Mohammed Hijab – Trinity Series #01
AI: Summary ©
The speakers discuss the trinity and its significance in Christian faith, as well as the importance of understanding weightings and the concept of trinity. They also touch on the use of "immersed in the church" to weight church's weightings and the importance of showing rationality in court. The speakers emphasize the need for definition and clarity in the future. They also discuss the trinity's relationship and its impact on understanding God and the attributes of God.
AI: Summary ©
As-salamu alaikum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh, how
are you guys doing and welcome to another
short series where we're going to be talking
about the dysfunctional trinity, something which is a
point of demarcation between Islam and Christianity.
If one were to ask what are the
similarities and differences, the main similarities and differences
between Islam and Christianity, potentially, and I think
you should, put the trinity at the top.
This is the main difference between the two
demographic religions in terms of population, Islam and
Christianity, the two most subscribed to religions in
the world.
The trinity, as we were discussing before the
session, is not actually one trinity.
It's multiple trinities, there are multiple trinities, multiple
models of the trinity.
When we talk about the trinity to a
Christian, the presupposition is that all Christians everywhere
believe in the same kind of trinity, in
the same way, and have done so historically.
Where even a cursory reading of the literature
historically and contemporaneously would indicate the contrary.
So what we're going to be doing is
that we're going to look at the trinity
and we're going to look at the main
theories of the trinity, the main models of
the trinity.
We're going to do this over a span
of three weeks, three different sessions, since we're
going through the trinity, we'll get it done
in three different sessions.
The first one is going to be the
one-self models.
So you could say that, look, you've got
one-self models and you've got three-self
models, and I'll explain all of this in
what follows, but today we're going to be
focusing on one-self models.
There are two ways of going about this.
Christians have found, okay, look, when you say
that the Father is God, the Son is
God, and that the Holy Spirit is God,
if you say that the Father is God
in a full sense, and the Son is
God in a full sense, and that the
Holy Spirit is God in a full sense,
then what do you have?
You have three Gods.
So they understand this.
So the one-self people want to minimise
that.
They want to minimise the idea that you
could be saying that the Father is God,
the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit
is God, and they want to say that
really the persons and the self are the
same thing.
So there isn't really three different Gods, there's
one God that we're counting in three different
kinds of ways, which we're going to come
to in a second.
The other guys, no, they want to separate
the three-self guys, which we'll discuss in
the next session, they want to elaborate upon
the fact that actually the Father is different
from the Son, and the Son is different
from the Holy Spirit.
So you'll find that there's lots of sayings
of people who believe in one-self model
saying to the three-self people that you
guys are polytheists.
They say that.
I mean, it's not just Muslims who accuse
Christians of polytheism, it's Christians who accuse other
Christians of polytheism.
This is something very interesting and very important.
It's not just Muslims who accuse Christians of
polytheism, it's, for the most part, you can
generalise it in this sense, mostly one-self
type Christians who would accuse three-self Christians
of being polytheists, and you might not say
that every single one-self person would accuse
every single three-self person of being a
polytheist, but they think that this model at
least could lead to a kind of polytheism.
Some of them will say he is polytheist,
and we've got the quotations to back that
up, but you see the point here.
Now, there are two sets of scholars which
I think are important here that you need
to be aware of.
You've got the old scholars, okay, you could
say the Church Fathers, the first 400 years
of Christianity, which are important for many different
reasons.
They're especially important to the Orthodox Christians and
to the Catholics.
That's not to say that they are not
important to Protestants.
We said before, at the beginning of the
session, that there are three major churches in
Christianity today.
Who remembers what they are?
Orthodox.
Yeah, yeah, go on.
Orthodox.
Yeah, Orthodox, who else?
Catholics.
Catholics and?
Protestants.
And Protestants, yeah.
So, there are three main schools of thought
in Christianity, okay, and obviously these are broken
down into other schools of thought.
So, let's say, for example, Orthodox, you're aware
of Orthodox.
Give me some sub-denominations of the Orthodox
Church.
So, Greek Orthodox.
So you've got Greek Orthodox.
Who else did you have?
Russian Orthodox.
Okay.
Who else do you have?
Syrian.
Okay.
I mean, in the Arab world, you've got
the Oriental Orthodox Church, the Copts.
So, the Copts, for example, in Egypt, they
belong to a church called the Oriental Orthodox
Church.
So, it's a kind of Orthodoxy, but it's
not the same as Greek Orthodoxy.
It's not the same as Ethiopian Orthodoxy.
There's an entire sub-branch of Ethiopian Orthodoxy.
And in that sub-branch of Ethiopian Orthodoxy,
they have even a different canon, which, what
does that mean?
Beliefs.
Not just belief, we know that.
What they consider is the Bible.
So, the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, how many books
are in their Bible?
Does anyone know?
I think they have 72 books in their
canon.
They've got many, many different books in their
canon that are different to even Catholics and
Protestants.
So, it's important to understand which Christian you're
speaking to.
If you're speaking to a Catholic, which major
figure are they likely to really respect?
Aquinas.
Thomas Aquinas.
They consider him to be, what's the key
word here?
We can do it with an S.
A saint.
So, you see, Thomas Aquinas is considered to
be a saint in the Catholic world.
Some Protestants would respect him, some Protestants would
not respect him.
Some Orthodox would respect him to some degree.
But they have their own figures that they
revere more than Aquinas, which we're not going
to go into now.
But the point I'm making to you is
that it's important to ascertain, when you're speaking
to a Christian, what kind of Christian you're
speaking to.
Another thing I'm going to say to you
is, there are three things that are supposedly
– and I say supposedly because the last
of the three things we will find is
not the case – that Christians base their
faith on.
Number one is, you could say, the book
or the text.
The text.
The Bible itself.
Number one.
Number two is tradition.
Now, when we say tradition, what do you
think we're talking about?
Culture.
No.
Church Fathers.
The Church Fathers.
The Church Fathers, the sayings of the Church
Fathers.
Something even more important than that is, something
we'll see as well.
The Church.
No.
The Councils.
The Councils.
What's a major council?
Nicaea.
Nicaea.
Another one?
Constantinople.
Constantinople.
What's another one?
Trent.
Yeah?
Alexander.
No, I don't think there's another one.
Calceton, for example.
451.
There's many different councils.
So, when we say tradition, they will look
back to the councils.
So we said, number one is the text.
Number two is the tradition, which includes the
Church Fathers' sayings, but it's more important if
you look at the councils.
And number three, they claim, is rationality.
They claim.
As we see, there's, sorry to say, I
don't know what they're talking about, but something
else for another day.
But these are three things that they claim
that they're, by the way, Islam is quite
similar to this.
And the same debates that exist in Islam,
from this perspective of what you call Masadir
At-Talaqi, or the, where do you get
your religion from?
The sources of the religion, Masadir At-Talaqi,
this is a term they use in Usul
Fiqh.
What's the Masadir At-Talaqi?
Which are, what are the sources where you
get your religion from?
Now, different Christians have different weightings for each
of those three things that we've mentioned, just
like different Muslims have different weightings.
So let me give an example.
Who do you think of the three churches
that we mentioned are going to put more
of a weighting to tradition?
Catholics.
Catholics, true.
And who else?
Orthodox.
Orthodox.
Who's going to put more of a weighting
on the text?
Protestants.
Protestants.
That's why if you speak to the Evangelical,
which is a sub-branch of Protestantism, if
you speak to the Evangelical, would you be
better off quoting Basil or quoting something from
the Bible?
Bible.
Bible.
Definitely.
There's no question.
But if you're speaking to an Orthodox Christian
who's immersed in the sayings of the councils
and stuff, then maybe actually, to be honest,
to be honest, quoting the council is better
than quoting the Bible itself.
Because the way they see it is, these
guys, who would have known it more?
The Bible.
These guys know it more.
It's the Salaf.
Do you see the point?
You see the point here?
They're saying, this is the Salaf.
Who knows the Kitab?
Do you see what's going on here?
They're saying, who knows it more?
So the Orthodox are more, I'm not going
to say they're more like Salafis, but they
do have this thing about their own Salaf.
They do have the thing.
We have, in today's world, we have some
sects in Islam as well that they think
that only scholars should be allowed to deal
with these issues, Islamic issues.
You see the thing.
Rationality on the other hand.
A lot of Catholics, they would put a
lot of weight on that.
Why?
Because they would say, well, why not?
God has given us this.
Aquinas himself, don't forget he wrote the Soma
Theologica, which is a huge, I don't think
many people have read that thing.
It's massive.
The word Soma basically means something which is
big.
Something which is voluminous, massive, encyclopedic.
In it, there's a lot of rationalization.
He's trying to rationalize stuff.
He's trying to prove God's existence.
You might have, when you're an RE, you
might have learned Aquinas' five ways of how
to prove God's existence.
So clearly there's a strong thing about rationality
in their religion as well.
It's not like they've disregarded it.
Just when they come to the Trinity, as
you can see, they just read it incorrectly.
So these are the three things.
If you think about the different models of
the Trinity, going back to the topic.
The one-self models are saying that the
person and the self are the same thing.
Now bear in mind that you're going to
hear these key words mentioned, and I think
you should all take notes on this, because
this is some of the key stuff here.
Some of the key technical details.
In order to explain the Trinity, and in
order to say that the Father, the Son,
and the Holy Spirit are not three gods,
some Christians have had to, if not all
of them really, have had to make an
essence, person, or usia, persona distinction.
They've had to distinguish between the essence, the
self, and the person of God.
They've had to distinguish between those two things.
Some of them will say they're not the
same thing.
Some of them say they are the same
thing.
We're going through what the one-self people
say today, and they're saying it's the same
thing.
So when we say the Father is God,
and we say the Son is God, and
we say the Holy Spirit is God, we're
saying that the Father is God in a
full sense, and that they all share the
same essence.
For example, we talked about different scholars.
Aquinas is one of them, but we had
other people in our times, not in our
times, the last hundred years.
You had a guy called Karl Barth, B
-A-R-T-H.
And you had a guy called Rainer, R
-A-H-N-E-R.
Those two guys believed that really God is
made up of three different persons, but that
each of those persons are God.
Another guy called Brian Leftow, he said, look,
he calls them tropes.
And he says, and this is getting a
bit technical here, but he said, imagine now,
you put yourself in a time-travelling machine.
So it's possible that the Father, and the
Son, and the Holy Spirit, if you put
everyone in the time-travelling machine, they can
all exist at the same time.
Now, to make this more simple, because you
might not be understanding exactly what I'm saying
here, essentially what he's trying to say is
that there's different modes of God.
Now, the first thing is, the first person
who ever said this was a guy called
Sibelius.
Sibelius was a guy, when he came out,
for those people who care about the tradition,
etc., and he was seen as a heretic.
Sibelianism and modalism are the same thing, that
God has different modes.
So if you speak to a Christian, and
you say, explain to me the Trinity rationally,
let's say he responds, he says, fine, no
problem.
He says, you see this water here, what
is it?
Chemically, what is this?
H2O.
Two hydrogens and one oxygen.
And it's liquid, can you see?
But can you make this into a block
of ice?
Yes.
And can you make this into vapour?
Yes.
No problem.
So the Christian is going to say, he's
going to say, well, if you can make
this into three different forms, so too, God
is like that.
So too.
God is like that.
You have the Father, it's one form, one
way, one mode, one trope, whatever word you
want to use, that God is.
You've got the Son, which is another form,
like the liquid.
And then you've got the Holy Spirit, which
is another one.
So you've got three in one, and one
in three.
How would you respond to that?
Do they all exist at the same time?
If you put them in a time travelling
machine, let's just imagine that they've read Ryan
Leftow, and they're convinced, because he put this
whole time travelling thing.
So maybe, I don't know, God can do
anything, they can start wriggling around.
How would you respond to this?
Okay, before you give me the answer, speak
to the person next to you for the
next two, three minutes, try and find an
answer, and then we'll come back and we'll
get to your answer.
Okay, yes.
What answers do you guys have?
Let's start with this group here.
So, if you say that, then you're limiting
God to time.
Say what?
If you say that God can be in
three different states across time, because of time
machine, that means the concept of time had
to be there.
So at one point, God was one, and
then went through time and became three.
Okay, disregard the time machine for now.
Okay.
Let's think about the, because this is a
very common, I don't know if you guys
have heard of this, right?
A lot of Christians would say this.
It's a very, very common thing in the
Christian world.
This is the top three analogies that a
Christian would use to try and rationalise trinity.
This one and the egg one, which are
completely different, by the way.
By the way, the egg one is more
for the three-self.
You'll see why in a second.
So, this and the egg one are completely
contradictory to one another.
If you think about it, right?
Because some Christians will say, well, God is
like an egg.
Some say God is like an egg.
Some say he's like a dog.
And some say he's like water.
But let's just start with the one with
water.
Water is taking three different forms.
Essentially, it can't be all three at the
same time, which is the main issue.
But they'll say he can still transform from
water to ice, from ice to vapour.
Whereas the egg one, they're all there at
the same time, if you think about it.
You've got the shell, you've got the white,
and then you've got the yolk.
They're all there at the same time, you
can see.
So if the same person, I mean, just
for the record, gives you those two analogies,
they must recognise that they're two contradictory analogies.
Because on the one hand, the shell, the
yolk and the white of the egg exist
at the same time and constitute three different
parts of God.
Whereas the water thing, they don't exist at
the same time and the whole thing has
to change from one to another.
Can you see the difference?
So if the same person is fumbling and
foolish enough because he doesn't know where he
stands, because not all these Christians know about
I'm one self, I'm three selves.
The majority of Christians don't even know this
stuff.
Sorry to say.
They don't know it's one self, three selves.
They'll just hear a couple of analogies from
the priest or the pastor and they may
even put the contradictory analogies together.
So that's what you should be able to
diagnose this now because you've done this training.
But we're focusing on the first analogy of
the water.
How would you undo that?
You two, how would you undo it?
So the original was that in terms of
different states, there has to be an original
state if you're saying there's change.
So what was the original state in the
first place?
Okay, that's interesting.
But you could say H2O, there isn't really,
from a chemistry perspective, the physicists here can
tell me, there's not really an original state
in that sense.
I mean, H2O could come together in a
frozen format, it could come in a vapor
format.
It doesn't have to, by necessity, be in
one of those things.
But if you start going into the persons
of God and you start saying the sun,
the sun had to be begotten and die,
right?
So was that the begotten sun?
Was it in that state God created the
universe?
You're definitely nearing to the kind of right
answers here.
You're nearing to it.
But it's not decisive enough to catch him
out.
If that makes sense.
You're getting closer to it, but it's not
decisive enough to catch him out.
Does anyone else want to hazard a guess
here or give an attempt?
We were talking about the contingency stuff.
So we were thinking how if there are
three different forms, you must accept that they're
not three fully, like full gods, like the
way you were talking.
No, they'll say that they are full gods.
And they may even object to the word
form, by the way, just to be clear.
They may say that we call them persons
and God can manifest himself as the Father,
he can manifest himself as the Son, Holy
Spirit.
There's no problem.
It's just like water can manifest itself.
H2O can manifest itself as water, it can
manifest itself as ice, and it can manifest
itself as a vapor.
Why can't you understand that?
This is what they'll say, right?
Why can't you understand that?
It's three in one and one in three.
So is that it?
Are we lost?
Are we lost in a way?
Should we just go now?
So what?
I was thinking in terms of the relationship
between the different forms.
Okay, now I think yes.
Go on, tell me now.
Because they need to sort of maintain the
distinction between the Father, the Son, and the
Holy Spirit.
Okay, yeah.
And that's what it says in the book.
Yes, it does.
So I think if you try this, you're
maybe more rational, but you're letting go of
your text.
Okay.
See, now this is one of the key
areas, actually.
And this is what in Del Tuggy's entrance
in the encyclopedia, the Stanford encyclopedia for philosophy,
this is what he mentions.
And I think he's a Unitarian.
He's a Christian, but he's a Unitarian.
His thing about his breakdown of the Trinity
is the most, I would say, comprehensive on
the Internet, even on a scholarly sense.
I've not seen anything that good, actually.
It's pretty good.
The one self, the three self, he does
a very, very, very good job.
But even the more not known theories and
stuff, he does a good job.
But look where it led him.
It led him to reject the thing altogether.
He understands it all so well, and the
man has rejected Trinitarianism.
Inshallah, he'll come to Islam.
But that's another point.
Okay, you're onto something here with the relations.
Let's edge forward a little bit.
The Father and the Son, Holy Spirit.
Okay.
What's the relationship between the Father and the
Son?
In this scenario, you're the Christian, right?
Yeah.
So you tell me.
No, I'm not doing a debate.
I'm asking you a question.
No, we'll do the debate thing in the
end.
I'm asking you.
What's the relationship between the Father and the
Son?
In Christianity.
So they share in the same essence, but
they're different.
What makes the Father, the Father, and the
Son, the Son?
It depends on the type of Christian.
But what do all three of them say?
All three churches?
They're all one.
But they're distinct.
No, no, no.
The Father eternally generates the Son.
How?
What's the key word they use?
It's mentioned in the Quran.
In Surah Al-Ikhlas.
See, Allah tells us what their belief is.
What is their belief?
That the Son is begotten.
But all three churches, this is something which
all of them believe in.
The Son is eternally begotten by the Father.
Everyone should have this.
Their Son is eternally begotten by the Father.
Begotten means given birth to.
That's what the word means.
How does this happen?
They all say, They'll say, we don't know
how.
We go into the details of that.
That's what they'll honestly say.
We don't know exactly how this thing happened.
They'll just say he's eternally begotten.
That's all they'll say, eternally begotten.
They'll say, you believe in the hand of
God and the shin of God.
How do you know this and that?
They'll say, it's the same thing for us.
That's what they'll say.
We'll come to that because sometimes they'll make
comparisons between their ideas of persons and the
Sifat of God.
Which I think is a very important topic
that we need to touch upon.
But they believe in what?
They believe that the Son is eternally begotten
from the Father.
Now William Lane Craig, who I had a
discussion with, doesn't believe in this.
You would have found out.
And the reason why he doesn't believe in
it.
Why doesn't he believe in it?
It's illogical.
Why is it illogical though?
Because it suggests a sequence of events.
It does.
But it goes back past eternal.
It's illogical.
But if you're being generated by something else,
what does it mean?
You're dependent upon it.
And what else?
So that's the necessary thing.
You're being caused by it.
It's generated.
You're being caused by it.
Generation is causation.
It's a type of causation.
Dependency is a type of causation.
Being begotten is a type of causation.
All three churches of Christianity say the Father
has eternally begotten the Son.
All three of them say that.
Some Jews came to the Prophet Muhammad s
.a.w. And it's mentioned in some tafsir.
And they said to him, Who created Allah?
This is what they said to him.
من خلق الله We know there's one hadith
which says that when this question comes to
mind and you say أعذر بالله أمنت بالله
I say I believe in Allah and استعادة
من الشيطان And that's it.
It's a doubt.
But there's another hadith which is that the
Prophet s.a.w. recited سورة الإخلاص قوله
الله أحد قوله الله أحد Say he's Allah
one and only الله الصمد Allah الصمد means
everything depends upon him and he depends upon
nothing.
Listen to the next bit لم يلد ولم
يولد He begets not nor is he begotten
ولم يكن له كفوان There's nothing like him.
He begets not nor is he begotten Why
do you think لم يلد ولم يولد He
begets not nor is he begotten Why is
that there right after Allah says Allah الصمد
Think about it.
It's a contingency issue.
Yes, because because we learn that being born
or being begotten disqualifies you from being a
Samad for the same reason William Lane Craig
found out.
He figured out that wait a minute if
we're saying that the father is eternally begetting
the son that means that we're saying that
the son is being caused by the father
is being generated by the father is contingent
on the father and if we're saying he's
contingent then he's not what?
He's not God but he's not necessary if
we're saying he's dependent then he's not what?
What's the opposite of independent?
Sorry, I just said it.
So we're saying he's خلاص we're saying he's
not a Samad So William Lane Craig had
to say no put that to the side
but all three churches the Catholics, the Protestants
and the Orthodox all believe in the eternal
begetting of the son which is a contradiction
now bring us back to the water analogy
because these guys are not saying that okay
you've got water ice and vapor they're saying
the water eternally caused the ice ha ha
and they're saying all three of them are
necessary that the water, the ice and the
vapor are all necessary they're all independent but
at the same time they're saying one is
dependent on the other one this is where
the analogy falls and think more about now
this is a logical thing they all read
the bible and they read when Jesus fell
to the in the garden now if they
believe in that whole water thing that the
water and the vapor and the ice or
three different persons of God or whatever analogies
to that if they believe in that for
the sake of argument then when Jesus fell
to the ground and prostrated he's the son
right?
according to this theory what's happening?
he's praying to himself no no honestly you
know this is a common thing Ahmad Didat
mentioned long time ago and you think I
personally believe by the way Ahmad Didat's argument
his arguments in Christianity a lot of them
are just timeless they're fantastic that's why it's
made him very legendary because his arguments even
now analytic philosophy and this and that and
we've gone full circle back to Ahmad Didat
and when he's asking the father and son
are praying to himself the son was praying
to himself or whatever God was praying to
himself when he was on the thing and
I remember in the baby he was saying
so who is he saying this to?
if they're all one in that way because
the one self theory they're saying that the
self and the person are what?
the self and the person same thing so
if God is the son is the father
God is the son it means God is
praying to himself when he's saying this praying
to himself it's a contradiction mate God is
praying to himself God is creating himself God
is causing himself God is dependent on himself
what kind of religion is this?
he also killed himself and God killed himself
he's a murderer and he's the murdered one
he went to court and he said the
plaintiff killed me and he said who is
the defendant?
he said I am the defendant also I
am the defendant and I am the plaintiff
any right minded judge will say get the
* out of my courtroom you belong in
a sanitary mental institute so can you see
how we can play with the one self
theories now?
can you see the undercutters where they are?
if the person is a catholic and he
believes in Aquinas and he believes in one
self theories you can see how easy it
is to logically destroy this thing how do
you articulate it in a simple manner?
for someone in a debate scenario ok that's
what you guys you gotta figure that out
yourself we're gonna come to that we're nearly
there I think but do you understand where
I'm coming from now?
you see the one self arguments don't necessarily
work with the three self people you really
have to figure out a different game plan
for each of these guys yeah?
obviously this whole thing is a rational approach
I personally think the rational approach is the
best one it's much much much better than
the textual approach because you go there's no
trinity it's not in the bible where did
Jesus say I am God and worship me
it's a good question he doesn't say that
to be fair I'm not saying Ahmad Didat
was wrong to ask it's a fantastic question
it's excellent but if we're being honest for
a second let's assume that the bible did
say that that Jesus and Jesus said I
am God he says I am God and
worship me let's pretend it's such a bible
would we believe in this?
no we wouldn't because we don't believe in
the authenticity of the bible that's a fact
we believe some of it is authentic maybe
possibly and some of it is definitely inauthentic
so why are we we're not forcing them
to come and read the Quran and accept
the verses they're in in the rational argument
we're starting off with a common ground which
has to be the rational stuff because whether
or not it's in your book or my
book if this is irrational if this is
wrong it's wrong notwithstanding whether it's in my
book or your book it doesn't matter what
book it's in actually so the rational approach
this game plan it doesn't really you don't
need to memorize biblical verses you just need
to have approaches it doesn't matter what verse
it comes it's about Thomas he was a
doubter and he said this and he fell
to his knees and this one and that
one he'll be like Philippians and Corinthians and
he'll bring you verses you've never heard before
and then you have to go to the
exegesis and you have to go to what
this one said and Calvin and this one
and that one why all of this?
we're having already a difficult time memorizing and
understanding the verses of our own book are
we going to really go into the commentaries
of the Christians?
really let's be honest and do you really
care what it says and what Calvin said
and who cares?
Calvin was a polytheist and they all were
I mean we don't really their words are
not weighty to us let's be honest so
if they say well I don't believe in
rationality at all zero then halas then don't
converse with me because if you don't believe
in any sense of rationality then you're not
then there's no way I can convince you
of anything I can't even convince you that
I'm real or you're real or anything there
has to be a starting point of rationality
it has to be we have to start
with can we accept there's a rational basis
here 1 plus 1 equals 2 can we
accept this stuff like the part is smaller
than the whole there's no such thing as
contradiction or contradiction the law of non-contradiction
excluded middle if they don't accept these laws
halas finish there's no you cannot you cannot
debate you cannot discuss so the game plan
here is to with the one self people
first thing we've said is what you said
the key word is the relations what are
the relations between the persons and what's the
key one that you want to show causality
causality through what begottenness and which is surah
al-akhlas that's why we say the Quran
has the best arguments and it has the
best statements I mean the Quran is so
powerful that William Lane Craig had to accept
it at least parts of it he said
you know what put it in his words
Muhammad was right what are you going to
say all of think about what he's done
he's rejected all of the Catholicism all of
the Protestantism and all of the Orthodox and
he said what Muhammad was right he has
to say this it's not just him by
the way many people are so there's one
thing is to show the relation show the
contradiction another thing is this is to show
the heresy in this remember we said there's
two things fallacy and there is heresy to
a Christian it means a lot fallacy is
irrational you're irrational ok we've shown you you're
irrational heresy is where you show you're mubtada
as well and you could be a kafir
according to your religion so even what you're
saying is kufr akbar for your religion not
for mine so for you you've had to
commit kufr of your religion in order to
say whatever you want to say because answer
me this why was Sibelius this guy why
was that considered to be a heresy because
he said god is essentially one and he
has different modes tell me the material difference
between modalism and what really Aquinas is talking
about or what these people are talking about
there are limited differences very limited differences so
if this is a heresy because you're saying
god takes different forms as heretical then surely
this view is heretical as well ok let's
say you're not convinced we continue Aquinas and
this is a little bit complicated but I
think you guys are taking this in quite
well so I'll add this believes in something
called divine simplicity does anyone know what this
is or what is it so you know
god all his attributes are one so his
power is no different from his knowledge or
memory or his ability so it's all one
they wouldn't say memory is really an attribute
but I get your point you're right about
what you're saying so all his attributes are
just one there's no differences between god's mercy
and god's intelligence because look we have a
group in Islam called the Mu'tazila ok what
do the Mu'tazila believe about the attributes of
god so the well so we all consider
the Quran as an attribute of god they
would say it's created ok that's the Quran
but apart from the Quran let's say the
knowledge of god the power of god what
do the Mu'tazila say about this not familiar
let me tell you so what the Mu'tazila
say is that there is no distinction between
the essence and the attributes of god ok
there is no distinction there's the essence is
in a sense or the attributes are the
essence this is by the way different to
what the Atharis and the Ash'aris and
the Ma'turidis say ok they say that I
mean Ghazali himself says that the Sifah is
Zaid Ala that actually they don't say that
there's no distinction at least there is some
kind of conceptual distinction at the very least
but they do believe in the distinction between
that and the Sifat and there's also another
thing about and this is a bit technical
here but I'm just going in about the
wujud and that is there a difference between
the existence and the essence of god but
we're putting all of that to the side
for now the Mu'tazilis say that the essence
of god or the attributes of god is
an expression of the essence so what is
the implication of that the implication of that
is that god's seeing is his essence therefore
his hearing is his seeing there's no difference
here they don't care what you have to
say about it they say if you don't
believe in this they will say you are
saying that god is composed of different parts
and we have already concluded that anything that
is made up of parts is contingent and
your god is made up of parts therefore
your god is contingent do you see what's
and if you remember this is exactly what
Ibn Sina said all the philosophers believe in
that so al-Farabi believed in that Kendi
believed in that Ibn Sina believed in that
al-Tusi believed in that and the Mu'tazilis
had a bit of a softer position but
they believed in something quite similar in this
regard now this is an unscriptural and unintelligent
belief system because if you're saying that god's
hearing is the same as his knowledge is
the same as his seeing then what's the
point of describing god in all these different
ways do you see the point surely there
must be and this is what Ibn Taymiyyah
responds he says there has to be a
qadr al-mujtaraq by the way he says
that qadr al-mujtaraq is basically that you
know when we say there's nothing similar to
god that we're not similar to god at
all he says you can't say that like
you know that's a misunderstanding of the verse
he says there has to be some level
of similarity otherwise we won't understand a thing
about god for example if you're saying god
is seeing how do you know what seeing
is you've experienced seeing so god has given
you sight he's given you hearing he's given
you knowledge in a way Ibn Taymiyyah would
argue so that you can get to know
who he is which is actually quite a
powerful thing if you think about it but
in a way which is completely different and
the way that which Allah is seeing the
way which Allah is hearing the way which
is completely different so this is the different
schools of thought in Islam Aquinas his position
is worse than the Martezali's position because if
you think about what he's saying he's saying
look the father is god yeah the son
is god it's quite similar to the Martezali's
position the self and the person are the
same thing like Martezali's say what and what
are the same thing attribute and the essence
are the same thing can you see the
similarity between Martezali's and Aquinas here so Aquinas
is saying that the self and the person
are the same Martezali's are saying the essence
and the attributes are the same but the
implication for Aquinas is more severe because if
you say that the father is god and
the son is god it means the father
is the son this is really it's a
contradiction it's a contradiction and one that even
Craig has identified and others they call it
the is of identification if you say the
father is god and the son is god
it follows that the father is the son
it follows that the father is the son
likewise if you say that the for the
Martezali's they say that if you say that
the hearing is an expression of the essence
and the seeing is an expression of the
essence then it follows that the hearing is
the seeing now by the way I did
a bit of research and I find it
interesting Arrazi has a really powerful response to
this Arrazi and he's not he's Ashari but
in his own way he's not really the
same as the late Ashara but in his
kitab he's got a commentary called the commentary
on the pointers and admonitions of Ibn Sina
and he responds and refutes Ibn Sina inside
of it it's quite interesting and he says
look Ibn Sina says that god is Ibn
Sina says that god is which means the
absolute existence and therefore it's not possible for
him to have any attributes because that would
mean that it's made out of parts etc
etc so what he says is the following
he says ok Arrazi is responding to Ibn
Sina and he says does god exist he
says yes do we exist so is there
some level of thing which is similar between
us and god which is existence now he
says if you respond no then it's unintelligible
there's no way we can understand this there
has to be a way which we are
similar to god through existence if god is
the necessary existence and we are contingent existence
we're both what existence Arrazi is saying there's
no way you can tell me there's no
wedge there's no way there's no perspective in
which we're similar to god if you're saying
he's the necessary existence and we are the
contingent existence there's no way you can say
it Tulsi tries to respond Tulsi is a
Shiite by the way but he also has
a kitab called the commentary of the point
is admonitions and he says well existence here
can be seen as different he says you've
got ambiguous existence and you have this existence
it's token rubbish he says you have different
types of existence you have the ambiguous one
you have the unambiguous one and you know
it made no sense whatsoever I read it
at least five times maybe ten there's no
way you can escape the fact that we
are similar to god from one perspective in
one way otherwise you're going to say we
can never know who god is we're not
saying that we are that our attribute is
the same as god's attribute what we're saying
is that there's a way in which it's
similar it has to be I exist contingently
god exists necessarily that means we both exist
in some way is it similar to language
because within language there's universals that everybody understands
and if that didn't exist we couldn't even
communicate so there has to be something that's
similar that's a fantastic point that is a
very good point a lot of this is
a language game thing I read about this
slightly and they usually say it leads to
modal collapse and I try to understand I
was wondering if this is correct analogy but
if let's say god's knowledge is the same
as his ability to create right like there's
no distinction between them and in god's knowledge
I exist therefore god has no other option
but to create me so in a way
because they're the same his ability to create
and his knowledge are the same so I
become a necessary being so that's where you
get modal collapse that's also where they get
the argument of like the sun like the
sun has no option but to radiate heat
similarly do you get what I mean?
I get what you mean but I don't
know if this is really relevant to this
particular thing because I mean even Sina was
an emanationist he believed in that but you
know I wouldn't really put this to that
because I think these are different conversations a
little bit different there are some areas of
similarity but I wouldn't necessarily confuse the two
here because here what we're trying to show
is Aquinas he believes in divine simplicity so
he's trying to believe in the same thing
as who?
Ibn Sina now Ibn Sina is a true
simplist I mean he truly does believe in
simplicity even though some of his stuff is
not coherent but he truly does believe in
simplicity right?
simplicity meaning that god is made of no
parts no attributes nothing he calls him al
-wujud al-mutlaq he calls him the he
calls him the absolute existence he calls him
the absolute existence now compare this model of
Ibn Sina's true simplicity I mean al-Razi
has some issues which you just mentioned with
Aquinas now Aquinas is claiming to be a
simplist he's claiming that he believes in god
with no parts nothing that's what he's claiming
no attributes no parts the same thing as
Martezlis actually more than Martezlis but consider the
following how can you believe in that and
also believe in three persons in god with
distinctions with actual distinctions so the point is
for those who usually believe in the one
self theories they usually also espouse to believe
in what?
divine simplicity do you see what that is?
which is a god with no parts or
attributes but if you're saying that you believe
in a god with no parts and attributes
but at the same time you're saying you
believe in a god with three persons that's
a contradiction because they have relations between each
other there are three distinct persons you just
mentioned that is a contradiction so it's an
internal contradiction it's a contradiction to divine simplicity
it's a contradiction on different levels so with
this game plan if you approach a christian
and you ascertain that this is what they
believe you start asking them questions about the
relations as we mentioned get them to understand
that they believe in contingent relations get them
to understand that they believe in heretical beliefs
which are not dissimilar from the Sibelian symbolism
and modalism get them to believe that if
they do believe in divine simplicity that what
they believe in contradicts divine simplicity and you've
won there's no way you will not win
because by its nature this model of the
trinity is weak and it falls like a
house of cards when you probe it in
this manner any questions on this?
we're going to do some after this we'll
switch off the cameras and we'll do some
rounds but we'll do that so you guys
feel comfortable maybe we'll do next week is
divine simplicity accepted by all Christian scholars or
most?
no, no, no it's definitely not no it's
definitely it's a Thomistic belief people like you'll
be surprised Maimonides is a Jew Musa ibn
Mayun he believed in it and he argued
for it he almost used the same Martezli
arguments I think he must have copied it
or something or maybe he copied it from
Ibn Rushd or one of those guys as
I mentioned the philosopher in Islam so like
Ibn Sina believed in it Farad believed in
it Kindi believed in it Martezli's believed in
a weaker sense of it Martezli's believed in
like I say there are some differences between
what Martezli's believed and what the philosopher believed
I mean in like Christianity yes as I
say in Christianity not everyone believes in divinity
yeah so how do they like these philosophers
understand like when God says he hears he
sees how do they kind of interpret these
in Islam in the Quran how they interpret
maybe metaphor some of them like Ibn Rushd
for example they have the same meaning if
they say it's the same it's just one
so each of them say something different so
for example Ibn Rushd has a book called
it's not been translated but it's a it's
a seminal work of his and he says
basically this is for the layman you know
to understand he just hand waves it off
it's interesting though in that book he does
mention the seven for some reason he mentions
the seven attributes that the Ash'ari confirm
in Kashf even though he's not an Ash
'ari by any stretch of the imagination in
fact he attacked Al Ghazali in his famous
work The Incoherence of the Incoherence and one
of the points of attack was this attributes
thing Ibn Rushd didn't believe didn't affirm the
attributes he had the same kind of view
as Ibn Sina actually on this very similar
but he wasn't he was kind of not
going to say hiding it a little bit
I think he was afraid if he says
it like maybe he would get killed or
something I don't know at that time what
the situation was like but in that book
Kashf he didn't broadcast it in the same
way as he indicated it in The Incoherence
of the Incoherence but yeah each of them
have the different ways of doing it I
mean some Ash'aris have ways of doing
that as well like with other attributes above
the seven Taftazani for example if you consider
him to be an Ash'ari has things
like that so he would say that this
is a metaphor for the lay for the
lay audience yeah so just to bring it
back to the the trinity so they would
give that example and say okay what's the
relationship and begotten and so on and then
you can go to the contradiction like is
he praying to himself then they always go
back to okay but there are two people
in Jesus so there's Jesus God and Jesus
and then there's the man because Jesus is
fully God and Jesus is fully man but
I always found it interesting when I think
about like to them there are three parts
of God and two parts of Jesus like
there's a bit of like an overlap or
like if you imagine a Venn diagram but
let's say they do go with that example
like oh that's just the human side of
Jesus who's praying not the do you know
what I mean I'm not saying it's a
good argument but I'm saying that would be
their response yeah the idea is when they
say for the sake of argument they say
that Jesus the second person of the trinity
the son is eternally begotten they're not talking
about the human side of Jesus they're explicitly
talking about the God side so that I
haven't seen that they would admit that it's
not the human side not that it's the
praying dying on the cross and so on
that's not yeah that would be their retort
and if you say that then you go
into another argumentation if you say that so
God has a human side correct because if
you say Jesus is God and you say
that Jesus has a human side that means
he has a contingent side yes because anything
necessary cannot have any aspect of it which
is contingent no so another way you can
attack it is to say well you believe
that Jesus has a human side you're saying
God has a human side yeah because the
thing is they don't say that it was
just a human and then Jesus came on
that human and started inhibiting that body and
it sort of like it switched between who's
in control you know it's like somehow he's
both fully human and fully no but the
belief in the incarnation which is essentially that
the son became flesh the word became flesh
so the what's it called the hypostatic union
so there is a sense of that they
can't escape the fact that you believe that
God inhabited a human form so then the
argument would be so then you've got a
necessary being inhabiting a contingent being so you've
got a contingent aspect of a necessary being
so ice became sand in a way like
no but it's an add-on so you've
got if you're saying that both of them
are there at the same time you've got
Jesus the necessary Jesus the God and Jesus
the human but they're both the same thing
they share one centre of consciousness so you've
got a necessary thing with a contingent add
-on or a contingent counterpart which is I
mean that's a refutation in and of itself
if you see the point another thing is
which I've seen this argument being made online
actually which I think is I think it
is pretty important to cover it actually some
of them may say well what we believe
in is not because now they've lost the
argument and by the way when they do
this it shows clearly they've lost the argument
say okay well what we believe is not
too dissimilar to what you believe because you
believe that God is made up of different
attributes and if you're saying that God's knowledge
is necessary and you're saying his power is
necessary and you're saying that his will is
necessary then here you've got three necessary beings
for example how would you respond to that
that's a tricky one but how would you
respond to it there's no independent wills you
know unless mercy doesn't have an independent will
yeah yeah yeah it's part of you know
this is a very important sorry to cut
you off it's a very important one actually
because I've seen this circulating around social media
this false equivalence between the persons of God
and the attributes of God according to their
belief and the attributes of God according to
our belief okay and the first thing we
want to say is that first of all
and I mentioned this with the William Lane
Craig thing is that here we're talking about
whiteness and not wholeness okay and he had
no response to that if you remember I
said to him the difference between us he
said well you've had all these debates you
know the martesalism the asharism the hambelism you
know the philosophy you've had all these debates
yourself about the attributes of God and that
is undeniable but we've had debates about what
God does what God is but we've never
ever had a debate about who he is
you guys have had debates the Christians whether
or not the Holy Spirit was God or
not whether he was an angel or a
creature as I read in J and D
Kelly's book which shows that in the fourth
century they didn't know exactly what the Holy
Spirit was and they didn't know exactly what
status to give him so is the Holy
Spirit God or not that's a question we
never had the equivalent of in the Islamic
history I'll finish off with a question is
there a difference can they disagree I'll be
honest that question is more relevant with the
three person model which we're going to cover
next week because they are really the distinction
they're saying that the father is distinct and
his self is different to the person now
becomes so powerful against these guys even more
powerful than these ones this one here it's
the other one is we'll come to and
this is one of the miracles of Islam
we expect Mohammed to have all this knowledge
he's defeating all the philosophers before he's met
them what are you talking about he's making
claims about nature he's making claims about history
and now he's making claims about theology and
this one and that one even if you
don't believe he's the prophet he must be
the most intelligent man ever lived what's this
what is this I don't think a human
being can come with this I'm sorry to
say and with that we will conclude and
we'll do some sparring behind the scenes Wassalamu
Alaikum Warahmatullahi Wabarakatuh