Big Trinity Debate vs Dr. Richard Buggs
Date:
Channel: Mohammed Hijab
File Size: 79.93MB
AI Generated Summary ©
The speakers discuss the controversial concept of "igrams against the Trinity" and the church's history of being a trinity. They stress the need for a clear understanding of the Bible and its relationship with God to address issues related to his divinity. The speakers also touch on the confusion surrounding the Trinity's supposed "vanquished or embarrassing thing" approach and the importance of reading the Bible and not just trying to figure out what it means to love it.AI Generated Transcript ©
The question that we post proposed today is coheed, which is the Islamic concept of monotheism
against the Trinity, which is the Christian
interpretation of monotheism. So today, we're just going to have a discussion between our two speakers, concerning which is closest to the Abrahamic monotheism, and Abraham being the father of both the religions of Christianity and Islam.
So to start, we'll bring it back up, Mohammed To start off, please.
Alright, so
let me get straight into it and guys out. Today I'm going to be making the argument against Trinity or the Trinity and for the Islamic concept of hate. And I'll be breaking down the argument into three different compartments. The first compartment refers to or we'll be discussing the text, or the textual will be a textual discussion of the Bible, or the biblical corpus. Number two, I'll be discussing a historical development of what I believe is the Christology which led to the Trinity. And number three, I'll be talking about some logical points, which are pertinent to our understanding of the coherence of the Trinity with some reference to some historical events. Now
start with the first point in terms of the actual Bible itself, and this is an important thing to put as a first point
out there, the Bible, the Bible itself has serious issues in terms of the New Testament moreso than the old testament of preservation. This is why you'll find that biblical scholars like Bart Ehrman, and Bruce Metzger, write their works, and they, for example, tell us that the Bible is not preserved. There's a problem with preservation. I mean, Bruce Metzger has written a book on this.
And Bart Ehrman has, for example, said that there are more variations of the Bible in the 5700 manuscripts than there are actual words in the Bible. So it's, I would say the first question to anyone who wants to put the New Testament as the criteria for deciphering
the truth from the false hood, or the historical reality from the a historical reality is why should we do that when it has so many problems? We should be allowed or should we should be free in our scholarly endeavor to engage other scripts, other scriptures, other texts, other historical resources. Since this, the Bible has so many issues. So the problem here is one of textual credibility. Now that's how the way we will refer to Scripture because sometimes we cannot avoid it. But that's not because we rely upon the scripture as Muslims, or our skeptics or critics is because we are compelled to do so in order to extrapolate some information from it.
Clearly now, the biblical corpus starts with the Old Testament, not the New Testament. And if anyone I mean, this is the reality, right.
If anyone looks at the Old Testament, with a keen eye, or even a fair minded approach, we utilize a fair minded approach, they will see that the Old Testament does nothing but affirm monotheism, there is no reference to the Trinity. And there is absolutely no mention of a Triune God, all three elements within that Triune God are co equal as is, as I've come to say, elaborated by the by the Creed's you know the Nicene Creed and other Creed's. So then the Old Testament corpus has no mention of the Trinity whatsoever. And in fact, you'll find the opposite guys, you will find the opposite and it's so clear. If you look at the book of Exodus, you know chapter number 20, you find that the
first commandment is that you should believe in worshiping one God and not taking any Gods beside God as God. This is clear, so clear, and the commandments should not and cannot change. And that's why they were written on stone. You'll find that in the book of Deuteronomy, chapter number six, verse number four, the Shema, which is something that Jewish people have to memorize and say in the morning and the evenings, of every single day of their lives, pronounces clearly for everyone to hear, Shema Yisrael
Adonai eloheinu, Adonai had the hero Israel, the Lord our load is one load. And the word ahead here really is something which doesn't allow for any kind of interpretation. Having said this, now, guys
Closer Sorry about that. Yeah, I will hold it a bit closer. Can you hear me now guys?
Yes. So as we said, the first thing here, which is an important point to note, just to reiterate, is this monotheism, this absolute monotheism that's mentioned in the Old Testament. Just look at the book of Isaiah. Look at chapter 44 of Isaiah, chapter 4543. Look at this area of the Bible. It's so clear that God is telling us that don't take any god beside me as God. It's reiterated it's it's rated and reiterated over and over again, such that no one in the future can come and change such a thing. This is the core of the to the Torah, the teachings of the Torah.
This is an important point to note.
But some of my argue, but wait a minute, some of my arguments, say the kind of a hat that's mentioned here in the Old Testament, as an airhead or this one oneness, which is a complex unity. And this is a really humiliating argument sorry to be quite direct here. What they say is this word one can be used to reference things which have more than one part. For example, grapes, even in English, we can say. Or let's say sweet since we nowadays don't really have grapes. Yeah, Give me the bag of sweets. Give me one bag of sweets. Clearly this bag of sweets inside of it has maybe five or 10 or 20 sweets. Yeah, so they'll say this is evidence this man is eating something here.
Something like that. Yeah. How many popcorn popcorn? Yeah, yeah. Okay, so I'll say Give me the bag of popcorn. Yeah, it says he gives me the bag of popcorn, how many pieces you got in there? Many. So it's a complex unity. So they try and say that this is a complex unity, which is a humiliating approach. Because if you look at the book of Deuteronomy, chapter number 17, verse number six, and other parts like Deuteronomy, Deuteronomy, chapter number 19. It's mentioned that in terms of putting people to death, which shows you by the way, that Christianity, there was a there is some kind of penal code here. pushing people to death You need not, you can't put someone to death with
one person and the word is used as a head. Yeah. So it can't be you know, it's the one person it's one person. It's not a complex unity. But then someone will say, But listen, the Old Testament has a plural which references? Yeah. A plural entity. So like, for example, what it'll him follow him? They'll say, actually, the end of the desert, like an ending of the of the Hebrew Yeah, him here, references a poor reality. That's what they say. So it's actually from the very beginning of the Bible was talking about God and this and that now what you know him like this as the example where it means the one having power.
l means power. Really? Yeah. If you look at the book of Genesis, this very word is used over and over again, you know, hymn book of Genesis Elohim, is used over and over again. Yeah. In fact, I think the book of the chapter one of Genesis, only Elohim is used, only Elohim is used. Yeah. Therefore, this is much better, isn't that when I bring it closer?
Therefore? Yeah, the way that we interpret this, in the Semitic generally speaking the Semitic languages, is that it's, it's a grand dicing. It's a majestic plural. And we have the same thing in Arabic. It's very understood in the technical Semitic languages. And one non Semitic person or someone who's not exposed to the Hebrew, or these Semitic languages approaches them, or these realities of the language and they try to interpret them in a certain way, it becomes quite actually embarrassing. Once again, I'm not trying to put anyone in a embarrassing position and say that, you know, you guys are not doing this right. But the truth is the truth. Yeah. So the first point is
this if the Trinity was true, yeah. Why is it not mentioned in the Old Testament?
Why this is a simple question. I don't need to make it a complex entity. This is a simple question, right? If this Trinity is true, then why is not why is it not mentioned the Old Testament? It's not mentioned the Old Testament. That's point one. Someone might argue just to be devil's advocate. But you know, Jesus had to
two different kinds of realities. He had the divine reality and he had the human reality.
And so when Jesus came, he exposed us to this divine reality. But if you had the divine reality, and it was always there, then it could have been communicated to us at a previous time, the Holy Spirit, we have never seen the Holy Spirit. Why was the Holy Spirit never mentioned as I've gotten in the Old Testament? Why can you never see this in the Old Testament?
Or is he mentioned and where is he mentioned? Why isn't he mentioned? Why is this happening? Why is it Why is it the case that the truth has changed all of a sudden, from monotheism, strict monotheism, absolute monotheism
to some kind of Trinitarian doctrine?
So I'll tell you how this happened.
Clearly, if you look into the New Testament corpus, yeah, there's clear verses, everyone knows them. I don't want to repeat all of them, you know, like john, chapter five, verse 30. He's given you, john. Yeah, he's handed out john. So you can go to verse 30. So I'll use the resource to my own.
What does it say in john chapter five, verse 30. It says, you know, the end of the verses I, you know, I don't submit myself to my own, I don't submit to myself, I submit to the will of the Father
doesn't say that, submit to the will of the Father, or the one who has sent me. There's different kinds of translations. I don't know which one that is. And that's another problem with the Bible. But here we have different kinds of versions more like, here we have another issue. There are clear statements from Jesus Christ Himself, where he says that he's, he's subordinate to God, he's less than God is subservient to God.
In the book of Matthew, chapter number 20, and chapter 14, verse 28,
he says, I don't know where the hour is gonna be, that's a limitation of Jesus Christ. He right. In the book,
it does so many things, and we can we can really enumerate them, one after the other. I think john again,
1418, once again, you can is where he says the father is greater than I. If it's not 1418, then it's somewhere there, you know.
But the point is, is very clearly registered in the New Testament corpus that Jesus is lesser than God, but they'll say, listen,
because you have to be devil's advocate, have to apply the counter before it comes to us.
They'll say, look, the reality is, what you're talking about here
is the human Jesus.
There's two Jesus's
This is the reality. This is a concept that I will explain to you in a second work. Where this idea came from. This is the concept is to Jesus's one, Jesus is the human Jesus and the other Jesus. So this might give doing the same thing. The other Jesus is the divine Jesus. Yes. And they're both in one two of them. So just the human side, which can forget it can be hungry, it can do all these things. As the brother he mentioned, the Quran says, Can I equal any time in chapter five, verse 75, of the Quran total? Neither can I explain to him and his mom used to eat food. In other words, they were limited to the Quranic argument.
But the Christians, they know this is such a simple and powerful argument that it has to try and avoid it by creating two kinds of Jesus, the divine Jesus. And so where did this thing come from? Let's have a discussion about this by talking about the development of
basically the Trinity. Now, you will know that in the beginning, that there were some groups that were Unitarian in nature, some groups like the urbanites, they were Unitarian type groups, who believed pretty much what the Muslims believe in today. And they were very close to the time of Jesus. In terms of the historical timeline. They believed that Jesus was a messenger, that he was a prophet, but not God, or the Son of God didn't believe this. But then you realize that there was a clear historical development, which allowed for the Trinity to be developed piece by piece.
And we know that in 325, there was the Nicene Council. And from that the Nicene Creed came out. And there was the controversy of arianism versus unitarianism. And arianism is a kind of subordination ism, which is the idea that Jesus is subordinate, as we've mentioned, to God, and areas was the person who propounded this idea. But more than this, you'll find that there are references upon reference from notable scholars that show that clear historical development.
There are primary and secondary historical resources which we can put our hands on, which show us exactly how and why the concept of unitary or monotheism, you could even call it changed from this concept, to the Trinitarian concept. So in 325, you'll find no reference to the Holy Spirit has been good. the Nicene Creed
and the apostles creed
did not have the Holy Spirit as being God. Yes, he's mentioned, but he's not God. Wait a minute. So what you have here you have Bennett arianism. Or some people say binary terian ism this idea of two gods, which some scholars, James Dunn and others have said this
binary terian ism developed out of Paul's teachings, Paul's teachings and we'll come back to that. Now 325 then you have 341. And now, another homework moment was 381. And this was Constantinople.
Like you have to understand in this period of time, this is where Christianity was being formed.
This is where things were changing. This is where the Trinity was being crystallized. And it has so much to do with the political reality of that time in the Roman Empire. So let's talk about this. For example.
If we look at,
if we look at a writer who was writing, Oh, actually a Christian, spokesperson of church man, he in the in the years before 381, was discussing his kind of in his sermon, the reality of his time.
And and this is mentioned, his name is Gregory of Nyssa. This is spelled ny SSA. Yeah. And this is mentioned in a book called The rise of Christianity and the reference as the name of the book by someone called friend, F, er, e, n, d, f, e, r, n, d, and the page number 636. And he says that, in this book,
he says
that people were debating who was at that time before 381, because this is a key time that people were debating, is the son forgotten? Is he created? Is he, superior to the so is he the same as the father is he below the Father, and this is what he was saying, in the book I've just mentioned, you'll find also that it's mentioned
that
Theo Theo DS, the person who actually in
might be pronouncing his name wrong, but in 381, who was basically the in charge of the Roman empire that time and who, who passed who allowed the Constantinople crew to go forward, that he said, after it was actually put forward, he made it clear that no one can be gentle, I'm saying anything other than a Trinitarian. And he applied this with force. And what's the reference for this, you can look at it, there's a there's a primary source reference, which is called the documents of the of the church, or the documents of the church. And it's page number 31. And in that document, you'll find that the,
you'll find that the odious himself is saying that no one can ever be anything other than Trinitarian, after this, before this, hmm. Before this time, there were ariens there were this and that and you'll find that of all the church fathers, this is a reality. igneous, you know, Justin domata, you know,
all of these church fathers, none of them had the same conception of the Trinity as the people that came afterwards. And this is a problem, like 381 was a politically changing moment in the history of Christianity. And this is why the Constantinople creed really was the change in terms of how Christology was conceptualized by Christians thereafter, you find in a book, written by Jonathan Roberts, and the page number is page number 400 541. He says in his book, that this person
theory is he allowed,
he allowed for he forced,
he forced people to become basically trinitarians. And that after this, anyone who says anything other than the Trinitarian doctrine, will be deemed as a heretic. That's why you'll find now that people that are in this day and age and acrylic anachronistically, meaning taking later ideas and applying on later, earlier, people call all of the the Church Fathers as heretics. They refer to them as heretics. People like igneous and you know, Justin lamotta, and these individuals, these are in now have erratic bliss areas. individ. You know, he was someone who had probably it was it was a prominent person, you'll find also
that it's mentioned
by Druids, who is a he's a famous person who wrote a book called antiquity unveiled.
So he wrote systematic, systematic revelation, a systematic theology, sorry, systematic theology. and page number 554. of his book, he mentioned that we know is an important point. Now this idea of two in one, like the Jesus has human nature and a godly nature, this idea came now after
the child, the child tinian Creed, which is 451, where basically, there was a movement
naserian ism, which basically affected the way people conceptualize Jesus because they realized that there was a need now to make two kinds of Jesus, the Jesus of the Divine Jesus and the human Jesus because they couldn't solve the the reality of calling Jesus someone who was divine at the same time. He's saying the father is greater than I. Now.
Really, this is an important point, the
These points I'm making here shows the development of Christianity really, and the truth. And how trinitarianism crystallized us away is today they're not defending when Christians come, and the gross respect to the professor, when Christians come forward and attempt to defend Christianity. They're not defending the Christianity of Jesus Christ, or the Christianity of the disciples or the Christianity, even of the Bible. They are defending the Christianity of the Creed's that emerged out of a political conflict in Rome. That is what they are defending.
woman left. Okay. So with that, I'll just probably in the last minute, I wanted to talk about reason, I don't need to talk much, because to be frank with you, is really patently clear for anyone who knows anything about logic, that the Trinity is a is basically a false concept, according to logic is contradictory, self contradictory, one plus one plus one can equal one. And this is exactly what it's telling you. That's exactly as simple thing is telling you that that's why they emerged out of this. Groups like modalism. A try theists, motorists basically believe that God is one by is divided into three, which is more coherent, and tries to said no, the three gods,
these groups emerged out of the reality that these individuals, or these scholars, they realize it's impossible to reconcile the Trinity with rationality. And I'll say to you, as a final remark
that just think about it.
Well, thanks very much for that. introduction, Mohammed. And I would encourage everyone to think as well, about this issue, it's an issue that does require a lot of thought. And
I won't spend very long on a sort of rebuttal.
Because there's, there'll be plenty of time for that in the discussion after our talks. But I would just like to say something about this argument to do with logic,
and rationality, because there are some things which are true, but which our rationality struggles to understand, for example, the nature of light, you can see me because of light, and the first thing that God created was like God said, Let there be light, first day of creation. But we know, physicists know that light is both a wave and a particle.
It's both a wave and the particle, some of its behavior can only be modeled as a wave. And some can only be modeled as a particle. And that's a paradox that none of us can properly grasp. It seems irrational, that something so fundamental to our existence, can be both a wave and a particle, but it is true. Einstein said, this is something that we can't get our heads around, it seems illogical. But we have to believe it, because that's what the evidence of physics is pointing to. And indeed, that's not true just of light, but of many of all other fundamental particles, as well, I gather. Now, of course,
we haven't known that for a long time, we only realize that light was both a wave and a particle in the last few 100 years. But yet light has been around since the beginning of creation, as I said,
but the light that was there at the beginning of creation was like that could be modeled both by a wave and by a particle, even though Adam would not of course have known that that was the case, yet the light he saw was the same light as what we saw. Now, I want to argue to you today that the Trinity is something like that. It's something which seems to us irrational, something which seems illogical, something that seems like a paradox, it seems two things that we can't hold together, God is one, but he's three, and he's three, but he's one, you know, it seems to defy simple logic, simple mathematics, in the same way as like being a particle. And the wave also seems to defy logic.
But I want to argue to you that something so fundamental, is actually true that this paradox gobbing three, and one is true of God, and that it was true of God for Abraham, it was true of God for Adam. And it is true of God. Today, it's always been true of God.
But today, we understand that somewhat better, although not perfectly, but somewhat better than Abraham understood it.
And there is evidence for that. In the Old Testament, for example, our friend here asks, Where is the Holy Spirit mentioned? In the Old Testament? Well, I don't actually have to go any further than the very opening of the Old Testament. Because there I read. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was without form and void and darkness was over the face of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. So there is the Holy Spirit in the second verse of the
The Bible. And of course, this is the Old Testament, which is also the Jewish scriptures as well, not just the Christian scriptures, which our friends said is, is, in his view more reliable than the New Testament.
So I want to argue to you that the God that Abraham knew,
was a Triune God, even though Abraham did not fully realize that fact, it's something which has been progressively revealed to us, as the Bible continued to be revealed. The Bible is very different to the Quran.
It's 10 times as long as the Quran, and it was revealed over a period of hundreds and 1000s of years, to different people, and at different times. And God's revelation was progressive. Gradually, he reveals more and more about himself, both throughout the Old Testament, and then into the New Testament, we gradually get clearer and clearer light, as God reveals himself. And I imagine that you must, to some extent, believe in progressive revelation to in the Quran comes hundreds of years later than the New Testament, and you would hold that to be the best and clearest revelation. So we both, I think, believe in progressive revelation. It's just I think it stops at the end of the New
Testament, whereas most of you here believe it carries on into the Quran. So it shouldn't be a surprise to you to hear that, I think. And Christians believe that the light we get in the New Testament, sheds light on the Old Testament, yet does not contradict it. But it tells us things that we wouldn't have understood before.
I want to argue to you then that if Abraham were here today,
and Abraham had both of us speak, and had a chance to talk to us both about our faith, and particularly about the way that we relate to God, I think Abraham, having heard us both out, even if he had only just arrived in the 21st century, come back from heaven. He would say to us, well,
the God who I knew, is the God that Richard knows. And not not the God that Mohammed he knows.
He would say, when he hears my description of God, he would recognize that and say, yes, that is the God that I knew when I was on Earth. I didn't realize quite at the time that he was Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. But He's the God that I knew. And why do I say that some of you are laughing, you think that's a silly thing to say? Well, I've printed out some of genesis for you an extract from Genesis 1518, and 22. And it's about God's interactions with Abraham. And let me reiterate, this isn't the New Testament. This is the Old Testament, which often say holds to be a lot more reliable than the New Testament.
So let's think, what are the characters of this God who Abraham interacts with? Let's start with Genesis 15, the first passage
after these things, the word of the Lord came to Abraham. In a vision now though, when you see Lord there, in capitals it the it means Jehovah or your way. And in Hebrew, that means I am. In the Bible, the name of God is I am, which in Hebrew is your way? That's the name that God gave for himself to Moses.
A little kind of fear not Abraham, I am you're. So first of all, notice that God is speaking to Abraham, the word of the law came to Abraham in a vision, fear not Abraham. I am your shields or award shall be very great. So God is a communicating God. God has a relationship with Abraham, he tells Abraham he'll be his shield. He's a God who makes promises, and then keeps his promises. God promised to Abraham that he would have a son. And he delayed in giving Abraham a son, but eventually he did give him a son. And you can see there a conversation between Abraham and God about this fact that at the moment, Abraham doesn't have a son. Now no, notice how close Abraham's relationship to
God is that they can have a discussion like that, about God's promises and about what what God is doing.
Notice that Abraham believed in God's promises. And I've highlighted the last sentence in that passage from Genesis 15. And he believed the Lord and he counted it to him as righteousness. So that saying that God counted Abraham as righteous because he believed. So God counted Abraham as righteous not because he circumcised his children not because he kept his law, not because he was perfect because Abraham was not a perfect person. The only perfect person who has ever lived is Jesus Christ.
But God counted Abraham as righteous because Abraham believed
Let's go on to Genesis 18.
And the Lord appeared to him by the Oaks of mammaries. He sat at the door of his tent in the heat of the day, he lifted up his eyes and looked in, behold, three men was standing in front of him. When he saw them, he ran from the tent door to meet them and bowed himself down to the earth and said, Oh, Lord, if I have found favor in your sight, do not pass by your servant. Let little water be brought and wash your feet and rest yourselves under the tree, while I bring a morsel of bread, that you may refresh yourself off that you may pass on, since you have come to your servant.
Good example of us of hospitality. They're shown by Abraham. So they said, Do as you have said, and Abraham went quickly to the tent to Sarah, his wife and said, quick three spheres of fine flour needed to make cakes. And he ran out to her and he anyway cooked a meal for them. Then the next paragraph, they said to him, we're sorry, your wife and he said, she is in the tent. The Lord said, Sure, I will. The Lord said, I will surely return to you about this time next year and Sarah, your wife will have a son. Now Sarah was listening at the 10th door behind him. Now Abraham and Sarah were old advanced in years, the way of women had ceased to be with Sara Sara laughter herself
saying, after I'm worn out, and my lord is old, shall I have pleasure? She'll have the pleasure of having a son. The Lord said to Abraham, why did Sarah law etc, etc. So one of the three men is addressing Abraham as God, he keeps being called the Lord. The Lord said to Abram, the Lord said to Abraham,
so Abraham wouldn't be too surprised if someone said to him, Well, God can reveal himself in human form.
Because he himself had had God revealed to himself in human form.
And that's further confirmed to us. As we continue to read the passage. Then the men set out from that, and they look down towards Sodom. And Abraham went with them to set them on their way. The Lord said, this, this one of them, who is the Lord, shall I hide from Abraham what I'm about to do, seeing that Abraham shall surely become a great and mighty nation, and all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him, for I have chosen him, that he may command his children in his household after him to keep the way of the Lord, by doing righteousness and justice, as the Lord may bring Abraham what He has promised him, the Lord said, because the outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is
great, and their sin is very grave, I will go down to see whether they have done altogether according to the outcry that has come to me. And if not, I will No, no notice about God. He's a God of justice. He's a God who hates sin. He's a God who judges sin, but he judges it justly. He goes down himself to see what is going on to make sure that justice is being done correctly.
22. So the men turn from there and went towards saddam, but Abraham still stood before the Lord. Now we know
that it was two of the men that went down to Sodom because in verse 19, which you can see here, it says, the two angels came to Sodom in the evening. So Abraham is left here with the one man who is identified as the Lord. And then Abraham pleads with God, to be merciful to Sodom. Abraham says, verse 23, then Abraham drew near and said, will you indeed sweeper, the way the righteous with the wicked, and then he bargains with God, trying to rescue saddam from destruction.
And God allows
Abraham to gradually get him down till he says, if there are just three righteous people in Sodom, I will spare the whole city.
And then it says, In verse 33, and the Lord went his way.
And then the story goes on the two angels came to saddam. And then later in chapter 19, we read, the sun had risen on the earth when Locke came to soar. And then look at this, this is quite interesting, verse 24, Chapter 19. Then the Lord rained on Sodom and Gomorrah sofa and fire from the Lord out of heaven.
So what it seems to be saying is the Lord, who was there, in human form,
asked the Lord Who is in heaven,
to rain fire down on Sodom.
Now Abraham would not have known that that was that God was a trinity because of that. But because of what we know from the revelation of God in the New Testament, we can read back at this and see that, in fact, this was the Trinity, and that God could do this, because God is trying.
Now there's another thing that Abraham knew about God and that was that God requires sacrifice.
And throughout his life, we read Abraham made an altar to the Lord Abraham made an altar to the Lord in all
To make a sacrifice, because God required sacrifice as atonement for sin.
But Abraham also discovered in a dramatic events which I believe you celebrate at, eat one of the eat festivals,
that God was willing to accept a substitute sacrifice.
In Genesis 22, which I've printed out on the sheet, God asks Abraham to sacrifice his son. Now, of course, this is a terrible thing to ask for anyone to contemplate doing. God asked Abraham to sacrifice his son. And such was Abraham's belief in God that he was willing to actually sacrifice his son, and he was about to do it. And God said, Stop.
Stop Now. Now.
I know that you fear me seeing you have not withheld your son, your only son from me. And then Abraham looked up, and this is just at the very end here. And Abraham lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, behind him was a RAM, caught in a thicket by his horns. And Abraham went and took the RAM and offered it up as a burnt offering instead of his son. So Abraham called the name of that place, the LORD Will Provide, as it is said to this day on the mountain of the Lord, it shall be provided
five minutes, thank you. So Abraham knew that God was a God who required sacrifice, but would accept a substitute.
Now, how does that help me as a Christian? Well, that is exactly the God that I believe in as a Christian, a God who reveals himself a God who speaks a God who has relationships with people who speaks with them, who we can pray to a God who can be revealed in human form,
a God who judges and is just a God who hates sin, a God who requires sacrifice and a God who will accept a substitute in sacrifice. That is exactly the God who I believe in as a Christian.
And when it comes to the New Testament, and I'd like you to pick up these John's gospels, we discover in far more detail and far more clearly what was going on and what this was pointing to. For example, if we turn to page four,
verse 29, on page four, which is just under the heading Behold, the Lamb of God. This is about john the baptist, who was a Prophet Jesus called john the baptist, the greatest of the prophets.
And john said, that the next day john saw Jesus coming towards him and said, Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world. Now, what was john saying, in that short sentence, he was saying, Jesus is the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world. Jesus is the sacrificial lamb, who is going to be the substitute who takes away the sin of the world.
Abraham was willing to offer up his son as a sacrifice. But God said to him, No, you don't need to do it. Well place around there instead. But then, when Jesus comes, God takes his own son, and he does sacrifice him as the ultimate substitute for Isaac, for the RAM. For us, for anyone who believes in Him, God provides the ultimate substitute by being willing, and actually offering up his son as a sacrifice. And if Abraham were here today, he would say, yes, that is the God who I recognize. And that is how God can have relationships with sinful people. That's how we can have a relationship with God because he was willing to offer his own son as a sacrifice in our place.
Why did it need God's own son to be a sacrifice? Well, a single human could not have been a sacrifice for everyone who believes it had to be someone who was much bigger than any individual person. In addition, our sin against God is is huge. All of us deserve to spend eternity in hell, we deserve an infinite punishment. And the only person who could take an infinite punishment from God was God, the son himself who was God, and therefore infinite, unable to bear and in finite punishment. Now, if God were not trying, if God were not Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, that would be impossible, as substitutionary sacrifice who could make atonement for all our sins would simply not
be possible, and we could not have a relationship with God, and we would all have to spend eternity in hell.
That is ultimately why I believe in the Trinity. Thank you.
All right, guys. I've got 15 minutes apparently. So I'm going to try and cover what I couldn't cover in the previous section as well as answer some of his contentions. I've written them down.
Really, let's be honest here.
Guys, and I'm not. I mean, look, I have the greatest respect for Dr. Richard.
But really were my arms. My questions answered, No. I mean, there was nothing of what I asked that was answered almost at all. The closest we got to it
was in the beginning where he said, and the Spirit of God hovered over in the creation account. Yeah. When he said,
The Spirit of God yet does it say in Genesis that the Spirit of God is God?
This is, I mean, this is the point we're trying to establish here, guys, the Trinity from the biblical texts. Yeah. The fact that you have a spirit of God doesn't mean that that spirit must be God, that doesn't follow.
Another thing, which is quite interesting about Rich's response, because it had some implicit or subtextual, admissions really,
were his references to sort of the macro and the micro scientific realms and all these kinds of things, waves versus particles, and these very important discussions that are had in in his speciality in the scientific world,
you have to understand that the rules of formal logic are different to the scientific method, that would make it a false analogy from the start. So he's saying, okay, you know, you've got, and there is there is a controversy within physics. Yeah. That, you know, you've got things that are happening on a quantum level, and you have things that haven't been a macro level. And there seems to be paradox between those two things. Therefore, he says, some things we cannot rationalize. And this can be applied to the Trinity. No, it cannot be applied to the Trinity for the following reason. The way you do science is you use the scientific method, the scientific method has a process that you
use, yeah, which is defined really, by the philosophers of science, people like Karl Popper, and others, who had a defining effect on defining what the scientific method is. Logic, on the other hand, has a completely different approach. It has premises, it has informal fallacies, it has things like that. Now, we don't use the scientific method to analyze truth claims which have a theological,
which have a theological complexion, which is what he's trying to say he's trying to create this false analogy, we use formal logic. And there are informal contradictions, which are patently clear, which he knows exists within the Trinity, which are unexplainable. So since he's implied that the Trinity is something the rationality cannot fathom.
The question is, then why would God allow this to happen? Why would he reveal himself in a way, which is not understood by his creation? Does this make any sense considering that Corinthians tells us that God is not the author of confusion? Does this make any sense considering that the Trinity is meant to be the heart of the Christian faith? Does this make any sense considering
that all of the prophets came to deliver a very simple message of theology to people, the masses,
which have varying intelligences and understanding ability to comprehend it doesn't make any sense. So the point of rationality, I'm happy, he said, what he said, Because actually, with it is an incredible admission
that the Trinity is unsubstantiated, or otherwise, it cannot be understood. When rationality is applied to
one God.
This is the clearest and purest and most simple, beautiful truth that any human being can envisage. Or think of one God is the same thing that Abraham, the very man that he quoted, and he attempted to, I mean, I'm not going to go into his argument because it does not require a rebuttal. He literally just read from the Bible. And there was nothing in what he read that said anything about Jesus, or anything about the Holy Spirit, nothing, let alone the Trinity, let alone that they were all co equal. This is a desperate clutching at straws. Christians wake up seriously, today should be the day after this performance of this man. Today must be the day. Today really must be the day that
you say no more, that you say no more that you say we want to be followers of Abraham, Abraham, the same Abraham that in the Quran. In chapter number two, verse number 113. Well, lots of Hannah tala. He says, Mark and Ibrahim Jolla who do Allah nasrani Oh Allah kin wacka Cana honey from Muslim America and amin el Masri mushrikeen, the Abraham was not a Jew.
And he was not a Christian. How could he be a follower of Christ when Christ was not known to him? Well as simple beautiful
argument that this man could not argue against the Quranic argument, simple.
This is actually in chapter three verse 67. Sorry.
So little allameh actually was in chapter two verse 112, or 13. Well, Allah subhanaw taala says, we'll call it Celia who delay setting nazar Allah Shane, you
were harlot in LA Sachi Leah who do Allah Shea, Mia Lunel kita. The Jews say that the Christians are not anything the basically the deviant.
The Christian said the same thing about the Jews. And they read the same book, ie the Old Testament, how could you come to so differentiated conclusions when you're reading the same book?
Tell me one scholar, one notable Jewish scholar who knows his language more than you and me, who has studied this text more than me, you and me, who has told us that Jesus is in the in the in the Old Testament was that the Trinity exists? Or there's some kind of Trinity This is a nonsense argument. It's an embarrassing argument.
It should never be made.
And I tell you something, actually, Christian apologists have come to this reality. People like William Lane Craig and come over the other guy. These people they've come to the argument. So they've they've admitted, I've seen it on our YouTube video. That's right. I want you to and I saw it on a YouTube video with Ravi singer versus William Lane Craig. And he said, he said, No is not. Jesus is not mentioned the Trinity is not mentioned the Old Testament, they've realized that if you want to have any academic vigor moving forward, you cannot make ridiculous arguments. Don't make ridiculous arguments. The age today is an age of technology. And and we can easily access
information you cannot make this argument. Why is the Trinity not mentioned the Old Testament? Why is the Trinity not mentioned once? Why is the Old Testament not telling us of the Holy Spirit? Being God? Why is Jesus not even mentioned by name this should be known.
This should be known.
I tell you something, something really interesting. I read
in the
I tell you why I read this. I read this in the Catholic biblical commentary. New Jerome is one of the most prestigious, prestigious commentaries written.
And the page number is page 461.
Or could be 641. Check both.
Where it says that going back to what I was talking about in history, that poor line,
the poor line doctrines basically replaced the Jewish form of Christianity. Listen to what this person said, only to be reborn.
In Islam,
they're telling us, the exegesis the biblical commentators, they're telling us what they're telling us that the Trinitarian ism of Paul, they're telling us that the trinitarianism
of those Creed's that were formulated some 400 years after Jesus, that that is not the way of Jesus and that is not the way of the Bible. And that is not the way of the Old Testament. And that Islam would come to reinvigorate re energize, to renew the teachings of Abraham. And this is the reality guys. How long have we got left?
Okay, this is good. Now I feel like I've got some time last time I felt like I didn't have that much time.
Now, I'll tell you something, guys. This is the questions that I'm going to pose as direct questions. And if you don't get an answer today to these questions, then you as Christians, or anyone with a mind and rationality, listening and watching and understanding my argument should reject Christianity as a whole. And if you don't, well law he and I said will lie which means by Allah, whoa, la he oxen mobiler love him. I swear by Allah, the mighty,
you are denying yourself. self denial is prevalent in every limb of your body. And in your psychology. You're just denying yourself denying this is something so patently clear. Question one, why is the Why is the Trinity not in the Old Testament? Question two, why is it not clear in the New Testament? Question three. Why has there been a clear historical development that can be traced historically using primary secondary sources that has led from unitarianism trinitarianism to trinitarianism and 381. Were theocracies the person at the time of the Roman Empire he forced everyone to be a Trinitarian question for why is it that you find all of the Church Fathers Justin?
All of these people like Justin, people like Clementine, all of these individuals origin Where have they agreed with the Trinity that you claim today is the Trinity
See?
Where Where can you find in their teachings? The things that we see today, get me a statement, find this statement.
It should be there. Question number five, if you realize that the Trinity is an irrational,
you know,
irrational things thing to comprehend five minutes.
Then why is it and how could you make rational arguments today? Does it make any sense to stand here and make rational arguments when you know that the Trinity that you're defending has no rationality behind it? You should just say I have faith.
And you know what? I think really, there's nothing more to say. So I'm going to tell you what Allah subhanaw taala says what we believe God says, because you know what, people don't really use the Quran too much in Dawa. So let's just say what Allah says. Let's just repeat what Allah has told us.
Last month, Allah says in Surah Nisa, chapter four verse 171, everyone knows this verse, or at least they should do.
Especially the Christians, Allah subhanaw taala says,
lol kita Bella taboo fi the new kumala Jabu Allah Allah Hillel haka. Oh, People of the Scripture, do not go in extremes in your religion, theological extremes are in the Trinity. And don't say about Allah subhanaw taala. Don't say about God except for the truth.
In mercy, no money. Mr.
Mani, I mean, that certainly the Messiah, the Son of Mary
is the Prophet of Allah, as in Acts chapter two verse number 22. It tells us that he was a man amongst men sent was wonders and miracles and signs. He's a messenger approved by God.
And it says in the Quran, and his word we do affirm that he was his word, meaning Allah said and he was, he said, confi akun
that's what happened.
So I'll continue to goes for me nor will you Aracely so believe in Allah and His messengers will Taku thalassa and don't say three I either Trinity don't say it. Iran lakum Stop.
Stop is better for you.
This is clear statements. Stop is better for you.
In Nam, Allahu Allah Whoa.
Certainly Allah is one God. So Hannah, who a goon Allahu Allah The
Glory be to him that he had a son
lahoma okusama to fill out the whole Murphy sama to fill out he has To Him belongs to ever was in the heavens and earth work have been lucky.
And sufficient is God as a disposal of our affairs.
And the brother Masha Allah, he recited sorts of matter. So I'm not going to recite that again.
We're chapter five, verse 72. Read it as Christians with an open mind that are open heart. It's time guys. This is why religion the Christian religion is fading away. In the look 2001 census 2001 there was some 76 76% of the British population was Christian. Now some 54%. Why because of these realities, it's just something which is incoherent. Today, you can reconcile. You can reconcile. Today's a day. Seriously, as Christians, listen to me. I know I'm a bit passionate now and I do apologize. If I've come across as somewhat
passionate
especially to I steams guest either means it Yeah. When I talk about God and things, it just gets me riled up.
One minute.
So what I was gonna say guys, is really Christians. You've heard it all today. The arguments have been made. The reality is clear. The truth has prevailed. And today, you can reconcile between spirituality and rationality. today. You can free yourself from the shackles of irrational thought.
You can free yourself from the shackles of irrational, incoherent thought do what the people
of the Roman empire that time couldn't do break yourself free from the creedal doctrine
of the Trinity,
and embrace the religion of Abraham. Embrace the religion of Jesus Christ. That's my final statement to you guys. Today, I will lie. I mean, nothing. I mean, I do this for nothing but love. And you guys are welcome to Islam. And this is not a brilliant invitation.
But seriously,
just got me a little bit frustrated with, you know, the arguments that were made. That had nothing to do with today's discussion. But really, this is it, guys.
You're welcome to come
to Islam. And there's so many he said his church is somewhere here. We've got mosques everywhere in this area. So make yourself at home, come here, come to the masjid come to the mosque. And you know, and feel free to ask any questions you want to ask? Yeah. All right. Well, I think it's customary in a debate of this nature for both of the speakers to give an opening statement, which doesn't try to necessarily rebut what the other person has just said, so that in their second speech, they can both do a rebuttal. Otherwise, the person who speaks second would be always rebutting and the first person would be always setting the agenda. So this time, I will say more about my friends here. And
what he has said, and I'm very disappointed that he hasn't made more effort to address the arguments which I made. And I'm particularly disappointed that he criticized me for reading to you from God's word.
And that he was willing to promote his own rationality, above God's revelation and place more emphasis on what he thinks is rational, rational, and understandable, rather than submitting to God's revelation, in His Word, and that's what I'm trying to do. As a Christian. To me, reading from the Bible is in itself an argument because that is actually our only authority. If I try and place my own mind and my own rationality, above God, then I'm really committing a blasphemy because God is so much greater than I am, you know, my thoughts and my logic, obviously cannot know, by themselves, God, I need God to reveal myself. If logic alone could lead me to God, then we wouldn't need any
revelation from God at all. We could just sit quietly, and think, and come up with a beautiful idea. And write it down and say, Well, this is what I think God should be like. I think God should be like this. Because that fits into my own small brain, you know, it's like your goldfish going round and round in its in its bowl at home, can that goldfish know what it means to be a human being? Can they know what it means to love? Can they know what it means to be in a relationship? Well, no, they can't, because they're just a goldfish, and you're a human. Same with us. And God, you know, we are only human, and God is the infinite creator. And it's not at all surprising if when God starts to
reveal Himself to us, that there are things which are very hard for us to understand things like the Trinity, justice, as we get to understand physics, we come across things which are hard to understand, and might at first seem contradictory to us.
So when we start to learn about God, through God's revelation, we have to start to wrestle with things which are very, very hard for us to understand. And they're not irrational, but they're super irrational. They're above our rationality.
And that is the case with the Trinity. And it's in submission to the Bible. It's God's word that I believe in the Trinity. Of course, if I was making up a religion for myself, I would not invent the Trinity, I would, I would say, yes, there's just one God, because that seems simple to me, but I'm not making up my own religion. I'm trying to understand what God has revealed Himself to us in the Bible.
So we have to look at the evidence within God's revelation to us, and try to come to an understanding of that we can't just rely on our own logic.
Now, my friend is worried that I didn't bother to rebut all of his arguments about early church history.
Well, that's really for two reasons. One reason is because I don't worry too much about early church history. I believe that there is everything I need to know about God here in the Bible. And I don't need to worry about what someone thought in the second century or the third century or the fourth century AD, because I can find the Trinity clearly taught here in the Bible, and so I don't need to worry
About what various Church Fathers said. Now, having said that,
you will find that most of the Church Fathers agree with me. And you will also find that a lot of the debate before things like the Council of Nicea were not about was Jesus God, the debates are about was Jesus human. A lot of people were saying he can only be God and not human, rather than saying he must be human and not God.
It wasn't like the debate that we're having today. Most of the most of the early Christians, if they weren't sure what they thought about Jesus, whether he was God or man, they were tending to think he was God and not man, not that he was man, and not God. And that's something which was not coming across, at all clearly, in in our friends arguments here. So the Trinity is, is just a word that people came up with, to describe what the Bible is teaching us about God, just like the word Tajweed did, I probably pronounced that completely wrong, that word is not in the Quran.
The word Trinity is not in the Bible in the word tawi. It is not in the Quran. So both of them are words that people have come up with in use to try to describe what a particular book is teaching. You have your time read, which is your understanding of what the Quran is teaching about God. And we have our word Trinity, which is our understanding of what the Bible is teaching us about the nature of God.
Now,
the word below him was mentioned by Mohammed is in his opening talk, he said, it's a plural in Hebrew. But he said it's it's like a royal way. It's, it's a plural form, that's for an aggrandizement.
I'd be interested if you could give me any other noun in the Old Testament, where it's a plural for aggrandizement, I'm very skeptical. That concept of using a plural to Brandeis was was known at all. And I would argue that the plural form of a lo hymn of God in the in the New Testament is a reflection of the fact that God is a trinity. Now, of course, as I very clearly stated earlier, I'm not claiming that the Trinity is clearly taught in the Old Testament, because God's revelation is progressive. And it becomes much clearer in the New Testament. But when we look back into the Old Testament, we can see a whole lot of clues that God really was a trinity all the way through, from
before time began, until
eternity in the future.
And I, I clearly said that, and as I say, I think if Abraham were here today, he would recognize the way I relate to God, as the way he related to God, which is different, I'm afraid than the way
Mohammed here relates to God. And I'd be very interested if we could talk more about this issue of how we relate to God, because the Trinity is, is crucial in how we relate to God. As I said, the sun is the sacrifice, who dies, so that we can come back to God and the Spirit is the way God communicates with us
today,
and the way we can have a relationship with God, I don't understand how a non Trinitarian God could have relationships with human beings, I can see how he could be a very aloof and distant and unknowable God, but I don't know how he could be a God who could actually have a relationship with us, a God, who we could love a God who we could know, a God who we could have confidence in front of. And indeed, I'd like to ask Mohammed here, could he actually say he does love God that he does have a relationship with God, that when he prays with God, it's like a conversation
that he feels assured before God that his sins really are forgiven, that he he knows that when he comes before God's judgment throne, he will go to heaven, and not to hell because as a Christian, because of the triune nature of God, because I know that God has sacrificed his son in our place, because I know that salvation is by faith, just as it was for Abraham, God counts face to us as righteousness. Because I know that and because of the work of the Holy Spirit within me, giving me new birth, I can know that when I stand before God,
I will go to heaven. I don't have to have any doubt that I will go to hell, I can have assurance of that. And while I'm living in this world, I can have a relationship with him and indeed, for the Christian, and this is what the Bible teaches. The joy of Heaven is knowing God. The joy of Heaven is having a having a complete relationship with God.
And that is where all human joy comes from. Heaven isn't about physical joy. You know, heaven isn't about sex. Heaven is about knowing God, and having a relationship with God. And you laugh, but that is a much higher form of joy than physical enjoyment.
So I would argue that the Christian view of Heaven is considerably more spiritual, and ultimately much happier than what I understand to be an Islamic view. Now, you might correct me and say that you have a wrong view of of heaven. But that's
something I have picked up. Okay.
Other points that were made
that so that I think I've answered the point. Why is the Trinity not clearly stated in the Old Testament? Well, progressive revelation, although it is there. Why is it not clear in the New Testament? Well, I totally agree. I think it is absolutely clear in the New Testament.
There are numerous places I could go throughout the gospel of john,
five minutes, God, Jesus is clearly human. But he's clearly making claims about himself, which could only be true if he were equal with God. So
for example, if
that's your copy.
And
Jesus says, so if you look at page 14,
the Jews are criticizing Jesus for healing people on the Sabbath. And then Jesus says, My father is working until now, and I am working.
And then the Jews say, and then it says this, this is why the Jews was seeking all the more to kill him. Because not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own father, making himself equal with God. The Jewish people at the time clearly realized that Jesus was claiming to be equal with God, even though he was clearly a human, he clearly ate and drank. There are clearly things that he sometimes didn't know. But yet at the same time,
making claims that could only be true, if he were God.
And Jesus Himself definitely thought that Abraham would recognize him and on chapter on page 27, down at the bottom, verse 56, there, your father Abraham, rejoice that he would see my day he saw it, and was glad. So the Jews said to him, you're not yet 50 years old, have you seen Abraham, Jesus said to them, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was I am. And as I said, earlier, I am is the name of God. So Jesus is saying, I existed before Abraham, as the I am as God. Now, that immediately points to the Trinity, because
clearly Jesus is not the Father, Jesus is referring to God the Father who is in heaven, and who has sent him, but yet he is also claiming to be the I Am. So we have to conclude, although they are two, they're also one they're both God will go into persons, not two different gods, but one God who is united in purpose. And that's why Jesus always says, I submit to the Father, I do what the Father says. Everything that the Father is doing, he shows me why because they are completely united in the purpose.
Jesus also refers to the Spirit. And at the end of john,
page 59, other bottom verse 28, Thomas answered him, Thomas said to Jesus, my Lord, and my God,
Jesus said to him, what did Jesus say to him? Thomas has just said to my Lord, and my God, talking about Jesus, does Jesus say, That's blasphemy? I can't be God. There's only you know, God is in heaven. He's spirit. I'm not God. Now he doesn't. He says, Jesus said, Tim, have you believe because you have seen, blessed are those who have not seen, and yet have believed, Jesus says, Well done, that you've realized that I'm God. And even more blessed will be those people who realize I'm God, even though they they've never seen me, in human form. And that is, of course, who Christians are today. And and John's whole purpose in writing the book, if you just turn over from page 59 of it to
from page 6059 to verse 60. JOHN wrote his book, these are written verse 31, of chapter 20 of john, these things are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing, you may have life in his name.
And if you think that's only something that john claims, and that the other gospels don't claim that I'll just read to you the close of Matthew's Gospel.
Now the 11 disciples went to Galilee to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them.
And when they saw him, they worshipped him, but some doubted. And Jesus came and said to them, all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all the time I've commanded you. And behold, I'm with you always, even to the end of the age. And just as a friend to challenge you, I would challenge you, all authority on heaven and earth has been given to Jesus, and he should be worshipped. And I will call you to come and bow down before Jesus, He is the king of the universe, all authority has been given to him. And better than
that he has died for our sins, so that we can come without having to worry about all of the sins that are behind us that we've committed. God has laid them on Jesus, he's been punished in our place. So if we believe in Him, we can know we can go to heaven, and have a relationship with the triune. God forever.
To be honest, view, this one. This time, he came with the standard arguments, and I appreciate that he did actually attempt to get some evidences from the holy text.
Most notably, obviously, the New Testament, I think the strongest argument that he made, which I'm going to talk about, are the two strongest arguments he made
in relation to the book of john. And also in relation to the book of Matthews, this will go down. So
let's start with what he said, which is a very standard argument. And I'll be honest, this is probably the strongest reference to the divinity of Jesus Christ in the New Testament. The whole idea of
Jesus Himself saying before Abraham, I am Yeah, this is actually if you wanted to make an argument for the divinity of Jesus Christ within the New Testament corpus, because in the Old Testament, as we've discovered, is, is practically impossible. I think we've come to a conclusion on that. But from a New Testament perspective, this is one of the strongest system the top three, I would say, to say that
he said before Abraham, I am.
Now this I am statement is, is repeated in the Old Testament, because remember, the language is the language difference between the Old Testament and the New Testament. And
the Hebrew word is, hey, this word, which is I am, is in, for example, Ezekiel, chapter 11, verse 20, isn't Ezekiel chapter 11, verse 20, what the New Testament scholars attempted to do, clearly, because they had to their disposal, the Hebrew Old Testament, is translate the physiologies of the Old Testament into the New Testament. So this I am, they've translated into egoism. I, I'm not really good at Greek. But this is this whole I am statement, okay. And the argument goes that since God describes himself in this form, Yes, I am. Therefore,
it would be argued that because Jesus says, or he's referring himself to himself in the same way, before Abraham, I am, right. So this is for the Christian something to hold on to something somewhat firm, something you can hold on to something that, yes, it makes sense. He didn't say I'm God or anything but this form I am, can you see where the Christian is coming from him because we do need to see where they're coming from. Right? They think this is something that you can hold on to however, the problem is this. And you knew that there was going to be a however,
the problem is that this same word, a, hey, which is the Hebrew format, when it comes from the Hebrew, and it's translated by Paul himself, okay, when this I am in Hebrews 810, to a verse and in the original language, he translated not as I am,
who is problematic, he translated as I will be.
So, here we have a problem because the strongest piece of evidence that the Christian probably one of the strongest, if not the strongest piece of evidence, that they can hold on to and say this shows the divinity of Jesus Christ in the New Testament corpus is translated by one of the most prominent New Testament writers in a different way. Therefore, it is I will be that's a future tense and is different to I am, which is obviously a present tense, and that changes the meaning completely and therefore you cannot have the same meaning of divinity. Now, the other passage that he referenced,
go ahead so
these are expressions even this statement before Abraham, it doesn't make sense, does it? Um, if you really think about linguistically It doesn't make sense for Abraham. I am. I was would make sense
Yeah, well, this requires an understanding of the Hebrew and decoded Greek. And this is the problem when, because when people, the layman approaches the biblical tradition, the Old Testament and the New Testament, they attempt to interpret these physiologies, which had the meanings in the old Semitic languages, in an English way, on a Latin way.
With Latin languages based languages, it's very difficult to come to real conclusions. I am and I will be actually I will be making more sense. If you think of it from an English perspective, I'm an I am before Abraham I am no it would be I was if you if you want to make sense of it. Anyways, there's a lot of things are not like,
well, this is iron. But these are phraseology is that.
You know, I've told you that basically, my main argument is that Paul has translated it differently. That's my argument. And basically, you're gonna have to go back to Hebrews and see why he did that he must have thought of the language in a different way as to the way you're thinking about it. Now, the other thing in the book of Matthews, which is very famous First, go in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. This is there's controversy about the verse itself, whether it's part of the Bible or not, and biblical scholars
actually are debating whether this is part of the original Bible. And so using it in this debate here would be problematic, because it goes back to what I was talking about in the beginning, especially that the Bible itself, as we, as we said, has real issues. I mean, did you know that 94% of the Bible of the manuscripts of the Bible, which are about 5700, in number, according to Bart Ehrman, which is a scholarly authority to go back to the the lady's question, what are the resources or the evidences you have? Did you know that 94% of the scholarly resources or the manuscripts that we have of the New Testament, have come after the ninth century? You know, the ninth century is
after Prophet Mohammed is two centuries after Prophet Mohammed. So can you imagine the level of corruption that we have with this Bible, and we're using it as a almost as the historical cornerstone of this debate, it should not be used in that way, is something which has been corrupted over and over and over again, there are layers of corruption. And this is why we say as Muslims that this is a problem. If you're a Christian, and you believe in a book like this, which has not been preserved, it cannot be said to be the Word of God. biblical scholars have almost agreed unanimously, and I'm saying the statement, I'm making this statement today, biblical scholars that
I'm talking about biblical scholars, experts in the manuscripts have agreed almost unanimously that the New Testament is not preserved at all. Not Can you imagine 94% of the 5700 odd manuscripts
of the Bible, they go, they go back to the 99th century? I mean, what is that? What is that? That is an unbelievable level. So to use this as as a trigger for you talking about Jesus's divinity, not one time, has he mentioned anything about the Holy Spirit? The only attempt was with Genesis, and we explained that really quickly, and there was no refusal of that discussion, or that my counter. So here, we have to be honest with ourselves. We really do. Guys, I know I was a little bit passionate before. But let me say it to you now in a calm way. Yeah. Seriously, we do have to be honest with ourselves, should we be clutching on those ambiguous? Or should we close you on these ambiguous
verses
that basically contradict the other ambiguous verses, in john chapter five, verse 30, when he says, I submit my will to the will of the Father.
In john, Chapter 14, verse 28, which I referenced before, we said, the father is greater than I, this is not equality. The Trinity is a doctrine which quotes and equal
an equal relationship of these three entities are meant to be equal. So why should we be clutching at these verses as a Christian, if you believe in sola scriptura, the idea that you should be referencing the Bible yourself, you have an access to the Bible, if you do believe in this concept, then you should really think about this.
Look at what the Bible even the New Testament, I mean, the most unambiguous statements are those which affirm very decisively the subordination
of Jesus Christ in relation to the Father, or God. And I say, why not do that? Why not do what Jesus Christ did? Why not be Christians, a follower of Christ, not a follower of basically, a Roman Emperor, Emperor, Emperor. Why should we be followers of these Emperor's that existed a full time. Go back to your scripture, and look at it deeply. And look at it with an honest and open mind and you will come to the conclusion
That monotheism is really what's being taught by the prophets, all of the prophets, Abraham, Moses, and Jesus.
And then you realize, you ask yourself,
why is it the case that there was this kind of
corruption of Christianity? And then you'll realize that there was a need for renewal. And that need materialized and crystallized with the coming of the Prophet, Muhammad Sallallahu, alayhi wasallam. And I've got half a minute, but I'm going to stop there.
Well, you
mentioned that you think you've dealt with what I said from Genesis, but I haven't really heard you engage tool in what was going on
in Abraham's interactions with God. And I'm particularly interested in this question, is your relationship with God, anything like Abraham's relationship with God, with a God who?
Councilman righteous through their faith, a God who demands a sacrifice, but can accept a substitute? A God who you can speak with? A God who you can pray to, as a conversation? A God who you love and trust? Do you have relationship with God like the relationship with Abraham, and I think that's absolutely key to this whole issue of God, as Trinity, and the way God relates with us, and I would challenge all of you to think about that, and to read, read the life of Abraham, in the Old Testament, I believe it's, it's a good thing for a Muslim to read the Old Testament, to read the Torah, to read the books of Moses. So I'd really encourage you to just read, read the Torah.
And ask yourself, do I have a relationship with God like Abraham did? And like Moses did?
Can you really claim to be a follower of Abraham? If you don't have the relationship with God, that Abraham himself did? I think that's a very, very important question.
And has completely to do with this issue of Trinity, as I've explained several times.
Now, you're handling of the New Testament, I found
slightly irrational, I have to admit, because a verse which you don't like you proclaim to be ambiguous in a verse that you do, like you claim to be unambiguous. So all of the verses where Jesus talks about his submission to the Father, you claim an unambiguous, but the ones where he is clearly claiming equality with the Father, you claim to be ambiguous Well, that's that's picking and choosing. And, of course, in the Trinity,
the Bible is teaching there is among the three persons and an order. And the son voluntarily submits to the Father in the spirit voluntarily submits to the to the Father and the Son. And that is how we can know that there's going to be unity of purpose among the three people, persons of the Trinity indeed because they are one.
And that that is part of how the Trinity works. And I do want to stress
trinitarianism is monotheistic. It's it's a trinity, it's not a trio. At one point you said, Jesus is teaching monotheism. Well, of course, Jesus is teaching monotheism. Trinitarian ism is monotheistic. We believe in one God, we passionately believe there is only one God. And it's because we so strongly believe that there is one God that we have to believe that there is a trinity because clearly Jesus also is God. And the father is God and the Spirit is God. But yet the Bible is teaching us everywhere, there is only one God and we believe there is only one God and that's why we believe in the Trinity. Three, but one and one, but three, it is monotheistic. It is not
polytheistic. It's a trinity, not a trio. And I can't emphasize that too much.
I was a little bit surprised that you wanted to appeal to extra biblical and extra Quranic sources. Because I think if we believe that God has revealed himself, then the most reliable revelation we can possibly have is that revelation. But if you do want extra biblical evidence, Josephus and Pliny both writing a very, very early ad, both clearly record that Christians view Jesus as God and worshipped him. So there is no shadow of doubt the early Christians, if you want to look at extra biblical sources, were worshiping Jesus, and believing that he is God. Now this whole thing about the manuscripts Well, of course, Sarah, more manuscripts from the nine
centuries in the second century, I mean, it stands to reason that the nearer we get, I mean, the number of copies in of the Bible made in the 20th century is, is millions and millions, you know, the closer we get to now, the more copies there are going to be published or printed in in a particular time. So it's not surprising, there's more, more from the ninth century than from the second or third centuries. But we do have manuscripts that do go right back hundreds and hundreds of years before the Quran was written. And they are essentially the same as
the, the Bible we have in front of us today. And indeed, in any, in any Bible, like the Bible I have there, it has noted all the variants in it is something we don't try and hide away. All of the variants are there listed for me in my copy of the Bible, and I can look them up. And the thing is, most of them are incredibly minor. I mean, it's just a letter here or a letter, it's very tiny things. And none of them, even the big variants change the message of the Bible, all of them have the same message. And that's why we're not embarrassed about them. And that's why we've never had to go through a period where you've had to burn all of the copies that don't agree with the one copy
that we think is the right one. We haven't had to do that because the variants are so small that we don't have to be embarrassed about them. They all have the same message. Thank you.