Trinity vs. Tawheed: James White & Jake Brancatella

Alpha & Omega Ministries

Subscribe

Download

Share

00

Comments are disabled.

00:39

Greetings and welcome to our debate today, Trinity versus Tawheed. I'm James White.

00:45

I'm joined by Brake Jankatella. There you go. We're starting off real well. Jake Brankatella from New Jersey is joining us today.

00:54

He's been on the program once before. You can find his materials on YouTube under the

00:59

Muslim Metaphysician. And I was just telling him I think he's very brave to continue to wear that particular hat because that gives you an entire spectrum of people who will dislike you for all sorts of wrong reasons and right reasons,

01:16

I suppose. But he is joining us today here in in the studio.

01:22

And so let me very briefly let everybody know how this is going to go so we can jump right into it. We have about an hour and 40 minutes plus five minutes or so for this opening,

01:33

I would assume, just to get things going. So about an hour and 45 minutes is what we're looking at today. We're gonna have 15 -minute opening statements.

01:41

You need to understand that may sound like a long time to you, but if you've ever done a debate, when it's your 15 minutes, it goes by very, very quickly.

01:48

When it's the other guy's 15 minutes, it seems like forever. 10 -minute rebuttals followed by 5 -minute rebuttals.

01:56

And then we'll have 10 minutes of cross -examination, each person having 10 minutes to ask questions of the others.

02:03

That's a total of 20 minutes, obviously, in cross -examination. And then 10 -minute closing statements for one hour and 40 minutes grand total.

02:13

The topic is Trinity versus Tawhid. We just were discussing the order in which we would go.

02:21

In a lot of situations, there is, especially with a topic like this, where there is not a single side being presented.

02:30

There is a flipping of the coin. But since we are physically separated by,

02:36

I don't know, 2 ,000 some odd miles or so, I just simply said,

02:42

Jake, you want to go first or second? And Jake has chosen to take the opening for himself.

02:49

So we'll just continue that order through the course of the debate. Jake will go first, and I will go second.

02:57

Jake, did you want to say anything before we get rolling? No, other than I did have a

03:04

PowerPoint, but unfortunately, I can't share my screen to show it. But that's fine.

03:10

Other than that... Well, you can share it. We just can't see your face while you're doing it. Yeah, you won't be able to see me.

03:16

You won't be able to see me. So I think it's better to see my nice hat that you already mentioned in my face while I'm talking.

03:22

If you say that's better than your PowerPoint, I'm just going to let that stand as its own point right there.

03:29

All right. Okay, so with that, I'm sure that Jake has a timer himself that he probably has.

03:40

We are self -moderating today. I think this is possible to do. I'm certain there are some people that I would engage in debates with that I could not possibly trust, that that would be something we could do.

03:55

But I think Jake and I can pull this off. I'm just now turning off my phone issue because the one thing

04:02

I have forgotten in the past is I start the timer and then the phone times out.

04:10

So anyways, we're going to start with 15 minute opening statements. Jake Brancatella has chosen to go first.

04:17

So Jake, at your convenience. Yeah, and I do have a timer, so I'm going to use it myself.

04:26

But of course, you'll be monitoring it, I'm assuming as well. So I'm just going to start the timer now.

04:34

Okay. Bismillah. First, I appreciate the opportunity to engage

04:39

Dr. White on this very important debate topic. The question before us this evening is Trinity versus Tawhid.

04:46

This is not a minor difference that we can simply sweep under the rug. This is an issue that is crucial to one's afterlife.

04:54

I will be defending the position of Tawhid and will be refuting the doctrine of the Trinity. The structure of my opening statement will go as follows.

05:02

First, I will explain an established Tawhid. Next, I will explain what the doctrine of the

05:08

Trinity is. And last but not least, I will offer five main arguments against Dr.

05:13

White's position on the Trinity. My first argument will establish that the notion of the

05:19

Trinity is a bit misleading, as there are many different conceptions of the Trinity. And we need

05:24

Dr. White to clarify where exactly he falls on the spectrum. My second argument is the fact that the

05:30

Trinity cannot be known apart from special revelation. My third argument is that the

05:35

Trinity contradicts general revelation in that it posits a God that is not self existent.

05:41

My fourth argument is what is called the logical problem of the Trinity. And my fifth but not least argument is the tritheism objection.

05:50

First, let me explain what Tawhid is. Tawhid simply put refers to the oneness of God.

05:57

It is the basis of the Muslim faith and the first part of the Shahada. La ilaha illallah, there's no

06:04

God except Allah. The expression of Tawhid can be summed up in a few verses of the Qur 'an.

06:10

And that is in Surah Ikhlas, the 112th chapter of the Qur 'an, that has four small but yet powerful verses.

06:16

It says this, Qul hu Allahu ahad, Allahu samad, lam yalid wa lam yulad, wa lam yakul lahu kufu an ahad.

06:24

Say, He, Allah, is One. Allah, the Eternal, the Self -Sufficient. He begets not, nor is

06:30

He begotten. And there is none comparable to Him. In the Qur 'an, chapter 59, verses 22 to 24, some of God's beautiful names such as the

06:39

Merciful, the Supreme, the Holy One, etc., are listed to describe who God is. There are many more majestic attributes of God mentioned in the

06:47

Qur 'an, but in its simplest form, the Islamic conception of God is that there is one unique God with attributes of perfection.

06:56

As Muslims, we believe that this conception of God can be arrived at from a purely rational philosophical perspective.

07:04

Through natural theology alone, we can arrive at a supreme creator of all that exists. His existence is necessary.

07:10

He is Ah -Say, and Self -Sufficient. He is One, and there is none greater than Him. This is accomplished through various philosophical arguments, such as cosmological arguments, teleological arguments, ontological arguments, etc.

07:24

Romans chapter 1 likewise proclaims that God's existence is clear, and men are without excuse for denying

07:30

Him. Now, let us now turn to the doctrine of the Trinity. The doctrine of the Trinity is the claim that, and I'm quoting

07:37

Dr. White here, within the one being that is God, there exists eternally three co -equal and co -eternal persons, namely, the

07:46

Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. My first argument is that the notion of the

07:51

Trinity is a bit of a misnomer. What I mean by this is that there are many different conceptions of the

07:56

Trinity that at times are radically different from one another, and result in there being Trinity models that are mutually exclusive, such that if one is correct, the other is fundamentally flawed and incorrect.

08:08

For example, Dr. White's definition says that there is one being that is

08:13

God. In order for us to properly evaluate the claim, we must have a clear definition of the term being.

08:20

So, the burden is on Dr. White to give us a clear definition of the term being. Part of the problem is that the answer to this question, from a

08:27

Trinitarian perspective, varies greatly. Consider that, philosophically, the term being typically refers to something that exists.

08:35

If there are three persons in the Trinity, under this definition, there would be three beings, which

08:41

Dr. White is reluctant to admit. So, he must clearly explain to us how he defines the term being.

08:47

The same exact issue can be run for the term persons. William Lane Craig affirms the distinction between being and person, and yet Dr.

08:55

White would reject his position. This demonstrates that merely making a distinction between the terms being and person is insufficient.

09:03

More must be said and done. Dr. White must give us a clear definition of the terms being and person, in order for us to even evaluate his claim of the

09:12

Trinity. If Dr. White fails to give clear definitions for these terms, then he fails to establish a

09:18

Trinity as a claim that can even be evaluated. Now, I understand that Dr. White affirms the veracity of the

09:24

Bible, and believes that the Trinity is firmly rooted in the Bible itself. He will probably quote numerous texts to substantiate this.

09:32

Dr. White, however, admits that his position regarding the Bible is ultimately circular, and he proudly embraces this.

09:38

However, a necessary condition for truth is logical coherence, and I will argue that Dr.

09:44

White will be unable to present a biblical doctrine of the Trinity that is logically coherent. Now, my second argument is that the

09:51

Trinity cannot be known from natural theology. It can only be known from special revelation.

09:57

This seems problematic on the face of it, as the fundamental notion of who God is cannot be known through creation apart from Scripture.

10:06

My third argument is that what we can know about God from general revelation in nature is contrary to Trinitarian Nicene orthodoxy.

10:15

Through natural revelation and contingency arguments, for example, we conclude that a God exists whose existence is necessary, self -sufficient, and assay.

10:24

However, the Nicene Creed, which Dr. White affirms, states that, and I quote, I believe in one

10:30

Lord, Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, the only begotten Son of the Father, God from God, light from light, true

10:35

God from true God, begotten, not made, of one essence with the Father. The notion of the

10:40

Son being eternally begotten from the Father results in the Son lacking assayity, which is an essential property for what it means to be

10:47

God, such that without it one cannot be God. Assayity is the property of self -existence, or to have existence in and of oneself as opposed to through another.

10:59

The church fathers that were responsible for the Nicene Creed held that the Son being begotten of the

11:05

Father was a causal notion. According to the Christian scholar Stephen R. Holmes, what all sides agree upon during the patristic era is that, and I quote, within a divine life, the

11:16

Father is the sole cause, begetting the Son, inspirating the Spirit. The great church father,

11:22

St. Gregory of Nyssa, in his work on not three gods, states that, and I quote, the principle of causality distinguishes them, the persons of the

11:31

Holy Trinity. It affirms that the one is uncaused, while the others depend on the cause.

11:38

Again, St. Athanasius says this, and I quote, the Son has his being not of himself, but of the

11:44

Father. Now, since Dr. White is a self -proclaimed Calvinist, let's see what

11:50

John Calvin himself states in his famous work, The Institutes. He says this, and I quote, regarded as Son, he is of the

11:57

Father. His essence is without beginning, while his person has its beginning in God the Father. And indeed, the

12:04

Orthodox writers who in former times spoke of the Trinity used this term only with reference to the persons.

12:10

Note that it said his person had a beginning in God the Father. All of these quotes demonstrate that Nicene Orthodoxy affirms that the

12:20

Son does not possess the attribute of aseity, because his existence is from the Father. He does not have self -existence.

12:27

In fact, the church fathers thought that for there to be three persons, all to be ase and uncaused, would be polytheism.

12:36

So Dr. White has two options. Either affirm the Nicene Creed and admit that the

12:41

Son is not ase and therefore not God, or reject the Nicene Creed and deal with the historical problem that results from rejecting the early consensus of the

12:51

Trinitarian church fathers. Now, my fourth argument is what is known as the logical problem of the

12:57

Trinity. Now, the LPT, which is short for that, is well known. It results from the following affirmation of the following seven premises.

13:06

First, the Father is God. Second, the Son is God. Third, the Holy Spirit is God. Four, the

13:11

Father is not the Son. Five, the Father is not the Holy Spirit. Six, the Holy Spirit, the

13:17

Son is not the Holy Spirit. And seven, there is exactly one God. Now, the logical problem is that the conjunction of these seven premises seems to be flatly consistent.

13:28

Flatly inconsistent, I should say. There are three is God statements, and the subjects are not identical to one another, and yet we are told there's only one

13:37

God. However, based on the seven premises, we should conclude that there are exactly three gods, yet we are told there is only one

13:45

God. When we are told that the Father is God, what exactly does this mean? There is a distinction between what is called the is of identity and the is of predication.

13:54

An example of an is of identity would be like this, Clark Kent is Superman. When we say this, we are saying that the two mentioned are identical to one another.

14:04

These are two names that refer to the same thing. This is to be contrasted with the is of predication.

14:10

An example of this would be Superman is strong. We are not saying that Superman is identical to strongness.

14:17

Strongness is a predicate or property that we are ascribing to the subject that is Superman. So when

14:23

Dr. White states the Father is God, is this an identity statement or statement of predication?

14:29

This makes a huge difference in our understanding of the statement itself. Now, if Dr.

14:34

White says that it is an identity statement, then there are a few options. Either White collapses the persons into one person, or he affirms a version of relative identity

14:43

Trinitarianism, which is an extremely controversial position. Relative identity

14:49

Trinitarianism states that the Father is identical to God, the Son is identical to God, the

14:54

Holy Spirit is identical to God, and yet they are not identical to each other. Simply stated, the

15:00

Father and the Son are the same God, but are different persons. This results in a violation of the logic of classical identity.

15:07

Peter Van Inwagen, a proponent of relative identity Trinitarianism states, and I quote, a philosopher who denies the existence of classical absolute identity may find materials in a procedure

15:19

I've outlined for an explanation of the fact that most philosophers and logicians have assumed that there is such a relation as classical identity.

15:28

Again, he states, and I quote, as far as I am able to tell, relative identity logic has no utility outside of Christian theology.

15:37

Again, William Lane Craig, who's a Christian, comments on this issue, and he says this, and I quote, if these declarations are intended to imply that statements like the

15:48

Father is God are identity statements, then they threaten the doctrine of the Trinity with logical incoherence.

15:55

For the logic of identity requires that if the Father is identical with God, and the Son is identical with God, then the

16:02

Father is identical with the Son, which the same councils also deny. So if Dr.

16:07

White wants to claim that these are identity statements, then he is left with either modalism or logical incoherence.

16:13

On the opposite side of the spectrum, Dr. White can take the position of the is of predication.

16:19

If Dr. White selects the is of predication option, then he is stating that each person is divine, and if you have three things which are each fully divine, then you threaten the doctrine of the

16:29

Trinity with tri -theism, or the idea that there's three gods. In an attempt to avoid tri -theism,

16:34

William Lane Craig adopts what is called partialism. The fundamental problem with this is that it entails that each person is not fully

16:42

God. So again, the onus is on Dr. White to clarify his position and tell us whether or not the

16:49

Father is God functions as an identity statement or a statement of predication. If he cannot do so, then again

16:56

Dr. White has failed to clearly state and establish his position. Now, my fifth and final argument is that Dr.

17:04

White is unable to clearly delineate the difference between monotheism and polytheism.

17:10

Dr. White states that there are three centers of self -consciousness, each with their own proper will.

17:16

He states this in his debates with Roger Perkins and Abdullah Kunde, respectively. So, White seems to be affirming a form of social

17:24

Trinitarianism. Brian Lefdale, in his famous paper, Anti -Social Trinitarianism, defines social

17:31

Trinitarianism as, and I quote, in God there are three distinct centers of self -consciousness, each with its proper intellect and will.

17:39

And then he goes on to say that social Trinitarianism threatens to, and I quote, veer into tritheism.

17:46

He also refers to it as, and I quote, a reformed paganism. So, how can we have three centers of self -consciousness, each with their own will, and yet not have three gods?

17:58

What is it precisely that makes them one? How does Dr. White distinguish this from polytheism, other than merely asserting it to be monotheism?

18:07

The burden, again, is on Dr. White to give us a clear definition that establishes the distinction between monotheism and polytheism.

18:15

If he fails to do this, then again, White's lack of clarity will prove fatal. Let me remind the audience that I first explained and established

18:24

Tawhid. I then explained the Trinity. And lastly, I raised five arguments against what the

18:30

Trinity is. These five arguments were the fact, first, that there is not one notion of the

18:37

Trinity. Second, the fact that the Trinity cannot be known from creation alone. Third, the fact that the

18:43

Nicene Creed itself contradicts what is known about God through reason. Fourth, the logical problem of the

18:49

Trinity. And fifth, but not least, the tritheism objection. Now, I want the audience to pay very close attention, okay, to whether or not

19:00

Dr. White addresses my arguments. If Dr. White fails to adequately respond to these five arguments, then he has failed to establish his position.

19:11

That's it. Thank you very much. All right, thank you very much for that, and I will get ready to start my 15 -minute opening statement right now.

19:26

All right, so what is Trinity and Tawhid? Let's make sure that everyone's on the same page has understanding, because this is a

19:35

Muslim -Christian dialogue. And you will notice, for example, that just now the vast majority of the presentation was not an establishment or argument for Tawhid.

19:46

It was just simply a statement of what it is, and then the rest was criticism of the doctrine of the Trinity.

19:51

Let's go to the sources. Surah 4171 in the Quran says the following,

19:56

O people of the book, do not go beyond the bounds in your religion and your deen, nor say anything about Allah except what is true.

20:05

The Messiah Jesus, son of Mary, was only a messenger of Allah and his words which he conveyed to Mary, and a spirit from him.

20:13

So believe in Allah and his messengers, and do not say three. Stop, it is better for you, for Allah is only one

20:20

Allah. Glory be to him, for far exalted is he above having a son. To him belongs all things in the heavens and on earth, and enough is

20:28

Allah as a disposer of affairs. So the Islamic position has to be defined by the

20:35

Quran. Now you can go beyond that if you wish, but the point is, the argument of the Quran, since this is not

20:41

Muhammad's argumentation, it is allegedly Allah's argumentation, then we need to look at specifically what the

20:48

Quran is saying, and it is saying, do not say three, for Allah is only one

20:54

Allah. We will not find anything in the Quran that in any way even resembles the argumentation that we just heard from Jake against the doctrine of the

21:05

Trinity. In fact, the question is, did the author of the Quran have even a tenth of the knowledge that Jake has of the doctrine of the

21:13

Trinity? And if he didn't, that sort of also completes the debate, doesn't it?

21:18

As far as how that is not the Quran, the basis of Tawhid, but we need to look at a couple others.

21:25

In Surah 5, verse 72, certainly they disbelieve who say, surely

21:30

Allah, he is the Messiah, the son of Mary, and the Messiah said, O children of Israel, serve

21:35

Allah, my Lord and your Lord, surely whoever associates others with Allah, that's the sin of Shirk, then

21:41

Allah has forbidden to him the garden, and his abode is the fire, and there shall be no helpers for the unjust.

21:47

Certainly they disbelieve who say, surely Allah is the third person of the three, and there is no

21:54

God but the one Allah. So there again is the word three, and it's immediately followed by the phrase, there is no

22:00

God but the one Allah. And if they desist not from what they say, a painful chastisement shall befall those among them who disbelieve.

22:09

Will they not then turn to Allah and ask his forgiveness, and Allah is forgiving and merciful.

22:16

Verse 75, the Messiah, son of Mary, is but a messenger. Messengers before him have indeed passed away, and his mother was a truthful woman.

22:24

They both used to eat food. See how we make the communications clear to them, then behold how they are turned away.

22:31

Please notice that the Quran thinks it's important to point out that Mary ate food, like Jesus did.

22:39

Why would that be important? Because Surah 5, verse 116 says, And when Allah will say, O Isa, son of Mary, did you say to men, take me and my mother for two gods besides Allah, he will say,

22:51

Glory be to thee, it did not befit me that I should say what I had no right to say, and if I had said it, you would have indeed known it.

22:58

Now, we don't have time to go into an in -depth discussion of the

23:03

Quranic understanding of, for example, what would be a child of God, or a son of God, or children of God, or anything like that.

23:11

But what we do see very, very clearly in the Quran is the argument that you do not say three, because there is only one

23:20

God. Not because of natural revelation or anything that has to do with the Council of Nicaea, which had taken place well over 200 years, almost 300 years prior to the writing of these words, we don't have any even reference to such things.

23:37

Now compare what the Quran does with the revelation of the Doctrine of the Trinity in the pages of Scripture itself.

23:43

Not the Council of Nicaea, not at Chalcedon, or at any point in time, in the pages of Scripture itself.

23:49

For example, we can go prophetically to the book of Isaiah. For a child will be born to us, a son will be given to us, and a government will rest on his shoulders, and his name will be called

23:59

Wonderful Counselor, El Gabor, Mighty God, Aviad, Eternal Father, or Father of Eternity, Prince of Peace.

24:08

Each one of these phrases fulfilled in the ministry and life of Jesus.

24:14

And so no matter what we do in the definition of what we believe, the source and foundation has to be what

24:22

God has revealed in Scripture. And this is prophetic Scripture. I've had many a

24:27

Muslim go to the book of Isaiah to try to prove the existence of Muhammad as a prophet. So you can't deny that, and so you have to deal with what is prior.

24:35

What is the foundation and source of our understanding of who God is? We also have in 1st

24:42

Corinthians, this writing in the New Testament, fulfilling Old Testament themes, for even if there are so -called gods, whether in heaven or on earth, as indeed there are many gods and many lords, 1st

24:51

Corinthians chapter 8, yet for us there is but one God, the Father, from whom are all things, and we exist for him.

25:00

And one Lord, Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we exist through him. Now again, time precludes my ability to lay out, as I have in other presentations, the fact that what the

25:12

Apostle Paul does here, is he takes the Shema, Shema Yisrael, Yahweh Eloheinu, Yahweh Echad, the very prayer of monotheism of the

25:20

Jewish people, and expands it in light of the revelation in history of the coming of Jesus.

25:28

And so whatever we do, we have to allow this, there is one God, the

25:33

Father, from whom are all things, and we exist for him. And one Kurios, that's the rendering of the term

25:40

Yahweh, the Tetragrammaton, the covenant name of God. Jesus Christ, by whom are all things.

25:47

Now the Quran says he's merely a messenger, he used to eat his food like his mom did, he's a creature of God, he was made by Allah.

25:57

But the Christian scriptures say he is Yahweh, by whom are all things, and we exist through him.

26:04

Now there is no refutation of this in the Quran, because there's no evidence that the author of the Quran ever even heard these words, or had any knowledge of these words.

26:13

So notice the difference between the continuity of the Old and New Testament together in their revelation, and then the breaking of that continuity in coming with the

26:23

Quran. That's important because in Surah 5, allegedly the Quran is the continuation of these revelations, and yet we see a massive gap between these revelations which know each other so well, in comparison to what is found in the

26:38

Quran. And so we have an early hymn in the Christian Church, Philippians chapter 2.

26:43

You must have the same mindset among yourselves that was in Christ Jesus, who although he eternally existed in the very form of God, notice

26:52

New Testament, it's completely monotheistic, there's only one God, Yahweh, creator of all things. Absolute monotheism, no question about it.

27:01

He did not consider that equality he had with God the Father something to be held on to at all costs.

27:08

But instead, he made himself nothing by taking on the very form of a slave by being made in human likeness.

27:17

So we have monotheism, but we have equality between the Father and the Son. We have the

27:23

Son actively making himself nothing. He is the one who voluntarily enters into human flesh by positively taking on a human nature, by taking on the very form of a slave, by being made in human likeness.

27:38

And having entered into human existence, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even the death one dies on a cross.

27:45

Again, very early historical reference to the cross which is denied within the text of the

27:50

Quran in Surah 4, verse 57. Because of this, God the Father exalted him to the highest place and bestowed on him the name which is above every name, so that the mention of the exalted name of Jesus, everyone who is in heaven, on earth, and under the earth bows the knee, and every tongue confesses

28:07

Jesus Christ is Lord, all the glory of God the Father. This is a quotation from the book of Isaiah, this is where Yahweh himself says, every knee would bow to him, every tongue would confess to him.

28:20

And so here you have this divine revelation in Scripture, referring us back to the historical reality of the incarnation of Jesus Christ, and the fact that he is distinguished from the

28:36

Father, he and the Father, the Father speaks to the Son, the Son speaks to the

28:41

Father. In John chapter 17, the Son speaks of the time where in eternity past, he shared glory with the

28:50

Father. Not as some pre -existent thought, he existed in the presence, the Father is identified as Yahweh, the

28:57

Spirit is the Spirit of Yahweh, and so when we look at the comparison between the clarity with which the

29:08

New Testament reveals these things, and the argumentation of the Quran, the first question we have to ask is, why do modern

29:17

Muslims have significantly more knowledge of the Trinity than the author of the

29:23

Quran did? Is that not sufficient to make you go, well that raises questions concerning the divine nature of the

29:32

Quran itself. And secondly, this also tells us the Quran is separated from the

29:39

Old and New Testaments. Even though the Quran claims that it's the same God that Natsal sent down the

29:45

Torah and the Injil, gave them to Moses, gave them to Jesus, then he gives the Quran to Muhammad, that's a chain in Surah 5, it is broken by any meaningful analysis of what these documents teach.

29:58

So in regards to the philosophical argumentation that you can dig into, and we will get into, here's the issue.

30:10

Jake has already said that the Muslim position can be established solely by philosophical argumentation.

30:19

And he has said that it's a problem that I'm saying that what I believe is depend upon divine revelation.

30:25

Well he's exactly right, it is dependent upon divine revelation. Romans chapter 1 is not a contradiction to that, because Romans chapter 1 is talking about only those aspects of God's being that can be understood through that which has been created, specifically his divine nature and his power, which holds us accountable to give thanks to him and honor him as God, not all the rest of the revelation of Scripture that is given to us.

30:47

But I embrace the reality that the doctrine of the Trinity is a biblical doctrine and we must depend upon divine revelation, because to truly understand even

30:59

God's eternal nature, or God's immutability, or God's aseity, all of that is dependent upon revelation as well.

31:08

Because every one of those aspects has been disputed by philosophers at some point in time down through history.

31:15

And so if natural theology and philosophy is our final authority, then we will never know who

31:21

God is. And Christians have never claimed that that is the final authority. Scripture must be the final authority and that's the problem, because the author of the

31:31

Quran did not know what is in the scriptures that came before him. And that is a major, major problem that we will have to discuss.

31:41

So finally, let me emphasize, when we talk about being, when we talk about person, how do we define these things?

31:49

We define these things in light of a higher authority than any kind of philosophical dictionary, or the current analytical philosophy perspective, or anything like that.

32:07

We define being in person not on the basis of philosophers that lived before the time of Jesus.

32:14

We are using these words to describe a divine reality. In history,

32:20

Jesus entered into human flesh. He walked amongst us.

32:26

He prayed to the Father. The Father spoke to him and said, this is my beloved

32:32

Son in whom I am well pleased. He had fellowship with the Father on the Mount of Transfiguration. He's ascended to the right hand of the

32:37

Father today. He intercedes for his people. That is the historical reality and the New Testament writers then took all the unique passages about Yahweh and applied them to Jesus, and to the

32:51

Father, and to the Spirit in the New Testament. And so what I am saying is, whatever definition we use for being and person, the ultimate definer of these things is not philosophical categories because they aren't big enough.

33:09

The Christian God is too big for human philosophy. Too big!

33:16

Those philosophical terms must be defined so that they accurately represent what is found in the prior, prior in the sense of importance, prior in the sense of defining the prior source of Scripture.

33:32

If you don't go there, all you have left, whether you're Muslim or Christian or anything else, is mankind's speculations concerning God.

33:44

Rather than God says, you have man allows

33:49

God to say. We don't want that. We've seen the mess that that produces.

33:54

We don't want to go there. And so the ultimate authority has to be found in the defining power of Scripture itself.

34:02

We must be consistent with that and nothing else. And since Jake finished up a little bit early, so will

34:11

I. So that was 15 minutes and so now we have 10 minute rebuttals starting with with Jake.

34:22

This would be, of course, the point in time where you begin to interact before the cross -examination period that will take place later.

34:30

There will be another five minute rebuttal period that will come after this as well.

34:37

So 10 minutes, turning it over to Jake. Go ahead. One second,

34:47

I'm just setting up my timer here. Okay, here we go.

34:58

So Dr. White, in those 15 minutes, of course, as he said, it seemed like it was going on for a long time.

35:04

I made a lot of notes. I'll try to address as much as I can, but let's see what I can do in these 10 minutes.

35:11

Okay, Bismillah. So one of the main points, obviously, is that he said that the Trinity is grounded in the

35:17

Bible and it's grounded in Scripture. Of course, that's his claim. And I am for the sake of this debate and for the sake of this argument,

35:25

I'm just saying, okay, well, Dr. White, that's your position. You think the Bible is true. You think the Trinity is true because it's in the

35:32

Bible. Well, let's see whether or not it makes any sense. That's what I'm going to be pressing on here. I'm not going to go into a tit -for -tat quoting scriptures back and forth, although I will mention a couple for consideration.

35:43

So that's the first point. Second point is, he says, well, it seems like the Qur 'an doesn't know as much about the

35:50

Trinity as Jake does. Well, Jake is presenting these in -

35:55

No, it does. But the Qur 'an is a book of guidance, okay? It's not a metaphysical textbook in the way that some people may want to understand things.

36:06

No, it's not. It's meant for people like me, as well as, and I'm not saying that I'm some grand person, but it's also meant for the farmer, okay?

36:14

The common person who doesn't even understand these things. And Allah does address the Trinity, and all these different conceptions of it.

36:22

He doesn't need to go into relative identity Trinitarianism and social Trinitarianism and refute all these different positions systematically.

36:29

No. He says, do not say three. Simple. It excommunicates all of anything you want to say about the

36:36

Trinity when it says there's one God, and do not say three. Do not say three persons.

36:42

Do not say three gods. It does answer the problem. Okay, that's the first thing. Second thing is, third thing is,

36:50

Dr. White also mentioned the Nicene Creed, and the fact that it came out some hundred years before the

36:56

Qur 'an was revealed. That's true. And he thinks that the Qur 'an didn't address it. Well, I want to point back to my original statement.

37:03

Yes, the Qur 'an does address it. قُلْ هُوَ اللَّهُ أَحَدُ اللَّهُ صَمَدُ لَمْ يَلِدْ وَلَمْ يُولَدْ لَمْ يَلِدْ وَلَمْ يُولَدْ is a direct refutation of the

37:13

Nicene Creed. The Son, or God, does not beget, nor is He begotten.

37:18

It's a direct refutation of what James White thinks is in the Bible and what is found in the

37:24

Nicene Creed. We do not believe that God can beget or be eternally begotten in the way that I just said with the

37:31

Son. Okay, so the Qur 'an does clearly address the Trinity in the sense that it says, do not say three.

37:37

It covers all these different conceptions to say, no, you're all wrong. And then it also addresses the

37:42

Nicene Creed clearly in Surah Ikhlas. Okay, so that's clear, I hope, for the audience.

37:48

Now, we've got several points here left. He also mentions, well, the Qur 'an doesn't seem to possess the same knowledge on the

37:56

Trinity as Jake. Well, what's your evidence for it? I just provided evidence for the fact that it does, it knocks them out clear in one swipe.

38:03

It doesn't need to go into all these little tiny details, but for some people who need it, like the audience, that's what

38:10

I'm here to do. The Qur 'an, as I said, is a book of guidance. It's not a systematic metaphysical textbook, okay?

38:15

That's why even Christians have systematic theology texts. That doesn't mean that the Bible is insufficient.

38:22

It means that men can extrapolate and explain things. It's perfectly reasonable and fine. And I think

38:27

Dr. White should be charitable in the same way that I wouldn't accuse him of having Wayne Grudem's systematic theology text and say, well, therefore, the

38:36

Bible doesn't know these things or the Bible is insufficient. No, I think that's a bit of a silly argument. Now, secondly, when it comes to this issue, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

38:49

So even if I granted you the fact that this information was absent from the text of the

38:54

Qur 'an, it doesn't follow necessarily from that that therefore the Qur 'an didn't know these things or the author of the

39:00

Qur 'an didn't know them. You have to provide a further argument to establish that point.

39:06

Now, he's also mentioned, and I'm not obviously not going in the order of his presentation, but I'm trying to hit on as many points as I can.

39:13

He also mentioned Qur 'an chapter 4, verse 171, when it talks supposedly about the

39:20

Trinity, when it says, do not say three. He also mentioned a verse which talks about both

39:26

Mary and Jesus used to eat food. And he didn't explicitly say this unless I missed it, but I know it's a common, you know,

39:35

Christian apologetic trope that the Qur 'an misunderstands the Trinity. He did intimate towards it implicitly twice.

39:45

One, first that saying, well, Allah is one of three and we only believe in one God, so what is the

39:50

Qur 'an talking about? Well, maybe it's because Dr. White's notion of the Trinity is not actually historical, okay?

39:57

And what do I mean by that is that the early Trinitarian Christians believe in something which was called the monarchy, okay?

40:03

Because they didn't actually have the word monotheism and polytheism, they made a distinction between monarchy and polyarchy, which is one rule versus three ruling, okay?

40:13

And they said that the Father was the monarchy of the Trinity. And that's why they did not hold that the

40:20

Son and the Spirit were ase, because they thought that if they were, that would result in a polyarchy, which for them was polytheism.

40:27

Okay, so now let's look at this one of three thing. I'm gonna read from a Christian scholar who's a good friend of mine,

40:33

Dr. Brough Branson, and he quotes on this, and he directly refutes Dr. White. Listen to what he says.

40:39

Consider also that in the Qur 'an and other early Muslim writings, Christian belief in the

40:44

Trinity is depicted not as a belief that God is composed of three or contains three, as we might expect an egalitarian view to be described, but as belief that God is one of three, as we would expect a monarchial view to be described.

41:01

Example, and he gives some of the verses that Dr. White mentioned, which is chapter 5 verse 72 and 573, where it says

41:08

Christians associate others with God, and describes Christians or Trinitarians as, quote, those who say that Allah is one of three.

41:18

Now listen, this is directly on Dr. White's point. Most Western scholars dismiss this kind of talk as a misunderstanding of the

41:25

Trinity. But was it? Or was it simply that the kind of Trinitarianism Muhammad alayhi salam and his companions were familiar with, living around the eastern edge of the

41:36

Empire during the late 6th and early 7th century, was monarchial? We need not conclude that its identification of Allah or God with the first person of the

41:46

Trinity, instead of the Trinity as a whole, is a mistake, any more than we should conclude that its identification of the

41:53

Sun as a second person of the Trinity is a mistake. So, no, Dr. Branson clearly states in this that the

42:00

Qur 'an's representation of it is perfectly in line with his understanding of the Trinity, and perhaps many of the

42:06

Trinitarians that the Prophet Muhammad alayhi salam would have come in contact with. So maybe

42:11

Dr. White is not familiar with that point, but I think that he needs to consider it seriously. Now, what else do we have here?

42:19

We had a bunch of texts from the Bible, Philippians 2, John 17, 5, I believe.

42:26

He wrote Isaiah 9, 6, 1st Corinthians, all these different biblical texts. Listen, as I said, if you want to play that game,

42:33

I could go to John 17, 3. I could go to Romans 9, 5, for example, where it says that the

42:39

God over Jesus Christ is who? Is God the Father? Now, can

42:44

God have a God over Himself? Well, no. The notion of God over Himself seems to be irreflexive, okay?

42:52

So it would make no sense if Jesus Christ is God in the same way that God the Father is, okay?

42:57

So that's a point. John 17, 3, the only true God is God the Father. Jesus Christ explicitly states that.

43:03

Then you're gonna quote John 17, 5. We're gonna go back and forth. I'm avoiding this. This has been done many, many times in Muslim debates.

43:10

I think it's largely played out, and we've done it over and over again. Now, some other points here that I think need to be addressed from Dr.

43:19

White was, oh, his presuppositionalism, maybe we can actually have a conversation about at some point in a future debate.

43:27

I think his epistemology is radically flawed. And the fact that he has to assume that the Bible and the Trinity are true in order for it to be true.

43:34

He said, explicitly agreed with my argument, saying that Trinity is dependent on divine revelation.

43:39

Well, yeah, that's precisely the point, because how in the world could anybody be expected to be judged by the fact whether or not they believe in the

43:47

Trinity or know that the Trinity is true if they don't even know about it? Is Dr. White then gonna say, well, the

43:52

Amazonian who has no knowledge of the Trinity whatsoever, but maybe could rationally deduce that there is some type of creator, is he gonna be punished for not knowing the

44:00

Trinity? Well, that's a question that Dr. White has to answer. Now, he also mentioned he tries to cast doubt on human philosophy in general.

44:08

He says, well, even contingency arguments and ontological arguments and these things have been disputed.

44:13

Well, does it, from it merely being disputed, does it mean it's problematic? Well, no, of course not, because if that's the case, then this debate here is silly, because I'm disputing the

44:23

Trinity. Now, because the Trinity is disputed, even among supposed Christians where you have Unitarians, does that mean that it's necessarily false?

44:31

No, of course not. That's what the whole point of the subject of this debate is. Now, he hasn't even really defined being in person yet.

44:38

I hope that he'll be able to do so. I hope that he'll be able to respond in his rebuttal to some of my arguments, and I'll list them off again.

44:45

Unfortunately, I'm running out of time, but I hope that he will at least even attempt to respond to my arguments in the way that I have attempted to respond to his arguments.

44:54

I may have missed out on a few points, but that's all I have to say. Thank you very much. All right, thank you.

45:02

Okay, so I now have a 10 -minute rebuttal as well. I will, in this 10 minutes, seek to look at the opening presentation, then use my five minutes to respond to what was just said, if you want to sort of keep track of these things.

45:18

So many things here. First of all, we have agreed, I think, and this is going to be part of,

45:24

I'm sure, the cross -examination. My position is the doctrine of the Trinity is based upon divine revelation, the action of God in history, in the incarnation of Christ, death, burial, and resurrection of Christ, his ascension, the

45:36

Father, the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. This happened in history. It is then recorded for us in Scripture, and therefore all the answering of questions that people might have is based upon scriptural foundations.

45:49

And so if you want to say, well, man's human philosophy is above what

45:55

God says in Scripture, I immediately just simply say, there's where the issue is, and I don't think the vast majority of Muslims would actually take that perspective, but there have been, obviously, great disagreements.

46:09

So when we talk about being in person, what are we talking about? The being of God is that which makes God, God. There is one God, Yahweh, and God's being is described as infinite and eternal and unchanging and all these things for us in Scripture, and yet the reality of the scriptural revelation is that truth is continued on into the

46:26

New Testament, and the fact that the Father is described as Yahweh, the Son is described as Yahweh, the

46:31

Spirit is the Spirit of Yahweh, the functions and actions of Yahweh are attributed to Father, Son, and Spirit in different ways, becomes the foundation upon which we have to define what is absolutely unique.

46:47

One of the problems here is that if you look at some of the things that have been said, if Jake's position was true,

46:55

God could not be unique. God cannot be unique, because you have to be able to use philosophical categories and to answer certain philosophical questions.

47:06

What if God is absolutely unique? What if he is absolutely unique in how he exists? What if he's absolutely unique in how he's revealed himself?

47:11

What if Jesus is absolutely unique as the God -man? And hence, none of these categories can even begin to express the fullness of what we have in divine revelation.

47:21

God couldn't be unique. He would have to be limited to what human philosophy can judge him to be.

47:28

Again, that then helps us to understand. Well, people struggle to define the term person.

47:35

Why? Because we as human beings are taking our human categories and projecting them upward upon something that's far greater than we are, and we cannot help but, when we think of a person, and this was happening over and over again,

47:49

Jake was constantly separating the persons and using the same categories for being in person and saying, see there's a contradiction here.

47:56

Not recognizing that the reason we make the distinction is a biblical reason.

48:02

It's found in our ultimate authorities, and we're simply using this language to answer questions about what

48:11

Scripture says. And so when he says, but does any of this make sense in whose judgment? By what standard?

48:18

By the standard that Jesus taught? The standard Jesus taught is inspired Scripture. So did

48:26

Jesus concern himself about Aristotle or Plato and the standards they set?

48:32

No, he didn't. He said that men would be judged by what God's Word revealed about them and to them.

48:42

That would be the final judgment. And so when you say, does it make sense?

48:48

Yes, it makes sense in light of divine revelation, and as long as you allow the definitions to flow from divine revelation, it makes perfect sense.

48:59

It is a created artificial argument when you say, well I'm going to take these lesser definitions, these more narrow definitions, and I'm going to force them into the divine revelation.

49:12

That's the only way you can create the contradiction. The contradiction isn't there in Scripture. The contradiction is when we take human philosophical categories and try to cram them onto the incredible reality that the second person of the

49:27

Trinity took on flesh and dwelt among us. He was Emmanuel. He was the Almighty God, as we're told in Isaiah, come to dwell amongst his people.

49:38

That is a pretty major thing. That is an amazing thing. That is what the Christians have been proclaiming.

49:44

Islam denies that and turns around from that and goes back from that high revelation, and in the process then creates these arguments.

49:55

But the problem is, like I said, those arguments are not what we have in the

50:00

Quran itself. We'll get to that in the second rebuttal period. Now it's interesting, John Calvin emphasized that Jesus was

50:07

Altafeas, and so the argument that was made earlier about aseity and the

50:13

Father, Son, and Spirit, this is a good example. Aseity has to do with the being of God. Aseity has to do with the eternal, unchanging being of God.

50:24

The relationships that Calvin's addressing and that the post -Nicene fathers are addressing between Father, Son, and Spirit is not talking about the being of God, and it's not talking about temporal relationships between the persons.

50:39

This is again where we take our human categories, read them backwards improperly into something that is not actually a human category.

50:48

We think of person as a person, the body and hair and limited experience and finite and so on and so forth, and it's very difficult for us to separate ourselves from that kind of language.

51:01

But what they're talking about is the logical relationship between the divine persons and specifically in how we would identify them before creation.

51:13

And so once you have creation, then you have redemption taking place. You have what's called the Economic Trinity, where you can see that the

51:20

Father, Son, and Spirit take different roles in how Revelation takes place and in dealing with the people of Israel.

51:28

Genesis 18 and 19, for example, you have Yahweh walking with Abram by the

51:34

Oaks of Mamre and raining fire and brimstone from Yahweh in heaven upon Sodom and Gomorrah.

51:40

So you have distinctions being made all the way back in Genesis that we must allow to determine our position.

51:50

Which is more important, even for a Muslim, which is more important? Genesis and Abraham or Socrates or Aristotle?

52:00

Socrates and Aristotle must be made, or some modern person if you want to really get up to date and become an analytical philosopher or something, those people or the ancient

52:12

Revelation that Jesus said we would be held accountable to? In fact, that Jesus said was

52:18

God speaking to us and that we would be held accountable to. That really is a question I would want to ask not only every

52:24

Christian, but every Muslim as well. Which one is most important there?

52:30

And so the conflation of categories. For example, the law of classical identity was raised.

52:40

And again, are we talking here about how you identify finite creatures or how the infinite

52:48

God communicates with finite creatures and reveals himself? Is there not a difference between the two?

52:55

Of course there is! There has to be. It's interesting that in the quotation that was given, that this idea only has relevance outside of, does not have relevance outside of Christian theology.

53:10

I found that fascinating. I'd love to expand upon that because the fact that that says most of what this debate is about.

53:19

Christian theology is bigger than man's philosophical systems because of what happened in history.

53:26

There is an empty tomb that sheds light on all the rest of history.

53:33

Sadly, the Quran closes that tomb and denies that it actually was ever filled with the body.

53:41

And so there's no light to come from that tomb and there's no mediator to be able to explain these things and to reveal these things.

53:48

But the fact of the matter is, Christian theology that says, Emmanuel, God with us, explodes these categories and says, you must expand them so that they can't actually accurately reflect what is found in Scripture, which is

54:07

God speaking. And what is the most important thing? God speaking or man speaking? I think it's very important that we explain what

54:13

God has said in his Word. But man's categories can never be the ultimate authority in defining what

54:20

God's Word has actually revealed. There then was an accusation of social

54:26

Trinitarianism, which again, if what you mean by that is recognition that the

54:31

New Testament speaks of a relationship between Father and Son, that's not social Trinitarianism.

54:37

That's just historical Trinitarianism. The kind of social Trinitarianism that's normally being described, fundamentally does have a problem with monotheism.

54:48

But who is the one who keeps saying, one God, Yahweh, revealed his Father, Son, and Holy Spirit?

54:54

The New Testament writers making these identifications, that's not social Trinitarianism. So we need to be very careful with the terms we're using and my time is up as well and I think

55:04

I did pretty much the exact same amount of time that Jake did. I'm not trying to imitate Jake, I'm really not.

55:11

Besides, I would look really silly in one of those hats, especially with it saying the

55:17

Muslim metaphysician on it. But I've noticed no one has offered to send me one, either one, so I don't know what to...

55:25

I'm hoping you don't sell it. You don't have like an online store or anything, do you Jake? No, I don't, but if you want one,

55:31

I can send you one for free. Something tells me you'd get shut down really fast if you tried to sell something like that.

55:40

But anyways, all right, five -minute rebuttals, believe you me, five minutes goes very, very, very quickly. So Jake, your turn.

55:55

Okay, so I've got five minutes here, let me try to answer as much as I possibly can in that amount of time.

56:00

Now, Dr. White in his opening statement actually mentioned, and now again somewhat, about the discontinuity between the supposedly the

56:12

Qur 'an and the Bible. Well, your idea that God is a Trinitarian God seems to be entirely in discontinuity with the

56:21

Old Testament text. In fact, I think I've heard you say that the revelation of the

56:26

Trinity was in between Malachi and Matthew, which means that it was not clearly revealed in the

56:31

Old Testament. Now, you can look at and take New Testament eyes and look back and read things into the Old Testament, fine, but you're not going to be making our

56:38

Jewish friends any happier. And in fact, the Jews in this case would agree with the Muslims and our general conception of God and would disagree with the

56:47

Trinity. So who's the one that's in discontinuity with the text of the Old Testament?

56:52

I would say that you are more so than the Muslims, and I think that in fact many of our Jewish brothers would agree with this point.

56:59

Now, Dr. White makes the accusation that I conflated categories. I didn't see any evidence of this whatsoever, other than merely asserting it to be the case.

57:08

He said that God, Jake's God cannot be unique. Well, why? Yes, of course he can be unique.

57:14

Consider the fact that my God is Ase, although I've already demonstrated that your God is not Ase, my

57:20

God is unique because he's Ase, he's self -existent, whereas Jesus Christ wasn't. Also given the fact that he's omniscient, he's the omniscient creator of all that exists.

57:30

If that's not unique, then I don't know what it is. I honestly, I lose a touch really of what unique would be at that point.

57:36

It seems sufficient enough to say that it's unique. And guess what? Although it's unique, it's understandable.

57:41

It doesn't contradict reason which God gave us. Now, is Jake putting reason over revelation?

57:47

No. The Muslim position is that reason and revelation can never contradict each other because they're always going to be in agreement because God is a logical being that actually makes sense, and he presents himself in a way that actually makes sense.

58:01

Okay, so Jake is not putting logic and reason over the Quran or over God or over the

58:07

Bible, but he's perfectly understandable. And there's a difference between God being contradictable,

58:15

God being a contradiction or appearing to be a contradiction, and us fully comprehending

58:20

God. Those are two different things. Now, Dr. White also says, he also basically admits you have to assume that the

58:27

Bible is true in order for the Trinity to be true. Well, fine, that's fine. Maybe we can have a discussion about epistemology and whether or not the

58:33

Bible is true at another point. And, you know, that somewhat would come prior to this, to be honest with you.

58:41

Again, he repeats that my arguments are not in the Quran. I've already addressed that. He mentioned John Calvin and Assaity.

58:47

And yeah, John Calvin makes the distinction between the essence of God. He says that Christ possesses the essence of God, which is

58:54

Assaity. But in terms of his person, meaning the son, he is and does have a beginning.

59:00

He is not Assaity. And to say and even take the position as some of the reformers said, that Christ's divine nature can be mediated to him and still be

59:09

Assaity is flat out absurd. Dr. Ryan Mullins writes that in the paper. And if I have more time, maybe

59:15

I'll read that quote. But to say that Assaity is something that can be mediated is completely absurd.

59:23

Also, let's just point out an obvious fact that Dr. White didn't answer or really address any of my argumentation, except other than admitting that the

59:32

Trinity cannot be known apart from Scripture. So that's a huge problem. If Dr. White cannot address my other three or four arguments, then he hasn't even begin to establish the

59:42

Trinity. Consider the fact that he talked about being in person and saying that these things need to be known or defined by Scripture.

59:49

Okay, but you haven't even given us a rigorous definition of these terms. You haven't clearly defined what being in person is, the distinction between them, how they relate to one another.

59:58

You haven't even done any of that work to clearly explain to the audience. And so right now, I feel you're inviting me to something that I don't even know what it is.

01:00:06

So I can't accept it. I can't even deny it because I don't know what it means. What other points do we have here?

01:00:12

He mentions classical identity, and mentions that classical identity is different from God and creation. Do I hold that position?

01:00:18

No, it's absurd. Why? Because the logic of classical identity, it's not something that was invented by Aristotle and these

01:00:24

Aristotelian philosophers. No, it's something that was known and discovered. It's something that even a baby basically understands.

01:00:31

It's not different from God and creation, because it's a logical necessary law.

01:00:37

It's not contingent based upon subject matter. So yes, the laws of logic and how they're classically understood do apply to God.

01:00:44

God cannot be a contradiction, God cannot violate classical identity, and God cannot violate excluded middle.

01:00:50

If that's the case, then we can all pack up and go home because we can have contradictory positions and call it a night.

01:00:56

I think my time is up. All right, so I have five minutes now as well.

01:01:04

Okay, you haven't clearly defined anything yet. The interaction of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in Scripture.

01:01:19

Those are not the standards you want. You want modern analytical philosophy, and I say to you, they are insufficient and that is not what the origin and belief of the doctrine of the

01:01:30

Trinity is, and I have a feeling that most early Muslims would have agreed with all of that. You said that there's a discontinuity with the

01:01:38

Old Testament text with what we're saying. You're not understanding what I'm saying. The New Testament fully understands the context.

01:01:45

The Old Testament utilizes it, quotes from it, understands it. There's nothing like that in the Koran whatsoever. There is no evidence that the author of the

01:01:52

Koran has a meaningful understanding of the content of what is found in the

01:01:57

New Testament and its revelation of who Jesus Christ was and its teaching about him. None. Therefore to say that it actually refutes what

01:02:04

Christians believe simply doesn't make any sense whatsoever. When we look at the rebuttal period, you are asked, well you know the

01:02:13

Koran is, you said the Koran is meant for farmers. But then you turn around and said, well it does refute all forms of Trinitarianism because it says do not say three.

01:02:22

Every single time it says three, the next line in Arabic is there is only one

01:02:27

God Allah. So what's it saying? It's making the allegation of polytheism.

01:02:33

Now why should I believe, because you did, I think you slipped at one point,

01:02:38

Jake. I honestly think you did because you quoted from someone you called a friend of yours and said well maybe, maybe

01:02:45

Muhammad just knew about the monarchical Christians in his area.

01:02:50

And I'm like, whoa wait a minute, are you telling me that Muhammad's understanding of Christianity determines the text of the

01:02:56

Koran? I need to know if you believe that because most Muslims believe the Koran was written on an eternal tablet, there is not a fingerprint of man on it, and Muhammad's understanding is irrelevant.

01:03:06

Now I would agree, I would agree that it's very very important to talk about, for example, what happened when

01:03:13

Muhammad met with the Christians from Najran and the result being part of Surah 3. I agree that Muhammad grew in his understanding.

01:03:22

What that means is that also explains why the Koran misrepresents the Doctrine of the Trinity, because Muhammad did not understand it either.

01:03:28

But then that fundamentally denies what you believe about what the Koran actually is. So we need to understand what's going on there.

01:03:35

By the way, Romans 9 .5 does not say that Jesus has a God over him. If it was talking about Jesus in the incarnate state, that wouldn't be an issue.

01:03:44

But from whom is the Christ according to flesh who is God over all, blessed forever. I have an entire section on Romans 9 .5

01:03:51

in the Forgotten Trinity if you want to look at the syntax of that particular description that is found there as well.

01:03:58

By the way, it was said, well if the Trinity can't be understood through natural revelation, if it's not just a part of reflection upon creation, which it is not.

01:04:09

The Trinity is based upon what God did in history and not everybody knows what God did in history. Then how can they be judged?

01:04:16

They're judged as sinners. They're judged for rejecting God's role in their life.

01:04:22

They're not judged for rejecting the Trinity. That's nowhere said. They are judged for the fact that they did not give thanks to God or honor him as God.

01:04:32

Now could someone be judged who knows the Trinity is true and then rejects it? That's a completely different category.

01:04:38

But the idea that, well, it has to be a part of this revelation. And Romans chapter 1, you made a reference about it and it's very very important.

01:04:49

What Romans 1 says is that God's being, not the fullness of his being, but just simply his divine

01:04:56

Godhead is what is revealed in Scripture. We believe in natural theology but there are limits to what natural theology can reveal and that does not therefore put constrictions upon anything else.

01:05:10

You said reason and revelation go perfectly well together. Yes, Jake, they do. But you and I have very different understandings of man's reason in the fallen state.

01:05:20

Here is a major major difference between Christians and Muslims. Man's reason has been darkened.

01:05:27

And you know where that's taught? In the very same chapter you quoted from, Romans chapter 1.

01:05:33

Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools. Their foolish understanding became darkened.

01:05:40

And so reason of a mind that has been fully open to God's truth will, of course, be in perfect harmony with God's revelation.

01:05:51

But not every mind has thusly been so opened in this particular time period.

01:05:57

So five minutes goes very very very quickly, and with that,

01:06:06

I believe, now do you want to just continue the same same order?

01:06:11

So you ask first or what? I'm leaving that up to you. Yeah, I can just ask first and then you can follow with the ten minutes.

01:06:21

Okay, that sounds good. Okay. All right, I'll start the timer when you're ready to go. Okay, give me one second.

01:06:33

Okay, so I'm ready. Now, my first question to you, Dr. White, since it was part of my argumentation is the

01:06:40

LPT, I would like to know from you, when you say that the Father is God, is that an identity statement or a statement of predication?

01:06:48

I don't think that either one of those options are really relevant to what's being asserted.

01:06:54

What we are saying is that there is one being of God that is unlimited, not limited by space, not limited by time, and therefore can be shared by more than one person, and that in divine revelation,

01:07:08

Scripture tells us that, for example, the Father is identified as Yahweh, the

01:07:14

Son is identified as Yahweh, and the Spirit is identified as Yahweh. And so it is not that, see, this is where your primary problem is,

01:07:23

I really believe. It's right here. You're trying to say, well, we are going to use these categories and we're going to force them so that it creates a conflation of being in person.

01:07:35

And I simply go, this doesn't allow that, so if you want to ask a question about what this says, the answer is, the

01:07:44

Father is Yahweh. Not exhaustively in the sense of saying the

01:07:52

Father is Yahweh and no one else could be, that's Unitarianism. But the Father is

01:07:58

Yahweh in possessing incompleteness, the entirety of the divine being.

01:08:06

So it again goes back to, by what standard? By what standard do we answer the question?

01:08:16

So you're saying that it's not relevant. What I just heard is that... No, I didn't say that. Well, let me finish.

01:08:22

What I heard you say is that it's not relevant and that you didn't choose an option. I didn't hear a clear option being taken.

01:08:29

Now, I read from William Lane Craig where he stated that if these declarations are intended to imply that statements like the

01:08:36

Father is God are identity statements, then they threaten the doctrine of the Trinity with logical incoherence.

01:08:41

So it seems obvious to me, as well as other Christians, that think that there is a significant difference between an is of identity and an is of predication.

01:08:49

And if you're unable to tell us what it is, I think you have a massive problem. So are you still not taking a position on whether it's an is of identity or an is of predication?

01:09:00

I'll repeat the answer that I just gave. The question you're asking is insufficiently broad to allow for a biblical answer, and I reject

01:09:10

William Lane Craig for the very reason that he subjugates biblical revelation to the same philosophical categorization that limits the possibilities, which ends up forcing him into historical heresies.

01:09:27

And he embraces them. Why? Because I have been saying for 15, maybe 20 years, that Bill Craig has his order of epistemology upside down, reversed.

01:09:41

For him, philosophy comes first, and that creates theology. I believe that that is a disaster.

01:09:48

So please don't say that I said it's not relevant. I said the categories of your question are insufficient given the biblical categories of revelation.

01:09:58

That's not the same thing. I'd like to move on to the next question, if that's okay. So my question is, is aseity a necessary attribute of God?

01:10:10

Yes. I mean, and that is, that is, of course, applied to Yahweh. Yahweh is most definitely absolutely self -contained and depended upon nothing outside of himself.

01:10:23

Is the Son Yahweh? The Son participates and shares the one being that is

01:10:30

Yahweh, the divine being, yes. Is the person of the Son ase? Personhood is not being.

01:10:39

You're conflating categories. So you're asking a question that cannot possibly have a meaning, because in the definition we've already given, person is distinguished from being, and the being of the

01:10:53

Son is what possesses aseity. The relationship between Father, Son, and Spirit is atemporal and logical, and to ask that question is to conflate categories and create heresy.

01:11:09

Why would it be when explicitly Calvin states that the person of the

01:11:15

Son has a beginning and he's not ase? So I didn't ask, merely ask the question, it's brought up by Calvin himself.

01:11:21

He did not say, he did not, whatever, you'd have to give me a specific reference.

01:11:27

I will after the debate. Calvin did not say that the Son, as the Son, had a beginning in time, since he taught he was al -tafayas.

01:11:36

He teaches that the Son as a person has a beginning, but I want to move on. I'll give you the quote after the debate.

01:11:43

Okay, we'll give you the quote afterwards. Yeah, you can ask me about it, and I'll read you again the direct quote.

01:11:49

So, do you think that aseity is a property that can be shared? No. Meaning, can it be mediated to another?

01:12:02

Um, no, because it has to do with the being of God, and there's only one being of God that could possibly be self -sufficient and uncreated.

01:12:13

Yeah, so then how can the son possess aseity if he comes from the father? Because you keep conflating being in person.

01:12:21

No, but even if I just don't think you seem to be able to see that we're talking about the being of God, aseity, and then you have the father, son, the spirit, full possession of that being and their relationship with one another.

01:12:35

You are mixing categories. That's, it's creation of contradiction through denial of the ultimate authority of scripture to define the categories.

01:12:46

No, I'm saying that even if it's contained in the essence of God, the fact that the essence of God is mediated to the son, he could not possibly have aseity because aseity is not a property that can be shared or mediated in that sense.

01:13:00

That's what I'm claiming. Now, I believe that the son is autotheos, he is God in and of himself.

01:13:07

The only thing that is quote -unquote mediated is in a logical, not a temporal or ontological sense.

01:13:14

It's simply talking about relationship. It is not talking about how we're almost turning the being of God into a physical substance that can be put through a pipe or something, and that's obviously, hopefully, we all can recognize completely wrong.

01:13:32

Okay, so I'll move on from that topic. I want to know, because you did state in your debate, and I think

01:13:38

I accurately represented you, that you believe that the persons of the trinity are three centers of self -consciousness, each having a will.

01:13:46

Now, based on this conception, if you affirm it, how do you clearly distinguish between polytheism and monotheism?

01:13:53

I think that is a quotation that is coming from a Q &A session with a modalist, so you might want to actually go to the specific discussion where I laid these things out in the

01:14:07

Forgotten Trinity rather than a cross -examination question with a modalist where you would have modalism as the context of answering the question, someone who denies the existence of the persons.

01:14:20

So you wouldn't maintain that definition that you gave? Would you change it? I don't think that's the definition that I gave.

01:14:26

Could you give a direct quote? Yeah, he literally asked you if you believed in a three -minded

01:14:31

God, and you avoided answering the question, and eventually said, yes, you believe that there's three centers of self -consciousness.

01:14:38

You said, yes. So, I mean, if you don't affirm that, it's fine. So I'm responding to a modalist and indicating that Jesus, for example, knows of the

01:14:49

Father's existence and His existence with the Father in eternity past, and that somehow becomes a definitional statement?

01:14:59

Well, let's move on because we can't now tie down what you said. I have what you said, but we'll look at it later.

01:15:06

My question then to you more broadly then would be, how do you distinguish between monotheism and polytheism?

01:15:14

I said in my opening statement, there is one God, Yahweh, who created all things, who is eternal without beginning and without end.

01:15:23

How much more basic do I have to get? I think it requires a lot more than that, because when we're talking about these different conceptions of the

01:15:32

Trinity, you yourself admitted that there's problems with social Trinitarianism. It seems to me that your definition is a form of social

01:15:39

Trinitarianism, and I don't understand how you differentiate that from polytheism. Well, I think that clearly shows that you have not understood what it is that I'm saying.

01:15:53

Anyone who's read The Forgotten Trinity knows that I very, very plainly presented in the book entire defenses of the fact that there is only one true

01:16:01

God, and so polytheism would be the assertion that there are multiple gods, not that Father, Son, and Spirit in full possession of the one being of God can have communion with one another, which is what

01:16:17

Christians have believed from the beginning. How do you define the term being, and what makes the person's one?

01:16:25

Being, again, is what makes God God. Yahweh. It is uncreated, unlimited, and what makes the person's one?

01:16:35

I don't know what you mean by what makes the person's one. My time is up, so.

01:16:42

Yep, that's what my clock was telling me. I wasn't watching it. Okay, timer, there we go.

01:16:56

I wasn't watching the timer either. All right, my turn, 10 minutes.

01:17:04

Okay, Jake, is it your position that the author of the Quran could have been influenced by variant views of Christology and the

01:17:16

Trinity by Christians that he ran into? No, it's not that the author of the

01:17:22

Quran was influenced, it's that the author of the Quran is omniscient. He knows that there are going to be many different conceptions of the

01:17:29

Trinity, so when he says, do not say three, it's an inclusive statement to say all of them are wrong.

01:17:36

Second, the point that I made a quote from Dr. Branson was what you basically implied in the original statement, where you said, well, it seems like the

01:17:44

Quran is misrepresenting the Trinity because it's assuming polytheism, or that there's one of three.

01:17:50

I was addressing that issue to say, no, it can even be understood to be addressing monarchical

01:17:56

Trinitarianism, which was the dominant view, and I believe the historical view, especially in that region.

01:18:01

Was Mary considered a deity in any monarchical Trinitarian understandings in history?

01:18:07

No, not as far as I understand. Then why does Surah 5, 75 say that Jesus and his mother both used to eat food?

01:18:17

Because, you see, the way, in the same way that the Bible actually has a fluid understanding of God, for example, it uses that it's called

01:18:27

Satan, the god of this world. It speaks of man as God. It calls Moses God. The Quran, likewise, has a fluid way of speaking about God.

01:18:36

For example, in chapter 45, verse 23, following down, it says,

01:18:42

Have you not seen those who take themselves as a god besides Allah? Now that person, when you go on to see, it explains who these people are.

01:18:51

It says, they say, they say that there's nothing that destroys us except the passage of time.

01:18:57

Now, what does that sound like? That sounds like modern day atheists who say that, no, we just die, we go back to the nature, and that's it, there's no afterlife, blah, blah, blah, blah.

01:19:08

What does God say in the Quran? He says they are making their own desires a god besides Allah.

01:19:15

Okay, so it's perfectly acceptable to say that, well, some people, in the way that they understand

01:19:22

Mary, in their forms of directing prayers to her, almost at times even calling her, like in Catholicism, as a second redeemer in Christ, however you want to say it.

01:19:32

Yes, these views are problematic, and it does not matter if the person explicitly says that we believe

01:19:40

Mary is God, it still results in a systematic theological problem.

01:19:45

Okay, so the same surah, surah 5, Allah says to Jesus, Did you say to men, take me and my mother for two gods besides Allah?

01:19:58

Now, what is wrong if I look at that and go, huh, I've got Allah, I've got

01:20:05

Jesus, and I've got his mother. Earlier in the same surah, it said that Mary eats food, which was an argument against her being a deity, and this is the only place, anywhere in the

01:20:17

Quran, where three are ever mentioned together in this context. So why do you believe this is, is this a description of the trinity?

01:20:28

And if it's not, what's a description of? No, it's not a description of the trinity. It's a description of people who falsely attributed divine qualities to things that are not divine.

01:20:39

For example, Jesus and Mary. Again, we have the same example in chapter 9, verse 31, when it explains,

01:20:46

Have you not seen those who take themselves lords beside the law? And explicitly is, in that case, referring to monks and rabbis.

01:20:56

Now, are there, maybe there have been some select groups in the past that explicitly said, well, this monk or rabbi is my god or my lord.

01:21:04

Maybe, but that shows that what the Quran is actually saying is you have given divine prerogative and privilege to things that do not deserve it.

01:21:14

That's what the Quran is addressing. And notice that when the times that the Quran does mention three in reference to the supposed trinity, it does not mention

01:21:23

Mary. So if you're going to be charitable, you should say, well, why didn't it mention Mary in those texts?

01:21:29

Except that surah 5, 116 is part of surah 5, which also says,

01:21:35

Surely, certainly they disbelieve who say, Surely Allah is the third of three, and there is no god but the one

01:21:42

Allah. So are you saying that surah 5 is inconsistent with itself or that we can't connect surah 5, 73 to 77, surah 5, 116?

01:21:51

What is the third of three, Jake? Who are the three? No, it's the fact that they're talking in different contexts.

01:21:59

Just because they're in the same surah doesn't mean that they have to be addressing the exact same point.

01:22:05

That would be like saying, well, Dr. White, in John 17, 3, it says that the only true god is the father.

01:22:10

And then you say, well, Jake, hey, why don't you read down two other verses and see this? Well, just because they're addressing a different point doesn't mean that you can not make sense of them together.

01:22:21

Of course you can. The first point where it's mentioning Mary is saying that, yes, they have given

01:22:27

Mary and Jesus divine prerogative. And then the latter one is saying Allah is not a third of three.

01:22:33

He's not in a class with two others. He's in a class of one alone. But they're the same content.

01:22:39

We're not even talking about 116. We're talking about 73, 74, and 75. Are you literally saying that between 73 and 75, the topic changes?

01:22:47

I thought you said 116, didn't you? I did, but I then read 73, which says, certainly this believe who say, surely

01:22:54

Allah is the third of three. And it's 75 that says she used to eat food.

01:23:01

So you have one side, and this happened to me once before. I had a debate in London where this happened. So I'm saying surah 5 is consistent with itself.

01:23:10

If you read it through, you have third of three, Mary's not a god, surah 5, 116, only a matter of sentences later, you have the same statement, and you have three.

01:23:22

You have the three. You're saying that the three of 73 is not the three of 116.

01:23:28

Who then are the other two in surah 573 when it says, surely

01:23:34

Allah is the third of three. Three what? What's it talking about? If it's not Allah, Mary, and Jesus, who is it?

01:23:41

Yeah, it's going back. The point that was established, and you want to talk about what comes prior, chapter four came prior to this.

01:23:48

So we have to understand these texts also in light of that. The point is, is that when the Qur 'an says

01:23:54

Allah is not a third of three, he's negating any trinity, any type of trifecta, whatever you want to call it, any type of three that you want to put together with Allah is unacceptable.

01:24:07

If somebody wants to include Mary, if somebody wants to include the Son, if somebody wants to include the Holy Spirit, they're all wrong.

01:24:13

It's answering it in one full sweep. Okay, all right.

01:24:18

So, what is the ultimate authority for you as to what is true and what is an error?

01:24:30

Okay, so we don't look at it as an either or. So, for example, we don't pit

01:24:36

God's revelation against reason. We understand that they coexist together and that scripture can be understood in light of reason.

01:24:44

Okay, so we have maybe, I said this before and you seem to agree, but at the same time you don't.

01:24:51

I think that God is logical, that he cannot possibly do contradictory things, and then he cannot possibly reveal contradictory things.

01:24:59

So, when you talk about ultimate authority, yes, God is the ultimate authority, but guess what?

01:25:05

He's granted me logic and reason to understand him, and that logic is not this separate and distinct thing that was created by the ancient

01:25:13

Greeks. No, it's just like the Christians say, it's thinking God's thoughts after his. So, if there's a problem with my reason, there's either a problem with me or with the supposed revelation, but in reality, they are in unison.

01:25:28

How do you know if there's a problem with the revelation? You know if there's a problem if you test it by different facts, whether it be when it comes to reason, logic, historical facts, empirical facts.

01:25:43

Yes, the Quran puts its own book to a test, for example, says that if you find in it contradictions, then it's not from God.

01:25:50

So, that's a standard that it puts forward. And yet, when you're faced with possible contradictions, you don't see it that way.

01:25:58

I mean, do you not see that you are setting up a standard? And in this situation,

01:26:05

I have been very straightforward. If what happened in history took place, if Jesus said to the

01:26:15

Jews, Ego, I am. And identify if when he said, I am, the soldiers fell back upon the ground.

01:26:22

All right? If Thomas said, my Lord and my God. If all those things were true, would that not be the most amazing thing that's ever happened in history?

01:26:33

And would not all of human philosophy have to bow in front of what

01:26:38

God did in history? If Jesus Christ actually claimed to be

01:26:43

God and he was God, is that the question? If what the New Testament records for us actually took place, would human philosophy be big enough to describe it?

01:26:55

It depends. See, the thing is, for anything to be considered to be true, it at minimum has to pass the bar of logical coherence.

01:27:05

If you don't agree with that, then yeah, we're on radically different terms. And so, I review evidence in light of that fact.

01:27:14

All right. I think we're out of time. Is that right? We are. I just managed to turn my phone off before it started playing music this time.

01:27:22

Oh, I didn't even hear it last time, to be honest with you. It was nice music. So, sometimes people embarrass themselves by the sounds their phones make.

01:27:31

But mine was Scheherazade, which is, I think, one of the most beautiful pieces of classical music ever. All right. We have 10 -minute closing statements.

01:27:40

And Jake, you get to go first. Okay. So, I'm going to start my timer now.

01:27:52

First of all, I want to thank Dr. White for hosting this debate this evening and Rich as well.

01:27:58

I appreciate the opportunity to have this discussion. I know that we got a little bit heated there at certain times.

01:28:05

I don't think it was anything bad. We managed to keep the timer pretty well and have a discussion without a moderator, like Dr.

01:28:14

White said. He probably couldn't do that with many other opponents as well as I couldn't.

01:28:20

I don't need to mention names, but I think people know some of the people that we're thinking of when we say that.

01:28:25

So, with all of our disagreements, I do appreciate Dr. White for having me on and having this, you know, dialogue.

01:28:35

With that being said, I have to address some points here, especially considering the cross -examination section.

01:28:43

I do want to point out to the audience that I don't think the majority of my arguments for the entire debate have really been touched whatsoever.

01:28:50

And what I want to do here is I want to remind the audience what my five main arguments were. Okay. So, my five arguments were first this, the fact that the notion of the

01:29:00

Trinity is a misnomer. So, the idea of the Trinity, there is no such thing. There's many different conceptions of the

01:29:06

Trinity. How they define being, how they define person is radically different. I'll give an example, which

01:29:11

I didn't even give, and I'm just giving off the top of my head here. Okay. Take, for example,

01:29:17

William Lane Craig's Trinity, in which he says that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are God, but guess what?

01:29:22

They're not fully God. In order to avoid tritheism of asserting that each one of them is fully God, he says that they're each part of God in the same way that a skeleton is part of a cat.

01:29:33

Now, Dr. White would have the same look at frustration on his face that I probably do now, and with good reason.

01:29:40

But what does that show you? That merely using traditional language of saying there's one being, three persons, they're not identical, all these things, these sort of Trinitarian catchphrases are not enough in order to explain and make a relevant difference between a

01:29:57

Trinity understanding that is actually correct and biblical versus one that is false.

01:30:03

Dr. White needed to give us clear definitions of these terms, which he failed to do so.

01:30:08

And so, because he failed to give clear definitions of these terms, I'm sorry to say, but we've been invited to something that we literally do not know.

01:30:17

I have no idea whether or not, and this is what I wanted to happen in the cross -examination section,

01:30:23

I asked Dr. White a direct question. Is the Father is God an identity statement or a statement of predication?

01:30:31

Now, I heard him say that it's not relevant. Now, the claim in and of itself that it's not relevant, and he kind of denied this, but I think we can go back and play the tape to where he said, well, no, it doesn't really seem to be relevant.

01:30:43

It's just flat out absurd, because as Dr. Craig says, that if these are identity statements, then they threaten the doctrine of the

01:30:51

Trinity with logical incoherence. Now, I want to know from Dr. White if he agrees with that. Does he think that there's absolutely no difference between saying that the

01:30:59

Father is God, meaning that he's identical to God, in the same way that Superman is Clark Kent, meaning identical to Clark Kent?

01:31:07

Does he think there's no difference between that and saying that the Father is God, meaning divine, an attribute or set of attributes predicated of the subject in the same way that Superman is strong?

01:31:18

If he wants to try to convince me in the audience that there's no relevant difference between the two whatsoever, then he has failed to engage with the material in a legitimate manner.

01:31:29

Now, also, some of the other points I mentioned, which was the idea that the Nicene Creed results in the

01:31:35

Son and the Spirit not being assay, and the Father only being assay. Now, notice that Dr.

01:31:40

White did answer and say that assayity, or the idea of self -existence, that you don't have the existence from another, is a necessary attribute of God.

01:31:49

Now, guess what? This is the same thing that the Aryans said, and they used it against Orthodox Trinitarians, because they said that the way that God is to be understood is that he's fundamentally unbegotten.

01:32:02

And hence why they said that the Son and the Spirit are not God. That's why the monarchial

01:32:08

Trinitarians, who do agree that the Son and the Spirit are not assay, they say no, that assayity is not a necessary attribute of God.

01:32:16

Because if it is, and the Son and the Spirit are not assay, then they're not God. That is not a conflation between the categories of being in person, because remember, even if you make that distinction, to say that something could be mediated to another, and yet it still possess assayity, is just abject nonsense.

01:32:35

Now, Dr. White has made a lot about the idea of what is primary,

01:32:41

God or logic. God is primary, but logic flows from who he is. What he is, and who he claims to be, and what he reveals to us, can never be in contradiction with logic.

01:32:53

It is not something that is created by man. It is a necessary logical understanding.

01:32:58

It is not something like a law of gravity or anything like that. So please don't get it confused. Now, the other arguments that he didn't address.

01:33:07

So he didn't address my argument about clearly defining us for us, the terms being in person, and differentiating his understanding of the

01:33:14

Trinity from other false ones. He didn't do that. He answered and agreed with me that the

01:33:19

Trinity cannot be known through natural revelation, and he proudly embraces this. But guess what?

01:33:25

Up until Christ, nobody really knew about the Trinity. To think that that is not a fundamental problem is absolutely absurd.

01:33:33

I don't know how could somebody possibly proudly embrace that. And yes, just a claim of uniqueness doesn't mean anything.

01:33:40

My God is unique. You know why? Because he makes sense. He's omniscient, and he's assay, and I can load on all these properties.

01:33:47

I'm not omniscient. I'm not assay. I am not unique. My God is unique, but yet I am still able to understand in the basic fundamentals of who he is.

01:33:57

He does not contradict logic, reason, or anything of the sort. So there's a fundamental difference between contradicting reason and apparent contradiction, not resolving the apparent contradiction, and something that is ultimately uncomprehensible, but we still understand the basics of it and who

01:34:15

God is. So there is a fundamental difference between that. Lastly, I gave the argument of the distinction between monotheism and polytheism.

01:34:25

Now, Dr. White seems either to misremember or not accurately remember his statement to Roger Perkins, but I highly recommend that people go and watch the

01:34:35

Roger Perkins debate and look in cross -examination section when Roger Perkins was questioning

01:34:40

Dr. White, and he specifically asked whether or not Dr. White believed in a three -minded

01:34:46

God, and Dr. White was resistant to that language. He slightly modified it and said he believes in a

01:34:53

God that has three centers of self -consciousness, each with their own proper will, meaning that they do different distinctions and do different actions in time.

01:35:03

For example, the father was not crucified on the cross, the son was, so the son performs a different action than the father does.

01:35:11

Now, if we have three persons, each with their own distinct center of self -consciousness, and each with their own proper intellect and will, and you want to tell me that that's not three gods, then

01:35:23

I lose hold of what the notion of three gods actually is. And now he wanted to say, well, they all have the same being, it seemed like what he wanted to say, well, they're one because they all possess the same nature.

01:35:36

Well, take the example of this, Jake, John, and James, we each possess the same human nature, but how many men are there?

01:35:43

There's three men, not one, and this is not a straw man of the Christian position, because St. Gregory uses this example, and he has to go the absurdity of literally saying that in that case, no, there's actually only one man, there's not three men, and I can give the quote if anybody wants it in the future.

01:36:01

The fact of the matter is, merely asserting that three things can have the same essence or same nature does not establish that there's only one being or one god.

01:36:12

In fact, as Dr. White actually explicitly said, and let me get the quote here, he said, the being is what makes

01:36:21

God, God. Now, if each one of the persons fully participates and shares the one being of God, then they each have, each person individually has fully what it means to be

01:36:34

God, meaning that they possess the fullness of the being of God, each individually in their own persons.

01:36:40

If you have three things that qualify in order to be considered God, then you flat out have three gods, and the

01:36:47

Quran's position when it asserts at many times that this does result in polytheism, it is perfectly correct, because if you have three things, each that fully sufficiently hold the things in order to be

01:37:01

God, then you have three gods. And this is why Brian Leftow, who is a

01:37:07

Christian, explicitly stated that social Trinitarianism, which Dr. White, although he doesn't want to affirm by his own lips in the discussion with Roger Perkins and Abdullah Kunde, seems to affirm a version of social

01:37:18

Trinitarianism, he calls it a reformed paganism. Why? Because he's following somewhat in the

01:37:23

Catholic tradition that Augustine's understanding of the Trinity, you know what Augustine's understanding of the

01:37:29

Trinity was? His understanding was it was God loving himself, so God the Father is

01:37:34

God loving himself, himself is the Son, and so the distinction between the Father and the

01:37:39

Son is only the difference between I and me. Now, if you think that that works out, fine, but that doesn't seem like the three -self doctrine of the

01:37:48

Bible. Now, with that, I thank you again, Dr. White, for my time, and my time is up. Thank you very much.

01:37:53

All right, thank you. Okay, I, too, also would like to thank

01:37:58

Jake for joining us today. I didn't think you got heated. Believe me, I've been in a few debates, and I guess you have, too.

01:38:06

I'm not sure who you're referring to, but I know that you have some interesting debates out there, even amongst the Muslims, so I understand that.

01:38:14

But I knew that we'd be able to get through this without any difficulty whatsoever. There are a lot of people we couldn't, and so I do appreciate and look forward to future conversations.

01:38:24

Now, I want to just lay it out very, very clearly for everyone, because it has been said over and over again,

01:38:30

I did not respond to this, I did not respond to that. I think a fair -minded person would go, yes, you responded to everything, and most of the response was,

01:38:38

Jake, you are conflating categories because you will not allow for the reality of how the doctrine of the

01:38:50

Trinity was revealed. For example, you just made this very plain. You said, well, but what about the

01:38:58

Jews, or what about before the New Testament? And yes, that's called progressive revelation, and God, in his scriptures in the

01:39:06

Old Testament, gave hints, gave prophetic indications. You see in Genesis 18 and 19, you have

01:39:14

Yahweh walking with Abraham by the Oaks of Mamre, then you have that same Yahweh raining fire and brimstone from Yahweh in heaven upon Sodom and Gomorrah.

01:39:23

You have those types of things, but not with the explicit, clear, revelatory nature that you have in the incarnation of the

01:39:30

Son, his death, burial, and resurrection, his ascension to the right hand of the Father, and then the

01:39:36

Father and the Son sending the Spirit. This is the historical revelation of the doctrine of Trinity. It takes place in time and in history.

01:39:45

That's called progressive revelation. It didn't all start from that particular point in time. It took place in history, and that's what we're dealing with.

01:39:53

And so, divine revelation determines the categories of proper philosophical expression of those divine truths, not the other way around.

01:40:03

That's where we disagree, because you continue to force external authorities upon biblical revelation, and every one of your arguments, all of your arguments, are based upon the conflation of those categories.

01:40:20

Now, I've heard you talking with others, oh, it's just ridiculous to differentiate, and yet none of you will deal exegetically with the reality that it is

01:40:29

Yahweh who lays our sins upon the Messiah. That's the Father. But Jesus is described as Yahweh in Hebrews 1, who created all things.

01:40:39

And the Spirit sent by the Father and the Son is the Spirit of Yahweh, the fulfillment of Old Testament passages. That is the revelation that must condition and determine the categories that you're using.

01:40:51

So you can continuously, over and over again, say, well, I'm just using logic. No. Logic, we are made to think

01:41:02

God's thoughts after Him. That's right. And how do we know what God's thoughts are? By His divine revelation.

01:41:08

You have natural revelation in the world, and then you have special revelation. Adam was dependent upon special revelation.

01:41:15

God had to tell Adam, do not eat of that tree. Even Adam, in the unfallen state, was dependent upon special revelation.

01:41:25

And so, when you keep that in mind, the Bible shows us one being of God, yet three divine persons who communicate with each other.

01:41:37

That's not, quote unquote, social Trinitarianism, as if you've got three different gods. There's only one being of Yahweh, and three persons identified with that name, and they communicate with one another.

01:41:50

Yes, Jesus says, Father, glorify me with the glory which I had in your presence before the world was.

01:41:58

They use personal pronouns and change verb forms so that you have communication.

01:42:05

This is a basic Christian belief. The Lamb is in front of the throne in the vision in Revelation.

01:42:13

And you can distinguish, and it almost sounded like you were just saying, he actually believes that the Father, Son, and Spirit did different things.

01:42:20

Everyone believes that. Of course they did. That's absolutely, positively, fundamentally the reality.

01:42:27

But Jake's position forces conflation of the biblical patterns.

01:42:34

The participation of the divine persons in the one being of God is utterly unique.

01:42:40

And therefore, to demand that that relationship have some kind of analogy, some kind of fit into some kind of philosophical construction, is the whole problem.

01:42:53

That's why I said, if Jake's position is true, then God cannot be unique in any of the things that he does.

01:43:00

Because there has to be something from creation that can be made analogous to how this is.

01:43:07

Simply saying, well, you can't tell us how the divine person shared the one being of God. You can't tell me how a law is eternal either.

01:43:16

You can only assert it. Why? Because you have divine revelation that says so. That divine revelation happens to be true.

01:43:22

It's not because it's divine revelation, but it's because it's found in the preceding scriptures. You said that I proudly embrace the idea that this was something that was revealed in history.

01:43:34

Yes, like I said, that's called progressive revelation. That's a basic Christian belief.

01:43:41

By the way, the example of Jake, John, and James, which you've discussed a lot in your videos and things like that in your quotation from Gregory, here's the problem.

01:43:53

Humanity is finite. Humanity is finite. This is sort of an illustration. We can't, humanity is a nebulous thing.

01:44:01

This is where I disagree with that particular citation. I think it was a bad illustration. Is my participation in humanity, humanity is a nebulous thing that changes each and every day.

01:44:13

There's a whole lot more humanity today than there was in the days of the New Testament, right?

01:44:19

I mean, there's a whole lot more humans around. Does that mean humanity has gotten bigger? I don't think so.

01:44:26

But the point is, the being of Yahweh is unlimited. And hence, how the divine persons partake of that one being cannot have any kind of created analogy.

01:44:41

There's nothing you can compare it to. I've been asked by other Muslims, give us an example that would help us to understand how

01:44:48

Jesus can be the God -man or something like that. And my answer always is, I can't because he wouldn't be the

01:44:53

God -man if I could. So the uniqueness of the

01:44:59

Christian message is exactly what the author of the Quran did not understand.

01:45:05

The New Testament had not yet been translated into Arabic at the time of Muhammad's life and would not be for another 200 years.

01:45:14

He may have heard someone giving oral. Well, the fact of the matter is the

01:45:19

Quran thinks that non -canonical scriptures are a part of what

01:45:25

Christians believe. So there is tremendous confusion there. And that's why I stand back and I just go, isn't it strange that when we started talking about what the

01:45:35

Quran teaches, that I'm the one going, you know, there's a consistency here in Surah 5 and Surah 4.

01:45:43

And if you allow the consistency to stand, what it represents makes perfect sense, but it is misrepresentational of what

01:45:52

Christianity believes. And you just simply go, well, that means it's impossible. And I go, you're the one that says that the prophet was illiterate and you're just assuming this isn't what the prophet believed in the first place.

01:46:04

And yet I see that when he meets with the Christians in Najran, that results in a change in his understanding.

01:46:10

I can allow the Quran to be what it is in history. I don't believe that you can because of your theology.

01:46:17

But again, I would suggest you consider very well the presuppositional nature of the filters produced, not by the

01:46:26

Quran specifically, because the Quran doesn't interact with any of the Bible's teaching concerning the doctrine of the

01:46:32

Trinity in a meaningful fashion. When it says three, it's talking about three gods.

01:46:38

And when it says three in Surah 5, it's plainly talking about Allah, Mary, and Jesus. And so with that in mind, what if you laid that aside and just considered what the revelation of the gospels really gives to us about who

01:46:54

Jesus was. And ask yourself the question, why is it that in the earliest documented gospel that we have, we have

01:47:02

Thomas saying to Jesus, my Lord and my

01:47:09

God. These were the original followers of Jesus. And yet they knew something very special had taken place.

01:47:17

And that very nature of that incarnation is what the philosophical categories of mankind can help us to explain and answer to some questions.

01:47:30

But there comes a point in time where just as we cannot answer every question about God's eternity, both of us, we have to allow revelation to be the ultimate authority in all of these things.

01:47:42

And I hope that's what people will do. And once again, that's it for my time. Thank you very, very much,

01:47:48

Jake. As I mentioned to you, as soon as this gets posted, you're free to post it without editing on your website.

01:47:56

Do whatever you want with it. Link to it or post it or do whatever. We've always done that.

01:48:02

Only once or twice have we ever had a situation where someone didn't allow us to do that.

01:48:08

And interestingly enough, the one time I remember it clearly was in a Muslim context. So we definitely want to make sure that we're not doing that in reverse.

01:48:15

So as soon as that's up, we'll do it and we'll get it to you.

01:48:20

And I hope that you had mentioned possibly doing something on some of you guys's platforms or something like that.

01:48:28

That's certainly a possibility, though I think you can see exactly where our differences lie and where that conversation will have to be.

01:48:37

But thank you very, very much for being with us today. And we'll do something again in the future.

01:48:43

Thank you. Thank you, sir. Yeah, I appreciate it. And we'll be in touch about maybe something in the future.

01:48:50

Okay. Thanks, Jake. Thanks a lot. Thank you for watching the debate today. I'm not sure when the next dividing line is going to be, but we will be letting you know on the app.

01:49:00

Download that. We'll see you next time. God bless. Pretty darn close.