My Response to A. Catholic

Posted below is Alex's response to my Justice, Love and Unity article. Below his response to my article is my response to his response (What am I saying!). Enjoy!

His response to my article:
I must say Jason for the "mindless raving[s] of a lunatic" who writes at 3:00am your essay was quite thoughtful. Yes it lacked an overall written "unity", lol but you certainly had much to say and I thank you and I am honored to be a source, partly, perhaps even 1% of your "ravings". With this said that does not mean I agree with you entirely but in the tradition of our "friendly disagreements", and truly friendly is what I strive to make them for once charity goes out the window I do not deserve the name of Catholic, I would just give a few of my opinions but only a few because I still have the Spong response to finish...boy I don't think I will ever finish that!

I totally agree with you when you say that Love comes through clearest in Christ. As far as Islam and their notion of the Godhead, I have to ask why do they say that God cannot be Triune and that this somehow contradicts God being One? Whose concept of the Unity of God are we to follow...our own or what God has revealed? I ask do you think it is possible at all for God to manifest His Unity in Trinity? At first glance this seems illogical but again why do we force human concepts on God. This is the thing with Muslims...they say God can have no Son and I would say yes of course if you are speaking in human terms but the Christ being the Son of God does not mean what we ordinarily think it to mean. This Sonship is one of eternity, it did not happen at one moment in time if it did that would mean Christ was a creature and is inferior to God the Father but this simply cannot be even though the Arians said it did.

Islam says God has no partners, and I once again say bravo yes that is true but when Christians say that there are Three Persons but One Nature in God we are saying that the Persons are distinct but perfectly equal. God the Father is not God the Son, God the Son is not God the Holy Ghost etc.....but God the Father is God, God the Son is God, and God the Holy Ghost is God, not three Gods (which is philosophically absurd) but One God in Three Persons. Muslims say no this is impossible but I ask why is it impossible??? Sure they stress the Oneness of God but by this strict mentality they miss the beauty of the Trinity.

In short this is what the Church teaches on the Trinity and it uses philosophy to somehow "explain" the Trinity to some degree for although God is Infinite, Perfect, Omnipotent and beyond our full comprehension still there are some things we can say about God.

God the Father is the principle of the Trinity, that is God the Father is not begotten, God the Father begets God the Son (keep in mind this is before the Incarnation which is a different topic) from all eternity. We liken God the Father to the Idea, and the expression of this idea by God the Son that is why God the Son is also called the Word of God. Words are nothing other than expressions of ideas. Where does God the Holy Ghost fit in? Well in the Creed we say the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Father and the Son. The Holy Ghost is the "product" (don't think in terms that the Holy Ghost is made or created...human concepts fail to grasp God entirely) of the love of God the Father and God the Son. The perfect manifestation of this love of the two "produces" the Person of God the Holy Ghost.

Once again this does not take place at any one moment in time but is eternal.

There is one more thing I want to say. Actually you have written on so many deep topics that I have to just pick two to save you the boredom of reading what I have to say.

You ask "Is there unity in Christianity?" Then you go on to answer that "Christianity has never been a unified religion and maybe never will" Well I would disagree. As I mentioned the other day Christ's Church (Catholic Church) is His Mystical Body and as such is One and is not divided. Christ cannot be divided. The Church has been willed by Christ...."Upon this Rock I will build My Church" and it has never lost its essential unity. This comes from the teaching that there is only One True Church. It does not make sense to say that Christ wanted thousands upon thousands of denominations each saying something contradictory about Christ and about the nature of His Church. I don't know what do you think? So if you take the view that the Church espouses then no Christianity is not fragmented but it is One. That is one of the marks of the true Church...its Oneness. So then this means that Christianity certainly does not "need" Islam. What exactly does that mean? That would mean that Christianity is lacking something which Islam has to offer? So then that would mean Christ did not provide everything for the Church which I equate with Christianity.

My belief about the Judaism and Islam is as follows:

God chooses a people, the Hebrews, and reveals Himself to them (although not fully as Trinity in the New Testament). This religion of the Jews was only a preparation, it was but a stepping stone, if you will, a very very important stepping stone, for the New Law, the New Covenant, fulfilled in Christ. By its nature this religion (Judaism) pointed to Christ who is the Messiah. (I have to admit I am no expert on Judaism so my words are not as penetrating as they might otherwise be...forgive me)

Islam (this is my belief and it in no ways is meant to denigrate individual Muslims or anything of the sort) is not part of God's revelation. The Old Testament spoke nothing of Islam (perhaps Muslims may claim that it does) and Mohammed. Islam emerged roughly 600 years after the Birth of Christ and I believe is simply a mishmash of Judaic and Catholic and heretical Christian teachings. I mean there is no other position I can hold. For me it is black and white with this regard. Sure there are some truths to be found in Islam but as a religion I don't believe it expresses what God wanted revealed to mankind. How can one explain the emergence of Islam? Well just because Islam exists and it is similar in many respects to Judaism and Christianity does that mean it is somehow part of God's message? I believe Mohammed was not given a message from God but if he indeed existed he was misled. Surely that is a possibility. Of course you may argue so maybe the Apostles were misled as well? You may argue thus but you know where I am coming from.

I know this will not solve any of the problems between the three religions but I still believe that God's revelation is One...and Islam represents a distorted view of this revelation.

Does this make me a "fundamentalist"?

Anyway this message of mine is nothing eye-opening it is basically the same thing I have been saying all the time. Keep up the writing and thinking....you are the philosopher type...I would say you have benefited somewhat from those degrees even if you have no job corresponding to those degrees. - Alex


My response to his reponse:
Ok, let’s see, I guess I will respond to your questions one by one, first you ask ‘why do they say that God cannot be Triune and that this somehow contradicts God being One?’ is because to Muslims, saying anything other than god is one is being a polytheist. The very first pillar of Islam is saying and believing that God is one and Muhammad is his prophet. To say that God is triune is different than saying God is one. You may not think it is, but to the Muslim, it is. What I was trying to say is that it is possible ‘for God to manifest His Unity in Trinity?’ but that this idea, at least to me, undercuts the idea of oneness and monotheism and the idea that God is one. To say that God is one in 3 doesn’t convey the idea of oneness as well as saying that God is one and has no partners. That is what I was trying to convey with my article, that to me, the Oneness and Unity of God comes through clearer in Islam because of their emphasis on the oneness of God and their rejection of the trinity. I’m not saying this unity cannot come through in Christianity, as it obviously does for you, but for me, it comes through clearer in Islam than in Christianity because 1) I don’t believe in the trinity and 2) it just comes through clearer to me in Islam because of the reasons I stated in my article.

Also, Muslims would say that nowhere in the bible do they mention the trinity and that this concept was created by later theologians reading into the scriptures their beliefs paganistic beliefs. I must say, that I agree with them in this assertion. My interpretation of the New Testament does not lead me to the trinity and I think it is a bit of a stretch to put this idea or to infer it from the New Testament. You ask ‘Whose concept of the Unity of God are we to follow...our own or what God has revealed?’ but to me and Muslims, the concept of the trinity was not revealed by god but is ‘our own’ concept of the unity of god and that if we were faithful to the scriptures, to what God has revealed, we would not believe in the trinity and would believe more in the Muslim idea of the unity of god. I guess ultimately, it all comes down to your interpretation of scripture. Obviously, you interpret it Trinitarian and I interpret it more Islamically. Which one is correct? We can argue about this, but ultimately, how would we decide. You refer to catholic tradition, I refer to what it says in the Qur’an and Islamic tradition. Which one trumps the other one? To me, it’s the Qur’an because I do believe it has more ‘divine authority’ than catholic tradition. We just might have to disagree about this.

Also, I think we fundamentally disagree on another point as well and that is causing all of these subsidiary disagreements, that fundamental disagreement is about the divinity of the religion of Islam. You say that ‘Islam (this is my belief and it in no ways is meant to denigrate individual Muslims or anything of the sort) is not part of God's revelation.’ I fundamentally disagree with you and believe that it is a part of God’s revelation and you do not. This is obviously a huge disagreement between us and partly why we hold the beliefs that we do. For me, I don’t’ understand how you can accept Judaism and Christianity yet reject Islam. To me, they are all a bundled package, if you accept one, you must accept the other two. There is no division in this for me. I don’t understand how you can accept two, but not the third one. Also, I don’t know how Muslims can accept Islam but not it’s previous two revelations when it even says in the Qur’an to seek out and learn from the previous two revelations. That is also why for me unity comes through clearer in Islam, because it tells Muslims to seek out and learn from and integrate the previous revelations and stories of the prophets into their belief systems. This inclusiveness of the previous revelations of abrahamic monotheism into what true Islam should be seems to promote more unity than the exclusiveness of Christianity in rejecting Islam as a part of God’s revelation. Yet another reason why I see Unity more clearly in Islam than in Christianity, because Islam accepts the previous two monotheism’s and in some interpretations, the prophets of other religions as well into it’s belief system, and Christianity rejects them all as false religions. It is because I accept this Islamic inclusive belief and I reject the Christian exclusivism belief that I am motivated to harmonize and explain the differences that arise from the conflicting doctrines and scripture of these two monotheism’s. It’s easy for you to not do this because you reject Islam out of hand. I cannot do this, for me, if I reject Islam, I reject all of abrahamic monotheism. If I reject one of the three religions of the book, then I reject all of them. They are linked for me and cannot be separated.

I guess secondly or maybe thirdly, I don’t know where we are at, you say quoting me a few times ‘You ask "Is there unity in Christianity?" Then you go on to answer that "Christianity has never been a unified religion and maybe never will" Well I would disagree.’ Well, obviously you see oneness in the Mystical Body of Christ, which is the Catholic Church, however, I do not see this same oneness that you are talking about. I’m not saying that it is not there, especially for you, but for me, it is not there. For me, Jesus himself did not promote unity and may have even promoted division, this is especially true when you reference the quote that he did not come to bring unity, but came to bring the sword of division, 2 will be against three, brother against father, etc., etc. Also, there was division in the early church over the question of circumcism which Paul talks about in his letters, I think he calls the Christians who want to continue circumcism butchers or something like that. Maybe that is inaccurate, but I’m sure you know the controversy that I am talking about and more exactly where it is in scripture and what Paul says about it.

Also, what about the early division between the literalists (what would become the Catholic Church) and the gnostics (who were ruthlessly murdered by the Catholic Church. You may disagree with this, but it is a fact of history that the church, maybe not the church, but many people in the church, murdered gnostic Christians in the hundreds and other non-Christian peoples between the years of 400ad and 600 ad. It seemed like a systematic campaign to wipe anything non-Catholic from the face of the earth and that is why I say the catholic church plunged Europe into the dark ages and the majority of scholars on this subject, I believe would agree with me.) Sorry, this is digressing a great bit from the subject on my part, but the point is that there was a early division in the church between gnostics and literalists and from what we learn from the gnostic gospels there may have been an even earlier division between Peter and Mary Magdalene as to whom the successor of Jesus was. The church says it was Peter, a lot of the Gnostic texts say it was Mary Magdalene. Again, whom are we to believe in this matter. You obviously believe the church, I believe the gnostic texts because 1) I identify with them more than I do the church and 2) I believe the church was corrupted by power and the desire to be the true successors of Christ at any cost and this undercuts their credibility as to being the true religion, especially when they murder their theological opponents to prove their points.

You also say that the church has never lost its essential identity and unity, what about the gnostics that I have mentioned above and what about Protestants? Do you just write them off as not a part of the church? That is also again why I see more Unity in Islam, because Christian exclusivism precludes and doesn’t do much to promote the idea of Unity like I believe or see in Islam. Now I’m not saying that Islam is perfect and you are correct, much of Islam does not promote the idea of unity like I am talking about, especially in this very dark period in Islamic history that we are unfortunately living through, but the seeds of it are there much more than they are in Christianity I believe for all the reasons cited above and all the reasons I put in my article.

Fourthly, you say that ‘So then this means that Christianity certainly does not "need" Islam. What exactly does that mean? That would mean that Christianity is lacking something which Islam has to offer?’ that is exactly what I am saying. That Christianity is lacking something which Islam has, namely, Unity. This may not be true objectively, but it is true for me and what I believe and what I see. Contrarily, Islam is missing something that Christianity has, namely, Love. This of course may not be true, but for me, it is. Islam is missing something that Christianity can provide and Christianity is missing something that Islam can provide. Now, I’m not saying that these things are not there in these respective religions. After all, Paul says that there is neither slave nor free, jew nor gentle, man nor women, but all are one in Christ, which is definitely talking about the Unity which I am talking about and conversely, surely Allah is merciful, forgiving, compassionate, and is talking about the Love that I am talking about and for many Muslims and Christians, these ideas are enough for them to promote the ideas that I do not see in these respective religions in their own belief systems. So for a Christian, they see a great unity in Christ that I do not see as much of, for I see unity in Christ, but not as much as I see it in Islam, and for a Muslim, they see the great love in Allah that I do not see as much of, for I see love in Islam, but not as much as I see it in Christianity. Do you understand what I am saying? This is why, at least for me, these two need each other, because they have what the other is lacking, and they both need Judaism because they, for me, are both lacking the sense of Justice that the Old Testament and Moses and the Ten Commandments and the Law and the Torah provide.

That is what I am saying, and I am even saying that God may have keep these things out of the respective monotheism’s because he wanted them to have to need each other and at one point in history, maybe to meld the way that they meld together in my mind. This may be a crazy thought, but it is what I think. Or he may have hidden these aspects from me because he wanted them to meld together only in my mind and not in anybody else’s. I don’t’ know, I try not to project what I believe on Objective Reality, if you know what I mean, but I think it’s a human tendency to do so, so what I am saying above is true for me, but I realize may not be true for everybody else, although I think it is, I may be wrong and probably am. This is just what I think and what is going on in my head, whether it is TRUE in that sense, I don’t’ know, it is true for me, but I don’t know if it is TRUE in the philosophical and religious sense.