Sin and Salvation

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In the name of God, most gracious, most merciful, peace be upon you. On behalf of the Imams, officials, and the congregation of Masjid Abu Bakr Siddiq, I would like to sincerely welcome our honored guest speakers for this evening, namely Dr. James White and Dr. Shabbir Ali.

Also, our moderator for this evening, Advocate Yusuf Ismail, IPCI Chairperson, Mr. Harun Kala, IPCI Coordinator, Organizer, and a man for all seasons, of course, our beloved Muhammad Khan. Also, a special welcome to Mr. Rudolf Boschoff and the congregation from Tasera Church and members of Antwort and all of our friends and guests.

I feel somewhat inspired this evening, and there's a very good reason for this. It is a very special, I think, and blessed evening, undoubtedly, because we have witnessed the first rains of the season.

We give thanks to Almighty God for the gift and the great abundance. In fact, all of creation draws inspiration from the gift of rain. There's no doubt about that. Did you know that the saint Bushman of the Kalahari believed when a person died, the soul went up to the house in the sky, to the great God, from whence the rain fell.

In fact, Robert Frost was inspired enough to say that sunshine is delicious, rain is refreshing and exhilarating. Our beloved Isa, Jesus Christ, peace be upon him, said, But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your father who is in heaven.

For he makes his son, the celestial body, rise on the evil and on the good and sends rain on the just and the unjust. And then, of course, in the words of Henry Longfellow, into each life some rain must fall.

We have gathered here this evening in the house of God, a place of worship and sanctity. We meet in the spirit of goodwill and mutual respect. And hopefully, we will leave here this evening with wisdom and insight that will prove beneficial to us as individuals and to our social circle.

I would like to leave you with a reading of chapter 49, verse 30, Surah Al-Hasarat, in the Quran, the chamber. Bismillah ar-Rahman ar-Rahim. O mankind, we created you from a single pair of a male and a female and made you into nations and tribes that you may know each other, not that you may despise each other.

Verily, the most honored of you in the sight of God is the most righteous of you. And God has full knowledge and is well acquainted with all things. Thank you. Jazakallah. And I'll call upon our moderator, Brother Yusuf.

Thank you, Mr. Abdelkader. Now, you know, without wanting to take any further time, I must have emphasized that this is a rare occasion indeed, even for myself. We rarely do debates inside the mosque.

I don't think we've ever had a debate in South Africa inside the masjid. So this is probably a historical occasion from that perspective. I don't know if it happens around the world, but in South Africa, subject to correction, this would be the first time that, in our history, we've ever done a Christian-Muslim debate inside a mosque.

And it's a privilege for me to be here, and I would presume that a privilege for all of you to be attending this particular event. It's an open book. It's something which is rooted in Islamic tradition.

It's not something which is new, but from the 6th and 7th century, during the time of the Prophet, you had him engaging with people from different faiths and different communities, more specifically, the Christians in Najran.

Let me go into a brief introduction of the debaters for tonight. Dr. James White is the director of Alpha and Omega Ministries, and that's based in Phoenix, Arizona. It's a Christian apologetics organization based in Phoenix, Arizona, and he's obviously the elder in the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church.

He's also an adjunct professor with the Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary. He's married to Kelly and has two children, Joshua and Summer Marie. He's also, I'm told, recently a grandfather, so that's quite a long way for me to be there yet.

He's written numerous books, including the King James Only Controversy, the Forgotten Trinity, and most recently, it's the Christian Perspective on the Development and the Origin of the Quran, and I had the privilege of engaging him in a stimulating session on Thursday night.

I might also add that he reminds me of both Winston Churchill and Jerry Lewis, because he's probably one of the only debaters in the world that comes to every debate wearing a bow tie. And as you can see that, he's smartly dressed, and sometimes his dress can be quite overwhelming.

So it's a privilege to have you on this historic occasion. On my right, we have Shabir Ali, Dr. Shabir Ali. Both Dr. James White and Dr. Shabir Ali prefer to be called James and Shabir. Shabir Ali has a Bachelor of Arts in Religious Studies from Laurentian University, with a specialization in Biblical Literature.

He has an MA in Quranic Exegesis, and recently acquired his doctorate in the study of Quranic Exegesis, what we could colloquially describe as Quranic Tafsir. He's a noted debater in the world, having debated since 1994 with a leading number of personalities, including probably one of the greatest Christian philosophers of the 20th century, William Lane Craig.

He is, in my opinion, arguably one of the best, if not the best proponent in Islamic, in inverted commas, apologetics in the world today. And so it's my privilege to be moderating a session involving such two amiable individuals of such a high caliber.

And I think we are in for a treat tonight. The discussion, as has been agreed between the parties, is salvation in the Quran and the Bible. The concept of sin and salvation in the Quran and the Bible.

The format for tonight's debate will be as follows. There will be opening arguments of 20 minutes each. This will then be followed by a rebuttal session of 10 minutes. So in other words, the first speaker who speaks for the first 20 minutes would have the first 10 minutes to rebut what the second speaker says.

There will then be a question and answer session, and bearing in mind that most people in Pretoria sleep early, we're probably going to have it for approximately half an hour. And when we come to the question and answer session, I will briefly explain and zero in onto the format.

This will then be followed by a rebuttal session of 10 minutes. And how this will work is that the first 10 minutes will be engaged in by the second speaker, and the first speaker in the opening 20 minutes has the final 10 minutes.

And this will then be concluded by closing arguments of 5 minutes each. Again, the second speaker will have the first 5 minutes and the first speaker will have the final 5 minutes. It's been agreed between the parties that Dr. Ali will be addressing us for the first 20 minutes and then James White will be addressing us for the next 20 minutes.

Tomorrow night we will be having a debate at the University of Pretoria where the format will be reversed. This will be an intensive engagement between the parties. They are the best of friends. They are both co-authoring a book together, I'm told.

So they are still the best of friends. Listen attentively, engage with each other, take notes, and of course during the question and answer session don't hesitate to ask them questions on their particular themes and indeed propositions.

So, as you haven't come to listen to me, and I do tend to get long-winded, I will leave the floor to the first speaker that I will call to the platform and that will be Dr. Shabir Ali who will be addressing us for the first 20 minutes.

Thank you.

Hello everyone.

I start by praising our creator and fashioner. I ask him to send peace and blessings upon all his prophets and messengers and upon all of us and upon all the righteous people until the last day. I want to thank the IPCI for hosting me in South Africa, making it possible for me to be here.

I thank the organizers and management of this mosque for giving us the opportunity to speak here tonight. I want to thank my friend James for agreeing to have this dialogue with me.

He has had a very busy schedule.

And I'm so glad that I'm part of that schedule with this debate tonight. Now, the proposition before us is about sin and salvation.

In both the Qur 'an and the Bible.

Let me say something first about the Qur 'an. Obviously as a Muslim, I would be in favor of the Qur 'an, but let me tell you what my view of the Qur 'an is more specifically. It seems to me that the Qur 'an has a unified view about sin and salvation that runs throughout the text and this is a reasonable view.

First, it is a unified view. Even if one did not take the Qur 'an to be the word of God, one would take it to be the writing of one man, the Prophet Muhammad on whom be peace. And in that case, one would want to interpret the text in the light of that belief that it was authored by one man.

And so we would expect that the book would interpret itself.

What is unclear in one place might be clear in another place. And because we have only one author,.

We would expect that the author is consistent with himself. Now when we read the Qur 'an, we find that the basic idea about sin is that sin involves some kind of disobedience,.

A transgression of God's law.

It may be an omission of a command or it could be some harm to God's creatures. The response to sin is for human beings to seek the forgiveness of God. And the promise in the Qur 'an is that if one is sincere in seeking that forgiveness, that God is always willing and ready to forgive and that He will forgive.

Now in the final reckoning on the Day of Judgment,.

The deeds of people will be weighed.

And what will be considered is whether a person in his or her situation did his or her best in that situation. So that the deeds will be weighed to see if the person has had predominantly good deeds as opposed to bad deeds.

And that means that human beings in the Qur 'an are not expected to be absolutely perfect. In fact, we cannot be human beings as we are.

We are frail. We are weak.

And God created us with our weaknesses. He knows them. And He is ready to overlook our shortcomings. He is just looking for sincere servants who are trying their best to serve Him. In the story of Adam in the Qur 'an, we find a lesson of original forgiveness.

Not a lesson about original sin. Because Adam did disobey God according to the Qur 'an.

But then the Qur 'an says,.

And God then chose him and forgave him and guided him. A prayer which Adam was taught by which to seek forgiveness from God is a prayer that Muslims recite to this day.

Our Lord, we have wronged ourselves.

And if you do not forgive us and have mercy on us,.

Then certainly we would be the losers.

We believe that when we recite a prayer like this sincerely,.

That God forgives us. Moreover, if we have harmed God's creatures,.

Then we are required to do the best we can and to repair that harm. It makes no sense to harm others and then ask God for forgiveness because we understand that there are two basic rights.

That are due on us.

One is the right of God, and two is the right of the creatures of God.

We say,.

And it's not necessarily in that order.

In fact, if we wrong God alone, then God can easily forgive us,.

And He loses nothing. If we harm other creatures, then God does not forgive us until we do our best to repair our harm to the other creatures. So if you hurt somebody, try to do the best you can to seek their forgiveness and to repair what wrong you have done.

And when we do that, again, we ask God for forgiveness,.

And God forgives us.

So the Islamic doctrine, then,.

Is one that is based on the Qur 'an,.

And the Qur 'an's presentation of this is unified throughout,.

And it is a reasonable doctrine.

Now when we come to the Bible,.

We must deal separately with the Old Testament and with the New Testament. The Old Testament is basically the Jewish Bible, which Jews refer to as the Tanakh, or the Hebrew Scriptures. Now, in the Jewish Bible, which has now become part of the Christian Bible, we find the basic proposition that human beings must do their best to follow the commands and teachings of God.

And if they do that, they will have all the rewards which are promised in the Book of Deuteronomy,.

For example, in Deuteronomy 28.

And on the contrary, if people would turn away from the law of God and not follow God's teachings, then they would have all the kinds of diseases and plagues and negative effects.

That are mentioned in Deuteronomy 28.

Deuteronomy is one of the books referred to as the books of the Torah, said to be the Torah of Moses, the most important part of the Old Testament.

The idea that God rewards good deeds.

And he punishes for wrongdoing.

Is found throughout the Old Testament,.

And that is then a basic teaching. Moreover, in the Old Testament it is clear.

That if one commits wrong,.

Then there is a way to seek the forgiveness of God. Specifically, there are animal sacrifices which are detailed in the Book of Leviticus, and several times the Book of Leviticus, part of the Torah as well, promises that if you do this,.

You will be forgiven.

So, just very quickly, you can see Leviticus chapter 4, verse 20, verse 26, verse 31, and verse 35, and then going to Leviticus chapter 5, verse 10, 13, 16, and 18. And there are several other passages where the same thing is mentioned.

If you have committed sin, you do this sacrifice, and your sins will be forgiven. Some people think that the sacrifice is only by blood, as if God somehow wants blood,.

And only by blood he will forgive sins,.

But that's not the idea, because some people could not afford.

The animal sacrifices,.

And then the substitute would be.

Some cooking ingredients,.

And that is mentioned too.

In the Book of Leviticus,.

Chapter 5, verse 12. Again, it is said that if you do that, you will be forgiven. You bring the flour,.

You offer it on the altar, and God forgives you as well.

And of course, after you've gone,.

The priest then uses the flour.

It is not only by sacrifice that one gets one's sins forgiven. What is important in the Old Testament is the contrite heart and the broken spirit that the Bible speaks about. So the idea is for one to feel remorse after one has committed sins.

This is the essence of seeking God's forgiveness, and then it is promised that that too brings forgiveness. In fact, many of the Biblical prophets in the Old Testament say that what God desires is not the sacrifice,.

But this very broken spirit and contrite heart.

There is a verse in the Psalms.

Which some take to mean.

That somehow we are born in sin. But as Herbert Cain in his book His Original Sin in Scripture has pointed out, this passage could not be taken to mean that, because that would run contrary to the whole thread of the Old Testament.

If somehow we are born in sins,.

Then nothing else makes sense.

In the Old Testament.

In fact, the overwhelming teaching.

Is that which I've already presented, and that runs throughout.

The Old Testament.

How then do we regard the Psalms? Well, Psalms is poetic work,.

And in poetic works,.

People exaggerate the way they say things. So when David says that.

In sin my mother conceived me,.

We don't know what exactly he means. Does he mean that his mother conceived him through an adulterous relationship? Or is David looking at his own life.

And feeling such remorse.

That he pities himself, he finds himself so absolutely despicable on that occasion that he attributes that to the time of his conception.

And in that case,.

Because this is a poetic work, as opposed to the kind of prosaic and legislative works.

In the Bible,.

We cannot build too much on that and say that this means.

That there is such a thing.

As an original sin.

Which is passed on to later generations. Let's then look at the book of Genesis and see if that gives us an idea of original sin, because this is often misunderstood. The story of Adam there in the book of Genesis.

Is not really about original sin, in that nowhere else.

In the Old Testament does anybody go back and say,.

You know what? We are in a real problem because Adam committed.

The first sin.

No, the story of Adam.

And his sin is told in the book of Genesis.

And then it's overridden.

And forgotten about. It's as if Adam committed a sin, he bore the consequences, and then that's the end.

Of the matter.

We just move on,.

We live,.

We have commandments, we have to keep those, in which case God will reward us,.

Or if we default.

And do not seek.

The forgiveness of God,.

Then God will penalize us. That then is the Old Testament view on sin and salvation.

In a nutshell. Now I come to the New Testament.

The New Testament is that part of the Christian Bible.

Which is added.

To the Old Testament. Now Christians call it the New Testament.

Because they believe.

That through Jesus a new agreement has been made with humankind. So the Old Testament describes laws.

Which God has given.

To people in the past.

And that's an old agreement.

You do those laws.

And you practice those laws and you get these rewards. But now we have a new.

Sort of commandment in teaching and hence it is called the New Testament.

Through Jesus. Now when we look at the New Testament books.

We see that there are 27 individual documents that comprise the New Testament. 13 of them are attributed to Paul in that Paul begins by saying I, Paul, am writing this. And that shows his tremendous influence in that about half of the New Testament writings are credited to him.

It turns out as well.

That Paul is the earliest writer.

Of the New Testament books. His first letter to the Thessalonians is said to be the earliest written at approximately 49 or 50 of our current era, the year 49 or 50.

Whereas by contrast the Gospel according to Mark.

Is generally believed to be written around 70 of our current era or some say 70 AD, current era, AD, same thing.

And the other Gospels.

Follow after that. So the writings of Paul.

Have actually had.

A tremendous influence.

In the shaping.

Of later Christianity. Some say that in fact.

Paul's writings.

Have shaped Christianity much more than the teachings of Jesus himself.

Michael Goler, for example, in his book.

St. Peter versus St. Paul has made this statement. And the historian.

Michael Grant.

Has made the same statement in his book Jesus,.

A historian's review.

Of the Gospels.

And also in his biography of St. Peter.

So this is common knowledge.

In what way then.

Did Paul shape Christianity.

When it comes to our question of sin and salvation? Paul looked at a statement in the book of Deuteronomy in the Torah, a statement which said that the one who hangs on the cross is accursed. The statement in Deuteronomy.

Was referring to a person.

Who was legitimately crucified for his transgressions. And so he is said to be under the curse of God. Not because he's crucified.

But because he transgressed.

And so he is crucified.

Because he transgressed. And he is under the curse of God because he transgressed.

That's the whole point.

But now if you take an innocent person.

And by hook or by crook.

You try by any means possible.

Just to put him to death using false accusations and false charges, then who deserves the blame? This innocent person or you who have trumped up the false charges against him? Obviously the ones who falsely accused him.

But Paul misunderstood the point it seems to me. And he said that because.

Jesus hung on the cross.

Jesus was accursed.

But now he tried to make.

A good thing of that.

Bad conclusion.

If Jesus is accursed, okay, Paul said, but he became a curse for us. And so in Galatians 3 .13.

Paul says now.

That Jesus became a curse for us. So he died in a bad way.

But that's a good thing.

Paul with this understanding,.

What I would refer to.

As a misunderstanding, then constructed a whole idea about justification through the death of Jesus Christ. So Paul then, you don't need the law to be justified. You don't need to do the laws.

And then you are.

Considered righteous.

You just need to believe.

In Jesus and you are saved because Jesus died for your sins. But the idea of how this works in fact is problematic. On the one hand you can say that Jesus died as a substitute.

For us.

Instead of God killing us.

For our sins, Jesus took the blame and God killed him for our sins. But this view is problematic.

In the book.

The Atonement for Views which is written by many conservative scholars.

And it is mentioned.

By one of these scholars.

That as some conservative.

Christian scholars have complained about that view and they have actually referred to it as cosmic child abuse.

It's as if God is angry.

With humankind.

And he takes it out on his son.

And that does not seem right.

And the Gospel according to Mark.

Is following from Paul's teachings and in Mark chapter 10 verse 45 it quotes Jesus as saying. And I would say this is not Jesus' original saying but Mark somehow has got this.

As a saying of Jesus.

And it ties in with Paul's doctrine and Mark is representing it as Jesus' saying. That Jesus said that he came to die for the sins so as to save many. But in what way then should we understand this passage?

William Barclay in the Daily Bible Commentary says that it is difficult to understand in what way Jesus would have substituted for the sins of humankind in this way. And he prefers to just speak of love that this is the way of God.

Showing love for humankind.

Or something like this. Because now one way.

Of thinking of this.

As has been mentioned in that same book that I refer to is that Jesus somehow is victorious over Satan and some of the scholars try to put it this way. I have five minutes remaining. So they said that Jesus was victorious over Satan by dying on the cross but that too does not seem to be a reasonable explanation.

Because that explanation.

Entails somehow.

That God put Jesus on the cross as a kind of bait.

For the devil and when the devil tried to snatch him that's when the devil himself was trapped. Another way of putting this.

They have said.

Is that Jesus somehow is paying our penalty.

Well, if Jesus is paying.

The penalty.

To whom is he paying.

That penalty?

Obviously to God because it's only to God that that penalty is due. And why would God be taking the penalty out on his son? So in no way does that make any sense.

But it is clear.

That the Gospels.

While trying to.

Follow from Paul have somehow evolved the sayings of Jesus and the representation of Jesus. So the later the Gospel the more it appears as if Jesus himself is teaching the very thing.

So we have for example.

The baptism scene. It's recorded.

In all of the Gospels. In Mark's Gospel.

It appears.

That Jesus came.

To John the Baptist.

To be baptized for the forgiveness.

Of his sins.

And that's the earliest of the Gospels. So one might wonder.

Well why does Jesus need forgiveness.

Of his sins.

If he's going to die for the sins of humankind?

That didn't look too good.

For the later Gospel writers.

So the later Gospel writers modified the story. Matthew for example.

Writing later.

Has it that when Jesus went.

To John the Baptist.

John the Baptist.

Protested.

Why do you come to me?

I need to come to you. And Jesus says let it be so for now so that all righteousness should be fulfilled. So in Matthew's Gospel now it is appearing.

That okay. Jesus didn't really.

Need this.

But he's doing it.

As a kind of a formality.

And it's very clear.

It's John the Baptist.

Who needs to be saved.

By Jesus.

Not Jesus.

Who needs to be baptized and forgiven through the practice of John the Baptist. You see how the story has changed. And Luke's Gospel.

Mentions it in pasting.

When Jesus was baptized without going through all that detail about the forgiveness of sins and so on. So you see there is a kind of embarrassing situation.

That the earliest.

Gospel presented.

And the later Gospels.

Are overcoming that sort of embarrassment. And this is mentioned in the New Jerome.

Biblical Commentary.

And many commentaries.

On the Bible.

I'm not making this up just because I'm a Muslim.

Wanting to criticize.

The Bible.

This is what Christian scholars themselves say.

John's Gospel.

Doesn't mention.

The baptism at all.

It just has Jesus present there on the scene.

And instead of Jesus being baptized.

Now.

John the Baptist.

Declares.

Behold the Lamb of God.

Who takes away.

The sin of the world.

So you see that now suddenly we hear that Jesus is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. This comes in.

The latest Gospel the last of all of the four.

To be written.

You can see that.

If you take each Gospel.

As a snapshot of what people believed at the time when each Gospel was written you can see that the belief in Jesus was evolving over time and rather than.

The Gospel.

Directing us.