I just wanted to point out.
I just wanted to point out that,
the the term word, even if it's a
word or the word, the thing is that
it's it's associated to a person, to the
person of Jesus Christ. And in the Koran
and in the Bible, it's not associated with
anyone else. No one else is given that
title. So the association is important.
And I would suggest
that for a Muslim to draw the blessing
or what what the Quran says and what
the Bible says. I think the important point
is, well, if God is saying there's something
important enough to communicate,
there's something that needs to take the form
of a word,
what is it?
And,
as we look at what,
Jesus said and taught, you see where
it is the idea that
in times past, God spoke by many means
and ways to many people. But now, instead
of taking mere words, which was the pattern
of revelation in past, now God is
saying, in order to reveal myself,
words will not be sufficient because,
the only way a person can be revealed
is through a person meeting that person.
And so when Jesus is the word of
God, he's expressing the heart of God.
And it it does give a uniqueness in
whether it is a a word or the
word.
God wants to get a message across to
us. And I kinda think there's a fear
in the Muslim porters that we have to
be careful lest anything in the Quran,
elevate Jesus too much.
And so there's a tendency to to diminish
the significance of even Koranic terminology,
lest the Christians take that and abuse it
or misuse it. And then the message is
missed. And so I think,
the question should be, okay, if Jesus is
the word,
what is it that God is trying to
tell us through Jesus?
And Jesus comes across and it's quite clear,
he came to seek and to save.
The Quran agrees
that
he raised the dead.
He healed the blind.
He, he did miracles.
And he claimed also the power to forgive
sins
and deal with the sin issue. And I
think that that this is the the word
that God wants us all to hear and
respond to.
Okay.
I have a few comments on,
this question of the word.
I don't accept the proposal that,
word is associated only with Jesus. I have
already quoted and I can refer you to
more verses in the Quran
where the word is used in plural.
And even when it occurs, it says,
a word from him, not of him.
From him, not of him, and that's also
significant.
The fact that Jesus was mentioned in that
in that particular context because it it suited
the context.
Here is a promise that was given to
Mary before even,
she got, you know, the pregnancy with Jesus,
peace be upon him. So that was suitable.
The fact that he was created according to
the Quran with the command of God, direct
command be,
as a created
human being, is also suitable to say that
he was created by the command of God,
and you have to interpret the Quran within
the physiology of the Quran, and the word
in the Quran appears more than once as
the creative command of God. So I I
don't see how can we say that according
to the Quran, it is only restricted to
that. Number 1. Number 2,
the
question that doctor Martinson raised about the argument
that went on at one point of time
about whether the Quran is created,
Mahdas or Kaleem, you know, older,
are
made.
I think,
while it did take place,
in fact for the If you take the
history of the 1400 years of history of
Islam, you find that this was a minor
point and even the Muslim
scholars and historians,
refer to it as fitna, khalq al Quran,
fitna. That it was a frivolous question, really
that should have not been raised in the
first place, because it seemed to have followed
the steps of philosophers and theologians,
in spite of the fact that Quran is
very simple and very clear to the point.
And in fact, in one sense you could
say that the question is neither or really.
You can say, alright, the word of the
Quran
representing the knowledge of God and His wisdom
is eternal with God, there is no question.
But the Quran as book written on ink
is
in other words the papers themselves are made.
So that was a very minor issue, I
understand of course the issue might have been
to some degree settled in Christianity, but I
think it was a very heated issue and
lies at the heart of theology itself rather
than, as whether the book of God or
the word of God is created or Mahdas,
that's not relevant,
in Islamic context. One final point on this
is the point also raised earlier
about
God
that has to be understood also by us
or else it becomes rather abstract.
In that I believe, Muslim distinguish between the
essence of God
and the attribute of God that he told
us about.
As far as the essence or nature, even
though I know the word essence or nature
is again a loose
term. We're using analogical language again.
When you talk about the essence of God,
it is impossible,
that either a Christian or Muslim would totally
comprehend.
Because if we were
to comprehend
the essence of God, we might as well
be God ourselves. And the Quran is quite
clear on that.
Vision comprehends him not, but he comprehends all.
There is absolutely nothing comparable unto him. Physical
in the world of thought. Again, it doesn't
mean that he's not imminent, that he's just
abstract or high.
But it means basically that we should not
waste our time trying to say what is
the essence of God, what does he look
like, would it be easier for us if
we see him manifest in flesh? No. The
relative issue
the most important issue
is really to learn about the attributes of
God as a reflection, but again the word
reflection is not a very accurate one, as
a sort of proxy
that that give us some indication
about God. But
comprehending the essence of God is is totally
out of question.
I have a question, please.
Or justice?
Are these is is mercy a reliable
characterization of characterization
of God?
Or might God,
if we were to know his nature, which
is beyond
us,
if we were to know that nature, would
God be different
than the God who is mercy? I think
that's what the Christian is concerned about when
we say use the word nature in self
how serious is this attribute of God, God's
mercy?
Does it characterize the reality of God, and
God will never be other
than this
which is mercy.
So
the attribute,
speaks
of the nature of god. You see? So
it penetrates into it somehow. That's what we're
interested. In that noninconventional
sense, I have no difficulty with that.
Well, then, of course,
we have we have not the reality. We
we have to go on from a Christian
perspective.
It does have
incarnational
implications.
The,
the way God relates to the world
is is,
is a profound relationship. And the most profound
way of relating
to anybody,
as we are doing here tonight,
is not just speaking.
You know, we could we could put
boards in front of us
and then speak from behind these boards and
not relate to each other. But we had
to suffer. We are together.
It's person to
person where relationship is at its deepest and
its richest.
So in the understanding of God for the
Christian, it penetrates to that level of, that
love, mercy
is a relational,
relational kind of thing. Yeah. And that's the
area of both of similarity and difference. Because
again, the Muslim would say that's the same
kind of feeling also in terms of,
being a relationship, not just an abstract Yes.
Topical concept.
But again, the Muslim doesn't see necessity for
that incarnation because the love, the relationship with
God could be achieved at the highest level
without resort to that issue of incarnation.
So that perhaps would be the the second
or the final point. I have a good
time, please.
Okay.
See, the
the point about
the manifestation
of God
or
touching him and seeing him
that may influence the type of relationship
and love,
and make it more affectionate or more realistic
or more in existence, so to speak.
Isn't this some sort of, like, a contradiction
to the fact that a believer,
like Jesus said,
blessed are those who believed but see saw
not.
Those who did not see but believed.
The idea of faith in itself is that
we believe in the unseen.
This is one article of faith for muslims.
We believe in God, God is someone that
nobody saw by his naked eyes, or by
a telescope, or any other means. We believe
in the hereafter, nobody lived it, nobody saw
it. But we believe, it's conveyed to us
through prophets, we believe in it.
And,
the love of knowing God while not seeing
God,
as Jesus himself described, is much more
than one who only believes after he sees
or loves after he sees, so to speak.
I think
that,
Muslims
do believe in the unseen in the most
abstract way,
yet the closest
of faith and the strongest of faith. I
think Christians also do believe in the unseen.
I think that Christians also do believe in
the hereafter, they believe in *, in heaven,
in life after death, they believe in the
unseen.
That doesn't make them,
like it less or more to see it
or not to see it. It is a
matter of what repercussions and impact does it
have on our behavior as human,
our relationship to this God that we did
not see, to this life that we never
lived,
and to what happens after death. This relationship
is established on basis of
understanding the faith.
And then once we believe,
it carries on to love and mercy.
Okay.
I think
we have to make a distinction
between what did the prophets
themselves
taught us
and told us and what philosophers
argue and philosophical
discussions.
First of all, God creates
by his will
and he does not incarnate.
2nd, the argument about the Mu'tazila about whether
the Quran was created or uncreated,
like doctor Badawi had pointed out,
this was part of history and this is
not an article of faith. There's not a
requirement for the Muslim
to confess whether the Quran is created or
uncreated as part of his faith. So this
is
a theological
argument among the theologians.
They can settle it one way or the
other but have no bearing on the faith
of the Muslim.
And I have never seen a Muslim
in my whole entire life that prays
to the Quran. I've never seen a Muslim
that has offered a prayer to the Quran
like Christians do pray to Jesus.
Now my question is
the Quran
presents
a concept of God
that is 100%
compatible
with what
Noah believed,
with what Abraham believed,
with what Moses believed,
with what Jesus believed and practiced,
and with what
Mohammed believed.
The Trinity creed presents
or speaks of
tri personal existence
of God.
3 different
persons and that is essential for the orthodox
at an ageist creed or Trinity creed that
the persons,
not 3 gods but 3 persons combined in
1 godhead.
Now my question to my Christian brothers here
is,
can you give me one single reference
in which Jesus,
Moses,
Abraham,
Noah or any other prophet recognized to come
by God that had spoke about 3 persons
combined in 1 god yet?
Well,
we have to recognize that in the scriptures,
we have several centuries of development.
And there's no obligation upon God
to reveal the totality of truth to any
one person at one time. You can reveal
sufficient for that person's
blessing and salvation.
It was not
essential for Abraham, for example,
to have a full understanding of the of,
everything
that would transpire in the future. Take, for
example, he did understand one thing. The whole
doc the doctrine of justification
by faith without
words, without circumcision,
something like that. He,
apparently understood that. And that is something that,
we see more fully developed at a later
point.
So we we have to recognize that man
is in time
and,
a truth like the trinity is something that
may be there implicitly and gradually. There's a
fuller revelation given at a later point.
That does not mean that the,
we're not saying that a a the full
understanding of God is essential
for salvation. You admitted that yourselves for Islam
and for Christians the same is true.
God does not come nor does Jesus come
and say, well, I will save you or
I will forgive your sins
if you understand everything about me and and
make a complete theological statement. There's no obligation
for that. Okay. And so,
I think you're putting a demand upon us
that, basically is not fair. Okay. And Islam
doesn't do that. If we would ask you
to to explain to us,
some of some of the well, the essence
of God, you said, well, you don't need
to know the essence of God. We know
the attributes of God. I think this may
be revisionist view of of
of Islamic theology myself.
But,
we think that
the attributes of God
are are something also that are mysterious.
If if the attributes are as infinite
as God is, well, they will be as
difficult to comprehend fully as, the essence is
itself. So in a sense, we're saying to
you, if you will explain to us
how,
the the relationship
of the essence of God to the to
all the attributes. And if you will explain
to us some of the
the intricacies
of the of the doctrine of God in
Islam, then you would have the right to
ask us to to
give to you a detailed description of what
God is like. But you don't do that,
so you shouldn't expect us to do it
either. Okay. Two points. Follow-up.
The essence of god is revealed in the
Quran in no uncertain terms, no ambiguity, no
mystery in chapter
112.
So the Muslims have no
confusion or no ambiguity about the nature of
God.
My second point, using the same measuring stick
of the logic that you used,
then I must believe also that throughout history
that we have a trinity that was established
by the ancient Egyptians,
Ray the father,
Osiris the resurrected son
and Horus the Paraclete.
Do I accept that trinity to be a
true nature of God simply because the ancient
Egyptians That is not a trinity. Well, it
is a form of a trinity. There's no
link between that, those three deities and the
doctrines of the trinity if you understand it.
Either one of those. Well, it's a form
of a trinity. Yes. It is not a
form of the trinity at all. It's just
3
and, and there's no link of the trinity
if you understand the trinity at all. Okay.
Then using the same measuring stick,
the Hindus have a trinity. No. They don't
have a trinity. Alright. That's not a trinity.
You have to try try B as it.
You want to keep the distinction clear. Okay.
I see. So you do not consider the
Christian trinity to be comparable to the Hindu
trinity or to the ancient Egyptian trinity. Okay.
What makes it distinct?
Well, you have basically 3 different gods. You
have there's no no parallel no Hindu scholar
has ever,
said that this is a parallel. This is
a trinity. Alright. I mean, you can use
terminology loosely, but that's not a trinity. Okay.
In the gospel of Saint John,
we read that Jesus, peace be upon him,
was being baptized by John the Baptist. So
he reached Jesus as a person on the
face of the earth.
And when while he was baptized a voice
was heard in heavens
saying this is my son in whom I
am pleased. So we have a second
person involved in action in the same time
and the gospel continues
and the multitude
saw the Holy Spirit descending in the form
of a dove.
So these are 3 different
individuals, if you like to term individual or
persons or entities,
whichever
definition you like, are engaged in action in
the same time.
Then what makes these 3 different individuals
any different from the 3 individuals in the
ancient Egyptian
trinity or in the Hindu trinity?
There's a basic fallacy here. To show a
parallel
in some place
is equality. It's like someone saying, there are
pyramids in Mexico
and there are pyramids in Egypt. Therefore, one
came from the other, or they're both the
same.
Or you you can have,
any number of gods. And if in a
certain place you have a set of 3,
it doesn't mean that that comes from or
is the same thing as the Trinity.
I think you're you're putting together things that
are just arbitrarily chosen. No. Now we could
take things from Islam as well and say,
you are,
for example,
the attention given to the Kaaba or to
the or to a city. We could say,
well, in Bali, Indonesia,
they have a certain
place, I think, is the center of the
universe, and everyone should look toward that. And
other primitive tribes and other places, they have
certain places which are
very holy. Then we could say, oh,
they have this this idea of this one
holy place. Islam has a Mecca and a
Kaaba. These must be there must be a
link. And and by association, then, say, you
you are just, you just have an animistic
or primitive belief. So you're you're pulling together
things, I think, in an illegitimate fashion. Frank,
blah blah blah. You had something?
Well, I don't know if it's quite relevant
anyway, but anymore. But,
my my point was that,
that
if
you take, say, the the God of Moses
and the God of Paul, k, before his
his conversion,
certainly, the same idea, the same understanding of
God within the Jewish tradition.
And when when Paul was converted
on the road to,
Damascus,
it wasn't that he changed gods.
I don't think he began to worship a
new god, but
he he saw God in a different way
because of who Jesus was.
Jesus makes a difference.
Now,
what that difference is,
how that affects, how that impacts upon
Christians, upon humanity.
You know, this is, can be argued in
different ways. But somehow,
when Jesus came, God was revealed in a
way
that that was unique, that was different
from what had ever happened before.
And that difference was reflected in Paul's life
and in many of the followers,
you know, that came after Jesus.
It is the same God.
No question about it. You ask, you know,
don't we all worship the same God? Yes,
they do. But
but there is something that happened in this
Jesus of Nazareth
that
even a person like Paul, steeped in Judaism,
he knew all the traditions, he knew all
the laws, he he worshiped God all the
time.
There was something about this Jesus of Nazareth
that made him change his understanding
about how God really
operates or what God God was doing
in this, person from Nazareth.
Amen. That's your question. Yeah. I I just
wanted to point out another fundamental
objection or difference
from the Muslim perspective
about this word Quran Jesus sort of analogy.
For the Muslim, one of his problems with
that analogy is is that
when he asks you to either accept or
reject the Quran as the word of God
revealed,
he hands you the Quran, tells you to
read it and decide for yourself.
So one objection he would have is that,
you know, Jesus is dead.
So when you ask him to accept Jesus
as
a revelation of God,
how is he to examine that to test
it to be true?
Now, you point to the fact of Paul's
testimony and other,
Peter, Paul and, John and etcetera, their testimony.
But were there others that experienced Jesus that
did not feel that he was the son
of God?
I mean, if it just comes down to
an, to a matter of testimony,
what kind of argument do we have then?
I mean, for the Muslim, he could directly
argue. Here is the Quran,
test it. But there was a considerable difference
of opinion in Christian circles who said the
first several centuries arguing about,
what you're disc the ideas that you you
hold right now.
And and there's still a, debate raging in
the Christian churches, among Christian theologians today about
the authenticity of, the the integrity of this
of the New Testament.
So, I mean, doesn't that put the Muslim
in kind of a difficult place? You ask
him to accept Jesus as the revelation of
God,
but he can't rely on that and so
he must rely on,
witnessing. But to some extent, even Christians today,
Christian scholars will admit that that witness is
not entirely reliable.
I think a lot of this will come
up in the discussion tomorrow. I thought it
would be a nice lead in. Remind
you that,
we talk about an inscripturated
word and a word in flesh.
We have been talking primarily about the word
in flesh
tonight.
Right. But But we have been drawing the
analysis. Also,
have an inscripturated
word
which we will be talking about tomorrow.
And,
reliability
with the Quran, I think, will come up
in tomorrow's discussion. But that that will be
the crux of the matter then. I mean,
that's where we all we've all been aiming
towards tonight, hasn't it? Well, we have different
the word
it depends what you mean by aiming at.
I'm just reminding you that we have scripturated
and an enfleshed word. Right. And we'll discuss
that tomorrow. The difficulty that I'm having is
with
Say say it. Can I make it? And
then I will make a comment.
Alright.
If I can remember what I was gonna
say.
Hart picks up, your comment about
the unseen,
and I think that relates also to this,
question asked
most recently by Jeffrey.
The relationship
of human
beings with God
is always a matter of faith,
never of sight.
And god is unseen.
At the same time,
when the Christian talks about Jesus
as the revelation in the presence of God.
That is not a kind of presence of
God
that
does not
demand faith.
Because what we expect of God
is to be present in
power, but God is present in weakness.
God to be present in
life,
and here God is present in death.
So,
there's a hiddenness
in the in in Jesus Christ,
even at the same time as there a
man as there is a manifestation of of
God.
And on the Trinity question,
the Trinity isn't
some kind of idea that,
at least I as a Christian, am interested
in. It's that's an abstraction.
What the Christian is really concerned about is
that in the encounter with Jesus Christ,
we encounter God immediately.
There's no distance there. It's an immediate, somehow,
encounter with God.
And the language about Trinity
is language that developed
within the Greek and Hellenistic context to try
and make sense
out of that experience. And Professor Badawi talked
about the analogical character of language. We can't
literalize it and sort of make it as
an abstraction that is free
floating. So the only meaning of a doctrine
of the Trinity,
is a human effort to try and give
language,
in this case, within a Greek context,
about the meaning of Jesus. Yes. But but
now in 20th century,
I mean, I remember reading a book by
a guy by the name of Carl,
Ronner, I think the German theologian.
He was saying that the majority of Christians
today are have
believed in tritheism. You know,
the Trinity for them has come to mean
for so many Christians that there are 3
gods
and three objects of worship.
I don't know if you agree with that
statement or not, but again, that comes back
to something I said before that the danger
of the words is there.
You know, he seems to acknowledge the same
in a in a book I just read
of his on the trinity that said that
maybe we need to reformulate the words
because the words have inherent dangers.
They lead ease misguide or mislead easily into
tritheism.
And that's what his argument was. And I
don't know if you resolve that difficulty or
not, but that is the Quran's major complaint.
When you say 3,
it almost immediately,
you have allowed or open the door to
mislead and to misguide. And the Quran's intention
is to guide correctly.
And it feels and it and it states
very clearly that this is misguided.
We're saying it's one though. That's what the
Bible said talking about. It's 1 it's the
concept of oneness that's a problem. It's not
that Christians are saying there are 3 dogs.
So that charge we would feel is just
Well, it it did come from a Christian
theologian.
Oh, well, he he may make that that
statement and there may be a lot of
Christians that do that. Disagree. Just like you
would not take responsibility
for everything that every Muslim does. But would
you would you agree that many Christians pray
to Jesus, for example?
That's that's that's validated by the revelation of
God given to the new So you you
don't find anything wrong with that? No. I
don't. I think that's what it is, the
will of God.
Now it shouldn't be a problem to you
because
in in the Quran itself, you have when,
at the very beginning of creation where God,
tells the angels to to bow down before
Adam.
And, well, and,
if if,
it is legitimate and okay
for God to tell,
you when Satan then disobeys, Yes. And he
becomes Satan. You're you're beginning of sin. Sure.
But that's your interpretation. But the Muslim interpretation
if God can yes. Okay. Let me finish.
If God can tell the angels to bow
down and worship,
Adam,
well, we think someone who is without sin,
who is pure even according to the,
according to the Quran,
who is called a word from him and
a spirit who has some u unique link
and who claims to be a mediator,
then,
if God tells us to worship him, then,
that is something to be done by the
will of God. Yes. Well, the Muslim has
no problem with the fact that the angels
were made to show their inferiority or potential
inferiority to man, to man.
That, but the Muslim doesn't believe that the
angels therefore are made to worship man, to
pray to man, to seek their intercession. Worship
here. No. No. Bowing down is not the
same as one comment here. I've been raising
my hand for a long time. You want
check?
Okay.
Well Just go ahead. Okay.
The, the reference
open the floor. Yes.
The reference that is made in the Quran
to the bowing down of the angels.
Nowhere in the Quran does it say bow
down to angel and to Adam
and worship him. It doesn't. Bow down means
simply a show of respect because that would
contradict everything else in the Quran about the
exclusivity.
That is not the historical understanding of Islam.
Let me just say, the exclusive
worship of God and God alone, nobody beside
him, nobody instead of him, not even through
any of his creatures. So it doesn't have
that signification at all that you you have,
you have raised.
Secondly,
on the question of, saying
that when the disciples encountered Jesus, they encountered
God without barriers.
A Muslim can easily also say that when
I stand up in my prayers, I encounter
God without any barrier because we don't pray
through Prophet Muhammad, we don't pray through the
Quran, we pray directly to God.
And again, since the, doctor Martin has raised
this issue of the analogical language that both
of us agreed to, I think we have
to apply it here as well.
Just like John Hick,
indicates in his classic introduction of his classic,
the myth of God incarnate.
When he says that the disciples
of Jesus were not writing simply as reporter,
they were not Peter Arnett or,
Peter Jennings.
They were also reporting and interpreting
their particular personal experience.
And they say that they use this metaphorical
language to express the kind of spiritual experience
in encountering Jesus. And as such, again, if
we apply to this the same rule of
analogy or analogical language, one cannot take it
really in the incarnational sense that was made
to be
understood in better times. It's just like you
see a holy man, a very good person,
you're so much impressed with his character that
you say, I encounter God in him, but
not really meaning it in that literal
sense. And in that metaphoric sense, it applies
to people who encounter any prophet, for that
matter really, find evidence of being being so
impressed
and ode
with the presence of the prophet. Secondly, on
the question of presence of
God.
Presence of God doesn't have to be physical
or any incarnational sense.
Presence of God can be felt in the
heart
of the individual. It doesn't necessarily have to
take any particular manifestation,
to have any,
validity.
And when you compare, for example, the demand
of an evidence, scripture evidence
of the 3 in 1, and you compare
it, for example, with
the description of the essence of God, I
I don't think this is a fair analogy,
if I were to be
open about that.
Because the question of essence of God is
a matter that is there for eternity and
will remain until the day of judgement. So
it's something of the foundation that doesn't change
with time.
Whereas,
the question of trinity
is not really something that you find traces
even in the word of the prophet through
whom it is believed that trinity came to
manifestation because he was the second person of
the time. He never mentioned that any anything
of, of that nature.
And if it is left to the experience,
it's a matter of interpretation, and that's disputed
and have been disputed within the Christian community
anyway.
If it is a matter of,
interpretation
or experiential
element
that grew up in a later time,
then obviously one has to question what is
the basis of that statement, and you can
accept it or reject it because it's not
really the divine word of God, it is
the interpretation or experience,
and as Jeffrey mentioned earlier, not all people
have that experience.
Hans Kung for example called the early christian,
Jewish christians.
And they see Jesus as no more than
an Israelite prophet.
And they were totally foreign to this idea
that developed at a later time. But tomorrow
perhaps you might touch also on the question
of relevance of experience and what exactly the
word mystery mean in both communities.
Just one very quick comment on one point,
I think, is is very
critical.
If
it is so, as Hick says,
then the early disciples were guilty of shirk.
They were idolizing
their own experience.
But their word was,
Lord,
This is Lord.
It was not a statement about their experience.
It was a statement about what they recognized
this Jesus Christ to be.
And the minute you have a distance placed
between
Christ
and God,
And then
then it becomes a matter of shirk.
Shirk cannot be where there is no space
between.
It's in that sense that I talk about
immediate, not in an emotional sense, but in
revelatory sense. There's 2 comments on that. It
is quite true that if the historical narratives
are correct, and that's another question,
That some people upheld that view, yes, they
committed, sure.
But what I'm saying here, that original Christians,
people who were closer even to the time
of Jesus, they did not all share that
idea and as such we cannot accuse them
all of committing shirk, it was a matter
of difference of their experiential
type of encounter
with Jesus, peace be upon him. So in
that sense, yes, some of them did commit
Shirk, but the question again here, and I
think you're aware of that,
that whether or not
this was really the experience
that they reported, whether the words attributed even
to the writers of the various gospels, were
written by those. And
you're definitely aware of the controversy, for example,
as to the gospel of John, was it
written by John, the son of Zebedee or
someone else? So there are questions of authentication
on one hand, and that's coming for tomorrow.
And there's a question even aside from that
issue of authentication,
of whether there was any unanimity, and that
they have been no unanimity, that and the
argument in the council of was raging. The
idea of Trinity even was not all perfected
in the 325,
as you know the role of the Holy
Spirit came in a later conference. So
it's it's not as simple as it may,
appear on the surface, but like as like
doctor Woodbury said, perhaps you'll be coming back
to these issues.
There wasn't any unanimity about the Quran in
the early period, or else would not have
had to burn any of the materials there.
That's a misconception too, but we'll come to
that tomorrow. Well, okay. There was definitely unanimity
on the plan. There could be no question
about it, but we'll we'll come to that
tomorrow. Question about that. We'll come to that
tomorrow. And there is an answer to it.
No. Nobody nobody says in the Quran nobody
believes in the Quran that says Mohammed is
a is a is a God and another
said that Muhammad, our experience with him is
a prophet. He never claimed to be a
God. There's nothing close to that proportion at
all. Okay. He never claimed to be a
God. That's true.
We'll come to that tomorrow. When we discuss
about the Quran, maybe that will give you
a representative testing to produce us a different
version of the Quran, so so we can
take a look at it. We're into that
anyway. Get them much closer to me. Okay.
Much closer. Sure.
See,
we're talking about the most important issue
between Islam and Christians. We're talking about God,
the creator.
We're talking about the one for whom we
are gathering tonight.
And we are talking
with consciousness,
all of us. And everyone
takes it seriously that what we're talking about
will
form and shape everyone of us's destiny
in this life and in the hereafter.
It is not really a matter of
intellectual discussion because we're not here for that.
We are here to to address this real
issue.
Talking about the word of God,
Jesus,
and I have here,
hundreds of quotes before him and after him
and from him,
talking about the Word of God as something
other than himself.
And if I am too cold, I will
take half an hour. I'm serious.
He is Jesus himself, talking about the not
e,
the Word of God
as something other than himself. Give us an
example. Went here. Alright. This is no. I'm
sorry. I'm sorry. He asked for it. Just
give us an example. Jesus. Okay. In the
Old Testament, that was the word of God.
Can we We've already we've already admitted that
that there is an inscripturated word and there
is a living word. So what I'm what
I'm saying is when g is anything, we
don't,
you agree with what I'm saying? I don't
have to saying is there's an inscripturated
word. Which means? And there is
the incarnated. We'll we'll discuss that more tomorrow.
Can I just
Okay?
This time.
Okay.
Sure. What what I'm saying is,
if it is really what you say it
is, right? And I do believe with all
honesty that you're
so straightforward about it with us tonight.
If you believe so that Jesus
had one mission coming to this earth, which
is
to convey to people I am
the incarnation of God.
If this is the ultimate,
absolute, most important
purpose of his mission,
how can this be left up to people's
inferences?
Can I answer that? Yeah. That's
I can't actually respond to it because Jesus
didn't do that. He didn't go around with
a sign, I am God,
or unless you believe I am deity I'm
sorry. It seems I did not make my
question clear. I didn't say that he had
said. What I'm asking is
if his
main purpose
and main mission
is to convey to me and you
that I am Jesus,
I am the Christ, I am the Messiah.
He said this, and I believe it. So
far you're okay. Okay? But if it is
part of his mission, if it is the
most important part of his mission, is to
convey to me as well to you
that I am God incarnate. My question is
That wasn't his mission. No. He came to
seek and to save that which was lost.
You see, this is the point of Jesus'
Then maybe I rephrase my question. Do you
believe that Jesus is God incarnate?
Yes. I do. But that but that's another
whole
but would you ask me another question? I
want to ask you another question. Point. And
the main point I will ask you. I
will ask you. Came Okay. And in order
to seek and to save which that which
was lost, he didn't come around
and and require anyone
to sign a doctrinal statement,
affirm the trinity.
He didn't do that. He was willing to
help people and save people. He talked in
Mark,
too about he would forgive sins.
And he would,
well, as we know, he did many things.
But what he came to do was to
help us and not primarily to get a
doctrinal statement. That doesn't mean that a doctrinal
statement isn't
true, that this will not be revealed in
time. It just means his primary purpose
is,
to
bring salvation to us. That's his primary role.
My question still stands.
He came
as a manifestation
of God.
Right? And that is the ultimate
maximum
achievement that Jesus
made or gave to the Christians.
No. It isn't. He wasn't doing doing that
directly himself. He was going around
and and and and telling people he's fundamentally
the mediator.
There's a verse in Timothy which talks about
this. There's one God,
we all believe that,
and one mediator
between man and God.
And then it
says, the man,
Christ Jesus. Now the point is,
Jesus came to help and save Muslims.
They don't have to have a full accurate
document statement first.
He's he says he's the mediator, then it
calls him the man.
Now you have to consider the possibility
that God has permitted
that there be a means of salvation,
which is
encompassed in this person who is a man.
Excuse me. Now now Beyond that, there may
be further truth which we do not know.
There's not one say you know the attributes
of God, but do not know the essence
of God. I'm sorry for interrupting. That Jesus
is the mediator. But beyond that, there may
be other things that will come out later.
But again, once again, I'm pressing the point
because it is the most important point that
I personally would like I would like to
understand it. That's me. I would like to
understand it.
Here is God
who is 3 in 1 and 1 in
3. For the first time in history,
according to doctor Woodberry, revealing himself in human
flesh,
that is the most important event in history.
Yet not one single word
that says
incarnate,
God in flesh,
3 in 1,
I am the manifestation of God, he didn't
utter the conclusion
that every Christian theologian holds up to heaven,
and say, this is my faith. My question
is so obvious, I am in search,
and I am serious, I am in search
of the fact. Why is this single most
important
utterance
was not mentioned on the tongue of Jesus
Christ?
I think your message is clear. I'm sorry
for,
interruption. I'm
I'm asking for an answer, Hamid, to say
that we never end. Hamid, I'm asking for
an answer, I will not comment again. Okay.
You already
asked and you already answered, so
I you forgive me for,
ending this part of the problem because we
have to move to the other part. Okay.
Just just a second.
We'll take your comment please quickly, and then
we'll take your comment quickly, and then we'll
move to the audience.
Jesus did not come to convey
information.
Jesus came to be
the very presence of God's love.
That's
what the Christian believes.
Thank you. Well,
to that end,
a Muslim will believe that every messenger that
came from God is to convey God's love.
And I would like to make one remark
to correct the verse that was given by
reverend Chastain
on the lips of Paul from
1 Corinthians chapter 8 verse 6.
For there is only one God,
the Father.
You dropped out the Father. So the identification
here there is only one God, the Father,
and one mediator
between
man, between God and man, the man Jesus
Christ. So Paul himself identified
only one God and that is the Father.
Now as far as
the remark was made before
that
Paul, you know, understanding of God did not
change from his Jewish background.
Paul did not establish the Trinity. 325
years after Jesus, the Council of Nicaea talked
about father and son. And they have to
have a second Council of Nicaea to add
the Holy Spirit to it. So this issue
was not established by Paul, and Paul did
not change his views from being Jewish to
being, Christian.
325
years, they were still debating that in the
Catholic councils.
And Arius, who is the deputy of Athanasios,
completely
rejected the idea of,
the Trinity. So there was no ever a
a an agreement even between Christian themselves 325
years after Jesus about the doctor of Trinity.
Thank you. Now we'll move to the audience.
Who wants to be the first to,
make his comment to a turbulence?
I I get some guests who are coming
from a long distance, so you forgive me,
the local people, to move to the,
people who are already traveled and took the
pain of coming from a long distance. Go
ahead.
And this is I'm just giving the mic
here so that people can hear.
Well,
Oh, you put it in your pocket.
Not that big one.
But don't go home with it. So many
questions. Maybe I can get back to the
second one.
1st of all, I'd like to understand something.
We've been talking about quite a few things
tonight.
My understanding
from what I, have, heard and from what
I have studied
concerning this,
doctrine of of incarnation.
In, 1st John John chapter 1 verse 1,
it says in the beginning with the word,
the word with God, and the word was
God, and 14 said the word became flesh
and dwelt among the people.
My point is
I'd like to preface my question with
observation.
I understand that this incarnation
was for the purpose of
Jesus experience having the human experience.
That God incarnated in human form so that
Jesus could,
experience the human have the, a human experience
and for the ultimate purpose of dying for
the sins of mankind, to die for the
sins of mankind.
Is that correct?
That Jesus came to die for the sins
of mankind. That's not correct. I'm getting some
shaking yes and some no's.
Okay. Okay. So the point is that like
this had accomplished a number of things that
included this. Ultimately,
the death
and resurrection.
Okay. Death and resurrection.
Okay. So now the point is that we
understand from the gospel of John that God
is a spirit
and that he should be worshiping spirit and
truth. And the Greek word there, I believe,
is pneuma. Is that correct?
So Jesus incarnated in John chapter 1 verse
14, and the Greek word there, if I'm
not mistaken, is sarx or something to that
nature, s a r x is pronounced. Sarx.
Okay.
So now he's a flesh
personality.
My point is
after he has accomplished his death and resurrection,
how how or when did he go back
to being spirit again?
Spirit.
Or is he still entrapped in this flesh
body at this moment now?
Because in Luke chapter,
24 verse 30,
9, I believe it is, it says that
Jesus, when, his disciples, when he came in
the upper room and they perceived that he
was a spirit, he says, how many see
for spirit has no flesh and bone as
you see me have. So therefore, he's still
in that state of flesh that he has
incarnated in. I wanna know when did he
get back to being spirit again? As he
prayed in John chapter 17 verse 5, Oh,
my father, glorify me with that old self
with the glory which I have with thee
before the world began. That was his prayer.
I'm believing that that prayer didn't get accepted
like the praying the God of Gethsemane.
It would be possible that this cup passed
away from me, which didn't get accepted according
to your theology.
So now I wanna know what condition is
Jesus in at the moment? Is he spirit
or is he still entrapped in flesh? Because
if he's in flesh, he can't die anymore.
And and the the scripture teaches a transformation
that takes place
where you might say there's a new ecology.
God's creating a new heavens and a new
earth.
Jesus is the first one to read through
that.
And he has
a renewed body. It is a spiritual body,
which was spoken by I have to read
1st Corinthians
15. Tell tell me your answer is 1545.
This is Paul's doctrine
spiritual body, which contradicts, I said again, Jesus'
concept and and Luke. It contradicts that. But
it doesn't necessarily. Well, you said necessarily. I'm
saying Again, you have a again, you're in
process of time,
and you have Jesus in the flesh.
He now is risen. And in in the
due form, if you if you notice the
stories of the resurrection,
he could hope the people if he wished.
But he also could go through a law.
No. It doesn't say none. It doesn't say
it doesn't say that this is just what
something has said. That Jesus came into the
upper room and the doors were closed. Doesn't
say that it remained closed or that he
oozed on the through the door. This is
something different. But the idea is that it's
a new tie it's a new kind of
resurrected bodies. Dispersion bodies See, the point that
I make one comment. It's an assumption which
I think, is confusing and which I don't
find helpful. Mhmm. In your comments, it seems
is that spirit means disembodied.
Spirit means, essentially,
in the Biblical context, power.
And so the spirit of God moved. When
we talk about when when the Old Testament
talks about creation, spirit of God moved. Mhmm.
And when it talks about the birth of
Jesus, it talks about the spirit, when it
talks about the resurrection of Jesus, it talks
about the spirit. Formless. Formless.
And Without form. It it moved over that
and gave it form so that I'm talking
about the entity itself had no form.
Not what it gave form to, the spirit,
the oceans and so forth. I'm talking about
the entity itself as a spirit had no
form.
God has no form, you see. He's a
spirit in the worship But but that's not
the main point of spirit. The main point
of spirit is is God's
power. Is that does that power have form?
This is what we say. So that it
can be contained in the location.
The power gives form.
So my point is this, you see,
this, gentleman here quoted, 1st Corinthians chapter 15
verse 45,
Paul's
doctrine about the resurrected body of Christ, which
he gave,
misunderstanding about not having witnessed that, scene in
the upper room.
The whole scenario there from, first Corinthians chapter
15 verse 3 through 8,
something that the first I understand and we
get about the resurrection in the New Testament,
there is fear. That's the concept there from
Paul
who gave a missed concept about this information.
What what he gives just just a minute.
What he gives in verse 40,
there, and this is where the basis for
the resurrection
of the dead. He's trying to give understanding
to those Yeah. Who die. And all he
says, there is also heavenly bodies and there
are earthly bodies. But the splendor of the
heavenly bodies is of one kind and the
splendor of the earthly bodies is another. He
does not define what that is. Body is
sown and natural body is raised in spiritual
body. What are the terms used there for
natural body and spiritual body? Okay. So we
have to understand. The natural is what we
live in right here.
Natural body. What he's indicating, it is a
different kind of body.
He does not define the details I think
of what that was. He just says it's
different. But you have a free warranty, it
wasn't those 3 warnings. It wasn't the spirit.
Why wasn't the 3 coordinate? I'm can I
You wanna make a comment on on the
same point? I would like to. Okay. Just
go ahead. Okay. And then we'll have reverend,
of course.
The expository
dictionary of the biblical words.
Okay?
That's a dictionary.
It says that the spirit number
primarily denotes the wind.
The spirit is like the wind. It's invisible,
immaterial,
powerful,
disembodied,
invisible parts of man,
and it gives on and on. What it
is. You wanna have a comment?
Any comment on what he said? Just that
doctor,
Paul
said it is it is not disembodied.
So I
I just remember reading that it is disembodied.
It is it is not that it is
That that is simply not the scriptural point.
The
the spirit is the power of God. That's
what it's about. Theology and doctrine. And we've
already talked about the God being invisible.
And No. We're talking about the term spirit
in the biblical usage of it. Yes. In
what dictionary That means power.
The power of God. Wherever is talking about
the spirit, it's talking about the power of
God. Is it possible for God to create
a different kind of a body? He can
do anything.
Fleshly or or some kind of spirit? That's
true. It's it's something
that is new. God can do that. That's
what we're saying.
Terms logically might say a contradiction.
If it's spiritual, it's not can't be a
body. But if those terms deliberately chosen in
order to show to you, if you're open,
that God is gonna do something new and
different. And so if you want, well, which
is it, this or that? And
and the first Corinthians is trying to clear
and say, it's it's neither one is fully
true.
There is there is body only because there
is spirit.
That's what it means. I guess we did
enough on this point. So let's move.
You spiritualize the point.
I understand. We're just to ask one question.
So I'm going to divide
but you. Yes. Right.
No problem. So I'm going to divide my
question in half, one for each side of
the panel. I'd like to ask, the Muslim
members of the panel,
is it possible and I've framed this question
very carefully.
Is it possible for God
to give a revelation
in the form
of a human person? Is it possible?
And I'd like to ask, the Christians on
the panel,
is it possible for God to give a
revelation in the form of a book?
Which half of the question you want to
answer? Which one which Oh, we We wanna
know.
Okay.
On this half,
if you mean
by God giving
revelation in a form of a human,
in a sense that that human becomes the
embodiment
of the teaching
and the word of God in non incarnational
form,
then it's not only possible, I believe it
happened with all prophets.
Yes. That sounds good to me.
The
answer to the second half is yes. Okay.
Do you have a follow-up?
The conviction that all things are possible to
God.
There is no limit to divine sovereignty and
divine possibility.
Okay.
Move to this side.
Yeah.
I hope I understood you well.
You said that God came in the form
of a human being, Jesus Christ
to save humanity.
After the crucifixion
and when we are gathered all in heaven,
is Jesus going to go back and reconnect
with God again and we will see one
God?
I think there's a problem here that we
face that we have should recognize before we
get an answer.
And then and I think the problem is
you you have a fixation on the numerics
of God. And the problem
with the the You started it. The Christian
is looking at God,
not,
in terms of his mathematics,
but basically, you might say organically. He or
personally. He's a person.
And,
and the the fixation was on getting the
number right.
And I met Muslim friends, and they thought
as long as they said
they got the number right, number 1, God's
number 1, then they've got it made. Some
thought they're gonna get go to paradise forever,
just as long as they got the number
right.
Now the scriptures
clarify to the Christian, at least,
that even if you believe God was 1
and absolutely 1, even as the Muslim believes
he is 1, numerically 1,
then,
it doesn't do any good because
the demons believe that they tremble.
So the
the number of God is not a saving
truth. That's one reason why it's not stressed
and also the other reason that was revealed
a little while or mentioned a while ago.
In the Jewish community, it was no problem.
Everybody believed god was one.
And so we didn't have to articulate or
make a big issue out of it. But
we believe that there's a concept of oneness.
And our problem is
not so much getting the number right, 1
or 3, but what does oneness mean? Since
a Christian says, and he honestly says that
God is 1.
We believe that,
well, even human beings are not merely
mathematically 1. We believe, the Christians believe,
you consist of a body. To use to
try to use an illustration that may be
helpful. I hope it's helpful.
The body
is a physical part,
and there's some spiritual part. And in 1st
Thessalonians 523,
it talks about our body,
a soul, and a spirit.
Now when I came in here,
you didn't give me 3 chairs.
I have my body sit here, my spirit
sit here, and my soul sit there.
You gave me one chair.
And and, basically,
all that I am is in that one
chair.
And and I think Muslims and Christians are
agreeing that human beings are not just a
pile of meat and bones. We're not merely
flesh. There's a spiritual dimension to human beings.
So you have a composite even within us.
Oneness
on the human dimension
is more than absolute mathematical oneness. We're talking
about a composite oneness, a complexity in oneness.
So my suggestion, we would be able to
understand each other better
if you realize you're focusing in on the
mathematics.
We're focusing in on God as a person
and a relationship.
And if we throw this back and forth
at each other, we can go on everlastingly.
And we'll never come to any kind of
understanding of each other. No. I'm I'm having
the trouble. This is I have a comment
here on the Okay. Well,
yes. I'm having trouble with what Trevor and
Shastain, the comparison
that, he gave because one of the explanations
that had been always given about the trinity
that inside you, there is a father, there
is a son, and there is a husband,
but still 1, 2, 3, but there is
still one of you.
But this is not does not match the
definition or the orthodox
definition of the trinity which is essential to
separate the father from the son from the
holy spirit, yet you turn around and say
these 3 are,
well.
Now the father in me
cannot be with my son in the school
and the husband in me cannot be with
my wife at home while the son in
me cannot be with my father
in another city. These are attributes of an
individual.
These are not tri
personal existence.
This is a proper explanation for the Trinity
Creed.
Tri personal existence of God, the Father,
and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. So
when you say that within me,
there is spirit and the soul and the
body, yet when you came in, we did
not give you 3 chairs. The comparison here
is little bit incorrect,
not accurate to say the least. This is
number 1.
Number 2,
if the trinity
is such an important doctrine
and such a mystery that I must understand
and I must devote my life to it.
Why
wouldn't Jesus
speak about it openly since Athanasius and the
Trinity Creed spoke about it openly and they
said and they discussed it? Why would God
trust it to Athanasius and the,
council of and the other Catholic councils
and Jesus himself would not speak about it.
Why why would it Why why does he
have to be ambiguous about it? Why does
he have to just give clues about it?
Why doesn't he just come out and say,
listen, this is essential for your salvation and
it is such and such and such and
such. This is not a straight my point.
You brought out your calculator again. You've added
the model. Uh-huh. And you're you're and you
also get the fixation on the,
the the con con council. That I'm not
the one that brought out the calculator. It
was Jesus who brought out the calculator and
it was Moses who brought out the calculator.
Because when Jesus was asked which one is
the first among all the commandments, he brought
out the calculator
and he said, here, oh Israel, the Lord,
our God is one God. So I'm not
the one that's bringing out the calculator. You
would believe, I think, that God has a
spirit, wouldn't you?
K. Do you wanna
make
Well,
if I if I didn't call make the
the comment here, because we got I I
was just going to say with respect to
the doctrine of the Trinity,
and Jesus didn't,
formulate a doctrine of the trinity.
Again, I would like to emphasize that Jesus
did not come to convey information. He came
to convey and be the love of God
in our presence.
And we cannot confuse revelation
and doctrine.
Revelation is a divine activity.
Doctrine is a human activity.
Which could be wrong as humans. Which can
be wrong. Yes. That's what Muslims may be.
One one one will come.
Okay. The reason I'm asked because you said
that
because I had I had a conversation
3 days ago with the with the very
good friend of mine. He's a Christian. He
said that God is 1 just like you,
what you believe Muslims.
Then he came in the form, he said
what happened when he came in the form
of a human being? He said he gave
up his Godship.
Okay, then after his death, after his death
and crucifixion, he went back to heaven.
He should go back to the form of
1 God.
And according to the Bible, in heaven, we
will see both God and the Son.
Even if we go with that logic, what
what what about the other
manifestation, the third manifestation, the Holy Spirit?
What happened to it? In heaven.
Thank God. I think you made your comment.
Any of the ladies wanna make a statement
or a comment?
Thank you. My name is
And,
if you state
a fact once,
then you state it 10 times.
Does it make it more true when you
stated 10 times or a 100 times or
a 1000 times? If it is true,
one time is enough, 10 times is enough.
There's no point of going and stating it
a 1000 times or a 100000 times. It
doesn't make it more true.
And the I'm referring here to the question
of love, the love of God.
The Quran does specifically say,
They take
idol that they love as they should love
god, but the believers are most intense in
their love of god. So the Quran establishes
that the most intense
relationship between man and God is love.
And 10, 15 times it said, he love
these and he love these and he love
these that you have pointed out. So once
you have established that the strongest relationship
is
loved and repeated 10 times, to repeat it
1000 times or 2,000 times, it's not going
to make it anymore true.
Another verse in the Quran speaks about
God,
we provide for both the righteous and
the unrighteous because the gifts of God are
unrestricted.
So that is an expression of love where
it speak even extended to those who do
not love God. Okay?
So Yes. I'm gonna look now. Yes. So
so the point is here, that I'm driving
it at is this, once you have stated
it and established that it is the strongest
relationship,
it is taken for granted after that.
That that's what it is. And every
attributes of God, mercy, grace, forgiveness is an
expression of love. Once you understand this, then
really no difference.
My understanding between
the stress on the love of God, that
in the Christian
point of view, love is a stronger one
than the Muslim point of view. In my
view, they are the same.
Just in one,
the new testament in particular, it is mentioned
more,
but not because it is stronger
between Muslim and God
than in the case of the Christians. It's
the same, it doesn't matter of frequency and
the frequency does not change the intensity
or the sensibility. Okay? Thank you. Go ahead.
Yes. I would, I would say that
what
what we as Christians see in Christ is
that we see God
actively at work
overcoming evil,
freeing us from the power of evil. That
is, in Christ, we see the
the way god,
overcomes
and,
is victorious
over the power of evil, which is very
much in us as individuals. And that somehow
in Christ,
it is actually God at work,
struggling with evil.
And finally,
in in in all that Christ does, there
is the victory of God
over the power of evil.
Now I would like to say and this
can be elaborated and explained, but I would
like to ask in,
our Muslim
our Muslim
friends, how does God in Islam, how does
God overcome evil?
Where where do you
see God,
as it were, overcoming evil?
Or do you? Or does God,
by giving us the the prophets, the holy
books, and so on, does He enable us
to overcome evil? Are we the victor? Are
we the ones who are victorious over evil?
Or is God, and then God gives us
the victory?
I mean, let's could be could we just,
you know, talk about that a minute because
usually then we become very close to what
Christians believe is actually happening
in the very life,
the death and resurrection of Jesus,
the Christ. Thank you. I think we'll be
finishing in about 3 minutes.
You know, I'm very brief. Two points. 1,
what you stated, which is very touching and
nice, talk about,
seeing God in action
through the
person of Christ.
Again, in the allegorical sense, I have no
difficulty with that, except that it applies to
all prophets.
Exactly every prophet,
really,
in allegorical sense, not incarnationist sense, is God
in action helping people and overcoming evil. So
I have no difficulty with that, but it
applies to all prophets.
The second observation is,
how do we overcome sin?
Well, there is a beautiful in the Quran.
Anyone who has faith in Allah, Allah will
guide his heart. So yes, we can do
it alone, but we have to show that
faith, we have to show that and
then
God will guide us, guide our hearts. Doctor
It is man then that finally has the
victory over over evil? Well, again, it's a
matter of terminology, and what do we mean
by that terminology? Because
on one sense, you can also say that
in Islamic theology, everything is by the will
of God. All power is in the hand
of God. So in on one level, you
could say, alright, it is God who overcame
even
through
your iman, through your effort. So in one
sense, it's God who's doing it, in another
sense also you're taking some steps to do
that. So it depends what level of analysis
we're looking at. Okay. So let's let's let's
interaction. Let's finish, please. We we wanna finish,
so we never end. So so you forgive
me. We'll have to finish. We'll make, we'll
take a comment from here, a comment from
here, and we'll conclude. Okay? So go ahead,
doctor Jeffrey. Oh.
You forgot.
No.
I just would like to say that
the standpoint of the Quran is is it
comes down to and this will be taken
up later. Why are we here in the
first place?
Why does God create
an environment which has, pain and suffering and
sin and evil in the first place? I'm
not gonna answer the question today, but I'm
just pointing to the fact that this is
what will be taking up in Sunday.
The real question that atheists have
as we go ahead debating back and forth
here about things is why does God create
an environment where there is evil and suffering
and terrible tragedy in the first place? And
if he you know, when I was a
Christian and they told me that Jesus through
his death, we conquered
sin and pain and suffering,
well, I looked around me and man is
still evil. There's plenty of suffering. There's still
plenty of pain. If he conquered it, why
is it still here?
So, you know, these are the questions I
think we'll be taking up in the next
few days, but this is a central question.
Why do we do we live in a
world where there is such suffering? Why does
God put us in a in a environment
where we can,
go astray?
Where we do have choices. These are the
key questions I think we have to ask
in the next couple of days. Right. Just
to sort of tie this together and lead
on as you have mentioned.
Obviously, sin, pain and suffering are going to
come where there is free will and we
will be dealing with that,
in the,
future.
What we see here though, I think we've
seen a couple of things tonight.
One of them is that,
there is a very strong emphasis
on relationship in the Christian message that God
wants to be related
to us.
And,
hence, there is the desire not only to
reveal,
his will, but to reveal,
in a sense, his character so that we
can become related to him. This is a
very strong,
Christian emphasis.
And then then as far as the love
of God comes,
God
is called the wudu, the loving one in
Islam. Both of us believe that there is
a God of love.
But this emphasis on relationship gives
a biblical understanding
that God is going that God has reached
to us
while we are still in our sinful state,
and died for us when we were still
in our sinful state rather
than, what we've seen as the emphasis of
God loves those who love him and are
righteous, and does not love those who don't
love him and are not righteous.
It's this breaking through,
that is a very strong,
biblical
emphasis.
Well, I thank you all for
your time. Have the time. One quick point,
sir. Please, you know how many times we
have 15 seconds.
We have 1.
1 is the,
I can't still see,
in what sense there is more emphasis in
Christianity
on relationship
of the character of God.
Like I mentioned before, we can see that
in the character of the prophets, there is
a haveith that say
to try to emulate. Of course, not the
exclusive divine attribute of God, but the other
thing like kindness, like mercy, like compassion.
So I don't see that difference at all.
Secondly,
the question of God reaching to us while
we are in our sins, this is also
our understanding after all prophets are not coming
to good people, they're coming to sinners.
Just like Jesus said, you know, if a
person is is healthy, he doesn't need a
doctor, it's the the sin sinful who need.
So the reaching out is there, so again,
I feel that in many points, including the
last two points made by doctor Woodbury,
I'm very glad that we met together to
dialogue because sometimes we may have
an imagination of artificial difference which is not
there,
which is developed by some theologians somehow to
show that one is different. Yes, there are
differences, but not in some of these areas
that we discussed tonight, especially in so far
as the question of love and relationship is
concerned. Well, I really thank you all, and,
I hope I will see you all tomorrow
morning and we promise we're not gonna gonna
be going according to the schedule starting from
tomorrow.
So