Continued Response to Sheikh Awal

Webcasting around the world from the desert metropolis of Phoenix, Arizona. This is the dividing line. The Apostle Peter commanded Christians to be ready to give a defense for the hope that is within us.

Yet to give that answer with gentleness and reverence. Our host is dr. James white director of Alpha Omega ministries and an elder at the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church. This is a live program and we invite your participation.

If you'd like to talk with dr. White call now. It's 602 973 4602 or toll-free across the United States. It's 1 -877 -753 -3341. And now with today's topic here is James white.

Opening Remarks and the Limited Time Left Before Detroit

And good afternoon. Welcome to the dividing line Thursday afternoon before I jump back into my responses to shake a wall. Especially since I've I I. Maybe I'm just being very very Optimistic but I got some indication that he he may be watching these responses.

So if that's the case, we're gonna press on because we don't have much time left because in fact we have this week and let's see then. We've got next week and then the 15th and that's it. And the 16th is when I head for for Detroit.

So but before we do that, I was just informed that we had a Skype contact request that was most interesting and I have no way of knowing. There we go. I wondered how they're gonna work that out. We've got some real great technical stuff going on in the studio audience right now, but We got a Skype request who is it who is it from there?

Mr. Pierce Skype requests from Dale McAlpine and it says hello. Dr. James appreciate your ministry. Must be sick of hearing that by now. Dale McAlpine here the guy who was arrested in England for preaching that homosexuality is a sin.

Thanks for the ad.

All right, well Dale I didn't know you had any idea who I was. I certainly do know who you are you're rather famous these days, but As I as I I think I mentioned on the program. That kind of thing is going to happen more often in the future.

Everybody knew those charges would be dropped the whole reason they did it the whole reason they did it was intimidation and that kind of intimidation is going to be something that we are simply going to have to learn how to deal with and so Dale keep us speaking the truth out there and It's it's an amazing thing when Western cultures are willing to arrest people for speaking out loud what was accepted as absolutely a Given morally in those societies only a matter of decades before.

Those who practice these things Want to silence anyone who would point to their sin and that's that's just what's happening. All right. There you go. I found that quite interesting as we fired up Skype for the program this afternoon.

Some of the contacts that you get very quickly this evening. I am going to be Lord willing putting together a new video and I'm not sure when I'm gonna be able to get it up, hopefully tomorrow morning and Just letting you know.

I think it's going to be quite interesting. Do you think it is going to be? Quite interesting so you might want to be looking for that now the last time that we looked at Some of shaker walls materials.

We were looking at the rebuttal period from a debate that he did in 2009 I ordered some DVDs from a website somewhere and One of them was a debate with Reverend Leon now I'm not sure what happened when I tried to burn the audio because they didn't end up with the opening statements or something.

I'm not sure exactly what happened. But yet as it may I have what sounds like a question-answer period here that I found quite interesting. And then as I said, I have this radio program. We'll be looking at those two.

We'll see how far we can get with these. Especially this first question that was asked and we may need to. I've cranked the volume full in here. This isn't really strong. Well, we'll find out when I start playing it.

But this first question I thought was was very very interesting and I want to make sure that a full answer is given to it Because it is asked by a Muslim. So let's let's listen to a question audience question from a debate with Reverend Leon and shake a wall.

I do not know when this took place, but let's listen in.

The Question About John 1 and Greek Philosophy

Authenticity. Our Muslim community has been asking our Christian brothers to show us the authenticity and the origin. For a long time and I see we're still pretty much looking for an answer.

Okay, now I just stop right there he's saying you know, we've been asking for you folks to defend the the authenticity and origin of Christian for a long time and Basically saying you haven't done that now again.

I didn't hear the rest of the debate. So I'm a little bit in the dark, but It's interesting How he understands this in what comes after this this is helpful in in my opinion in Understanding the Islamic mindset.

Listen, listen to the actual question. Now notice it's not even quoted correctly and I mean if I were to quote from the Quran and and and Conflate different verses different ayahs put them together and so on and so forth I'm not that doesn't show a whole lot of having done in-depth study and when it comes to the contrast between The amount of material that is available for study of the New Testament compared to the Quran not even close I mean, I have an entire shelf of John commentaries in my library Good John commentaries not just the bad ones.

There's lots of bad ones too, but good John commentaries FF Bruce and Leon Morris and and things like that in John so that would That that's somewhat discouraging to hear that. But again, let's listen to the question here about John 1 1.

Earlier statement of philosophy that John himself copied from other texts. Greek philosophy. I don't know. The scholar the great philosophist.

Okay, so basically the question has been asked I've heard that John is Taking this from Greek philosophy and Could you expound upon this. Now if I had been asked that question My immediate response would have gone along these lines well, certainly the Greek term logos is used in Greek philosophy and There are all sorts of discussions of that in various resources in various commentaries so on so forth, but before that before that You would have to deal with the Old Testament context and that is the word appears over and over and over again in The Old Testament the word word God's Word which is exalted and so on so forth.

The Old Testament backgrounds have to be looked at first. Now certainly logos is used in Greek philosophy, but it was in here it was a rational principle. It wasn't a person. The logos of Greek philosophy is Non-personal and so John fills the logos with personality and meaning.

But he does so by drawing from the Old Testament the Old Testament background provides the The meat of The use the term logos and I want to make sure they understand John 1 1 and John 1 14 both important texts, but John 1 1 says in the beginning was the word and When you look at the original language the form of the verb that is used there is in the imperfect it's the imperfect form of I mean and So it's not the heiress which is used of everything else in the prologue when there was a man who came from God whose name is John now.

Well, that's that's a genital. It's gonna my it's in the heiress. It means he came into existence at a point in time and everything is created came into existence a point in time. But in John 1 1 he specifically avoids using any verb that talks about Something being created or coming into existence in the beginning was the word as far back as you push the beginning.

The word already exists in the beginning was the word that's John 1 1 a John 1 1 B. And the word was with God same verb was. This is an eternal relationship, but this is a relationship between the logos and God.

That's where you get the personality there. This is this is a person they are face-to-face. There's personal communication. There's personal relationship and in the third clause and the word was as to his nature deity the placement of the of the terms the OS the anarthritis preverbal predicate nominative, etc, etc.

Putting it where it is Emphasizes the nature not identification, but nature. The word was as to his nature deity and. So you have three things said about the logos and John 1 1 the logos is eternal. The logos has eternally existed in personal relationship with God who's going to be identified in verse 18 as the father and.

Then the word is as to his nature Deity then it is that word then that becomes flesh there in verse 14 John switches from I me To again a top because there is a point at time. When the word became flesh the word has not eternally been flesh.

The word entered into flesh at a point in time. So there is What I would want to communicate on the prologue of John at least those two sections. Let's listen to what actually ended up being said. In this this particular situation it was I'm not really certain what was said, but but listen about the expounding.

There's a vast difference between saying that John utilizes language that Greeks would understand but see that he is filling it with more meaning and saying he plagiarized something. But here's this is important.

Think think with me for just a moment. I know we're getting into some technical things here, but think with me for just a moment. There are all sorts of things in the Quran that we can demonstrate. Were being used by the authors at that time that had a pre-existence before the Quran um the companions in the cave for example.

The companions in the cave is a well-known story that pre-existed the Quran so it seems that the mindset on the part of the Muslim asking this question is if well if John uses any language that Greek philosophers had used then that means this can't be the Word of God.

So in other words God Could not give a revelation that would actually be relevant To anybody. He couldn't use language that they've already used. Not only is that doesn't make any sense, but it's also self-contradictory to the.

The fact that the Muslim has to deal with the fact that there are stories lots of stories lots of references in the Quran that pre-existed the Quran. Now I would say there's more of a problem for the Muslim at that point because the Muslim is saying this was written in Arabic From eternity past.

This is this is not John writing under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit in human language. So as to communicate a message for all all peoples at all times. No, this is this is Allah speaking is what is what the Quran supposed to be so There's a little bit of difference there, but just keeping that in mind.

Was the word. No the word did not become God. The word became flesh the word eternally been God. So so it does bother me on one level and and I know that the Christians do this. All the time with the Quran.

You know, I just finished just a few moments ago recording to mp3 a new translation of the Quran. Using my Kindle to listen to it yet once again while writing and This morning I was listening to Surahs 23 through 30 while writing and when I got back I got out my Quran and I checked things.

I looked things up now. I realize you know, that's I'm pretty weird along those lines, but you know, there needs to be. You got to check things out, you know. You got to got to do some serious research.

Now that was interesting he says there's a Greek play of words between what is God and what is not God. I Wonder what he's referring to there. Is he referring to what I was referring to in regards to the verbs between a knee in perfect form by me and again?

It's all again. Am I I doubt it. I there there be a better possibility that He's heard something about what the Jehovah's Witnesses do. And the word was a God is like that. I don't know. I I can't I can't tell.

Yeah, so there you hear. It always helps to sort of ask one question of the questioner because his real his real assumptions are gonna come out a little bit Later on and there you saw his real is real assumption.

Okay? Okay, so if I can respond there first of all now. This is Reverend Leon. I don't know whoever Leon is. I have no Earthly idea whoever Leon is. Okay. I can't tell you anything about him. Nothing.

But this is this is Reverend Leon as I understand it long before. This is philosophical.

Activity took place that you're speaking of long before that. This was noted according to the Greek. According to the Greek, okay.

I'm not sure what he means there. It is he's saying the logos pre-existed the philosophical activity. Well, obviously it. I mean it's asserting that logos eternally existed. But that isn't relevant to the question that the guy asked so that means that it had to come from a different source.

It did not come from philosophy, but philosophy says a lot of things. Not really following that either, okay, there are a lot of documentation out here in the world that has proliferated Proliferated the Horizon in terms of humanities horizon as far as literary knowledge a lot of information out there.

And so we cannot always go with everything that is said. That's why I said believe not every spirit. That's why the scripture says believe not every spirit every person because every person is not credible.

Their sources may not be credible. This person you say claims John wrote this. How do we know that that is true? What is the.

Documentation. I Think what he was meaning to try to say there maybe was to cast some doubt on Whether actually there was a Greek use of logos or something. I I don't know. I I Didn't follow this real well.

Okay, it may have been a Yeah, and it may have been many statements out there because many people have said many things During the same time that even the scriptures were being compiled by God. Now clearly Reverend Leon has.

No worth the idea that logos is a term that is common in Greek philosophy prior to The time the New Testament and so I think it would have been better for him to simply say why I didn't know that. I can't answer that which would you know?

But according to The Bible so.

There are and I might say this as well when it comes to Shaitan Shaitan is very coming. He creates counterfeits because he knows that there will be a hunger and a thirst for righteousness.

The question is who is filling that righteousness? That's a non answer. Okay, let's just let's just face it. No answer was offered at this point and Hopefully the response that I gave would have been a full answer.

But no answer was was given at this point. I'm trying to listen as carefully as you are. I will try to repeat what it was. Okay. Questions on circumcision so far. Now this is probably one of those many many many examples We could offer.

Why I don't like audience questions because people don't know how to ask questions. This is a statement. This sounds like at least right at this point. It sounds to me like a Christian who's trying to make the point that Sacrifices and circumcision were fulfilled in Christ.

Not just simply done away with that they had pointed to Christ and they're fulfilled in him. I think that's what's going on here. I think When you're a minute and a half in and you're just now getting your question, this is why we try to avoid Live audience questions, you know make folks write them down on cards and then people go through them so you can get rid of the ones, you know about why do you wear such ugly ties and stuff like that and Get to the ones that are actually relevant and you can actually accomplish something with audience questions when you put out a live mic.

Give it up.

A Misunderstood Question About Circumcision and Sacrifices

You know I. Okay, now this is shake a wall.

Responding and I I don't know how I respond because I don't really know what the guy was saying. He says something about you know, God wants to get us back and and something I I don't know but maybe because he could see him or maybe because they had talked for I don't know.

He had a better idea of what he was what he was saying. Now he's saying if we could if we could stick to what Jesus said. Well, you know. This is this is a common problem amongst Muslims. Muslims will denigrate the authority of Paul certainly shake a wall does even though Paul was a Apostle of Jesus Christ and There was there's no evidence that the earliest generations of Muslims viewed Paul the way that modern Muslims do and in fact there's evidence against that which I've mentioned before on the program, but The idea this is this is sort of you know, we've talked about there's another subject this is a little bit like hyper red letterism.

If it's red letters, then it's it's it's more inspired. Part of this comes from a misunderstanding of the Quranic text or a misunderstanding of the Quranic author. Who thinks that they're the that the the scriptures have been given to Jesus and and misunderstands the the New Testament context and things like that, but this is the mindset and that is if it's in red, it's more authoritative than if it's in black and We need to be prepared to explain that all scripture is the honest OS and Not just simply that which is in the the red letters.

It's only about what somebody else say, but Jesus himself said the master is greater than the servant. So I'm not talking about what Paul said.

Now I again I I'm not sure what happened maybe you know, I didn't actually watch the TVD. Maybe it has some skips in or something. I don't know but that skipped from from what Sheikha wall was saying to another audience question.

So he's saying our God is Abraham's God. You all have changes remember this is the Quran no excesses in your religion. This whole Trinity thing is excesses and remember if you recall I don't know two years ago when I debated Sheikh Jalal al-Balrub.

And he was saying, you know He started going through various issues about the training is look give your give your confession. Give your creed as Abraham and Noah and he goes through these Old Testament people.

Again rejecting the point where you have the revelation of the Trinity which is where between the Old and New Testaments that's where the doctrine of the Trinity is revealed in the Incarnation of the Son and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit the New Testament then becomes the record of that.

But that's not where the revelation takes place. It took place in history in time in God's activity. That's when the doctrine of Everly of the Trinity is actually revealed and So you just have to reject that and say we need to go back.

It's always stepping back into the old ways. Instead of here. God has revealed himself in the fullest way in Jesus Christ in the Incarnation of the Son and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. But that's too much we want to go back and in essence, that's what Islam is saying go back.

Go back unwilling to accept that tremendous revelation. That's where the real issue lies.

Scripture, Inspiration, and Reproof in 2 Timothy 3:16

Was all inspiration from God was Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, these authors, not prophets. Were they inspired directly from God? We as Muslims, we say no. But, you say in the book of Timothy, there needs to be a re-proof of doctrine.

Now evidently there have been some discussion concerning All Scripture is inspired of God, 2 Timothy 3 .16 And you just heard him say we know we don't believe Matthew, Mark, and Luke are inspired. Well, this of course raises the whole issue once again of Surah 5 and the fact this is a development beyond Quranic revelation.

This makes Surah 5 make no sense. How can the Alal and Jill, the people of the gospel, judge by what's contained therein if they don't possess it? How can they judge? I have heard some incredibly convoluted responses to that.

But none that I can take in any serious fashion as having any merit.

We say God's word itself from the first letter until the last letter is flawless and perfect. I didn't say there needs to be a re-proof of doctrine. I said 1 Timothy says All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, do it for yourself, and it is profitable for doctrine, for re-proof, correction, and instruction in life.

I understand that. We say God's word needs no re-proof.

God's word needs no re-proof? That's just misunderstanding what Paul said in that text. What Paul said in that text was that the man of God is going to have to engage in particular activities within the ministry of the church.

And one of the things he has to do is he's going to have to offer re-proof. He's going to have to re-prove people who have wandered from the truth. Correction, training in righteousness. These are things that the minister has to do, and he can go to the word of God for that.

He doesn't have to go someplace else for that. So I think the person asking the question here just doesn't understand what the word re-proof means, or at least how it's being used there. We're going to take a break.

We've got a Skype call, and then we'll go back immediately after that to our discussion of this particular portion of the debate. And we'll be right back.

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Hello everyone, this is Rich Pierce.

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Tom’s Question About Defending Apologetics Against Muslim Criticism

And welcome back to the dividing line on a Thursday afternoon. We are going to take a quick Skype call here and talk with Tom. Hi, Tom. How's it going, Dr. White? Doing well. How are you? I'm very well.

Before I ask my question, I'd just like to say that I appreciate your ministry to Muslims very much, inasmuch as I myself was at one time a Muslim, and I find that what you're doing has helped to answer my questions before I became a Christian and even now.

Really? Well, that's great to hear. Thank you, Tom. All right. So my question is like this. I have a friend, and he is a Muslim, and he has been made aware of the situation that has happened with Dr. Caner.

And I'm a fairly new Christian, and I'm not really able to answer a lot of his questions myself, so I often point him to other Christian apologists. But in his view, all Christian apologists have now been completely discredited.

So I was going to ask you how I might be able to deal with him concerning that. Well, I think that there is at least one Christian apologist that hasn't been discredited, and that's the one who's been taking all the heat for having brought this to people's attention.

I don't know how I could be discredited by fairly and honestly asking the questions that I've asked of Eric and Caner and investing the time for absolutely no profit whatsoever, I assure you. I'm not sure how I get painted with that brush.

In fact, I've had Muslims write and thank me for standing up and doing the right thing in this situation. So if you're talking, I guess the first question I would ask is, when you're saying dealing with the situation, do you mean dealing with the gullibility that many Christians have been shown to have in this situation?

The fact that clearly there are people who just want to hear certain things about Islam and they don't really check things out, or just the idea that someone could have gotten away with this for so many years, claimed to be something he wasn't, including babbling on in words that are not even Arabic?

Or is it a combination of all of that? Well, he seemed—well, I actually have directed him to your website, and I've actually printed off a couple of things that I found on the internet and given to him.

And he seems to have discredited you for attending whatever seminary that you went to. Yes. Well, has he looked at any of the debates that I've done with Shabir Ali or anyone else? He has looked at the debate that you did with Shabir Ali.

I think it was in May in 2006. Right, right. Well, there's nothing you can do about someone who's just simply going to say, well, I'm not going to listen to anybody. I mean, irrationality is irrationality.

So I don't know how you respond to any of that. Anyone who's not willing to listen to what someone's done or examine the arguments simply because they don't like the school they went to, well, you know, that'd be like my dismissing—you know, Princeton is a very liberal place now, so I guess I can just dismiss Bart Ehrman because he went to Princeton.

I mean, is that—I don't know how that actually works in someone's minds, but there's not much I can do about that. I have been very, very consistent not only in the arguments that I've been presenting on Islam but very, very consistent in providing a response to what Ergin Kanter has done and the claims he's made.

And if someone can't look at that and see that consistency and move on from there, I don't know if there is anything you can do for someone like that. You can, you know, present the facts, but I don't know what else you can possibly do.

Okay. Thank you very much, Dr. White. Yeah. All right. Thank you very much, Tom. Thank you. God bless. Well, that's a sad thing to hear that someone would say, well, you earned over a number of years a degree that has allowed you to engage leading atheists, Muslims, Mormons, Oneness Pentecostals, and many others, but therefore I'm going to ignore all of that because it doesn't have the approval of the Association of Theological Schools, which almost nobody out there has any idea what that has to do with anyways.

That's, you throw your hands up in the air and go, well, okay. If you want to do that, there's nothing I can do about it. But we press on from there. I feel sorry for anybody like that, and if I ever had a chance to talk to them, I would try to reason with them, but reasoning doesn't seem to be the issue there.

Comparing the Bible and the Quran

I'm going to skip over to this next section because it's easier to understand. It just sounds better to me. The audience, there aren't any audience questions here. This was a radio program I mentioned to you last time, a radio program with Shea Kowal, and so hopefully the sound quality will be better.

Let's put it that way. And the fellow is going to be asking him a question concerning comparing the Bible and the Koran. So let's take a look at it.

Let's start off with this because in our area here, like I said earlier, 95 of our listeners are non-Muslim, and I know your specialty is within the Bible and the Koran. Why don't you tell us the difference you see in your studies between the Bible and the Koran, the makeup of it?

Alhamdulillah Rabbil Alameen. See, I'll begin with what the Koran has said. In the Koran, Allah said,. وَلَتَجِدَنَّ أَكْرَبَهُمَّ وَدَّ لِلَّذِينَ آمَنُوا أَلَّذِينَ كَالُوا إِنَّا نَصَارًا ذَلِكَ بِأَنَّ مِنْهُمْ كِسِّي سِيْنَا وَرُهُبَنًا وَأَنَّهُمْ لَا إِسْتَبْغِرُونَ.

The Koran said, The nearest in love to the Muslims are those who call themselves the Christians. This is because the people who are humble, who are not arrogant and have renounced the world. So now, the Muslims have been...

By the way, just in case you're wondering, that's what Arabic sounds like. Not the TBN version that Ergen Kanner provides. For example, did you hear him say, نَصَارًا? نَصَارًا? نَصَارًا means those are the Christians he was just referring to.

And that's actually what it sounds like in case you were wondering.

He was friends with the Christians for quite a long time. And I remember when Muhammad s .a .w. was having a problem with his own people in Mecca, when he started his Islam. He asked them to go to the Christian monk.

There was a Christian, you know, a king. Go there, he suggests, you know, a ruler and everything. So the Muslims and the Christians are actually the same people. And the Messenger Muhammad s .a .w. said, On the Day of Judgment, when they rise up, he will be very near to Jesus Christ.

Because this is his nearest prophet. It's after him, it's like a baton. He ran and gave it to me. So Jesus gave him the baton. So now the Muslims and the Christians are the same people. But it is very unfortunately that there's a lot of misconception, a lot of mishaps that have gone through between these two religions that is actually causing some kind of discord.

But it's about time that we have to clarify some of the things that are in. And the Bible has mentioned a lot about Islam.

Now remember, notice two things. From the Islamic perspective, the things that divide us are excesses on our part. They're not teachings of Jesus. And we've already listened to, you know, Jesus' teachings being ignored at so many different points, even to the point of saying, well, you know, anything after Matthew 3 wasn't in those great codices and having those off by 700 years, things like that.

But from the Islamic perspective, if we would just not believe these excesses. Now, obviously, from the Christian perspective, which comes before Islam, these are not excesses. These are definitions. These are the very things that make the Christian faith what the Christian faith is.

They are non-negotiables. I've told the story of the imam in Indonesia who thought he had come up with a great idea. We would have peace between Muslims and Christians. If you just realize that Muslims are offended when you ascribe a son to God, and therefore, if you just stop ascribing a son to God, everybody would be at peace.

In other words, stop believing that Jesus is the son of God. So, in other words, stop being Christians. If you'd stop being Christians, then we'd all get along. Well, he really thought he'd stumbled onto something there.

And obviously he hadn't, but it does illustrate the mindset that is involved here.

So hopefully we'll be dealing with that. Let me ask you this now. You know, I get a lot of questions from people asking, and these are Bible studies. They say, now, we have so many books in our book that make up our book, our Bible.

How is the Quran? Is the Quran made up of different sources and different versions? Alhamdulillah, all praise belongs to God Almighty. The Quran actually, what the word Quran means, reciter or reading.

That which you read and derive inspiration, derive guidance from. We don't have two Qurans, we have one Quran. The Quran, as it was revealed to the messenger Muhammad some 1 ,428 years ago, is the same Quran that we have.

We might have different translations from Arabic into English. Different journalists, different writers, each and every one of them have the right to translate the Arabic word as he wants to any other language.

That is not the Quran. It is the meaning of the Quran, the nearest. But the Quran, as it is revealed to Muhammad, the Quran in Arabic is what we have, and it cannot be changed.