The Great Trinity Debate (White vs Andalusi)

My name is Doug McMasters. I'm the pastor of Trinity Road Chapel, and it is my privilege on behalf of our congregation that meets here regularly to welcome you here this evening to what we have described as the

Is it the big Trinity debate or the great Trinity debate, one of the two? And it is a true pleasure to have you here this evening with us to a moderated formal debate concerning the question of the person of God and specifically the issue of the

Trinity. And we are pleased to welcome Dr. James White and Abdullah Al -Adelousi to be here to represent their two perspective viewpoints.

Just by way of introduction Let me do a little bit of housekeeping notices before we give the formal introductions and begin our debate.

To let you know that after the rebuttals there will be a food break So if you come here directly from work, and I know that some of you have done that you'll be glad to hear that that will be happening straight through there and We'll talk about that and just you know after the rebuttals occur just so that you might anticipate that For those of you that need to use the facilities

May I ask you to go straight to the back and speak to one of the stewards and they can take you

Lead you over to where those are at. So instead of coming up here and disrupting Perhaps people's attention and the debates if you could just go straight back and the steward will be happy to help you there.

Also at the very end of the debate we will have an opportunity for people to ask questions

These questions we've asked to be written down. So I've got some blank sheets of paper here

I was wondering if I could get some volunteers to pass these out Can I get four individuals to take a stack of these and if you could distribute the paper around And if you would submit those to me

I will be asking questions Please feel free to write it down on the

Speaking first this evening It's Dr. James White Director of Alpha and Omega Ministries You're welcome here here this evening

Dr. James White is The director as I said of Alpha and Omega Ministries a

Christian apologetics organization that's based in Phoenix, Arizona He's the author of more than 20 books

And he's conducted over 75 moderated public debates He's the author, he's also a professor having taught

Greek and systematic theology at various topics in the field of apologetics

He's also the elder of the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church He's been married to Kelly for 27 years and has two children

Joshua and Summer And we also welcome this evening

Abula Al -Andalusi He's a former Anglican who embraced Islam at a young age and studied

Islam in depth since the age of 18 He's had a long experience in working in community activism and Islamic apologetics

And his activities including writing extensively on Islamic revivalist thought speaking in various community centers and universities and colleges

He's also made appearances in various TV programs speaking about theology and political philosophy and socio -political analysis

He's a co -founder of the public discussion forum the Muslim debate initiative And he's done a lot of written work in specialist subjects

And you can view some of that writing on the website Islamicrationalism .com

So remember that Just to give you an idea of how the debate is going to go this evening, we will have 22 minutes each of opening statements

Followed by three minutes of cross -examination This cross -examination is to verify the statements that have been made in each person's opening remarks and that will be followed by 12 minutes each of rebuttals and then we'll have our break and When we all return from the break,

I'll tell you about the breakdown and format of our debate from that point at this time We want to welcome

Dr. James White to begin our debate Well, good evening, it is a pleasure to be with you here in London this evening

It is truly an honor that you all come out this evening braved the cold weather I'm from a desert climate.

And so this is very unusual for me, but I'm actually enjoying it and Thank you all for being here this evening, especially to Abdullah al -Nusi.

Thank you very much for being here. Last time I saw him we were in the studio at the

Unbelievable Radio program and we had a Discussion. I have a feeling it was a little bit like what we're going to hear this evening, but not quite as full

I think and so it is an honor to be with you here this evening Does the

Bible teach the Trinity? Does the Quran Accurately describe the Trinity, is worship of the

Trinity an act of shirk? These are all things that I submit to you. We as Christians and Muslims must discuss openly honestly and forcefully

If I were a Muslim and I had the Quran as my holy book I would take seriously the things that it says about those who would say three and What that means, what shirk means, what the term blasphemy means, a curse upon those people.

If I cared about other people, I would want them to know what my holy book said and As a

Christian, I in the very same way this evening I'm going to say to my Muslim friends your book does not understand what

I believe. It should but it does not and Therefore what does that mean?

How do we understand these things? If we love and respect one another, we will not compromise on these issues

We will not fall into the trap of the modern world that says, well we dare not offend

I would rather love you and offend you Than not offend you and not love you

That is where I begin this evening and I hope that we will be able to this entire evening Act toward one another in that kind of an understanding

There is a major danger of talking past each other this evening because we use

Similar terms, but we import very different meanings into those words

Come let us reason together is the biblical invitation. We wish to be reasonable this evening without lapsing into Secular rationalism, which unfortunately is the mode of the day two of the major world religions locked in Definitional combat now

Islam arises after Christian at least on the historical level. I understand what you believe about Jesus being a

Muslim, etc, etc But from the historical level Islam arises after Christian and therefore interacts with Christian beliefs in its holy scripture

That is in the Quran It would seem logical to assert that if the

Quran is in fact the eternal message of Allah That it would be accurate and in an accurate way and sightly critique the

Christian doctrine the Trinity The point upon which the two faiths have their sharpest and I would say foundational

Disagreement that gives rise to so much else It is my assertion that the Quran not only does not accurately define and critique the

Trinity It does so errantly Demonstrate that in fact its author was quite human not divine

So let's define the issues to see if my allegation is founded in reality first.

We must understand what it is Christians Believe about the subject of the

Trinity Within the one being that is God there exists eternally three coequal and co -eternal

Persons namely the Father the Son and the Holy Spirit now I was not just simply using color to make my slide prettier and Outlining the words being and person we differentiate between these words in everyday life

And we differentiate between these words in the definition of the Christian faith as well

What do I mean we differentiate between these words? Well, we all recognize things that have existence things that have being we are human beings

There are other beings in this universe that we see around us Some are personal some are not a rock has being but it is not personal a cat has being and it might have

Personality, but it's not truly a person the sense of recognizing its own existence among cat kind or anything like that The Bible tells us that God angels and men are

Personal in their existence and yes angels and men are limited in their being

Being is what makes something what it is Person is what makes someone someone who they are and so a rock has being but it does not have

Personhood we as human beings we have being we are human beings, but our beings are limited in time and space

I am NOT back at home right now in Phoenix, Arizona, though. Sometimes my body thinks that it is We are limited as to where we can be and how long we exist

God's being is not limited God's being is eternal and indeed outside the realm of time and it is the

Christian perspective That that being of God is shared by three divine persons the father the son the

Holy Spirit and that this has eternally Been the case there is never a time when that was not true

Now it's important to recognize the Trinity is not saying that there are three beings who are one being

Nor three persons who are one person one being eternal unlimited shared eternally by three divine persons father son and Holy Spirit We are not saying one equals three and three equals one since we differentiate between those terms

You may have heard people criticizing the doctrine of Trinity on that level. That is not a valid criticism

We are not saying three persons or one person. We are not saying three beings or one being or anything along those lines

We are differentiating and very specifically in the language that we use But why do you believe this many people think it's because well

Constantine forced you to well That's certainly not why I am a Trinitarian I'm a

Trinitarian because I believe the Bible is the Word of God And I believe all of the

Bible and only the Bible That is I believe in sola scriptura scripture alone is the sole and final rule of faith for the church and for Christian faith

But I also believe in tota scriptura all Scripture must be believed and when

I believe the scriptures when I apply a meaningful standard of interpretation That is consistent from Genesis to Revelation Recognizing all the different kinds of literature and scripture when

I do that I come up with three biblical truths The first foundation is absolute monotheism there is only one true

God creator of heavens and earth I Have defended that thesis against the

Mormons who believe that there are many gods literally an unlimited number of gods in the various universes

The Bible is explicit and there are many parallels between the statements of the Quran the Bible on the fact that there is one

True God and any God that did not create the heavens and the earth Jeremiah tells us is a

God that will pass away from the heavens and the earth That is the first Confession that we make there is only one true

God But then as I read the scriptures I find out that there are three divine persons

The father is not the son the son is not the spirit the spirit is not the father

They are distinguished from one another and yet they're described as God the very name of God in the

Old Testament Yahweh is applied to the father To the son and the spirit is the spirit of Yahweh.

Why would the inspired writers do this consistently throughout the New Testament writings? Why would the one name of the

God of Israel be applied to Jesus of Nazareth? Why would the spirit be the spirit of God the spirit of Christ interchangeably the spirit of Yahweh?

Why is this the case? Three divine persons are revealed to us in the pages of the

Holy Scriptures But then we likewise have the third foundation the equality of those persons most people over time have tried to find some way of putting these persons in an order and Frequently what that's led to is a in essence a elevation of one above another

Many people today for example the Jehovah's Witnesses who might wake you up on a Saturday morning knocking at the door at your flat

Believe that Jesus is Michael the archangel the first and greatest of God's creations Others simply say he was a great man

But the reality is that the scriptures do not allow for that kind of subjugation they do allow for differentiation

The son does different things than the father the spirit does different things than the father and the son each have taken different roles in the redemption of mankind in the glorification of the triune

God but They fully participate in true deity

Jesus described as a creator of all things eternal in his existence and so these three biblical truths

Force me to the doctrine of the Trinity They forced me to recognize that if I'm going to allow the scriptures to speak to themselves

And I'm not going to put some higher authority over the scriptures that I must believe these particular things

Now the terms father and son are not physical terms for Christians The father is not married to anyone the son is not the result of marriage.

He is not an offspring And The relationship of father and son is timeless it did not begin

But always has been it is a description of a relationship that has eternally existed

Now I understand why some who do not have the fullness of biblical revelation

Might hear phrases like father and son and go oh well You must be thinking that God has a a consort a wife and has offspring children

But that is not what the Old Testament has taught about Galway that's not what the New Testament has taught about the relationship of the father and the son in any way shape or form and Any representation of Christian belief that does not recognize this is based upon ignorance

And we must understand that that is the case The bedrock of monotheism defines the

Trinity it is the very foundation of our faith But this must be understood Monotheism and Unitarianism are not the same things

I am a Trinitarian monotheist You can be a

Unitarian monotheist because you assert that the being of God can only be shared by one person

I'm a Trinitarian monotheist because since the being of God is limited is not limited by time and space it's eternal and unlimited

My scriptures teach me that there are three divine persons that fully share that one being that is God now

You may disagree with that, but you cannot simply assume Unitarianism along with monotheism you have to prove it you have to prove that the being of God cannot be shared by three divine persons

That cannot simply be Assumed the Trinity was well known by AD 600 the councils of Nicaea Constantinople and Calcinedon had clearly proclaimed the belief now since there was some confusion when

I made this claim the last time I was in London Let me emphasize what I'm saying here. I Have just explained to you that I believe that the doctrine of the

Trinity is a biblical revelation All I'm saying here is that all the controversies that one might point to With Arianism or Apollinarianism or any of the other isms of the first few hundred years

We're all settled by this time what the doctrine of the Trinity was was well known By 600 why did

I choose 600? Well because it's pretty close to 610 and I'll let you figure out the rest from there The doctrine of the

Trinity was well known the Athanasian Creed was well known Augustine had written entire works of the subject long before Muhammad and so given that my esteemed opponent this evening's emphasis is upon Rationality may

I follow his own form of argumentation to point out that if the Bible is indeed the revelation of God as confirmed and promised by Jesus confirming the

Old Testament promising in the New Testament That it is perfectly rational to allow

God's revelation to define his nature and his being

If we accept that there is a creator God who has revealed himself and we're about his creatures

It is eminently rational to accept what he reveals concerning himself.

I Reminded the words of Blaise Pascal Who said reason's last step is the recognition that there are an infinite number of things which are beyond it

It is merely feeble if it does not go as far as to realize that I'm being rational when

I recognize my creator is greater than I am and that I must bow before his

Revelation and the great Puritan John Flavel said I know there is nothing in the word or in the works of God that is repugnant to sound reason

But there are some things which are opposite the carnal reason as well as above right reason and therefore our reason never shows itself more unreasonable than in summoning those things to its bar which transcend its sphere and Capacity the

Doctrine of Trinity is not a revelation of reason It is a revelation of God, but it is very reasonable to accept

God's own self understanding Let's look at the chronic Understanding of what the

Doctrine of the Trinity is because there is no question that the Quran seeks to provide a response To the beliefs that existed in the days of Muhammad the

Quran is sent down to Muhammad 600 years after the end of Christ earthly ministry it interacts extensively with both

Judaism and Christianity, but does it do so accurately? If it is the eternal word of Allah it must but that cannot simply be assumed

We have to receiving examined that claim Sir 4171 says

Oh people of the book Allah Kitab commit no excesses in your religion Nor say the law but truth

Christ Jesus The son of Mary was no more than an apostle of Allah and his word which he bestowed on Mary in the spirit

So believe in Allah and his apostles And so here you have the first reference to excesses on the part of people about this

Jesus Excesses going beyond what the truth Allegedly actually is because it goes on to say

Say not Trinity now that of course is a translational issue. It's literally say not three

Say not three Desist it will be better for you for a lot is one a lot glory be to him for exalted as he above having a son

To him belong all things in the heavens and on earth and enough is a wise disposal affairs

Here's the first time we hear this this this drumbeat. He is exalted above having a son

What does that mean that a lot of those exalted above having an eternal relationship? Second divine person the one being that is

God Is that what the writer to the crowd understands? Well, we're gonna have to find out as we look at other texts and through a 572

Polyphony they do blaspheme. This is why this is so important folks. I think if you're a Muslim You should take that word very seriously.

And as a Christian I do If this is if this is the Word of God, then what

I believe is blasphemy. I recognize that that's why I take this very serious We cannot simply pass these things by they do blaspheme who say

Allah is Christ the Son of Mary but said Christ Oh children of Israel worship Allah my

Lord and your Lord Whoever joins other gods with the law Allah will forbid him the garden and the fire will be his abode

There will for the wrongdoers be no one to help Notice what is said here?

There's a joining of other gods with the law as if the Sun is a separate God And yet Christians don't believe that the

Sun is a separate God they'll believe he became a god at a point in time To divine person sharing one being fathers.

It's not a separate God. So what's being referred to? Goes on to say they do blaspheme who say

Allah is one of three in a Trinity For there is no God except one

Allah. It's literally third of three Clearly the Quran is thinking of Polytheism here a multiplicity of gods and yet what is the absolute first affirmation?

Monotheism there is only one being of God the very name of God Yahweh used a father son and spirit

Who what is this third of three? If they exist not from their word of blasphemy barely a grievous penalty will befall the blasphemers among them

Why turn they not to Allah and seek his forgiveness for a lot is often giving most merciful Christ the son of Mary was no more than an apostle many were the apostles that passed away before him

His mother was a woman of truth They had both eat their daily food

Note the mention of Mary See how Allah doesn't make his signs clear to them yet.

See in what ways they are deluded away from the truth Say will you worship besides the law something which hath no power either to harm or benefit you but a law

He it is that heareth and knoweth all things You're starting to hear the drumbeat of this kind of argumentation, but I'm hoping you're seeing it's not argumentation against the doctrine of the trinity

We have multiple gods here. We have and it seems why make reference to them

Why say that they had both to eat their daily food? Christians don't believe

Mary's a god Christians don't believe Mary's married to God and has children.

So why make this kind of argumentation? Say O people the book exceed not in your religion the bounds of what is proper trespassing beyond the truth

Nor follow the vain desires of people who went wrong in times gone by who misled many and strayed themselves from the even way

Curses were pronounced on those among the children of Israel the rejected faith tongue of David of Jesus the son of Mary because they disobeyed and persisted in excess

The chronic position this point do not say three. It is a blasphemy an excess

It will bring a grievous penalty a curse Allah is exalted above having a son

Jesus and Mary both ate daily food My time is messed up here brothers Okay, so I've got just about just a few moments

Let me very very quickly then read you surah 5 116 and make some application

The whole Allah will say O Jesus the son of Mary didst thou say unto men worship me and my mother as gods in derogation of Allah?

He will say glory to thee never could I say what I had no right to say had it said such a thing thou wouldst indeed have known it Thou knowest what is in my heart though I know not what is thine for thou knowest in full all that is hidden Notice the statement

Jesus asked about teaching men to jointly worship himself and Mary as God Allah plus Mary plus Jesus equals three

Now I have a number of comments that I will try to get to from Ibn Kathir and from others that demonstrate that the

Quranic understanding Is that well here's this one from Ibn Kathir.

This is a threat and a warning to Christians chastising them in public as Qadda and others said and Qadda mentioned this ayah as evidence

This ayah also shows the crime of the Christians who invented a lie against the law and his messenger Thus making a rival wife and son for Allah.

Allah is glorified that he is far above what they attribute to him Let me just make a summary statement at this point

It has never been the Christian belief That God the father has a wife and that they have a son named

Jesus. I can understand how someone could have come to that conclusion If they are ignorant of the very essence of the

Christian scriptures But if you believe that the Quran is the eternal word of God then my friends

Allah knew what the Trinity was when the Quran was revealed Whether it's right or wrong is another issue.

If he knew what it was there would be no reason to misrepresent it And so this evening we have two things to discuss.

Does the Bible teach it? Is it rational to believe this? But for the Muslim Does your holy book accurately represent

This belief? And if not, why not? And what does that mean? Also given 22 minutes is

Abdullah Al -Andalusi and he'll be representing the Muslim position Let's welcome him as he comes to the podium

In the name of God most gracious most merciful I'd like to send my greetings to everyone here

I'd like to thank the Trinity Church, the elders and the congregation for inviting me here today to debate this interesting and important topic

Firstly I wanted to apologize if anything I do say might offend some people I think it is important as James White mentioned that we have to be open and frank about our difference of opinion

And then we also must be tolerant You know gone are the days when People such as myself

Christians ex -christians or whether we reject the Trinity would have been beheaded in Christian Europe for example

John Calvin himself Ordered the beheading of poor servitors but in this day and age

We live in more enlightening times where we can actually come to each other's places of worship and discuss openly and last year the

American Evangelical debate of David Wood came to a mosque to discuss whether the Prophet Muhammad was a real prophet or a false prophet

Him obviously arguing that the Prophet Muhammad was a false prophet in a mosque So I think it's a very good

Situation and I'd like to jump straight into my presentation The structure of my presentation is firstly we have to come to agreement on a common basis

To make a judgment as to whether there is politics involved or not in the issue of the

Trinity and so on Also, I'll discuss Jewish monotheism. I'll discuss the source

I'm going to use then I'm going to jump to the unreliability of Apostolic tradition and it's documentation otherwise known as the

New Testament I will show that there's no guarantee that the original texts are accurate

And that the original text probably has even the same convictions as even the current ones that we have So the

Bible is not protected by the Holy Spirit from textual corruption That the

Christian theology developed under the pernicious influence of Hellenic Greek philosophy and the text give contradictory accounts of Jesus as one human another one as a humble, but superhuman and Then I'll discuss the

Trinity hypothesis and there's a reason why I call it the hypothesis and I'll finish off with the chronic contentions of the

Trinity or should I say to Christian theology specifically and how the Quran perceives

Christian theology and the rational arguments raised by the Quran. Now, I know that sometimes

I'm described as a Rationalist, but this is a far from the descriptor in terms of in Islamic thought

We think this is the metazolites, the metazolite faction. No, I'm fully Orthodox Ahlus Sunnah when

I use the word rational it's only because I believe that the Quran which tells us to go look at the universe and Don't believe in things which are contradictory

I say that this is rational rational thinking is to believe in things which are non contradictory and based on evidence simple as simple as this

I think the basis He is non -contradictory, his nature is non -contradictory

He might be infinite and you can't count infinity But there's a difference between saying he's infinite and finite at the same time because infinite means

Not finite. So how can someone be not finite and finite at the same time? It's a contradiction

As to quote 1 Timothy 620 God the deposit entrusted to you avoid the irreverent battle and contradictions of what is falsely called knowledge and again,

Corinthians goes with the author of confusion and of course as God Is allegedly invited people in Isaiah come now.

Let us reason together. So God believes in reason and rationality So I do too Jewish monotheism

You know the thing about the Old Testament Bible is the Old Testament Bible is full of imagery and it's sort of explicit text

There's ambiguous text and explicit text you go to any Jew and you ask them. How do you interpret these these different texts?

You know some texts say that God rested God relaxed or repented. Is this literal? It doesn't literally mean that God rested and had to sleep or had to relax or whatever

So no, they would say it's imagery because the explicit texts have got infinite or powerful

So we interpret those texts which say that he is He repents or he relaxes or he makes a mistake.

We took we took an allegorically or metaphorically We don't have them literally and we use this kind of you know as a meter and it's in the

Quran We have a verse in the Quran which says that God has hand and feet and so on and we don't interpret it

Literally that God has a human hand and feet and leg and different components. No, it's allegory metaphor

So What are the explicit verses in Jewish monotheism? God is not a man

Numbers and Hosea and I think I'll quote numbers God is not a man that he should lie nor a son of man that he should change his mind interesting

God does not change in Malachi. He doesn't change his mind Of course as James White noted in his book

Forgotten Trinity that God is outside of time and space so he can't change. He's outside of time and space.

Remember that God is the creator of all things. Obviously, we know that Jews believe this and 2

Chronicles 618 nothing can contain God when referring to a temple How can God be confined by a limited temple?

And of course as James White himself from up to this book God's being is not limited and since God's omnipresent Another another important truth can be seen

God's being cannot be divided. What is half of omnipresence? How can the infinite be divided into parts so on and so forth and here are

Israel the Lord your God? is one Lord No, it doesn't say you only have one

God or there is only one God No, it says the Lord your God, you know, the Lord your God is only a singular is one

Why say that? Why have the additional as one you really mentioned singular your

Lord your God? Why say he is one? What's that about? We'll come to that later So the sources

I'm going to use and what I'm going to quote from the Old Testament I'm going to quote from the classical church fathers the

Orthodox I know they all anathematized each other during that time, but I'm going to quote for the ones that stand for the majority

I'm going to quote scholars approved by James which I obtained from his books the ones that he cites I'm going to cite because I know that he trusts those scholars and Sometimes I will quote scholars which are not approved by James, but I will mention when they are what he would call liberal scholars so On to the reliability of apostolic tradition.

What does that mean? Well, the the New Testament is not there's not an exact record of Jesus life

But it's a compilation of early Christian theologians and unincorporated narratives about Jesus life

So what do we find is that they were theologians early theologians writing? Letters or their works and so on and then later on these became incorporated into New Testament It's the same reason that the

Christians don't believe in a town with a midrash If you ask Christian, why don't you believe in the Jewish document of the town of Midrash?

And they'll say because these were written by rabbis who were writing commentary on the Torah We don't follow what the rabbis say.

We don't follow the beliefs their ideas of their opinions We follow what the Torah says, but funnily enough their

New Testament is basically constructed by theologians for the first Prologue of John In the beginning was the

Word of God. Did they say Jesus said that? No whoever wrote John is saying that it's his opinion It's his idea.

He's a theologian if Augustine very famous Even I'll say James James lived in the first century and he wrote his book.

That would probably be part of the New Testament So it's all about chronology. It's not about Anything special about the author if you even know what the authors are anyway so According to J .M

.D. Kelly and his book early Christian doctrine He says a doctrine of one world the father and creator form the backbone

Background and indisputable premises of the Christians of the church's faith The problem for theology was to integrate it with the fresh data of the specifically

Christian revelation Even at the New Testament stage ideas about Christ's pre -existence and creative role were beginning to take shape so already there was a development of thinking during the

Construction of the New Testament and of course these ideas found their way into New Testament J .M

.D. Kelly also said and this was approved by James that there was Greek thought holistic thought going on at that time and Do you know what this the platonic and stoic schools of philosophy and you know what they had a belief about God You know what their belief about God was?

The stoic and platonic schools of thought. They believe that God is unfathomable Inevitable he is so detached from his creation that to create to create creation

He has to create something called a wisdom and intermediary and called the logos This is platonic philosophy.

He had to create a logos and then the logos Through the logos everything is created everything that is discernible and with stoic philosophy.

They believe that this Logos means rationality and that everything is ordered because of the presence of this

Rationality in the universe. Does that sound familiar to any Christians? I'll go into it. I'll go into it further

So Just very quickly about the old the New Testament when I said the originals may not be accurate.

I'll give an example Just I just made a statement Matthew 2 23 was the same and he went and lived in a town called

Nazareth So was fulfilled what was said through the prophets He will be called a Nazarene referring to the

Jesus saying is the prophets of the Old Testament prophesied Jesus and said that he is a Nazarene the

Messiah will be a Nazarene Guess what? This occurs nowhere in the Old Testament Where do you get this from?

Maybe a mistake. Maybe as what's happened. They retrofitted prophecies from the

Old Testament and say well, this is really notice This is really an Old Testament and generally they checked in this case, especially with Matthew There's a lot of inaccuracies and a lot of missing prophecies which don't exist in the

Old Testament. What was that? The documentation of the New Testament is not protected from divine tampering and James one will agree with this

Why because John 7 53 8 to 8 11 women taking for adultery was proven to be a forgery or it was taken out

One John 5 8 the Trinity verse was taken out. It's so good.

We must take out all the Trinity verses in the Bible I think it's a good start Second and thirdly

Mark 16 9 verses 9 to 20 resurrection of Jesus again was the time was found out to be

Forgeries and taken out or basically not in the earliest manuscript as they meet not in the earliest manuscripts so Where was the

Holy Spirit protecting the Bible when for hundreds of years Christians were believing that was part of the Bible? Where was the Holy Spirit there?

You might say ah, but you see the Holy Spirit will show you eventually the original manuscripts Firstly, we don't have them in the original manuscript

So we don't know how many more mistakes or how many more forgeries we have to go and get out of it.

But anyway now To kind of actually I think it's the real crux of the matter

Christian theology the thing about the New Testament New Testament is based in episode addition knowing what

I mean by the Acoustic tradition is that it was all the ideas teachings and opinions of Christian theologians combined with Unappropriated narratives from Jesus life or what they all claim narratives in Jesus life and this is all basically

Later on they compiled it into a book or they were into Gospels rather many follow the Gospels into a book

Not all the Gospels were into that book and there was selection process but I'm not going to go through that and the main point is is a hundred -year gap between Jesus and Presumed first Gospels coming into existence that we can have evidence for now

We see in the New Testament Very interesting phenomenon We see there are explicit texts and there are ambiguous texts the explicit texts say that Jesus is a human being who was created

He ate he slept. He's a son of man like in the Old Testament Son of man is applies to all kinds of people and so on human beings

He's a son of God again in the Old Testament angels David's for the Son of God Adams for the

Son of God So And all these all these things which is you reading it would understand Son of God means chosen a chosen of God For example, he was on something to nothing the father is greater than himself

So on so forth. He grew in the knowledge of God as well and so on As I already mentioned was

England of the hour It's very funny that first song Bible says that no one knows the hour not the angels in heaven nor the

Son but the Father now It's very interesting because anyone reading this reading these verses say oh, well, yeah,

Jesus is a human being even messenger He's a prophet and so he's the Messiah a very high

You know the most highly esteemed property I guess with the Israelites and the Messiah himself and this makes sense but then you get the ambiguous verses the ambiguous verses which

When you say Jesus says, you know, I am the way truth in life and you think what does this mean? You know or before Abraham was

I am what does that mean? Christians dispute these texts these texts on dispute because they're so ambiguous.

They're not explicit Now why would recommend to Christian generally is you take the explicit text to form the baseline and then you animate?

Then you look at the ambiguous text based on their conformance to the explicit Explicit text the ambiguous text you judge it just like the

Jews do to their Torah just like Muslims do to our Quran You don't go to the ambiguous texts may come with interpretation

You'd like and then you change the explicit text and do mental gymnastics gymnastics gymnastics to explain how?

Well when Jesus said that the father's great in life What he meant was he was basically gonna go to sit back to the father and he would say they should be happy I'm going back to my father who's great me

And I'll be back in rank with him. It doesn't say that the text is mental gymnastics. But anyway

So these are the problems in the text now now you have these ambiguous texts and you have these explicit texts

And for church history there have been constant battles between Christians who believed in using explicit texts to be the judge and all those who believe using the interpretation of the ambiguous text to be the judge and over the pro -divinity divinities of the

Christian history and in order to reconcile those who are the Those who believe with anti -adoptionist

Explained the adoptionist is a Christian early Christian that believed that Jesus is the adopted son of God IE he was a prophet and so on generally speaking in that frame of thinking and the other viewpoint was that he was the literal son of God and There was these two different sex

Those obviously who anti -adoptionist one the obviously they became majority Those didn't like and obviously had church backing and they started to impose on people anyone who rejects the

Trinity can even be Persecuted and executed so they constructed this theory called the Trinity hypothesis

I call it a hypothesis because the hypothesis is a proposition of set propositions set forth as an explanation for the occurrence of some

Specified group of phenomena or its provisional conjecture to guide investigation or exhibits highly probable.

It's the Trinity hypothesis Now the Christian early church fathers like Augustine admitted that the

Trinity or the word persons is not found in the Bible They had to construct it

Augustine also said that we had to we had to make a distinction between Persons and being because otherwise we have no other way to explain the existence of three and we have to admit

It's three gods. So he said that we have to we have to invent Persons What they don't tell you is this is a real funny thing is that Hypostasis and usia are synonyms.

One is platonic philosophy and the other one is historic philosophy and they both mean subsistence they both actually

There are synonyms of each other mean they are basically they mean they can stand in for each other They mean the same thing

I mean we know this because the mystery of Jesus being two nations one is called the hypostatic union the union of two natures

Hypostasis means natures in that context. So they try to they use two different words from two different Almost philosophies fused together so that you don't think of them as the same

It's like me saying it's like me trying to avoid saying there are three natures and there are one nature

And you said that sounds I can't say that. Okay, I'll say it with the language Yeah, and that's you know,

I'm three natures. There we go. No problem so The equivalent the

Augusta admits Augusta admits in his book on the Trinity that God's nature and the personhood are actually one in the same

There is no separation or distinction from between God's nature and God's personhood He admits this and he will and he realized it comes to his text

And there is a problem a conviction by because when you are saying there are three persons You're saying there are three natures when you're saying there is one nature

You're meant to be saying there's one person and they can't accept this because how can they reconcile the contradictory interpretations of their

Bible? Now I want to jump straight to chronic the chronic contentions of this man

I've got so many so many verses and so little time, but I'm going to show that the Quran not only understands the

Trinity But the Quran refutes the Trinity very eloquently Firstly the

Quran does not talk about the Detailed concept the the hypothesis the

Trinity hypothesis. It talks about Christian theology It talks about the claims the truth claims made by the

Christian theology It is like you know a politician saying we went to war in Iraq for freedom and then you say no you went to war in Iraq For oil and is it we don't say that.

Oh, yeah That's the de facto reality what you believe when the Quran says you believe in three gods That is the fact of reality because there is no what is is a fundamental.

There is nothing more There's no components in existence even James White Book admits this that God cannot be divided

So when you're saying there's three you're saying God can be divided it's three in one much like what the

Hindus say about Brahma Vishnu Krishna about Vishnu and Shiva three in one

Nepal the the biggest transcendental God Brahman and see

Brahma Shiva Shiva and Vishnu So let's jump straight into it sort of to 253 and so I have a projector up to show you so We're gonna go for it very quickly.

So we're to 200 verse 2 5 3 and 4 4 1 7 1

Actually distinguish out the three persons the Trinity's the Quran Distinguish out the three persons Trinity God Jesus and the

Holy Spirit not Mary But Jesus and the Holy Spirit are distinguished in these two verses In the other verse where it said when it talks about In Surah 4 verse 1 7 2 the

Messiah would never disdain for being a servant of God nor would the close angels Those who disdain for worshipping him are the arrogant are too arrogant to submit and etc

Why is it say that Jesus will never disdain from being a servant of God nor the close angels? Why is it linked together?

because the Holy Spirit The belief is Holy Spirit should make the third person is actually the angel

Gabriel It is in the Islamic sources. The angel Gabriel is called the Holy Spirit in the

Old Testament Angels are called holy ones and spirits as well The Holy Spirit is an angel and the

Quran hit it back on the head where it says that refutes both taking

Jesus and angels to be God he refutes it by saying they were never distinct being servants of God They are the servants of God and of course in the

Trinity conception The father is always the greatest one in the Trinity theology and I will bring up church father quotations to show this

It's interesting that James White says that Which is if I can just find it it's interesting that James White says that You know, we don't believe that God has a literal offspring like the

Quran says. We don't believe this really Well, did you know did you read Athanasius? The alphabet animation cream no, no less he said

Rather he is a friend of Jesus. He is God's offspring and since God is eternal and he belongs to God as a son

He exists for all eternity. It is a characteristic meant to be getting time But God's offspring is eternal his nature always being perfect and for nature says that the

Sun is God's offspring Justin Martha said the logos is God's offspring and child

Before all creatures God begat in the beginning a rational power out of himself I like that I could go on to Tashian Tertullian or Oregon and so on They all say this they say it's

God's offspring You have to represent your position James White from the orthodoxy and not say make a claim about backup so I think

I'll leave it with this last verse. My time is running out when the Quran says in one verse

He said, you know, and they say that book that date that God takes a son has a son

No, God when he will sign to exist. He said being it is and I thought to myself

What's that? Why was the connection between God saying that? He can't have a son and if he wants to Chris being is why is that?

Because the Quran understands Johanna in theology and it refutes the cost they need to create a logos Go to create the universe

God creates directly without need to make a logos to do it for him The cross understood German nine theology is understood

Greek Anyway, and I'll leave my time on out, but thanks. I'll come back and go on the rebuttals.

Thank you for listening We thank

Abdullah for Expressing the position for the Muslim position and now we go on to three minutes of cross -examination these cross -examinations

And the purpose behind them is to verify the claims that have been made in his opening statements First up will be

Dr. James White Alright, thank you very much

Abdullah. I Did not hear what you mentioned something about a 100 -year gap

I thought you were saying between the ministry of Jesus and the earliest Writings in the

New Testament. I did not understand what you said there Could you you know what I'm referring to you talk about a hundred year gap?

I'm not sure what you're referring to. Yes, a hundred year gap between the ministry of Jesus and The earliest manuscripts and evidence, okay, so so you

You mentioned sir to 253

And did I understand you to be saying that the Holy Spirit that is mentioned here is the angel

Gabriel? Or this is actually what? Christians believe Because it says and strengthen him with the

Holy Spirit. So Are you saying that that's an actual reference to what Christians believe the

Holy Spirit is or angel Gabriel? I didn't follow what you meant. Sure in the Sabbath theology

The Holy Spirit is a reference used for the angel Gabriel What the Quran is showing

I was trying to say is that angels have been taken as gods as well And that comes in the form of the

Christians. They are flying the Holy Spirit, which we interpret to mean angel Gabriel Okay, so I'm looking at the text here

Those messengers be endowed with gifts some of others to one of them spoke others he raised degrees of honor to Jesus the

Son of Mary we gave clear signs and Strengthened him with the Holy Spirit. If Allah had so willed succeeding generations would not have fought among each other, etc, etc

So are you saying that that is a reference to the angel Gabriel?

Oh, yes Make supplications God saying strengthen me with the

Holy Spirit So but it's so it's not a reference to what Christians believe about the Holy Spirit I'm totally confused as to the application that you make.

Sure. It's kind of like this The Christians don't believe that the Holy Spirit is angel Gabriel But the

Quran is saying that the original the original kind of person that came was was angel

Gabriel and he was mistaken for being a spirit of God himself

You said this under the rubric of the Quran understands the Trinity so I'm trying to figure out if you're saying that when this was originally written that this was somehow meant to be a correction

It just sounds to me like it's using the term Holy Spirit here I'm saying that Allah strengthened

Jesus with the Holy Spirit. Yes There are many times in the Quran and in the

Hadith where the Holy Spirit is just mentioned but when it because the Hadith Mentions that the prophet

Muhammad is not receive revelation from the Holy Spirit and then we know that this revelation is from Gabriel Sorry Okay, I think just to clarify

You said that Christians don't believe that Mary was taken as as a

God or was treated as a God, but how do you? explain your videos on YouTube and your articles and I think some of your fellow

Calvinist colleagues your Christians of Catholicism for what was quote -unquote Marionetry, which is the

Idolatry to Mary and by the seeking intercession through her and treating her for intensive purposes as a

God One of the best reasons to not believe that modern Catholicism is biblical

Christianity Sure, and it did not exist that kind of Marian devotion

Especially as it has been dogmatically defined by Rome just over the past 160 years with the

Bodily assumption of Mary and the imaginative conception 1854 1950 is a

Tremendous move away from any type of biblical revelation and if you are familiar with Rome's teachings

They don't believe that they are limited to the divine revelation of Scripture. They reject the concept of sola scriptura

It's one of the fundamental differences between Would you deny that in early church?

Teaching and discussion and ideas there was the concept of the Theotokos Which is the

God bearer where Mary was named the chain from being a married mother of Jesus to marry the mother of God or God bearer

Theotokos I think there's a misunderstanding there as to the origination of Theotokos That originally was a

Christological title. In other words, its original usage was a attempt to assure that People recognized that the one who was born of Mary was fully

God that over time Became an exalted title of Mary, but it took a long period of time and even modern on Catholicism It should be mentioned even modern

Catholicism seeks to very clearly differentiate between Mary as a creature and any type of deification of Mary as a

God I Think that the methods they use are not necessarily the best, but they certainly seek to make that kind of differentiation

That should be fairly mentioned. Sure. So then would you say that If you believe that if taking someone into intercession

Makes them you're treating that person like God according to all the articles I've been reading of Calvinist polemic against Catholics that When you take

Mary as an intercessor between you and God when she's described by Catholics as the spouse of the Holy Spirit That she has taken on she has the same will as the

Holy Spirit. You can speak up and pray to her and she will basically Through the Holy Spirit have your prayers heard that this is not a form of idolatry

Yes, but it's a modern development. Sure We move now to 12 minutes of rebuttal and we welcome to the podium,

Dr. James White All right, let's get to the argumentation

We were asked how can someone be infinite and finite at the same time this is a fundamental question that we want to answer right off the bat because it'll pretty much settle the allegation of rationality or irrationality

Philippians chapter 2 verses 5 through 11 is an ancient fragment of a hymn of the church and in that particular

Beautiful text of scriptures we are told of one who had eternally been equal with the father and yet he did not consider that position

He had with the father something to be held on to at all costs, but out of humility

He was willing to lay aside that exalted position that was his out of service to others.

He becomes then our example of Humility in so doing but it's interesting to note that when the

Apostle Paul talks about the incarnation Jesus entering into human flesh He says he emptied himself.

Now that term is never used literally by Paul kenosis. It is always used in a metaphorical sense He made himself of no reputation, but how did he do so by taking on a human nature by truly becoming?

man This was his humiliation his self -veiling of his glory

We see this his glory revealed on the Mount of Transfiguration but the vast majority of his life that glory is is hidden he has taken on a human nature and So did he cease being?

Eternal did he cease being? Infinite in his being and so doing no the whole doctrine of the incarnation is that Jesus is the

God man That's not 50 % God and 50 % man because that would be irrational that would make no sense

He remains the law laws that eternally existed remains as God But he takes on human nature if he created the human nature.

Why would that be impossible? Why the only the only objection you can come up with is well, he would never do that But if he had a purpose and in fact

It was his purpose from creation to bring honor and glory to his trying majesty in so doing to bring about perfect Redemption for his people.

Why could not the one who made man? Enter into that human existence.

He does not cease to be Eternal he does not cease to be infinite. His human nature is a true human nature.

So that's not infinite That's not eternal that that particular individual had not existed for eternity past But the scriptures say he is the

God man the Lord of Glory There's this wonderful text that Paul also uses they crucified the

Lord of Glory think about that for a moment How can you crucify the Lord of Glory? The Lord of Glory is the very creator of all things and yet he humbled himself so that he could

Give his life a ransom for many and so the belief is not Irrational if we allow the text to speak of themselves, but then what we had was basically an assertion

That we can't trust the New Testament texts for various and sundry reasons

We're told was a 100 year gap Well, there's a 250 to 300 year gap between most of your knowledge of the hadith and the statements of Muhammad But that doesn't seem to bother too many people

In fact in the history of ancient documents 100 years is the best there is

Any other ancient documents from that time period Suetonius Pliny Tacitus doesn't matter

It was the average time period between the time of the writing of their documents and the first extant copy is 5 to 900 years 100 years is the best antiquity has to offer

So unless you're going to suggest that God just simply couldn't give his word without giving us some type of golden plates or something

Then you're going to have a hard time making that kind of allegation stick He mentioned two of the two of the longest text of variance in the

New Testament Which I had time to go back over what I went over on Friday evening in this very room

The reliability of the text of the New Testament You mentioned John 753 through 811 the other one is the long reading of Mark 16 9 to 20

It's a wonderful thing that we are able to recognize those later editions because we can do that because we have the richest manuscript tradition of any work of antiquity and The reason we can recognize that for example first John 5 7 which isn't even really a relevant text

It was only added into the Latin Vulgate in the 16th century Not by some powerful group either but simply by usage

But it's a wonderful thing that we can identify these things because you see for the New Testament We didn't have anybody burning the earlier manuscripts

We didn't have edited. We didn't have it with mum and so we can go back to those papyri manuscripts

We can go back to p72 We can go back to p46 and p66 and Sinaiticus and Alexandrinus and we have this rich Body of manuscripts to draw from to recognize these things and we publish entire texts.

In fact I'll go ahead and do this right now Here is An entire text.

This is the New English Translation and the Nesteolon 27th edition full critical edition of the

Greek New Testament Thousands of textual critical footnotes giving you all the information about all the manuscripts

We publish this and make it available for everybody and I give them to my debate opponents We are open with the history of our text and I simply suggest to you that if you will with an open mind

Examine the means by which God has preserved the New Testament Scriptures and pass them down to us today

You will be amazed at the progress of God I have been studying this field for many years and the more

I study it the more I am amazed at what God has done Now we then had a number of arguments raised interestingly enough quoting from the same

New Testament text Against the concept of the deity of Christ saying that all the texts that present the deity of Christ are ambiguous

Well, why are they ambiguous? Well, they're ambiguous because you accept an external authority to tell us you're not to believe these things

They're not ambiguous. Titus 2 .13 and 2 Peter 1 .1 are not ambiguous. They describe Jesus Christ our great

God and Savior There's nothing ambiguous about that There's nothing ambiguous about Paul's description of Jesus in Colossians chapter 1 where he says that he is the firstborn of all creation

That's the one that has preeminence over all things for by him were all things created whether in heaven and earth Visible or invisible where the principalities, powers, dominions, or authorities all things created by him and for him

He is before all things and him all things hold together and consist. My friends, that's not ambiguous. That's the Creator The Apostle Paul used every kind of language he could to express the fact that Jesus Christ is truly

God It's not ambiguous in the writer to the Hebrews quote Psalm 102 25 to 27 Which is about how

Yahweh is the unchanging creator of all things. He does not change. He does not age It was not ambiguous for the writer of Hebrews to apply those very words to Jesus the

Son And that takes me to something else that really needs to be emphasized And that is

I heard Abdullah use the standard argumentation You all have heard

Ahmad Didat do it God has sons by the tons, right? We've all heard that one.

And yet is it not so Transparently clear in the text of the New Testament that the sonship of Jesus is absolutely unique.

That's the very meaning of the term monogamous Jesus is the unique Son of God and the

Jews recognized this in John chapter 5 for which he quoted Before getting to the point where Jesus says he does nothing of himself.

And of course that was taken as a denial of the deity of Christ What is Jesus some renegade deity? The whole point of John chapter 5 is that the son is in perfect harmony with the father

He acts in perfect harmony with the father But that's very same text says you must honor the son just as you honor the father if you want to have life and by saying

Jesus is merely of Azul and Not the eternal Son of God who are not honoring him as the son not from the

New Testament perspective But that very same text Jesus made reference to the fact that my father is working until now and I am working

That was a reference to the fact that the Jews recognized that God continues to work on the Sabbath day

He continues to have the sunrise and the earth continues spinning and rain falls from heaven, etc

Etc. And Jesus said my father is working and I am working and the Jews recognized that this was a claim to deity

He was calling God his own father making himself equal with God and remember in John chapter 19

At the arrest and trial of Jesus. What is the assertion of the Jews? We have a law and by that law he must die because he made himself out to be the

Son of God Uniquely in a way that clearly demonstrated he was claiming to be deity

Now Abella said well the Quran does understand from the Trinity, but then he wanted to say well not in the

Trinity hypothesis That is not in the way the Christians believe the Trinity to have existed not those who take the entirety of the biblical revelation

And allow it to stand. No, it's just simply addressing the de facto

Reality that you believe in three gods and he made reference to my book the

Forgotten Trinity I think I was very very clear in what I was stating in those texts when

I said that God's being cannot be divided The doctrine of the Trinity does not divide the being of God If you'll read the rest of those chapters

That's exactly what I said and that is that the being of God that which makes

God God is Fully shared by three divine persons not one -third of the being of God We're not dividing the being of God up it cannot be

Divided and I know anyone who looks at my book will see that I said that over and over and over again and So it is not a proper usage of my words to say that I'm in any type of support of this particular perspective

So once again, let me refocus our attention if we allow the Bible to speak for itself and I would simply point out that the

Quran does not tell us to pick and choose What passages from the Bible we are going to believe the

Quran command says that I said these books are sent down and I as one of the

Al -anjeel the people of the gospel told to judge based upon what's in my scriptures We know exactly the

New Testament look like the days of Muhammad without any question whatsoever And so in light of that if we take simply what the

New Testament teaches We are forced to the doctrine of the Trinity. Where does the Quran?

Accurately represent the doctrine of the Trinity. What is this stuff about worshiping Mary? Even from the

Roman Catholic perspective if you go that far it comes far after this time period What's this idea about it being exalted above having a son?

What does sir a 6 -101 say when it says that God cannot have a son because he does not have a Sabiha a consort

Is that not saying? That Christians believe God has a wife We've never believed that that's not what the doctrine of the trinity is.

And so we have to ask ourselves a question I hope Abdullah will address this How can the Quran be taken for the

Word of God if it does not accurately represent what is speaking of this now? Thank you very much We welcome

Abdullah Alright, I'm going to go reversal about what he said

But I need to hit a few points that I want to actually say and not just always respond to him One of them is the

Quran used the argument that when you say God has a son but he does not have a consort That is not saying that Christians believe that he has a consort.

It is rebutting the fact that why Have you given these persons masculine names?

Father masculine reproductive titles father son These are these have meanings based on creation.

You're giving the father The father and you're giving the son the son which are human reproductive names for all eternity

God has had human reproductive titles Does that make sense? That's what the Quran rebutts saying

God does not have a consort to actually so that he must have it Father and his son situation

That is actually a refutation of your choice of titles for the

Godhead and so on What I was trying to elicit from James is that we know that the

Quran says that the Jews and Christians took their rabbis and anchorites as lords besides God Masters beside God reason why because they made they they were used

Intercessors they made the voice was forbidden allowed was allowed forbidden. And so these became their lords their gods, even though the

In that narration when the prophet Muhammad was saying to the companions one of the ex -Christians said but we don't we never worship them

Ah, but didn't you follow them? Didn't you obey them? Didn't you? Didn't you seek intercession?

But generally they sought intercession which the pagans also said that we are not worshipping many gods

We're just seeking intercession for different gods and was not these are Idols you've set up besides God you seek intercession through all the

God then you are creating idols. This is James Why is it learning against the Catholics allow the

Quran to just to define what it means by? Idolatry as well. I don't even you worship the statue

Now he says that the best documents we have our hundred years old and that's the best you can get

Well, if I've got I guess the phrase in the land of blind The one -eyed man is king and the set very much the same with you.

Oh, what's the best that you can get for ancient manuscripts? Oh, that must mean that we accept it because just because it was bad

Then I don't know what's really about Hercules inside this because it's a better or close the closest possible

Or close out many set of different manuscripts. We have to now accept it blindly just because there's nothing better than that I'm sorry, it doesn't wash

All right, I'm going to hit a few other points when when

Jesus said that He said that, you know him the father of one God is his father and then they will the

Jews were gonna stone him for this and they said You and me a man and make himself out to be like God and what was his response?

Allegedly in the Bible it said it's not written in your law that be gods be you be all gods

Isn't that very interesting you are all sons of the most high it's psalm 82 6 I said be your gods

You are all sons of the most high interesting But if you're Jesus was

God was trying to educate Jews as to believing that he's God Why give them an allegorical verse in the

Old Testament, which they never believed mean that human beings are God unless you're Mormon That is that's a whole different story.

So, you know, this is the these are the problems which we encounter I never said that the

Old Testament of the New Testament rather is Something I believe in or I must believe in or is the engine

I know it instead of the actual book that Christian possessed is the engine the engine is a teaching of Jesus The New Testament is a documentation of the apostolic tradition, which is loosely based upon Jesus and his teachings and his life

That's what I'm saying. That's what I have said consistently throughout this debate, but Let's you know what

I in my research this goes like really fascinating I never I never realized this before it's really interesting You see

I guess what James White from a say is that well, you know persons and being it's a little word game

They think that the Trinitarian theorists invented to allow three and one one three

They said that well, it's only one God because it's one One substance one being and three hypostasis

But then the hypostatic union Concept which is where God where Jesus has two natures.

He has to lose here to lose here, and he is one person Has one who's the other three persons he has two losers and three persons

God has two natures human nature and a divine nature and This is now effectively met the criteria of two gods

You've now effectively met it unless you deny that human the human nature Jesus is completely separate from divine nature

Jesus and if you say that then you said then you say oh But the the person the will inside him was

God that was God if that's the case Then how do you say how to explain Jesus saying that you know, he's ignorant of the last hour

He's ignorant of it. If this is his divine person saying this and he's lying because he doesn't know it

And I've read Augustine's attempt to explain it where he said that oh, well, you know, Jesus was it was like Being amongst babies.

They couldn't understand you. So he just basically how can you explain to babies in infant knowledge? That's fine.

That's fine. But it says in the verse the Bible that he does not know it He doesn't know the last hour. I mean if he said he knew the last hour, but can't explain it

I can understand that it says he did not know it which has caused some Christians Throughout the ages to believe that Jesus has two wills and two natures

One is a human world human nature. No one is a divine world divine nature because They were trying to reconcile these discrepancies within their own theology

Scripps's they cause what they're into because their insistence to say that Jesus was God Also, are there any other points

If God is fundamental and can't be broken down then Can there exist

Person that will be called person and substance as two components in God Can they exist this it can't?

person is one thing and Substance is not a thing So if we can't if you can't divide this if you can't divide

God then as Augustine admitted in his book on the Trinity That person and nature is the same thing.

They are in essence the same So what we when Christians say that we believe in free persons you're saying believe in free gods and I'll further clarify this

I'm going to qualify this What makes some what makes a deity a god?

What is it? What does it need to have to possess that to be God it has to be this what infinite power?

Okay, infinite power and what else has this will right will and infinite power.

Here's a question The father does the father have infinite power you say yes, does the father have a will you say yes

Does the son have infinite power? Of course, that's what the Augustine also says

According to the theology and the son also have a separate will yes, because he's a separate person

That's what defines a person a person is a will So we see three wills each are have infinite power.

What is that? What theology is this is that Three wills there are three infinite wills in heaven.

They don't depend on each other. They are self -contained as Augustine said on the Trinity This is three gods.

It is the fact of three gods no matter even though you had little caveat Oh, but it's still one God just adding that little appendage to your creed doesn't mean that you believe in one

God There's no if I said that I went to shop and I stole something and then the

Got me was I okay. I stole it, but it's my property Said well, you didn't still did you stole it?

What's your property make you make your mind? You can't have a contradiction, but this is exactly what you know The Christian theology is trying to have his cake eat it.

You want to make Jesus God, but you can't explain why Why he can be God at the same time as a father who is meant to be one

God, but they are separate person Inconsistent So that's what I'm saying. Make things easy for yourself.

Jesus is a human being he has false. He was limited He depended on the father even the

Christian theologians say that the church father said that the father is the source and principle of all things

And I believe I will further clarify why the Quran is actually says that it's like an offspring Why because the church fathers and I have all the quotes here

Say that in the eternal begotten My Jesus is one substance with the father's because it's kind of like essentially the father is a pregnant woman and he gave birth

To someone has the same substance of him, but is they still they know they probably he's still they're still connected

So they they've kind of an extension of the father This G the logos is the extension of the father and if you say

God, I think it's Muslim just making this up Well, it's your early church fathers. Oregon Tertullian Tashian and so on They all say this is what they are saying not myself

James why is not the authority of the Trinity these guys They thought of the Trinity. Do you know why because they may invented the idea not

James white. He's trying to explain it to you guys Now that's the problem that Muslims have with the issue of the

Trinity This is what we have the problem we have with the conception of Christian theology. Now just answer a few other points

James Weiss is going to change Malachi says more importantly says goods and change But they said God takes on flesh

God changes you know when I said before that God exists outside of time and it cannot be changed by time and then in a chapter of James White's own book on the

Trinity It says God in the divine or infinite invades time infinity invades time

So God becomes in touch that which is timeless is in time And if you keep keep thinking this keeping this through God is what the ever -living right

God is the ever -living Jesus died Is that God? Jesus God is the all -knowing

Jesus what? He was ignorant about facts. He grew in his knowledge of God. Why does

God need to grow in his own knowledge by himself? Doesn't make sense. It's for that reason that we say that you can accept

Jesus for what he is. He's a He is a wondrous Messiah Prophet he is a great prophet.

He was a noble man. He was a man of truth But he was no more than a man

Let's throw out the Greek philosophy You know, we've got a lot of trouble even to Muslim theology as well.

We have to kick it out much debate Yeah, so please this is what I call you to and all the points that just quickly before it before it goes

The Philippians says that God God entered himself and so on which again they have to try to reinterpret me

Oh, what he meant is he humbled himself, you know, but God didn't know Jesus don't seek to be equal to follow all costs

But if God hasn't changed Jesus God and God doesn't change and Jesus didn't change then Jesus always He's always has been so how can he?

Say that he will not hold equality. We've got to be a slight grasp of all costs Does it make sense the more you explain it the more contradictions arise?

So as James White brings counterballs to me, I have more ammunition to point out more and more contradictions.

I haven't even told you 50 % of the of my rational contentions of it may need you to leave the time

But if I ever do a talk, please you're welcome to come and help me Anyway, thank you

The straws to the end part one of our debate this evening I Appreciate the opportunity to help us refocus once again on primary issues.

We need to address this evening specifically Remember when Adela quoted from the

Old Testament in places like Jose 11 9 and there's 23 19 God is not a man

Texts that I use all the time debating with my Mormon friends because I do not believe that God in his nature is a man

God is the eternal creator of all things but Since he is the creator of man should he choose to enter into his own creation?

He is free to do so and that's what John 1 14 tells us the eternal

Became flesh and dwelt amongst us and we beheld his glory the glories of the only begotten father full of grace and truth

The gospel is not the men who become gods, but the God became a man the person of Jesus Christ to provide perfect redemption

And so we believe those texts once again What Abdullah is doing here is is in essence postmodern deconstruction

It's take a position that is built up based upon believing all that the

Word of God says Undercut the foundation by denying elements of that text and then say well

I just don't think this makes sense or this makes sense by not allowing those people who wrote those

Those books to define the terms themselves or the early church. He said we need to get rid of Greek philosophy

Well, I don't think Greek philosophy was determining what Isaiah wrote in Isaiah 9 6 and he prophesied 700 years before Christ That one would come who would be called avi -ad, eternal father, el -gabor, the mighty

God, sar -shalom, the Prince of Peace I don't think that had anything to do with Greek philosophy But as the gospel is meant to go out into all the world

You have to engage the cultures where they are and as people began asking questions

Using that type of language people had to answer those questions using that type of language.

That's all that's going on there And certainly you recognize that even in your own situation as you attempt to explain

How Allah can be eternal how Allah can be the creator of all things you have to engage the people who are

Criticizing your faith as a Muslim on the grounds where you can communicate with them

Does that somehow mean that you are abandoning what you what you believe at your most foundational level?

I would say that it's not now there are some people who do that Because I believe

I'm standing very firmly on the grounds of the Word of God and so once again to go back to the key issue

What did the Christian Scriptures which according to surah 5 46 and following I am to judge by what they say

What did the Christian Scriptures teach about who Jesus Christ is and about the nature of God and those

Christian Scriptures? Taken as a whole taken as they're originally written if you want to look at a specific text if you want to say

Well, you know, I don't think that the original writers actually included the current

Christian Philippians 2 5 through 11 Well, let's look at the text. We have the critical text sitting right on our desks now

He has one too we can look at both of them We can look at any one of these texts and I can demonstrate to you

That these teachings this doctrine that God has revealed himself in a trying fashion

Is the witness of the earliest Christian writers?

That's what they believe not just in the New Testament, but even go nuts of origin Oh my goodness go to go to Ignatius of Antioch who in who dies in 107 to 108 ad?

he dies within a generation of the last of the Apostles a Martyr and at least 10 times maybe as many as 14 times.

He identifies Jesus as is God That's not Constantine down at the

Council and I see a 325 that's within one generation of the Apostles this has been the belief of Christians from the beginning.

It is the testimony of the New Testament It's the fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy and I can guarantee you one thing

We can talk about Jewish monotheism all we wish there are all sorts of texts in the Old Testament That are used in the

New Testament that reveal to us this one who's coming Psalm 2 kiss the sadness to be angry who is this one in Psalm 22 my

God my God? Why are you forsaking me and yet the end the song he's victorious? Who is this in Isaiah 53?

It's not Israel Look at these texts, and you will see for yourself that what we're talking about tonight is the consistent witness of all of the

Christian Scriptures Well, there's a very interesting point that James White mentioned now,

I think the refocus is that I don't think you understood my point He said that well, we can't question

Scripture you know we just have to accept it. There's no mental you know checking of it. We don't you know subject it to our minds

But why not because that's what the early church did when they started to select which Gospels which also made sense which

Gospels agreed With the kind of teachings that they thought should be done there They use their minds to select the Gospels some kids to write the

Gospels to define the Gospels to define the philosophies To explain the Gospels they use their minds to do so and it just seems like they become more deified that all these

Early early church fathers up until Ignatius or rather before that They somehow now have these omniscient gods that know exactly that the

Holy Spirit according to his blind faith is working through them and Producing accurate texts and accurate works again.

He has to answer the point as where is it in the Old Testament? Prophecies that Jesus is prophesied as being from Nazareth from the

Nazarene. It's not there Why doesn't he answer this you know did the Holy Spirit make a mistake or is it something that he just missed out?

No, it's a human text Since you reconcile yourself to that then actually things become a bit more clear

He said Secondly, if if I if I get a text from the book which says night is not day and then he wants to say

Ah, but I got a text that says day is night Why is he proven? Is he proven I'm wrong?

Was he proven his own Bible wrong? He's undermined his own Bible or all New Testament or this documentation of apostolic

Tradition by showing the contradictions in the book We have the same criteria to our chronic the

Quran says that had this been for more than God We would have found many contradictions in it So if there are conditions in the

Quran, then we will have to say that this Quran is not from God So we have this we are consistent with this criteria.

We apply it to our book Are we going to apply it to the other book? We encourage all human beings to apply it to all other books.

I think the question that we haven't asked ourselves is why That for thousands of years

Jews were totally happy believing in one God doesn't come down as man That God is ineffable.

He's beyond human being beyond human limitation outside of time That's totally okay But then suddenly oh, it's like new now a new revelation about God God's internal nature

It's great. God even has an internal nature Only created beings have an external or internal.

God does not have an external or internal But now these philosophers are coming along saying God has an internal and an external

You know this new philosophy that God actually has Or begets sons and so on through various different definitions and so on This is completely new.

A Jew wouldn't believe this if I went back to the time of Moses And I professed my faith and so on just say that I believe in Moses and in one

God They wouldn't have any problem with me Likewise when people got to Jesus and I was

Jesus and they told us about the faith that we worship one God And then Jesus is totally fine with that. Jesus doesn't seem to be

Saying that you must believe that I am God you have to believe it Otherwise, I'm gonna be saying here if it collapses all the Jews wants that you say you believe in him.

Well, I believe in Jesus I just don't believe he's God But why is Jesus hasn't asked for this and that's one of the

Quran says when the Allah asks Jesus Did you say worship me and he didn't but in the

Old Testament God? In the singular pronoun not in the multiple persons, but the singular pronoun single a single person says

I'm So God says that but Jesus didn't say that so can you see why confusion here you see the problem here so That's the that's the issue.

That's why I find it hugely conspicuous that I now have to believe that Jesus is God even though Jesus seemed happy with people who said that they've got she said

The father who you call your God the father Now when

James White said the Quran doesn't understand our theology. I don't answer this question How do you put it to you?

If I came up with Jewish sect which believed that Moses God and an angel of God were all three in one

What would you say to me? What be your response? You say to me. Ah, you've made Moses an angel those angel of God partners to God you have

Idolatry Persons in one Godhead No, because we know that Moses is not

God even though he was called God in the Old Testament Because I'll make you got him to the Pharaoh make sure

God to the Pharaoh. We know that Moses not God So it's because of this that the

Quran says that the Christians have made Allah The father one of three in derogation.

So they've taken Jesus in derogation to God We should go straight to God our father in heaven. That is straight.

That's a prayer straight to God. Not Jesus. Thank you At this time we're going to have ten minutes each of cross -examination

The last debate we didn't have this James White and Abdullah agreed to this format which allows them to speak a little more freely and openly to one another

I think you will certainly appreciate any change that goes on this time. So we're going to welcome

Dr. James White again the ten minutes of cross -examination Thank you very much, in fact, let me say

I Hope you take it as I think we can do this because I think we model for others

How these types of dialogues need to take place. I very much appreciate how we've done so far You just made a very important statement.

You said I believe in Jesus. I just don't believe in God. I think that he's God It didn't come out right,

I just don't believe in God, that was a point If you have a bible there, in the 8th chapter of the

Gospel of John when Jesus said to the Jews You will die in your sins for unless you believe that ego

I am, you will die in your sins How do you understand a text like that?

Do you feel that that has been corrupted? Or if it hasn't been corrupted How do you understand what

Jesus is saying to those Jews who clearly believe he existed as a man? But they rejected that he was the

I am, and Jesus said you will die in your sins. How do you understand a text like that? Well, if I was a

Christian, a humanitarian Christian, I would have to reconcile that text That ambiguous text, what this

I am statement means, with explicit text whereby Jesus is speaking to people and they'll explain their faith that I follow the commandments and I believe in one

God I love God with all my heart and so on This is basically

Jesus saying you're not far from the kingdom of God to these people These people who have not confessed that Jesus is

God And so Jesus is saying you're not far from the kingdom of God This is taken as acceptable doctrine From what

Jesus is saying to them So, if I was a humanitarian Christian, I would have to reconcile that With that text

And I'm not a Christian theologian, but I might say that he's saying I am the

Messiah I am the prophet, all kinds of things But I would need to reconcile that So, in essence, you just identified this as an ambiguous text

Is it your assertion that in the Gospel of John, this phrase I am is ambiguous?

I mean, it's at the end of John chapter 8, the Jews pick up stones to stone Jesus For Abraham was I am

And in John 18, when Jesus says I am the soldiers, they fall back on the ground That's not exactly...

I say something to somebody, they fall back on the ground It might mean something Why do you say these are ambiguous texts?

Aren't you sort of setting up a standard there that sort of determines what the text is going to say

Rather than looking at the text first? In John, what was the nationality of the soldiers? Those were probably part of the

Jewish cohort The temple cohort Sure, okay, if they were Roman soldiers, then I would be very much amazed that they understand the nuances of Jewish theology

But, again, I would have to say that there obviously is a problem with that text

And other texts, such as Mark 10, 18, where a person like Jesus said, good teacher

What must I do to inherit eternal life? And then he asked, why do you call me good? For there is no one good except God alone

And then the guy said, okay, teacher And all these...

I've kept the commandments since I was a boy And Jesus looked at him and loved him, basically So, he modified, he said, when

Jesus rebukes him, he said, you know, why do you call me good? I think God's good He said, okay, teacher then

And then Jesus looks at him and loves him Jesus seems to be accepting this I would say it's a contradiction

If you wish to affirm the verse you've quoted to me as attribution of divine divinity to Jesus Then this is a contradiction

Your text must be beautiful, not me Is it ever a possibility that you have considered that in Mark chapter 2

Jesus' whole point was to get the young man to realize who he was talking to? Why do you call me good?

And so when he failed the test, Jesus looked at him and loved him Yes The whole point was...

I can't say that because I'm supposed to ask him the question So, in other words, even Dr. Richard Balcom, one of the leading

New Testament scholars here in the United Kingdom Looks at Mark chapter 2 and says, people have just missed the obvious point here

When you simply identify those as ambiguous I guess my question is, are you saying that they are unclear in their teaching?

Or are you saying that they were corrupted by later generations? Is that what...

did Paul write Philippians 2? I'm trying to figure out where... what about the original followers of Jesus?

Didn't they give a clear testimony as to Jesus as a mere prophet? I'm sort of confused as to what your standard is for saying that these texts

Have they been corrupted, changed, or what? Well, I mean, let's use mundane terms You have Haile Selassie, king of Ethiopia He kept saying that he's not

God, he's not God Obviously they call him the king of kings, that was the title for Ethiopian kings, king of kings

And now there's a sect which believes he's God Despite the fact that he's said repeatedly that he's not God Some people just don't get it

You have Ali, the cousin of the Prophet Muhammad, salallahu alayhi wa sallam Three people approached him and said, you are our

God Three people approached him and said, you are our God And he goes, well it's you, I'm not your God, I never said this, you know,

I'm far from this And they kept on believing he's God even though he turned them down to his face

Some people just think that Jesus is too boring to just be a prophet or a messenger

It has to be something more exciting Something that can match all the pagan beliefs in the region That believe that God has sons, like Heraclius and all the things like this

Heraclius as well And that's basically my take, that it happens like this

But just to also add another point In Matthew 19, 16 -18 it has the same story

But in this, Jesus' response is, why do you ask about what is good?

Instead of saying, why do you call me good, why do you ask about what is good? Could it be that Matthew is trying to realize the problem in this text and try to change it?

I don't know I didn't find out when you felt that these texts were corrupted

It sounded like you were saying the authors themselves wrote untrue things

Is that what you're saying? Or are you saying that the real disciples of Jesus wrote true things and later people changed them?

I'm saying that before the New Testament There was the apostolic tradition, or whatever name you want to call it

There was these ideas which were coming through supposedly from the apostles themselves

And all these teachings existed orally And were just ideas or just teachings and so on And people started to collect them up in different locations and make gospels out of it

What I'm saying is, we don't know who did this We don't know what their theological bias was, what their perspective was

We know that John heavily resembles Greek philosophy Maybe Plato and Stoicism Maybe these people were advanced

Christians coming before, 100 years before Jesus I don't know But I would say not That's where I take some reservations

You mentioned John 10 .34 when Jesus says, you are gods according to Psalm 82 .6

And you seemed to think that this was an argument against the deity of Christ That Jesus was in some way saying that he was not

Are you aware of what Psalm 82 .6 is about? Yes Since it's a judgment text against the leaders of Israel And the very next word in Psalm 82 .7

says, you shall die like men and follow the kingdom of the princes Wouldn't it be consistent to interpret

Jesus' application here As applying this to his accusers as false judges

And that they would be judged by God While he himself is the one who's been sent by the

Father and anointed by the Father How does that deny the deity of Christ? I totally lost your application

Sure Well I think in this verse it shows us the hermeneutical way

Don't, in a lot of the debates we urge Muslims to read the New Testament From Muslim standards, from Islamic standards

And the Quran was in a way the ruling language It's very clear, it's very black and white

To a polytheistic nation, a previous polytheistic nation But if you read the

New Testament and the Old Testament It's very interesting because being called God in the Old Testament Doesn't actually mean you're

God Moses, as I said before, was called Elohim A whole bunch of entities, including angels and so on, were called

Elohim Elohim was used to describe goats One of the previous writers mentioned coming out of the graves was an

Elohim The word Elohim was used Now I know you might say that, well this doesn't always mean God Exactly, and I would concur

Likewise, I think Jesus is telling us That in the Old Testament when it said be your gods It's not literal

So why is he using an allegorical verse to explain a statement Which you want to take literally

So you reject that this is actually a judgement verse Do you know what, there are many, in terms of Psalm 82 -6

In terms of Psalm 82 -6, regardless of the application of that verse The New Testament is not a verse to using

Old Testament Quoted out of context to justify some esoteric and ubiquitous prophecy of Jesus For example, you said, you know,

Jesus A prophecy in the Psalm would be he'd be called the Prince of Peace And I was aware of the

Eternal Father Or Dirk, he called Jesus the Eternal Father He was committing the Patriarchal Passionist Heresy But we won't go there

But in Psalms, it was a prophecy It wasn't a prophecy, it was stating a fact in the present tense Yeah, the

Prince of Peace Yeah, the one that's for the

Prince of Peace And he's the Eternal Father isn't it It's actually for Isaiah Hezekiah, son of Ahaz Hezekiah, the son of Ahaz, was being born

And he shall be called the Prince of Peace It was this grand title given to such kings in the

Old Testament And this actually I got from this Bible's commentary The New Jerusalem Bible Which gave that commentary

On why these grandiose names These typical pharaonic kings, the Vikings Thank you

That concludes the first part of our cross -examination Now, Abdullah has 10 minutes in which to cross -examine

James White You know,

I always have no questions for James I have to make some up Okay Firstly, I would like to I don't think you want people to answer

The prophecy, say, in the New Testament Where it says that you shall be

Nazarene What is your explanation for the fact that that does not occur in the Old Testament? There are a couple of explanations that have been offered

For example, like Lisa and Archer I would recommend people look at the possibilities that are offered But the most common one is to look at the term

Netzer That is used there And tie it with the branch of Judah From the prophet

Jeremiah And if I recall correctly, off the top of my head There was a fair amount of intertestamental

Jewish speculation To the nature of the Messiah That was focused upon the branch and the

Netzer concept And that would be understandable to them So, in many situations

Especially when we're talking about original language things We miss plays on words that come out of Hebrew Frequently because we translate them into English Very liberally rather than seeing how they were wordplay

So that's probably what Matthew is doing there Is utilizing that branch of Jesse prophecy

As a fulfillment of Jesus Right Do you not see that when you kind of Chastise or take this as a task

For trying to look for the word Mohammed in the Old Testament That we find one for Mohammedine Well that sounds like Mohammed It must be that And you say, ah, but the context of that verse

Does not apply to Prophet Mohammed It means altogether lovely And that's what it means So it can't be this

Would you not say that the prophecy of the branch of Jesse You're trying to interplay that interpretation

In doing the same No, it's completely different actually Because Mohammedine in the

Song of Solomon Is an adjective And that very same term is used in numerous other places

In my debate with Shiger Ali Last time I was here in London I went through a number of other places Where it's used that Obviously it has no connection whatsoever there

The branch of Jesse Is specifically Messianic It is talking about an anointed one

It is talking about one who comes from the loins of David And we know in the New Testament That Jesus in his dialogues with the

Jews Specifically focuses upon his identity as the son of David Going to Psalm 110 .1

saying The Lord said to my Lord, sit at my right hand Establishing his authority

So there is a foundation to that Not only in the text But also in the intertestamental Jewish literature

About becoming Messiah Which is one of the key issues in interpreting that Sure But we don't have too much time

But just a last point Do you not see it Perhaps a very stretched interpretation of that prophecy

When in Matthew 2 .23 It quotes what the prophecy says The prophecy that the old prophet said

Was he will be called a Nazarene Now in the Old Testament It doesn't say he will be called a branch

So how would you explain that? Well again The only way I can understand

Matthew's application Is that he is recognizing the connection Between that branch

The relationship to the family of David and Jesse And Jesus' fulfillment He is talking about the lineage of Jesus He is talking about his birth

And that becomes a fulfillment When you say Well that's a stretch Well it's a stretch

If we are ignorant of Matthew's context Which for the vast majority of us

We are It's the same reason that the book of Hebrews Is so difficult for people to understand

It requires a tremendous knowledge of the Old Testament And its original languages And there are very few Christians these days

That actually have that kind of knowledge I could go farther But I will relax

Being on that front Ok Well I'm going to top it Because we discussed a bit too much about branch

Let's go into other aspects Yeah exactly Golden hearts

Right Ok Do you Do you acknowledge That at the time of the

Development of the New Testament The writing of the New Testament And so on That there was

A high level of Influence in the context And society of Hellenistic philosophy

Stoicism and Platonism Well you have to define Which society you are talking about If you are talking about the

Roman Empire in general Yes Less In the confines of The nation of Israel More in a place like Alexandria Or something like that And so Many have seen

As the Gospel goes out And Paul is writing the Romans Or the writer of Hebrews Very clearly familiar with Philo And hence

Alexandria terminology there As they are explaining the Gospel In those places They use languages

Understandable to the people Who they are speaking to Yes Would you say that The Philosophy Of Understanding of Theology From Platonic Perspectives And Stoic Perspectives Bears a degree of Similarity With Germanic Theology No I would not

The terminology is the same The Logos for example Is very Easily recognizable As the

Ordering principle Of Greek philosophy But that's That's where the Similarity ends Because In John 1 1

It says The Logos there

Is said To not only be Eternal But then The Logos is said To be Face to face

With God And the Logos Is as to His nature Deity And so the Logos Is made personal

The Logos was not A personal principle That Personal principle Comes clearly

I think From the wisdom Literature of the Old Testament And The prophecies

Of the Old Testament So while The language May borrow Certain similarities

Because again You're writing In Greek Those terms Are going to be there What they're Filled with Is very much

Old Testament Concepts And Old Testament Fulfillment Concepts And especially

In a sense I do not believe That the New Testament Documents are being Written at some Late date

Especially Gospels Are going to be Very much focused Upon the people Around Jerusalem It's only

The later documents That are going to be Having a lot of that Influence of Greek language Because of the people

That are there Sure How would you How would you Respond to A writer

Which obviously I think you Look up to Which is J. M. B. Kelly In his book Early Christian Doctrines When he explains

You know Kind of Platonic thoughts As one of which Is basically He said

Plato postulated That God Is a pure being Absolutely simple And self -sufficing Without quality

But Then he said The platonic solution Was to interpose The hierarchy of divine beings

Between the supreme good Or God And the material Of that And to regard these As ruling Or even creating

The latter Among these intermediaries The supreme and most Supportable Is the Logos Quote unquote

The eldest And most akin to God Since the world Exists in platonic forms We can see

How in contemplating The Logos Many can come To a knowledge of God Do you think That's Dissimilar To Jomonite theology?

Well again The Logos Is uncreated In John 1 So John immediately Breaks The Parameters At that point

And as I started Reading that Quotation I found it interesting In that If we just want

To look for Very Shallow Parallels The first few words You read

About God Being the uncreated Creator of all things Absolutely unique In his character Not only did

I immediately Think of Texts in Isaiah Concerning the monotheism Bible But I immediately Began thinking

Of Surah 112 Al -Ikhlas Uh Kulahu Aha Sama Uh He is

Unique He is Uh Not to be compared To anything in his creation And so Could someone

Make a parallel there? Just because There is Some truth In Platonic teaching No, I don't think

That would be A valid thing to do In the same way We have to allow John to fill The Logos With Uh The The With what he says

The Logos is He does not make The Logos An intermediate Meaning What he says

In John 1 1 Denies Exactly what you Just read As to a Nearly Greek Understanding Of the

Logos So I don't see That that's a Uh I'm not sure

What the question Has to do with Uh The New Testament's Understanding of this Because it clearly goes

Quite beyond A Greek Perception Sure In Romans 1 19 -20 Uh It explains that God is

Uh We can know about God Based on what he has created We can look at this Which is Kind of a rational principle

Which Underpins all Observational Universe that And the idea is If you look at the world

That should come to this Understanding that God exists But Um And I would say Surely I would say that The Platonic and Stoic Philosophies Are very specific

That God creates a Logos This Logos is the means By which God Caused everything to exist But the question

I want to ask you is Do you think this is Much similar to Justin Martyr's concept Where he said That the

Logos Was once been a child For all creatures God begat In giving and rationing Out of himself Out of himself

Conditioned by And as a result of The Father's will Uh The Logos was existing

In the Father As his rationality And then by an act Will be generated And he also described The second God Anyway Um Do you think that that Is it specifically similar

To Uh Well The question Unfortunately is based upon The idea that I somehow give some type

Of special authority To Early church fathers Outside of a witness What was going on Historically And so Justin Martyr Never quotes

The Apostle Paul Justin Martyr Does not even have Access to A very wide Uh Let me

Let me just go ahead And finish this question I was asking A very wide Canon in the Testament And so Uh His statements

On those matters Do not become Normative To the entirety Of the church Anyway At this time

We're going to Ask them to bring Their ten minutes Of concluding And closing

Remarks And so We're going to Invite Dr. White To present His ten minutes Please Thank you

Once again Allow me to Thank all of you For the honor Of your being here This evening Uh I do think

That it says a lot That there are So many of us Who want to engage These issues And to do so In a Attitude of Mutual respect

But not An attitude Of compromise About what we believe Uh I'm afraid That this happens

Far too rarely In our society And I think We have demonstrated Yet once again That this can be done In a way that is proper

And honoring to the truth Uh I would like to Uh Once again Uh Thank Abdullah And uh

I knew that Uh Abdullah at least Is one of the few people I've debated Who actually took the time To read something I had written

And I appreciated that I knew that I knew that I knew that I knew that I knew that I knew that I knew that I knew that I knew that I knew that I knew that I knew that I knew that I knew that I knew that I knew that I knew that I knew that I knew that I knew that I knew that I knew that So that I could have the best debate with him that I could, where we would have the clearest communication.

Because I truly believe that these opportunities, when we still have the freedom to do it, are vitally important and they're precious.

And we need to take advantage of them. There are a lot of nations on earth where we could not do what we've done this evening.

And we need to be thankful for the freedoms that we have. Now very, very quickly, I want to just address a couple of things that Abella said.

He said that I had seemingly indicated, he heard me say, that we have to accept it blindly in regards to the text of the

New Testament because it's the best. I never said that. If I believe in accepting the New Testament blindly,

I wouldn't have given him a critical edition of the Greek New Testament. I wouldn't be studying textual critical issues.

I wouldn't have, when I went to Australia this past summer and debated a fine young man in Billikunda there at the

University of Sydney, I would not have taken the one free day I had in Sydney and instead of going and seeing a sightseeing,

I went and saw a manuscript P91 in a poor university. I'm a freak. That's just the way it is. I take these things very, very seriously.

I'm not talking about accepting the New Testament blindly. I am differentiating between a methodology that picks and chooses which text of the

New Testament you're going to give way to without even looking at what the textual evidence is, and the attitude that comes from that that allows you to quote this but dismiss that.

I am contrasting that with my position that accepts what the New Testament says, not uncritically.

I mean, I've written an entire book that's used as a textbook in the United States as an introduction to textual critical studies.

I don't do it uncritically. But I do accept everything that God has given, and we can know what

God has given to us. The original readings have not passed away. They are still there. And so when we take all of that, what

Abdullah calls ambiguous texts are not ambiguous at all. I've only given you a couple of them.

But just think about what happens. In John 8, the I Am text, when Jesus says to the soldiers,

I am, they fall back upon the ground. Why do soldiers fall back upon the ground when you say, I am? Isn't it clear what's going on there in John 13, 19?

Jesus quotes from Isaiah 43, 10, from which Jehovah's Witnesses get their name, ironically, a text about Yahweh, and he applies it to himself.

The writer of Hebrews identifies Jesus as Yahweh. At the end of the Gospel of John, what does

Thomas say to Jesus? My Lord and my God.

And Jesus does not rebuke him. I am but a Rasul. He says, because you see me, you believe,

Thomas. Blessed are those who did not see and yet have believed. These are not ambiguous texts.

They are clear texts. I simply allow all the texts to stand. So when the young man asks

Jesus and calls him good master, now Luke has a different rendering of that.

That's an interesting synoptic issue, but doesn't change the fact that Jesus wants this young man to know who he is dealing with.

It's not a contradiction. If there's such a clear way of understanding it, why don't we allow that to stand?

Would you treat the Koran that way? How do you like it when people come to text the Koran? Well, I'm not going to believe what's in Surah 2, but I'm going to take a few texts from Surah 4, and I don't like Surah 7, but I like Surah 19.

No, you have to take it for all it says. And it's in fact in that context that I want to again direct your attention.

Now, Abdullah made some comments about this, but listen to these words in Surah 6, 101.

He is the originator of the heavens and the earth. How can he have a son when he has had no mate, consort, wife?

I took the time to look at Ibn Kathir and others, to make sure I was not misinterpreting this, and they all say the same thing.

It's so clear, Allah cannot have a son because he could not have a spouse that would be equal to him.

What does that tell us the Koran is saying in Surah 5, in Surah 6?

It's presenting the idea that the trinity is Allah and Mary giving birth to Jesus.

I don't think Surah 2, 253 even comes close to actually being a discussion of the

Christian doctrinal trinity in its context. And I would wonder, I would challenge Abdullah, if he has this information, could he tell us if the early interpreters occurred to be

Ibn Kathir? Did they interpret it that way? Did they see that as that text meaning that? I'd be interested in knowing, because I haven't looked at Surah 2, 253 in their commentary, and I will.

I'll put it on the list of things that need to be studied, and I'll take a look at it. But I have a feeling that that's not what they're going to say.

But I know what they say, because they did take the time to look at this text. And they understand this as being

Allah cannot have a son because he could not have a wife. Well, that's not what we believe, and the

Athanasian Creed doesn't say God has a wife. Before it ever talks about begettal, it makes it something that is outside of time.

It's not something where God takes a wife and has a kid. Now, I'm appreciative of the fact that Abdullah at least tries to argue against the trinity in a little more meaningful fashion, but let's face it, folks.

I've listened to everything that Ahmed Didat said, too. And, man, that's bad argumentation against the trinity.

That's exactly—I mean, how many times did Ahmed Didat say that this belief that Jesus is the son of God attributes sexuality to God?

He understood it the same way that Ibn Kathir understood 6 .101.

How many Muslims understand—misunderstand it that way? But the real question is, isn't that what the

Qur 'an says? Isn't that why they misunderstand it? If this is an uncreated text, written in eternity, then wouldn't it be absolutely true in everything it says, including how it represents the faith that it then condemns the followers of to the eternal flames?

There's very few things more important than that. So, once again this evening, my exhortation to all of us,

Christian and Muslim alike, is we have to think about what we believe and why we believe it, and what

God are we going to worship. Has God revealed himself as being unitarian?

We all agree, monotheism. But has he revealed himself to be unitarian?

Can you take the words that Jesus says and put them in the mouth of a mere

Rasul? Does a mere Rasul—did Moses, Abraham, David, any of these ever say,

I am the way, the truth, and the life, and no man comes to the Father but by me? Not by my teachings, but by me, personally.

Did any mere Rasul say, if any of you are weary, come unto me, all you who are wearied heavily,

I will give you rest. Did any mere Rasul say, unless you believe that I am, you will die in your sins.

My friends, you don't want to die in your sins. That sounds awful final to me. And those

Jews who stood in front of Jesus when he said those words, they would have accepted him as a Messiah. He fed 5 ,000 people.

Miraculously, they would have accepted him as a Messiah, they would have accepted him as a prophet. But what they could not accept him as was what he revealed himself to be, the very eternal

Son of God that Thomas, when he sees the resurrected Lord, bows in humble adoration and says, my

Lord and my God. And that's what I do today. And that's the

Jesus I proclaim and present to you this evening. Thank you very much. It's our privilege now to invite

Abdullah to come and present his concluding and closing remarks. Thank you, Abdullah. Firstly, I'd like to again thank everyone for coming today and seeing this kind of debate.

This is my last statement, so I just wanted to thank you before going to questions and answers. I'll just mention a few points.

I want to mention about the issue of the Qur 'an first before anything else. Because I mentioned that the Qur 'an stands as a trinity and I didn't have enough time to fully go through all the verses.

And I've got like 15 verses here with tafsir. But I have a copy of the tafsir here of Ibn Kathir, Fakhr al -Din al -Razi, and Qurtubi.

They all say, apart from one of them, that the verse does not necessarily mean that it is

Mary who is the... It doesn't actually indicate that Mary is the third person of the trinity. In fact, it indicates more that she was taken later on after Jesus as an intercessor besides God.

And hence, the Christians are told to idolise this Mary. Even though it doesn't necessarily mean that you literally worship.

Because in another verse the Qur 'an says when the polytheists say, Oh, we don't worship these other idols, we just use them as intercessors.

And the Qur 'an rebukes them for committing shirk, which is associating partners with God. It doesn't matter what you claim you're doing it for.

What you are doing is taking other gods. And again, James White used the same polemic against Catholics.

But maybe in his defence he might say that Catholics are not Christian. Hence the Qur 'an is wrong when it should be of the

Christians. Perhaps. I have to go with that one. But anyway, the

Qur 'an verse 6, verse 101. Which says, you know, one before the origin of the heavens and earth.

How can he have a son when he has no consort? According to Tafsir, it's actually referring to a polemic against certain pagans who say that God has sons.

Because also the pagan narratives also say that God has sons and daughters. The Tafsir says this, but I could also say that it also applies to the trinity.

Because why the use of masculine reproductive titles for an internal configuration of God?

God's internal configuration is based on the relationship of masculine reproductive human titles.

Why is that? It makes no sense. That's what the Qur 'an is pointing out here, I'd like to think.

And I have some Tafsir to back that up. Verse 9, sorry,

Surah 9, verse 31 does say that the, again, the Christians and Jews took as their priests and chariots as laws besides God.

Not by worshipping them, but by obeying them blindly without question. So do

I have time for 10 minutes? 10 minutes. Okay. Now, I'll mention a few points about what

James White said. He said that we don't take the New Testament blindly. You know, I'm very critical,

I look at different Greek variations. And supposedly, if a newer manuscript or an older manuscript came to light, he would take that over the current manuscripts available.

And that's fine. But he's missed my point entirely. You see, I'm not saying that he doesn't look at the critical text in different variations.

I'm saying, why is there variations? Variations based on which have theological implications.

And in the presence of the Christian belief that the Holy Spirit will preserve the text, you have

Christians believing false doctrines where the Trinity itself, the word

Trinity is put into the text for hundreds of years. Why is this? Why isn't the Trinity preventing such doctrines from being inserted into the

Bible? That's my point. The text is not being, it's not divinely protected. That's my point. If the text is not divinely protected, then we have to question the text itself.

He said that we pick and choose the text in the Bible. I said, no. I didn't say,

I haven't said that there is no text which back him up. I said that I'll leave it to him to bring up some text that back his position up that Jesus is

God. All I'm doing, and all Muslim polytheists are doing, we're just highlighting the contradictions in the text.

That's all. We're not saying that there's no text that can be implied through using the Islamic hermeneutics that Jesus is

God. No. We're saying that there's contradictions of text. And, if you read the New Testament, not based on the

Quranic perspective, read the New Testament from the Old Testament hermeneutics. Old Testament idiom.

Why is God confusing us by, in the Old Testament, saying that so many of his chosen ones are the son of God.

In the New Testament, Jesus is called a chosen one as well. So, why is

God confusing us by using a term which he's been using previously for all bunch of human prophets and so on, or angels.

And then, saying, oh no, but this son of God is actually even more special than the other created sons of God that I have.

This causes confusion in the mind of a Jew listening to this. He says he's tota scriptura.

Tota of what? You know, take the total scripture. Total scripture of what? Everything that's in the

Protestant Bible, currently. Who selected that Bible for you? Why not Gospel of Thomas?

Or why not other Gospels which are present and so on.

I was going to mention Gospel of Thessalonians which is contemporary to Gospel of John, for example. Gnostic text, true, but contemporary to the

Gospel of John. And so, why not take that text? Obviously, we don't have it. But, why did the church fathers not preserve this and so on?

Why? Because they picked it. They chose it. It's as simple as this. I'm tota scriptura of a text that was picked because the

Bible didn't come from a contents page. That's the truth. He said that Justin Martyr doesn't quote

Paul. That's very interesting. An esteemed early church father not quoting Paul. I think that actually argues against him.

That Paul's texts were not seminal theological texts that informed all the church fathers' thinking. Because at that time, there was no such thing as a

New Testament. So, where did they get their doctrines from? Where did they get it from? They picked and chose doctrines.

Doctrines they thought was most likely because there was no text. They just heard it. And so, these early church fathers have various different opinions of each other.

He said that we wouldn't like it if a Christian picked and chose a text from the Qur 'an. No, go ahead.

If you can show a contradiction, then we will leave our faith. It's as simple as that. Because we have a condition.

As the Qur 'an says, if there's an order from God, you will find many contradictions. So, bring a contradiction, and we won't try to, we won't say, oh, well, you're picking and choosing.

No. We will say, fine, you just pick the Qur 'an. We won't say, ah, but we've got a lot of verses that say something else. No. We will be sincere about this.

Now, I think I answered most of the points that he mentioned in this long one. So, I just wanted to mention a few things that you might not have known.

Very interesting fact about Justin spoke of, Justin Martyr spoke of the

Logos as a second God. Oregon, church father. He said, we're not afraid of it, in one sense, to speak of two

Gods, in another sense, one God. We're into Jesus and the Father. Again, he said, we should not pray to any general being, not even to Christ, only to God and the

Father of the Universe. Oregon, early church father. I think it's quoted in his own book as well. Creed of Serdica, that the free have one identical hypostasis.

The free hypostasis have one identical hypostasis. You're just contradicting yourself. And, of course, you know,

Anthonasius said that the Logos is God's offspring, and so on.

So, all the Korans, everything the Korans mention about offspring, about God having a son, is accurate.

And if I had more time, I would show you where the Koran even says that if God wants to have a son, he can choose anything in creation.

Showing that the Koran understands the Old Testament concept, where having a son is meant to be the means to choose someone to be a special prophet or a blessed person.

Now, to conclude. I don't think he's under any irrational arguments against Trinity.

I think that the church fathers who weren't afraid of trying to use philosophy, and I've demonstrated that the philosophies have failed to redress the contradictory interpretations in the

New Testament, which at one point depict Jesus as God, and at another point depict Jesus as not

God. Whether you take it as ambiguous or explicit texts, you can judge on it for yourself.

But I will say this. I, as a former Christian who embraced Islam after much research and investigation into different religions, beliefs, and lack of beliefs, on becoming a

Muslim, I didn't give up my belief in Jesus. Rather, I discovered the real Jesus. All the ambiguities and the convictions vanished about this

Jesus. I finally understood his mission. I understood his aims, his true personality, the true glory of Jesus.

The noble, truthful, steadfast, wise, and loving person. And all this from a man. From a mere man.

And he had all these characteristics, and he's a mere man. That's even more, I think, of better praise, if he was

God. Of course, God is perfect. For a man to have those qualities, now that is something to appreciate.

To this end, I would like to end my summation with a testimony of faith.

That there is only one God, of whom the Christians and Jews call the Father. And there is one

Messiah, Jesus, Son of Mary, the servant and messenger of God. A created human being, created in manner.

All human beings are created. And possessing every limited attribute, a human being possesses both in knowledge and spirit.

And as the story of the Quran 3 and verse 64 says, O people of scripture, come to a common word between us, that we shall worship none but God.

And that we shall ascribe no partners unto him. And none of us shall take others for lords beside God. Thank you.

And lastly, in acknowledgement of James White's generosity, I'd like to give him something.

An Islamic book. Of a doctrine called A Guide to Conclusive Proofs of Principles of Belief. I'm sorry, it got kind of muddled on the bag on the way here.

But it's by Imam Hanameh al -Juwaimi and it discusses holistically Islamic theology. Including a reputation of the