Tawhid or Trinity: Is God One or Three Divine Persons?

Okay. Oh, there we go. Sound. Awesome. Hello, everyone. Really great to see you all today. My name is

Luke Pasquarelli. I am the president of Why Should I Believe in Georgia Tech, which is one of the organizations co -hosting this event.

Just a little bit about us really quick. And the slide's not up. Okay, that's fine. You know, for Georgia Institute of Technology, there's some things we still don't do very well.

But that's okay. We'll roll with it. So anyways, let me tell you a little bit about Why Should I Believe.

We're a Christian apologetics organization here on campus. We believe in applying the lens of reason and science to Christianity to discern its truth value.

And that's what we do weekly. We meet over at the Instructional Center on campus on Mondays at 630.

And if you're interested in learning more about us, we have a table outside where you can sign up for our mailing list, and you can absolutely talk to me afterwards.

We also have a Facebook page, so feel free to check us out there. We post weekly updates on what our events will be and so on.

So anyways, it's a little bit about Why Should I Believe, and now a little bit about the debate. First of all, I want to talk about what this debate is, and then

I want to talk about what this debate is not. This is a pursuit of truth and understanding.

What do I mean by this? I mean, God is objectively real and has objective truth, and it is our job to align our beliefs with that objective truth.

And that's what we're doing here, pursuing that truth. We're also pursuing understanding, understanding of people who think differently than us, and how they think, so that we can better converse with them and understand people.

So that's what this debate is. Let me tell you what this debate is not. This debate is not the intellectual analog of the

USC. We aren't here to watch a couple of intellectual heavyweights throw arguments at each other and see who emerges victorious as the champion to the roar of the audience.

We're here to pursue truth and understanding. So what does that mean for you as an audience? It's really simple.

It really boils down to just respect. Respect both of our speakers here. Respect the people around you, because not everyone shares your beliefs.

So the other thing it also means is ask great questions. Both of our speakers are very well -read individuals who have devoted most of their lives to studying this topic.

So they'll have a lot of evidence and a lot of points they've made that you may not have thought of before. Feel free to jot those thoughts you have now about those topics and ask them.

We'll have a Q &A session at the end. With that being said, I'd like to introduce our first speaker of the night,

Dr. James White. Dr. White has a number of apologetics degrees from seminaries across the nation.

He's director of Alpha and Omega Ministries, which is located in Phoenix, Arizona, and is a Christian apologetics organization.

And he's very well -read on this topic. He's debated topics within this vein multiple times.

I've seen a number of his debates, and I'm a huge fan. So let me now welcome my friend Hassan up to introduce our other speaker and kick off the night.

Thank you. All right.

Good evening, everyone. Thank you so much for being here. And thank you, Luke, for that warm introduction. My name is

Hassan Asif, and I'm the president of Georgia Tech's MSA, or Muslim Students Association. MSA is a nonprofit student -run organization here on campus and, in fact, is the only one representing

Muslims here at this university. Throughout the school year, we offer a wide variety of events. Our social events include football tailgates, sporting competitions, and monthly general body meetings.

And we offer Friday prayers, Quran study, and Islamic history on Thursday nights, as well as monthly group discussion meetings.

We also offer an array of volunteering opportunities and interfaith outreach opportunities for our members. If any of you would like to join our organization or join the emailing list, you can find us on Facebook.

Just Google, or just put Georgia Tech MSA into Facebook. You can come talk to me. We also have a table outside.

Or you can send an email to contact at gtmsa .org. In essence, our organization strives to create a welcoming and collaborative environment for Muslims and non -Muslims alike on campus.

And we also work to bridge the gap between Islam and other religions here. And that's precisely why we're here at tonight's debate.

You've already met Dr. White, and now I have the honor to introduce Dr. Shabir Ali. Dr. Ali is an internationally renowned

Muslim scholar who travels the world to represent Islam in public lectures and interfaith dialogue. He holds a

Bachelor's of Arts in Religious Studies from Laurentian University with a specialization in Biblical literature, and he also has his

Master's and PhD from the University of Toronto with a specialization in Quranic exegesis or interpretation.

He's the President of Islamic Information and Dawah Center International in Toronto, and he explains various topics from Islam in his television series called

Let the Quran Speak. And you can find some of his episodes from that on QuranSpeaks .com. It's also worthy to note, and Luke touched upon this, that our debaters actually know each other.

They're friends, and they've debated multiple times in the past. And even though logic and proof are necessary components of a worthy debate, the one thing about that that we know is mutual respect.

And tonight, we happen to have mutual respect here on the stage. And instead of just a simple debate composed of clashing opinions, we'll have the opportunity to witness true and amazing interfaith dialogue.

With that being said, let me talk about some of the technicalities of the debate tonight. The debate will begin with 20 -minute opening statements from each debater, starting with Dr.

White. And then we'll move on into a rebuttal period, where each debater will get 10 minutes to refute the comments of the other debater.

This is followed by 15 minutes of cross -examination, where one debater will get to ask questions to the other one, and they're going to sit at their tables and discuss.

So each debater will get 15 minutes to do that, starting with Dr. White and then Dr. Ali. And then after that, both debaters will get five minutes for their closing statements.

And then, like Luke said, there's going to be a question and answer series at the end. We'll have all of you guys, those of you who have questions, line up in the middle, and we'll ask, we'll alternate between the two lines.

And we'll have that go on until 9 .15pm. Finally, before we begin, a couple housekeeping notes.

Let's take a moment right now to check our cell phones and make sure that they're either turned off or on silent. I say this because this event is being recorded, and so we ask that you don't record from your phones, as that is both distracting to yourself and also the people sitting around you and actually the people sitting behind you.

If you need to use the restroom, the restrooms are actually on this floor right outside on the other side of the stairs. And if you need to exit for the restroom or for any other reason, you can use the doors in the back, not the ones up here.

And at this time, the debate will begin. Dr. White, I now ask you to come up to the podium and make your opening statement.

Dr. White, everyone. Thank you very much.

It is an honor to be with you this evening here in Georgia. We have a very interesting topic to address this evening.

I would say that about 50 out of the about 174 debates

I've done so far have been with my Muslim friends. I think Shabir and I have debated probably six, between six and nine times.

We've debated in South Africa, Canada, London, all over the place.

And so we've addressed this topic before. And in my experience, when the topic is

Trinity or Tawhid, the focus is completely upon the subject of the Trinity and almost never upon the subject of Tawhid.

So I really think that it's important that maybe this evening we try to even things out just a little bit as far as dealing with the subject from both perspectives.

And so let's begin with a definition, because most of the time, objections to the doctrines of Trinity are based upon a misdefinition of what the doctrine of the

Trinity is. This happens a lot in my experience in debates, so let's try to avoid that by making sure that you understand we believe that there is one true

God. One true God in the Old Testament, the divine name used as one true

God is Yahweh. Sometimes you hear it pronounced Jehovah. And we believe that that one true

God has revealed himself to exist in three divine persons, the Father, the

Son, and the Spirit. The Father is not the Son. The Son is not the Spirit. The Spirit is not the

Father. They are distinguished from one another. They take different roles in the economy of salvation.

They are distinguished from one another by the actions that they undergo in our salvation as well as the relationship that they bore to one another in eternity past.

Now, I believe very clearly that the doctrine is revealed, especially in history, in the incarnation of the

Son and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, which means that the New Testament is written by experiential

Trinitarians. They're not trying to say, hey, we have this new doctrine that we want you to understand, and so here's our defense of it, because the

New Testament never bothers to do that. Those who wrote the words of the

New Testament were individuals who had experienced this revelation. So Peter, Peter had heard the

Father speak from heaven. He had walked with the Son. He was now indwelt by the Holy Spirit.

He was an experiential Trinitarian. And so they speak. That's why it just naturally flows.

That's why the New Testament writers can speak of the Spirit of God, the Spirit of Christ, the Spirit of Jesus, and just flow between these things and the

Trinitarian passages about the love of God and the grace of the

Lord Jesus Christ, the fellowship of the Holy Spirit. It just flows along. They never stop and say, oh, let me explain what

I mean by that. They don't have to do that. This was already the experience that was theirs as the church.

But what is important to understand is I think one of the greatest evidences of the deity of Christ is the fact that the

New Testament writers take passages that were specifically about Yahweh from the scriptures and apply them to Jesus in unambiguous fashion.

They knew the Old Testament scriptures. They take these passages that are about Yahweh, not just vague things about Yahweh.

Yahweh is king. Jesus is king. Therefore, Jesus is Yahweh. No, that's not what I'm talking about. They take passages that are specifically about Yahweh as, for example, the eternal creator and apply them to Jesus.

Dr. Ali has rightly said about Jesus, if he is not Yahweh, then he cannot be

God. But Dr. Ali joins to this correct observation, a fully erroneous one, that Yahweh is

Unitarian in his existence. So for example, he will undoubtedly argue that in Isaiah chapter 42,

Yahweh speaks of a servant that he will send. And then of course, Matthew identifies that servant as Jesus.

Therefore, if Yahweh is Unitarian, then Jesus can't be Yahweh, he can't be

God. That's where the erroneous assumption comes in. Because yes,

Yahweh sends Jesus. The Father is identified as Yahweh. It's Yahweh that places our sins upon the

Messiah. Jesus is the Messiah. So if Yahweh is Unitarian, Jesus can't be Yahweh. But the problem is the very same

New Testament writers then turn around and they identify Jesus as Yahweh.

So if you have the writers taking the one divine name, applying it to Father, Son, and Spirit, that might tell you that they were indeed

Trinitarians, or they do that. For example, very quickly, I don't have time to develop all of these.

It's a really fascinating study if you want to dig into it. But for example, in John chapter 12, verse 41, after quoting from the famous vision from Isaiah chapter 6, you have these words from John.

He says, Isaiah sent these things because he saw his glory and he spoke about him.

If you go back to Isaiah chapter 6, whose glory had Isaiah seen? He saw the glory of Yahweh.

He saw the Lord sitting upon his throne. And it's Yahweh who speaks to him. In fact, in the

Greek Septuagint, it even uses the word glory as something that Isaiah saw. So if you ask Isaiah, Isaiah, whose glory did you see?

Isaiah's going to say, I saw Yahweh's glory. If you ask John, whose glory did Isaiah see?

John's answer is Jesus. A very unique, not some, just some lesser creature representative.

No, this is the very temple vision of Isaiah chapter 6. Peter does the same thing.

In 1 Peter 3 .15, a text that many of the, all the young guys involved with apologetics know the text, to be ready to give an answer, prosopologiam, to anyone who asks you a reason for the hope that's within you, with gentleness and reverence.

But if you read the preceding verse, Peter is quoting from Isaiah chapter 8.

And he's actually continuing that into 1 Peter 3. And when he does so, he's saying, set the

Lord as Lord Christ apart in your hearts. Treat him as holy.

You go back to Isaiah chapter 8, who do you treat as holy? Yahweh. He identifies

Jesus as Yahweh that you're to set apart as Lord, kurios, as Yahweh in your hearts.

That's what changes you. That's why Unitarianism has always resulted in emptiness. Because without a divine savior, there's no change of the heart.

And so, true Christianity has always emphasized the fact that when you set

Christ as Yahweh apart in your heart, that changes the entirety of your perspective.

It changes how you respond to the world. And as such, that is why people will ask us about a reason for the hope that's within us.

And then the writer of the Hebrews. Probably Paul. But I personally think it was a sermon by Paul written down by Luke.

But in Hebrews chapter 1, you have Psalm 102, 25 -27 quoted.

And Psalm 102 is about Yahweh in his unchanging nature. He is the one who is immutable.

And the author is clearly, when you follow the argument beginning in verse 3 all the way through. Look at verse 6, look at verse 8.

All the way through. The author is plainly demonstrating the supremacy of Jesus.

And then closes out by applying words that can only be about Yahweh. Only Yahweh is unchanging.

Anything else is a creature. Anything else has been made. Anything else is derivative. But of the Son, he says.

And then the citation of Psalm 102 is applied to Jesus. To the Son in Hebrews chapter 1, verse 10.

And so, Paul does the same thing. If Paul didn't write Hebrews. In Philippians chapter 2, verses 10 -11.

You have the great Carmen Christi. Where there the balance is struck so beautifully.

And boy, I wish we could just spend the whole time in Philippians chapter 2. It's so clear. So compelling in its teaching of what

Christians have always believed. That Jesus had eternally existed in the very form of God. But he laid that equality he had with God the

Father aside. To do what? To enter into human flesh.

To enter into human existence. That's the great picture of humility there. No other interpretation gives you humility.

That's the only interpretation that gives you the picture of humility. That that section is to be. And then, to top it all off.

What does Paul do? But he quotes the words from Isaiah 45, 23. Where Yahweh says, to me every knee will bow.

To me every tongue will confess. And what do you have in Philippians chapter 2? At the name of Jesus every knee bows.

And every tongue confesses. All to the glory of God the Father. It doesn't detract from the

Father's glory. This isn't one God over here and another God over there. That's what John 5 was all about.

Perfect unity between the Father and the Son. Here you have, over and over again, throughout the authors of the

New Testament. This theme being struck and being found in the pages of the

New Testament. And now, to something different. Something different that we have not had in previous debates.

I'm sure Shabir is looking a little bit worried. Let's remember that the

Quran comes to us, at least in its historical manifestation. I realize that there are

Muslims who believe it's eternal. So I just did a debate on that and found that there's a lot of different opinions on that. The Quran comes to us in its historical appearance in history.

Over 500 years after the completion of the New Testament. So half a millennium has passed.

Between the last words of the New Testament being written. And the arrival of even the first portion of the

Quran. In the Quran we have references made to the Torah and the Injil. Exactly what those are meant to refer to is difficult to know.

Because there is next to no meaningful intertextuality. Between the

Quran and what we would call the Christian scriptures of the Old and New Testament. In other words, there's almost no citation of scripture.

You have the Lex Talionis, that could have been done orally. You really don't have any specific citation.

There is no, you don't have the relationship that exists between the New Testament and the

Old Testament. You have citation after citation after citation. You don't have that. Instead you have basically oral concepts.

And so what exactly the Torah, the law, and the Injil, the gospel means. To the author of the

Quran is somewhat difficult to understand. There does not seem to be, there is strong evidence.

That the author of the Quran did not know what the canon of the New Testament was. Because he includes stories in the text of the

Quran. The Christians never accepted the scripture. The story of the, they were derived from proto -Gnostic gospels and things like that.

The clay birds were made alive and float away and things like that. These come from after the period of the writing of the

New Testament. And so the Quran speaks to Christians as to a group. We are addressed as the

Al -Anjil, the people of the gospel. As well as the people of the book. And so the

Quran warns that saying three will bring you to hell fire.

Saying three in reference to God. Every single time the Quran says do not say three.

The next line is there is only one God Allah. So very plainly it is the intention of the author of the

Quran. To understand the Christian saying of the word three. He doesn't use the term

Trinity with the word three to refer to polytheism. A belief in three gods. But here's the problem.

You already had early church writers like Justin Martyr. Identifying Jesus as Yahweh.

Arguing with Trifle the Jew. Putting into the words, putting onto Trifle his lips. Arguments that allowed him to then demonstrate that Jesus is being identified with Jehovah God.

With Yahweh. So why doesn't the author of the Quran seem to understand.

That if in fact our argument is there is one God Yahweh. Who is identified with the father, with the son and the spirit.

Then why is there no interaction with that? Why is there no response to that? Instead the argument is if you say three.

It's hell fire for you. There will be no one to save you. Heaven is forbidden to you and hell fire will be your abode.

See Surah 572 for just one example. Of that rather strong language that is found in the pages of the

Quran. So here's the question. That we, that I really, really hope that other than just.

In all these debates we sit here and talk about the Trinity. We never talk about the Islamic side of things. I mean most people end up walking out.

They have no earthly idea. How any of these things end up fleshing out. Shabir knows what the issue is.

As I mentioned I quoted him earlier. This was from debate four years ago with Jonathan McClatchy.

If Jesus is not Yahweh then he cannot be God. Okay so he knows what, Shabir knows what the issue is.

If Jesus is Yahweh yet is distinguished from the father and the spirit. Then clearly the

Trinity is the one conclusion one can come to. On non -naturalistic grounds. In other words if you're willing to start cutting the

Bible apart. If you don't believe that there is a single message to be found in the pages of scripture.

Then you can come up with anything you want. You can come up with humanitarianism whatever you want. If you want to assert contradiction and all the rest of that kind of stuff.

In other words if you want to approach it in a way that Shabir does not approach the Quran. When he does this television program the

Quran is allowed to speak as the Quran. If you let the New Testament speak as the

New Testament. It teaches this doctrine. This is why Christians have believed this for so long.

So here is the real question. If Shabir Ali knows what the issue is.

Why didn't the author of the Quran know what the issue was? Why didn't the author of the

Quran? Now I can anticipate the answer. Well I didn't want to necessarily address that or was talking about this little group over there.

Look unless we're going to get to the point of saying that God doesn't know the future.

Unless we're going to come up with well the Quran is just addressing this very small little group over here that doesn't exist anymore.

That kind of thing. The reality is that we as the people of the Gospel are told that we are to judge by what is contained in the

Gospel. What are we to be judging? Well if I judge the message of the author of the Quran and the content of the

Quran by the Gospel. I have to find it to be lacking. That's why there are still

Christians and there are still Muslims. And we're having debates. If we had come to an agreement on this we wouldn't be doing this any longer.

It wouldn't just be for entertainment. And so if Shabir knows what the issue is.

Why didn't the author of the Quran? Why does the author of the Quran show no knowledge at all of the divine name?

I'll be interested to find out if Shabir believes that there is any evidence. That you can point to in the

Quran where there would be a knowledge of the name of Yahweh. Could it be because his knowledge was so limited that the tradition of the

Jews not to use the divine name meant he had never heard it himself? Certainly by that time the

Jews would not utter the divine name. So if he was only learning things orally he wouldn't have heard it being him.

So is that a possibility? If saying three sends you to hell fire.

Why doesn't the Quran address the most definitional argument for the trinity. Which it is then condemning as something that will separate you from the true worship of God.

If the Quran argues the trinity is polytheism. But when we identify the father, the son and the spirit as all sharing the one nature of God.

Indicated by the divine name Yahweh. We are arguing just the opposite of the assumption of the author of the

Quran itself. We are starting with monotheism. There is only one

God Yahweh. And then showing the revelation of that one God prophesied in the

Old Testament. You look at Isaiah chapter 9. You look at these texts. Prophesied in the Old Testament. But still the revelation takes place in the incarnation of the son.

And the outpouring of the Holy Spirit of God. So why doesn't the

Quran address this? While it still then condemns this as.

And I'll ask Shabir if he will define for us please. Shirk. Which is the unforgivable sin in Islam.

According to the Quran all the sins can be forgiven to men except for shirk. And most

Muslims with whom I interact believe that our worship of Jesus is major shirk.

Which cannot be forgiven. And so if that's the case then I think it's perfectly proper on our part to say.

If a revelation comes along half a millennium later. It needs to accurately interact with what it is condemning.

If we are going to believe what it has to say. We can't just let that aspect of things slide.

We can't let those things they just don't generally come up. And they need to come up in our conversation this evening.

Why is there not a shred of evidence to be found in the pages of the Quran. That the author had any knowledge at all.

That John and Paul and Peter and the writer of the Hebrews. Had specifically identified

Jesus as Yahweh in their writings. Why is that?

And if there is such a huge chasm. Which I say would go against the chain that is forged in Surah 5 as well.

Beginning verse at Ayah 44. 44 through 48. The revelation of the

Torah of Moses. The revelation of the Injil of Jesus. And the revelation of the Torah of Muhammad. If there is that huge break.

Then how do we explain that? How do we understand that? In regards to what

Christians believe on this subject of the doctrine of the Trinity. Now I'm sorry if some of that was a little bit.

I didn't get a chance to necessarily explain everything. But I want to try to sort of move the ball forward. It's one thing to do the same topic over and over and over again.

But I don't know how many debates Shabir has done on the subject of Trinity and Tawhid. I know I've done a bunch of them.

He's done a bunch of them. Let's try to move it forward into an area that will advance our knowledge.

Especially in comparison with the debates that we've done before. I think that would be a great way of advancement for both of our communities.

I think Shabir and I are in good shape to do that type of thing here this evening. And you get to listen in. Thank you very much for your attention.

Thank you Dr. White. Dr. Shabir Ali. You can now deliver your opening statement. Hello everyone.

Let me begin by praising our Creator and Fashioner. The Creator of the heavens and the earth. I ask you

God to bless all of the righteous servants in all of history. Bless us all here tonight.

Bless our meeting. Bless our discussion. Make it fruitful. Open up our understanding. And help us to say the right thing at the right time in the right way.

And Dr. White, I want to thank you for sharing this platform with me. And giving me another opportunity to engage with you and to learn from you.

Folks, I'm so thankful that you've all come out here tonight. And I look forward to engaging with you not only during my presentations, but also and especially to hear your questions later on.

Now, let me start with the first half of my talk to address the Muslim belief in the

Quran and its expression of tawhid or monotheism. I want to very quickly remind you all of what the topic was about.

The topic is tawhid versus trinity. And then the subtopic says, is it one person or three persons?

Is God one person or three persons? And the subject is not really, does the

Quran have the correct understanding of what Christians believe? But nonetheless, as Dr.

White has raised that question, I will try to address it. So, very quickly, from the

Quranic perspective, what is tawhid? The word tawhid itself does not occur in the Quran, but the concept of the oneness of God, or that God is one, is said explicitly in the

Quran again and again. The Muslim kalima, or declaration of faith, says, la ilaha illallah, there is no

God but God. And this statement is found exactly in that expression twice in the

Quran. And elsewhere, some 30 or more times, the Quran says something like, la ilaha illallah, there is no

God but He. Or, kullu allahu ahad, say, is Allah one? So the idea that God is one is something that is emphasized in the

Quran. So Muslims will take great confidence, or have great confidence in the fact that when they say that God is one, they are following the scripture which they believe to be the word of God.

What is shirk then? James has asked me to explain. Well, shirk is one of those terms that is not so easy to define, but I'll try my best.

It seems to be that shirk is the opposite of tawhid. So if belief in tawhid, in the oneness of God, is the pure belief showing the

Muslim allegiance to God, shirk would be anything that takes us away from that tawhid, or from that oneness of God.

If one were to worship an idol, that would be shirk. If one were to consider that God has a son or a daughter, that is associating someone with divinity, that would be shirk in Muslim definition.

Now of course there could be relations of shirk, and James did speak about this being like a major one.

Well, one might speak about lesser rates of shirk. For example, some Muslims will say that if you do a good deed while trying to please someone else other than God, that is in a way shirk, because you're supposed to do it only for the pleasure of God.

But of course, that is a lesser degree of shirk. Now the major one, taking somebody else as an associate with God, that is what the

Quran promises severe punishment for, and calls us away from. Now, why doesn't the

Quran then show an understanding of what the Christians believe?

That's James' question to me. And the answer to that is that the Quran actually does show an understanding of what

Christians, that the Quran was interacting with at the time, believed. And a scholar recently,

Sidney Griffith, in his book The Bible in Arabic, has actually drawn attention to this and explained, step by step, how the verses of the

Quran actually relate to the belief of Syriac Christians in particular, because those were the

Christians in the environment with which the Quran interacted. I have to say something, then, about the mode and manner of the

Quran. The Quran is revealed to the Prophet Muhammad, in whom he pleases, Muslims believe, as the Word of God, into his mind, to interact with his immediate environment.

People ask him questions, he gives answers by way of divine revelation, and all of that is collected into the book that we have today as the

Quran. So, the Quran does not have much interest in commenting upon beliefs of people who are outside of that immediate milieu.

However, the Quran does say some things which, in fact, will apply to all. For example, when the

Quran says, لَقَدْ كَفْرَ الَّذِينَ قَالُوا إِنَّ اللَّهَ ثَالِثُ شَدَاتًۭا They disbelieve, who say that God is one of three.

And some translators put in a trinity. But it doesn't have to be in a trinity. Just to say three.

And that's why the Quran follows up by saying, إِنَّ اللَّهُ إِنَّاهُ وَحِدٌ And God is only one

God. So, the Quran is telling you, don't say three. Just say that there is only one

God. And that's it. And so, if our Christian friends were to only say one

God, and they stopped at that, they would be saying something that conforms with the Old Testament.

They would be saying, actually, what conforms even to some of the explicit statements of the New Testament writers, which we'll get to as time permits.

And, of course, they would satisfy the Quranic requirement that you do not commit a disrespect. Sure. But, of course,

Christians do not stop at saying that there is one God. Some Christians say that there is one God and three persons.

Some say that, yes, there are three persons, but this is not in the trinity.

But a modalistic belief, where the Father comes down to earth as the Son, and then eventually manifests

Himself as the Holy Spirit. So, in either case, various Christians are saying three in one way, or three in the other way.

And rather than the Quran utilizing a lot of words to explain and contradict and deconstruct all of these individual beliefs, what the

Quran does is to displace the Bible as the sole reference.

And the Quran introduces itself as the book that will command respect, attention, and will become the book of guidance for the

Muslims in particular, and for humanity at large. So, the Quran does this in a very excellent way.

Look at the way in which the Quran has actually gripped the Muslim world, so that to this day, there are people like myself who did not grow up in an

Arabic environment, but we learned the Quran in its original Arabic, and we're able to recite large portions of it from memory in the original

Arabic. Muslims have remained devoted to this book, and Muslims have remained on monotheism.

There's no question about the Muslim monotheistic concept. When a Muslim says, I believe in God, you can be sure that the

Muslim knows who he believes in. But let's say a Muslim is talking to a Christian friend, and the

Christian friend says, yes, I also believe in God, the Muslim will not be sure. Does the

Christian friend mean God the Father? Does he mean God the Holy Spirit? Does he mean God the

Son? Or does he mean all three together? So, there is no question about how the

Quran has actually emphasized and successfully done so the monotheism that it preaches.

So, the Quran is apt in the way that it actually puts things. Jim says, well, the

Quran does not seem to know the canon of the New Testament. That's why the Quran is referring to things that are outside of the

New Testament canon. Well, do you know, folks, that even the writers of the New Testament have quoted things which are outside of the

New Testament canon and outside of the Old Testament canon, especially outside of the Old Testament canon.

Because think about it, the first Christians used the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the

Bible, and that has books, seven books, which are outside of the Protestant canon.

And the New Testament writers refer to those, for example, to Phobos and to the Wisdom of Solomon.

Moreover, Jude refers to things which are not mentioned either in the Old Testament or in the other

New Testament books. So, he's quoting apocryphal works. This is already known. So, if James is going to have a problem with the

Quran, quoting or referring to things that are outside of the biblical canon, would he also express the same difficulty with the

New Testament itself? Now, the Quran does tell Christians, judge by what

God has revealed in the Gospel. But that's not what it says. It says, judge by what

God has revealed. It doesn't say, judge by all of the Gospel, because not everything that people call

Gospel has been revealed by God. Think about why you have four Gospels. There are four different viewpoints by four different writers as to what the

Gospel of Jesus was all about. So, the Quran says, Let the people of the

Gospel judge by that which God has revealed therein. So, you need to go back to the Gospels and ask, what did

God actually reveal here? There is something, a puzzle for you. The Quran is actually stimulating the thinking of people and getting them to do their own homework.

Now, one might say, well, I don't want to listen to the Quran. But if you think about what the Quran is saying, some

Christians have actually thought about this in their own way. Not necessarily because the Quran says so, but you will find a website with this

URL, JesusWordsOnly .com, look for it.

You will see that there are Christians who are interested in just simply following the words of Jesus, because they recognize that Jesus was definitely inspired by God, and we don't know about the rest of the people.

Who wrote the New Testament? Notice that in James' presentation, he quoted lavishly from 1

Peter. Now, 1 Peter has doubtful authorship. Some Christian scholars think

Peter wrote it, some think Peter didn't write it. 2 Peter, that most scholars say was not written by Peter.

And this is alarming, because the letter actually starts out by saying, this is

Peter, the disciple of Christ, writing all of this. And now, even some conservative

Christian scholars are saying that this is not written by Peter. For example,

Richard Baucom, in his commentary on the letter of Peter, has said that to attribute this to Peter is a fiction.

Now, that has tremendous ramifications, because that letter closes with an assertion, or a kind of inference, that the letters of Paul are also scripture.

And if not for this letter, you would not have another statement like it in the New Testament, affirming that the letters of Paul are scripture.

And that brings back the whole question of who Paul was, and was he himself also authorized to teach on behalf of Jesus?

And we'll have to speak about that. Many of the authors of the New Testament are unknown, and this is widely acknowledged.

In a past debate, James actually quoted, with the great confidence and the powerful voice that he normally speaks with, a scholar that we both respect,

N .T. Wright. And James emphasized the words of N .T. Wright, We don't know who wrote the

Gospels! And that's what N .T. Wright actually says. We don't know the names of the authors, they're all anonymous.

We don't know if John wrote the fourth Gospel, or somebody else wrote it, and if John, which

John? So, the question that comes back then to be addressed is, how do we know that these

New Testament writers were writing experientially after experiencing the

Holy Spirit? This was one of James' major points in his presentation.

He said that the writers of the New Testament did not have to spell out in great detail what the

Trinity was about. Why? Because they experienced it. Well, how do we know that they experienced it?

If we don't actually know these individuals, if some of them used false names and pretended to be somebody else while writing, how do we know that they actually had this experience?

I think that needs to be discussed. To continue then, why does the Quran not show any knowledge of the

Divine Name James wants to know? Well, let me say something about the Divine Name. In the

Old Testament, in the Book of Exodus, in Chapter 3, Moses goes up to meet God, and he sees this angel appearing as a fire on this burning bush, and he goes up, and then

God speaks to him, and tells him, I am Yahweh, and God tells me it's right.

This is my name, and this should be my name forever. Alright, so that's the name forever.

I think James' point is valid. Why does the Quran not show any knowledge of this name?

But then, let's ask, Why do the New Testament writers mostly show no knowledge of this name?

Why is it, that after this name has been translated into Greek, and the New Testament writers are writing in Greek, why are they not writing this name?

Why is it that Jesus himself does not utter the name? Why in the Cross does Jesus say, Ilah! Ilah!

Ilah! Why is he calling to Ilah? My God, El, why is

He calling God El instead of calling God Yahweh? Why does He say, Yahweh, Yahweh, why are you forsaking me?

Why does He call on Yahweh? So the same objection can be lodged there. The only New Testament writing that uses the name, uses it in a truncated form, that's in the

Revelation, where those in heaven are given glory to Yahweh by saying,

Alleluia, instead of saying Yahweh, they're saying Yah. Alleluia. Alleluia.

So, we know that tune. Alleluia. So, under the book of Revelation, why is it not unearthed to us if this is what is seen in heaven?

So, is that really the name of God? This is my next question. Actually, nobody knows the pronunciation of Yahweh.

This is why James had to say it's either Yahweh or some people say Jehovah. Why say it two different ways?

Because nobody knows the name. Then the name's pronunciation. You just have these four Hebrew letters. Now, knowing what the

Quran is, it would be pointless for the Quran to go into all this great detail to explain about the history of this name and how it came to be like this.

The four letters and how it should be pronounced and how do you convert that to Arabic. What the Quran did successfully was to give its readers a name of God, Allah, which in the

Arabic language means the God, and it ensured that Muslims all knew who the

God is that they're worshipping and they're not in confusion. Whereas, in fact, now we are in confusion when we look at the name

Yahweh. Because, remember what James had said. James said that the one God Yahweh revealed

Himself as three persons, Father, Son, and Spirit. What that means, in essence, is that he's thinking that the one

God Yahweh is doing something. And if that one God Yahweh is doing something and revealing

Himself as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, now you have four entities. The one who revealed

Himself as the three persons and the three persons themselves. So how do you explain that?

Now you have not a trinity, but you need to have something like a tetraunity. A combination of four in one.

So the Quran actually avoids all of that detail and gives Muslims the guidance that is actually needed.

Moreover, one might even ask if this YHWH was the name of God itself. Or was it a kind of plaguing word?

Because in the first instance it is mentioned when Moses asked, what is your name? And God said,

I am what I am. Ehyeh Esher Ehyeh. I am what I am. And maybe from this Ehyeh Esher Ehyeh, from Ehyeh, somebody coined the term

Yahweh. We don't know the full history of that. Yahweh probably is not even the name of God.

Yahweh in Hebrew would mean something like He is. And it does not seem to be that that is the name of God.

It's just an expression, a verbal expression. So, finally, why does

Shabir seem to know more about the Christian beliefs than the

Quran does? Well, I don't know more than the Quran does. From my belief perspective, the

Quran is the word of God and God knows everything. But if I show more specific understanding of what

James is saying, it's because I've read his books and I've listened to his words.

And I interact with him and I study Christian scholars and what they're saying. So that is because of my particular context.

If the Quran were being revealed today to God's prophet in this context, it would show knowledge of this particular context.

So now with just a few minutes remaining, let me look at some of the other problems regarding the idea of whether God is one person or three persons.

James has given us some examples of how the New Testament writers are taking passages that refer to Yahweh and now they're referring to Jesus in the

New Testament. And lo and behold, that means that the New Testament writers are taking

Jesus as Yahweh. But then, why doesn't anyone in the

New Testament give you a simple declarative statement saying, Jesus is

Yahweh? Why don't they do that? They're not doing that because they cannot get to that stage.

In their minds, that would be wrong to say. But something is stimulating them to say, well,

Jesus is like Yahweh. Why would they say that? I mentioned Paul before. Paul said in 1

Corinthians 1 .24 that Jesus is the power and wisdom of God.

So what Paul is thinking is that the wisdom of God somehow became Jesus. The power of God somehow became

Jesus. Some attributes of God now are in Jesus. So they're not thinking that Jesus is actually

God. They're thinking that Jesus is a figure that is subordinate to God, but somehow he shares some of the attributes with God.

Yes, it is sure, but it is not Trinity. This is not saying that Jesus is

God. For this to be Trinity, Jesus has to be God. But Paul is very clear. Jesus is subordinate to God and he will remain so to the very end.

1 Corinthians 15 .28 says that in the endgame, this is what will happen. Jesus will surrender everything to God so that God will be all in all.

So Jesus will remain subordinate. In fact, the idea of subordination is so strong in the

Bible that recently a number of evangelical Christians have put together a volume of essays.

Half of the essays approximately support a subordinationist view, which means that evangelicals who subscribe to the doctrine of the

Trinity are nonetheless saying that within the Trinity, there is an eternal subordination of the

Son to the Father. But I think that the subordination of the Son to the Father actually proves, I didn't realize

I was going over time, actually proves that there is no such thing as a Trinity. There is only one

God, one person. Thank you. Thank you,

Dr. Ellington. Dr. James White may now speak for 10 minutes. Well, while the words are still ringing in your ears, the reason

Jesus did not cry out to Yahweh is he was quoted in Psalm 22, verse 1, which doesn't contain the name.

So he would have to misquote the text to do it the way that Shabir was doing it.

Just look up, I'm sorry, Psalm 22, verse 1, and you will discover that the word

Yahweh is not used in the section that Jesus was quoting. So that's pretty obvious. Now, there are numerous issues to try to get to, and very, very little period of time to do so.

It isn't odd in a debate. You have a 20 -minute opening statement, and half the time to respond to the point. So it actually takes at least two, three times the amount of time.

So you have to pick, and you have to choose. Now, some of the problems that we have here is,

I didn't really get a clear understanding. I think Shabir said that the reason that the offer of the

Quran does not show as much knowledge of Christianity is because in the context that the

Quran was being written, that wasn't necessary. Except that the context in which the

Quran was being written included, for example, the meeting of Muhammad with the Christians from Ajran, which then becomes a part of Surah 3.

There was all sorts of interaction there. And they already believed all these things. All the Christological controversies were already a thing of the past at this particular point in time.

So the reality is, let's back up and look at the whole story.

We have a book that is barely half the length of the New Testament, that never quotes from the

Old and New Testaments showing literary dependence in any way, that comes along and says what everybody believes and has been decided about Jesus in regards to his relationship with the

Father, if you believe that, you're going to hell. But this book does not give any meaningful evidence of understanding of anything

Paul wrote, anything John wrote. The author of the Quran had no earthly concept of people saying that 2

Peter wasn't written by Peter, even though 2 Peter had a name, Lentz is someone who wrote it down. We can get into that, that's a completely different subject.

Doesn't have any knowledge of anything like that, doesn't raise any of those issues, because the author of the Quran never heard of 1 or 2

Peters. And by the way, the fact that the New Testament writers know that books exist outside of the

Old Testament canon and quote from them, or quote from secular works, is not the same thing in any way, shape, or form as the fact that there is that much evidence that the author of the

Quran had any knowledge whatsoever of what the canon of the New Testament was.

The authors of the New Testament knew what the canon of the Old Testament was. They knew the law and the prophets, they knew the writings, they knew exactly, they made reference to them numerous times.

There's nothing like that in the Quran at all. We don't even know what Injil refers to in the

Quran. Even though we're told it is perspicuous, it is mubinun, but no, it does not tell us these things in any way, shape, or form.

So, we still have to ask the question, why should we abandon what was written in the first century by the followers of Jesus and accept what is written by someone 600 years later in a different language who gives us absolutely, positively no reason to believe that he is interacting with the material that we have believed from the eyewitnesses of the resurrection of Jesus in the first place?

Why should we do that? And when Muslims accept a book that comes 600 years after Muhammad shows no knowledge of what

Muhammad taught or believed but told you all to stop following him and believe something else.

Would you be consistent at that particular point in time is the question. And so I think it's extremely important and when we are told, well,

Surah 5, Shabir quoted to, he says, well, what God has revealed in the

Gospel. So, Surah 5 is actually telling Christians to engage in some sort of redaction criticism of their

Gospels, trying to figure out what is there is still from God and what isn't. Is that what

Surah 5 is talking about? Or is a real reading of the historical context, isn't it interesting?

Well, the Quran isn't gonna go into that type of detail because it's historical context only dealing with these people.

But, on the other hand, Surah 5 actually means that the Christians are supposed to be doing in -depth redaction criticism based upon modern concepts as to what's still part of the

Gospel that was sent down by God and what isn't. A reading of Surah 5, verses 44 through and following is going to very clearly mean, you

Christians, you have the Gospel, believe and judge by what it says. We know what they had.

They were not engaging in redaction criticism that time. And so, to be consistent, they would need to be judged by what was in the

Scriptures that they had, which are the same Scriptures that we have today as well.

Now, a reference was made to a website, Jesus's Words Only. I would like to, it's a thought experiment.

Would that make any sense at all? Of course not. Because Jesus makes reference to the

Scriptures. He makes reference to the Scriptures that came before. He makes reference to his disciples. He makes reference to the coming church.

He leaves all sorts of things unexplained because he knows he doesn't have to explain everything because the church is gonna be found, the

Spirit's gonna come. He even talks about the coming of the Spirit, which is not Muhammad, because he's gonna dwell within the individuals and believers themselves that he's talking to at that point in time.

So, Jesus's Words Only would be utterly incomprehensible by Jesus's own testimony.

Think about John chapter 10. He refers people back to Psalm 82. You gotta know what Psalm 82 is about to understand what Jesus is saying.

So, it doesn't make any sense whatsoever to make that kind of an argument at all.

So, when I quoted M .T. Wright, by the way, what I was emphasizing was not that we don't know who wrote the

Gospels. I disagree with him on that. We don't know the order in which they were written or when they were written.

That was actually what I was referring to when I talked about M .T. Wright at that particular point in time. And believe you me, the writers of the

New Testament well knew what the divine name was. They're not ignorant of the divine name in the way that Muhammad and the

Quran is ignorant of the divine name. That's why they can actually specifically utilize texts that were about Yahweh and apply them to Jesus in a specific fashion.

Of course they knew what the divine name was. Yes, they used it. The people that they're writing to, they're writing in Greek.

So, what Bible are they gonna quote from? Hebrew? No, they're gonna quote from the Greek. And the Greek used

Kodios. So, they used that. But they know what the divine name is. And folks, listen to this. Think about the book of Acts.

What do the early Christians do? They consider it to be a fantastic thing and honored to do what?

To suffer for the name. Who's the name they're suffering for? Jesus.

Now, they've not seen themselves as some new religion. They're the fulfillment. So, if Jesus becomes the name they suffer for, if Jesus is the name given above every name, in the name of Jesus every knee bows, every tongue confesses.

And yet they quote, Paul quotes from the Shema, the prayer that defines the

Jewish people. Shema, yes and I know. Yahweh Elohim and Yahweh our God. He quotes that in 1

Corinthians chapter eight. But he expands it out to include the father and the son.

Can you imagine including a mere prophet in the description of God in the

Shema as Paul does? I don't have time to expand upon that right now. I did in a debate that Shapiro and I did in South Africa.

One of the earliest followers of Jesus, worshiping God. I would recommend that you take a look at the, because we had all sorts of projection and all sorts of neat, fun stuff like that.

At that particular point in time, I would suggest that you take a look at that. Now, finally, we had a demand.

Why don't we have a specific phrase, Jesus is Yahweh? You know,

Ahmadinejad used to say, nowhere in the Bible does Jesus say, I am God, worship me. As if that is actually a reasonable argument.

It is not a reasonable argument. If the writings communicate the reality, you don't have to use a specific phrase to get to that reality.

If you have the author of the Carmen Christie in Philippians chapter two, specifically applying

Isaiah 45, 23 to Jesus, think it through in the context. If you have

Psalm 102, 25, 27, being applied to Jesus, in a very chapter where Jesus is described as the one through whom everything has been created, figure out what it's talking about.

You can see exactly what is being communicated. And so, we have the revelation that is found in the incarnation and the outpouring of the

Holy Spirit. 600 years later, someplace else, someone who's never read any of those documents says,

I'm not going there. That's what we're facing, you see. That's the issue that we are dealing with, you see.

That's why we have to recognize and deal with these subjects and recognize the difference between the nature of the

New Testament, the nature of the Quran. That's what our conversation is about. Thank you very much for your attention. Thank you,

Dr. White. Dr. Ali, you were welcome. Yeah, and this time

I'll pay more attention to that clock. So, very quickly, folks, thank you for your active engagement.

I really enjoyed listening to you and taking notes to prepare to respond to your specific questions.

And I'm so glad that you're still so likely here today. Well, James is asking, well,

I'm saying that because Jesus was quoting Psalm 22, that's why he didn't mention the divine name.

But look at all the words of Jesus throughout the New Testament. Didn't he have any chance to quote any other passage where Yahweh's name is mentioned so that he could mention

Yahweh? And why on the cross didn't he actually mention Yahweh? Why didn't he pick a passage that has a different name when

Yahweh said in the Old Testament, this is going to be my name forever. Exodus chapter 3, verse number 15.

It looks like the New Testament portrays Jesus himself as not actually following the Old Testament, which itself is a problem.

Because if for Jesus to be legitimate, he has to follow the Old Testament. And notice what

James is saying about the prophet Mohammed. Why should we follow a prophet who came 600 years after the

Bible was already completed? So Mohammed is being judged against the Bible which is already completed before him.

But let's do that for Paul before Mohammed. Paul has to be judged against the words and teachings of Jesus.

That's where the words of Jesus only comes in. Not that the words of Jesus only taken out of context will make all sense, but that they should be given priority.

And if Jesus says one thing and Paul says the other, Jesus stays and Paul goes. And then

Jesus has to be evaluated based on the same principle. Because the Old Testament existed before him as a scripture from God, and he has to conform to the scripture that is already from God.

Otherwise, as David Klinghoffer writes in his book, Why the Jews Rejected Jesus, the

Jews would have reason to reject it. In fact, our Christian friends claim that the

Jews were picking up stones to stone Jesus because he was claiming to be

God. Well, why were they picking up? Because they said we have a law that says that's what we have to do.

Who gave them that law? God gave them the law. So now you have the odd situation that God gave them a law that says that if a man comes to you and claims to be

God, you stone him to death. And they're just carrying out God's law.

It's as if God wants to die, and he sent some Jews to kill him and then take the blame for that.

And obviously there are problems all over the place if you follow the Christian line of argument here.

But what is simpler is to recognize that Jesus, on whom be peace, was in fact a follower of the

Old Testament law. He himself was a human being, and he did not claim to be

God himself. And so there is no such thing as a trinity. God is only one person, not three.

James says, well, Peter had an amanuensis. That's why, you know, that answers the pseudonymity problem.

But of course, Christian scholars have gone through this, and they have concluded generally that 2

Peter is not written by Peter. So the problem of pseudonymity remains.

So why accept a book that's come 600 years later? Because this book is actually calling

Christians back to the Old Testament and to the teachings of Jesus. The Old Testament, the Shema, says in Deuteronomy chapter 6, verse number 4,

Behold Israel, the Lord your God, the Lord is one. Jesus, on whom be peace, in Mark chapter 12, verse number 27 to 29, shows that Jesus repeated the same

Shema as the greatest commandment. As the greatest commandment. You know what the later gospel writers did with this?

They omitted the statement of Jesus, the Shema. Why did they do that? Because Christianity was heading away from the teachings of Jesus and towards Trinitarian doctrine a step at a time, one gospel after another.

The gospel according to John was quoted from early on, where James says, well, Isaiah saw his glory.

Well, the gospel according to John, by most scholars' count, is the last of the four gospels to be written.

And James himself, in his book The Forgotten Trinity, has said that James had more time to reflect on these things.

That's why it comes out more plainly in John's gospel. Because John had more time to reflect.

That's why it's not so clear in Mark. It's clear in John. Well, what is happening here is that there is an evolution of the

Christian faith. And the evolution goes through the gospels. You'll find that Mark, the earliest of the four gospels, shows

Jesus to have limitations in his knowledge and his power. For example, when Mark has Jesus say that he does not know when the hour will occur.

So if there's one thing that the Father knows, that is the hour, and the Son doesn't know it, that shows that the

Son is not the omniscient God, and therefore the Trinity does not actually exist. God is only one person, not three.

So that's why we should accept the book that came 600 years later, because it's actually calling us back to the original faith of Moses and Jesus and all of the great prophets.

In fact, the rest of the New Testament writers, or we should say many of them, because we don't know all of them and all of their minds and whether in fact they were monotheists or not, but some of them did actually make explicit statements.

Paul himself said that there is no God but one, in the very passage that James was actually quoting.

And then he goes on to say, for us there is only one God, the Father, and one Lord, Jesus Christ.

Okay, so he did something with the Shema here that requires some discussion, but it is very clear that for him there is only one

God, the Father, and one Lord, Jesus Christ. So there is a hierarchy here according to him.

And he explains this in so many other passages, in 1 Corinthians chapter 11, that the head of every woman is her husband, the head of every man is

Christ, the head of Christ is God. So there's a hierarchy, with unfortunately the women below,

I don't agree with that, but that's what Paul says. And then men all the way, you know, men above women, and Christ above men, and God above Christ.

So there's a hierarchy here. Now the same thing we find in John's Gospel. John's Gospel has

Jesus as the law, but that too is an innovation, because the law was, this was not mentioned in the previous three

Gospels, only in the Gospel according to John. Actually, obviously, as a result of later reflection, right?

So John came to this understanding that Jesus is the lawless of God. Another attribute of God, similar to wisdom, or maybe the same thing as wisdom, nobody knows for sure.

And if it's two different things, then it would mean that Jesus is two different things. He's the wisdom according to Paul, he's the lawless according to John.

If there's one thing, then it's less of a problem, but we're still in the same ballpark of showing that for Paul and Jesus, and for Paul and John, Jesus is a subordinate figure to God.

He shares something of the attributes of God, but John has Jesus blatantly say, the

Father is greater than I. John 14, verse 28. So there's a hierarchy. And John actually does not call the lawless

God as an identifier, but according to Daniel Wallace, when it says, and the

Word was God, that's a qualitative statement. So the Word was divine, is the best translation, but he says, no,

I won't use that translation, because today people call all kinds of things divine. Even like a good meal, people will say this is a divine meal.

But if you want to say that, then don't say divine God, divine Holy Spirit, or anything.

Nothing is really, use a different word. But that's the word that John used to show that this lawless is divine, but it's not the

Almighty God. In John chapter 17, verse three, Jesus himself prays that they may know you as the only true

God, and Jesus, your messenger, as Christ. So he makes a distinction between the only true

God and himself. So that's why you should follow the Quran that came 600 years later, because it's talking you back to that original faith, which became lost through all of the creeds that developed later on.

Now, is the Quran telling Christians to engage in redaction criticism? Well, not 1400 years ago, because that would not have been possible, but the

Quran accepted Christians as they are, utilizing their knowledge and whatever intellect and capacity

God had given them to the best of their abilities. Whenever they arrived at, the Quran actually treats Christians with respect, and actually speaks about them respectfully, calls them abluti ta 'b, people of the book, which means that they're educated people.

The Quran says that God has placed love in the hearts of those who follow Jesus, which is, as you know, the love commandment.

Christians are very good with that. Muslims can learn something from that. And so, the Quran praises and respects

Christians as they are. But I would say that the onus is on somebody like my friend James, because he has the capacity to engage in redaction criticism.

But he's not listening to his colleagues and other great scholars who are actually doing that today.

And he's not listening to his own words, because if he looks at that, what he has said about John's Gospel, and really thinks about it, well, the later the

Gospel, the more they reflected, the more they said things, well, why didn't the earlier Gospel writers know this?

So, if the earlier Gospel writers and other writers of the New Testament were not clear about the Trinity, then they could be committing all kinds of heresies in their own minds.

James has explained in his book The Forgotten Trinity how easy it is to fall into a heresy.

And some of these may have fallen into heresy while writing the New Testament Scriptures, may

God save them and save all of us. So, that's all my time. I'll speak with you some more later on. Thank you very much.

All right, so many things to get to.

A question, you're just referring to Griffith in chapter eight, and you said that even in that text,

I hadn't looked at it close enough, because Paul still differentiates between the

Father and the Son. You've read The Forgotten Trinity, right? Yes. Okay, so you know that in the

Doctrine of the Trinity, we differentiate between the Father and the Son. I do. And in fact, we believe that the

Son voluntarily comes to earth, that He is sent by the

Father, takes up the role, right? I may believe that. Okay, so, in 1 Corinthians chapter eight, when

Paul utilizes the language of the Shema in the

Greek translation, and he says, Geek one, Lord. Familiar with modern

Greek words? That's the term kudios, right? Mm -hmm. In Deuteronomy, when the

Shema is found there, what does kudios represent? Of course, the

Shema is in Hebrew. Right. Shema is Israel, Yahweh, Elohimu, Yahweh Ha.

And they translated the term kudios, which Paul uses of Jesus, is translated which one of those

Hebrew words? Kukrios. But the Hebrew words, what

Hebrew word is that one? Yahweh, yes. Yahweh. So, if Paul is quoting the

Shema, and he says there's one God, the Father, that would be

Elohim, right? The term Shema is Israel, Yahweh Elohimu, Yahweh Elohimu, right?

It's not clear what Paul is referring to, in terms of the wording of the

Shema. But the outcome of what Paul is saying is that there is one God, the

Father, and one Lord, Jesus Christ. And the term kudios there is in reference to Yahweh in Deuteronomy, right?

You can't be sure what's in the mind of Paul. You can only read what he has written. You can't say that Paul used this word to refer to that Hebrew word, because he's not saying, this is my dictionary of words,

Yahweh equals this. He's saying that we, or us, there is only one

God, the Father, and one Lord, Jesus Christ. If you want to make that connection by saying, oh, kudios here is referring to this particular word in the

Shema, that's your equation. But Paul is saying, for us, there is only one God, the

Father, and one Lord, Jesus Christ. He has done something different. He's saying something different than the

Shema. The Shema says that there is only one Lord, God. But Paul is saying one

Lord and one God. That's what he's saying. But you're saying that Lord is lesser than Yahweh.

In what Paul is saying, because he's saying there is only one God who is the ultimate, and Jesus is the one through whom

God makes everything. So you believe that because the prepositions are used there, that somehow lessens

Jesus, even though the same prepositions are used in Father, Elshar, and Yahweh. It's not the prepositions,

James. It's the whole concept that Paul is... You said through him. That's the preposition, isn't it? Yes, but it's not the preposition alone.

He's saying he has differentiated... Look, that there is only... If we say, this morning,

Donald Trump met with the President of the United States of America. It makes no sense, because he is the

President of the United States of America. I'm assuming you're hearing this, but... Okay, but now, if there are two persons who are

God, if there are two persons who are God, the Father is God, the Son is God, it makes no sense to say there is one

God, the Father, and one Lord, Jesus Christ. Why not? Because now, the natural question is, why didn't you say there are two persons who are

God, or three persons who are God, the Father is one of them, Jesus is one of them?

Why use the term God only for one, but not for the other? So you reject the idea that the normative term that Paul uses for the

Father is hafeas, and the normative term he uses for Jesus is hafeas. You don't believe that? I'm not denying that, but I'm saying that this means that in Paul's mind, there is only one who is called

God, and that is the Father. And Jesus is called Lord, which is a glorified title. I don't want to belabor this, but I think it's extremely important, because it is excruciatingly clear that Paul is quoting from the

Greek Septuagint of the Shema in Deuteronomy, in 1st Christians 8. You call that quoting?

Yes. He's using the exact same words. I put it all on the screen. We debated in South Africa with all the...

I wish I could put it up right now, because I can prove this. If he is quoting the

Shema, was he not identifying Jesus as Yahweh? Well, he wasn't quoting the

Shema. He has in mind the Shema, obviously, but the Shema doesn't say, for us, that's

Paul's own wording. And the Shema does not include all of that, you know, through whom all things are made, and so on.

That's Paul's own wording. So he is using words from the Shema, and he's spilling it out in his own way, and separating things in his own way, but the result, from what

Paul is writing, is very clear. There is only one God, the Father, and there is one Lord, Jesus Christ.

So we have a God, and we have a Lord. But there is only one God. And he just finished saying, there is only one

God, but one Lord. Is it not true that both God and Lord, both the same terms, are used of the one

God, Yahweh, in the Greek Septuagint, in the Shema? Was that confusing for Moses? Let me hear a question again.

So, the term Elohimu, God, and Yahweh, Lord, are both, are both used in the

Shema of the one God, correct? So, Moses can differentiate the terms, without confusion, and when

Paul does, in light of the Incarnation, somehow, he doesn't get to do that? Well, the difference is that Paul is not using the exact words.

To begin with, he's not using the exact Hebrew. He's translating it in his own way, and it's not even a translation.

He has actually split it up. So, you know, Yahweh Elohimu, Yahweh Echad, Yahweh, our

God, Yahweh, is one, which is one in the Greek Septuagint. So, if you translate

Yahweh as the Lord, in the Greek Septuagint as it is, then you have it something like the

Lord, our God, the Lord is one. So, the Lord, our God, the

Lord is one. So, there is only one Lord, God, to put it in a very simple and precise manner.

So, could Paul have taken those words and applied them to the Muslim Jesus, who is merely a prophet?

No, I said that. This is sure. What Paul has said is sure. It is sure. But it's not

Trinity. But it's not Trinity either. So, it's a lesser sure, but it's still sure from your perspective.

It is sure, but it's not Trinity. How about in Philippians chapter 2, quoting Isaiah 45, 23, applying it to Jesus.

Is that sure? Every needle bowed, every tongue confessed? Look at the ending. It says, to the glory of God the

Father. So, for Paul, Jesus is like, you know, it's at His name every knee should bow.

It's like, we hear the name Jesus. Okay, so we bow. But who are we bowing to? To the glory of God the Father. Not to Jesus Himself.

We hear His name, and we bow to the glory of God the Father. I'm not saying Muslims should do this. And I'm not saying there's nothing wrong with it.

But I'm saying that this is not Trinity. So, you're actually saying that at the name of Jesus, instead of bowing to Jesus, you're bowing to somebody else, is what

Paul intended in Philippians chapter 2. Even though he's committing a shirk over 1

Corinthians 8? Again, I'm not saying that I know the mind of Paul. But I'm saying, looking at the writing, the writing is not telling us to bow to Jesus.

The writing is telling us to bow to the glory of God. So, can you give me some interpreters that actually know that?

Well, these are the plain words. No, the plain words are just opposite. But can you give us any of them?

Yes. In fact, I'll just give you a poll. Well, yeah, the Unitarians. If you don't know the Unitarians, I'm sure you're going to go the same direction as you are me.

Okay. So, Right. So, you then said, you made a, when

I explained, you rather loudly repeated the

Aramaic for Psalm 22. Right? And then you said, well, why would

Jesus quote Psalm 22? Could he have misquoted it?

I'm trying to understand what you're, I do not understand what your position is. I was responding to your point that Jesus did not mention

Yahweh because Psalm 22 did not mention Yahweh in that verse. Right. So, I'm saying that he had other options.

He could mention another verse that has Yahweh. If not on the cross, he could have mentioned it somewhere throughout his life.

But, well, you admit that the Psalm 22 citation probably wasn't the best one to go to. Are you saying that I should admit that Psalm 22 was not the best citation?

If you're trying to say that Jesus didn't use Yahweh, Psalm 22 is not where you want to go.

Why do you think Jesus said, ila ila lama sabbateh. Some interpreters say that this was a reference to the

Empire Psalm. Right. And he's just giving you the beginning. And what's the entire Psalm about? Well, it shows that somebody is in distress, calling out to God for help.

And God will help them and save them from that distress. Do you see it as a Messianic Psalm? No. Because...

Dying in my garments, piercing my hands, that has nothing to do with the crucifixion. It can't from your perspective because you don't hold...

Do you still hold the view that Jesus was crucified but that he didn't die? Well, that requires an explanation.

It's a different topic. Well, I know, but I'm second. And whether it's a Messianic Psalm. Today, Christians think, oh, this is exactly about the crucifixion.

But what you need to recognize is that the New Testament writers wrote about the crucifixion by borrowing wording from that Psalm.

So they didn't go around to ask the eyewitnesses what actually happened at the crucifixion in this respect.

But they took the wording from the Psalm. And the Psalm used to say that they pierced my hands but the

Hebrew earlier texts that were discovered shows that they're at my hands like wolves or something like that, like animals.

So it's not about piercing at all. So it's not really... This is not a Messianic Psalm.

You have some correction to that, I'd be glad to hear. Are you not aware of the fact that, in fact,

Masoretic has tearing at my hands but they have now found Masoretic texts wrong that had piercings.

Do you get it? You sound like you present that fact to us. I could be corrected on that. Yeah, so they have found it in the

Hebrew and it's certainly in the Greek. So... Very quickly.

Jesus... What is the problem? Am I saying that Jesus quotes the 22nd Psalm because he's saying to...

He quotes the beginning of it because he's saying to everyone this is being fulfilled in me right now.

You don't believe that? Could that not have happened? Well, there are many problems with having Jesus just read the opening lines of the

Psalm because this is referred to as a prior interpretation. On the surface, it makes

Muslims wonder how could this be God if he's calling out to God? In fact, everybody should wonder why is he calling out to God if he himself is

God? So, from the get -go, it shows that this is not the God on the cross. This is about somebody dependent on God.

But right there, do you realize that's not an objection to the Christian religion? Because you have kenosis,

Jesus. Because he is God and he's truly... If he's truly the God -man, he is about to become the sacrifice for sin.

He who has eternally been pure and holy is about to take on the wrath of the Father on behalf of his people who have sinned.

You don't think that he could quote this 22nd Psalm and say, look at what happens in the 22nd

Psalm. I will be justified because that's what happens to the Psalms. Well, the justification is that this person will be saved from his distress.

Yes. And that would support the Muslim view that Jesus wasn't actually finally killed on the cross, but he was actually saved from this distress.

So you're saying that an interpretation would come 600 years later would be a more likely interpretation than the one that would have suggested itself in the first century which was based upon the fact that every single one of the

Gospel writers is now going to proclaim the resurrection of Jesus? Well, and they...

You say it would have suggested itself in the first century, but the first century writers overlooked certain things.

They quoted Psalm 45 and made that averted Jesus, but Psalm 45 is according to Adara Locke in the

Spoken Testament use of the Old Testament. Psalm 45 is about it's a wedding psalm about a king who gets married to a queen.

Of course it is. We all know that. And Jesus wasn't that. So what they did was they overlooked certain things and they applied what they wanted.

So they overlooked the fact that this psalm actually shows that the person who's crying out to God would actually be saved by God.

So you can apply John 14 and 16 to Mohammed, which had nothing to do about the prophet coming 600 years later, but if we look at a wedding psalm and Jesus recognizes the scripture that contains within it pictures of what's coming, that's invalid?

Okay. I wouldn't change the subject now to talk about John chapter 16 in reference to the prophet.

We can drag people to our debate on that. However, I will deal with it from this perspective.

John chapter 16 is the place in the New Testament that most clearly attributes personal qualities to the

Holy Spirit. And many commentators on the Bible who are not Muslims and who have not been

Muslims, great commentators have said that this initially was a saying that referred to a male celibatic figure to come after Jesus.

Now I'm not saying Mohammed, not in this debate, that's a different topic. But now, I'm throwing it back at you, but I'm throwing it back to you.

If you think I'm saying Mohammed, while I'm quoting the words of Christian scholars, that's not the point.

No, it's not the point I'm making, but you see the connection. It was a male celibatic figure.

This is what Christian scholars have said. But now, if this is true that this was a male celibatic figure and not the

Holy Spirit, then we have a problem in that that the Holy Spirit is not clearly shown to be a person that is distinct from the

Father and the Son in the New Testament. And therefore, the Trinity also fails on that. Dr.

Ali, you may now... Okay. So... Dr. White, so, you have the kenosis, which you refer to, and I want to come back to that.

So, and Jesus emptied himself of divinity, is that what you would say? Yes. Okay, so he was still absolutely divine.

Yes. And he must have had two minds then, a human mind and a divine mind. No. Yeah, one mind.

Well, he is a... He is one person. One person. We need to understand that when we talk about the incarnation, we do believe that Jesus Christ is one person with two natures.

So, he is absolutely unique. There is no one with whom we can compare him. And your term, your use of the term kenosis,

I'm not sure what you mean by that. It's only used that one time in Philippians chapter 2. But while there are things that Jesus is glorified or, for example, is veiled during the incarnation, he lays certain things aside so he functions inside.

He does not cease to be God. What certain things did he lay aside? Well, for example, his glory. Jesus didn't glow when he walked down the streets of Jerusalem.

Would have been nice at night, but, that's not something that he did. So, while he was glorious, as John says in John 12 verse 41,

Isaiah saw his glory and spoke about him. He was glorious. That had been veiled and, in reference to the day or the hour, that knowledge was veiled during the time of the incarnation.

It wouldn't be something that would be veiled after that. It would only be things that would be relevant to Jesus being able to function and doing the will of the

Father to lay his life down for his people. Okay. So, now, you subscribe to the principle of full scriptura, scripture alone, and so...

Scripture alone is the sole and fallible rule of the four words of the Bible. That does not mean we do not have confessions of faith.

Okay. So, how do you know that this is the only thing that Jesus laid aside as knowledge of the hour?

I didn't say that that was the only thing. You asked for examples and categories of things.

So, there was a submission to the Father. There were some other things that you might be able...

Whatever would hinder Jesus from doing what the Father desired him to do would be something that would be laid aside.

But, his divine nature, which is what he started out with, is not something that was laid aside. Yeah. So, the very statement, whatever would have hindered him from carrying out whatever the

Father commanded him to do, that is not a scriptural statement. That's an inference that you have. Yes, of course.

Yes, you're asking questions that are not scriptural, and therefore you have to reason from the basis of scripture.

Okay, good. That's not a violation. Okay, sure. I'm understanding what you're saying.

You wrote a book on it, didn't you? I read it, but... I read the book.

I can't keep track of which books I've given you. You need to give me a list. Thank you. Thank you for all of these examples. I'm still waiting on your books.

sure, absolutely. Now, to continue then, so, while he laid aside certain aspects of his knowledge, he nonetheless retained his divine mind.

Yes. So, he knew that he was God from the beginning of Japan. He's in the womb of Mary, but he knows,

I'm God, and I'm here in the womb of Mary. Well, the exact relationship of the divine and human and Jesus, just like what was

Jesus like when he was four years old, are things that Scripture did not reveal to us. And, in fact, that's what the

Gnostics got into. Speculation. What we need to know is given to us. What we don't need to know, we've not speculated.

But you just said that you do actually speculate because you have a response to certain questions that would have an impact upon specific statements made in Scripture.

For example, Jesus has to be who he said he was to be the perfect sacrifice for our sins.

Then, obviously, at that point, we can draw a line, but I can go beyond that into all sorts of things, like how did

Jesus behave with other children. That's what the Gnostics got into. Sure, sure. I mean,

I'm going to ask you, logically, Jesus must have had a human brain. We would certainly hope so, yes.

And therefore, a human mind. In that sense. And he also had a divine mind. Well, now you're taking something that is, does

God have a human brain? Does God have a mind? So you're taking something that is divine that is not connected with physicality and paralleling it with something that would be necessary for Jesus to be truly human.

So, those are two different categories. I lost you there. So, for Jesus to be truly human, he had to have a human mind.

True? Yes, he was fully man, but that doesn't, when you talk about a brain, now you're getting into something that's physical, and then you turned it around and attributed it to God.

No, I'm attributing this to the human Jesus. I'm saying the human Jesus must have had a human mind and a human brain from the basis of this mind.

Well, his body moves, so he doesn't have a brain. Okay, so he has a brain and a human mind. It's a human brain and a human mind.

But he also had the divine mind. You just told me that he had... See, as soon as you say divine mind, you're paralleling that with the human mind based upon a brain, which

I don't get. No, I'm not connecting the divine mind to the brain.

so there's a divine mind. God is... Let's say... Okay, it's not clear, but God exists and God has...

God is aware of his existence, has plans, he's communicative, in fact, we're made in his image, which is the only reason we are able to worship him and communicate with him.

Okay, and we can speak of the mind of God, yes? In the sense of his revelation of his will.

Okay, so something of God is in Jesus, but that's not a mind? No, it's not described as a mind.

It's not a person. He's the eternal law to us, the second person to the Trinity. Okay, so this eternal law to us, the second person to the

Holy Trinity is not the mind. He's not just a mind. Okay, so he's a mind plus more.

Again, I don't know what you want me to use the term mind for, because that's a good description.

James, you have to think about this, because this actually would be a very important problem for the, to be solved.

If Jesus, to be God, he has to have a divine mind, otherwise he's not

God. But to be human, he has to have a human mind, otherwise he wouldn't be human. And the human mind cannot think

I'm God, nor can the divine mind not know that he is divine. So you have problem minds.

The problem you have here is you're trying to conflate two different things together.

You're making the error of what's historically known as Utopianism, where you have the mixture of the two.

The early church was very, very, very focused upon this, and that's why it was called the Hypostatic Union.

Utopianism, which you're suggesting, Historianism, and Apollinarianism were all rejected as errors here.

And when you try to positively identify how you have the human and the divine joined in Jesus, without changing each one fundamentally into something else, we cannot answer questions about that for one simple reason.

He's unique. There's nothing, there's absolutely nothing to compare it to. Instead, you can only describe it.

And how did Paul describe it? I'm sorry, I shouldn't have asked your question. Paul described it. If the rulers had known, they would have not crucified the

Lord of Glory. Now, crucifixion is something that only can be done to a physical body, but the

Lord of Glory can't be crucified. So Paul speaks of Jesus in such a fashion that he identifies his eternal nature as the eternal nature

So he describes it, but he doesn't answer every question that could possibly be asked about brains and minds and things like that.

Now, on your website, you have a statement of faith in which you say that the

Trinity is the relationship between the three persons.

That the relationship between these three persons is described by the word Trinity or the doctrine of the

Trinity. Can you tell us in your own words how you say that? Well, in the

Forgotten Trinity, right toward the beginning, I give the definition within the one being that is God, and there exists eternally three co -eternal persons, the

Father, the Son, and the Spirit. The Father is not the Son, the Son is not the Spirit, the Spirit is not the Father, and we differentiate between the words being and person.

So, probably that's what's in the reference on the website. Yeah, I'm asking you because this foreign relation came up there, and I know that there is a dispute among Christians today as to whether Trinity is just a relationship between three persons, in which case some people say this amounts to trinitism.

That would be true. Yeah, okay. So, if you limit it just to some concept of relationship, well, we're not denying that there are specific signs of relationship between the

Father, the Son, and the Spirit, and I think that's what you're referring to in your presentation. I think you were talking about the eternal subordination of the

Son controversy a couple years ago. That's a different controversy. Right. Okay, but that is what you're referring to.

No, I'm referring to another one, where if you have, let's say you have one God, who manifests himself in three different ways, like you showed with the white box.

So, everybody knows this is only one God, he looks differently at different times, but it's just the one

God. Of course, you might have a different problem with that. But, if you say that the

Father is God, the Son is God, the Holy Spirit is God, what keeps them together as a unity?

Now, obviously, there's a relationship among them. Augustine spoke about love, and he was speaking about the Father and the Son, and the

Holy Spirit would be the love between them. So, that's not really the Trinity that's classically defined, because in that case, love would not be a person, so you could have only two persons, and the love between them.

Now, if you have three persons, what's holding them together as a unity?

Their entire existence is found in the being of God. We do not believe the being of God can be divided up into parts.

So, Jesus isn't one -third of God, and the Father isn't one -third of God. There is one being of God, infinite and eternal,

Yahweh, shared by three persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. So, they would cease to exist as a person without being.

The being is the divine being. So, unlike you and I, our being is limited to time and space.

We're preachers. God's being is not limited to time and space, and so can be shared by, and is revealed in Scripture, to be shared by three divine persons, and not four, because Scripture doesn't give any indication.

But you just told me that there's a being, and there are three persons, three divine persons, who share that one being.

And we differentiate between being and person. So you cannot put being in the same category as person and come up with four.

Can you pray, or do Christians pray to the Holy Spirit? They can. Okay. Do they?

Well, yes. Okay. So, I know that they normally, and I'm sure there are some that do not, but you can.

Okay. It's by the, it's normally, the Spirit right now takes from the things of Christ and testifies to them.

So, He is not the focus, according to the Bible's own testimony of what His current role is right now.

When all things are wrapped up, and God is all in all, then you'll have equality of endurance, too.

Then we'll have equality in terms of worship. So, are you saying that, uh... Yeah, right now you have the economy of salvation.

You have redemptions being worked out right now. God is still calling His elect people. And so, there is a focus upon Jesus.

The Spirit indwells us and directs us to Him, and through Him, worship to the Father.

But, someday, this is all going to be wrapped up. Eventually. And Jesus will be victor over all things.

So, the Father is obviously the Spirit, because in John chapter 4, it's written in this mark, the moment

Jesus said, God is Spirit. So, the Father is the Spirit. The Son is obviously the Spirit.

The Father is obviously the Spirit in the man. Yes? Yes.

So, you have three Spirits, at least. You have three persons, not Spirits.

And they're all in the They are spiritual. That is, they are not limited to some kind of physicality.

So, they're spiritual, and they are not limited to creation. That does not make them three

Spirits, as in, for example, sometimes you've gone to the book of Revelation, and the apocalyptic language is used there, the seven

Spirits of God, which simply means the Spirit has all knowledge. That kind of trying to come up with extra numbers or something like that.

I don't think anyone reading the New Testament originally would have been able to follow where you're coming from there. Speaking of numbers and seven

Spirits, how do you know that there are only three persons in the seven Spirits? That's what I was referring to before, because, as you said earlier, you believe in soul and spiritual.

And if you'd like to suggest a fourth divine person, when we have Matthew chapter 28 baptizing them in the name of the

Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, show me where the fourth is. The love of God, the fellowship of the

Holy Spirit, the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, where is the fourth? There is no fourth. How do you know there's not a fourth manifesting himself or herself on another planet or another galaxy somewhere?

Well, that's what Battlestar Galactica is about. I love

Star Wars and Star Trek, but I'm not going to get into that. How do we not know that?

Because Sola Scriptura tells us that Scripture is given to His Church, everything the

Church needs to know now to worship Him in truth. So if I'm going to worship Him in truth,

I need to know who He is. Yeah, but I think we should probably say that looking at the

Scripture, all we know is so far three persons have revealed themselves to us, the Father, the

Old Testament, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and the new. And we don't know if there's a fourth or fifth or seventh person out there.

Except that the purpose of the revelation of Jesus Christ is to accomplish with finality the revelation of God's entire intentions and the wrapping up of all things in Christ.

So the very idea that there would be another one goes against what Scripture says. Thank you.

Thank you, Dr. Ali. Dr. White, you may now go to your five -minute closing remarks. Five minutes is not a lot of time.

Let me start off. I started a tradition in 2006. Shabir and I debated for the first time at my own university, and I started a tradition there that has now gone out the world of giving my

Muslim interlocutors a gift. I have the new updated edition of the

Forgotten Trinity. Some of you know what that is. Shabir gets it. And I have here the

Thimnell House produced at Cambridge, Leather Greek New Testament that came out only last year.

It's called the Thimnell It's a very interesting edition. We'll have to talk about it sometime. Now, we have decisions to make.

I honestly believe that if you will go back, I'm so glad this is being recorded, if you will go back and listen carefully, you will find a number of instances where standards were being used by dear

Shabir in his analysis of the New Testament that he would never apply to the Quran and that he didn't when

I asked questions about the authorship, content of the Quran, and the knowledge of the individuals.

And you'll hear his normal presentation. And that is, well, you've got this progression. Mark doesn't know anything about the deity of Christ.

John has, he even said that I said this in the book. What I said in the book is that John clearly addresses issues the

Synoptic Gospels do not address, but that I did not say and did not intimate and do not believe that you do not have clear and compelling testimony of the deity of Christ in the

Gospel of Mark. You do. If you can read Mark chapter 14 and Jesus standing before his accusers conflates

Psalm 110 and Daniel chapter 7 puts them together in a way that the

Jews know exactly what it is he is saying. So much so that the high priest tears his robes and says, you've heard the blasphemy.

Why do we need any further testimony? Why do we need any further witnesses? He is worthy of death.

If you can see what Jesus does in Mark and not recognize, even as Bart Ehrman recognizes that even there you have a divine person, though he does not take it to the doctrine of Trinity, then you are missing something.

I would invite you, please, in light of the beginning of the first 10 minutes of my questions, please go to YouTube tonight, look up James White, Shabir Ali, look at our debate in,

I think it was Pretoria. Did we bring Pretoria? I think we did. Pretoria, South Africa.

Did the earliest followers of Jesus believe he was God? That has the graphics in 1

Corinthians chapter 18. The evidence there is absolutely overwhelming.

Please take a look. So, we were told by Shabir that we should listen to the

Koran, a book that came 600 years later, despite the fact that we were not given any evidence whatsoever that the

Koran understood the content of the New Testament, even what was in the New Testament.

And what evidence were we given? Because Shabir can interpret certain passages in a Unitarian fashion, rather than allowing the entire

New Testament to speak. At one point, for example, he said that the vision of Jesus is accepted by Jesus' followers, writes in the first century, and his writings are accepted by the

Christians. And that is compared with someone who comes 600 years later, who knows nothing about the content of the

New Testament, contradicts the fundamental teaching of the New Testament. In Surah 112, it says, لَن يَلَقَ بَعْلَ الْيُولَةِ يُمْكِنُ يَتْسْنَارَ سِيْبِي قَتْنَ

This is a clear contradiction of what the Christians were saying, and were to believe that one on the basis of some comparison with Paul and Muhammad.

No, I'm sorry. Take the time, I'm sure the videos will be up in a relatively short period of time, though we in the digital age demand they be up tonight, take the time when

When they are made available, listen carefully, go back over the scriptures, and ask yourself who is presenting a consistent and coherent case.

I think when you do, you will see that what we have here is the revelation of God in the incarnation and the outpouring of the

Holy Spirit, 600 years later in another place, was rejected going back to the old ways.

The question is, will we believe what the followers of Jesus said in the first century, or someone who was not a follower of Jesus said in centuries later?

Thank you very much for your attention. Thank you

Dr. White. Dr. Elie, your time is up. And as we come to the end, folks, before your questions, let me also present a gift to my good friend, on the new evangelical subordination, subordinationism.

Justin. So you see tonight that in looking at the doctrine of the

Trinity, there are many problems that are left unanswered. And my friend

James could mostly just simply say, well, you know, we don't have to think about that, we just go by what the scriptures say, and so on.

But we do have to think about it, because when Muslims say there is only one God, period, that's the end of it, the

Muslim knows what they have said, and that's the end. Now if you say that God is one in three persons, then how do you know that there is only three persons?

Now if you stress the doctrine of sola scriptura, scripture alone, well that makes sense, yeah, that the scripture tells, because that's

God telling us who He is. But if there is no statement in the Bible that says that there are only three persons, the most a

Christian can say is that so far, our Bibles and our experiences have only shown us that there are three persons in the divine

Godhead. However, we have to be open to the possibility that ontologically, there could be other divine persons that we don't know about.

We've only been shown three so far. Imagine the people in the Old Testament, according to what

James did when he held up a light box, he showed that in the Old Testament, people saw God as one person.

But now in the New Testament period, they're seeing God as three persons when the light is separated into three, the red, green, and blue.

Well now, if the Old Testament folks were only seeing God as one person, and then in the

New Testament, now you're seeing God as two more persons because they happen to reveal themselves, you cannot be sure that ontologically there are only three persons in the

Godhead, absolutely. You have to be open to the possibility that there are more, but you just don't know about that.

So when you speak about the Trinity, you cannot say that this is all of God, you can only say this is all of God that we know so far.

Whereas when the Muslim says, God is only one, that is a simple, declarative, and complete statement.

And it corresponds with what Paul himself said. There is no God but one, in the very passage that James built so much upon.

James said, if you believe that God is one, great, even the devil knows that and shouts.

And James doesn't go on to say, well, we have to know something else, but there are three persons. No. Now he goes on to talk about good works.

So the belief completely is that there is only one God, there is nothing more to say.

That's why the Qur 'an says, وَلَا تَكُونُوا ثَلَاسًا Do not say three. إِن شَهُدْ حَيْرَتَكُمْ

And desist. It'll be better for you. So the Qur 'an says, stop saying three. Just say that إِنَّمَ اللَّهُ إِلَىٰهُ وَاحِدُ

God is only one God. And that is the statement of the

Muslim and Christian faith. And so, James says, well,

Mark also has testimony that Jesus is divine. But look at Daniel 7.

Daniel 7 does not show that this Son of Man figure is God. Yes, this is a divine figure.

But it's this number up here in heaven, and he comes down to earth. First of all, is he Jesus? Bruce Chilton says no.

In Mark's Gospel, when Jesus speaks about the Son of Man, notice he uses the third person. You will see the

Son of Man. Not that you will see me. He's talking about somebody else, possibly. And secondly, this other person is not

God, but God is the Ancient of Days, and this Son of Man, if you can call him

Son of Man, because he is one who looks like a man. This one who looks like a man goes up to the divine throne and takes the scroll.

And this actually, in Daniel 7 itself, is shown to be the saints. It is the people of Israel all together who will be given universal rule according to that passage.

It's not about some futuristic divine figure to come into our world.

And so, there are so many problems. Psalm 110, this is quoted so many times in the New Testament that it deserves some mention.

There too, there is a distinction between Yahweh and Adonai. Yahweh said to Adonai, Adonai is my

Lord, true. But that's different, that's Adon. And that's the simple meaning sir today.

Like modern Hebrew, if you say Adonai, you mean sir. Should I say

Adonai? Excuse me sir. That's how people use this term even today. But knowing the language from that time,

Yahweh said to Adonai, that means there is a distinction. There is one God who is called Yahweh, there is somebody else called

Adonai, my Lord. And it's that Lord that is being spoken about that shows that there is no trinity. God is only one, one person, and you do not need to have this trinity.

Finally, let us leave this all tonight as friends, working together for the greater good,

Muslims and Christians, together, hand in hand, in mutual love and cooperation. Thank you all very much. Thank you

Dr. Ali. Let's thank our debaters one more time.

So at this point we'll be transitioning into a Q &A session, so we're going to have two lines running down the middle of this auditorium.

So try and use this chair as much as you can. The line on this side will be questions for Dr. White, and the one on this side will be questions for Dr.

Ali. Hassan and I will be standing up here with the microphone.

We'll be holding it. You get about 30 seconds to ask your question. Whoever the question is addressed to will have two minutes to reply, and then whoever wasn't being addressed to will have one minute to respond.

So with that out of the way, let's begin. Thank you for coming here tonight with Dr.

Ali. My question is, so in John chapter 1, verse 3, it says that Jesus created all things, and that without him was not anything made that was made.

This seems to imply that everything that was created was created by Jesus. So doesn't that mean that Jesus is uncreated, according to John?

No, it wouldn't mean that. Let me rephrase. So what Paul says in 1 Corinthians chapter 15, verse 28, when he says that when

I say all things, I don't mean God, because he's obviously excluded from the all things which would be subjected to him.

Well, why was it necessary for him to say that? If he didn't say that, some people might be asking the same question that you asked.

But we should take the statements reasonably. What John is referring to here, in what colors are traced back to the writings of Philo of Alexandria, where he spoke about the

Logos as the Word of God, through which God created everything. The Old Testament used the term

Sophia, which almost means the same thing, but that is feminine, Sophia.

And Sophia speaks of the woman who is a personified wisdom of God in the Old Testament, and says that she was there when

God laid the foundations of the world. But in Proverbs chapter 8, verse number 22,

Sophia speaks and says, Yahweh created me. So Sophia is created.

And so what we have here is a concept in which God created a being, and then used that being as the conduit through which to create everything else.

That's why Paul could say, we have one Lord Jesus Christ through whom everything was made.

That's why John 1 and following could say that through the Logos, everything that has been made, has been made.

It doesn't mean to exclude the Logos, but then again, there is some ambiguity there, and I will give you that.

But throughout, it is very clear that Jesus lives in John's Gospel, and He lives because of the thought.

That means He's dependent upon the thought. So if we think of the contingency argument for the existence of God, God is the necessary being, and everything else is contingent upon God.

It's clear that through the statement that Jesus is contingent upon God, and therefore He Himself is my

God. John chapter 1 verse 3 does teach exactly what was said. No exegesis was offered to that, except that there were other places and other interpretations that tried to force upon that.

Simply look at the Gospel of John. Recognize it starts with this statement. It ends with Thomas saying,

My Lord and my God. John 17 .5, Jesus refers to the fact that He eternally existed in the presence of the

Father, was glorious in the presence of the Father. That's only one sentence after John 17 .3, which had been quoted earlier, but not in that context.

And so, even people like Bart Ehrman recognize this is clearly what the Gospel of John is all about. My point is, when you go back to the

Gospel of Mark, and you actually listen to the fact that the one who approaches the ancient days, in Daniel chapter 7, is worshiped.

His people worshiped Him. This is why the high priest tears his robes.

He didn't have Shemir's interpretation of that text. This is what St. James John chapter 4 says.

Hebrews 5 .79 says, In the day of His flesh, Jesus offered prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to Him who was able to save Him from death.

And He was heard because of His reverence. Although He was a Son, He learned obedience through what He suffered. Being made perfect,

He became a source of eternal salvation to all who obeyed Him. If Jesus was a human son of God, and not

God Himself, I can understand why He would need to show reverence in order to be heard. Why He would need to learn obedience.

And why He would need to be made perfect. Can you help me understand how to make sense of these facts of Scripture from the

Trinitarian perspective? Yes, especially since the book of Hebrews lays this out with such clarity.

When the writer begins with these tremendous statements in Hebrews chapter 1, about Jesus, the one through whom everything is made, and He's the exact representation of the

Father, and you've got Him being called God, and Psalm 102 being applied there.

When the writer starts there, that's His supremacy over every creative thing, then you have the discussion that continues from that, being

Jesus' role as our intermediary. And we are told in Hebrews, starting in Hebrews 2, that because the children partake of flesh and blood,

He had to partake of flesh and blood. And so very often, what you hear Shabir doing, and other humanitarians doing, is they focus upon the incarnate

Christ, and the fact that He submits Himself to the Father, to accomplish the redemption of God's people, and then extrapolate backwards from that to deny the deity of Christ.

This is what happens when you do not take the entire New Testament, and allow it to speak, and to define its own terms.

I accept everything the New Testament teaches. I do not then get rid of those portions, and not fit into my narrow, unitarian assumptions, which is what takes place so often.

And so, in eternity past, as Jesus says in John 17, 5, glorious in the presence of the

Father, creator of all things, nothing made apart from Him, in Him all things soonest they can, they hold together, and yet He humbles

Himself. Why? So that He can be the perfect, obedient Son, who by His death, provides perfect salvation for those who are united to Him, by the decree of the

Father, and then they experience that union by faith and repentance in time, so that we can have eternal life in Jesus Christ.

It's a valid question, because it shows that Jesus was dependent on the

Father. Now, James could say, well, that's because He underwent genocide,

He gave up some of His divine prerogatives. Well, what prerogatives did He give up? What was He before He became incarnate as a human being?

And James is referring to the beginning of Hebrews, but here in the beginning of Hebrews, chapter 1, verse number 9,

God speaks to this person and says, You loved justice and hated wickedness, therefore

God, your God, anointed you with the oil of gladness above your companions. This shows that whatever

Jesus was before He became a man, He had companions, and we know that God is a sui generis,

He doesn't have anyone equal to Him, and He has a God. God, your God, has anointed you.

So this God has anointed Him, that is made in Christ, and that's where John's Gospel, it is clear that John has a two -tier system, where there is

God, and below Him, Jesus. Dr.

Ali, in your opening, you seem to indicate that the reason why the Qur 'an doesn't accurately condemn the

Trinity, or for example, why the Qur 'an doesn't address modalism, is because the

Qur 'an was interacting with Christians of their immediate environment. Hence, you asserted that the

Qur 'an displaces the Bible as the sole reference. Would you please elaborate on this?

Yes, Angelica Neuwirth has actually recently written a book in which she has dealt with this at great length, a

German scholar. And in this book, she shows that the Qur 'an had its own way of making waves in the time.

Rather than engaging in detail with the beliefs of a lot of people, the

Qur 'an stated certain principles in general, and made such a deep impact on people that people rallied to the

Qur 'an as a book of God, this was going to be their sole reference point, and from there on,

Muslims had the clarity on what the Qur 'an is calling them to believe. Neil Robinson, in his book,

Christ and Islam and Christianity, made a similar point here and there, where he showed that if the

Qur 'an were to engage with all of these various doctrines, imagine what the

Qur 'an would have to do and what kind of a book the Qur 'an would have to become to deal with the problem of pritheism, to deal with the problem of modalism, to deal with patri -passionism.

All of these decrees of Christian history started with the Apostle's Creed. How is the Qur 'an going to all these histories?

This is what the Apostle's Creed was, this is what the First Nicene Creed was, this is what the Second Nicene Creed was, because the

First Nicene Creed, it didn't say that the Holy Spirit is to be worshipped. The Second Nicene Creed included worship of the

Holy Spirit. Then they didn't decide on the deity of the Holy Spirit until the Council of Constantinople in 1881, and then finally the

Council of Chalcedon in 450, in which the final details of the trinity were hammered out.

And then we have the confusing Athanasian Creed, which is cited in James' book,

Approvingly, where it reads something like, God is creator, the Son is creator, the

Holy Spirit is creator, but yet there is only one creator. The Father is God, the Son is God, the Holy Spirit is God, yet there is only one

God. And it goes on and on like this, and then it says, this is how you must think about the trinity, otherwise you will lose your salvation.

So, for the Qur 'an to say all this, the simple thing was, just do what Hankel said, Norbert said, the

Qur 'an displaced the previous writings. Well, the problem with that, of course, is the

Qur 'an doesn't displace it, and it can't, because anyone who has read the Qur 'an recognizes that it assumes that its readers already have the biblical narrative as the background.

You can't make heads or tails out of most of what the Qur 'an says. If you do not already understand the framework of the biblical narrative, references to Watts and to Moses, it is taken for granted by the author of the

Qur 'an that you've already read the Qur 'an in June. It can't displace it. It alleges in its own words that it is the continuation of that revelation.

When we test it, as it invites us to test it, it fails, and it fails badly, especially on the fact that it tells us, if you say three,

Hellfire is yours, and when it defines the three in Surah 5, verse 16, it gets the three wrong.

So, this becomes the issue that simply cannot be left aside, and said, well, they're just talking about something else.

Thank you both. So many questions, so little time. Dr. White, you both referenced Psalm 110, which is a classic

Old Testament text. The Lord said to my Lord, sit at my right hand, so I can make your enemies your footstool.

As you all know, the Hebrew there at the lead is translated as the

Greek. This is a modern Greek pronunciation. Dokiriyomu, which means to my

Lord. So the question is, how do you account, Dr. White, for the fact that that phrase, dokiriyomu, is never used for deity, for God?

The same way I've responded to Dr. Buzzard's presentation of this for many years, including in our debate,

I would recommend that you look at the debate Mike Brown and I did with Dr. Buzzard and Joseph Goode on the Jewish Voice broadcast, and on our unbelievable experience we had as well.

This is a very clear, it amazes me that this is still being presented by anyone because it's been refuted without question.

The vowel pointing in Hebrew came after the time of Jesus.

It is not inspired. Therefore, to focus upon vowel pointing is to focus upon that which is not inspired to make your case.

The Jews didn't believe Jesus was the Messiah, and they certainly didn't believe in the deity Christ, and they certainly understood that Psalm 110 .1

is the most quoted text from the Old Testament in the New. So it is not surprising whatsoever.

So when the person asks, that was never used for deity, they're basing that upon the Masoretic vowel pointing from the

Jews, rather than the consonantal form, and that leaves us wondering, we wonder what the high priest was actually doing, tearing his robes.

Because if you take Shabir's interpretation of Daniel 7, together with that interpretation of Psalm 110 .1,

the high priest, the Mark 14 should have gone, oh, okay, no problem. But instead, he tears his robes and says, you heard the blasphemy!

Why do we need any more witnesses? Someone is missing the plain meaning of the text here, and that's where it's coming from.

So when it's said, it's never used for God, that's based upon Hebrew Masoretic vowel pointing, and that is the fundamental problem.

With this assumption that comes after the time of the Testament, it's not inspired, it is not the ground for Christian theory.

It's hard to believe that this Jewish leader thought that he had before him

God, and he's thinking, this is God, let's kill him. It's more likely that if Jesus claimed to be

God, that this leader is thinking, well, this is man, he's claiming to be God, so let's kill him, and we're fulfilling the

Old Testament law. Now, in that case, he seems to be celebrating, however, however, while this is more likely,

I'm not saying this is the situation, but while this is more likely, it makes sense if we think about the psychology of this

Jewish leader. But then, it creates a problem for God, because it would show

God to be irresponsible. He knows himself to be God, he doesn't prove himself to be God, he claims to be

God, knowing that he already gave this guy a law, saying that if somebody like me comes and claims to be

God, you have to kill him. So that means that God has a justification, comes in, and he makes the Jews responsible for his own death.

That would be wrong. So, you asked, the

Quran tells us to judge the people of the Gospels, to judge according to what

God revealed to the Gospels. And an example that you gave of that is Christians over in Jesus' words, you gave us an example of that being done, if I understood you correctly there.

But, what we have in Jesus' words is what the authors of Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, and Acts say

Jesus' words were. So, how is the Quran that we can do that without also, at the same time, making those narrative accounts authoritative for the life and words of Jesus Christ, and then will we not also stack those up against the

Quran, just like you wanted to do with the works of Paul? So, when the

Quran was revealed some 1 ,400 years ago in the 7th century, obviously the

Quran had to accept many things that could not be changed overnight. And one of these things is the fact that at the time of the

Nicene and Macedonian period, Christians are already set in their ways, the Quran is not going to change that overnight.

And the apparatus for studying the details of the life of Jesus historically was not yet fully available.

So the Quran is putting things in such a way that may have a greater applicability and meaning later on, when people could actually do this.

But the Quran is actually saying something that even people at the time could have thought about. Because when

Christians were discussing the Trinity and what should be believed about Jesus, they were citing

Scripture, and they were asking who wrote Scripture. But that history was somewhat forgotten, and people now are not thinking clearly.

Remember the chains said, when it referred to Hebrews, If at all did not write Hebrews, then.

What do you mean, if at all did not write Hebrews? That is the question. Who wrote Hebrews? And nowadays it is widely recognized that Hebrews is anonymous, we don't know who wrote it, and most likely

Paul didn't write it. So questions like this have to be asked. Okay, if you depend on Hebrews to know that he was this glorified figure, who is the author of Hebrews?

Why should we depend on him? If we depend on Paul to say that Jesus was the wisdom and power of God, how do we know we should trust

Paul? If we depend on John, who is this John who wrote the fourth gospel? Do we even know that his name is

John? And so on. So Christians can still ask these questions. And yes, Paul and James were saying in the book of Trinity, that there is a development.

Why didn't Mark say, Jesus sent me for Amy? Because, you know, maybe he said it, but Mark didn't really pick it up, he didn't quite understand the implication of that.

Only John thought about it much later on. I wasn't misquoting James. Right here in his book. And I quote you the page number in case you're interested.

So, in short, that's what the Quran is asking you to do. Okay, first of all,

Jesus quoted from a section of the Old Testament. We don't know the author, Jesus was a prophet, according to the Muslim perspective.

You can't make that kind of objection. It is relevant. But the

Quran gives us no reason to think. He mentioned the Council of Nicaea.

It's not going to change the Council of Nicaea, right? The Quran gives us no reason to think the author of the Quran had any clue what the

Council of Nicaea said, what the content of the Council of Nicaea's decrees were, or anything else.

That's the point. We are being asked, you need to submit to this book, that's half the length of the

New Testament, whose author had no earthly idea what the extent of the New Testament was or the content of the

New Testament was, but that needs to become the lens through which you read everything in your New Testament. And Christians have said, now it's in the centuries.

I'm sorry, that is not a compelling argument. We're not going to do that. We're going to stick with the eyewitnesses, not with someone who comes 600 years later.

Thank you. I've seen both of your YouTube videos and everything, so I really commend you for being very respectful, honest, and sincere interlocutors of the

Muslim community. My question is, you just mentioned a good standard, and using your standards of judgment in the

Quran, can we judge the New Testament similarly? So specifically, God knows what was always unchanging.

Using only the Old Testament without reference to the New Testament, can you prove the Trinity, specifically the

Son and Spirit, are included in Yahweh, and if not, why not? If not, why not?

The why not is because the Trinity is revealed in the astounding reality of the

Incarnation, the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. There are passages that prophesy these things that can only be understood in light of that reality, which would include

Isaiah 9 -6, Isaiah 7 -14, and things like that. But I do not make the assertion that the

Trinity is revealed in the Old Testament, so I would not even utilize that standard. My assertion, in the book that was just held up, both editions of it, is very, very clearly that the

New Testament writers were themselves experiential Trinitarians, because every word of the

New Testament is written after the Incarnation of Christ, His death, burial, and resurrection, the empty tomb, and the outpouring of the

Holy Spirit. That's what makes sense of all the statements of the early

Christians. That's why Paul can talk about, they wouldn't have crucified the Lord in glory. He doesn't have to stop and say, well, let me tell you what the

Lord in glory is, because he never heard it. No, they already know. They already know that Jesus is the glorious Lord. James was brought up earlier.

James also refers to him in the same phraseology. His brother refers to him by exalted phraseology in that exact same way.

So all the New Testament writers are functioning on the communal recognition of what has taken place in the coming of Jesus Christ, in the outpouring of the

Holy Spirit. And now they can then see the shadows and the fulfillment and the prophecy, most definitely.

But they are now living in the reality. And the simple fact of the matter is, if you reject this, you will have to end up rejecting portions of what every single

New Testament writer says. You're just going to have to kick them out. Because they make straightforward statements that Shabir has already identified as absolute sure from your perspective.

You can't let the New Testament speak for itself. James says that the

New Testament writers were experiential Trinitarians. How do you know that? How do you know what's in their minds? How do you know they weren't populists?

How do you know they were not Trinitarians? How do you know that they did not think that Jesus is a divine being, but not

God, who came down and became flesh? In fact, we can see that many of them actually thought so. That's what exactly they described.

Paul described that. John described that. The writer of Hebrews describes that.

The book of Revelation, which has one of the highest Christologies. Read Revelation chapter 3 and see how many times in one verse the

God of Jesus is being spoken about. Jesus and His God. Jesus and His God.

Jesus and His God. Why isn't Jesus called God? Read Revelation chapter 15 verse number 3.

The Son of Jesus and Moses. How they are praising God. So, they are worshipping

God. Yes, some passages might refer to Jesus as a glorified figure, but He has a

God. And that shows that God hasn't changed. Malachi chapter 3 verse number 6 says

God does not change. And He didn't change. He didn't become a trinity. He was always a singular

God, one person. Thank you both very much.

I appreciate the dialogue tonight. Dr. Ali, I have a question. It's kind of two parts.

First, how do Muslims consider the texts of the New Testament and the

Torah, respectively? And with those perspectives in mind, how and where would a person learn about Jesus?

So, the Koran shows that there are some revelations in the Christian Bible, including the

Torah and the Psalms and the Gospel, which are from God. And at the same time, there are some other writings by other people which may or may not be valid.

So, one has to use discernment and ask questions about the scriptures.

So, for example, the Koran in the second chapter, in the 79th verse, says, وَهَيُّ لِلَّذِينَ يَفْتُحُونَ الْقِتَابِكِ عَيْتِهِمْ

Both are those who write the scripture with their own hands. وَهَيُّ لِلَّذِينَ يَفْتُحُونَ الْقِتَابِكِ عَيْتِهِمْ And they say, this is from God.

So, the Koran is asking Christians and our Jewish friends to be discerning about who wrote what.

Do we know these persons? Were they really inspired? Think about James saying that the New Testament writers were filled with the

Holy Spirit. How do we know that? Because they said that, right? So, this you have is circular reasoning.

We should believe that they have the Spirit because they said that they have the Holy Spirit. But there's no independent verification.

Christians may feel, but we have some independent verification because the Spirit is in me. But how do you know that's the

Spirit in you? How do you know that's not your own mind? What has the Spirit actually said to you? Did you hear a voice in your mind saying to you,

Paul, walk straight, straight? Did you get such a voice in your mind?

Or is that your own subconscious mind? Because you've been brought up in a culture in which it is believed that there is a

Holy Spirit inhabiting you. That you feel that there is a Holy Spirit inhabiting you. Now, remember John chapter 16 saying that the

Holy Spirit will come, and He will teach you things. I have much to say to you, but you cannot bear them now.

What did the Holy Spirit actually teach the first Christians? Did anybody write down something and say, well, this is what the

Holy Spirit said to me, like any one of the books. Why does Luke start by showing that he did his research and he's writing?

Why does he say the Holy Spirit inspired me to write this whole book? Only Revelation claims something like that, and yet, that was one of the last books to be accepted after much debate in the

New Testament. Except that book of Revelation also, where it says, Jesus talks about Jesus as God, which the

Trinity explains as an incarnate man. He's not an atheist, he's going to have a God. Also describes

Jesus as the Almighty God. We believe everything the book of Revelation says, not just parts of it. You're seeing this over and over again this evening.

One of us accepts everything and allows it to speak for itself. One says, well, it can't be that, because it says something over here.

You end up with just parts of it. And as to the Spirit of God, well, why should I believe that Muhammad had the

Spirit of God? If he had the Spirit of God, he would have known what the Spirit of God had already given in the

Torah and the Injil. But he didn't, and he didn't accurately represent it. In fact, when he tried to accurately represent it in Surah 5, verse 16, he got it completely wrong.

So why should I believe that Muhammad had the Spirit? You know why I believe in the Holy Spirit? I'm sitting on the other side of the planet, and there's a bunch of people in this room who believe exactly what

I believe about an empty tomb and a risen Savior. And if that doesn't say the Holy Spirit's in the world, I don't know what does.

Thank you both for engaging in that. So Dr. White, you mentioned a criteria of being consistent.

So you quote the Philippians 2 chapter and 17 kite, referring to the Gnosis. And in your debates in your book, you had mentioned that the sun has preexisted.

And in history, it joined with the human nature. And then the Messiah, Jesus Christ, came into existence at the time of incarnation.

So it's not that Jesus preexisted, but in fact the sun was preexisting. And the

Messiah, Jesus, at the time of incarnation, that person is called the Messiah, Jesus Christ.

But even in your debate right now, you actually refer to it again and again, Jesus preexisting. And Philippians 2 actually specifies the

Messiah Christ and applies the Gnosis to this Messiah, not some preexistent sun. It doesn't say there's a preexistent sun.

And similarly in John 17 kite, in 173, Jesus has already identified himself as the

Messiah. But you are saying that the sun preexisted and the Messiah came into existence at a certain point in time.

So how do you understand this? Is the definition of all in terms of incarnation different?

Because he clearly identifies the Messiah and he's applying the carmen Christi to the Messiah, not the preexistent sun.

Well, Paul actually does. For example, Colossians, when he talks about the one through whom all things were made, he specifically references the sun at that point.

So that's an artificial distinction. What we're saying is that there is a divine person who is the sun, who is the one who is chosen by the

Triune God as the one who is going to come into and take on a human nature in the incarnation.

John 1 .14, that Logos became flesh. So there are, we should differentiate between, for example, the functions of Jesus as Messiah here on earth.

And so we do that and we are careful. But there are other times when, for example, Paul says, crucify the

Lord in glory. That's taking two different categories and putting them together because Jesus was one person.

So there are times when you specifically talk about Jesus as a person, you can talk about the pre -incarnate state of Jesus.

But we make very carefully, we are not saying the sun has eternally existed in infleshment.

The infleshment, the incarnation took place at a point in time. Jesus was a man prior to the incarnation.

So it just depends on what level of strictness you're utilizing at any given point in time.

Paul does not have a different perspective than John or Paul does not contradict himself.

We can talk about Jesus having eternally existed. But what we're talking about is that the sun has eternally existed.

And that the sun took on human flesh. And it's the sun who will return someday as king of kings and lord of lords.

Judgment will be for them because he left behind them to tomb. So, yeah, we do recognize that the

New Testament gives those distinctions. But sometimes we don't speak really, really specifically as to which time period.

So, that point is addressed in this book, God of Jesus, by Keaton Chandler. I was referring to this book, but I won't go into the technicalities of the point.

But I want to use my minute to address a couple of other points. James, at least, argues on Quran, chapter 5, verse 116.

But I think you misunderstood the verse. The verse is not saying that the Trinity comprises father, son, and mother.

It's saying that it shows us a thematic scene. That God is going to ask Jesus, did you tell people to take me and my mother as gods beside God?

Now, that obviously is a drama directed against people who did take the mother of Jesus as another god.

And some people have. Now, I hold here a book by F .F. Bruce. James and Kristen already know about the

New Testament. And on page 177, he's sympathetic towards this Quranic passage.

And he says that this could have referred to Syriac Christianity, in which the spirit is actually considered to be feminine.

And on page 101 of this book, he goes into more detail, showing that Jesus, according to the

Gospel of the Hebrews, cries out, My mother, the Holy Spirit. Good morning.

I'll be here tonight. Before I ask my question, can

I clarify and ask a quick question? So you deny the deity of Jesus. And you also mentioned that Jesus did never claim that he's

God. Okay, so in Exodus 3, verse 14,

God told Moses, I am who I am is what you are to say to your Israelite. So God sent

Moses, say, to tell Israel, I am what I am. So back in John chapter 8, verses, they say from Jesus talking to the

Pharisees to Israel, said, your father Abraham enjoys to see my day, and he saw it and was glad.

So Jew said to him, you are 150 years old, and have you seen

Abraham? And Jesus said to him, truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was born,

I am. Therefore, Jew, they pick up stone to throw at him, but Jesus hid himself in my mouth.

How would you respond to that? First of all, while people picking up stones to stone

Jesus, that this by him is something that came up before. And remember Jesus said in part of the gospel of John itself, says to the people, you are determined to kill me, a man who has told you the truth that I heard from God.

That's in John chapter 8, verse number 40. They are determined to kill him by hook or crook. Just because Jesus healed a man on the

Sabbath, according to Mark's gospel, they already started talking to kill him. So they wanted some excuse to kill him.

It's not because they understood that he's claimed to be God, it's that they're trying to put it into his mouth. So Matthew and Luke, recording the statement in the last trial, have

Jesus say to the infernal tutor, you say that I am. So it's ambiguous.

But even if he actually said I am, he was not saying I am God. If he's saying ego in me, which means

I am, it's a very common statement in the Greek language. And the I am of Exodus chapter 3, verse 14 is ambiguous.

It's almost like God saying, never mind what I am. So if Jesus is also saying, never mind what

I am, then it's ambiguous. And this characterizes much of Trinitarian thinking.

There's a lot of vagueness, there's a lot of equivocation. Things mean something like that, and that means something like that, so this must mean something like that, and so on.

There's a lot of false connections this way. But we have simple, clear declarative statements showing that Jesus denied that he is

God. For example, in Mark chapter 12, verse number 28, when he declared the

Shema, and the man said to him, you are right, teacher, there is only one God, and besides him there is no other. Obviously they're talking about somebody else who is

God, and Jesus is right there in front of him. And Jesus praised the man for his wisdom. On another occasion, a man came and knelt before Jesus and said, good teacher, what must

I do to have eternal life? And Jesus says, why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone.

In that particular passage, Jesus was not saying, I'm a sinner, he was saying to the man, you don't know who you're dealing with.

But you want to know how ambiguous this is about the I am sayings? In John chapter 18, the soldiers come to arrest

Jesus. And when he says, I am, what happens to the soldiers? They fall down upon the ground.

Folks, that's not ambiguous, that's as clear as can be. John in John 8, 24 says,

Jesus says, unless you believe that I am, you will die in your sins.

John 8, 58, when he says I am, they pick up stones to stone him. And in John 13, 19, he tells his disciples,

I'm telling you before it happens, so that when it happens you may believe that I am. Quoting from Isaiah 43, 10, where Jehovah identifies himself as the

I am. I am is not ambiguous, it is another phrase used for Yahweh, from Jesus' own lips.

You'll only call that ambiguous if you have another reason not to believe what the New Testament says. So, Dr.

John, thank you very much. Thank you for this conversation. I have just one quick question, actually, which is that Trinity started, and we all know that, with Jesus.

So can you explain how the Trinity we can define before Jesus?

Where was the connection between son and father before Jesus was born? And unfortunately,

I have another question about that. In your rebuttal arguments, you have said that, and you've repeated many times that how

Islam can cancel or nullify some argument about Christianity after 600 years.

Can we apply the same standard for Christianity when it cancels the

Moses Sharia or Moses principles or other

Abrahamic religions? So how you can do that? Well, there are two questions there.

I answered the first one previously, another individual asked that exact same question, and I already answered that one, so I'll answer the second one.

And the answer is no, because the New Testament writers know the Old Testament very, very well.

They quote from it constantly, and they're not saying that Moses is Sharia, it's that way, but it is fulfilled in Jesus Christ, and they make the strong argument, for example, with the

Hebrews, that that's the value. There is no meaningful documentary connection between the

Quran and either the Old or New Testaments. It doesn't quote it, the author doesn't know what's in it, he quotes stuff as if it's in it that isn't in it.

There is a huge chasm, and the question I've been asking all evening is, why is this?

So for example, Surah 5, verse 16. You all go read it for yourself. If the

Quran says, do not say three, you show me anywhere in the Quran where you have three names other than Surah 5, verse 16.

And you say, well, you're just dealing with a particular group right there. Read elsewhere where it's in Surah 5, where it's specifically making the argument that if you say three, and then it says, see how

Allah makes his signs clear? Because Mary ate food. Well, who's he dealing with there?

We believe Mary ate food, we believe Jesus ate food. But the idea is, clearly the author's trying to make an argument against the idea of the exaltation of Mary, the status of godhood, and the only time the three is ever mentioned is there in Surah 5, verse 16.

You never have father, son, and daughter. It was well known, but it's never addressed. And yet, we've been told that the trinitarian worship is true.

That's why I say, I'm sorry, the vast chasm in that 600 years means there's no connection.

There is a connection between the Old and New Testament. It's very, very clearly laid out. There isn't anything between the

Bible and the Quran. I have to bring up something that it doesn't give me any pleasure to bring up, but I've been through the likes of this.

Now, when we look at what the Quran says, it's very clear that the Quran understands the

Christian beliefs and practices and denounces misrepresentations of Jesus and misrepresentations of God in a very general way.

It shows that there is only one God, which is the original teaching of the Old Testament, the teaching of Jesus. It shows that Jesus is a prophet and messenger of God.

And so, it reverses the distortion of Jesus that occurred in the New Testament writings and in the subsequent

Christian creeds. Now, speaking about the distortion, James is proud to say that the New Testament writers knew the

Old Testament, and they quoted the Old Testament. What he doesn't tell us is that the New Testament writers actually misquote the

Old Testament a lot. And this all fulfills with the New Testament views of the Old Testament by several authors.

And there is one by C .J. Beale in which there is an article that is entitled, Matthew twists the scriptures.

I'd like you to look at that. This is the last question of the night. I guess with that, maybe we can do something a little bit different.

Hopefully, both of you guys can answer this. Again, thank you both so much for coming. Just how this has gone.

I think with that, it's more than just this debate. We can go back and forth with you as individuals later. But as individual people, wondering beyond this debate and what we're doing here, is there one thing, about this, your position, outside of this debate, outside of anything he's going to say, outside of anything he's going to say, that anything he's going to say, is there one thing, as we talk about our mutual secret of truth, that for you could change your perspective on this?

What would it take for your position on this to change down the road, outside of this debate? So, what would it take for me to change my position?

I would say that I continue to read and study, in preparation for this debate, I've read several books written by Christian scholars like Larry O 'Connell,

Richard Faulkham, I've read James' own books, some of the books I have here, books on the synoptic problem, books on divinity, a wide variety of books.

I will continue to do this study, and it may happen that I stumble upon something that caused me to revise my entire worldview.

I don't know what that thing is in advance, but it could happen. But I'm always open to that, I continue to study, but I also pray to God for His guidance, and I do so now,

I pray God, give me guidance, give James guidance, give everyone here guidance, guidance to that truth that you want us to accept for our eternal happiness with you, forever.

Thank you. Amen. Well, when someone asks that question,

I think we need to recognize there cannot be an end to our discussion, our dialogue, as long as Islam is

Islam, and Christianity is Christianity. There's no such thing as Chris Long. The Quran's not going to change.

The Bible's not going to change. The Bible's going to keep teaching what it's taught, and Sir Owen McFaul is going to say, for as long as the

Quran's going to be around, I think it should be really great. And therefore, my desire in engaging with these, aside from showing respect to the other side by accurately representing them, and by resisting the nasty

Islamophobias that many Christians do have, if you can't sit down with a Muslim and talk about your faith because you're too afraid of them, you might be an

Islamophobe. We should not fear. We should love.

And that love means we speak the truth. And that's going to have to continue on. Yes, yes, shut up.

Even over time, but I'm going to continue. We, um, stop. We must continue these dialogues with respect.

They can be pitched. They can be strong. They can be straightforward. But we must continue, because there's a lot of forces

Shabir, let me say this, because I think you agree with me. There's a lot of forces in your country, and my country that want to silence us.

They don't want this to happen. And the pressure is coming against the

Uighur Muslims in China, against Christians in China. We're praying for our fellow believers.

I pray for the Uighurs, too. If you think that's weird, then I think you misunderstand.

Because those people come after all of us. And so we're going to be pushed into a smaller and smaller space.

We don't respect one another. And respect one another enough to tell each other the truth without getting angry and starting to throw stuff at each other.

We're going to be in big trouble. Folks, this world's changing. I think about when you and I first started in 2006.

Your beard was black. It was!

Go look at the face. Either one of us are grandparents. We've been doing this a lot.

We respect each other. I think both of us drive the other one crazy once in a while. But hopefully we're demonstrating to everybody that this can be done.

What I'm saying is it needs to be done even more than when we first started. Even more than when we first started.

So I just want to thank everybody for being here this evening. Thank you gentlemen for putting this together.

And I hope it's been a benefit to everybody. Take the time to listen to more of us. And thank you very much for being here.

So unfortunately that's all the time we have. To those of you who had a question and didn't get to answer it, I'm so sorry. All good things must come to an end.

We have to go to sleep at some point tonight. So like Dr. James said, there will be a video for this debate online.

It will be on the Why Should I Believe YouTube page by the end of this week. Also a bit of a surprise, there's actually a t -shirt that we designed for this debate.

Unfortunately I can't show it on the projector, but trust me, it's nice. And all of you should consider buying it.

If you want to look at the design of the t -shirt, you can find all that information on tinyurl .com

slash gtdebate. tinyurl .com slash gtdebate. So right afterwards...

Maybe not. Or we're going to! Once again, thank you all so much for coming out tonight.

Thank you Dr. James White and Dr. Peter Ely for being here with us. It's been an honor and a privilege to host you guys at our university.

Can we please get one more round of applause? And that's all we have for you.