A False Islamic Accusation of Heresy Refuted

Alpha & Omega Ministries

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What you just saw is mainly the conclusion to a video produced by a

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Muslim accusing me of being a heretic. Now, of course, any Christian is a heretic to a

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Muslim because I do not believe that Muhammad was a prophet. He did not believe what the apostles of Jesus Christ believed and taught, though he claimed to be consistent with them and therefore he is a false prophet.

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But that's not actually the charge of heresy that this particular Muslim is attempting to present.

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Instead, he tries to present the idea that I'm a modalist, that I'm a patripassionist.

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And while he correctly identifies what patripassionism is, he completely blows the application of it and falsely accuses me of something that I do not believe.

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Let me just say right from the start that I challenge this Muslim to call the dividing line.

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I do a twice -weekly live webcast, toll -free number. The information is found at www .aomin

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.org. And if this Muslim will contact me, we will set aside an entire program wherein

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I will be able to demonstrate to him that, or her, I suppose, but that's doubtful, that this individual is completely wrong.

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And in that same program, I'd be happy to defend the deity of Christ against whatever he has to say as well.

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So that challenge is out there. If you want to try to back up your claims with something more than just the rather poor argumentation in this video, then that invitation is available to you.

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But in essence, what we'll see here is that the writer, after somewhat accurately identifying some of the early church context, goes on to completely misunderstand my comments on John 20, 28, where I defend from the

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Greek text, and he doesn't refute this, by the way, but defend from the Greek text the fact that Thomas identified

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Jesus as kurios and theos. He goes over 1 Corinthians 8, completely different context, and in essence forces the context of 1

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Corinthians to be identical to that of John. And even though, obviously, Thomas is not identifying

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Jesus as the Father, he tries to make that connection and then accuse me of heresy as a result, as we just saw in that little video clip.

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So I'm going to put this together for you so you can see what the argumentation is. Then, of course, we'll demonstrate that, once again, the

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Muslim has no concept of context, no concept of exegesis, and therefore the conclusions, once again, are refuted and false.

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Let's take a look at it. One of the problems many

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Christians have in dealing with Muslims is that they tend to use argumentation that we do not find convincing at all against the chief elements of the

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Christian faith. For example, in attacking the deity of Christ, they frequently use very poor argumentation.

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Argumentation not nearly as good as we are accustomed to dealing with from pseudo -Christian cults, for example, from pseudo -Christian cults, from pseudo -Christian cults, from pseudo -Christian cults, for example.

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Not to this point, we have to agree that there were heresies in the early church, that modalism or patrapassionism, sabellianism, whatever names you want to use for that, dynamic monarchianism, all sorts of different varieties that were attached to these early heresies.

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They did exist. The irony is that a Muslim is noting this. Why is that?

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Well, because Muslims are very quick to use the very same text that Trinitarians would use to demonstrate that clearly the

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Father is distinguished from the Son as a person. Now, they probably wouldn't get into the demonstration of the eternal preexistence of the

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Son, which is found in such texts as the Carmen Christi in Philippians 2 .5

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-11, or in John 1, texts like this, but John 17, but they would agree with Trinitarians that the modalists, the patrapassionists, are in error using the very same texts.

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I should note that the really cool music and color really helps with theological dialogues and discussions.

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I thought that was... Jesus is not the

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Father, neither is he the Spirit, and yet, as the perfect man, he uses the Spirit in the service of the

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Father. There's nothing contradictory here, unless Dr. Mike just simply doesn't understand what the doctrine of the

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Trinity is, which is quite a possibility, unfortunately. When Thomas identified him as his

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Lord and his God in John 20 -28, Jesus did not rebuke him.

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Instead, he accepted that recognition of his deity, and he identified the words of Thomas as a statement of faith, a godly.

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Now, let's remember what patrapassionism says. It is identifying the Father as the

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Son. Nowhere in John 20 -28 is Jesus identified as the

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Father. Instead, our Muslim opponent here commits the common error of assuming

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Unitarianism. Instead of proving Unitarianism, you just assume Unitarianism. So, if Jesus is identified as Thaos, and since we know

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Thaos can only be one person, then this somehow is identifying Jesus as the

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Father. The fact that Paul, for example, utilizes different terminology but at times uses both

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Thaos and Kurios of Jesus seems to escape the notice of this individual.

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As we will see when he tries to go to 1 Corinthians 8 now, skipping out of the context, that he again never even comes close to proving his charge of patrapassionism.

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In reality, what we have in 1 Corinthians 8 is a text that, interestingly enough,

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I even read at one of the recent Islamic debates to one of the Islamic debaters, because they only quote a portion of it.

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Because, as a number of scholars have recognized, here you have the Shema being, in essence,

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Christianized and explained in a Christian perspective. And you have a clear distinction between the

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Father, who is described as Thaos, and the Son, who is described as Kurios. There is no confusion of the

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Father and the Son, just as there is no confusion of the Father and the Son in John 20 -28.

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This gentleman is making a completely unwarranted error by taking two texts and assuming the authors are speaking about the same thing and using the same terminology.

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That is not only completely unwarranted and hence his error and hence he stands refuted in his false assertion against me.

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And I would invite him to withdraw it, as he should, as any honest person would. But likewise, he needs to recognize that the

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Apostle Paul himself, in other contexts, uses the Thaos of Jesus in Romans 9 -5 or in Titus 2 -13.

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And so, when one simply allows just a little bit of context into the discussion, this charge of patripassionism is therefore completely refuted.

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But, having refuted it, it is somewhat interesting to see the very end of the video right here.

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From pseudo -Christian cults to pseudo -Christian cults to pseudo -Christian cults, for example.