Ahmed Deedat on the Deity of Christ: Rebuttal #3

I continue with my examination of Ahmed Didat's sermon in Cape Town, South Africa, against the deity of Christ. We've already demonstrated a number of problems with Didat's presentation. He's beginning with a lack of understanding, a misrepresentation of the Christian doctrine of the Trinity.

We will see throughout this presentation the assumption, the presupposition on the part of the Muslim that God cannot enter into his own creation. It's just given as an impossibility that God could actually desire, when he created, to enter into his own creation.

There is a lack of understanding that it is the Son who enters into human flesh, not the Father. There is certainly no intention on Didat's part to give accurate information and understanding to his audience.

That really is a given as well, and I suggest that is one of the great contrasts between the best of Christian apologetics and that of Islam, is that Christians at least are under obligation to try to present an accurate representation of the position that they are seeking to respond to, and in this case, refute.

Didat’s Clip on Jesus’ Circumcision and the Claim That God Could Not Be Circumcised

In this next clip, we see this continuing theme in regards to the deity of Christ as it's presented in the New Testament. I'll comment on it after we listen to what Didat has to say.

However, chapter 2 verse 23, it says, When he was eight days old, he was circumcised. I'm only reading what's written there. When he was eight days old, he was circumcised, and named Jesus by the angel when he was in his mother's womb.

So asking who was in his mother's womb? They said Jesus. So who is Jesus? He's God and the Son of God. Veritable Son of God. So how did he come out from there? It's just like you and me. I'm asking, please explain.

Make it easy for me. How? How? Please explain. And you watch his face. How can you explain? And he was circumcised. I said the barber. It was the barber's job. There were no surgeons those days to circumcise children.

The barber did the job. This was their privilege. So a barber comes along to this table after eight days, and you know how circumcision takes place. I remember because I was eight years old when I was circumcised.

So I know very vividly how things happen. When children are eight days old, they know nothing what's going on. But I said I know how it works. Imagine God being circumcised. Can you imagine somebody coming and holding God and saying, this is my God, I'm circumcising him?

No. Did the barber think he was a God? No. Did his teacher, when he went to school, did he think he was teaching a God? No.

Why the Incarnation Does Not Make Jesus a Mere Human Being

Now there are a number of observations to be offered in response to what Didat has had to say. First of all, notice he said God and the Son of God. It almost sounds to me like he thinks there's a distinction.

And is it possible that even he was confused on the nature of Christ as deity over against the identity of Christ, possibly confusing him with the Father? It's quite probable because clearly Didat, as all Muslims, was a Unitarian.

But very, very few. In fact, to be honest with you, I just haven't yet met my first Muslim scholar who can break out of his Unitarian categories at least long enough to understand what a Trinitarian believes.

I just haven't met that person yet. I hope that they exist. But I haven't met any of them yet. And so it's quite probable that Didat actually sees a distinction there and that as a result he does not understand exactly what it was that Christians were teaching long before Islam came along.

He says that Jesus was born just like you and me. Well, yes, a child was born to us. To be a human being, Jesus had to be born as a human being. He entered into flesh. That is the doctrine of the Incarnation.

To simply state that and go, well, I don't believe God would ever do that is not an argument against it. And we've been very consistent in attacking and denying Gnostic concepts where Jesus did not truly have a physical birth.

And we have argued, and I think argued rather accurately, that the Marian doctrines held by the Roman Catholic Church violate this very area of Christian theology and are a good illustration of why we need to believe in Sola Scriptura and not violate that principle.

He seems to have a real problem with the fact that Jesus was a Jew, that he was born under the law, therefore he bore the covenant sign. But again, if Jesus is going to be truly man, he's going to enter into the covenant people, what would you expect him to be?

What would you expect him to do? Would you expect him not to do these things? Not to be circumcised? Not to pray? Not to eat? What would you expect the God-man to be if it is God's will to enter into human flesh in this way?

Simply assuming that God can't do this is not the same as offering arguments against what again was being taught long before Islam came along. And he's only staying the obvious when he says that the barber or Jesus' teachers as a young child did not view him as God.

Christians have believed all along that his glory was veiled, that he was truly a man. He didn't glow, he didn't have halos and angels around him and so on and so forth. He was fully human. He grew in stature and wisdom as any human child would.

If he didn't, then he wasn't a human child. So how else could it be? Why not give the audience the real story? Why attack a straw man? That's really one of the main problems I have with Dida. Why not attack the reality?

Why not teach the audience what Christians really believe and then demonstrate that that's wrong? If you have to use a straw man, there's something wrong with your apologetic.

You know, he acted in the film called King of Kings. And in that film, he had to play the part of going on Mount Zion outside Jerusalem. He had to climb. And while he was climbing, he's sweating. He's panting for breath.

You know, for the filming, he had to go up. There were no helicopters to take him then, you see. So he had to go up. So he says, Christian, born Christian, he said, for the first time in my life, I realized how human Jesus was.

He must have gone through the same process. You know, sweating, panting for breath. But we imagine today, the Christian imagines that he was like a spirit moving one minute here, one minute there. Like, look, our brother said, I was in the Middle East.

And I tell you, yes. If I tell you in five countries in so many days, And then I was in Durban. And I'm in Cape Town. Now you'll find me in Johannesburg. And I'm going to Botswana. I'm going to Sudan.

I'm going. But you know, I have to work hard to get these places. I'm not floating like a spirit. You see, I have to go and catch the plane. I have to wake up in time. It's difficult. It's all difficult.

But now when people tell you, say, you know, he was there and I saw him there. And then when I went to Cape Town, I saw him there lecturing there. So you think he was a ghost. Dida was a ghost.

Dida is no ghost. Christians imagine Jesus was floating around like a spirit? Hardly. It is Christian orthodoxy to recognize that Jesus was the incarnate one. The New Testament is very clear in teaching that he experienced hunger, that he experienced thirst, that he became tired after long days of teaching.

This is part and parcel of what we believe. This is misrepresentation on the level of starting to talk about how Islam has two gods, Muhammad and Allah. I mean, it's that level of misrepresentation. And when you have to misrepresent the other side, what does that say about your apologetic?

Surah 5:119 and the Next Part of the Review

At this point, then, Dida goes into Surah 5, verse 119. And instead of trying to squeeze that into the small amount of time we have here, we'll keep that for the next video as we continue to review what Ahmed Didat said against the subject of the deity of Christ in Cape Town, South Africa.

Thanks for watching.