Has the Qur'an Eternally Existed?

Alpha & Omega Ministries

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Ladies and gentlemen,

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I'm standing here on behalf of my colleague Mike Burry who's on leave and so he asked me to be here and just to welcome all of you to St.

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Thomas' Anglican Church and I will hand over to Rudolf Boschoff.

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Good evening everyone. Turn to the person next to you and say hello. I don't want you to sit and participate and be with somebody for the rest of this discussion without you knowing them.

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So just turn to the person again next to your left because everybody turn to the right and say this is my name. If there's nobody next to you, on the right turn to the person behind you.

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Deadly cycle, some people are facing the back of other people's heads. Okay, okay, excellent.

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Well we're here tonight to discuss the merits of the Quran and we ask the central question if it is created or uncreated and it's wonderful to have an opportunity for both of these friends of mine to have this discussion.

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I really say friends, known Yusuf now for six years and James as well and they really are friends and so if you find that the discussion gets spirited, it's because they're both passionate and they're both big boys and they're also seasoned debaters so please do not be offended.

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They know what they are doing and there's no malversions between them. So I just want to give you the structure of the debate.

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We're going to have a 25 minute introduction each. We had a coin toss and Yusuf won and he opted for James to go first which means that we're going to start out with Dr.

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White who's all the way from Phoenix, Arizona in the United States and you can have a look at all of his things on, let that bike just go by,

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Alpha and Omega Ministries in the States and you can just Google James White Alpha and Omega Ministries and you will get to all of his resources, books, etc.,

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etc. And then on my right, your left is Yusuf Ismail. He's affiliated with the IPCI.

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He's also a seasoned debater and he's been with the IPCI for since 18, no

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I'm just teasing, since whenever but he's also very well respected and seasoned debater as well so we also want to welcome him here tonight as we do

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James all the way from America. So they've got 25 minutes each and then there's going to be a 12 minute rebuttal from each side and then what we're going to do is a 12 minute

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Q &A from each side so they're going to ask each other questions for 12 minutes and obviously it's going to be a question that is asked in less than a minute and then there will be a two minute reply so that gives time for approximately four questions.

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Okay, so we'll do that and then if there's an opportunity, we will see if we can do a 20 minute

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Q &A from your side. So if you have something that you think about, 20 minutes.

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Okay, five minutes, 12 minutes for the audience as well and then we're going to have a five minute closing statement from each.

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Obviously because Dr. White went first, he can have the last say and Yusuf will have the second last say.

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So enjoy this and welcome and thank you so much once more for St. Thomas Anglican Church for hosting this.

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Please also, just from the audience itself, please do not clap, allow them to make their points, no takbirs, no amens, no hallelujahs, nothing like that because it really in actual fact bothers the speakers to keep their train of thought.

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So please, absolute silence and in the Q &A, you are welcome to come and ask your question.

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Be blessed and have a lovely night. All right, well it's excellent to be with you here this evening.

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Thanks for coming out. I see a few people that I think I saw last evening, that's going to cause a problem, there we go, at the debate and this is a little bit more of a cerebral topic than last evening was and both

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Yusuf and I were mentioning that we are unaware of any Christian -Muslim dialogues or debates on this subject.

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So what I like about that is we're not just repeating things we've done over and over again in the past.

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Hopefully we will add to the understanding in regards to the two different positions but obviously we recognize that there are also differing positions taken by individuals within each one of our traditions and within each one of our faiths.

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So in the beginning, we need to lay out what each one of us believes and I will attempt to lay out why

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I find this to be an important issue and hopefully you'll be able to follow along with that.

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So a quick scan of the internet will provide numerous examples of Sunni Muslims.

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This is a discussion in regards to a Sunni belief. The stream of Shi 'ism,

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Shia Islam, does not have this particular belief and so we're not dealing with that this evening.

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We're looking at something that is in the history of Sunni Islam primarily but we'll provide numerous examples of Sunni Muslims completely disregarding this issue as silly or even stupid.

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It's for them, it's just not a relevant issue. Leading Sunni scholars will often identify this as an irrelevant topic today that was overblown in the past and would say that while it's something to be speculated upon, discussed, whatever else it might be, it is not something that is definitional of one's belief in the

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Quran or issues along those lines. Now many Muslims really have no idea why this belief is relevant to their lives today.

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It's rather esoteric, we'll be honest, and almost no Christians that I know of are even aware of the doctrine, its history, or its relevance to our interaction with Muslims today.

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So why would we be bothering with something like this this evening is really,

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I think, a perfectly frank and relevant question. Most Christian Muslim discussions never get anywhere because they do not deal with foundational issues of knowledge and authority, let alone the definition of terminology, words, things like that.

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How we know and what we know, specifically the issue of Scripture and its interpretation, very, very often our debates and our discussions go right past each other because the one side will use one standard in interpreting their scriptures and the other side's scriptures, and then the other people will return the favor.

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And the result will be the kind of dialogues and discussions that we are accustomed to seeing on the internet and other places like that, where nothing really ever gets accomplished.

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The historic Sunni understanding of the Quran as uncreated has deep impact upon how the

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Quran is to be interpreted and understood. In fact, I would say that in the development of classical

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Islamic theology within the Sunni tradition, this had a great impact on how tafsir, tafsir is the commentary on the

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Quran, how that literature developed. I think it would have developed in a different direction and in a different way if there had not been an established orthodoxy in regards to this particular subject, which

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I think would have an impact upon the discussion that we would be having this evening. Muslims and Christians often use completely different standards in examining the other's scriptures, and often that's done in ignorance.

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We assume that the other side is going to utilize the same kinds of methodologies, because we're both talking about books from the past, the

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Old Testament being extremely ancient, the New Testament being considered ancient literature. The Quran's right on the cusp, right on the dividing line between the medieval period and the ancient period, so exactly how you want to define that.

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But they were all written during a period of time where literature is distributed and copied by hand.

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And so how do you interpret documents such as that?

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Oftentimes in ignorance we assume the other side is doing things the same way that we are. To finally start making any progress at all, we have to compare and contrast what we really believe about the inspiration, nature, and character of our respective scriptures.

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Now again, I am a conservative, believing, reformed theologian, and so that means

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I'm going to speak from that perspective when it comes to the understanding of the Bible and its inspiration, its inerrancy, its authority, and there's a lot of people that come from a much different perspective than that.

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I recognize that. But the same thing is true amongst Muslims. You'll get all sorts of understandings, especially in Western Islam, expressed in the academy.

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Now the question at the top of the page, makluh, created or not created?

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Something that is created is something that is brought into existence by the the will of Allah using means or not using means depending on what you're talking about.

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So created or not created? Al -Tabari is said to have expressed the belief thusly.

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Here's from a Islamic source, a classical Islamic source. The Quran is

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God's uncreated word, however it is written or recited, whether it be in heaven or on earth, whether written on the guarded tablet or on the tablets of schoolboys, whether inscribed on stone or on paper, whether memorized in the heart or spoken on the tongue.

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Whoever says otherwise is an infidel whose blood may be shed and from whom

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God has dissociated himself. Now that's a fairly strong statement, but you will know that it's quite extensive.

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That is that the Quran is God's uncreated word no matter what form that it's in, whether it's in heaven, earth, how it's written, who's written it, whatever else it might be.

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That's a rather extensive assertion of the fact that the Quran itself is uncreated and when it refers to a heavenly tablet, it's referring to the belief that it has existed eternally, not written a long, long, long time ago and existed since then, but without creation, uncreated, on the heavenly tablet and that that is the archetype of every representation we make of the

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Quran today, certainly here upon the earth. Then we also have this quotation from the creed of Imam al -Tahawi.

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The Quran is the word of God that emanated from him without modality in its expression.

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He sent it down to his messenger as a revelation. The believers accept it as such literally.

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They are certain it is in reality the word of God, the sublime and exalted. Unlike human speech, it is eternal and uncreated.

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It is eternal and uncreated. This is from an introduction by Hamza Yusuf from the

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Zaytuna Institute in 2007. From the same source we have, we do not argue about the

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Quran, rather we testify that it is the word of the Lord of the universe as revealed through the trustworthy spirit who taught it to the paragon of messengers,

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Muhammad. It is the word of God, the sublime and exalted. No mortal speech compares to it and we do not say it is created.

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We do not say it is created. Then in G .F.

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Haddad's work, The Uncreatedness of the Divine Speech in the glorious Quran, Allah al -Sunnah agree one and all that the

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Quran is the pre -existent, pre -eternal, uncreated speech of Allah, most high.

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And notice the assertion here, on the evidence of the Quran, the Sunnah, and faith -guided reason.

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And faith -guided reason. So here are some of the expressions of what the belief is actually stating in regards to the

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Quran. Now, what's interesting to recognize is that this is a subject that would not have been calmly discussed, as I'm sure it will be this evening, between myself and Yusuf Ismail.

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Between 18, starting with the belief in 1827 and then really coming into fruition in 833, you had the

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Mithnah. And this was a, in essence, a crusade. It was a inquisition. It was an inquisition would be the best term.

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And Caliph Abd al -Mamun said, he has no belief in Tawhid who says the

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Quran is uncreated. Now you're saying, wait a minute, that's the opposite of what we were just reading.

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Exactly. So you have one of the Caliphs and he is today, now these were terms that weren't necessarily used at that particular point in time, but looking back upon this period in Islamic history, certain titles and names have been attached to the various groups that at that time wouldn't necessarily have been using those particular words.

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But the point is that there was a deep concern on the part of the Caliph that some people were saying that the

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Quran was uncreated. And the idea was that this was considered to be an attack upon Tawhid.

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Tawhid is the oneness of Allah. And so if you have an uncreated entity, such as the

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Quran, which is the speech of Allah, the Kalam Allah, if it's uncreated but it is not identical to Allah, you now have two uncreated entities.

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And this was understood to be a violation of Tawhid or absolute monotheism.

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And so you notice what he says, he has no belief in Tawhid who says the Quran is uncreated.

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And this began an inquisition that resulted in beatings and executions, imprisonments for a number of years until a halt was called to it.

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And what is interesting is that then over the next century or so, it is the position that was being attacked that becomes the orthodoxy.

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So much so that in our own day, within the past 20 years, you have individuals, such as an

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Egyptian scholar, who suggested that the Quran needs to be placed in history as a human document and interpreted in that way, who not only loses his job in Egypt, but he is kicked out of Egypt.

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And the scholars in Egypt try to find a way to divorce his wife from him because they consider him to be an unbeliever, and a

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Muslim woman cannot be married to an unbeliever in that fashion. This was within a relatively short period of time.

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And so obviously, the point is, this was taken very, very, very seriously at that particular time in history.

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Now despite the oft -repeated maxim that there is not a single fingerprint of man upon the text of the Quran, the reality is quite different for anyone familiar with the study of ancient texts.

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The Quran plainly assumes the knowledge of previous texts, shows direct connection to historical events, and hence betrays any claim to uncreatedness.

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It arises out of the events of time. Now, I can understand a way that you could say,

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I understand a way that you could say that the Quran is still uncreated. I had nothing to do with the

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IPCI sign falling down. I just want everyone to know that I was all the way up here, you all testify to that, okay? I may be fast, but I'm not that fast.

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I just want everybody to recognize that. You could say that if Allah is absolutely sovereign over all events, then he could have decreed all these events that are then represented in the

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Quran. But I would simply refer you, and this will come up in our conversation, to the conversation that Yusuf and I had in this room not all that long ago, where he presented a fairly vigorous defense of a form of freewill theism.

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So I don't think that's the direction that we're going to be going this evening. But the point is, the Quran plainly assumes knowledge of previous texts.

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For example, the Quran narrates lots interactions with the people of Sodom and Gomorrah four different times in Surah 7, 26, 27, and 29.

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Each time, it is plain that the author assumes his audience already knows the story from a biblical perspective.

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It doesn't give any of the background. It just assumes that you already are familiar with what was going on, why

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Lot was there, why there were things going on. It assumes that you already have the Old Testament narrative and story at hand.

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How could an uncreated document depend on a created document for its background and story?

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This is one of the questions that you would ask of this position. In Surah 349, we read, and he will be a messenger to the children of Israel.

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Truly, I have brought you a sign from your Lord. I will create for you out of clay the shape of a bird. Then I will breathe into it, and it will be a bird by God's leave.

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And I will heal the blind and the leper and give life to the dead by God's leave. Now, the only way to make sense of any of this is to know what the background issues are.

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So for example, here the Quran quotes from canonical New Testament sources.

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So heal the blind and the leper that comes from the New Testament. But you may be going, what's,

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I will create for you out of clay the shape of a bird. Well, that's from the

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Gnostic -tinged third century, late second century at most, probably third, fourth century document called the

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Infancy Gospel of Thomas. It is non -canonical. It is non -historical.

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But the Quran utilizes it and mixes it in with the canonical information about the things that Jesus would do in a miraculous form.

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And so it's drawing from a non -inspired document.

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I mean, you could on one hand say that the Old and New Testaments were sent down by Allah. And if you believe that, then you could say, well, see, it could assume that the

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Old and New Testaments would be given. But here you have something that's not sent down. It's not inspired.

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It is not even historically accurate. And that is the story of Jesus creating these clay birds and then breathing on them and they become alive.

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He did that so as to get away from the fact that he had done that on the Sabbath and broken the Sabbath. It was a very strange story, but it's found in Surah 349.

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Was that written in an uncreated fashion in eternity past? In Surah 5, 1 -10, then

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God will say, O Jesus, Son of Mary, remember my blessing upon thee and upon thy mother when I strengthened thee with the

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Holy Spirit that thou mightest speak to people in the cradle and in maturity. And when I taught thee the book, wisdom, the

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Torah, and the gospel, and how thou wouldst create out of clay the shape of a bird by my leave, and thou wouldst breathe into it, it would become a bird by my leave, and thou wouldst heal the blind and the leper by my leave, and thou wouldst bring forth the dead by my leave.

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Again, all these stories from the life of Jesus plainly then brought together with Gnostic -inspired, apocryphal stories that have no basis in history whatsoever.

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They have no connection to the first century at all. And here you have another thing connected in, and that is that you might speak to the people in the cradle.

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That's from the fifth century Arabic infancy gospel. This is written long after the days of Jesus and long after the other story, and these are all mixed together.

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How does this happen if the Quran itself is uncreated? This places the Quran in history and sheds a lot of light upon the understanding of the author and what sources he had to draw from.

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But then we have the most human story in the Quran, in my opinion. Of all the stories found in the Quran, the one that strikes me as fully human in origin, one deeply tied to the events and desires and even sinfulness of the author of the

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Quran is that of Zaynab bin Josh, found in Surah 33, verses 4 through 6, and verses 36 through 39.

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I don't have time for me to summarize the story as follows. Muhammad adopted a man named Zayd, who was known as Zayd bin

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Muhammad, the son of Muhammad, but it was an adopted relationship. Zayd married Muhammad's cousin,

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Zaynab bin Josh. At some point, Muhammad visited Zayd's home. While Zayd was not there,

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Zaynab was dressed only in a shift, and Muhammad saw her beauty and was taken with her, according to both al -Tabari and al -Qurtabi, which are both highly esteemed and respected historical sources in classical

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Islam. Zayd offered to divorce Zaynab, but Muhammad said, keep your wife.

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However, Zaynab knew of Muhammad's desire for her, so she divorced Zayd. In Arabic law, one could not marry the divorced wife of one's son.

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It was considered incestuous. So this revelation came down. Muhammad goes into a trans -like state.

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Aisha was there at that particular point of time. When he comes out of that trans -like state, he smiles and says, who is going to go tell

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Zaynab that she is to be my wife? It not only functionally did away with adoption in Surah 33, verses three through four, you were forbidden to any longer do what had been done with Zayd, called him

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Zayd bin Muhammad, Zayd the son of Muhammad. You were no longer allowed to consider those individuals and call them by the name of their adopted father.

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You were supposed to call them by the name of their original father, or if not, if you didn't know who that was, then you had a problem, but that's what you're supposed to do.

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And this has had a tremendous impact upon the practice of adoption within Islamic society.

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But aside from that, because that removed some of the problem, it commanded

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Muhammad to fear Allah rather than men, because obviously men were going to object to this, and that he was to marry

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Zaynab In fact, Aisha says in the Hadith literature she was very concerned that Zaynab was going to lord over the other wives because she was the only one that was commanded to marry

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Muhammad in the Quran itself, and there is some evidence that that was the case. Now, the number of offensive issues laid out in this story in light of the context provided by historians in the

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Hadith literature is very large. When you consider what the Bible says about divorce, when you consider the fact that God says he hates divorce, when you consider the standard that is given by Jesus in the

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New Testament, the whole story just screams that this is horrific.

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For it to say that Muhammad needs to do this because of the great trouble that the people would experience about the divorced wives of their sons, there was no great trouble.

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It was a problem in search of a solution. But it certainly, from a perspective of anyone who knows the

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Old and New Testaments teachings, is extremely problematic. But our focus is on the very, very human nature of this alleged revelation from Allah, and it's bearing on the idea that the

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Quran is uncreated. Are we really going to believe that eternally on a heavenly tablet were written words that were going to command

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Muhammad to marry Zaynab bint Josh, to bring about that divorce, to marry her, to change the adoption laws, and how adoption is handled, and all of these things just so the one man can have this one woman?

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That was written in eternity? It seems to me this is very plainly a very human concept.

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Only by maintaining a full belief in an extensive divine decree which determines all human actions could one assert that this very human story with all its lusts and sins and maneuvering was actually written on the heavenly tablet from eternity itself.

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Because think about it. If there is any room for free will, then, as it has been demonstrated many, many times, you wouldn't even know that someone named

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Zaynab bint Josh would come into existence. There were literally millions of free will decisions that resulted in her living at that time in that place, as well as everybody else involved in the story.

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So unless you're going to get rid of that, and that takes us back to where Yusuf and I were the last time we had a discussion here, unless you're going to take a different perspective and that there is an exhaustive divine decree, then at least you have a basis for saying it, even though I think it would be a massive stretch to say that this was something that God would put into the heavenly tablet.

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Well, God didn't put into the heavenly tablet. It had always been there. It's uncreated in the concept.

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Now, Christians and Muslims have very different understandings of how scripture comes into the stream of history.

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Many of the misfires that mar the history of Christian -Muslim dialogues and debates are due to fundamentally different understandings of inspiration and revelation.

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And so I want to look very briefly, I only have two minutes, but let me just mention some scriptures in your hearing that we can expand upon as we dialogue about this.

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So for example, in 2 Peter 1 verses 20 -21, knowing this first of all, that no prophecy of scripture comes from someone's own interpretation, for no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the

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Holy Spirit. Now, I may not even go to the other ones, I'll get to them later on, but I just want to really make sure that we think through what

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Peter says in these words. Because in the Christian scriptures, you have men speaking.

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Peter says, bring the parchments, bring the cloak before winter comes, because I'm going to be cold. And people will look at that and say, how can that be the, how can you say that that is the anustos, it is

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God breathe, it is the very word of God? Well, because the understanding given by scripture itself is that when we identify scripture as God's word, we also recognize the mechanism by which he brought it to us.

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And here, Peter describes it as not being produced in the will of man. You don't just sit down one day and go,

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I'm going to write some scripture today. No, instead, men spoke from God as they were carried along by the

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Holy Spirit. So they're speaking. You can recognize the different style that the Apostle Peter has from the

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Apostle Paul. And even when they were using a scribe, that changes the style that's there. There is very clearly that human element of vocabulary and history and language and everything else.

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It's plainly there. But they are speaking from God as they're being carried along by the

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Holy Spirit. So what they say comes from God, it's expressed in their language as they're being carried along by the

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Holy Spirit. So there is an intimate connection and relationship between this process and history.

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But the result is exactly what God intends it to be. But it's expressed in this very important way.

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I think if we can do anything this evening, if we can clarify where we're coming from on this very issue, at least foundationally, it might help in future encounters, in being able to understand where the other side is coming from.

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That's my hope this evening. Thank you very much for your attention. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you so much for being so attentive and quiet.

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Thank you for your time. Now over to my friend Yusuf Ismail. I seek protection in God from Satan the accursed.

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In the name of God most gracious most merciful. I want to thank the church for allowing us the opportunity to have this engagement.

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This is probably the ninth engagement I'm having with James. If you take into account the double debates we've had since 2013.

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And I want to thank all of you for attending this particular discussion. Let me start up with the debate. Has the

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Quran eternally existed? Now from the perspective of the Muslim, the main source from which all principles and ordinances of Islam are drawn from are in fact the

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Quran. In fact the Quran is an infinite noun from the root word which means signifies he collected together or he brought things together.

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It signifies some form of recitation. Thirdly, the Quran in fact identifies itself by name.

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This is unlike other religious scriptures such as the Bible. It identifies itself as a Quran and more so in the numerous passages it identifies itself as a word of God.

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It identifies itself as a reminder It is for us to collect and collate the

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Quran. So the Quran identifies itself. Identification of the witness in any system, any situation, in law is in fact imperative.

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And you see this in numerous passages of the Quran in surah 6 verse 92. This is a book which we have sent down bringing blessings and confirming the revelations of what came before it.

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Surah 17 verse 105 We have sent down the Quran in truth. A Quran which we have divided into parts in order that you may recite it to men in intervals.

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We have revealed it by stages. So in other words identifying that the Quran is a process revealed at a time in history, within history, addressing the needs of man.

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Now anyone seeing those passages would appear to seem to suggest that it is as if God is speaking.

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Unless we have some other connotations. Now James is correct. He is correct at the outset and I second the point that for a

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Muslim the debate is of no real value. Either to Muslims or to Christians. And I'm going to explore the fact that in reality the question is not more of a question to discuss but more of a counter challenge.

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And I'll explain the context behind which that comes from. I mean the issue of whether the Quran is eternal or not or uncreated was actually a theological debate that emerged in the 9th century.

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The Mu'tazilites held that the Quran was created. James highlighted that. Whilst a variety of Muslim theologians like the

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Asharites, the Asharis, considered that the Quran was in fact uncreated and co -eternal with God and therefore uncreated.

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But I mean many scholars like for example Imam Shaukani would ask the question what do you mean when you say created, uncreated?

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What do you really mean? And nobody has been able to define this particular point in time.

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From the Mu'tazilite perspective, creativeness from their idea referred to the fact that the

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Quran was created rather than having existed in some form of tablet with God in eternity past.

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And so the dispute over what is the case became a significant point of contention as a philosophical debate in early

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Islam. Now when I say early Islam I'm not speaking about the time of the prophet or the time of the companions or the time of the early

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Salaf. This is during the Abbasid period when these philosophical debates were happening which was unheard of during the time of the prophet.

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Nobody asked him is the Quran created, uncreated? Nobody bothered. For them the Quran was essentially a book of guidance for humanity at large addressing the social ills and problems and providing particular solutions.

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And so the Islamic rationalist philosophical school the Mu'tazilites held the position that if the Quran is

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God's word logically God must have preceded his own speech. And I'm going to unpack this as we go on.

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And they argued that the Quran expresses God's eternal will but the work itself must have been created by him at some point in time.

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Now for us this philosophical debate I would argue in the 21st century whilst important in an academic context is purely moot and has as James has been said blown out of proportion.

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And I'm going to tell you why it's insignificant for a Muslim but why the question may be significant for a

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Christian more particularly as a counter response or a counter rebuttal to the idea of the eternality of the logos.

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You see from a Muslim perspective when Christians say that the logos is eternal thereby divine.

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Muslims would argue that is shirk and a Christian in retrospect will say well you have the same view of the Quran so by extension you are also engaging in shirk.

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So from that aspect perhaps the question may be significant but beyond that there is no particular you know there's no real substance behind the actual issue of the question.

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When you look at revelation in general the Quranic perspective is all revelation is progressive. There were previous revelations also progressive and each of them marks a stage in the world's spiritual history.

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So the Quran we have no problem operates within the history of humanity because it is there to provide guidance and solutions for the perspective and development of man.

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The same principle with the Injil, the same with the Zabur, the same with the Torah. Same principle applies and of course it is meant as guidance for humanity.

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This is a Muslim scholar by the name of Fazlur Rahman and he states in his book Islam and Islam in Modernity that the

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Quran maintains the otherness and the objectivity and verbal character of the revelation but equally rejects its externality vis -a -vis the

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Prophet. Meaning as he goes on continuing that the Quran is a divine response to the

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Prophet's mind to the moral and social situation of the Prophet's Arabia tackling the oppression of the

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Meccan aristocracy. This divine message he goes on broke through the consciousness of the

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Prophet from an agency whose source was God and that's essentially the point. Therefore he mentioned the issue of Zaynab which we may discuss in the rebuttal session.

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Zaynab, the issue of Zaynab and the marriage to Zayd was very much something which was which was contextually in the time of the

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Prophet. A reference to previous revelation. Contextual, historically specific, no problem in respect of that.

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Revelation versus inspiration. James made a point about the whole difference between the Muslim and the

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Christian understanding of revelation. In Quran states that there are three distinct kinds of revelation.

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It is not vouchsafe to any mortal that he should speak to God except by revelation or behind a veil or by sending a messenger and revealing by his permission what he pleases.

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It identifies three distinct patterns and modes in terms of which revelation comes from. The Muslim position is that God dictates and the

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Prophet is made to pronounce. The Christian perspective is you are inspired but if you are inspired

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Rudolph and James can't write the same thing but you can be inspired to write about the particular issue.

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Now here's a question. Can any human author remain consistent in his teaching and preachings for a period of over two decades?

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Anybody? And for 23 years the Prophet practiced and preached in Islam.

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We have no example of any compromise. You can bring up the verses of Quranic, we can deal with that but the

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Quranic message is consistent throughout. One other important point is that the narratology of the

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Quran defines conventional literature, all literature, because it is not linear, it is not chronological, it is not biographical, not about.

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Any outside agnostic would be able to discern that the style is as if God is speaking. For example, surah 49 verse 13,

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O mankind, we created you from a single pair. We made you into nations and tribes that you may recognize each other.

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Surah 3 verse 43, This is part of the tidings of things unseen which we reveal unto thee.

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Who is we? What does it sound like? It sounds as if God is speaking.

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Even if you're an atheist, it sounds as if God is speaking and that is distinct from the what I would call the once upon a time story, once upon a time narrative.

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Now contrast that and speaking about inspiration, we look about the once upon a time narrative,

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Genesis chapter 1 verse 1. In the beginning, once upon a time, God created the heavens and the earth.

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John 1 verse 1, In the beginning, once upon a time, was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was

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God. Now after the death of Moses, the servant of the Lord, it came to pass, so it happened once upon a time.

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Now after the death of Joshua, it came to pass, so it happened once upon a time. Now it came to pass in the days when the judges ruled that there was famine in the land, once upon a time.

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Now it came to pass, so it happened once upon a time after the death of Saul to Samuel chapter 1 verse 1.

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Now King David was old, stricken in years. Now in the first year of Cyrus, King of Persia, now it came to pass, so it happened once upon a time in the 30th year, in the fourth month, in the fifth day of the month.

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Can you see the stylistic rendering? There is clearly a distinction. Anyone can see that that there is a kind of a once upon a time biographical narrative which is distinct from the

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Quranic narrative, which seems to suggest that God himself is speaking. Even if you don't accept it, you can clearly see that.

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I've got a copy of the Harper Collins study bible, the new revised standard version. In 1971, these scholars basically listed the books of the bible and they basically gave a narrative in terms of who they assessed to have been the respective authors and they go on to suggest author,

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Genesis, one of the five books of Moses. Exodus, generally credited Moses. Book of Ruth, author not definitely known, perhaps

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Samuel. First Samuel, author unknown. Second Samuel, author unknown. First Kings, author unknown.

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Second Kings, author unknown. First Chronicles, author unknown, probably collected and edited by Israel. So the point is you are basically assuming inspiration to books which are anonymous.

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Now I'm going to give you an example and I know time is limited but could I have some volunteers here? Anyone? Sir, would you mind?

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I'm not going to do a magic trick. It's just basically to confirm some particular passage. I want you to just follow through with Isaiah 37 and I'm going to basically read

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Isaiah 37 from here and you confirm whether it is correct or not. I'm going to start from verse 1. And it came to pass when

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King Hezekiah heard it that he rent his clothes and covered himself with sackcloth and went to the household of the Lord. Am I correct sir? And he sent

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Eliakim which was over the household and Shebna the scribe and the elders of the priests covered with sackcloth to Isaiah the prophet the son of Amos, correct?

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And they said unto him, thus said Hezekiah, this day is a day of trouble and of rebuke and blasphemy for the children are come to the birth and there is not strength to bring forth, correct?

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Verse 4, it may be the Lord thy God will hear all the words of Rapshacha, correct? Let's go to verse 8.

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So Rapshacha returned and found the king of Assyria warring against Libna, correct? Verse 9, and when he heard saying of King of Ethiopia, behold he's come out to fight against thee, correct?

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So what can you see? Word for word it's the same. You confirm that? The trouble is I was actually not reading from the book of Isaiah.

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I was reading from the book of Kings. 2 Kings chapter 19. Now this even defeats the position that James postulated at the end of his debate where he suggested that clearly there is a distinction between revelation and inspiration.

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But if you are inspired by God, clearly different to the Quran, there is no dictation.

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How come the passage of Isaiah 37 and 2 Kings chapter 19 are identical, word for word, to the

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T? What is the significance behind that? And what does it bode for revelation? Look at it. 2

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Kings chapter 19, Isaiah 37. According to the traditional perspective, the book of Isaiah was authored by Isaiah.

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The book of Kings was authored by Jeremiah. According to the Collins RSV, they were authored by unknown writers.

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Now here's the problem. Did God absentmindedly dictate the same tale twice? And if you were inspired by God, how do you explain word for word, comma for comma, apostrophe for apostrophe, full stop for full stop?

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Word for word is the same. Meaning one of the authors was referring to the other author and was certainly copying, which in literature you would call literary plagiarism.

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So even if you accept the notion that these books are inspired and the nature of revelation and inspiration differs, it becomes a problem because these basic issues effectively arise.

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And so I'm saying that it is a problem when even you maintain the doctrine of inspiration. We believe in a verbal dictation, you believe in inspiration.

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How do we explain the identical parallels between these two particular passages? Now the question, is this really a debate worth it?

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Uncreatedness versus createdness. And the point is that the connection between the way dogma develops and the socio -political environment wherein it develops is directly related to that particular question.

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For example, does the question have an underlying agenda? Does it? For the

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Muslims, the Quran is a word of God. For the Christians, Jesus is a word of God, right?

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And so the argument goes something like this. The speech of God is an attribute of God.

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God and his attributes are eternal. The Quran is a speech of God, therefore the

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Quran is eternal. That's the argument that the Asharites and many of the orthodox Muslims followed through, notwithstanding the fact that is it perhaps possible that the

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Quran is a manifestation of the word of God? And that this was at some point in time created within the context of history in dealing with the social milieu and the political context and circumstances and challenges that were faced at a particular time?

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Because if we have, if we see this as a problem to Tawhid, which many Christians, because the

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Christian would say that how can you Muslims say that the Quran is eternal with God and God is eternal at the same time?

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This should compromise shirk. But if you want to make the allegation, let's take it to its logical conclusion.

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Christians would have an insurmountable problem when dealing with that particular question because it would affect them tenfold.

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Let me tell you how. When you look at the word kalam in Arabic, meaning speech in a technical sense, it may be rendered as a speculative theology, but when the

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Jews spoke of the Torah as F .E. Peters in his book Children of Abraham pointed out, they asked the question, is the

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Torah eternal or not? And the problem in Christianity is different. The problem in Christianity is you have the word, the son, the word becomes flesh, as you can see in the picture, and he's in worship.

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Now nobody worships the Quran, but if you want to take that argument to its logical conclusion that look, the

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Quran is eternal with God pre -existent as the word of God and God is eternal pre -existent.

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What about the position in Christianity? What about for example the fact that Jesus and the

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Holy Ghost and the Holy Spirit are in fact God? So now by extension, what about Jesus?

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He speaks. What about the words of Jesus? Are his words eternal? What about the words of the

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Holy Ghost or the Holy Spirit? The Holy Spirit communicates and speaks. Are the words of the eternal?

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So can you see that if you want to ask this question, it in fact creates a dilemma because you have a situation taking it to its logical conclusion that the

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Father speaks, so he has the word of God which is supposed to be eternal. The Logos speaks because he has the words.

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The word of God is eternal. The Holy Ghost also speaks. His words are eternal. So now you have what

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I would call a holy trilemma. You have three persons, the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit, and each and every single one of them speaks the word of God.

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Are their words eternal? Which you claim is a problem for Muslims, when in reality is more a problem for Christianity.

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So I think we need to have a more nuanced, balanced perspective. When you look for example at the concept of the divine tablet, the

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Lawh Mahfuz. بَلْ هُوَ قُرْآنٌ مَجِيدٌ فِي لَوْحٍ مَّحْفُوزٌ Inay it is a glorious Quran in a guarded tablet.

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The word Lawh meaning plank, the plural form is Alwah, Mahfuz means guarded.

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Many commentators point out that that verse has to be read in conjunction with surah 15 verse 9 which says إِنَّا نَحْنُ نَزَّنَّ زِكْرَ وَإِنَّا لَهُ لَحَافِزُونَ

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Surely we have revealed the reminder and surely we its guardians. Surah 2 verse 79, no alteration found in the

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Quran. There is no mention of a Lawh Mahfuz in a literal sense in which the decrees of gods are in fact written down.

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As many commentators point out that if a guarded tablet is spoken, it stands for the all comprehensive knowledge of God as clear as written words on a tablet.

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This is Muhammad Asad in his book the message of the Quran. This is what he says, although some commentators take in a literal sense and understand by it an actual heavenly tablet.

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What do you mean by heavenly tablet? Do you mean that it is a tablet of stone or metal?

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What do you mean by that? Although some commentators understand it as a heavenly tablet upon which the Quran is inscribed, to many others the phrase has always had a metaphorical meaning, namely an allusion to the imperishable quality of the divine writ.

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For example, and he goes on, Tabari, Baghawi, Razi, Ibn Kathir all agree that the phrase well -guarded tablet relates to God's promise that the

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Quran would never be corrupted and would remain free from arbitrary additions, diminutions and textual changes.

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Another classic example, Surah 6 verse 116, the word of thy Lord has been accomplished, tammat kalimatu, finalized, there is none who can change his words and he is a hearer and know of all things.

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Surah 5 verse 3, al -yom akmaltu lakum deenukum, wadmamtu alaykum ni'mati, wa radi lakumul islam ad -deena, that this day have

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I perfected, finalized, completed, meaning before that it was not completed, now it is in fact completed.

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Shall I seek other than God as a source of law when he has revealed to you the book fully detailed? The word of your

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Lord is finalized in truth and in justice, nothing shall abrogate these words. He is a hearer and the knower.

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So in a nutshell then, all that is in the foreknowledge of God, actions in human history, some of which are discussed in the

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Quran, is in fact eternal. So when people argue about the point was the Quran eternal or not, in one sense they are correct because in the knowledge of God, in the foreknowledge of God, the

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Quran is eternal, no doubt. But then by extension, in the knowledge of God, this debate was also eternal because did

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God know at some point in eternity past that this debate was going to happen? Of course, of course

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He did. So from that perspective we can make the argument that the Quran is eternal because it is eternal in the knowledge of God.

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At the same time it is created because when you put it on a piece of paper, it is written. When it is revealed to the

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Prophet dealing with the socio -political milieu, the circumstances of his time, it is responding to the challenges and problems of his time and providing solutions.

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Because the Quran is essentially a book of guidance for the whole of humanity, it identifies the point and we as believers are meant to maintain an interpretative relationship with that particular text.

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So the Quran does in fact operate within history, that doesn't detract on its divine nature. And I would say,

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I'm not saying James is silly, but the question is silly because it plays into this classic missionary polemic.

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And I'm not saying that James is coming up and having an agenda, but I'm saying this question has been asked in missionary circles in the past for now close to 100 years.

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So it's nothing new from that perspective. But how does this tie up to the Christian idea of the eternality of the

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Word of God? Because for Christians, many Christians believe that the Logos is a Word of God.

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Most Trinitarians believe that the Logos refers directly to Christ. So in most versions of John, Logos is capitalized as translated as Word.

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The problem we have is that if you look at the study of the Greek word Logos, the more than 300 times that it occurs in the

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New Testament, both the NIV and the KJV, it is capitalized only seven times. When a word occurs more than 300 times and it is capitalized fewer than 10 times, then it is obvious that when to capitalize it and when not to capitalize it is a translator's decision based on the particular understanding of scripture.

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I mean Logos has a wide range of meanings. I'll give you a classic example here. Speaking Logos, Romans 15 8, what

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I have said and done, Logos. Luke 20 20, they might catch him in sub statement, Logos. Matthew 21 24,

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I will ask you one question, Logos. One can go on. Logos has a wide variety of meanings, the

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Word of God, which you believe is eternal. And so with all the definitions of the way Logos can be translated, how can we decide which meaning of Logos to choose for any one particular verse?

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And how can we determine what the Logos is in John chapter 1 verse 1? This is John Lightfoot, he's a particular scholar,

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I think Trinitarian scholar, and he points out that the word Logos, denoting both reason and speech, was a philosophical term adopted by Alexandrian Judaism before Saint Paul wrote to express the manifestation of the unseen

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God. Christian teachers, when they adopted this term, exalted and fixed its meaning by attaching to it precise and definite ideas.

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The word is a divine person and they altered materially the significance of all these subordinate terms connected with the idea of the

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Logos. So when you look in John 1 1 nrk, enhologos, kaiologos, enpros, tontheon, kaitheos, enhologos, you can clearly see that there is an agenda when you want to suggest that the

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Logos in John 1 1 refers to Christ. Tontheon, the God with the definite article. Theos, no article, the indefinite article is basically there.

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And so for translating consistency, that should also be translated as a God. But coming back to the problem, coming back to the issue, when a

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Christian is asked the problem, when the question whether the Quran is eternal or not, it creates a greater problem for his theology, because we can extend it by saying, well,

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Jesus is a word of God. What about the words of the word of God? Jesus, who is God, are his words eternal?

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What about the words of the Holy Ghost? Are his words eternal? What about the words of the Father? Are his words eternal? The Quran, on the other hand, realistically speaking, despite all these theological debates that have happened over the centuries, operates very much in human history.

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And as James has correctly pointed out, I think we're in agreement on that point. Response to questions and social circumstances of the particular time.

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The question of the debate is moot. The law, the law is allegorical, as surah 3 verse 7 states in the

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Quran. Some verses are clear and foundational, others are allegorical, and refers as many modern scholars, and indeed some classical scholars have pointed out, to the all -encompassing knowledge of God, and not some superficial stone tablet that was existing with God in eternity past.

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As Imam Shaukhani pointed out, what do you mean when you say uncreated? Do you mean there was like some sort of book, like a

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Quran, written in some tablet? And how big was this tablet? And where was it located? And was it time and space and dimension?

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What do you mean by that? The Quran, unlike any other book, identifies itself by name, claims to be divine, and claims to be guidance for the whole of humanity.

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That's not a claim that the Bible makes, although you can quote Matthew 28, go baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.

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That is not the claim that the Bible makes. And as you can see, the Bible is biographical, the narratology is limited.

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I gave you a classic example of what we would describe in literature as literary plagiarism, where the author of the

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Book of Isaiah copies word for word, to the T, what is contained in the Book of Kings.

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So how can you even appeal to the idea that inspiration exists in some form or the other?

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Because if it existed, and if both people are inspired by the Holy Spirit, how come they are replicating identical, word for word, what is contained in the text?

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Did God absent -mindedly dictate the same tale twice? Whereas the Quran says, this is guidance, and it is guidance for the whole of humanity.

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Whether you accept it or not, is obviously up to you. But a clear and external observation of the

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Quranic text seems to suggest that God is speaking, the Quran certainly operates within human history, and most certainly, in fact, provides guidance and solutions to the problems that we find in society.

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And at the end of the day, it is in fact meant for the benefit of the whole of humanity. So I want to thank you.

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I think I've got how many, 13 seconds left? I'll give the additional 13 seconds to James, and I'd like to see his response in the next,

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I think, 12 to 15 minutes. And I hope we have a good conversation. Thank you very much. Thank you, everyone.

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Thank you for your patience. And what we're going to do now is Dr. White will have a 15 -minute rebuttal, and then

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Yusuf will have a 15 -minute rebuttal. Thank you. I don't know exactly how many years ago it was now, but Yusuf and I debated in the

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Juma Masjid here in the Durban area. And at that time, Yusuf made the same assertion you just made, that John 1 -1 should be translated, the word was a

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God. And I'll say tonight what I said then. I've taught Greek for many decades, and if Yusuf was taking first -year

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Greek from me, he would fail. And I demonstrated that his utilization of Dr. Daniel Wallace's material was in error at that point.

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Dr. Wallace himself recorded an entire video explaining why Yusuf was in error about that, but he just repeated the same error again.

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I can assure you, as someone who actually reads the Greek language, 94 % of the time, the term theos appears without an article.

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If you translate it as a God, it would turn the New Testament into a massive self -contradiction. It would make any sense at all.

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If the word God had article in John 1 -1, it would teach modalism, that all of God and all the word are the same thing.

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There's a reason it doesn't have an article. Those who read Greek know that. I'm sorry, Yusuf, that you won't accept correction from myself and Dr.

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Wallace, but we offer it again. And this also brings us to the important part of this particular issue, and that is, for example, the assertion, well, you know, capitalization of logos is an editorial issue.

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Of course it is, because context determines. Logos has an extremely wide semantic domain.

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It is a very common term. So when it's used in a specific text, such as in John 1 -1, and it is personalized, it is said that the word eternally existed, was in relationship with God, and was as to his nature deity, and then that the word becomes flesh, this is personal, and this is the difference.

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This is why it is, I'm going to try to correct so we can move forward in a meaningful fashion.

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When you try to parallel the logos, the son, with the

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Quran, as if we're saying the same thing, the word, that is an inappropriate connection.

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We are saying that the son reveals the father perfectly. That is why he is called the logos.

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He is the revealer of the father. That's what John 1 -18 says. No one has seen God in any time.

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The unique God who is in the bosom of the father, he has declared him. He has exegeted him. He has explained him.

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The point is that that revelation is personal. The logos is a divine, eternal person, not a book, not a body of knowledge.

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And so it does not make any sense within the Christian context to even ask the question, well, when the father speaks, are his words eternal?

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And the son speaks, are his words eternal? So we've got all these different… No, there is only one revelation for us.

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For example, he asked the same question that Shabir Ali asked in a debate a while back, is the

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Torah eternal? No. Did God know what he was going to say in the

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Torah? Did God know what was going to be in that? Is that knowledge of those things eternal in the sense that God knows what he's going to do?

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Well, of course, but that doesn't mean that this debate has been eternal or that you and I are eternal.

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In fact, last night, my Muslim opponent actually said that in John 17 -5, when

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Jesus said, glorify me with the glory I had in your presence before the world was, that we were all eternal because God knew we were going to exist.

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That's not what Jesus was saying in John 17. That's not what John is saying when he's talking about the Logos either.

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The Logos gives the perfect revelation of who the father is. And so, it's not a book.

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It's not a body of knowledge. It is a personal revelation that is found in the

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Logos. And so, that connection that has been drawn between the Logos and the Qanon is not representative of our understanding or the

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New Testament's understanding of who the Logos is, who the son is, or how he functions as the perfect revealer of the father.

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But the fact that Jesus made that claim and said that no one can know the father except the son and those to whom the son wills to reveal him does show the exclusive claim of Jesus, the exclusive claim of Jesus to be the perfect revelation of the father.

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And so, the issue of foreknowledge, I as a

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Christian believe very clearly. I do not believe in open theism. I do not believe that God is ignorant of future events.

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But I do not believe that God knows future events by merely passively observing them. He did not merely create the universe and then go, hey, look,

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I win. Yay, praise me. That's not what happened. The reason that God knows future events, according to the book of Isaiah, is because he's sovereign over them.

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He is the creator over all the actions of time. In fact, he can tell you what happened in the past.

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Any historian can do that. But he can tell you why it happened. No historian can do that. We can make guesses, but God can say,

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I can tell you exactly why these events took place. That's what makes the one true God different from all the other gods.

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And so, that connection, I think, needs to be addressed. Now, I hope everyone heard.

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Maybe I misunderstood it, but there was a quotation given. Maybe Yusuf doesn't agree with the quotation.

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I'm not sure. But the Quran is a response to Muhammad's mind, to what's going on in his experience.

01:00:02

Most Muslims with whom I have spoken, in my experience, would not say it in that way.

01:00:09

And in fact, disassociate Muhammad, his understandings, and everything else from the understanding of the

01:00:17

Quran itself. But you see, this is why this is important. Because we can, in the

01:00:23

New Testament, place New Testament revelation within history. If you're reading Paul's epistle to the

01:00:28

Corinthians, you can look at the history of Corinth, and you can look at the religious situation, and you can deal with all of those issues.

01:00:34

And that's extremely relevant. But when you read the Tafsir literature, that is not what you find in the

01:00:41

Tafsir literature at all. You do not have a commentary upon... Well, for example, let me give you an example.

01:00:48

When the Christians from Najran came and met with Muhammad toward the end of his life, a lot of people feel that those conversations were behind material that appears in Surah 3.

01:01:00

Now, it would be extremely relevant for us to ask the question, well, if that's the case, then did

01:01:06

Muhammad's understanding of what Christians believe change and improve and become sharper and impact what is found in the pages of the

01:01:16

Quran? I would imagine that there are westernized Muslims that would say, that's quite possible.

01:01:22

But historically, that has not even entered into the consideration in orthodox

01:01:28

Sunni understanding because that would violate the eternality and the uncreatedness of the

01:01:33

Quran and the idea there's not a finger of man, that it's dictated. In fact, that's why I still don't understand is that Yusuf said, yes, we will use that term dictation.

01:01:44

Well, if there is dictation, then you can't have Muhammad's mind having any relevance to this at all.

01:01:51

So, I'm not sure where that was coming from. I'd like to hear some more about that. And also, Yusuf did not, when he said that the

01:02:00

Christian view of scripture is being inspired, he seemingly is drawing from the

01:02:05

Latin understanding of that term, that there's something being breathed into words. But that's one of the verses

01:02:11

I didn't get to, is I wanted to deal with the one place that term is used in 2 Timothy 3, 16 through 17.

01:02:17

Because in that text, we are told that all scripture is theanustos, it is

01:02:23

God -breathed. That is not taking human words and breathing something special into them.

01:02:28

That is not the biblical understanding of inspiration. If you hold your hand in front of your mouth while you speak, you cannot help but feel breath because that's how you pronounce words.

01:02:38

And that's the intimacy of what scripture is to God. It is God speaking. It is breathed out by God.

01:02:46

That's what that term means. It's not that you're taking human words and breathing something special into them. That's sort of actually backwards from what the

01:02:53

Greek itself indicates. And so, when we talk about scripture being theanustos, men spoke from God as they were being carried along by the

01:03:03

Holy Spirit. And because scripture is theanustos, then it is profitable for everything that the man of God is called to do, including teaching, rebuking, exhorting, training in righteousness, that the man of God may be completely equipped, thoroughly equipped for every good work.

01:03:19

He doesn't have to look to anything else other than that which is theanustos. But that does not remove scripture from its historical context.

01:03:26

In the same way, the illustration that was given that there is overlap.

01:03:34

There's overlap in the Psalter. There's overlap in historical records. This was actually called plagiarism.

01:03:41

Now, let me tell you something. If that section from Isaiah and the section from Kings differed from one another, that would be used as an argument against the

01:03:50

Bible. Because, for example, when there are differences in the Synoptic Gospels, our Muslim friends will say, ah, see, that's an error in the

01:03:58

Bible. Ah, but if you find them saying the exact same thing, that's an error in the Bible, too, because it's plagiarism.

01:04:05

Now, why is that a complete misrepresentation of the Christian understanding of inspiration?

01:04:10

Because we're talking about historical events. And both sources used the same historical event.

01:04:17

No one's going to deny that. That doesn't make it plagiarism. And it doesn't have any, I mean, there's one text.

01:04:24

I remember once at a youth meeting years and years ago. Our youth minister had us memorize a verse of Scripture.

01:04:34

And it's in, I think it's in First and Second Chronicles. I think it's chapter 16. But my youth was a long time ago.

01:04:41

But I remember what the verse was in the King James Version. At Parbar, four at Parbar, two westward, and four at Parbar.

01:04:50

That's it. Isn't that an inspiring verse? Shall we, could we come up with a worship hymn that would be based upon that?

01:04:58

No, we couldn't. Because what is it? It was where certain people were placed in a historical narrative.

01:05:04

That's all it is. And so the utilization of historical sources by more than one book, in fact, you have all sorts of parallels between First and Second Chronicles and Kings and so on and so forth.

01:05:15

The use of historical sources, that has nothing to do with inspiration. It's not a denial of inspiration.

01:05:21

It's not plagiarism in any way, shape, or form. It just demonstrates that these works actually have historical pedigree.

01:05:29

They're actually going back to the events that they narrate for us, which is often what is rejected.

01:05:35

But let me turn that issue around. I mentioned earlier that Lot's interaction with the people of Sodom and Gomorrah is narrated four different times in the

01:05:44

Quran. And remember, Yusuf twice said, did God just absentmindedly forget he had done this?

01:05:50

Well, see, I just don't think that's going to get us anywhere. I can turn that around. And in those four, why did

01:05:56

God repeat the story of Lot four different times in different words? Why do you tell us what Lot said differently each time?

01:06:02

If the first time was perfect, then the second time has to be imperfect, right? The third time even more imperfect, fourth even, or is it getting better?

01:06:09

How does that work? No, it's just literature. It's just literary ways of doing things.

01:06:15

It doesn't, it doesn't, and if you allow the author of the Quran to use that story in multiple times in multiple ways and to say it in different ways, great.

01:06:26

But the problem is if you want to make the idea that's dictated, then you have to answer the question, well, why wouldn't

01:06:33

Allah say it the same way each time? Well, it goes back to some type of literary genre.

01:06:39

So we've got to be fair, and I think it is a meaningful objection to those

01:06:47

Muslims who try to make differences between the Gospels their key issue. The fact that the

01:06:52

Quran itself uses different words and different ways of expressing the same story in multiple different contexts.

01:06:59

It makes sense when you recognize that the author of the Quran is writing from a particular historical perspective.

01:07:05

But the problem, as I pointed out, is what that means is there is ignorance demonstrated on the part of the author of the

01:07:13

Quran. He doesn't know what canon scripture is for Christians. He doesn't even know what the content is. There's almost no interaction whatsoever with Christian theology found in the

01:07:21

New Testament, and so the comments that are made aren't accurate. And so the point is it's in history, and it's a valid question to ask, what did

01:07:29

Muhammad know? Because his level of knowledge is directly relevant to what is in the text.

01:07:35

The Muslim is saying, no, it's not. The Christian is saying, it is relevant to talk about Paul's development,

01:07:42

Paul's experiences, Peter's experiences, the utilization of historical sources, because men spoke from God.

01:07:49

Men are speaking, men are writing, and they're doing so in history. God has revealed himself in history.

01:07:56

And so we do have very, very different ways of approaching this particular issue.

01:08:03

And I think that when you actually allow for an honest understanding of the reality of history, and look, there are things we don't know about history, especially when you get into the

01:08:15

Old Testament. We're getting so far back that there's almost nothing coming from that time period that we can look to outside of the

01:08:23

Old Testament to verify this, that, or the other thing other than archaeological digs and things like that. I understand that, but the reality is that if you allow the

01:08:34

Old and New Testaments to be read fairly, the idea that God has revealed himself in time through the utilization of human languages, human individuals, is much more coherent than the idea of a dictated book, where you have stuff that comes down, it's dictated, and then just simply memorized.

01:08:55

And you can't ever ask the questions about history, and you can't ever ask the questions about the growth in knowledge of the author or anything like that at all without violating some type of canon of interpretation.

01:09:09

And I really think that Islam needs to move toward the analysis of its text in that fashion, and be able to demonstrate the consistency of that text on the same level that we've been doing with the

01:09:20

Old and New Testaments for a long time. Thank you very much for your attention. Thank you.

01:09:30

Over to you, sir, 15 minutes. Thank you for that, James. I was quite surprised.

01:09:37

He said that the author of the book of Isaiah and the author of the book of Kings were basically relying on a similar historical source.

01:09:46

Are you saying there's an external source that they're now relying upon or replicating, and thereby they get the identical word -for -word narrative?

01:09:56

But I mean, that proves a particular point. It proves the human nature, the human origins of this particular book.

01:10:03

You see, according to the doctrine of inspiration, and James says I infused some degree of Latin understanding to it, the inspiration is all men were moved by the

01:10:12

Holy Spirit, or as 2 Timothy 3 16 says, all scripture is inspired by God, and it's palpable for doctrine, reproof, correction, and instruction into righteousness.

01:10:22

So if it is inspired by God, it is basically led, according to Christian belief, by the

01:10:27

Holy Spirit. But in that instance, no two writers can have the exact same identical word format.

01:10:36

You can have the same discussion on the, if two people were to write a summary of tonight's event, you will discuss the same thing.

01:10:43

But if there is a word -for -word replication, what does that mean? What does it mean?

01:10:48

It means that one person is copying the writing of the other, and by any standard that you may apply to it, that in literature, whether it's religious literature, whether it is fictional literature, is called plagiarism.

01:11:01

But the problem is compounded tenfold when you assume inspiration to books which are fundamentally regarded as anonymous.

01:11:12

Open the Collins Revised Standard Version. Ask any modern day

01:11:17

Christian scholar. I'll be the conservative scholar. Who wrote the book of Kings? Author? Unknown.

01:11:24

Who wrote the books of Isaiah? May have been written by Isaiah. What does that tell you? It tells you effectively that we are, in a nutshell, prepared to pay lip service and assume inspiration to books which loosely speaking could have been written by any

01:11:40

Tom, Dick or Harry. And that is a fundamental problem demarcating Christianity and Islam.

01:11:47

So I don't think it's easy to basically just simply sweep it away, to seem to suggest that they're basically just boring from some source.

01:11:55

You find identical replication, which should not be the case. And when it is the case, you need to ask yourself, how is that possible?

01:12:03

Because all these books, the book of Kings, the book of Samuel, they both repeat the same incident, the same story. But they're not the same in the sense of the stylistic rendering.

01:12:11

Here you have two passages, word for word, identical. This basically strikes directly at the root of the inspiration and shows the very human nature of the book, the kind of once upon a time narrative which

01:12:23

I was trying to make and the distinction which I was making. Now James also put the point that verbal dictation disallows the fact that the

01:12:33

Quran can operate within history. How? And when you look at the Quranic text as an external observer, does it sound that this is a verbal dictation or not?

01:12:44

This is part of the sightings of things that seen, which we reveal unto thee. We, all mankind, we created you from a single pair.

01:12:52

Does that sound like dictation or not? And if the assumption is that is not revelation, then the only implication is that the

01:13:00

Prophet Muhammad is lying. He's deceiving the people. Then why not make the particular claim? But the problem is that missionary tautology works across three boards.

01:13:08

They state that he is either lying, he is deceived by the devil, or he is delusional.

01:13:13

He's insane. But the problem is you can't have your cake and eat at the same time. If you are lying, you're not delusional. And if you're delusional, you're not inspired by the devil.

01:13:20

And how can you be inspired by the devil when the Quran says, when you read this book, the

01:13:26

Quran, seek protection in God from Satan, the accursed one. So would Satan inspire the Prophet to say that when you read my book, ask

01:13:33

God to protect you from me? Can you see how it defeats the whole notion of even the satanic idea or the devilish inspiration of the

01:13:42

Quran? Now James made a point about the story of Zaynab. And the fact that this, I think in his book, points out he, to give his book, now according to Islamic orthodoxy, these words were inscribed in the heavenly tablet in the eternally past.

01:13:54

They are as eternal as Allah is. And yet the two sections both deal with the same awkward situation that arose in history regarding Muhammad, Zayd and Zaynab.

01:14:01

What's the problem with that? You have a situation in the lifetime of the Prophet and the Quran addresses it.

01:14:07

Is that a problem? And what is the problem in this particular narrative? I want to ask what's the problem?

01:14:12

If you look at surah 33 verse 37, this is what it says. And again, it's as if it's a dictation. When thou said to him, that Zayd, to whom

01:14:20

God had shown favor and whom you had shown a favor, keep your wife to yourself and keep your duty to God.

01:14:26

You covered in your heart that which God was about to bring light. You feared men, but God has a greater right that you should fear him.

01:14:33

So when Zayd dissolved her in marriage, we, we is who, as if God is speaking, gave thee as a wife so that there should be no difficulty for the believers about the wives of the adopted sons.

01:14:43

Now here's the problem. You see, in classic missionary polemic, classic missionary polemic, the idea was that somehow or the other, the

01:14:51

Prophet fell in love with Zaynab, who was his cousin, and therefore dissolved the marriage between Zaynab and Zayd, and thereby married

01:15:00

Zaynab. And so the argument being presented from the Christian side, although James doesn't want to say this, this is a convenient revelation.

01:15:07

This is a revelation of convenience. That this is a person married to your adopted son, Zaynab, and you cause it to be dissolved, and then conveniently you had a

01:15:16

Quranic revelation revealed to basically allow you to marry Zaynab, who was the wife of your adopted son.

01:15:22

But here's a problem, a fundamental problem. According to all Islamic sources and the

01:15:27

Quran itself, who arranged the marriage between Zaynab and his adopted son? The Prophet himself.

01:15:34

So it is conceded as a particular point that according to all the believers of Islam, Zaynab was a cousin of the

01:15:41

Prophet. She was the daughter of his aunt Umaymah, and the Prophet arranged the marriage between Zayd and Zaynab.

01:15:48

And what was the context behind that? Zayd was a slave. Zaynab was a woman from the aristocratic elite.

01:15:56

So this struck directly against the Qurayshi aristocracy, that how is it possible that in the 6th century a slave,

01:16:02

Zayd, can marry a woman from such a noble status? So what was the Prophet doing?

01:16:07

He was breaking the shameful system of slave marrying an aristocrat, something which was totally taboo in the 6th century and totally taboo in Christianity, which in fact recognized slavery.

01:16:21

Christianity recognized slavery. So he was breaking that. After a year, the marriage did not work, and there was a domestic dispute between the parties.

01:16:31

So then Zayd comes and says, I cannot marry this woman.

01:16:36

So what does the Prophet say? According to the Quran, it says, you told

01:16:44

Zaynab, you told Zayd, keep your wife to yourself, you keep your duty to God, because you concealed in your heart what

01:16:50

God was about to be known. Which is that in the society at that particular time, if it was shown that a marriage which was sanctioned and arranged by the

01:17:01

Prophet led to some sort of domestic dispute, it would mean effectively that this would create some form of domestic embarrassment in the

01:17:09

Prophet's life. So from the Prophet's perspective, he added the point that no, you should conceal, you should continue this particular marriage, don't break it.

01:17:19

But after a while this became apparent, the parties could not marry each other, and thereafter the

01:17:24

Quran says that when Zayd dissolved her marriage tie, we gave her thee to be your wife.

01:17:32

Now what is the context behind that? The context behind that was in an Arabian society, when someone was adopted, they were, by implication, their particular lineal ties with their real parents were done away with, they were disinherited.

01:17:47

They didn't know who their real parents were. And so when people were in fact adopted, there was a breaking connection between them and who their real parents were.

01:17:55

And so sometimes the wealth of the orphans were inherited. And so the Quran tried to against that particular point to suggest that in actual fact your adopted sons are not your real sons.

01:18:06

They are not your real sons, they are your adopted sons. So if for example you were to marry the wives of your adopted sons, that would not be tantamount to incest, because effectively the wives of your adopted sons are not your daughters -in -law in the conventional sense, in the sense where a woman marries your actual blood son.

01:18:27

So from that perspective, the Quran breaks that particular taboo. And the taboo in Arabian society was that you could not marry the wives of your adopted sons because of this assumption that your adopted sons were your literal sons, they were disinherited from the wealth that they got from their real parents, and so the

01:18:42

Quran struck against that taboo. So there were two taboos that was being breaking. One, that the Prophet arranged a marriage between Zaynab and Zayd, a slave.

01:18:51

Two, that he was breaking the taboo that was existing in social in Arabian society. Now the point being made is that from the missionary polemic, that the

01:19:00

Prophet basically was in love with Zaynab, and so he deliberately caused the marriage to break down.

01:19:06

But here's a problem, who arranged the marriage of Zaynab to Zayd in the first place? The Prophet.

01:19:11

When this marriage was arranged with Zaynab, Zaynab in fact stated that she didn't want to marry Zayd because he was a slave, she wants to rather marry the

01:19:19

Prophet. But the Prophet refused, and basically stated that she married

01:19:24

Zayd because he was striking at the inequality in Arabian society. So from that perspective, it is admitted that Zaynab was the daughter of the

01:19:33

Prophet's real aunt, it is admitted that she was one of the early people who fled to Medina, it is admitted that the

01:19:39

Prophet himself had arranged the marriage between Zayd and Zaynab, and finally it is admitted that Zaynab desired, as did also her brother, before she was married to Zayd, that she should be taken in marriage by the

01:19:49

Holy Prophet. What was it then which prevented the Prophet from marrying her when she was a virgin?

01:19:55

Had he not seen her before? So can you see how this particular argument strikes directly at the root of this

01:20:01

Christian polemic which is known from time immemorial? And the problem is that this is what existed in orientalist literature hundreds of years ago.

01:20:08

And again, if you look at the particular text, if this was a marriage of convenience, when you look at the stylistic rendering of these particular passages of the

01:20:17

Quran, it is as if God is speaking. Now the question is that if it was a marriage of convenience, and the verse was a revelation of convenience, are we saying that the

01:20:26

Prophet made it up, meaning he lied? But then if he lied, can we then say by extension, because in terms of Christian polemical literature, they say he was also mad, and by extension can we then say that he was deluded by the devil?

01:20:39

Can you see the problem that we have when we look at this particular issue? Then James basically makes the point of the

01:20:44

Gnostic Gospels, and the problem we have here is does similarity imply boring? Because if you look at the narratives in the

01:20:51

Gnostic Gospels, they are not identical replications. They are not identical replications.

01:20:57

And so there is a dilemma and a double standard here. I'll tell you why. Because if you are saying that similarity between one source implies boring, then can one say the same thing about the

01:21:09

Christian Bible? I'll tell you why. If you look for example at the Old Testament, and the concept of Yahweh in the

01:21:15

Old Testament, like an aged deity, his dwelling place and the heavenly court, you look at the

01:21:21

Ugaritic sources, you find the same thing. If you look for example at the flood narratives which are found in the book of Genesis, look at the flood narratives that are found in the book of Genesis and the stories of Noah, and you go and look and get copies of the epics of Gilgamesh and the

01:21:34

Kodal of Hammurabi, you would have exactly the same story that is found there. And it is generally established by Sumerian scholars, people like Zechariah Sitchin and so on, that the epics of Gilgamesh and the

01:21:45

Kodal of Hammurabi were ancient sources, some of it was fictional. So if you want to say what's good for the goose is good for the gander, if similarity implies boring, then by extension are we going to have the same argument that Christianity and the

01:21:58

Bible borrows from ancient Sumerian literature? Are we going to say the same thing about Mithra? For example,

01:22:04

Mithra was born on the 25th of December. Do you know that? Mithra was born on the 25th of December.

01:22:10

How many people know that Christmas, the 25th of December, is in fact a pagan festival? Many people are aware of it, yet it's celebrated, it's embraced, it's commemorated, and it's today viewed as the birth of Christ.

01:22:21

The average person in the street doesn't know, the Christian scholar does. So if you are now having an objection to the fact that there's some sort of similarity with the

01:22:28

Gnostic Gospels, then by extension, what are you going to say about some of the foundational tenets in Christianity?

01:22:35

What are we going to say about the fact that a large portion and corpus of the Bible is found to be similar to what we have in ancient

01:22:42

Sumerian and Mesopotamian myths? So does similarity imply boring? But I would go further.

01:22:48

What the scholar Muhammad Asad points out is that sometimes the Quran does in fact employ legends and parables, and basically the point is that he suggests, this is to quote him, as a vehicle for allegories expressing certain universal ethical truths, and he employs them for the simple reason that even before the advent of Islam, they had become so firmly embedded in the poetic memories of the

01:23:12

Arabs, the people to whom the language of the Quran was revealed, therefore it uses this to have a particular message. Like he mentioned, the story of Lot told in four different sections.

01:23:21

Why? There's a stylistic variation, but if you look at all the stories, in each of those four stories, there's a different message.

01:23:29

As I pointed out initially, the Quran must not be compared to conventional literature or any other religious book because it is not biographical, it is not linear, it is there as a book of guidance, and it uses the stories to convey certain eternal and ethical truths.

01:23:43

Therefore you would have the story of Lot. God was not absent -mindedly dictating the same tale twice, because if you look at those four stories, each of those four stories have an emphasis on a different moral teaching and message that is to be conveyed and guidance to humanity.

01:23:58

So we need to make that distinction between the Quran and between the Bible, and when you analyze the two, you will be able to discern and identify the very human aspect of the

01:24:11

Bible vis -a -vis, in contrast to the divine style and narratology that is found in the

01:24:19

Quran. Therefore I would argue in conclusion that the Quran is indeed the word of God, and the Bible as we have it today, is most certainly not.

01:24:26

Thank you very much. That's also going to be for 12 minutes.

01:24:55

Okay, let's start our time. Yusuf, let me ask you a question. Could Muhammad have not gone to Zayd's house on that fateful day that is recorded for us by both

01:25:09

Al -Tabari, Al -Qurtubi, and other sources? Could he not have gone? Yes. Of course.

01:25:15

So he had the free will to choose one way or the other. Yeah. And if he had chosen not to go that day, then the material in Surah 33 would no longer have any historical basis?

01:25:26

Sure. And so it wasn't actually eternally written, or was it eternally written?

01:25:33

Well again, it goes back to the story of what you mean by eternal. I mentioned the point that the lower

01:25:39

Mahfuz, when spoken in Surah 85 verse 22, has to be read in conjunction with Surah 15 verse 9.

01:25:45

Surely we have revealed the reminder, and surely we have basically preserved it. When you speak about the guarded tablet, a vast majority of commentators, and I'm talking about some of the classical commentators, point out above the literalism that they may attribute to the particular verse, that it actually stands for the all -knowing comprehensive knowledge of God, and that would be analogous to words written on a tablet.

01:26:09

So I don't for one believe that this book was somehow or the other in the heavenly court, existent in time, eternity past, in some sort of book, in this particular fashion, on a particular tablet.

01:26:21

So it's basically the all -knowledge, the full knowledge of God, knowing what was going to happen in history. So the form of Surah 33 was dependent upon what

01:26:29

Muhammad chose to do that day? Well I wouldn't say dependent, it's part and parcel of the God acting in history, but I mean this goes back to our predestination debate.

01:26:37

It goes back to our predestination debate, when people act in a particular fashion, are they acting by the decree of God, or are they acting based on their limited free will?

01:26:49

And from the Islamic perspective, we would say that people operate and act within their free will. For example, I gave the example some years back, that if an old lady walks on Musgrave Road and she's murdered and raped and mutilated on the streets of Musgrave, would that be part and parcel of the decree of God?

01:27:04

I mean according to Calvinism, you would argue that yes, that is part of the decree of God. We would say that is evil free will action of man.

01:27:11

But the point that I want to get to is that the form of Surah 33 was determined by the actions not only of Muhammad, but if Zaynab had responded differently, if Zayn had responded differently,

01:27:29

Surah 33 would be different than Surah 33 is today. I wouldn't say dependent. I think this is a problem.

01:27:35

You're saying that revelation is dependent. This is already known to God. God knows how people are obviously going to act.

01:27:42

Sometimes he acts within human history. I'll give you one example. Besides the Zaynab issue, there's for example battles.

01:27:48

There's Surah 9, verse 5. There's the Battle of Badr, the Battle of Wahad. These are incidences that happen in the life of the

01:27:54

Prophet, and the Quran obviously addresses them and deals with them matters that are historically specific to his lifetime.

01:27:59

But I started by asking you, if Muhammad could have chosen not to go to Zayd's house, you said yes.

01:28:07

Did Allah know that Muhammad was going to go to Zayd's house? Of course, of course.

01:28:13

And if he chose not to, then Allah would have known that as well. No, had he chosen not to,

01:28:18

Allah would have known that as well. I'm saying the choice that a person makes in life. You know, if I choose to walk here to the mic, or if I choose to sit down, does

01:28:28

God know that? Let's assume I never stood up. Did God know that? Does God know I'm going to come here? I mean, the question is pedantic if you look at it.

01:28:34

Does God know that I'm going to go to toilet? I mean, that's basically the level of the question we are focusing on. We choose to deal with certain situations based on the environment.

01:28:43

God knows all of this. But it doesn't mean that God's knowledge is now dependent on the action of me standing up and going to podium.

01:28:50

God knew that I was going to go to podium in this Q &A session. My question is a well -known philosophical question that you're begging at the moment.

01:28:56

So let me just go straight to it. Can God's foreknowledge be faulty?

01:29:02

Can it be an error? No. How then do you put that together with the idea that man has free will?

01:29:08

Because philosophers have found that to be an impossible thing to put the two of them together. That may be a philosophical...

01:29:14

And you can call it pedantic if you want, but people have written entire tomes that we haven't even read on the subject.

01:29:20

Don't you agree it is pedantic? It is pedantic. I mean, the fact that God knows I'm going to sit cross -legged, or I'm going to sit down.

01:29:25

Something small like this. I'm actually talking about something so important that it determines the form of your scripture. But it is small.

01:29:30

It has impacted the very existence of adoption in Islamic culture. Here's the position. It's far more important than crossing your legs.

01:29:38

Let's be honest about that. The problem may be a philosophical debate if you look at the notion of absolute free will, which is a position adopted by the

01:29:45

Jabariyya, a sect in Islam which Islam rejects. The Quran, in fact, basically...

01:29:51

Islam orthodoxy operates within the parameter that man is given limited free will and operates within that particular realm.

01:30:01

So the concept of limited free will exists. And I would say even within the Christian worldview, the concept of limited free will does exist.

01:30:08

The Anglican position, the Anglicans today have a different conception to the notion of free will than what you have.

01:30:13

I have the original 39 articles for you, actually. I'm aware of that. But the point is that your position of absolute fatalism, which

01:30:22

I would assume... I reject. Completely reject. But it amounts to that. No, it does not. It does amount to that. No, it does not. Well, that's false.

01:30:27

That's a debate. I'd be happy to... In fact, I refuted that the last time. But this is my opportunity to ask questions. So what you're saying to all the

01:30:36

Muslims here this evening is that the form of the Quran that we have today is...

01:30:43

was mutable, dependent upon the actions of the people that are interacted with in the

01:30:51

Quran. I'm saying that the nature of the Quranic revelation was in the foreknowledge of God.

01:30:59

That doesn't mean that it existed in the form of a literal book as you have a Quran written today.

01:31:04

But that foreknowledge was known to God. And at some point in time, there were historical events that operated.

01:31:11

Those historical events are basically applicable to us. And the Quran operates and works within that history, addressing issues that exist in time.

01:31:20

The problem that you have, James, is that you are wanting to place God within a linear sphere.

01:31:27

God does not operate within the perspective of past, present, and future. So when you want to think about the concept of God, one cannot think about God operating at a particular point in time because there is no time applicable for God.

01:31:39

But from a human perspective, we can argue that we, in fact, operate within a certain time period.

01:31:44

And certainly the Quran addresses those particular issues. So therefore, it very much operates in history. But that does not in any way belie the notion that it is not a divine word of God.

01:31:54

I don't see how that is, in fact, a fundamental problem at all. We have had this discussion a couple of times before.

01:32:01

I think it needs to be... hold on a second. In your explanation of the utilization of the clay birds being made alive, can you give me any other source, other than the infancy gospel of Thomas, for Jesus forming clay birds and breathing upon them and making them alive?

01:32:24

There is no other source. There is no other source. There is no other source. But you are... are you hypothesizing that the

01:32:31

Quran had access to an unknown source? Not at all. Not at all, at all. Unless one were to assume the fact that the prophet was deliberately utilizing material and deceiving the public that this was, in fact, revelation from God.

01:32:43

That's the only... that's the implication behind that. Because if we are to argue that the prophet had access to some sources and at the same time makes a claim that this is indeed revelation from God, then it would mean that the prophet was, in fact, deceiving the people.

01:32:55

But what I am saying... What I am saying... What I am saying... Well, go ahead, James. Would it be possible that the prophet believed that that story was found in the

01:33:07

Injil? There's no indication in respect of that. There's absolutely no indication in the

01:33:12

Quranic text that that passage was found in the Injil. It makes no reference... But it's mixed in.

01:33:17

It's mixed in. Everything else is in the Injil, is it not? No, it makes reference to a particular action, a miraculous...

01:33:25

And again, you know, Muhammad Asad points out that the word Ta 'ir, which is translated as birds, can also be rendered as destiny.

01:33:31

So when you look at... I'll give you... Give me the reference. Let's just... Let's just go through it. So he breathed upon them and they became alive?

01:33:38

No. Well, he's... Let's look at the verse. Give me the actual verse, James. Give me the verse. You have the verse.

01:33:43

He basically points out that the word Ta 'ir, which is translated as birds, can be made destiny.

01:33:49

And Jesus, metaphorically speaking, about creating the destiny of individuals. I make out of you life out of a clay of bird.

01:33:56

And so the clay of bird is somewhat... Which is translated from the word Ta 'ir. It could be used as... But I don't see a problem with that at all.

01:34:02

Okay. Two factual things in regards to your presentation. Can you give me any historical source that, from the first four centuries, that indicates that Mithra was born on the 24th of December?

01:34:17

As I understand that there was oral tradition that was circulating around during that particular time period...

01:34:23

Documentary source. Well, there's oral tradition. I mean, oral tradition is not necessarily documented. I mean, let me tell you something else.

01:34:29

The only way we can know about it is if it's... Well, I mean, the story of Cain and Abel, for example, which many assume was collected.

01:34:36

That was also oral tradition. You're avoiding the point. You're avoiding the point. I do not know of any documentation that says that.

01:34:44

It's extremely popular in the United States. On the internet and on YouTube. Historically, you find in Christian sources, references to 25th of December through the 6th of January, at least 200 years before Mithra even comes around.

01:34:57

So could you explain that? Are you aware of the fact that within a body of academic work, they suggestion that pagan myths have been the source of...

01:35:05

And it has been refuted thoroughly. Well, let me ask you this, just on one point. Was it 24th of December? No, you can't ask me a question. A pagan...

01:35:11

You can ask me that question when you have the time to do so. So, one last thing. You continue to tell people that the

01:35:19

Anarthurus Theos of John 1 should translate a god. So, in John 1, 6, only five verses later, we have...

01:35:29

There came a man sent from... And Theus does not have an article. So are you saying that the proper translation of John 1, 6 should be, there came a man sent from a god?

01:35:38

When you look at John 1, 1, it's... Let's go back to John 1, 1.

01:35:48

I'm just saying, as it occurs there in John 1, 1, the tontheon is with a definite article.

01:35:53

The kytheos is without the definite article. When you look at the utilization of the word of the logos and certainly the fact that theos is used in many contexts within the

01:36:04

New Testament without the definite article, in all those instances, it refers to, for example, a

01:36:09

Roman governor. It refers to an individual human being. No, John 1, 6. Was John sent by a god or a god?

01:36:15

It could be a divine... Can you explain how 94 % of the time theos does not have an article, but it's almost never translated a god?

01:36:23

I would say that context would be the final arbiter in defining that particular issue. Do you know how to determine which of two nominatives are the subject when you use a copulative verb in Greek?

01:36:33

I'm just simply saying, I'm not an expert in Greek. I'm studying Greek, by the way. Yes, I know. I'm studying

01:36:38

Greek, by the way. If theos had an article and it has a copulative noun, what would that mean?

01:36:47

Would it not mean that all of the logos is all of God? It would probably imply that.

01:36:52

So the fact that it's not there does not mean that it can be translated a god, right? But then what do you mean? When you say in the beginning was a word and the word was a god, how can

01:37:00

God be in the beginning and how can God be with God? The sentence doesn't make sense unless you assume that the last god, the theos, is different from the tontheon.

01:37:09

Otherwise, the sentence would be illogical. It would not make sense. Time is up. Is that your final question?

01:37:14

Believe me, I would love to tear that apart because I'm sorry, on that subject, you just don't know what you're talking about.

01:37:20

You're the Greek expert. Why don't you ask that to me and let me respond to it? I dare you.

01:37:28

You're the Greek expert. I'll take your word for that. I dare you. Yes, if you're 12 minutes.

01:37:34

15 minutes. 12. 12. Seemed like longer, didn't it? Is it 12 or 15? 12.

01:37:40

12. Okay, let's start with this. James, firstly, do you find that the logos, as you understand, is in fact eternal?

01:37:49

Would you say that the logos would be eternal? According to John 1, verse 1, John utilizes two verbs in the prologue between verses 1 and 18.

01:38:02

In this instance, when he refers to the logos, he uses the imperfect form of I, me, which does not point to a point of origin.

01:38:08

When he refers to everything else, he uses the aorist geneta, and that refers to a point of origin.

01:38:15

That changes in verse 14 when the word becomes flesh, because the word entered into flesh at a time in history.

01:38:21

So would the logos... So in answer to your question, the logos has eternally existed. So the logos has eternally existed, which is represented or manifested by the

01:38:28

Son, Jesus, during the incarnation. It is the Son who becomes incarnate, yes. The Son becomes incarnate as the

01:38:35

God -man, Jesus. Yes. Now my question to you is that prior to the incarnation, in what form did the logos exist?

01:38:43

The Father, Son, and Spirit eternally existed together in non -corporeal, eternal existence and in fellowship with one another, which is what

01:38:51

John 1, 1b says. When you look at the expression, God is spirit, and those that worship him must worship him in truth and in spirit, not in form, shape, or size, whatever the case is, would you then conceive the point that Jesus would exist as a spirit?

01:39:05

That Jesus would or would not? The word existed as a spirit. The word was spiritual as to his nature, not just a spirit amongst many spirits, but God's nature is spiritual, not limited to physical reality.

01:39:17

Would I be correct in saying that prior to the incarnation, you have the existence of three persons making part and parcel of the divine

01:39:26

Godhead? Three divine persons have eternally existed, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, in communion with one another, which is what

01:39:32

John 1, 1b says. So taking that to its logical conclusion, if we were to say that there are indeed three persons as the divine

01:39:39

Godhead, by extension and applying the rules of consistency that you normally talk about, could you then argue that there were the three spirits also existent?

01:39:46

No, because spirit is being used to describe the nature of God, not the persons.

01:39:52

But the being of God, the being of God is spiritual. That is not extended in time and space, limited to some type of physical expression.

01:40:01

I thought we all agreed about the fact that God is omnipresent. I don't agree. I don't necessarily agree. I'm just curious to note, why do you maintain on the one hand that there are three persons, but you cannot maintain the point that there are three spirits?

01:40:13

Because God's being cannot be divided. This is a fundamental issue of the doctrine of the Trinity. We believe in the one undivided being of God that is shared fully by three persons.

01:40:25

Not one third. By three persons. By three persons fully. Person and being are not the same thing.

01:40:32

I accept that point. So let's just define it that Jesus is fully God. The word fully God. The Holy Spirit is fully

01:40:39

God. And the Father is fully God. And they both share an equal nature. The same nature, right?

01:40:45

One indivisible nature. Okay, so now here's the question. What then, from your perspective, what would be the quality or the characteristic feature that would determine that multiple identities are not one

01:40:59

God, but multiple gods? Well, the fact that there is only one Yahweh. You see, the being of God is identified in Scripture as Yahweh, the divine name.

01:41:09

The New Testament writers identify the Father as Yahweh. They identify the Son as Yahweh. The Spirit is the

01:41:14

Spirit of Yahweh. So you have one indivisible reality that there is one Creator God. And yet the revelation in the incarnation of Jesus Christ and the outpouring of the

01:41:23

Holy Spirit that there are three distinct persons who have communion with one another that share that one divine nature.

01:41:29

And since that divine nature cannot be divided, and yet is eternal, it can be shared by three persons.

01:41:36

To me, that doesn't work. Is it okay, or would it be wrong to identify the one God as one person?

01:41:42

Of course it would be wrong. It would be wrong. So if it is wrong— In light of revelation, I mean.

01:41:47

That's the point. In light of revelation, why does Paul do it? I don't have the quotations on me now, but you know in many of his writings,

01:41:54

Paul identifies one God as one person. Why does he do that? No, he doesn't. In 1 Corinthians 8, it's very plain that he takes the

01:42:02

Shema and he expands it out to include both the Father and the Son. If God the

01:42:07

Father is the first hypostasis, and I mean the substance, the underlying substance of the

01:42:12

Trinity, then can you conclude that there was something antecedent to God? Now, I just want to point something out.

01:42:18

We're supposed to be debating whether the Koran is uncreated. And if you want to, my response to this question will be, we have answers to this from the

01:42:27

Christian scriptures, but it's pretty obvious that the author of the Koran had no idea what any of this conversation would be about.

01:42:33

Well, that's debatable. That's debatable. And the reason why I'm asking this question is because it ties up to the whole notion of how we view the

01:42:39

Word of God and how Christians, in fact, view the Word of God. But I want to move on. We're a long way from the topic now. I don't want to digress and get into a

01:42:46

Trinity -Tauhid debate. Regarding the Prophet Muhammad himself, you would agree with me that missionary tautology, and I'm saying general throughout history, has always held onto the idea that he was either delusional, he was lying, or he was deceived by the devil.

01:43:00

And the problem is that in almost all missionary literature, they work conventionally, according, interchangeably, with all these three aspects.

01:43:08

Do you accept the fact that these states are mutually exclusive? If you are deceived by the devil— Mutually exclusive? No. So what would you say?

01:43:15

Would you say that the Prophet was deceiving the people, or was he deceived by the devil? Very, very good example. It's a close, parallel example.

01:43:21

Joseph Smith, the Mormon prophet. Yeah. I think very plainly between 1830 and 1844, in his death, so over 14 years.

01:43:31

Roughly, I mean, even the time parameters are somewhat similar, interestingly enough. I think he began with one understanding and then developed a very different understanding of who he was over time as he gained power over other people.

01:43:44

I think he became self -deceived. So he may have started with money -digging purposes and very low motivations, but I think he eventually actually believed himself to be a prophet and deceived himself.

01:43:57

Would you believe that the Prophet Muhammad was sincere? That's an important point. I don't—was sincere. I don't know.

01:44:02

Sincere in terms of believing. So, in other words, if you don't know— See, see, see, see, one of the differences between us— Well, your critique would then be speculative.

01:44:08

Your critique on the Prophet's revelation would be speculative. I think almost any knowledge we have, given the small amount of firsthand information, is going to be speculative.

01:44:17

I think a lot of what's in the Hadith is speculative. So I think that's just being honest. But then it comes back to the point.

01:44:23

But to answer the question, I see a tremendous development.

01:44:30

You had said we can just simply take as a given the consistency of Muhammad's teachings over time.

01:44:36

When I read the Quran in chronological order, I see a tremendous development. I see a huge change after Muhammad goes to Yathrib, don't you?

01:44:46

Of course, but would this not also be dependent on the situation? If the situation changes, the Quran addresses the particular challenges of the time.

01:44:53

So, for example, at the time when he's persecuted, it addresses him in that particular context. At the time when he moves to Medina, it addresses him in that particular context.

01:45:01

Let's look at the third point. I'm not going—I don't want to go into the satanic verses, although you want to. But the idea that—

01:45:07

I'm sorry? The idea that the Prophet was deceived by the devil. Would you submit that he was deceived by the devil?

01:45:14

Well, anyone who teaches against God's revelation, either out of ignorance, tradition, out of a desire to fulfill their own lusts, to have power over the people, there's all sorts of different reasons, is fundamentally deceived by the devil, just like Darwin was.

01:45:29

But is that not a presumption? The presumption is that you believe that that revelation, the Bible, is indeed the revelation from God.

01:45:36

Yes, as a Christian, that's my starting point. And if it can be shown that it is not a revelation from God, then the position of the

01:45:41

Prophet Muhammad is indeed vindicated. No, it wouldn't be, because he comes much after all of the—

01:45:47

Well, he comes much after— And I would say his own revelation argues that the Torah and the

01:45:52

Injil were sent down, so I think there would be a connection there. But no, wait a minute, let me get more than one sentence in.

01:45:57

You said, wouldn't that mean that Muhammad's position is established if the Bible is somehow in error?

01:46:04

Logically, no, it would not. And in fact, I think most scholars would argue that the view of the

01:46:09

Quran concerning the scriptures that go before it, and especially Surah 5, 44 through 47, that would actually cause question and doubt to be cast upon the

01:46:19

Quranic revelation. When you read the passage in the Quran which dictates and instructs Muslims, when you are to read the book, seek protection in God from Satan, be accursed, would you see that as just an opinion by the

01:46:31

Prophet Muhammad, or would you see that as something that the alternatives—

01:46:37

I mean, could that be satanically inspired? The theology of the jinn and the demonic sphere amongst

01:46:45

Muslims seems to not only have a lot of variable levels of acceptance and practice as I've seen it, but it also seems to be an area that I find it hard to find out exactly what the dogmatic position is.

01:47:01

Okay, so I'll just be honest about that. In fact, I was stunned the first time I heard Yasir Qadhi lecturing on the jinn and that there were

01:47:08

Christian jinn and Muslim jinn and Jewish jinn. I think the Quran uses it interchangeably. Jinns could also be understood as foreigners, and Muhammad Asad points out that, for example, when he speaks about—

01:47:17

So you don't think that there are— No, I do believe— I'm sorry, I didn't— I do believe there are spiritual points, but let's just move on, because time's running out.

01:47:25

Isaiah 37 and 2 Kings chapter 19, you don't see that as literally plagiarism. That is a compla—

01:47:31

You're an attorney. You know how to define these terms. I don't know if you've ever done anything about that. Sure. Isaiah and the author are not claiming authorship of that material.

01:47:42

They're not saying, I have come up with this. These are historical realities. It would be similar to if the

01:47:48

New Testament was to be written today. One of the most popular songs amongst Christians is called Amazing Grace. You've probably even heard it yourself, right?

01:47:54

It's very well known. If two different writers of the New Testament both quoted the first phrase of Amazing Grace, would that be plagiarism?

01:48:05

Or is it just simply the recognition that it was something that was known by all Christians, and hence would have an ability to communicate?

01:48:11

When Peter quotes from Isaiah, does that make Peter— No, but he quotes. He quotes.

01:48:16

You see— No, very often he does not even give reference to what he is referring to.

01:48:22

But he makes reference to the fact that it is written. No, not in 1

01:48:28

Peter 3 .15, he doesn't. But okay, but here's the point I need to understand, is that this strikes at the root of the issue, that if two people are writing a summary of this event, and you have the narrative identical to the tea, surely that means somebody copied.

01:48:41

Doesn't that point to the very human nature? But it points to the human— That's the point. It points to the human nature of the book. The Christian says, this happened in history.

01:48:49

They're drawing from the same documents to demonstrate it happened in history, and that's perfectly fine.

01:48:55

Your idea of inspiration as being something that causes the person to somehow be coming up with different phraseology is not the understanding of what theionistos is.

01:49:06

And as I said in my response, if they contradicted each other, if they changed one single name in that list, you'd use it as evidence of the human nature of the

01:49:16

Scriptures. So you're darned if you do, and you're darned if you don't. Well, from your perspective— I would say there would be a contradiction, but the point is that it seems to point out to the very human nature of the particular book, as I can see.

01:49:28

You're dealing with what humans did, and that's what is called history. What was the external source? We don't know.

01:49:34

We don't know, but the point is that the people were keeping a history, and that both revelations are based in the reality of what was taking place in history itself.

01:49:44

Do Christians find it problematic that they ascribe inspiration to books that could have been written by anonymous people? May I go ahead and answer that?

01:49:50

Okay. Yeah, sure. That's a problem. That is a complete anachronism. In other words, you are taking a later standard and reading it back.

01:49:59

No, we do not need to know who wrote historical works for God to utilize those works.

01:50:05

We don't need to know who the authors were to believe that God preserved their words for us and wrote through them.

01:50:11

Jesus never, ever once said a word showing concern about what you're concerned at that point.

01:50:17

So what's then? Okay, we're— Time's up. Time's up. Thank you very much. You can give them an applause.

01:50:23

I think they did pretty well. We didn't strangle each other. So, I mean, that's a pretty good thing, you know.

01:50:29

Okay, if there's any question for Attorney Yusuf Ismail, one person can come forward. I will hold the mic and you're welcome to ask your question.

01:50:36

Come forward, sir. So in light of—if I understood your presentation correctly, you were more or less happy to— you were happy with the idea of the eternality of the

01:50:45

Qur 'an, if I understood, or in some sense, avoiding the conversation you had about that.

01:50:52

In light of that, I wanted to ask a question from a point of commonality about the term Ruh al -Qudus, because as a

01:51:00

Middle Easterner myself, that term is a more or less precise analog to the Christian Holy Spirit, the

01:51:07

Ayyub Nirmah. And given what the Ruh al -Qudus does in the Qur 'an, it seems to have personal attributes.

01:51:15

It's described as trustworthy and it does things to strengthen the prophets. I wanted to know from your perspective, is that a person or a force?

01:51:22

And following from that, is it eternal or created? Yeah, look,

01:51:28

I think my presentation was quite clear. I don't know how you— depending—I thought I defined my position in respect of the eternality vis -a -vis the createdness of the

01:51:38

Qur 'an, and I'm not going to get involved in that particular debate, but what I did in fact state that the Qur 'an in fact operates within history.

01:51:44

This does not in any way detract from the fact that it is indeed a revelation from God. We believe it is divinely sent down by means of the

01:51:51

Archangel Gabriel. I identified the point that there were three means in terms of how revelation could be conveyed, either by means of revelation, either by an agency, or by means of some sort of dream or vision.

01:52:03

Regarding the issue of the Ruh al -Qudus, this has been interpreted many— multifold by many scholars. Some would argue that it is in fact

01:52:10

God's active force, something which is impersonal, that is for example used to strengthen, for example in Surah 3,

01:52:17

Surah Al -Imran, Jesus, and other arguments would, depending on the context, would argue that that spirit would be a reference to the

01:52:24

Archangel Gabriel. The concept of the Ruh al -Qudus is somewhat different from the context and the understanding that you would have, for example, from the

01:52:36

Christian perspective, because Christianity holds onto the notion that the Holy Spirit is somewhat, at some particular level, divine.

01:52:45

I may basically add the point that there was something in early Christian history called the Filioque Controversy, where the

01:52:50

Eastern Orthodox and the Oriental churches reject the Filioque because it makes the

01:52:56

Holy Spirit a subordinate or less important member of the Trinity, and it compromises the core equality of the persons of the

01:53:03

Trinity, and that issue was responsible for one of the largest schisms in the Church history. Differences over the doctrine still remain a contentious point to this particular day.

01:53:12

In early Church history, and James is an expert on that, those who believed that the Holy Spirit was a person co -equal with the

01:53:18

Father and the Son were actually viewed as heretics. So a position which is accepted as mainstream

01:53:23

Christian orthodoxy today was viewed as heretical within certain sections of the early Church.

01:53:29

So the concept of the Ruh al -Qudus is different from the idea that you find in Christianity. I hope that answers the question.

01:53:35

Okay, I'm not sure what Yusuf is referring to about people in regards to the Holy Spirit. There may have been people who were modalists who would have been considered to be heretical, but the idea that,

01:53:45

I'm not even sure which group he's referring to there, but I think it is important to note that the

01:53:52

Quran appears in history long after the Trinitarian dogma has been established, and yet I find nothing anywhere in the

01:54:03

Quran that shows an accurate understanding of what Christians believed. The Quran says all the time, do not say three, but it never identifies who the three is.

01:54:11

It never seems to understand the relationship of father, son, spirit, nothing like that at all.

01:54:18

That, to me, is part of the very human nature of the level of knowledge of the author of the

01:54:25

Quran that makes it human because Allah certainly knew what the doctrine of the Trinity was by the time that the Quran was written.

01:54:31

Yeah, hello, good evening. There's this general saying that if you don't understand the simple, basic things, then complex things becomes more complex and difficult for you, so that's why

01:54:44

I'm trying to take this thing from the basic. The Christian clerics, they made us to understand that God is one, but they appear in three forms, which is

01:54:54

God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, but I want to ask you that do you agree that there was a time that we had two in one instead of three in one?

01:55:06

Because God the Son died for three days, so when

01:55:12

God the Son died, we are not having three in one. I believe we are having two in one, and before you rush to answer, if we take end count here, if there's a loss of life, the end count reduces by one.

01:55:27

Jesus died physical body. When he resurrected, the physical body also disappeared.

01:55:34

That's my question. Very, very common misunderstanding amongst my Muslim friends. I enjoy correcting it, though I've probably addressed this at least 100 times.

01:55:44

It's interesting. Muslims don't believe that death means cessation of existence, but this entire argument is based upon the idea that it does mean cessation of existence.

01:55:52

The Son did not cease to exist, and when we say God died, what we are saying is not that the divine being died or the

01:55:59

Son ceased to exist, but that since the Son had taken on a perfect human nature, that one person with two natures voluntarily gave himself as a sacrifice for sin, and when he did so, he made the way possible for the redemption of all those who would be joined to him in his death.

01:56:21

He didn't cease to exist. The Bible even says he went and made proclamation to the spirits who were in prison. He had the ability to bring himself back.

01:56:29

He said, I do not, no one takes my life from me. I lay it down, and I have authority to take it back up again because of who he was, and so the idea that it went from three to two assumes that death means nonexistence.

01:56:44

Christians don't believe that. Muslims don't believe that, so the argument has always been vacuous. It's always been so obviously in error, and furthermore, when we say that Jesus gives his life, that does not mean that he ceases to exist any more than any of the rest of us, so no, there is not a subtraction from three to two there is not one divine person ceasing to exist for three days, anything along those lines whatsoever.

01:57:09

The incarnation is unique. There is only one person who has ever been the god man, but that is the teaching of John 1, 14,

01:57:16

Philippians chapter two, and all the rest of the early teachings of the Christians, and we need to deal with that and need to deal with it,

01:57:23

I think, in an accurate fashion. The suggestion that James made about the traditional Muslim understanding, I think the traditional

01:57:29

Muslim misunderstanding which he attributes the Muslim misunderstanding stems from the Christian conception of who

01:57:35

God really is because it is a Christian who makes a claim that God came to die for the sins of humanity in the form of Christ.

01:57:42

Now the question is, as some would argue, people like Tony Costa and so on, that it's only the human Christ that died, but if the human

01:57:49

Jesus died, then what was the eternal sacrifice? Because Christian theology stems from the notion that it is

01:57:56

God, the eternal sacrifice, as a god man dying for the sins of humanity. If it's just the man that died, and it's just simply a cessation of existence, then what's the very purpose of the eternal sacrifice?

01:58:07

And what risk would Jesus himself be taking if he knew that he would basically rise up after third days?

01:58:13

So I think the whole misunderstanding which you assume that Muslims basically adopt goes back to the whole notion of the theology where you do in fact make the claim that God died for the sins of humanity, and it is a problem because even from the

01:58:25

Christian perspective, James would, for example, argue that Jesus died for the sins of the elect, the

01:58:30

Arminians would argue that Jesus died for the sins of humanity. So there is even no consistency there in terms of the theology where it stands and what the actual position really is.

01:58:39

In your presentation, Yusuf, you spoke about when you read the Quran, you see we, we, we, and that gives us an indication that it's

01:58:48

God speaking, and you actually push it to the point even if you don't believe in God, but you would recognize it's

01:58:55

God speaking. On that basis, I'd like to ask you in the first chapter of the Quran, who is speaking?

01:59:02

Alif -Lam -Mim -Dhali -Kal -Ki -Ta -Bu -La -Roi -Ba -Fi? Or are you talking about Iqra, Bismi -Rabbika -Lla -Dhi, the 96th?

01:59:07

When you say first chapter, are you talking about first chapter chronologically or first chapter in terms of the revelation? Surah Fatiha.

01:59:13

Surah Fatiha is an exodium. We would basically believe that God is in fact speaking, and that was a direct instruction to us in terms of how to basically praise

01:59:21

God. Now, here's the point. If you are seeming to suggest that Surah Fatiha somehow or the other negates the idea that what

01:59:27

God was in fact communicating to us, then you need to understand the fact that within the Quran, we are the utilization of these various, for example, we, used interchangeably with he, used interchangeably with us, used interchangeably with I.

01:59:41

And for example, in Surah Fatiha, where you've got a reference to what would basically be viewed as a particular type of prayer and instruction in terms of how we are to praise

01:59:51

God. And so from that particular perspective, it would give us the indication that God is really not a person.

01:59:56

And so cannot be subscribed to pronouns that would be basically applicable to us as human beings.

02:00:01

But the point I was making from the issue of the we was that an external observer would seem to assume or at least observe by simply looking at the text of the

02:00:10

Quran that it seems to be that there is some sort of communication that is being given to the

02:00:15

Prophet Muhammad. And this communication is used interchangeably with, for example, instructions to Muslims and, for example, means and methods and methodologies in terms of how

02:00:25

Muslims, for example, should pray. This is an instruction for us to praise

02:00:35

God or praises due to God. I don't see how that basically detracts from the idea that it is, in fact,

02:00:41

God dictating. The point I was making is that you don't have a linear biographical narrative that you see in the

02:00:47

Old Testament, in the New Testament and all religious scripture in the world. There is no once upon a time narrative that you find in the

02:00:54

Quran. Therefore, Thomas Carlyle recognized this particular point in view and he couldn't understand it. And James himself in his book basically also identifies, for example, different stories of Lot and, for example, the story of God communicating to Iblis and so on and so forth.

02:01:09

These particular stories and communications were meant to convey certain eternal ethical truths to humanity.

02:01:17

I'm afraid sometimes Yusuf forgets his audience. In his opening statement, for example, he just ran by, used the term shirk, never defined it.

02:01:26

Most people in the room don't know what shirk is. And just now the same thing happened. It would have been helpful to explain what surah al -Fatiha is.

02:01:33

It's an opening prayer. And it is a prayer of the people to God. And specifically it says, we don't want to be, you know, guide us in the proper way.

02:01:43

We don't want to be amongst those who earn your wrath, which Muhammad identified as the Jews or those who are led astray, the

02:01:50

Christians. So it's an opening prayer to the Quran not to be Jews or Christians and to be rightly guided by Allah.

02:01:58

And so the whole point of the question was, since that's a prayer from people to Allah, how can that be

02:02:04

Allah speaking? So I'm not going to comment on the response. I just wanted you all to know what in the world you just heard a two -minute response to because it hadn't been explained to you.

02:02:13

My name is Bakri. I'm from DUT. I'm a very quick one. Muslims, Christians, and Jews share a lot of commonalities.

02:02:21

We have so many things in common. But when you look at, when you like look deeper between Muslims and Christians, one core difference between us is our concept of God.

02:02:33

But when you look at it so closely, nowhere in the Old Testament would you find the concept of Trinity developed.

02:02:40

There's no verse in the Bible. Now I'm making referral to the Greek manuscripts where you have the concept of Trinity defined before the 16th century.

02:02:50

In fact, when you look at most of the commentaries and things, especially I'm making referral to 1

02:02:57

John 5, 7 -8, whereby when you check the footnotes, it says no way, this wasn't found in the original

02:03:08

Greek manuscripts. That's the only verse in the New Testament that actually promotes the concept of Trinity.

02:03:15

So when you look at it so closely, so when you look at it so closely, you'll see that the

02:03:23

Old Testament itself doesn't like promote or advocate the concept of Trinity. Isaiah, Moses, the rest of them were always saying one

02:03:31

God, one God, one God. Why was it that it was until after the 16th century, the

02:03:36

Trinity concept was advocated? And why was it that when you look at it closely, the prophets of the

02:03:43

Bible themselves didn't really promote Trinity? That's a long 30 seconds. You're preaching over there, brother, and you left the truth a long time ago.

02:03:53

Let me help you out here. The doctrine of the Trinity is revealed in the incarnation of the Son and the outpouring of the

02:03:58

Holy Spirit. It takes place between the Old and New Testaments. You cannot make heads or tails out of the

02:04:04

New Testament if you don't understand the doctrine of Trinity. It makes no sense. You cannot understand how Jesus can be called Jehovah.

02:04:09

You cannot understand how he can be the exalted son of God who gives his life. The New Testament is a

02:04:15

Trinitarian document from beginning to end. It was not the 16th century before someone started believing that.

02:04:21

The earliest Christians, some of the earliest Christian writings after the New Testament are thoroughly Trinitarian.

02:04:27

Ignatius of Antioch has numerous references that are plainly Trinitarian. So historically, you're just wrong.

02:04:33

And the Comma Johannium in 1 John 5 -7 has nothing to do with it. Every Christian scholar knows that that's a later edition.

02:04:40

It came from the Latin tradition, probably from the time of Cyprian, and came into the Greek tradition in the 14th century. So the reality is that we believe in the doctrine of the

02:04:48

Trinity because the Bible teaches there is only one true God. The Bible then teaches that there are three divine persons that it distinguishes from one another.

02:04:55

The father is not the son. The son is not the spirit. The spirit is not the father. And then here's the key issue. It teaches the equality of those persons, not the sameness.

02:05:04

They take different roles, but identifies each one as Yahweh, identifies him as God, identifies him as the creator, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

02:05:12

That is the testimony of the entirety of the New Testament from Matthew to Revelation.

02:05:18

And so to try to say that that's something that develops at a later time is just simply misrepresentation.

02:05:24

And it's interesting when I answer your question, you're not listening to a word that I'm saying because you are not interested in what the doctrine of the

02:05:29

Trinity is. You have a position. You're just simply gonna keep repeating it even when it is a misrepresentation.

02:05:35

And that's the difference between you and I. When I represent the Quran, I represent it accurately.

02:05:41

I want to because that's a sign of respect for the Muslim people and for truth as a whole.

02:05:47

You're not even listening to what I'm saying. I was watching you talking to your friend, right? I'm sorry, I'm putting you on the spot, but this is an important issue.

02:05:55

I didn't come here just simply to waste my breath. So I care for you, but you need to listen to the responses because your facts are wrong.

02:06:05

Thanks. Okay. I think James, give the man a break. Don't be so angry.

02:06:11

I think the point that he was making effectively is that the closest approximation to the Trinity is the passage, for there are three that bear record in heaven, the

02:06:18

Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost, and these three are one. Have all of you heard of it? Have you heard it being preached to you?

02:06:23

Well, the oldest manuscript that contains that is something called, as James would confirm, the Codex Monfortianus, which dates to 16th century.

02:06:31

That was the closest approximation to the Holy Trinity, what people would argue. Some would say Matthew 28 verse 19 says, go baptizing them in the name of the

02:06:39

Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. The problem that I have is that many would argue that in the early church, baptism was in the name of Jesus, not in the name of the

02:06:47

Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. When you look at the Old Testament, clearly Isaiah 43 verse 10, before me there was no

02:06:53

God formed, neither after me. Is there God beside me? Yet there is no God. In Numbers 23 19,

02:06:59

God is not a man that should lie, neither the son of man should repent. According to Christian theology and Jewish theology, the nature of God never changes.

02:07:07

However, according to later Christian development and theology, God becomes a man. And eternity after incarnation, you have the

02:07:14

God man, the Father, and the Holy Spirit. So the nature of God changes. Thanks so much, guys.

02:07:21

Okay, what we're going to do now is we're going to have the closing statements. So we're going to have five minutes from Yusuf.

02:07:28

And then we're going to have five minutes from Dr. White. Yusuf, when you start. Thank you for that,

02:07:34

James. James and I are still friends. I think I did upset him once in 2015. Look at the debate that we had.

02:07:40

But afterwards, we basically met up and became good friends thereafter. The Quran at the outset, I just want to give a closing summation of my arguments, identifies itself as a word of God.

02:07:50

We've mentioned this numerous. There is a self -awareness about the Quran, which indeed is absent from all other religious literature, including the

02:07:58

Old Testament and the New Testament. Even though you could cite Peter or 2 Timothy 3 16, the self -awareness is absent from the biblical text.

02:08:06

The all self -awareness is, in fact, existent throughout the passage of the Quran. As I pointed out, the narratology of the

02:08:12

Quran is different in that it is God addressing humans. It is as if God is addressing the particular prophet.

02:08:21

It is the only book that, in fact, claims guidance for the whole of humanity. And the point that I was making earlier on is that no one individual can remain consistent for a period of 23 years in the same eternal message.

02:08:34

Now, certainly James made the point that there was an evolution depending on the context of social circumstances and the climate of the time of the

02:08:41

Prophet Muhammad, but the Quran addresses it. But in terms of the core fundamental message of Tawhid, no change, absolutely nothing.

02:08:50

We've come to a consensus that a lot of the biblical books are anonymous. James says this does not impinge on the whole issue of inspiration.

02:08:59

Does it not? Does it not impinge on the idea that basically some books are anonymous and you believe that they are inspired by God?

02:09:06

On what basis then could you reject the deuterocanonicals of the Roman Catholics or other books for that particular matter?

02:09:13

I pointed out that the eternality debate is in fact moot and that the Quran in fact operates within history.

02:09:18

This ties up a lot to, for example, the predestination debate that we had in 2015.

02:09:26

And the point James is making is that does the Quran depend on the circumstances of what the

02:09:32

Prophet did or said? Well, I would say that all what the Prophet did or said, what all what humanity did, all that happens in history is in the foreknowledge of God.

02:09:43

And that is not absent. That doesn't mean that God is just simply sitting aside in the stadium like a passive observer.

02:09:49

He very much operates in human history and revelation is one way in which he indeed operates in human history.

02:09:55

The eternal tablet that stands for the all comprehensive knowledge of God is analogous to the fact that these are words written on the table, on a tablet.

02:10:03

Surah 6 verse 116 says that the word of God is finalized, accomplished. Surah 5 verse 3, this day have

02:10:09

I perfected your particular faith. The debate in fact creates more problems for a

02:10:14

Christian than it does for a Muslim because a Christian has to maintain the idea that the

02:10:19

Logos is eternal and the Logos came into earth at one point in time as a

02:10:25

God man and the Logos resurrected and the Logos is somehow the other God. When you say that the father is

02:10:30

God fully, the son is God fully and the Holy Spirit is God fully, yet there is only one

02:10:36

God, there is a fundamental problem in the theology. It would be more logical to assume that there are three gods than one

02:10:43

God. I understand the Christian position but don't superimpose a problem that you may have in your theology and look at it as a

02:10:51

Muslim problem when the problem strikes you tenfold. And what do you mean when you say

02:10:56

God came down to earth to die for the sins of humanity? What do you mean by that? And if it's just simply the man that comes down to die, how can it be viewed as eternal sacrifice?

02:11:07

And why would the father himself not come down and die for the sins of humanity? Why does he send down his son?

02:11:13

I mean, Shabir Ali made a comment some time back, a few years in a debate, I think with James White and some may have viewed it offensively that this was a classic case of cosmic child abuse.

02:11:22

Why would you go and send your son in danger? And why would he come and die for the sins of humanity and just simply believing it, you attain your salvation?

02:11:30

And who attains a salvation? According to the Calvinistic perspective, God came to die for the sins of the elect.

02:11:39

According to the vast majority, the Armenian position, I would assume even in the Anglican church, God came to die for the sins of humanity.

02:11:46

So what is actually the deal as an outsider? If I am I saved? Because Calvinism holds in the reform position that the elect have already been appointed by God.

02:11:56

These are who God came to die, they are eternally saved and the rest are doomed for hellfire regardless of whether they believe or not.

02:12:03

I would argue, let's go back to the biblical narrative in the book of Ezekiel, which says that the soul that sins, it shall die.

02:12:09

But the son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, neither shall the father bear the iniquity of the son. And what's the part to salvation?

02:12:15

The righteousness of the righteous shall be upon him and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon him. And if the wicked will turn from all the evil that he had done and do that which is lawful and right, he shall surely live, he shall not die.

02:12:26

أَمَّا الَّذِينَ آمَنُوا وَعَمِلُوا صَالِحَاتٍۢ For those who believe and do righteous deeds, therein lies your salvation.

02:12:34

And that is Islam. You pay for your sins, I pay for my sins. At the end of the day, the

02:12:39

Quran comes and addresses humanity as indeed is guidance for the whole of humanity. Thank you very much.

02:12:49

I just want to ask us as a people, how are we going to advance in our relationships to one another when there is an absolute unwillingness to engage with one side's viewpoint in an accurate fashion?

02:13:06

I do my best to understand Tawhid, to accurately define it, to accurately represent what the

02:13:12

Quran says and its historical context. And yet over and over again, even though I've written an entire book in the doctrine of the

02:13:19

Trinity, it is actually quite easy to understand. It is misrepresented constantly.

02:13:24

Why? How can we get anywhere in actually interacting with one another when there is no willingness to allow one side to define what it actually believes, but to insist upon misrepresenting?

02:13:36

I think one of the reasons is the author of the Quran was ignorant to what the doctrine of the Trinity was and misrepresented it.

02:13:42

And that's why we have the issues we have. That means it couldn't have been Allah who wrote the Quran. It was a man who did not understand.

02:13:49

It was a man who orchestrated the events to allow himself to marry the divorced wife of his formerly adopted son.

02:13:59

It was a man. That's what the issue is. We just heard, for example, we just did a debate on the issue of whether the

02:14:06

Quran is eternal. And I think what we've been told is that the very text of the Quran could be changed depending upon the limited freewill actions of man.

02:14:15

I think that pretty well answers where we are now on that issue. That is not what Al -Tabari and the others believed.

02:14:21

So there's been a change. There's been an evolution. Fine, that's within your communion. You answer that. What did the grossly false, super offensive, and I don't care what you believe,

02:14:33

I'm going to misrepresent you, accusation of cosmic child abuse have to do with our subject tonight?

02:14:39

Why even bring it up? It's grossly false. I've already pointed out it's false. Jesus said specifically, and I forgot to start my timer.

02:14:46

Jesus said specifically, no one takes my life from me.

02:14:51

I lay it down of my own accord. Philippians chapter two said he made himself of no reputation. He humbled himself.

02:14:58

This is what Jesus did. That is not cosmic child abuse. That is the second person of the trinity doing exactly what he intended to do from eternity past.

02:15:09

Now, why would anyone therefore make a statement like that in a debate which can only inflame emotions and is simply dishonest?

02:15:20

I know Shabir said it. Shabir was wrong to say it. There's an evangelical writer in London.

02:15:27

That's where he got it from. That's what he said. But it's a gross misrepresentation. So, why is it that one side, and there are people on my side that do the same thing.

02:15:37

I get it. But I try to avoid those very standard, common, you'd call them missionary type statements that misrepresent the best of what

02:15:49

Islam has to say. But we don't get that in return. Why? I wanted this debate this evening to add to, and it has, and I'm thankful to Yusuf for that.

02:16:00

It has added to the realm of the discussions that we are talking about.

02:16:06

And I think the next step should be those Sunni Muslims who hold the old line perspective on the

02:16:13

Quran. You all need to be discussing this. Maybe there needs to be a debate within on this particular subject.

02:16:20

Because it isn't just a secondary issue. It impacts the form of tafsir and everything else.

02:16:26

And you know that. But in our interactions with one another,

02:16:32

I want further dialogue to take place. But if it's going to take place and accomplish something, it has to be undertaken on the part of Muslims and Christians that are doing everything they can to accurately represent the other side.

02:16:51

Not just simply to win debating points, not just simply to inflame emotion. And that's why

02:16:56

I said what I said to the brother. And I say it out of love to him. He wasn't listening to my answer because he didn't care. And I care enough about him to say, you need to think about that.

02:17:06

Because when I listen to what Yusuf says, I have taken what he said three years ago and I have spoken on the subject of Islam in light of that.

02:17:17

And what I'll do is I'll say, some Muslims say this, some Muslims say that, to try to be accurate. Because that's what people who love the truth do.

02:17:25

And that's what all of us need to be. That's what all of us need to be. I know it was somewhat of an arcane subject.

02:17:32

But we have to, if we care about one another, if we care about this continuing dialogue, we have to be truthful.

02:17:38

We have to be accurate. I'm calling all of us to that. I hope you can agree with that. Thank you very much for being here this evening.

02:17:45

I appreciate the attention you've given. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thanks again to St.

02:17:56

Thomas Anglican Church for allowing us to have this discussion here. And thank you to you, the audience.

02:18:01

You've been very well behaved. Nobody was chased out. You chewed a little bit hard at the back, but that is okay.