The Trinity, Part 1

Alpha & Omega Ministries

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My name is Doug McMasters. I'm the pastor of Trinity Road Chapel, and it is my privilege on behalf of our congregation that meets here regularly to welcome you here this evening to what we have described as the

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Is it the big Trinity debate or the great Trinity debate? One of the two. And it is a true pleasure to have you here this evening with us to a moderated formal debate concerning the question of the person of God and specifically the issue of the

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Trinity. And we are pleased to welcome Dr. James White and Abdullah Al -Adelusi to be here to represent their two perspective viewpoints.

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Just by way of introduction, let me do a little bit of housekeeping notices before we give the formal introductions and begin our debate.

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To let you know that after the rebuttals, there will be a food break. So if you come here directly from work, and I know that some of you have done that, you'll be glad to hear that that will be happening straight through there and we'll talk about that just, you know, after the rebuttals occur just so that you might anticipate that.

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For those of you that need to use the facilities, I ask you to go straight to the back and speak to one of the stewards and they can take you, lead you over to where those are at.

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So instead of coming up here and disrupting perhaps people's attention and the debates, if you could just go straight back and the steward will be happy to help you there.

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Also, at the very end of the debate, we will have an opportunity for people to ask questions.

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These questions we've asked to be written down. So I've got some blank sheets of paper here.

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I was wondering if I could get some volunteers to pass these out. Can I get four individuals to take a stack of these and if you could distribute the paper around.

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And if you would submit those to me, I will be asking questions.

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Please feel free to write down on those. Speaking first this evening is

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Dr. James White, Director of Alpha and Omega Ministries. You're welcome here this evening.

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Dr. James White is the director, as I said, of Alpha and Omega Ministries, a

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Christian apologetics organization that's based in Phoenix, Arizona. He's the author of more than 20 books and he's conducted over 75 moderated public debates.

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He's also a professor, having taught Greek and systematic theology and various topics in the field of apologetics.

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He's also the elder of the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church. He's been married to Kelly for 27 years and has two children,

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Joshua and Summer. And we also welcome this evening

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Abula Al -Andalusi. He's a former Anglican who embraced Islam at a young age and studied

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Islam in depth since the age of 18. He's had a long experience in working in community activism and Islamic apologetics.

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And his activities including writing extensively on Islamic revivalist thought, speaking at various community centers and universities and colleges.

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He's also made appearances in various TV programs, speaking about theology, political philosophy and socio -political analysis.

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He's a co -founder of the Public Discussion Forum, the Muslim Debate Initiative, and he's done a lot of written work in specialist subjects.

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And you can view some of that writing on the website islamicrationalism .com

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So, you can remember that. Just to give you an idea of how the debate is going to go this evening, we will have 22 minutes each of opening statements followed by three minutes of cross -examination.

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This cross -examination is to verify the statements that have been made in each person's opening remarks.

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And that will be followed by 12 minutes each of rebuttals, and then we'll have our break.

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And when we all return from the break, I'll tell you about the breakdown and the format. of our debate from that point.

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At this time, we want to welcome Dr. James White to begin our debate. Well, good evening.

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It is a pleasure to be with you here in London this evening. It is truly an honor that you all come out this evening, braved the cold weather from a desert climate.

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And so, this is very unusual for me, but I'm actually enjoying it. And I thank you all for being here this evening, especially to Abdullah Al -Mulusi.

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Thank you very much for being here. Last time I saw him, we were in the studio at the

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Unbelievable Radio program, and we had a discussion. I have a feeling it was a little bit like what we're going to hear this evening, but not quite as full,

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I think. And so, it is an honor to be with you here this evening. Does the

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Bible teach the Trinity? Does the Quran accurately describe the Trinity? Is worship of the

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Trinity an act of shirt? These are all things that I submit to you, we as Christians and Muslims, must discuss openly, honestly, and forcefully.

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If I were a Muslim, and I had the Quran as my holy book, I would take seriously the things that it says about those who would say three, and what that means, what shirt means, what the term blasphemy means, a curse upon those people.

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If I cared about other people, I would want them to know what my holy book said. And as a

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Christian, I, in the very same way this evening, am going to say to my Muslim friends, your book does not understand what

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I believe. It should, but it does not. And therefore, what does that mean?

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How do we understand these things? If we love and respect one another, we will not compromise on these issues.

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We will not fall into the trap of the modern world that says, well, we dare not offend,

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I would rather love you and offend you, than not offend you and not love you.

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That is where I begin this evening, and I hope that we will be able to, this entire evening, act toward one another in that kind of an understanding.

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There is a major danger of talking past each other this evening, because we use similar terms, but we import very different meanings into those words.

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Come, let us reason together is the biblical invitation. We wish to be reasonable this evening, without lapsing into secular rationalism, which unfortunately is the mode of the day.

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Two of the major world religions locked in definitional combat.

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Islam arises after Christianity, at least on the historical level, I understand what you believe about Jesus being a

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Muslim, etc., etc. But from the historical level, Islam arises after Christianity, and therefore interacts with Christian beliefs in its holy scripture, that is, in the

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Quran. It would seem logical to assert, then, that if the Quran is, in fact, the eternal message of Allah, that it would be accurate, in an accurate way, and sightly critique the

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Christian doctrine of the Trinity. The point upon which the two faiths have their sharpest, and I would say foundational, disagreement that gives rise to so much else.

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It is my assertion that the Quran not only does not accurately define and critique the Trinity, it does so errantly, demonstrating that, in fact, its author was quite human, not divine.

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So let's define the issues to see if my allegation is founded in reality. First, we must understand what it is

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Christians believe about the subject of the Trinity. Within the one being that is

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God, there exists eternally three co -equal and co -eternal persons, namely the

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Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Now, I was not just simply using color to make my slide prettier in outlining the words being and person.

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We differentiate between these words in everyday life, and we differentiate between these words in the definition of the

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Christian faith as well. What do I mean, we differentiate between these words? Well, we all recognize things that have existence, things that have being.

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We are human beings. There are other beings in this universe that we see around us.

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Some are personal, some are not. A rock has being, but it is not personal.

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A cat has being, and it might have personality, but it's not truly a person in the sense of recognizing its own existence among cat kind or anything like that.

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The Bible tells us that God, angels, and men are personal in their existence.

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And yet, angels and men are limited in their being. Being is what makes something what it is.

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Person is what makes someone who they are. And so a rock has being, but it does not have personhood.

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We as human beings, we have being, we are human beings, but our beings are limited in time and space.

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I am not back at home right now in Phoenix, Arizona, though sometimes my body thinks that it is. We are limited as to where we can be and how long we exist.

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God's being is not limited. God's being is eternal and indeed outside the realm of time.

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And it is the Christian perspective that that being of God is shared by three divine persons, the

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Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and that this has eternally been the case. There is never a time when that was not true.

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Now it's important to recognize the Trinity is not saying that there are three beings who are one being, nor three persons who are one person.

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One being, eternal and unlimited, shared eternally by three divine persons,

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Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. We are not saying one equals three and three equals one.

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Since we differentiate between those terms, you may have heard people criticizing the doctrine of Trinity on that level.

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That is not a valid criticism. We are not saying three persons or one person. We are not saying three beings or one being or anything along those lines.

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We are differentiating and very specifically in the language that we use. But why do you believe this?

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Many people think it's because, well, Constantine forced you to. Well, that's certainly not why

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I am a Trinitarian. I'm a Trinitarian because I believe the

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Bible is the Word of God. And I believe all of the Bible and only the

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Bible. That is, I believe in sola scriptura. Scripture alone is the sole and final rule of faith for the

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Church and for Christian faith. But I also believe in tota scriptura. All of Scripture must be believed.

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And when I believe the Scriptures, when I apply a meaningful standard of interpretation that is consistent from Genesis to Revelation, recognizing all the different kinds of literature and Scripture, when

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I do that, I come up with three biblical truths. The first foundation is absolute monotheism.

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There is only one true God, Creator of heavens and earth.

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I have defended that thesis against the Mormons who believe that there are many gods, literally an unlimited number of gods in the various universes.

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The Bible is explicit. And there are many parallels between the statements of the Quran and the Bible on the fact that there is one true

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God. And any God that did not create the heavens and the earth, Jeremiah tells us, is a

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God that will pass away from the heavens and the earth. That is the first confession that we make.

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There is only one true God. But then, as I read the Scriptures, I find out that there are three divine persons.

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The Father is not the Son. The Son is not the Spirit. The Spirit is not the Father. They are distinguished from one another and yet they are described as God.

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The very name of God in the Old Testament, Yahweh, is applied to the Father to the

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Son and the Spirit is the Spirit of Yahweh. Why would the inspired writers do this consistently throughout the

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New Testament writings? Why would the one name of the God of Israel be applied to Jesus of Nazareth?

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Why would the Spirit be the Spirit of God, the Spirit of Christ, interchangeably, the Spirit of Yahweh? Why is this the case?

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Three divine persons are revealed to us in the pages of the

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Holy Scriptures. But then, we likewise have the third foundation, the equality of those persons.

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Most people, over time, have tried to find some way of putting these persons in an order and frequently what that has led to is, in essence, an elevation of one above another.

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Many people today, for example, the Jehovah's Witnesses, who might wake you up on a Saturday morning knocking at the door at your flat, believe that Jesus is

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Michael the Archangel, the first and greatest of God's creations. Others simply say he was a great man.

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But the reality is that the Scriptures do not allow for that kind of subjugation. They do allow for differentiation.

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The Son does different things than the Father. The Spirit does different things than the Father and the Son. Each have taken different roles in the redemption of mankind and glorification of the triune

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God. But they fully participate in true deity.

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Jesus is described as the creator of all things. Eternal in his existence. And so these three biblical truths force me to the doctrine of the

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Trinity. They force me to recognize that if I'm going to allow the Scriptures to speak for themselves and I'm not going to put some higher authority over the

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Scriptures, that I must believe these particular things. Now the terms

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Father and Son are not physical terms for Christians. The Father is not married to anyone.

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The Son is not the result of marriage. He is not an offspring. The relationship of Father and Son is timeless.

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It did not begin, but always has been. It is a description of a relationship that has eternally existed.

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Now I understand why some who do not have the fullness of biblical revelation might hear phrases like Father and Son and go, oh, well you must be thinking that God has a consort, a wife and has offspring and children.

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But that is not what the Old Testament has taught about Galilee, that's not what the New Testament has taught about the relationship of the

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Father and the Son in any way, shape or form. And any representation of Christian belief that does not recognize this is based upon ignorance.

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And we must understand that that is the case. The bedrock of monotheism defines the

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Trinity. It is the very foundation of our faith. But this must be understood. Monotheism and Unitarianism are not the same things.

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I am a Trinitarian monotheist. You can be a

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Unitarian monotheist because you assert that the being of God can only be shared by one person.

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I am a Trinitarian monotheist because since the being of God is not limited by time and space it's eternal and unlimited.

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My scriptures teach me that there are three divine persons that fully share that one being that is God. Now, you may disagree with that but you cannot simply assume

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Unitarianism along with monotheism. You have to prove it. You have to prove that the being of God cannot be shared by three divine persons.

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And that cannot simply be assumed. The Trinity was well known by AD 600.

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The councils of Nicaea, Constantinople and Chalcedon had clearly proclaimed the belief. Now, since there was some confusion when

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I made this claim the last time I was in London, let me emphasize what I'm saying here. I have just explained to you that I believe that the doctrine of the

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Trinity is a biblical revelation. All I'm saying here is that all the controversies that one might point to with Arianism or Apollinarianism or any of the other isms of the first few hundred years were all settled by this time.

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What the doctrine of the Trinity was was well known by AD 600. Why did I choose AD 600?

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Well, because it's pretty close to AD 610 and I'll let you figure out the rest from there. The doctrine of the

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Trinity was well known. The Athanasian Creed was well known. Augustine had written entire works on the subject long before Muhammad.

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And so, given that my esteemed opponent this evening's emphasis is upon rationality, may

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I follow his own form of argumentation to point out that if the Bible is indeed the revelation of God, as confirmed and promised by Jesus, confirming the

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Old Testament promising in the New Testament, then it is perfectly rational to allow

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God's revelation to define His nature and His being.

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If we accept that there is a creator God who has revealed Himself and we are but His creatures, it is eminently rational to accept what

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He reveals concerning Himself. I am reminded of the words of Blaise Pascal who said,

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Reason's last step is the recognition that there are an infinite number of things which are beyond it.

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It is merely feeble if it does not go as far as to realize that. I am being rational when

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I recognize my creator is greater than I am, and that I must bow before His revelation.

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And the great Puritan John Flavel said, I know there is nothing in the Word or in the works of God that is repugnant to sound reason, but there are some things which are opposite to carnal reason as well as above right reason.

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And therefore our reason never shows itself more unreasonable than in summoning those things to its bar which transcend its sphere and capacity.

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The doctrine of Trinity is not a revelation of reason, it is a revelation of God.

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But it is very reasonable to accept God's own self -understanding. Let's look at the chronic understanding of what the doctrine of the

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Trinity is, because there is no question that the Qur 'an seeks to provide a response to the beliefs that existed in the days of Muhammad.

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The Qur 'an is sent down to Muhammad 600 years after the end of Christ's earthly ministry. It interacts extensively with both

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Judaism and Christianity but doesn't do so accurately. If it is the eternal word of Allah, it must, but that cannot simply be assumed.

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We have to this evening examine that claim. Surah 4, 171 says,

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O people of the Book, Allah Al -Kitab, commit no excesses in your religion, nor say of Allah but the truth,

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Christ Jesus, the son of Mary, was no more than an apostle of Allah, and his word which he bestowed on Mary and his spirit proceeding from him, so believe in Allah and his apostles.

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And so here you have the first reference to excesses on the part of people about this

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Jesus. Excesses going beyond what the truth allegedly actually is, because it goes on to say

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Say not trinity now that of course is a translational issue, it's literally say not three say not three, desist it will be better for you, for Allah is one

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Allah, glory be to him for exalted is he above having a son to him belong all things in the heavens and on earth and enough is

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Allah's disposal of affairs. Here's the first time we hear this this drumbeat he is exalted above having a son, what does that mean?

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That Allah is exalted above having an eternal relationship with the second divine person, the one being that is

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God? Is that what the writer to the Quran understands? Well we're going to have to find out as we look at other texts.

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In Surah 5, 72, following they do blaspheme this is why this is so important folks,

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I think if you're a Muslim you should take that word very seriously and as a Christian, I do if this is the word of God, then what

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I believe is blasphemy I recognize that, that's why I take this very serious we cannot simply pass these things by they do blaspheme, they say

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Allah is Christ the son of Mary, but said Christ, O children of Israel, worship Allah my

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Lord and your Lord whoever joins other gods with Allah, Allah will forbid him to garden and the fire will be his abode, there will for the wrongdoers be no one to help notice what is said here there's a joining of other gods with Allah, as if the son is a separate god and yet Christians don't believe that the son is a separate god, they don't believe he became a god at a point in time two divine persons sharing one being, father and son it's not a separate god, so what's being referred to here?

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Goes on to say they do blaspheme, who say Allah is one of three in a trinity for there is no god except one

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Allah, it's literally third of three clearly the Quran is thinking of polytheism here a multiplicity of gods and yet what is the absolute first affirmation?

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monotheism, there is only one being of God, the very name of God Yahweh used of father, son and spirit what is this third of three?

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if they resist not from their word of blasphemy verily a grievous penalty will befall the blasphemers among them, why turn they not to Allah and seek his forgiveness, for Allah is oft -forgiving, most merciful,

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Christ the son of Mary was no more than an apostle many were the apostles that passed away before him, his mother was a woman of truth they had both to eat their daily food note the mention of Mary see how

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Allah doth make his signs clear to them, yet see in what ways they are deluded away from the truth say, will ye worship besides the law, something which hath no power either to harm or benefit you?

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but Allah, he it is, that heareth and knoweth all things, you're starting to hear the drumbeat of this kind of argumentation but I'm hoping you're saying it's not argumentation against the doctrine of the trinity we have multiple gods here we have, and it seems, why make reference to them?

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why say that they had both to eat their daily food? Christians don't believe

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Mary's a god Christians don't believe Mary's married to God and has children so why make this kind of argumentation?

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say, O people the book exceed not in their religion the bounds of what is proper, trespassing beyond the truth, nor follow the vain desires of people who went wrong in times gone by who misled many and strayed themselves from the even way curses were pronounced on those among the children of Israel who rejected faith, by the tongue of David and of Jesus, the son of Mary, because they disobeyed and persisted in excess.

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the chronic position at this point, do not say three, it is a blasphemy, an excess it will bring a grievous penalty, a curse.

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Allah is exalted above having a son Jesus and Mary both ate daily food now my timer is messed up here okay, so I've got just about just a few moments let me very very quickly then read to you surah 5, verse 16 and make some application

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Behold, Allah will say, O Jesus, the son of Mary, didst thou say unto men, Worship me and my mother as gods in derogation of Allah?

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He will say Glory to thee, never could I say what I had no right to say, had I said such a thing, thou wouldst indeed have known it Thou knowest what is in my heart, though I know not what is thine, for thou knowest in full all that is hidden.

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Notice the statement Jesus asked about teaching men to jointly worship himself and Mary as God, Allah plus Mary plus Jesus equals three now

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I have a number of comments that I will try to get to from Ibn Kathir and from others that demonstrate that the

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Quranic understanding is that, well, here's one from Ibn Kathir, this is a threat and a warning to Christians, chastising them in public, as Qadda and others said, and Qadda mentioned this ayah as evidence, this ayah also shows the crime of the

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Christians who invented a lie against the law and its messenger thus making a rival wife and son for Allah Allah is glorified in that he is far above what they attribute to him let me just make a summary statement at this point it has never been the

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Christian belief that God the Father has a wife and that they have a son named Jesus I can understand how someone could have come to that conclusion if they are ignorant of the very essence of the

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Christian scriptures but if you believe that the Quran is the eternal word of God, then my friends,

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Allah knew what the trinity was when the Quran was revealed whether it's right or wrong is another issue, if he knew what it was there would be no reason to misrepresent it and so this evening we have two things to discuss does the

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Bible teach it, is it rational to believe this but for the Muslim does your holy book accurately represent this belief, and if not why not, and what does that mean thank you very much also given 22 minutes is

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Abdullah Al -Andalusi and he'll be representing the Muslim position let's welcome him as he comes to In the name of God most gracious, most merciful

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I'd like to send my greetings to everyone here and I'd like to thank the Trinity Church the elders and the congregation for inviting me here today to debate this interesting and important topic

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Firstly I wanted to apologize if anything I do say might offend some people I think it is important as Jane White mentioned that we have to be open and frank about our difference of opinion and that we also must be tolerant you know, gone are the days when people such as myself

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Christians, ex -Christians or whoever who reject the Trinity would have been beheaded in Christian Europe for example

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John Calvin himself ordered the beheading of poor servitors, but in this day and age we live in more enlightened times where we can actually come to each other's places of worship and discuss openly and last year the

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American Evangelical debate of David Wood came to a mosque to discuss whether the Prophet Muhammad was a real prophet or a false prophet him obviously arguing that the

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Prophet Muhammad was a false prophet in a mosque so I think this is a very good situation and I'd like to jump straight into my presentation the structure of my presentation is firstly we have to come to agreement on a common basis to make a judgment as to whether there is politics involved or not in the issue of the

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Trinity and so on also I'll discuss Jewish monotheism I'll discuss the source

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I'm going to use then I'm going to jump to the unreliability of apostolic tradition and its documentation otherwise known as the

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New Testament I will show that there's no guarantee that the original texts are accurate and that the original text probably has even the same contradictions as even the current ones that we have

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I'll say the Bible is not protected by the Holy Spirit from textual corruption, that the

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Christian theology developed under the pernicious influence of Hellenic Greek philosophy and that the texts give contradictory accounts of Jesus as one human and the other one as a humble but super human and then

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I'll discuss the Trinity hypothesis and there's a reason why I call it the hypothesis, and I'll finish off with the chronic contentions to the

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Trinity, or should I say to Christian theology specifically and how the Quran perceives

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Christian theology and the rational arguments raised by the Quran now I know that sometimes

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I'm described as a rationalist but this is far from the descriptor in terms of in Islamic thought we think this is the metazolites, the metazolite faction no,

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I'm fully orthodox Ahlus Sunnah when I use the word rational it's only because I believe that the Quran which tells us to go look at the universe and don't believe in things which are contradictory,

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I say that this is rational, rational thinking is to believe in things which are non -contradictory and based on evidence simple, as simple as it is

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I think that the basis a rational basis is that whatever and how ineffable

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God is, how unfathomable he is he is non -contradictory his nature is non -contradictory he might be infinite and you can't count infinity but there's a difference between saying he's infinite and finite at the same time because infinite means not finite so how can something be not finite and finite at the same time it's a contradiction as to quote 1

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Timothy 6 .20 God, the deposit entrusted to you avoid the irreverent babble and contradictions of what is falsely called knowledge and again

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Corinthians, God is not the author of confusion and of course as God is allegedly invited people in Isaiah, come now let us reason together so God believes in reason and rationality, so I do too

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Jewish monotheism you know, the thing about the Old Testament Bible is the Old Testament Bible is full of imagery and it's full of explicit text, there's ambiguous text and explicit text you go to any

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Jew and you ask them how do you interpret these different texts some texts say that God rested

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God relaxed, God repented does this literally mean that God rested he went to sleep, he went to relax or whatever they say no, they would say it's imagery because the explicit text has got infinite or powerful he's not like a man, so we interpret those texts which say that he is, he repents or he relaxes or he makes a mistake we interpret them allegorically or metaphorically, we don't interpret them literally and we use this kind of as a meter, and it's the same with the

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Quran we have a verse in the Quran which says that God has hand and feet and so on and we don't interpret it literally that God has a human hand, feet and leg and different components, no it's allegory, metaphor so what are the explicit verses in Jewish monotheism

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God is not a man, Numbers and Hosea and I think I'll quote Numbers, God is not a man that he should lie, nor a son of man that he should change his mind, interesting

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God does not change in Malachi God does not, he doesn't change his mind, of course as James White noted in his book

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The Forgotten Trinity, that God is outside of time and space, that he can't change, he's outside of time and space remember that God is the creator of all things obviously we know that the

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Jews believe this and 2 Chronicles 6 -18, nothing can contain God when referring to a temple, how can

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God be confined by a limited temple, and of course as James White himself remarked in his book

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God's being is not limited and since God is omnipresent, another important truth can be seen,

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God's being cannot be divided, what is half of omnipresence how can the infinite be divided into parts, so on and so on and here in Israel, the

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Lord your God is one Lord notice how it doesn't say you only have one

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God, or there is only one God, no, it says the Lord your God, so you read up, the Lord your God that's singular is one, why say that, why have the additional as one, you already mentioned the singular your

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Lord your God, why say he is one, what's that about, we'll come to that later, so the sources

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I'm going to use, and what I'm going to quote from the Old Testament, I'm going to quote from the classical church fathers, the

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Orthodox classical church fathers, I know they all anathematized each other during that time, but I'm going to quote from the ones that stand for the majority

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I'm going to quote scholars approved by James, which I obtained from his books the ones that he cites, I'm going to cite because I know that he trusts those scholars and I will quote scholars not approved by James, but I will mention when they are what he would call liberal scholars so, onto the reliability of apostolic tradition what does that mean well, the

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New Testament is not an exact record of Jesus' life but it's a compilation of early

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Christian theologians and uncorporated narratives about Jesus' life so what do we find is that there were theologians, early theologians writing letters or their works and so on, and then later on these became incorporated into the

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New Testament it's the same reason that the Christians don't believe in the Talmud of Midrash if you ask a

35:21

Christian, why don't you believe in the Jewish document of the Talmud of Midrash and he'll say, because these were written by rabbis who were writing commentary on the

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Torah, we don't follow what the rabbis say, we don't follow what the beliefs their ideas or their opinions we follow what the

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Torah says, but funnily enough, the New Testament is basically constructed by theologians for the first, the prologue of John, in the beginning was the word of God, does it say

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Jesus said that? No, whoever wrote John is saying that it's his opinion, it's his idea he's a theologian, if Augustine, a very famous or even

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I'll say if James, if James lived in the first century and he wrote his book, that would probably be part of the New Testament so it's not about chronology, it's not about anything special about the author if you even know who the authors are, anyway so according to J.

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M. D. Kelly and his book Early Christian Doctrine, he says the doctrine of one God, the Father and Creator formed the background and indisputable premises of the

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Christian of the Church's faith, the problem for theology was to integrate it with the fresh data of the specifically

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Christian revelation even at the New Testament stage ideas about Christ's pre -existence and creative role were beginning to take shape, so already there was a development of thinking during the construction of the

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New Testament, and of course these ideas found their way into the New Testament J. M. D. Kelly also said and this was approved by James that there was

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Greek thought Hellenistic thought going on at that time, and you know what the

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Platonic and Stoic schools of philosophy, and you know what they had a belief about God, you know what their belief about God was the

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Stoic and Platonic schools of thought, they believed that God is unfathomable, ineffable, he is so detached from his creation that to create to create creation he has to create something called a wisdom, an intermediary called the

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Logos, this is Platonic philosophy here, he had to create a Logos and then the

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Logos through the Logos everything is creative, everything that is discernible and with Stoic philosophy they believe that this

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Logos means rationality, and that everything is ordered because of the presence of this rationality in the universe does that sound familiar to any

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Christians? I'll go into it further so just very quickly about the

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New Testament, when I said the originals may not be accurate, I'll give an example, I just made a statement

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Matthew 2 .23 what does it say? And he went and lived in a town called Nazareth, so was fulfilled what was said through the prophets he will be called a

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Nazarene, referring to Jesus, saying that the prophets of the and said that he is a

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Nazarene the Messiah will be a Nazarene guess what? This occurs nowhere in the

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Old Testament where did he get this from? maybe he made a little mistake maybe as was happening they retrofitted prophecies from the

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Old Testament and say oh this was written in the Old Testament this was written in the Old Testament, and generally they checked but in this case, especially with Matthew, there's a lot of inaccuracies and a lot of missing prophecies which don't exist in the

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Old Testament what was that? the documentation of the New Testament is not protected from divine tampering and James 1 will agree with this why?

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Because John 7 .53 to 8 .11 women taken for adultery was proven to be a forgery was taken out, 1

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John 5 .8 the Trinity verse was taken out, it's so good we must take out all the

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Trinity verses in the Bible I think it's a good start and thirdly Mark 16 .9

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-20 resurrection of Jesus, again was found out to be forgeries and taken out or basically not in the earliest manuscript, that's what they mean not in the earliest manuscripts so, where was the

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Holy Spirit protecting the Bible when for hundreds of years Christians were believing that was part of the Bible where was the Holy Spirit then?

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You might say ah, but you see the Holy Spirit will show you eventually the original manuscripts firstly, we don't have the original manuscripts so we don't know how many more mistakes or how many more forgeries we have to go and get out of it, but anyway now to kind of actually

39:29

I think get to the real crux of the matter Christian theology the thing about the

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New Testament the New Testament is based on apostolic tradition what I mean by the apostolic tradition is that it was all the ideas teachings and opinions of Christian theologians combined with uncorporated narratives from Jesus' life, or what they all claim narratives from Jesus' life and this was all basically, later on they compiled it into a book, or into Gospels rather then they followed the

39:57

Gospels into a book not all the Gospels were put into that book, and there was a selection process but I'm not going to go through that, the main point is there's a 100 year gap between Jesus and the presumed first Gospels coming into existence that we can have evidence for now we see in the

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New Testament a very interesting phenomenon we see there are explicit texts and there are ambiguous texts the explicit texts say that Jesus is a human being, he was created he ate, he slept, he's a son of man, like in the

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Old Testament son of man applies to all kinds of people, and so on, human beings, he's a son of God again in the

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Old Testament, angels David's called the son of God, Adam's called the son of God, so and all these things which a

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Jew reading it would understand would understand, the son of God means chosen a chosen of God, for example he of his own self can do nothing, the

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Father is greater than himself, so on and so forth he grew in the knowledge of God as well, and so on as I already mentioned he was

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England of the hour, it's very funny, that first song in the Bible says that no one knows the hour not the angel in heaven, nor the son but the

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Father now, it's very interesting because anyone reading this, reading these verses would say, oh well yeah,

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Jesus is a human being he's a messenger, he's a prophet and so he's the Messiah, a very high the most highly esteemed prophet

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I guess for the Israelites the Messiah himself, and this makes sense but then you get the ambiguous verses the ambiguous verses, which when you say

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Jesus says I am the way, truth and life, and you think what does this mean? or before Abraham was,

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I am what does that mean? Christians dispute these texts these texts are under dispute because they're so ambiguous, they're not explicit now what

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I would recommend to Christians generally is, you take the explicit texts to form the baseline and then you look at the ambiguous texts based on their conformance to the explicit text, the ambiguous text you judge it just like the

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Jews do to their Torah just like the Muslims do to our Quran you don't go to the ambiguous texts, come up with an interpretation you'd like, and then you change the explicit texts and do mental gymnastics to explain how, well when

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Jesus said that the Father was great in life, what he meant was he was basically going to go to back to the Father, and he was saying that he should be happy because I'm going back to my

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Father who is great in me and I'll be back in rank with him, it doesn't say that in the text, it's mental gymnastics, but anyway so these are the problems in the text now you have these ambiguous texts and you have these explicit texts, and throughout church history there have been constant battles between Christians who believed in using the explicit texts to be the judge and others who believed in using the interpretation of the ambiguous text to be the judge and were the pro -divinitists of Christian history and in order to reconcile those who were the those who believed were anti -adoptionists and I'll explain these terms, the adoptionist is an early

43:03

Christian that believed that Jesus is the adopted son of God, i .e. he was a prophet and so on, generally speaking in that frame of thinking, and the other viewpoint was that he was the literal son of God and there were these two different sects, those obviously who were anti -adoptionists won, they obviously, they became the majority they nepotised those they didn't like and obviously they had church backing and they started to impose on people, anyone who rejected

43:27

Trinity can even be persecuted and executed so they constructed this theory called the

43:32

Trinity hypothesis, I call it a hypothesis because a hypothesis is a proposition or set of propositions set forth as an explanation for the occurrence of some specified group of phenomena or as a provisional conjecture to guide investigation or accepted as highly probable it's the

43:47

Trinity hypothesis now the Christian early church fathers, like Augustine admitted that the

43:53

Trinity, or the word persons, is not found in the Bible, they had to construct it

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Augustine also said that we had to make a distinction between persons and being, because otherwise we have no other way to explain the existence of three and we have to admit it's three gods so he said that we have to invent persons,

44:16

Hypostasis and Usia, what they don't tell you is, and this is a real funny thing is that Hypostasis and Usia are synonyms, one is

44:24

Platonic philosophy and the other one is Stoic philosophy and they both mean subsistence they both actually they are synonyms of each other they are basically, they can stand in for each other, they mean the same thing and we know this because the mystery of Jesus being two natures in one is called the hypostatic union, the union of two natures,

44:42

Hypostasis means natures in that context, so they try to they use two different words from two different, almost philosophies, fused together so that you don't think of them as the same, it's like me saying it's like me trying to avoid saying there are three natures and there are one nature and you say, oh that sounds,

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I can't say that ok, I'll say it in a different language il y a un nature and three natures, there we go no problem so, the equivalent the interesting thing is

45:13

Augustine admits, Augustine admits in his book on the Trinity that God's nature and the personhood are actually one and the same there is no separation or distinction between God's nature and God's personhood, he admits this and he realises, he comes to his text and there is a problem, a contradiction because when you are saying there are three persons you're saying there are three natures and when you're saying there is one nature you're meant to be saying there is one person and they can't accept this because how can they reconcile the contradictory interpretations of their bible now,

45:48

I want to jump straight on to the chronic contentions of this and I've got so many verses in so little time, but I want to show that the

45:57

Qur 'an not only understands the Trinity, but the Qur 'an refutes the Trinity very eloquently firstly the

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Qur 'an does not talk about the detailed concept the hypothesis, the

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Trinity hypothesis, it talks about Christian theology, it talks about the claims, the truth claims made by the

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Christian theology it is like, you know, a politician saying we went to war in Iraq for freedom and then you say no, you went to war in Iraq for oil, and they say oh we don't say that ah yeah, that's the de facto reality of what you believe, when the

46:29

Qur 'an says you believe in three gods, that is the de facto reality because there is no God is a fundamental, there is nothing more, there are no components even

46:38

James White Book admits this that God cannot be divided so when you're saying there's three you're saying

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God can be divided it's three in one, much like what the Hindus say about Brahma, Vishnu and Krishna three in one, they're part of the biggest transcendental

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God called Brahma Brahma, Shiva and Vishnu so let's jump straight into it

47:03

Surah 2, 253 and I have a projector up to show you we're going to go through it very quickly

47:09

Surah 2 verse 253 and Surah 4, 171 actually distinguish out the three persons of the

47:19

Trinity so the Qur 'an distinguishes out the three persons of the Trinity God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit not

47:24

Mary, but Jesus and the Holy Spirit are distinguished in these two verses in the other verse where it said, where it talks about in Surah 4 verse 172 the

47:35

Messiah would never disdain from being a servant of God nor would the closest angels those who disdain from worshipping him are the arrogant are too arrogant to submit, etc.

47:43

why does it say that Jesus would never disdain from being a servant of God nor the closest angels why is it linked together because the

47:50

Holy Spirit the belief in this Holy Spirit which would make the third person is actually the angel Gabriel it is in the

47:56

Islamic sources the angel Gabriel is called the Holy Spirit in the Old Testament angels are called holy ones and spirits as well the

48:04

Holy Spirit is an angel and the Qur 'an hid it back on the head where it said that it refutes both taking

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Jesus and angels to be gods, it refutes it by saying they would never disdain from being servants of God they are the servants of God and of course in the

48:22

Trinity conception the Father is always the greatest one in the Trinity theology and I will bring up Church Father quotations to show this it's interesting that James White says that let me see if I can just find it it's interesting that James White says that we don't believe that God is a literal offspring like the

48:43

Qur 'an says, we don't believe this really, did you read Athanasius the author of the

48:49

Athanasian Creed, no less he said rather he is a friend of Jesus he is

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God's offspring and since God is eternal and he belongs to God as a son he exists for all eternity, it is a characteristic of men to be gay in time, but God's offspring is eternal, his nature always being perfect,

49:06

Athanasius says that the son is God's offspring Justin Martyr said that Logos is

49:11

God's offspring and child before all creatures of God begat in the beginning a rational power out of himself and I could go on to Tashian, Tertullian or Oregon and so on, they all say this they say it's

49:23

God's offspring, you have to represent your position James White from the orthodoxy and not say, make a claim about backup so I think

49:33

I'll leave it with this last verse as my time is running out when the Qur 'an says in one verse he said and they say that God takes a son or has a son no,

49:45

God, when he will sign to exist, he says be in his and I've thought to myself what is the connection between God saying that he can't have a son and if he wants to create something, he says be in his why is that?

49:57

Because the Qur 'an understands Johannine theology and it refutes the constant need to create a Logos in order to create the universe,

50:03

God creates directly without needing to make a Logos to do it the Qur 'an has understood Johannine theology it's understood

50:09

Greek anyway, I'll leave my time now but thanks, I'll come back and go on the rebuttals thank you for listening we thank

50:28

Abdullah for expressing the position, for the Muslim position, now we go on to three minutes of cross -examination these cross -examinations the purpose behind them is to verify the claims that have been made in these opening statements first up will be

50:45

Dr. James White alright, thank you very much

50:51

Abdullah, I did not hear what you mentioned something about a 100 year gap

50:59

I thought you were saying between the ministry of Jesus and the earliest writings in the

51:05

New Testament I did not understand what you said there do you know what I'm referring to? you talked about a 100 year gap,

51:10

I'm not sure what you're referring to yes, a 100 year gap between the ministry of Jesus and the earliest provable manuscripts and evidence so you're saying around 130?

51:25

approximately I wasn't sure what you were referring to at that point you mentioned

51:32

Sura 2, 253 did

51:37

I understand you to be saying that the Holy Spirit that is mentioned here is the angel

51:43

Gabriel or this is actually what Christians believe because it says strengthen him with the

51:50

Holy Spirit so are you saying that that's an actual reference to what Christians believe the

51:55

Holy Spirit is or angel Gabriel, I didn't follow what you meant sure, in the Sabbath theology the

52:02

Holy Spirit is a reference used for the angel Gabriel what the Quran is showing it's trying to say is that angels have been taken as gods as well and that comes in the form of the

52:13

Christians deifying the Holy Spirit which we interpret to mean angel Gabriel ok, so I'm looking at the text here and it says those messengers we endowed with gifts some of others, to one of them

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Allah spoke, others he raised degrees of honor, to Jesus the son of Mary we gave clear signs, and strengthen him with the

52:33

Holy Spirit if Allah had so willed, succeeding generations would not have fought among each other, etc, etc so are you saying that that is a reference to the angel

52:43

Gabriel? oh yes, in the Islamic sources, the prophet Muhammad makes supplications to God saying strengthen me with the

52:50

Holy Spirit so it's not a reference to what Christians believe about the Holy Spirit I'm totally confused as to the application that you made sure, it's kind of like this the

53:01

Christians don't believe that the Holy Spirit is angel Gabriel but the Quran is saying that the original kind of person that came was angel

53:09

Gabriel and he was mistaken for being the spirit of God himself you said this the rubric of the

53:17

Quran understands the Trinity so I'm trying to figure out if you're saying that when this was originally written this was somehow meant to be a correction it just sounds to me like it's using the term

53:32

Holy Spirit here as saying that Allah strengthened Jesus with the Holy Spirit yes, there are many times in the

53:41

Quran and in the Hadith where the Holy Spirit is just mentioned but because the Hadith mentions that the prophet

53:48

Muhammad received revelation from the Holy Spirit and we know that this revelation is from Gabriel ok,

53:54

I think just to clarify you said that Christians don't believe that Mary was taken as a

54:10

God or was treated as a God, but how do you explain your videos on YouTube and your articles and I think some of your fellow

54:19

Calvinist colleagues, your Christians of Catholicism for what was quote unquote Mary -on -a -tree, which is the idolatry to Mary and by seeking intercession through her and treating her for all intents and purposes as a

54:33

God it's one of the best reasons to not believe that modern Catholicism is Biblical Christianity sure, and it did not exist that kind of Marian devotion, especially as it has been dogmatically defined by Rome just over the past 160 years with the bodily assumptions of Mary and the

54:54

Immaculate Conception 1854 -1950 is a tremendous move away from any type of Biblical revelation and if you are familiar with Rome's teachings they don't believe that they are limited to the divine revelation of Scripture they reject the concept of Sola Scriptura, it's one of the fundamental differences between them.

55:12

Would you deny that in early church teaching and discussion and ideas, there was the concept of the

55:20

Theotokos, which is the God -bearer, where Mary was, his name was changed from being Mary the

55:25

Mother of Jesus to Mary the Mother of God or God -bearer, Theotokos Well, I think there's a misunderstanding there as to the origination of Theotokos, that originally was a

55:37

Christological title, in other words, it's original usage was an attempt to assure that people recognized that the one who was born of Mary was fully

55:49

God that over time became an exalted title of Mary, but it took a long period of time and even modern

55:57

Rome Catholicism, it should be mentioned even modern Rome Catholicism seeks to very clearly differentiate between Mary as a creature and any type of deification of Mary as a

56:09

God I think that the methods they use are not necessarily the best, but they certainly seek to make that kind of differentiation, that should be fairly mentioned

56:20

Sure, so then would you say that if you believe that taking someone into intercession makes them, you're treating that person like God according to all the articles

56:31

I've been reading of Calvinist polemics against Catholics that when you take Mary as an intercessor between you and God when she's described by Catholics as the spouse of the

56:40

Holy Spirit, that she has taken on, she has the same will as the Holy Spirit you can speak, you can pray to her, and she will basically through the

56:48

Holy Spirit have your prayers heard, that this is not a form of idolatry? Lessons, yes But it's a modern development

56:56

Sure, and then would you Alright Thank you both

57:08

We move now to 12 minutes of rebuttal and we welcome to the podium Dr. James White Alright Let's get to the argumentation part

57:36

We were asked how can someone be infinite and finite at the same time

57:44

This is a fundamental question that we want to answer right off the bat because it will pretty much settle the allegation of rationality or irrationality

57:54

Philippians chapter 2 verses 5 -11 is an ancient fragment of a hymn of the church and in that particular beautiful text of scripture we are told of one who had eternally been equal with the

58:08

Father and yet he did not consider that position he had with the Father something to be held on to at all costs, but out of humility, he was willing to lay aside that exalted position that was his, out of service to others, he becomes then our example of humility in so doing, but it's interesting to note that when the apostle

58:28

Paul talks about the incarnation, Jesus entering into human flesh he says he emptied himself now that term is never used literally by Paul, kenosis, it is always used in a metaphorical sense he made himself of no reputation, but how did he do so?

58:43

By taking on a human nature by truly becoming man this was his humiliation his self -veiling of his glory we see his glory revealed on the mount of transfiguration but the vast majority of his life that glory is hidden, he has taken on a human nature, and so did he cease being eternal, did he cease being infinite in his being in so doing?

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No, the whole doctrine of the incarnation is that Jesus is the God -man, that's not 50 %

59:18

God and 50 % man, because that would be irrational, that would make no sense he remains, the logos that eternally existed remains as God, but he takes on a human nature, if he created the human nature, why would that be impossible?

59:34

why, the only objection you can come up with is well, he would never do that but if he had a purpose in fact it was his purpose from creation, to bring honor and glory to his triune majesty in so doing, to bring about perfect redemption for his people why could not the one who made man enter into that human existence he does not cease to be eternal, he does not cease to be infinite, his human nature is a true human nature, so that's not infinite that's not eternal, that that particular individual had not existed for eternity, but the scriptures say he is the

01:00:13

God -man the lord of glory, there's this wonderful text that Paul also uses they crucified the lord of glory think about that for a moment, how can you crucify the lord of glory?

01:00:24

the lord of glory is the very creator of all things, and yet he humbled himself so that he could give his life a ransom for many, and so the belief is not irrational, if we allow the text to speak for themselves but then what we have is basically an assertion that we can't trust the new testament text for various and sundry reasons, we're told there's a 100 year gap, well there's a 250 to 300 year gap between most of your knowledge of the hadith and the statements of Muhammad but that doesn't seem to bother too many people in fact, in the history of ancient documents, 100 years is the best there is any other ancient document from that time period

01:01:10

Setonius, Pliny, Tacitus doesn't matter who it was, the average time period between the time of the writing of their documents and the first extant copy is 500 to 900 years 100 years is the best antiquity has to offer so unless you're going to suggest that God just simply couldn't give his word without giving us some type of golden plates or something, then you're going to have a hard time making that kind of allegation stick.

01:01:37

He mentioned two of the longest text of variance in the new testament wish I had time to go back over what

01:01:44

I went over on Friday evening in this very room, the reliability of the text of the new testament he mentioned

01:01:50

John 7 .53 -8 .11 the other one is the long reading of Mark 16 .9 -20 it's a wonderful thing that we are able to recognize those later editions because we can do that because we have the richest manuscript tradition of any work of antiquity and the reason we can recognize that for example 1

01:02:09

John 5 .7 which isn't even really a relevant text, it was only added in from the Latin Vulgate in the 16th century not by some powerful group either but simply by usage but it's a wonderful thing that we can identify these things because you see for the new testament we didn't have anybody burning the earlier manuscripts we didn't have editing we didn't have it with Mudd and so we can go back to those papyri manuscripts, we can go back to P72, we can go back to P46 and P66 and Sinaiticus and Alexandrinus and we have this rich body of manuscripts to draw from to recognize these things and we publish entire texts in fact

01:02:51

I'll go ahead and do this right now here is an entire text this is the

01:02:58

New English Translation and the Gneseo in 27th edition full critical edition of the Greek New Testament thousands of textual critical footnotes giving you all the information about all the manuscripts we publish this and make it available to everybody and I give them to my debate opponents we are open with the history of our text and I simply suggest to you that if you will with an open mind examine the means by which

01:03:30

God has preserved the New Testament Scriptures and pass them down to us today, you will be amazed at the progress of God I have been studying this field for many years and the more

01:03:40

I study it the more I am amazed at what God has done now we then had a number of arguments raised, interestingly enough quoting from the same

01:03:50

New Testament text against the concept of the deity of Christ saying that all the texts that present the deity of Christ are ambiguous, well why are they ambiguous?

01:04:00

well they're ambiguous because you accept an external authority to tell us not to believe these things, they're not ambiguous

01:04:05

Titus 2 .13 and 2 Peter 1 .1 are not ambiguous, they describe Jesus Christ our great God and Savior, there's nothing ambiguous about that, there's nothing ambiguous about Paul's description of Jesus in Colossians chapter 1 where he says that he is the firstborn of all creation the one that has preeminence over all things for by him were all things created whether in heaven and earth, visible or invisible whether principalities, powers, dominion to authorities, all things created by him and for him he is before all things, and him all things whole together consist my friends that's not ambiguous, that's the creator the apostle

01:04:36

Paul used every kind of language he could to express the fact that Jesus Christ is truly God, it's not ambiguous from the writer to the

01:04:43

Hebrews, quote Psalm 102 25 -27 which is about how Yahweh is the unchanging creator of all things, he does not change, he does not age, it was not ambiguous for the writer of Hebrews to apply those very words to Jesus the son and that takes me to something else that really needs to be emphasized, and that is

01:05:03

I heard Abdallah use the standard argumentation you all have heard Ahmed Didat do it

01:05:10

God has sons by the tongues, right? We've all heard that one, and yet is it not so transparently clear in the text of the

01:05:17

New Testament that the sonship of Jesus is absolutely unique, that's the very meaning of the term monogamous

01:05:24

Jesus is the unique son of God, and the Jews recognize this in John chapter 5 for which he quoted, before getting to the point where Jesus says he does nothing of himself and of course that was taken as a denial of the deity of Christ, what, is

01:05:36

Jesus some renegade deity? The whole point of John chapter 5 is that the son is in perfect harmony with the father he acts in perfect harmony with the father, but that very same text says you must honor the son just as you honor the father if you want to have life, and by saying

01:05:53

Jesus is merely a razzul and not the eternal son of God you are not honoring him as the son not from the

01:05:59

New Testament perspective but that very same text, Jesus made reference to the fact that my father is working until now, and I am working that was a reference to the fact that the

01:06:08

Jews recognized that God continues to work on the Sabbath day, he continues to have the sun rise, and the earth continues spinning, and rain falls from heaven etc, etc, and Jesus said my father is working and I am working and the

01:06:22

Jews recognized that this was a claim to deity he was calling God his own father, making himself equal with God, and remember in John chapter 19, at the arrest and trial of Jesus, what is the assertion of the

01:06:35

Jews? We have a law, and by that law he must die because he made himself out to be the son of God uniquely in a way that clearly demonstrated he was claiming to be deity now,

01:06:51

Abella said, well the Quran does understand the trinity, but then he went on to say, well not in the trinity hypothesis that is, not in the way the

01:07:00

Christians believe the trinity to have existed, not those who take the entirety of the biblical revelation and allow it to stand no, it's just simply addressing the de facto reality that you believe in three gods, and he made reference to my book,

01:07:18

The Forgotten Trinity, I think I was very, very clear in what I was stating in those texts when

01:07:24

I said that God's being cannot be divided the doctrine of the trinity does not divide the being of God, if you'll read the rest of those chapters, that's exactly what

01:07:35

I said, and that is that the being of God, that which makes God, God, is fully shared by three divine persons, not one third of the being of God, we're not dividing the being of God it cannot be divided and I know anyone who looks at my book will see that I said that over and over and over again and so it is not a proper usage of my words to say that I'm in any type of support of this particular perspective, so once again let me refocus our attention if we allow the bible to speak for itself and I would simply point out that the

01:08:12

Quran does not tell us to pick and choose what passages in the bible we are going to believe the

01:08:18

Quran command says that these books are sent down and I as one of the people of the gospel am told to judge based on what's in my scriptures, we know exactly what the

01:08:29

New Testament looked like in the days of Muhammad, without any question whatsoever and so in light of that if we take simply what the

01:08:35

New Testament teaches, we are forced to the doctrine of the trinity, where does the Quran accurately represent the doctrine of the trinity what is this stuff about worshipping

01:08:46

Mary, even from the Roman Catholic perspective, even if you go that far, it comes far after this time period, what's this idea about it being exalted above having a son what does surah 6 -101 say when it says that God cannot have a son because he does not have a wife, a consort is that not saying that Christians believe

01:09:07

God has a wife, we've never believed that, that's not what the doctrine of the trinity is and so we have to ask ourselves a question,

01:09:15

I hope Abdullah will address this, how can the Quran be taken for the word of God if it does not accurately represent what is speaking of in this matter, thank you very much and now in 12 minutes of rebuttal we welcome

01:09:35

Abdullah alright,

01:09:57

I'm going to go reverse sort of by what he said but I need to make a few points that I want to actually say, not just always respond to him one of them is the

01:10:06

Quran used the argument that you say God has a son but he does not have a consort that is not saying that Christians believe that he has a consort, it is rebutting the fact that why have you given these persons masculine names you have the father, masculine shun reproductive titles, father son, these are, these have meanings based on creation and you're giving the father the consort of the father and you're giving the son which are human reproductive names, for all eternity

01:10:35

God has had human reproductive titles does that make sense, that's why the Quran rebuts saying

01:10:41

God does not have a consort to actually so that he must have, it must now be a father and a son situation, it doesn't actually say that Christians believe that it's actually a refutation of your choice of titles for the

01:10:54

Godhead and so on what I was trying to elicit from James is that we know that the

01:11:00

Quran says that the Jews and Christians took their rabbis and anchorites as lords besides God or masters besides God, reason why because they were used to intercessors they made what was forbidden allowed, what was allowed forbidden and so these became their lords, their gods even though in that narration when the

01:11:22

Prophet Muhammad was saying this to the companions, one of the ex -Christians said but we never worshipped them, ah but didn't you follow them, didn't you obey them, didn't you didn't you seek intercession but generally they sought intercession which the pagans also said that we are not worshipping any gods, we're just seeking intercession for different gods and was not these are idols you've set up besides God, you seek intercession through other than God then you are praying idols, this is

01:11:47

James Wise that's claiming against the Catholics allow the Quran to define what it means by idolatry as well, idolatry doesn't only mean you worship a statue now he said that the best documents we have are 100 years old and that's the best you can get well if I've heard,

01:12:05

I guess the phrase in the land of the blind the one -eyed man is king, and it's very much the same with mutism, oh that's the best that you can get for ancient manuscripts oh so that must mean that we accept it because just because it was better than I don't know what was written about Hercules or something like this just because it's a better or the closest possible or closest out of many set of different manuscripts, we have to now accept it blindly just because there's nothing better than that,

01:12:30

I'm sorry that doesn't wash alright I'm actually going to hit a few other points when

01:12:37

Jesus said that, he said that him and the father are one and God is his father, and the

01:12:45

Jews were going to stone him for this, and they said that you a mere man are making yourself out to be like God and what was

01:12:51

Jesus' response, allegedly in the Bible it said, it's not written in your law that be ye gods be ye all gods isn't that very interesting, you are all sons of the most high, it's

01:13:02

Psalm 82 6 be ye all gods you are all sons of the most high interesting if Jesus was

01:13:11

God he was trying to educate Jews as to believing that he is God, why give them an allegorical verse in the

01:13:17

Old Testament which they never believed, meaning that human beings are God, unless you're a Mormon that is that's a whole different story so these are the problems which we encounter

01:13:26

I never said that the Old Testament or the New Testament rather, is something that I believe in, or that Muslims believe in or is the

01:13:33

Injil, nowhere did it say that the actual book that Christians possess is the Injil, the Injil is the teachings of Jesus, the

01:13:40

New Testament is documentation of the apostolic tradition which is loosely based upon Jesus and his teachings and his life that's what

01:13:48

I'm saying, that's what I have said consistently throughout this debate but let's, you know what in my research,

01:13:54

I discovered something really fascinating I never realised this before it's really interesting, you see, I guess what

01:13:59

James White is trying to say is that, well you know persons and being, it's a little word game that the Trinitarian theorists invented to allow three in one and one in three they said that, well, it's only one

01:14:12

God because it's one Uziah one substance, one being and three hypostases

01:14:18

I said, oh okay, interesting, that's very interesting but then, the hypostatic union concept which is where God, where Jesus has two natures, he has two

01:14:28

Uziah two Uziah, and he is one person, so God no longer has one

01:14:34

Uziah and three persons he has two Uziahs and three persons, God has two natures, a human nature and a divine nature and this is now effectively met the criteria of two gods you've now effectively met it, unless you deny that the human nature

01:14:51

Jesus is completely separate from divine nature Jesus and if you say that, then you say oh but the person, the will inside him was

01:15:00

God, that was God if that's the case, then how do you explain Jesus saying that he's ignorant of the last hour, he's ignorant of it if this is his divine person saying this, then he's lying, because he doesn't know it, and I've read

01:15:14

Augustine's attempt to explain it, where he said that Jesus was, it was like being amongst babies they couldn't understand you, so he just basically, how can you explain to babies infinite knowledge, well that's fine that's fine, but it says in the verse that he does not know it, he does not know the last hour, it doesn't mean, if it said he knew the last hour but can't explain it,

01:15:35

I can understand that, it says he did not know it, which has caused some Christians throughout the ages to believe that Jesus has two wills and two natures, one is a human will and a human nature, and one is a divine will and divine nature, because they were trying to reconcile these discrepancies within their own theology, discrepancies they caused because of their insistence to say that Jesus was

01:15:59

God also other points if God is fundamental and can't be broken down then, can there exist person what we call person and substance as two components in God can there exist this?

01:16:16

It can't person is one thing and substance is not a thing, so if we can't, if you can't divide this if you can't divide

01:16:26

God, then as Augustine admitted in his book on the Trinity funnily enough, that person and nature is the same thing, they are in essence the same so when

01:16:37

Christians say that we believe in free persons we say we believe in free Gods, and I'll further clarify this, I'll further qualify this what makes a deity a

01:16:47

God, what does a deity have to possess to be God it has to possess what? Infinite power ok, infinite power, and what else it has to possess will right, will and infinite power here's a question the father, does the father have infinite power, we say yes does the father have a will we say yes does the son have infinite power of course, that's what

01:17:12

Augustine also says, according to the theology, and does the son also have a separate will, yes because he's a separate person that's what defines a person, a person is a will so we see three wills, each have infinite power what is that, what theology is this, is that monotheism, does that sound like monotheism three wills, there are three infinite wills in heaven, they don't depend on each other, they are self contained as Augustine said on the

01:17:42

Trinity this is free Gods, it is de facto free Gods, no matter even though you add a little caveat, oh but it's still one

01:17:48

God just adding that little appendage to your creed doesn't mean that you believe in one God if I said that, if I went to a shop and I stole something, and then the security guard got me, and said ah ok

01:18:00

I stole it, but it's my property I said well you didn't steal did you, either you stole it or it's your property, make your mind up, you can't have a contradiction, but this is exactly what the

01:18:11

Christian theology is, is trying to have his cake and eat it, you want to make Jesus God but you can't explain why he can be

01:18:17

God at the same time as the father, who is meant to be one God but they are separate persons it's inconsistent, so that's what

01:18:24

I'm saying, make things easy for yourself Jesus is a human being, he had human thoughts, he was limited he depended on the father, even the

01:18:32

Christian theologians say, the church fathers said that the father is the source and principle of all things, and I will further clarify why the

01:18:40

Quran is accurate when it says that it's like an offspring, why? because the church fathers, and I have all the quotes here, say that in the eternal begotten, the reason why

01:18:49

Jesus is one substance with the father is because it's kind of like, essentially the father is a pregnant woman and he gave birth to someone who has the same substance of him but they still, they know they're still connected, so they have kind of an extension of the father, the logos is the extension of the father and if you say, well

01:19:08

I think this Muslim is making this up, well your early church fathers, Oregon, Tertullian Tashian and so on, and Anthony, they're all saying this, this is what they are saying, not myself,

01:19:18

James White is not the authority of the trinity these guys are the authority of the trinity, do you know why? because they invented the idea not

01:19:24

James White, he's trying to explain it to you guys, now that is the problem that Muslims have with the issue of the trinity, this is the problem we have with the conception of Christian theology, now just to answer a few other points,

01:19:39

James White says God doesn't change, Malachi says more importantly he says God doesn't change, but then he says God takes on flesh,

01:19:45

God changes, you know when I said before that God exists outside of time and cannot be changed by time, and then in a chapter of James White's own book on the trinity, where he says

01:19:54

God, the divine or infinite invades time, infinity invades time, so God becomes in time, so that which is timeless is in time, and if you keep thinking this, keep thinking this through God is what?

01:20:07

The ever living, right? God is the ever living, Jesus died is that God? God is the all -knowing,

01:20:15

Jesus what? He was ignorant about facts, he grew in his knowledge of God, why does

01:20:20

God need to grow in his own knowledge about himself? It doesn't make sense, it's for that reason that we say that except Jesus for what he is he is a wondrous messiah prophet, he is a great prophet he was a noble man, he was a man of truth but he was no more than a man, let's throw out the

01:20:42

Greek philosophy you know, the Greek philosophy is a lot of trouble even to Muslim theology as well, we have to kick it out much debate yeah, so please, this is what

01:20:51

I call you to and other points, just quickly before it goes, why I got right the Philippines says that God emptied himself and so on, which again they have to try to reinterpret, oh what he meant is that he humbled himself, you know

01:21:05

Jesus did not seek to be equal with the father at all costs, but if God hasn't changed and Jesus is God, and God doesn't change and Jesus doesn't change, then

01:21:12

Jesus has always been equal with God, he's always had to be, so how can he say that he will not hold equality with God to be a slight grasp at all costs it doesn't make sense, the more you explain it the more contradictions arise, so as James White brings counter rebuttals to me,

01:21:26

I have more admonition to point out more and more contradictions, and I haven't even told you 50 % of my rational contentions of it, mainly due to limited time, but if I ever do a talk please you're welcome to come and help me and so on, anyway, thank you