Debate Teacher Reacts: William Lane Craig vs. Mohammed Hijab

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As I read the Quran, I was surprised by the evident misunderstanding of the

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Christian doctrine of the Trinity. The Muslims have never had a problem discussing the who -ness of God.

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They have had controversies surrounding the what -ness of God. Hijab is getting lost almost immediately from what the debate is really about.

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Underneath all of this man's pomp and aggressive showmanship is really nothing so far.

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It's almost as if he willfully chooses to be ignorant of Christian doctrine. They should have brought somebody up to debate

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Dr. Craig, who would have actually taken his position seriously. ChatGPT probably could have done a better job. It has been a long time since I've done a

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Debate Teacher React. Some might say way too long. Well, the wait is over. Today we're going to look at William Lane Craig vs.

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Muhammad Hijab. The debate topic was, is the Trinity logically coherent? It took place last week over at the one and only

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Cameron Bertuzzi's channel, Capturing Christianity. Great channel, lots of resources for you there. But the question is, who bested the other in debate?

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Was it the Christian or was it the Muslim? We're about to find out. Before we go any further, allow myself to introduce myself.

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My name is Nate, and this is Wise Disciple, where I'm helping you become the effective Christian that you are meant to be, which entails understanding how to think through the doctrine of the

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Trinity. Amen. Make sure to do all the things, like, subscribe, share this one around. I greatly appreciate it.

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It's a delight to have the invitation to be part of today's dialogue on the

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Trinity with Mr. Hijab. As you know, ever since doing my doctoral work in philosophy at the

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University of Birmingham on the cosmological argument for God's existence, I've had a deep interest in Islamic philosophy and theology.

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I was able to resuscitate the ancient cosmological argument, which is now once again at center stage.

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And as a result, countless Muslims all over the world are following reasonable faith and are appreciative of the work that we're doing.

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So this is Dr. Craig establishing his bona fides and developing his ethos with the judges, which would be you, the audience here.

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Every debater must do a bit of work on developing all three aspects of Aristotle's rhetoric on the debate stage.

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So this is a good thing. And probably Hijab is going to do the same thing when it's his turn. So when

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I went on to Germany to do my second doctorate in theology, it was only natural that I would choose

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Islam as my area of specialization. And it was during that time that I worked through the entirety of the

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Quran and studied Islamic theology and history. And as I read the

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Quran, I was surprised by the evident misunderstanding of the

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Christian doctrine of the Trinity that I found there. For example, in Surah 5, 116,

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Allah is portrayed as saying to Jesus, Jesus, Son of Mary, did you ever say to mankind, worship me and my mother as gods besides God?

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And Jesus replies, I could never have claimed such a thing. Indeed, such a caricature of the

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Christian doctrine of the Trinity is a blasphemous monstrosity.

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No wonder Muhammad rejected it, if that's what he thought the Trinity taught. But I think that the big...

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So now Dr. Craig is undermining the Muslims' challenges to the Trinity by pointing out that the Prophet Muhammad did not understand the

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Trinity at even a fundamentally basic level. This apparently pleases Hijab, as he is clearly tickled by something that he just heard, so that's interesting.

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The basic doctrine of the Trinity is actually taught in the pages of the

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New Testament itself. And it consists of just two fundamental tenets.

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First, that there is exactly one God, and second, that there are three persons who are properly called

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God, whereby properly I mean literally, truly, as opposed to metaphorically or hyperbolically.

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So that's it. No metaphysical mumbo jumbo, no theological hair -splitting, this is a simple and straightforward doctrine.

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God is an immaterial, tri -personal being. And there it is.

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The doctrine of the Trinity comes out of the Scripture, and there are two fundamental tenets.

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This is Dr. Craig's opening statement, this is part of his contentions. Number one, there is exactly one

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God. It's really basic. And then number two, there are three persons who are properly called God.

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Dr. Craig even sort of rehashes the characterization of the Trinity by saying that God, this is the last sentence he just made, is an, he just said it, immaterial, tri -personal being.

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Now, he probably should support himself with Scripture soon, so that's hopefully coming up.

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But the definition here is crucial because Hijab's point of attack should be somewhere in the various components of this definition.

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So let's see what happens. Standing opposed to the doctrine of the Trinity is the

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Islamic concept of God and the doctrine of Tawhid, or the oneness or unicity of God.

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And this is a doctrine which is very confusing and very controversial among Islamic theologians.

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There are a number of different versions of Tawhid on which there is no consensus.

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For example, the most basic doctrine would state that there is exactly one God, and that is a point of view limited.

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Dr. Craig, would you like to continue your comments here, just to finish out your thought, and then we'll give extra time to…

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Oh, you say I've used up my time? Yes. Oh, I'm sorry. Oh, wow.

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Yes, I'll just finish with the thought that this is a very controversial doctrine.

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It has a number of different versions, and so I'm interested in hearing what is the version of Tawhid that Mr.

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Hijab espouses, and how would he justify that? Okay, so Dr. Craig was cut off.

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I don't think I've ever seen anything like that before. I'm not sure if he understood what the time constraints were, or if there was some other issue.

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I mean, usually opening statements are longer, right, somewhere around 20 minutes, give or take, but anyway, he ends his time by introducing

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Tawhid, which is the Muslim characterization of God. Dr. Craig says that this stands in opposition to the

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Trinity, and he's absolutely correct. His parting salvo before he was cut off was in questioning which version of Tawhid that Mr.

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Hijab espouses, and how he would justify that. That is an interesting move, because technically

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Tawhid is not up for debate. The way that the resolution is worded, I mean, it's clearly on the screen. The resolution is, is the

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Trinity logically coherent? Which again, I've said this in the past on previous videos, but I struggle with resolutions that are worded in the form of a question and not a declarative statement, but even given this particular question, the way that it's worded, it seems pretty clear that the burden of proof rests with the one affirming the logical coherence of the

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Trinity, which would be Dr. Craig. However, you know, so for somebody in the audience, they're probably wondering, well, then what is he doing bringing up Tawhid?

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This would be allowable in a formal debate if it were the case that Dr. Craig is identifying that Tawhid as an implicit influence behind the criticisms of the

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Trinity, which may explain why Dr. Craig brought up the Prophet Muhammad's caricature of the Trinity a moment ago.

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So, so now I'm just, you know, trying to put it all together. If that's what's going on, then it does make sense to challenge his opponent along these lines or at least set up for that later.

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Why? Well, because it's to his advantage to force Hijab to identify his own presuppositions that influence his challenges to the

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Trinity. So this would not be a violation of the burden of proof. Technically, this would be part of Hijab's own burden of refutation.

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That's what Dr. Craig is seeking to set up later. And I've said this before, but just because an opponent takes the neg on a debate like Hijab here, it doesn't mean that they don't have their own burdens to fulfill.

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They still have to fulfill the burdens of refutation and proving assertions. So what Dr. Craig did really would be akin to a

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Christian challenging an atheist's presuppositions when the atheist attacks the evidence for the existence of God.

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All right, so let's see how Hijab responds. I want to start off by saying thank you very much to the organizers and to Dr.

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William Lane Craig for this discussion. To dive straight into it, the last comment that Dr. William Lane Craig made is absolutely problematic.

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It's erroneous, in fact. The Muslims have never had a problem discussing the who -ness of God.

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They have had controversies surrounding the what -ness of God, but that's aside the point today we're talking about.

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Well, hold on a second. First of all, first of all, Tawhid is not about the who -ness of God.

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I don't even know, like, what is that even? Hijab should know that. Tawhid is about the what -ness of God.

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In other words, what is God given the Muslim paradigm? Their answer is Tawhid.

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That's precisely what Tawhid is answering. So that doesn't make any sense. Also, I can see why he would challenge whether or not addressing

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Tawhid is appropriate, given the debate resolution that we just talked about a moment ago, except for the circumstance that I just pointed out.

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So it's interesting. It's to Hijab's advantage to try to disregard any conversation about Tawhid, just as it is to Dr.

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Craig's advantage to bring it into the discussion. But if Hijab can successfully get it dismissed, then he doesn't have to explain his framework for challenging the

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Trinity at all. Well, the Trinity. And it's quite astounding that on a topic to do with the Trinity that Dr.

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Craig decided to talk about Tawhid, which is not on the topic today. Dr. Craig himself, sorry to say, does not even represent mainstream

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Christianity when it comes to the Trinity. He attacks Thomas Aquinas, and he can correct me if I'm wrong, for example.

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He corrects Thomas Aquinas on the fact that he believes in one -self theories, and he says that, for example, if you take the is of identification for God, and you believe that the

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Father is God and the Son is God, therefore it follows that the Father is the Son. This is his view of Thomas Aquinas.

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He also says that the Trinity is against divine simplicity, which Thomas Aquinas in other places actually does espouse.

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That's his view, and he can correct me if I'm wrong. So that's, I mean, Thomas Aquinas, one of the saints of Catholicism, and we're talking about a great deal of people who follow that, at least 50 % of Christians are

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Catholics. He doesn't just take aim at Aquinas, he takes aim at the Church Fathers.

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He takes aim at the Church Fathers, Gregory of Nyssa. So this is a bit of a mess.

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The topic for debate is on the Trinity. It's not on William Lane Craig, okay? If Hijab is concerned about a proper definition of the

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Trinity, well, I mean, Dr. Craig already spelled that out in his opener. He gave a very simple definition of the

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Trinity. So Hijab is getting lost almost immediately from what the debate is really about. Gregory of Nyssa, Basil, he clearly states, for example, that they believe in a kind of polytheism, because if you take the fact that the

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Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God, in a full sense, that this is a kind of polytheism. So it's what version of Christianity of the

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Trinity is Dr. William Lane Craig representing? He's representing his own version, ladies and gentlemen.

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He's not representing the version of the majority of Catholics, the majority of Protestants, the majority of Eastern Orthodox.

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And what he said about the Qur 'an, as we've just mentioned, is erroneous. He said that in chapter 5, verse 116, that the

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Qur 'an depicts the Trinity in the wrong way. The Qur 'an doesn't even mention the Trinity in that verse. You don't need to know

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Arabic language to understand that, because the Trinity is not mentioned in chapter 5, verse 116.

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It says that, did you say that you take me and my mum as lords, gods beside God?

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تَخَذُونِي إِلَىٰ هَيْنِ مِنْ دُونِ اللَّهِ means God's subjects of worship. We do believe, like Protestants, as he claims he is, that Mary is venerated to a point of worship.

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That doesn't mean that she's part of a Trinity. So he's got a misreading of that. And in my next segment,

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I'm going to talk about how he opposes practically all of Christianity with the eternal begotten son doctrine.

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I would like him to correct me if I'm wrong, in so much as I've represented his views on one -self theories and the is of identification, and his views also on the church fathers and how he openly aims, takes aim at them, actually, to be honest with you.

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So I think that's my time. Okay, so we have two different debates now.

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On the one hand, we have the debate that is supposed to be taking place. I mean, again, right there on the screen is the

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Trinity logically coherent? Now, of course, the title of the debate or, you know, the way that it's worded has to be investigated, right?

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And that is investigated with a series of proper definitions that must begin at the outset of any proper debate.

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But that's what Dr Craig did. He gave a definition of the Trinity that hijab is not even challenging at this point.

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What hijab is doing is he's participating in his own debate. Is William Lane Craig a heretic?

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You know what I mean? Right? And he's doing the work of presenting that kind of case instead of the one that's up for actual debate.

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So in case you're wondering, so far, I'd say Dr Craig has advantage. Now, watch this. If hijab continues to pursue his own debate, he loses automatically.

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Why? Because he came to the wrong one. It's like that nightmare you have of waking up and taking it as am that you never prepared for.

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You know what I mean? This is what's going on with hijab. Now, they do a bit of rebuttal, both of them, and then they jump into a form of cross.

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So let's jump over to cross right now. You said you're awaiting my demonstration. You don't need to await my demonstration.

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You have people like Scott Williams, who have already demonstrated this, that you believe that there are three wills of the

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Trinity. You believe that the Father has a will, which is distinct from the Son, and you believe that the Son has a will, which is distinct from the

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Holy Spirit, and they all have wills that are distinct from each other. My question to you is just one for now. How?

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Well, hold on. To this point, so now, what is this?

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We're a half an hour into the debate, just about. There have been two opening statements, multiple rounds of rebuttal on both sides.

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How is it that we still have not heard an argument against the topic of debate from hijab? How is that even possible?

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Hijab said a moment ago that it was coming, and now he sets up his time as if he's going to make these kinds of arguments, and then he goes right into a cross -examination question.

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This is really bad, guys. This is about as bad as it gets in terms of blunders on the debate stage.

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Underneath all of this man's pomp and aggressive showmanship is really nothing so far.

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I'm not seeing substance brought to the debate stage yet, and I wonder, because, you know, there are always these kinds of people out there, but I wonder how many are swayed by hijab here, even though there's nothing here, even though he's clearly not even debating the topic.

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How many look at this and go, oh, he's clearly winning? It's amazing. How do you establish, and this is the question of Scott Williams in the peer -reviewed academic paper, how do you establish necessary agreement such that those three persons of the

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Trinity can never disagree? This is my first question for you to get the ball rolling. You say that Muslim theologians don't disagree about the wholeness of God.

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Well, of course it's true that Islam is a monotheistic religion, and in the same way,

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Christians agree on Trinitarianism. But the amount of disagreement about the nature of God and his attributes and so forth is just as diverse in Islam as in Christianity.

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As for the Holy Spirit, you don't need to wait until the fourth century for him to be granted full divine status.

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That occurs in the New Testament itself, as I've already stated. So the reason why

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Dr. Craig is not answering the cross -examination question is because hijab slid a question into a time meant for rebuttal.

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So first of all, let me back up. The format for this debate is really loose, and that has its benefits, okay?

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So don't get me wrong, but it also has downsides, one of which is not knowing when to do cross and when to do other segments.

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So hijab just slides in cross, right? But in what should have been a rebuttal segment, so Dr.

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Craig is responding to the challenges given in rebuttal right now. With respect to the three wills,

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I think that this follows from divine perfection. You have three perfect persons who are equal in goodness, omnipotence, and omniscience, and therefore it's perfectly plausible that they would always agree and would not come into disharmony with each other.

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So this is a Christian postulate that I think is perfectly reasonable. Muhammad, when you're ready.

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Okay, you've just said it's perfectly reasonable, but you've offered absolutely zero justification.

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So here's my question. If it's necessary agreement, that is to say, and you know this, you've written books on the kalam, cosmological arguments, you know the modal distinctions, okay?

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If it's necessary agreement, that means it's impossible for them not to disagree.

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And for you to say it's impossible, well, as you know, there's logical impossibility and there's metaphysical impossibility. My question to you is, how do you establish the impossibility of disagreement?

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This is the question of Scott Williams. It's not just my question, it's the question imposed in academic papers. Richard Swinburne tried to answer this question, and he said that it's got to do with the relationships between the father and the son, yes, and that the father has a love relationship with the son and obedience relationship.

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These are the lengths that theologians of the highest eminence and of the top caliber in Christianity have to reach to try and explain through the three -will model, which is a heresy, once again, because you've adopted many heretical positions, it's a heresy, let's be honest and say, this three -will model, that you now have to explain why there is necessary agreement.

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So you have yet to demonstrate to the public, how is it impossible for them to disagree?

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This is my question. Now, it's important, I think, to understand, in doing theology, the systematic theologian doesn't have to prove everything.

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Some things are just theological postulates, and the question would be, is there any good reason to disagree with it?

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And I see no reason to think that the... That's a very interesting point to make, and I hope that didn't...

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I hope that landed with everybody, because that's important. The idea of three persons in one being who always act in harmony with one another is a difficult or incoherent idea.

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Now, again, to repeat myself, I did give an argument for this from the divine perfection.

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You have three perfect persons in goodness, in omnipotence, in omniscience.

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And from that, I think it's very reasonable to think that these three persons would always act in harmony rather than disagree.

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This is relevant as well to the Christian doctrine of perichoresis, which says that among the three persons of the

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Trinity, there is a complete interpenetration of mutual love, knowledge, and will, so that what the

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Father loves, the Son and the Spirit love. What the Son knows, the Father and the

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Spirit know. So the answer to the question of how three persons in one being cannot disagree with each other, which was

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Hijab's question, is the perichoresis. And I'm glad that Dr. Craig brought it up. The perichoresis is the term that describes how the

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Trinity can be united and agree with each other in perfect harmony as distinct persons in one essence.

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This is the key factor that, it seems to me,

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Hijab is leaving out, which creates all of these issues for him. It creates all of these questions for him.

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He's leaving out the one essence part. But the perichoresis explains this. It really comes back to a harmony, a harmony that is built out of love.

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This was Augustine's view, okay? This is what the Bible appears to teach. Take a look at this. So I got my trusty

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Logos Bible Software up and ready to go. Once again, partner with Logos Bible Software.

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You definitely need to check them out if you are a serious student of the scripture. Highly recommend Logos. Take a look at the link for that in the notes.

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But we're in John 5, 19. Now take a look at this. Take a look at how this plays out. This is Jesus' own words.

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For the Son can do nothing of his own account, but only what he sees the Father doing.

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For whatever the Father does, that the Son does likewise. For the Father loves the

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Son and shows him all that he himself is doing, and greater works than these will he show him so that you may marvel.

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Okay? In other words, this unity of the Father and Son that Jesus clearly discusses on, not just in John, but on multiple occasions across the

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Gospels, is based on mutual love. Hijab's challenge is interesting because it seems that he wants to suggest that Dr.

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Craig needs to do more than merely provide some kind of theological explanation, that he needs to somehow demonstrate this unity of the

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Trinity. And what he means by demonstrate is not defined, but that's not the point. In a debate on the logical consistency of a metaphysical entity, right, which is basically what is up for debate today, the challenges that hijab should provide must track along the lines of logical contradiction or logical incoherence.

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Right? You with me so far? And if there is a logical contradiction, then this would undermine Dr. Craig's position.

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Here's something to consider about this. The question is, what would combat someone's challenge of logical contradiction or incoherence when it comes to a metaphysical issue like this?

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In other words, an issue that you cannot investigate inside a laboratory, cannot put it underneath a microscope.

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If your answer is a logical explanation, that's what's required to combat a challenge, then you would be absolutely correct.

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That's what the perichoresis is. It's a theological category that provides a logical explanation for the unity of the three persons of the

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Trinity. Now, if you want to attack the perichoresis, go ahead. But to simply dismiss it and just claim that there can be no justification for the unity of the

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Trinity is to... What is that? It's like you're hijabbing at the air at that point.

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That was a horrible joke. Spirit wills, the Father and the Son will. And this doctrine of perichoresis,

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I find to be a very attractive concept of the inner

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Trinitarian life of God. And that would, again, provide good grounds for thinking that these three persons always act harmoniously.

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Mohammed, when you're ready. Okay, so you said divine perfection. This is the key term that you've used. But in other contexts, you've accepted that there has to be a level of arbitrariness in God's decision making.

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Otherwise, it would lead to necessitarianism and modal collapse. So if it was one divine perfection that existed within each of the wills, that would mean to say that all of them really don't have a choice in the matter, in which case

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God doesn't have will. That's the first argument. The second argument is the following. You've made this comparison with God, with Cerebus, the three -headed dog.

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And this is, I mean, if you can see on the camera, this is exactly what you've written in your article, that God is like a three -headed dog.

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You've got one, two, three. Okay, and just as there's one body and three heads, you know, the Trinity is the same thing.

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It's one body and three different heads. That's what you've said. Now, my question to you is as follows. If you have

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Siamese twins, and you've been asked this once again before by Snyder on peer -reviewed journals, if you have a conjoined twin, person

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A, person B, would you consider that to be one person or would you consider that to be two people? This is my question.

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So this is an interesting format. Once again, we finally get some kind of arguments from Hijab that should have been introduced much sooner into the debate.

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And then we get another question mixed into it. So we're rolling with it, right?

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If Dr. Craig has used Cerberus as an analogy of the Trinity, then he's in trouble, okay?

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Because all of the analogies of the Trinity appear to fall short. And therefore, they invite interpretive issues to the table, right?

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And Christians have talked about this forever, right? That all analogies, there is some kind of disanalogy within analogies that you use for the

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Trinity. And many Christians have just come on the side of saying, don't ever use analogies for the Trinity, right? So if that's the case, you know, now

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Dr. Craig has some splaining to do, Ricky Ricardo. And so here comes

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Hijab now with his own analogous question about Siamese twins. So let's see what happens. All right.

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I certainly think that God has contingent properties, and that what

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God wills, he wills contingently in many cases. For example, the will to create the world is a free decision by God, which is freely willed.

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So I'm not maintaining at all that everything about God is necessary, and that he does nothing contingently.

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My claim is simply that given this perichoretic interpenetration of the persons of the

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Trinity, they always act in harmony with one another. So this particular challenge by Hijab, I forgot to say this in the moment.

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It's not great. All of the challenges are not great. Hijab brought up Dr. Craig's comment about necessitarianism and modal collapse, right?

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But that's all part of a refutation against divine simplicity, if I'm not mistaken.

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So somebody can fact check me on that, right? That's not a refutation against the

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Trinity. Divine simplicity is not the same doctrine as the doctrine of the Trinity.

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In other words, the only way that Hijab's challenge is a problem for Dr. Craig is if he affirms divine simplicity, which he does not, as far as I understand.

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So these challenges by Hijab are, what are they? They're softball.

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These are light underhanded tosses that Dr. Craig has no problem hitting home runs with.

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The Cerberus point does actually appear to have teeth. So let's see how Dr. Craig responds.

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Now, the example I used of Kerberos, Mr. Of what? Hijab. Of what?

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Am I saying Cerberus wrong? Now, the example I used of Kerberos. What? Kerberos.

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So I'm saying it wrong. Am I saying it wrong this whole time? My entire life? Okay. Mr.

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Hijab, I think it's been greatly misunderstood. That is not intended to be an analogy to the

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Trinity. That was meant to be a springboard for thinking about what it means to be three persons in one being.

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And so I thought of this mythical dog in the labors of Hercules guarding the gates of Hades, which has three heads, so presumably three brains, so three states of consciousness of what it's like to be a dog.

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And then based on that, I endowed them with self -consciousness and personhood, and my position would be that you have, in that case, three persons in one being.

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And it would be similar with the Siamese twins or triplets. You have three brains, three centers of self -consciousness, and so three persons.

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Now, in the case of God, he doesn't have a physical body, so what

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I argue there is that God is an immaterial, spiritual substance or soul who is so richly endowed with cognitive faculties.

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This is too nuanced. What Dr. Craig is trying to argue for is too nuanced.

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And people on both sides of the Trinity issue, it's going to go over their heads, what he's saying.

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I don't think that there's anything wrong with what he's saying. It's just, this is why

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Hijab a moment ago was grinning. I mean, look at this.

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This is why, because he doesn't understand what Dr. Craig is saying, and I would imagine even some

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Christians that are on the side of Craig don't understand what Craig is saying. Therefore, I would propose

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Dr. Craig should not. This should not be something that is brought into the discussion at all.

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You know, my opinion. A physical body. So what I argue there is that God is an immaterial, spiritual substance or soul who is so richly endowed with cognitive faculties that he has three sets of cognitive faculties, each sufficient for personhood.

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And therefore there are in God three centers of self -consciousness, and that would be a model of what it is to talk of God as an immaterial, tripersonal being.

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You say that this is not an analogy, but that's exactly what you write in your article. You say perhaps we can get a start at this question by means of an analogy.

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That's what Hijab, that's a springboard to thinking about it. Dr. Craig, let's let Mohammed finish his thought here.

31:42

I understand, but you denied in your response there that this was an analogy.

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And you've written in your work that perhaps we can get a start at this question by means...

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I mean, this is why he shouldn't have... Yeah, this wasn't good.

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...of an analogy. And then you mentioned, Cerberus, the analogy. So the point is this. I know it's difficult.

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I know it's very embarrassing. I'm sorry to say, I mean, comparing God to a dog anyway, we wouldn't compare a prophet to a

32:15

God. But let's say for the sake of argument, we're analogizing God with a dog. Now, I asked you a question, which is that if you have a conjoined twin,

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Siamese twins, one of them commits murder, we're going to put both of them in prison. One of them does something.

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This dog here can lick this dog. This here can bite this dog. These are three different centers of consciousness.

32:34

Why are we considering this to be one dog only because it has overlapping bodies? This is a question that was posed to you in the academic literature.

32:41

We've heard your response. I have to say it's a very insufficient and unsatisfactory response. Absolutely unsatisfactory.

32:47

This is your model of the Trinity. I think this could be debunked by children, with all due respect. This is your model of the

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Trinity. Now, going to the part of you have to now maintain that God is made out of parts.

32:59

And you've said this. You've made... Clearly, you have the view that God is part... There are parts of God.

33:05

No problem. My question to you is this. Who created the universe? Did the Father create the universe? Did the

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Son create the universe? Or did the Holy Spirit create the universe? Who is responsible for the creation of the universe?

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Now, in your model, you cannot actually say... This is really bad. This is pretty bad.

33:27

I'm running out of time. Look, it's one thing to say you have not satisfactorily answered the question, right?

33:34

It's another thing to demonstrate that. And Hijab has not demonstrated that there is some deficiency in the logic behind Dr.

33:40

Craig's position. He tries to trip him up on semantics. And he's trying to poke holes in the logical coherence of Dr.

33:47

Craig's position, but he has not succeeded. Not from my vantage point, not from what I've seen. So, what more is there to see here?

33:55

You know, I've got a couple minutes left. That the Father created the universe in a full sense. If you do say that, then you can't say that the

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Son created the universe in a full sense. And if you say that, you can't say the Holy Spirit, because you can't have two subjects operating on one object and creating it and being responsible in a full sense.

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I can't go to the gym and pump 100 kilograms by myself, as well as my friend over here,

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William Lane Craig, doing the same thing. It could be shared. But then if it's shared, then you've got one third

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God. So, can you clarify? Do you believe that the Father is one third responsible for the creation of the universe?

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Or do you believe, in the logical contradiction, that you have two subjects that are fully responsible for the creation of the universe?

34:41

Which one do you believe? Look, I don't want to disparage the man, okay? But that has got to be the most obtuse question

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I've ever heard. It's almost as if he willfully chooses to be ignorant of Christian doctrine.

34:54

Right? But here comes another softball that does not understand the simple definition of the Trinity, you know?

35:00

At the outset, what did Dr. Craig say? What was his definition? He said that the Trinity is an immaterial, tripersonal being.

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That means the three persons all participate in what the singular being creates.

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It would make no sense to say that the God, the Father, created without noticing that the Son and the Spirit are also involved.

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And that's precisely what the record of creation shows us. Look at this. Genesis 1 .1. In the beginning,

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God created the heavens and the earth. And then look at this. The earth was without form and void.

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And darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. That's verse 2.

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So who do we have here? We have God. And we have the Spirit of God in this initial moment of creation.

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John 1 tells the same story. And he helps to fill in the picture for us. Look at this. In the beginning was the

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Word. And the Word was with God. And the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him.

35:59

And without Him was not anything made that was made. Wow. So that sounds an awful lot like the

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Word is distinct from God. And yet God at the same time. Right? What do we call this?

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A trinity? You got it. John goes on to say this. You know, the Word was in the beginning with God.

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And He created all things. Okay. So who do we have in the creation account?

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According to the Bible. God the Father. God the Word or the Son. And God the

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Holy Spirit. There's your trinity. Three persons. But as the doctrine explains, one being creating.

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If Hijab would have taken Dr. Craig's position more seriously. I don't think he would have asked this question.

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It's awful. It's almost as if he didn't truly wrestle with these concepts when he prepped for this debate.

36:50

I gave you an extra 20 seconds for the interruption. But Dr. Craig, it's now your turn. Two minutes.

36:56

Causal overdetermination is not incoherent, Mr. Hijab. Imagine a candle being lit by two simultaneous matches, each of which is sufficient to illuminate the candle.

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In the case of the trinity, the classical Christian doctrine is in Latin, opera ad extra sunt indivisa.

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That the operations of the trinity toward the external world are undivided and therefore undertaken by all three persons at once.

37:35

Undivided. Okay. Not in personhood, but in essence or being, right?

37:40

Now, I don't agree with that doctrine in every case. I think that leads to real problems.

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But I think that is very plausible with respect to the doctrine of creation, that the three persons act in concert with each other to create the world.

37:59

So they're all responsible for the creation, and in the

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New Testament, creation is ascribed both to the Father and to the

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Son. If they're responsible, they can only be responsible either in a partial sense or in a full sense.

38:18

They can't be responsible both in a partial sense and a full sense. You said merely a claim, needing further development into a fuller argument, right?

38:30

Causal overdetermination. I'm sorry to say you have not answered the question. The question is, can you have two subjects that are fully, fully responsible, to a degree of 100%, fully responsible for the creation of one thing in its entirety?

38:46

For example, can you have... The question is framed incorrectly and trades on what the word subjects means.

38:53

So if you have two people doing something, then you automatically no longer are in the realm of the

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Trinity. Your analogous question doesn't apply, which is incredibly ironic because Hijab just chastised

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Dr. Craig for an improper use of analogy with Kerberos. And then here he goes using an improper analogy.

39:11

Absolutely amazing. Two mothers that are fully responsible, fully responsible for the production of one child.

39:19

Fully responsible. I think even the transgender movement would raise their eyebrows to this.

39:24

The LGBT, they will say, no, Dr. Craig has lost it, sorry to say. No one can say this. Can there be two authors that are fully responsible for the writing of one book?

39:34

I mean, once again, when you talk about it, you don't want to say this because I know it's heresy. It's heresy to say that the father is not the creator of the universe 100%.

39:43

But that's what you have to say to avoid contradiction. So why don't you say that? Why don't you say that the father is not the creator?

39:50

He is a partial creator. He is a one third creator. He's a 33 % creator. The father is not fully responsible for the creation of the universe.

39:58

Is that correct? This was the wrong person to debate. They should have brought somebody up to debate

40:04

Dr. Craig, who would have actually taken his position seriously. ChatGPT probably could have done a better job.

40:11

This was a hot mess. Almost from the word go. Not from Dr. Craig's side, but hijab, you know.

40:18

And once again, this goes to show probably why Dr. Craig brought up Tawhid in the first place, which is

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Mohamed Hijab is arguing from his particular presupposition of Tawhid, which must be investigated.

40:31

That's how he can simply say here, oh, no, you haven't answered the question. Oh, no, you haven't actually demonstrated anything. Well, no, Dr. Craig has done these things, but you don't hear it because you're trying to filter that through your presupposition of Tawhid.

40:44

I don't think you understand causal overdetermination, Mr. Hijab. When two matches light a flame simultaneously or light a candle, they don't each contribute 50 % to the lighting of the candle.

40:58

They are each 100 % sufficient for the effect, but they act concurrently.

41:05

Yeah, I don't think he understands it either. But he doesn't even need to understand this concept.

41:11

He just needed to spend more time on the definition of the Trinity. If he would have listened to Dr. Craig at the very beginning, if he would have studied a little bit longer, it would have occurred to him that his question here was just a complete waste of time.

41:23

With each other. And so in the act of creation, I see absolutely no problem with saying that there is a concurrence here of the action of the three persons of the

41:35

Trinity. Yeah, I've seen enough. I've seen enough. All right. Look, the bottom line is,

41:40

Hijab was the one who needed to poke holes and refute the various arguments that make up Dr. Craig's position, and he just failed to do that.

41:47

He began by not even debating the topic, but instead focusing on another debate entirely. Is William Lane Craig a heretic?

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And a half an hour later, finally trying to work in arguments that refute Dr. Craig. Those arguments and the question that he raised were not only insufficient to challenge the

42:04

Christian position, they were also largely misguided and confused.

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Probably because Hijab did not study the topic as much as he should have. I think

42:15

Dr. Craig came out and provided... He did what he should have done. He provided the definition of the

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Trinity. He defended Hijab's challenges by providing logical rejoinders and clarifying his position.

42:26

I'd say just by the look on Dr. Craig's face, that this was an easy win for William Lane Craig.

42:32

I think he knew it and was sometimes surprised at how bad the arguments and the questions were from Muhammad Hijab.

42:40

Okay, that's enough out of me. Now it's your turn. What did you think? Who really won this debate? Let me know in the comments below. I'd love to get your take on it.

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42:52

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42:57

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