Can God Become Man? Part 2

The Quran, Monotheism, and the Problem of God Becoming Man

The sun in the moon, because God is in the sun, he is in the moon, he is in this microphone. No, we don't think along those lines. When a monotheist says, God Almighty is everywhere, we mean that we are always in the presence of God.

Right? This is what the Quran says in chapter 40, that God is all-seeing and all-hearing. If we don't accept this interpretation, then we all become pantheists. Now pantheists are people who do believe in one God, and I accept that.

However, they believe that the Spirit of God Almighty is in everything, and in everybody, and that it is possible for God to come down to his creation. The problem, of course, is that pantheism blurs the line between creator and created.

And this is a problem for monotheists. So it is not enough to merely say that, well, why can't God do that? Or, I believe in one God. Because pantheists also believe in one God. Let us take another example from the Quran.

In chapter 23, verse 88, the Quran exposes some people of ancient Arabia by asking, telling the Prophet, O Prophet, if you ask in whose hands is the governance of all things, they will say it is in the hands of Allah, one God.

Which clearly means that the ancient Arabs believed in one God. The problem was that they believed in many other gods besides the one true God. This is known in philosophy as he-know-theism. In other words, one God at a time.

Now, the Quran is very critical of this fact. Because what the Quran is saying is that if you believe in other gods, and you believe that those other gods are a bridge, even if it is a man-god, then it is a stepping stone towards polytheism.

Simply saying, well, I believe in one God, or God can do anything, is not always enough. Now I have a question for my Christian brothers, and for my brother James here. Let us assume that I am a Christian, and I accept the Bible.

Except for one verse. Instead of saying, for there are three that bear record in heaven, Father, Son, Holy Spirit, I say, for there are a trillion that bear record in heaven, and this trillion is one.

I mean, if God, if the one God can be divided into three, and still be one, why not two and still be one? Why not a trillion and still be one God? I mean, where does it end? So my question is, would my brother James, if I tell him that this is my belief, would he say, listen, you say tomatoes, I say tomatoes, one and the same thing, it is a technical difficulty, or would he say heresy?

And why would he say that? And if you think that my example is far-fetched, please do some research on Mormonism. This is a group in America, well, I think they've spread across the globe now. They believe in, some would argue, a trillion gods.

They claim they are monotheists, and they claim that they are Christian. So how would my brother James here react to them? I would be very interested in finding out. Nevertheless, to continue, the Quran says, he begetteth not, meaning that God does not have any offspring.

Of course, the Quran does not believe that Christians believe that God had a wife. Chapter 6, verse 101, the Quran tells Christians, how can you say that God has a son when you know that I have no consort, when you know that I have no wife?

So the Quran accepts that. Yet the Quran finds it offensive. Why? Well, in biology, this process is known as pathogenesis, or self-fertilization. We have to believe that God Almighty, in all his glory, fertilized himself into the womb of a woman, and thus was born.

The problem with that is, as the prophet Malachi says, chapter 3, verse 6, for I, the Lord, do not change. How can perfection be changed? By God changing into man, perfection has been changed. And this is the real irony of it.

You see, by God changing into man, God has now added to the Trinity. Before you had the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Now you have a human nature which is attached to the Trinity. It has effectively destroyed the Trinity, because where does this human nature, because we're talking about the hypostatic union, Jesus is truly God and truly man, so where does one personality stop and where does the other personality end?

Start, sorry. So when Jesus dies on the cross, God dies. If you say no, then what's the point of attaching this human personality to the Godhead? So I think that is problematical for us as Muslims. And here's another thought.

Imagine we're walking through the streets of Jerusalem during the time of Jesus, peace be upon him. And you're walking with me and you turn to me and you say, you see that man over there? You know, he used to be God?

That's quite a career change. He used to be God and now he's man. My reaction, I think, would be reasonable. I would ask, well how can you tell? I mean, if something walks like a duck, looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, it's a duck.

What I see is a man before me. I can't ignore the obvious or the self-evident. So I'm going to ask you one or two questions. Firstly, if this is such an extraordinary claim, you're going to have to produce amazing evidence.

I think that's just for a start. And I'm going to have to ask a simple question. Well, did that man that you claim is God, did he himself claim to be God, firstly? Did he himself say that? If not, then I have a problem.

In the Old Testament, for example, in the book of Isaiah, chapter 44 verse 24, God says, I am the Lord who made all things alone. Who was with me? A direct challenge. And for 4 ,000 years, well now 6 ,000 years, Jews have believed that God is one and indivisible, just like the Muslims.

And yet, our Christian brothers are saying, no, no. Judaism, whom they believe were the chosen people, were wrong for 6 ,000 years. And that God Almighty, for some odd reason, sent prophet after prophet after prophet, and couldn't advise the people that, listen, you're wrong.

I'm not one. I'm actually three in one. And when Jesus comes, he quotes all the Old Testament prophets. He doesn't say, no, no, they are one, or we are one. He says, God is one. The Quran continues, meaning that God is created and eternal, meaning that God has no end.

But wait. My brother James quoted a verse from the Bible. In the beginning was the Word. In the beginning. So the Word had a beginning. God is eternal. So let's look at that verse. In the beginning, the Logos, you ask, well, who's the Logos?

Well, Jesus, okay, the Son. All right, God the Son. And the Logos was with God, Tonfios, God the Father. And the Logos was Theos, and the Logos was God. So, in the beginning was the Son, the Son was with the Father, and the Son was the Father.

Does that make sense? So even the most famous verse in Christianity is problematical, because you don't know where the one personality ends, and the other one begins. Finally, the Quran says, There is none comparable unto him.

Now, God is unique. God Almighty has certain attributes. And simply to say that we should ignore these attributes is blasphemous, because God has these attributes for a reason. So if we say God is the most pure, it would be ridiculous to say, well, yes, but he can be impure.

That is not a sign of strength. It is a sign of weakness, because it implies that there must be some impurity in God for him to be able to manifest himself as impure. So to say that God can do anything is not correct.

What we should say is that God can do anything in conformity with his attributes. For example, God Almighty is eternal, he is uncreated. He cannot create another God, because that God would be a created God.

So, not exactly the same thing. God Almighty tells us he is indestructible. That means, I take it, that God cannot commit suicide. So we have a problem. God cannot be dependent. If we say that God is three, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and that these three Gods, sorry, the one God, I'm getting confused myself here, that these three personalities are dependent on one another, then it implies that God Almighty is dependent.

The Father at some point is dependent upon the Son, the Son at some point is dependent upon the Holy Spirit, and these three are one. And then, we go further. We don't stop there. We say, wait, hold on.

God is dependent upon human nature now, because God has to die for the sons of the world, so God creates unto himself a human nature in the form of Jesus, peace be upon him, and sends him down here to die for the sons of the world.

So now God is not only dependent upon the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, God also is dependent upon human nature. Is that the kind of God that we want to serve? I think not. Thank you so much.

Rebuttal on Monotheism, Mormonism, and the Incarnation

Well, there you have it, folks. Dr. James Whitehead, his 20-minute presentation, and Bashir, he's just short of 20-minute presentation. We'll now go into two rebuttals. The first rebuttal will be 14 minutes, followed by a five-minute rebuttal each.

So first to the podium for his rebuttal is Dr. James White, 14 minutes.

First of all, thank you very much, Bashir, for that presentation and for your attention to it. I have too many things to get to and not enough time. Please forgive me if I speak quickly. First of all, Bashir mentioned 1 Kings chapter 8, the dedication to the temple text, where Solomon says that heavens and the highest heavens cannot continue.

Let me just mention something very quickly. For years and years and years, I have been involved in ministry to Mormons. And by the way, Mormons do not claim to be monotheists. As Joseph Smith taught very clearly, God was once a man who lived on another planet, and that's the first essence of Mormonism.

So they are not monotheists. They deny that. They believe in a massive plurality of gods. In fact, most Mormons believe in an infinite number of gods. They are not Christians. In fact, I've said many, many times before, Islam is closer to biblical Christianity than Mormonism ever could be.

And I've written a number of books on Mormonism, I've debated in Utah a number of times. That text is a text that I quote many times. We are not saying that God ceased to be eternal and ceased to be omnipresent and was focused only in the person of Jesus Christ.

The passages that Bashir have quoted concerning monotheism and that God's not a man, we're not saying that God's a man. We're saying that God became man. He is not limited to a human nature. He took on a human nature.

Those texts, we believe, we confess. I've defended them many, many times in debate. In Surah 112, we need to understand the difference between Unitarian monotheism and Trinitarian monotheism. There is only one being of God.

Christians do not believe in multiple gods. The question is, is that being of God, which we all confess to be unlimited and eternal, is that being of God shared by only one person? Now, you as a human being, your being, being limited and not eternal, is shared by only one person.

If more than one person shares your being, well, we put you in a place of the padded walls, okay? We're not talking about that. God's being is not limited in time and space. And the question is, does God's revelation, remember, Surah 33 says God sent down the Torah and the Injil and it contains guidance and light, okay?

When we look at those texts, do they show us something more than a Unitarian perspective? And they do. You cannot look at what Jesus says about himself and not realize he's saying he's more than a mere Rasul.

He accepts worship. He uses the name I Am of himself. He identifies himself as the divine son of man so that the high priest tears his garments and says, what further need do we have of witnesses? You've heard the blasphemy yourself.

You have to listen to all that the New Testament says. And when you do so, you see three divine persons that are described for us who share the one name Yahweh. The one name Yahweh is used of the Father, the one name Yahweh is used of the Son, and the Spirit is the Spirit of Yahweh.

Nobody else is described in that way. Bashir kept saying, well, could it be more than that? No, because the doctrine of the Trinity is a revealed doctrine. It is sent down by God and that, therefore, that revelation limits the doctrine of the Trinity to three divine persons, all right?

So we are Trinitarian monotheists because we are forced to that by what God has sent down in the Torah and the Injil. And I'm going to ask Bashir, can you give me some evidence that the writer of the Koran understood what was in the Torah and the Injil?

I can show you that the writers of the New Testament were intimately familiar with the Old Testament. They quote it all the time. Where does the writer of the Koran show an intimate familiarity with the content of the Torah and the Injil?

That is the question that I will ask. For example, in 1 Corinthians chapter 8, verses 6 -7, the Apostle Paul takes the Shema, Shema Yisrael, Yahweh Eloheinu, Yahweh our God, Hero Israel, Yahweh is our God, Yahweh is one, Echad, and he applies it to the Father and to the Son in 1 Corinthians chapter 8, verses 6 -7.

Now, he's a monotheist. How did he do that? Why did he do that? Because of the incarnation of Jesus Christ, he was forced to see that God was showing us what these words actually meant. Jesus, who quoted the Shema, accepted worship in John 20, 28, when Thomas said, my Lord and my God, Jesus did not rebuke him.

He said, because you've seen me, if you believe, Thomas, blessed are those who did not see and yet believed. But he also identified himself as the divine Son of Man in Mark chapter 14, verses 61 -64. And he even quoted from a text about the Son of Man where his followers worship him with the highest form of worship, Latreau, in the Greek language.

That's what Jesus does. Now, I'm not going to spend much time on 1 John 5 -7 because it's not a part of the New Testament and never was, and I've addressed that many, many, many times. Bashir asked us, where does it end?

Well, as I said, this is a doctrine of Revelation. It ends where the Revelation says that it ends. And there are only three persons that are distinguished from one another in the New Testament that are ascribed the one name of the one God of Israel, which is Yahweh.

Surah 6 -101 was quoted, and I'm going to have to ask Bashir, do you think Surah 6 -101 is relevant to Christians? Do you think that their author of the Quran was providing a polemic against Christian belief when it talks about how can God have a son if he does not have a consort, a wife, a mate?

Well, who's that addressed to? Because if it's addressed to Christians, then the author of the Quran did not understand what Christians believe because Christians never believed that until 1830 when someone called themselves a Christian.

Well, actually, it wasn't even 1830. Joseph Smith didn't come up with that theory until about 1838 or so, to be perfectly honest with you. But again, Mormonism is a subject I'll be happy to talk with you about.

Spent a lot of years doing it, but it's not really relevant to us tonight. Malachi 3 -6 was quoted, a verse that I've quoted thousands of times to Mormon missionaries. The Lord does not change. What did I say in my presentation over and over and over again?

The incarnation does not involve a change in divine essence. The eternal Logos was always divine and will always be divine. It is not a change in the divine essence, but in the divine experience. You as a Muslim believe that there was a time before God created, and God has interacted with his creation.

Therefore, did his essence change just because he acted in time? Therefore, to act in the incarnation does not mean a change in the divine essence any more than your belief that the interaction of the law with his people in creation means that his essence has changed.

We need to use the same standards in the evaluation of both perspectives. We are asked, is the human nature attached to the Trinity so the Trinity changes? No, the human nature is not divinized. Jesus is not 50 God and 50 man.

The human nature does not cease being human. There is no attachment in that sense. It is in Jesus that you have, and I thank Bashir very much for accurately describing it, as the hypostatic union, that relationship in one person of a human nature and the divine nature.

No intermingling, no intermixing, so that divine nature does not make the human nature somehow divine. When Jesus died on the cross, did God die? What does dying mean? You don't believe that death means cessation, and neither do we.

The God-man gave his human life in behalf of his followers. He gave his life. He didn't cease to exist. I've actually had Muslims say, well, who was running the universe when Jesus died? Well, that shows a complete misunderstanding of what Christians believe.

First of all, the Father didn't die, the Spirit didn't die, and Jesus didn't cease to exist. So it's not an objection to our faith to raise that question. But the question is, as I said, where have we been told that God does not have the capacity or ability to join to himself a human nature if he chooses to do so?

Now, we might disagree over whether God would choose to do so. That takes us back to what does the angel actually teach? But the question is, can God do that? He created the human nature. He created the created realm.

Can he not enter into it for his own purposes? And he did. Then we have, did Jesus claim to be God? Isaiah 44, 24. Again, one of my favorite verses to deal with Mormons. Isaiah 44, 24. God alone created the heavens and the earth.

Well, look, the New Testament applies Isaiah 48, 11, where Yahweh says, to me every knee will bow, to me every tongue will confess, I will not give my glory to another. He puts all those together. Those are applied to Jesus.

So who is it speaking in Isaiah 44, 24? When you compare Colossians 1, 16 through 17 with Isaiah 44, 24, who is the one who created all things? It was Jesus. And that's the whole point, see, my friends.

That's why this is so important. Because you see, to everyone in this room, I say to you tonight on the authority of the revealed word of God, you cannot be neutral about Jesus. You cannot just sit back and say, I'm not going to decide.

Because if what the early, all of the early apostles of Jesus Christ taught is true, then Jesus Christ is your creator. Every breath you take comes from his hand. Every beat of your heart comes from his hand.

And if he is truly the incarnate one, then you do not want to be found standing before him having denied who he was and saying he was a mere prophet. In fact, Jesus said to Jews who were standing as close to him as you are to me, unless you believe that I am, ego I am me, you will die in your sins.

The incarnation is a vital truth because it's the means by which we have peace with God. But the question is, when Islam denies it, does it do so because it understands the doctrine or because it's been given a misunderstanding of the doctrine?

That is the question that we need to deal with this evening.

Thank you so much for your attention. Well, thank you, Dr. White. It's now Bashir Vania's turn for.

Jesus as Prophet, the Meaning of I Am, and the Charge of Blasphemy

A ten-minute rebuttal. Bashir. Thank you. You know, in philosophy there is a theorem which is called Occam's razor method. You know, it says if there are two assumptions, choose the simplest one. In other words, if something makes sense, seek no other sense.

Now, Jesus, peace be upon him, describes himself in the Bible very often. In Mark chapter 6, he says a prophet is not without honor except in his own hometown. He calls himself a prophet. At another place, Luke chapter 4 verse 18, he says God Almighty has appointed me to teach, preach, and to heal.

He is a prophet. Somebody comes to Jesus in Mark chapter 12 and says, good master, and Jesus says, no, don't call me good. Only God Almighty is good. He doesn't even want to be called good, much less God.

It's quite straightforward. I quoted John chapter 1 verse 1 where it says, in the beginning was the word. The book of Colossians, it is stated that Jesus is the firstborn of all creation. The firstborn, the word there in Greek, protos or protototos.

Same word used for Jesus when he is born, that he was the firstborn son of Mary. So he is the firstborn of all creation. So even if God made him in front of any other being, he is not God, he is still a created being.

My brother here speaks about ego, a me. Ego, a me simply means I am. And Jesus quotes this phrase to the people. He says, before Abraham was, I am. Ego, a me. Now in the Old Testament, Exodus chapter 3 verse 14, in the Hebrew, the phrase is, I am, God says I am, therefore I am.

So it is assumed that because Jesus quotes the phrase, I am, then he must be God. But in the Greek, the phrase is, ego, a me, ho on. So Jesus doesn't say that. At any rate, if you look at John chapter 8, where Jesus quotes this phrase, ego, a me, one has to look at the context.

Why did he say that? He says, Abraham was glad to see my day. Meaning, Abraham foresaw the day that I would be on this earth as a prophet. Therefore, before Abraham was, I am. I existed. Not before Adam, before Abraham.

So, how did Abraham know that Jesus would be a prophet long after his time? Well, I presume God Almighty told him. How did God know? Well, Jesus existed as an idea in the mind of God Almighty. Is this so strange?

God Almighty tells Jeremiah, chapter 1 verse 5, even before you were born, I knew you, and I appointed you a prophet unto the nations. Paul himself speaks about the believers being chosen before the foundation of the world.

So, the phrase, and oh, Jesus, it is not the first time that Jesus uses this phrase, ego, a me. In John, chapter 13, Jesus washes the feet of his disciples. And he tells his disciples, you call me master and teacher.

That is what I am. I am your spiritual master and your teacher. And it is important that you remember who I am. Ego, a me. And the disciples simply accept that. They don't say, wow, you mean you are God?

We didn't know that. They don't say that. They simply accept it. The problem is that we are Westerners reading an Eastern book, so we read into things what we want to. I mean, if you recall, at the first, when Jesus supposedly raised Lazarus to life, the lady of the house, I think her name was Mary, she calls out and she speaks to Jesus.

And Jesus tells her, you know, I am the resurrection and the life. Who do you think I am? And she says, you know, you are the Christ, the son of the living God. And then she turns to another person and she says, the rabbi is here.

The teacher is here. So she didn't think he was God Almighty. And Jesus didn't correct her and said, hold on. I am not a mere rabbi, a teacher. I am God Almighty in human form. He doesn't do that. John, chapter 20, verse 28, Thomas is supposed to have said, my Lord and my God.

He cannot, Thomas cannot be calling Jesus his God, because that is blasphemous. Jesus himself, Matthew, chapter 23, verse 9 says, you have but one God who is in heaven and one master, the Christ. Paul, first Corinthians, chapter 8, verse 6, tells us the same thing.

You have but one master who is in heaven, sorry, one God who is in heaven and one master, the Christ. So if Thomas says, calls Jesus my Lord and my God, it is a great blasphemy. I don't believe he said that.

Well, he may have said that, but he didn't mean that Jesus was his God. He was merely reciting the article of faith, that there is one God, Theos, in heaven and one Kurios, you know, master on earth, Jesus as a prophet.

Let's see, oh yes, Isaiah, chapter 9, verse 5. For us, a child is born, this child, you know, is called the everlasting Father. Again, blasphemous. Who called Jesus the everlasting Father? Also, you know, all these names that are given in Isaiah.

You see, this verse in Isaiah had very little to do with Jesus, peace be upon him. It had to do with the Messiah that the Jews claimed was coming. And they believed that Jesus or the Messiah, whoever he is, will bring great spiritual benefits to Israel.

And they would call this Messiah these many names. Now, in Islam, I would not call a person Rahman or Al-Rahman, the most beneficent one. I would say Abdul-Rahman, the servant of the most beneficent one.

The Hebrews had no such qualms. For example, the prophet Elijah. Elijah is a combination of Yahweh and Elohim. God, God, imagine calling somebody that, but no problem. The prophet Ezekiel. Aziz means Aziz, great, and Kiel means God.

So they are calling Ezekiel great God. But the Jews had no problems with that. So you cannot take all those phrases literally. Sorry, how much time do I have left? Two minutes. Okay, so you cannot take all those phrases literally.

As regards Mary, well, the Quran criticizes people for saying that Jesus and Mary are connected. But remember that the Catholics are the biggest church in Christendom. And it is the Protestants who speak about Mary or laterally.

In other words, the excessive veneration that Catholics give to Mary. And if you look at the book, The Glories of Mary, published around 1700, endorsed by the Catholic Church, excessive claims are made about Mary.

That she is whatever belongs to God, belongs to Mary. She is a bridge between the sinner and God and so forth. And Mary is even called the Queen of Heaven, which is very strange because in the book of Jeremiah, Jeremiah speaks about the Queen of Heaven, which is a title which the Catholics give to Mary.

So can you fault the Quran for that? Christians may not like to hear that the Catholics are the biggest church in Christendom, but they are. And the Quran, therefore, cannot ignore them in all good conscience.

Thank you so much.

Well, that was the first rebuttal, but we're now going to move into the second.