James White Adnan Rashid Debate Bible or the Qur'an at University College Dublin

Hello everybody and a very warm welcome. I'd like to introduce James Reitzelgrub, who is the Director of Alpha and Omega Ministries, a Christian apologist, apologetics organization based in Phoenix, Arizona.

He's the author of more than 20 books, a professor and an accomplished writer, and an elder of the Catholic Baptist Church. This evening will run where each speaker will have a 20 minute opportunity to present on the issue of the Bible and the Koran.

And then each speaker will have a 10 minute rebuttal and then there will be a 5 minute crossfire. After that there will be a question and answer session where people will be invited to ask questions. Questions will be alternated between each speaker and there will be a limit on the questions as well.

We ask that all questions be short and brief and to the point as well. Thank you all so much for coming.

The Problem of Sin, God, and Human Nature

Alright, well good evening. Thank you for being here this evening and making the effort to come out. It is my honor to be here at UCD and obviously my honor to once again dialogue with Adnan Rashid on a very important topic.

Now the topic that was delivered to me was the Bible and the Koran. Where is the solution? Where is the solution? Well if you're asking about a solution, obviously you have a problem. And hence the discussion this evening will really be determined by what we determine that problem to be and what the parameters of that problem would be.

We live in a very secular society, all of us do, whether Christians, Muslims or maybe we even have some secularists with us this evening. And a secularist sees the problem as purely political, as social, maybe economic problems, maybe psychological problems.

But they're looking at it from a non-divine perspective. Christians and Muslims recognize the problem is related to man as a creature's relationship to God, the creator. So we at least have that in common with one another.

We recognize that man is the creature of God, that God is the creator. And that the problem, whatever you're saying that problem to be, is going to be related to that relationship. But while Muslims and Christians agree the problem has to do with man and his creator, we fundamentally disagree as to the specifics as well as the solutions to the issues.

For example, we have to ask the question, who is God? Who are we to worship? What is his nature and what are his purposes? In our work, we differ on each one of these issues. Certainly within Islam, having the proper object of worship is important, just as it is to us.

But there is an even stronger emphasis with the concept of Tawhid upon the idea that the proper worship of God is central to not only to one's relationship to God, but to one's salvation, if we can use that terminology in our discussion this evening.

What is God's nature? What are his purposes in our world? We have fundamental differences as to we understand how God is acting in the world, what his purposes are. We also have differences as to who is man?

Is he created in the Imago Dei, the image of God? Is he a fallen creature? Or is each man a new Adam with the possibility of being perfectly upright? Why does man sin? What is the nature of sin? What does it do to the nature of man?

Can a man save himself? Can we, in essence, pull ourselves up by our bootstraps so that we might be right with God? These are questions that we must discuss. Is the problem solved by moral reformation?

Is it solved by true worship? Can you have true worship without the moral reformation? Can man simply choose to undertake moral and religious form unaided? What of society? Will God bless a society that is bent upon the constant and flagrant rejection of his revealed will?

And what should we, as believers in God, how should we respond when we live in a society where it seems that the majority of our fellows are absolutely intent upon rebelling against anything God has said concerning morality or ethics or anything like that?

How do we respond to that? These are all issues that go back to what we believe about God, His purposes, who is man, what is sin, what is God's grace, is it necessary? These are all questions that we must think about when we want to answer the question, how can we move forward?

What is the solution to our issues? What about creaturely freedom? How do those who seek to follow God relate to those who seek to hinder following Him or even mock His existence? And can law be used to force moral transformation or does the change of a man's heart require a supernatural act of grace?

These are all very, very important questions. How do our responses to these questions relate to the political identities of different cultures? How can religious answers to these questions be worked out in the context of a secular world and who ultimately changes hearts?

As you can see, the topic this evening could go on for a very, very long time and these are all vitally important questions. They're questions that you and I every day have to deal with. Many of you here this evening are younger folks.

I am a brand new grandfather and so I think a lot about the future and the world that my little granddaughter is going to face. What kind of freedoms will she have? How will she be able to interact with this world?

These are important issues to all of us no matter where we are in the stages of life and we need to think about them with God's help this evening. Now the biblical solutions to these questions, I will suggest them to you.

I'll leave them to Adnan to address the Islamic perspective on these things. But the biblical solutions are focused upon what we believe God has revealed in His scripture. And we start with the fact that God is triune.

You might say, is that relevant to the things you said? Very much so. Because you see, since God is triune, then God is personal. God has always been love. God has revealed Himself eternally to have existed in this state.

And it is because of the triune nature of God that we can understand how we are to relate to others. We can understand how we are made in the image of God and therefore we can understand the greatest commandment.

What is the greatest commandment as Jesus defined it? You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength. We are to love God. God has eternally been loving. Even before there was anything else within the Godhead itself, love existed.

God is triune. That's the foundation of the Christian understanding of how we can view ourselves. God's character as providential creator, intimately involved in His creation freely, not of necessity.

In other words, we believe that God is actively involved with His creation. He does so not because He has to be. He is not limited to His creation. But He has chosen to enter into relationship freely to condescend to have relationship with us.

He is as far above us as the heavens are above our heads. And yet He has chosen to freely enter into relationship with you and with me. God as incarnate. Yes, obviously from the Christian perspective, from the Christian worldview.

The reality that God has entered into His own creation. One of the primary differences between us. I understand that. And I have debated that subject a number of times before. But you see, from our perspective, the fact that God has chosen to enter into this world is the greatest proof that He cares about this world.

And that He cares about us. We believe that God is so powerful that without changing His eternal nature, without ceasing to be God, He can take a perfect human nature to Himself. Not making it into a demigod.

Jesus was the God-man. 100 God, 100 man. And because He has entered into this world, He has demonstrated the character of the Father to us in a way that could never have been known in any other fashion.

That was the message of the early disciples of Jesus. What that means is, God is also self-giving. Self-giving in the incarnation, self-giving in the cross itself. God has demonstrated that He gives of Himself and that becomes the basis upon which we are exhorted to give of ourselves and to serve other people.

We also need to look at what the Bible says about man. Man is the image-bearer. Human life is given by God and therefore it is of immense value. It cannot be destroyed without God taking great interest in the person who does the destroying.

Human life is extremely important. Human law therefore must recognize that value of the human life. But we also recognize man as the fallen son or daughter of Adam. I recognize that that little child, my little grandchild, I am not going to have to teach her and her mom is not going to have to teach her how to be selfish.

None of us are going to have to teach her how to say no as soon as she can say no. That is natural. That is going to happen naturally because we are the fallen sons and daughters of Adam. What I am going to have to teach her is to do what is right.

I am going to have to teach her how to share. I am going to have to teach her how to engage in activity, in helping others because it is so, so natural for us to focus solely upon ourselves rather than looking to others.

We need to recognize that man is an idol-maker. The greatest sin in Islam is, sure, the association of anything or anyone with Allah. In Christianity, idolatry is the description of the person who gives to anything in the creation that which is due to God alone.

Man makes idols. We live in a land filled with idols. You say, I have not seen any. Have you been to a sporting event recently? Have you watched how people adore people from the United States, the NBA, over here it might be football or rugby or whatever else it might be.

You see the idolatry of the heart. We make our cars, our homes, our bodies, our clothes, our games, our computers. We have idols all around us. Man is an idol factory and the Bible says man is a truth suppressor.

Apostle Paul said in Romans chapter 1 that man knows the truth but man is suppressing that truth. He is literally holding that truth down. He knows that God exists but he is suppressing that truth. Now when that is the case, we need to recognize that man is a rebel.

Man has rebelled against his creator. That is why we need to have law because we need to restrain man. Man has to have restraints put upon the expression of his rebellion against God and against one another.

That is why we see the taking of human life. We see people stealing from others. We need to have these restraints upon man and we must recognize what man is to properly engage in these things. Man is a rebel.

Then what is God's solution? You see from the Christian perspective, the solution is not establishing one particular societal form all around the world. That is not the Christian message. The Christian message transcends any concept of borders or language.

You can be a perfectly good Christian in Ghana, in South Africa, in Australia, in China, in Canada or right here in Ireland and you don't have to dress in the same way and you don't have to pray in the same way.

It is not taking a societal norm and forcing it upon people. From the Christian perspective, we are changed by an act of grace. Our hearts are changed and that is how God changes societies. Yes, there is a standard of justice.

Yes, there is a recognition of the value of human life. All those things are true but those are going to be played out in different ways in different societies. The ultimate of the biblical solutions is quite simply the cross.

The cross as the ultimate solution. The cross is what transcends all of these barriers. Not a symbol. There are so many Muslims that have heard that the Christians worship the cross. No, I don't. I worship the God that made the cross possible.

I worship the God who Himself took on human flesh and came down and voluntarily. No one put Him there. No one put Him there outside of His will. He said, I give my life voluntarily. It was the purpose of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit that the cross take place.

You see, the cross is the central point of human history. In fact, as the Apostle Paul expressed in Ephesians chapter 1, making known to us the mystery of His will according to His purpose which He set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time to unite all things in Him, things in heaven and things on earth.

Christ is the means by which the triune God is glorifying Himself in the redemption of a particular people. And it was at the cross where Jesus, the God-man, fully God and fully man, could in the voluntary giving of Himself on the cross provide the single sole way of displaying all God's attributes, His power, His justice, His holiness and His wrath as well as His mercy, His grace, His forgiveness and love.

When Christians look at the cross, they see the entirety of God's character displayed there. His deep antipathy and hatred towards sin, His great holiness, His wrath against sin. That is the background.

And yet, looking at the one who is giving His life there, we see God's mercy, His love, His grace. And it's in that one place. And that's why Jesus had to be the God-man. So that He could bear that wrath and be the one who brings together all those who have faith in Christ, unites them to Himself so that His death can become their death.

And those people, the book of Revelation talks about at the end times, you have all these people from every tribe, tongue, people and nation brought together as a kingdom of priests. And they have been made kings and priests unto God by His grace and by His power.

And it's all through what happens at the cross. That one place, that one focal point, that really is the center of the biblical solution for all these things. In Christ, God has united Himself with people by grace, conforming them to the image of Christ, and in so doing, establishing His kingdom on earth.

A kingdom that is established by changing hearts by the Holy Spirit. You see, law cannot change a heart. It can influence behavior. It can provide a restraint. But it cannot change hearts. No amount of force can change a heart except that force that is the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit of God can change the heart. The Bible uses a beautiful illustration that we outside of the grace of God have a heart of stone. But God, by His Spirit, gives us a heart of flesh. And you see, His kingdom is here this evening.

You may not have seen anyone with guns and swords outside because that's not the nature of His kingdom. But you see, there are people in this room that I am united with in a supernatural way. Because we're both involved by the Holy Spirit of God.

We have both been caused by that Spirit to bow the knee to the Lordship of Jesus Christ. We confess together that Jesus Christ is Lord. That He was crucified, buried, and rose again the third day. And you see, God has been building His kingdom.

And it's a kingdom that the world despises. It's a kingdom that the world hates. It's a kingdom that the world has been persecuting for many, many years but cannot silence. Christ has been building His church.

And He continues to build His church, which is His kingdom, even in this evening in this room. And it's done by the work of the Holy Spirit of God. This kingdom is not delimited by political systems, by economic systems, by dress or code, but by love, mercy, and true worship of God in every different language.

Those who are poor, those who are rich, are all brought to the same place. The ground is muddled at the cross. There is none better than anyone else. That kingdom is the kingdom of God. That is what we proclaim.

Christianity transcends geographical and political borders. In Acts chapter 15, the church experienced something where this is how the gospel went to the whole world. There was a danger in Acts chapter 15 of there becoming a Jewish Christian church and then a non-Jewish Christian church.

You had to bring society along and all these norms. No. In Acts chapter 15, there is a gathering and the Holy Spirit led the apostles to understand that the only way of having a right relationship with God was by faith in Jesus Christ.

You didn't have to become a Jew first. You didn't have to join this ethnic group or that ethnic group or wear these kinds of clothes or say these kinds of prayers. The kingdom transcends all of these boundaries.

It speaks to all of human life. You see, we need the Creator to make Himself known personally and directly to us. There are so many different religions. I'm not sure if Adnan is engaged in other religious groups in debate.

Hindus? Buddhists? Anything like that? I'm engaged in a lot of that kind of interaction with others, with atheists especially. One of the great arguments is there are all these different religions. How can we know which one is right?

We need the Creator to make Himself known personally and directly. That's why Christians say the incarnation of Jesus Christ, His death barrel and His resurrection is the greatest evidence, not only of the Christian faith, but the fact that if you ever ask yourself the question, how can I know God loves me?

Look what He did at the cross. Even for me to this day, after many years of serving Jesus, the Messiah, that to me is the fundamental proof of the fact that God loves me. Look what He did at the cross.

We need the Creator to provide the way out of our fallen state while at the same time remaining just and holy. I am so thankful that the salvation that is mine, God didn't just wink at my sin. I'm a sinful man.

I've told untruths. I've had lustful thoughts. I've been angry with my wife. I'm a sinful man. How can I stand before a holy God? I do not stand before Him clothed in my own righteousness. I stand before Him clothed in the righteousness of another.

And my friends, you see, because of the cross, God can be just in bringing me into His presence. He didn't just simply laugh at my sin. He didn't just simply let it destroy His holiness and violate His law.

Because of what Jesus Christ did in my place, I can come before a holy God and I can confess His holiness. His law has been fulfilled in my substitute, Jesus Christ. And so what we need, my friends, this evening is we need the Jesus of Holy Scripture.

We need the one who is described in those words. For truly, if He was the one sent by the Father, if the testimony of the early church is true as we find there, that He was the one who was crucified, buried, and risen again the third day, if He made the claims that He made, then my friends, we cannot be neutral about Him and we cannot view Him as a mere apostle or one sent by God in that way.

We must hear His own words, come to me, all you who are weary and heavy laden. I will give you rest. Not my teachings, I. Those are the words of a true prophet of God. And that's the one I speak to you about this evening.

Thank you very much.

Thank you very much.

The Cross, the Bible, and the Need for a Divine Solution

In a nutshell, James has put the crucifixion of Christ as the solution. And that is the solution in his view. That God Himself comes down on the cross, takes on flesh, and voluntarily gives His life away for you to be forgiven and that is the solution.

But, in my view, even that point in itself is highly contentious according to the Biblical text. If that's where the solution or the Christian solution is, then Christians are in big trouble. Let me explain what I mean by that.

When we go to the Bible and actually pick up this particular event or this incident which took place according to the Christian history sometime in the past, in the first century, that a man called Jesus emerged in Palestine and he was eventually crucified and his crucifixion had a big meaning for mankind.

And that meaning was salvation. Freedom from sin. That sin which we all inherited from Adam. And because of his sacrifice, that sin has been taken away from us. And that's the solution. But we have bigger problems, ladies and gentlemen.

Guess what? We have a problem in this day and age of rape. We have a problem with crime. We have a problem with war and famine. We have a problem with economic issues in the world. We have a problem with foreign policies.

We have a problem with internal policies. What does Christianity have to offer? That is the question. Crucifixion? Is crucifixion going to solve the problem? If a rapist is about to rape a woman, is she going to tell her or tell him if it's a man raping her?

Nowadays we have women raping men in some cases, unfortunately. There was an incident in Zimbabwe where some woman was picking up men and raping them. And this doesn't actually happen usually, does it?

So if a woman was to tell this man who was about to rape her that Jesus died for your sins on the cross, stop. If you or one of the poorest countries on the planet was to go to IMF or to the World Bank and tell them Jesus died for our sins on the cross, stop.

Or if one of you was to go to George W. Bush or Obama or one of the biggest oppressors on the planet and tell them God died for our sins on the cross, stop. Is this going to solve the problem? No. We have proper solutions given to us.

James and I, we both agree on one point. That solution is with God, with capital G. Solution is with God. Solution is not with man. And anything that man makes is part of the problem, not the solution.

So all those man-made solutions proposed for our problems or to solve our problems are not actually solutions. They are the problem. What we call today as secularism. And Christianity eventually leads to secularism.

Why? Because historically speaking ladies and gentlemen, the reason why we are experiencing and witnessing all these problems on the planet are because of secularism. And secularism came about as an accident or as a reaction to Christian persecution in Europe here.

If you don't believe me, go and study some history and see why during the Enlightenment period all of these philosophers were writing against the oppression of the church. And they were proposing this theory of separation of the church from the state.

The state has nothing to do with the church and the church has nothing to do with the state. We need individual freedom. And this is why liberalism and individualism came about, which is what we face today, not only in Western Europe, in the world.

Which of course came about due to what the Christian church was doing at the time. And of course this started in the 4th century when the Christians came to power. After Constantine allegedly converted and then we had Theodosius who came to power in the year 380 CE.

And then a Theodosian code came to light and this code simply dictated that anyone who disagrees with the Trinitarian church will be pursued and persecuted and prosecuted. And anyone possessing any other books than the ones which have already been accepted by the church, the church will be pursued and persecuted and prosecuted again.

So that pattern continued up to the 15th and 16th century. And in the 16th century we had Reformation, of course, and we know the history of Reformation. I don't want to go into that. That's another topic in itself.

So it was the church oppression which forced people to reform, move away from this oppression and this tyranny. And eventually Reformation didn't solve the problem. The problem was solved for the Europeans by secularism which was an inevitable outcome of what the church was doing.

So the crucifixion of the Christ somehow didn't solve the problem for the Europeans. They had to break away from the church to live their lives according to secular values, secular laws made by men, made by men.

So if we both agree that God has solutions for our problems, why do we follow and run after laws made by men? And if men make laws, they make laws which have mistakes, which have problems. And if they have problems, then those problems will manifest themselves in the society, which is what we're facing today.

So our Islamic solution is to turn to God. God tells you how to live. God tells you what to be done and what's not to be done. Do's and don'ts come from God, not from men. So one of the biggest problems Christians did face was to turn to men to find solutions.

So all these real problems cannot be solved by the crucifixion of Christ. Before I go into the problems and solutions, let me quickly deal with this problem of crucifixion. If you were to put all your weight on one solution, if you were to rely on one solution, which is the crucifixion, then you are in serious trouble.

Because even according to the Bible, there are major problems in this particular incident or event which is known to have taken place in the past. For example, we have major problems according to the biblical text.

There are major variations within the four Gospels about the details of this particular event known as the crucifixion. Now we are told that these four Gospels all originate from one God, inspired by one God.

Four different authors writing in different places at different times for different audiences were writing inspired by the same God. And if that is the case, then why do we find these problems? Did Jesus die before the curtain of the temple was torn?

This is a question. And look at the answers. Yes, according to Matthew 27 .51 and Mark 5 .37 -38. No, according to Luke 23 .45 -46. Where was Jesus at the sixth hour on the day of the crucifixion? On the cross according to Mark 15 .23.

According to John 19 .14 in Pilate's court, did Jesus ascend to paradise the same day of the crucifixion? Yes, according to Luke 23 .43. No, according to John 20 .17. Was Jesus' body wrapped in spices before burial in accordance with Jewish burial customs?

Yes, according to John 19 .39 -40. No, according to Mark 16 .1. When did the woman buy the spices? After the seventh was passed according to Mark 16 .1. Before the seventh according to Luke 23 .55. At what time of day did the woman visit the tomb?

Towards the dawn according to Matthew 28 .1. According to Mark 16 .2, when the sun had risen, what was the purpose for which the woman went to the tomb? To anoint Jesus' body with spices according to Mark 16 .1 and Luke 23 .55.

And according to Matthew 28, to see the tomb, nothing about spices there. And then we have many more problems and I can go on and on and on. So this incident or this event of crucifixion is highly problematic, even textually looking at the Bible as it stands today.

So you cannot simply put your faith in crucifixion on such shaky ground and say, this is where the solution is. The solution has to be robust. It has to be practical. It has to be something you can see working in your own day and age.

Something which has worked in the past. So if crucifixion was the solution or the Bible was the solution, which is entirely man-made in my view, the biblical canon and the way it was written is entirely man-made.

Who told you it was inspired? Why? When? Where? How? Who? These are the questions I ask of the Bible. Who wrote the Bible? Number one. When were they written, these documents? Who told you that they were inspired by God?

Who chose them for you to be read as, for you to be reading these documents as the Word of God? These are the questions I ask. When were they first time, for the first time, mentioned together? In the year 200.

Did you know that, ladies and gentlemen, by a man called Irenaeus? It was in the year 200. Just to beat these around the corner. I went there today. When you look at the manuscripts, biblical manuscripts, a lot of them emerged as collections.

And even those papyri manuscripts, most of them are from mid-third century. Because that's when they were put together as a canon and the canon was still developing. It wasn't even finalised up to the year 367 CE and of course taking Athanasius' festal letter to be the final point when the canon was sealed.

So this document, the Bible, is man-made. Especially the New Testament. Who told you that's the solution? The solution is with God. And the solution is not with anything man-made. It is with God. And that is the case.

Then I believe the Quran is definitely from God. Because there were no such debates about the Quran as we find for the Bible. The Bible was being debated. Documents, initially some essential documents which are to be found in the Bible today were being debated.

Is the book of Revelation from God? Or is it even from John? Was the book of Titus written by Paul? Was the book of 2 Peter written by Peter? Who is the author of the Gospel of John? And then we have other debates taking place in the first three centuries.

So the Quran, we never had these debates. A book was revealed to a man called Muhammad in the middle of the 7th century Arabian desert. And then this man comes along and he says, I am from God. I am a messenger of God.

And I am not a liar. And I received this revelation day and night. You follow this revelation, you will prosper. You will be successful. You will have peace and harmony and progress. And if you put this book aside, put it behind you which is from God, you will suffer.

And that is where the law is. Law is absolutely essential. From James' presentation, I gathered that he doesn't actually like the idea of the law. Or following the law for Christians at least. But here we have Jesus Christ in the Bible, in the New Testament, upholding the Jewish law.

In the book of Matthew chapter 15, he rebukes the Pharisees for not following the Jewish law. In the book of Matthew again, chapter 5, verse 17, he tells the Jews to uphold the law. I have come to fulfill the law.

I haven't come to abolish the law and prophets. I have come to fulfill it. And if anyone teaches you anything against this law, even a quiet will be considered least in the kingdom of heaven. And what if Paul comes along all of a sudden and emerges as a prophet and he tells the Christians, I saw Jesus in a vision.

I saw him when I was on my way to Damascus, on the road to Damascus. I saw him and he came and now I have this message for you. Even though Jesus was telling you to follow the commandments, when a Jewish man comes to him, asking, what do I do?

Follow the commandments. Follow the commandments. And what are the commandments? Law. The Jewish law. And then you will prosper. You will have eternal life. What is eternal life? Eternal life is salvation.

Follow the law. There was nothing about crucifixion there. Paul comes along and says, law for Gentiles, for non-Jewish Christians, it is not valid or it's not applicable or it's not necessary anymore.

Jesus died for the sins of the cross and that sacrifice on his own is good enough. And that's where the destruction began. The destruction of mankind to a large extent. That's when it began because a man-made idea made by Paul was initiated, was promoted and people followed that idea and they faced destruction for the next 15 centuries.

For the next 15 centuries. You don't believe me studying Christian history. My question is, if the Christians had the solution with them for all those centuries, why did they live such a miserable life?

Governed by the church. In different places and different times. Governed by different people. Why were the heretics being burnt on an industrial scale? Why were hundreds of thousands of women, why were they burnt?

Within three centuries, from the year 1450 to 1750, almost 100 ,000 women were burnt here in Europe. Alive. Alive. Alive. Why? Why were they burnt alive? They were burnt alive because the church at the time found a biblical precedence.

In the book of Leviticus, we are simply told, if a woman, if a girl profanes her father by having relations with a man and if she belongs to a priest, he is the daughter of a priest, she is to be burnt alive.

Book of Leviticus, chapter 21, verse 9. It's there. This burning business came from the Bible. And people adopted these ideas. Why was Calvin killing people? James is a Calvinist. I don't know what form of Calvinism he follows today, but he's a Calvinist.

Calvin himself was responsible for burning people alive. Michael Servito, a Spanish Christian who wrote against the doctrine of the Trinity, was burnt alive in Geneva by Calvin and his entourage. So the point, ladies and gentlemen, is that Christianity, or crucifixion, or the church, or the biblical text, which is entirely man-made, cannot have solutions to your problems.

Solution is with God. So a text has to be from God for you to have solutions. And that's what the Quran is. And that's what the Quran constitutes. Solutions for your problems. Now how do we know this?

When we look at our history, the Muslim history, we come to realize that we lived in peace and we had harmony. We had people living in convivencia, what we know today as convivencia. And very quickly, I will share some of these details with you, the results of the Quran.

So these are the results of the Quran, what we know as convivencia. The Quran comes along with the prophet Muhammad. The prophet tells the people of the world, you follow the book of God, which is from God.