The Trinity: A Muslim Perspective

I thought that this was an interesting article, so I sent it to some friends of mine. Here's one's response.

Noel said:

Interesting article. I do not know who Abdal-HakimMurad is, but he is clearly a well establishedscholar. Unfortunately for him, being a well established scholar does not entail having goodarguments, or a proper clarification of the trinity. For it seems to me that he has very bad arguments and an incorrect understanding of scripture. Allow me to demonstrate.

Murad says:

One of the virtues of the Semitic type of consciousness is the conviction that ultimate reality must be ultimately simple, and that the Nicene talk of a deity with three persons, one of whom has two natures, but who are all somehow reducible to authentic unity, quite apart from being rationally dubious, seems intuitively wrong. God, the final ground of all being, surely does not need to be so complicated.

Now what does Murad mean here by ultimately simple? Avery large portion in the history of Christian theology has maintained God's simplicity, his not having properties which are distinct from him. But perhaps, as seems likely, Murad has in mind here God's not being triune, or having two, three, or four persons make up the Godhead? Well, why is that a virtue? I suppose because there is something neat, if you will, or clean, about there being only one person that makes up the Godhead. Or in a similar vein,using good ol' Ockam, why should we multiply entities beyond necessity? But of course we may always ask if there are compelling reasons to believe in a Godhead composed of many persons as opposed to just one. I think there are, but I will not elaborate here since this would take a paper unto itself.

Furthermore, it is highly debatable whether God DID have to be that complex. After all, did the second person of the trinity really have to take on humanness, and so have two natures, or was it a choice He was not compelled to make on the basis of His nature? And how exactly is all this rationally dubious?!? Granted, it stretches the mind to think of one Godhead composed of three persons. But shouldn't many of God's attributes be perplexing? Have an air of paradox? It is not as if there is a contradiction involved. And Murad has done nothing to show that there is any rational dubiousness involved.

Murad says:

...that Jesus of Nazareth himself never believed, or taught, that he was the second person of a divine trinity. We know that he was intensely conscious of God as a divine and loving Father, and that he dedicated his ministry to proclaiming the imminence of God's kingdom, and to explaining how human creatures could transform themselves in preparation for that momentous time. He believed himself to be the Messiah,and the 'son of man' foretold by the prophets. We know from the study of first-century Judaism, recently made accessible by the Qumran discoveries, that neither of these terms would have been understood as implying divinity: they merely denoted purified servants of God.

Oh really! It is very interesting to note that the term "THE Son of Man" with the definite article 'THE' indicating uniqueness, is used eighty-four times in the gospels by Jesus only, and to Jesus only, and once in Acts by Stephen. They did not say 'A son of man' which would have been more likely if Jesus was one of many sons of men. Furthermore, there is strong scriptural support that 'the son of man' did have divine implications. Daniel 7:13 says "and behold,one like the son of man coming with the clouds ofheaven! ...and to Him was given dominion and gloryand kingdom, that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him; His dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away." Clearly the son of man here in Daniel is a divine being, for the language here is language that is only attributable to God! And it is evident that the high priests in Jesus time were more than cognizant of this. Matthew26:63-66 makes this abundantly clear. They ask Jesus if he is the Christ, the Son of God, and he says "It is as you said. Nevertheless, I say to you, hereafter you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Power, and coming on the clouds of heaven." To this the high priests responded by tearing their clothes, and saying "He has spoken blasphemy! What further need do we have of witnesses?...He is deserving of death."

Since it is unmistakably clear that Jesus is referring to himself as the some of man spoken of in Daniel, and it is unmistakably clear that that figure is divine, no wonder the high priests wanted to kill him! They were more than cognizant of Daniel 7, and knew what Jesus was saying by identifying himself with the son of man. Indeed, why would they put him to death if he was merely claiming to be a purified servant of God! Murad has not done his homework.

Furthermore, while it is true that the term 'Messiah'(which means anointed one) did imply, for some rabbinic scholars, only esteemed servanthood, it did not for all. There were many rabbinic scholars both prior to Jesus and present with him who thought that THE coming Messiah would be divine. There was not consensus in the Jewish world as to the nature that THE coming messiah would take.

It is also very interesting that Murad ONLY focuses here on two titles of Jesus, But there are many more that Jesus used of himself that imply his divinity. In John 8:57, Jesus refers to himself as the I AM. Hesays, "before Abraham was, I AM." Now this is very interesting because Jesus is clearly making a reference to Exodus 3:14, where God identifies Himselfto Moses as "I AM WHO I AM" And of course, what happened when Jesus said that? They tried to stone him for his apparent blasphemy!

Jesus, in Revelation 22:13 Jesus calls himself "The Alpha and Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End", a title used of God the Father in Revelation 1:8. So Jesus here is equating Himself with God.

Jesus did not rebuke Thomas (John 20:28) when Thomas said of him "My Lord and My God". But if Jesus was merely a servant of God, surely he would have rebuked Thomas here.

And there are many other reasons to believe that Jesus himself either explicitly or implicitly affirmed His divinity. Murad is therefore wrong in asserting that Jesus never did.

Murad says:

There are other implications of Trinitarian doctrine which concern Muslims. Perhaps one should briefly mention our worries about the doctrine of Atonement,which implies that God is only capable of really forgiving us when Jesus has borne our just punishment by dying on the cross. John Hick has remarked that 'a forgiveness that has to be bought by full payment of the moral debt is not in fact forgiveness at all.' More coherent, surely, is the teaching of Jesus himself in the parable of the prodigal son, who is fully forgiven by his father despite the absence of a blood sacrifice to appease his sense of justice. TheLord's Prayer, that superb petition for forgiveness, nowhere implies the need for atonement or redemption.

Jesus' own doctrine of God's forgiveness as recorded in the Gospels is in fact entirely intelligible in terms of Old Testament and Islamic conceptions. 'God can forgive all sins', says the Quran.

Now Murad here, once again, gets things all wrong. The term 'forgiveness' as used by scripture, in terms of God forgiving our sins, minimally means that God no longer holds our sins against us. Or what is very similar, when God forgives us our sins, our sins no longer separate us from God. But then OF COURSE a precondition to forgiveness is a sacrifice. If a precondition of God no longer holding our sins against us, of our sins no longer separating us from God, is an atonement for those sins, then it follows trivially that a sacrifice is a precondition for forgiveness. And why is this so incoherent, as Murad implies? He says that the parable of the prodigal son has no mention of atonement or blood sacrifice. But what follows from this? First of all, not all atonement for sin in the Old Testament required a blood sacrifice. There were grain, drink, and incense offerings. So the fact that no BLOOD offering is mentioned does very little work for Murad. Secondly,the point of that parable was not to lay out all the fine intricacies of proper ceremonial and sacrificial practices, but to show the loving heart of the father. A heart that reflected God's heart towards Israel. Furthermore, any half-minded Jew would have known that in order to be forgiven by God, a NECESSARY condition (not sufficient) was that a sacrifice be made. It is even further dubious that Murad focuses on only one saying of Jesus, and not His many others about His death and His role in taking away sin. See Matthew26:39, Luke 24:25-26, John 1:29; 6:51; 10:11 are just a few.

Murad says the Lord's prayer nowhere implies the need for atonement or redemption. Well, it actually does, implicitly, imply both. That this is so is due to the fact that the Lord's prayer was given to Jews, and for Jews the whole concept of divine forgiveness necessarily involved sacrifice, and therefore atonement, and redemption.

Murad is right that Jesus view of forgiveness are entirely intelligible with the Old Testaments. But the Old Testament's doctrine of forgiveness of sins involves sacrifice and atonement. But then so must the view that Jesus embraced. IF JESUS DID NOT ACCEPT SACRIFICE AND ATONEMENT THEN THE VIEW THAT JESUS EMBRACED WOULD NOT BE INTELLIGIBLE WITH THE OLD TESTAMENT.

Finally, and perhaps trivially, Murad is not using the standard meaning of unity here when he says that God is a unity. For a unity implies a plurality. And a unified plurality is precisely what the Christian conception of God is. If there is any God that is a unity it is the God of the Bible. But since Islam does not want a plurality, they must eschew a unity. To be fair, I am not claiming that Murad is being inconsistent. Only that he needs to be clear.

In conclusion, this was just a terrible and woefully inadequate account and criticism of the trinity, as I hope to have shown.

P.S. Sorry for any typos. I wrote this as fast as I could and with little attention to grammar and spelling. Not all of us have all the time in the world!

"Those who are wise shall shine like the brightness of the firmament, and those who turn many to righteousness like the stars forever and ever." Daniel 12:3

I replied:

thanks so much for the long and well-thought out reply. I didn't think you would even read this article, much less give such a lengthy and well reasoned reply. I appreciate your thoughts regarding this and because you spent so much time and effort giving such a great response, I felt obligated to respond to your responses as well. As I agree with much of what the article says, I will argue from my interpretation and perspective regarding it. I dont' know if it is necessarily how a muslim would respond, so I'm not claiming that, but since I did agree with much of the article, I'll put on my Muslim hat and try to respond the best I can, keeping in mind that this is not necessarily how a Muslim would respond.

You ask the question 'Now what does Murad mean here by ultimately simple?' and then you go on to state that 'A very large portion in the history of Christian theology has maintained God's simplicity, his not having properties which are distinct from him.' However, this is not what I think Murad means here. I dont think he is talking about divine simplicity, I think he is talking about simplicity meaning easy to understand, contrasted with complexity, meaning difficult to understand. At least that is how I interpreted this statement.

Maybe a better way he could have put it, to avoid any confusion, is that say that the Islamic conception of strict monotheism seems to be prima facie simpler, meaning easier to understand, than the Christan conception of a triune monotheism, which seems to be prima facie more difficult to understand, especially when one looks at the controversy within Christianity itself about what the trinity exactly is and how to understand it. I think your statement that 'Granted, it stretches the mind to think of one Godhead composed of three persons.' is a more accurate description of what he was trying to say, but I could be wrong about this. however, that's how i interpreted him.

In addition to this, whether one regards the trinity as rationally dubious or not, I think he was just trying to give his own intuition regarding it. I think that's why he said at the end of that sentence that the idea of the trinity seems 'intuitively wrong.' So I think he was more trying to express his own intuitions, and maybe those of other Muslims, when he made that statement, not necessarily trying to give a complex argument about why the trinity is conclusively rationally dubious. but regardless, you are correct when you state that 'It is not as if there is a contradiction involved. And Murad has done nothing to show that there is any rational dubiousness involved.' I do agree with you that he hasn't shown the dubiousness, but I don't think it was his point too, he was just expressing his intutions regarding it, that is all.

As far as the next part, regarding Jesus divinity, I must say that I agree with the Muslim perspective when they state 'that Jesus of Nazareth himself never believed, or taught, that he was the second person of a divine trinity.' but I think that this is a different claim from the claim that jesus was divine. This is because I believe that everybody is divine, in so much as everybody has a soul and the soul is divine, that is why I agree with the article when it says that 'A few years previously, the twelfth-century theologian Al-Ghazali (the founder of Sufism) had summed up the dangers of ghuluww when he wrote that the Christians had been so dazzled by the divine light reflected in the mirror like heart of Jesus, that they mistook the mirror for the light itself, and worshipped it.' I think that this happened to the Apostles and is still happening with Christians today.

But I disagree with Muslims when they state that 'The Qur'anic term for 'exaggeration' used here, ghuluww, became a standard term in Muslim heresiography for any tendency, Muslim or otherwise, which attributed divinity to a revered and charismatic figure.' I think that you can attribute a certain amount of divinity to every person and every thing in existence, because I believe we all have a piece of the divine within us, (I also think that Sufism agrees with me on this point), but it is a whole other step to claim that somebody is God incarnate themselves, or the second person of a divine trinity.

So I guess that I hold the Muslim view 'that the Hellenized Christ, who in one nature was of one substance with God, and in another nature was of one substance with humanity, bore no significant resemblance to the ascetic prophet who had walked the roads of Galilee some three centuries before.' But I disagree with the Muslim view that jesus had absolutely no divinity at all.

In fact, I think that he might have been the most divine person to ever exist, when that divinity is understood as al-ghazali's divine light, and I think that other people in history, like Ghandi and Dr. King, were able to let their own divine light of their soul shine through their beings. I think that this is actually the purpose of human existence, to completely align and harmonize your 'earthly' self with your 'divine' self while living our lives, but even if this harmonization took place and one has completely harmonized their dual selves (as I believe jesus was able to do, 100% human, 100% divine as the catholics profess), this is still not the same thing being God Incarnate or the second person of a divine trinity. There is a world of difference between these two.

Some may view me as splitting hairs here and say if you believe Jesus was able to achieve this complete harmonization, why can't you take the additional step and beleive he was God incarnate? this is because to do this, would be, in essence, to confuse a part with the whole. I believe that all of our souls are somehow connected to or a part of God, but only a part. I believe that all of these souls somehow form a 'super-soul' which is God. I can't exactly explain the specifics of how this all works, and that is obviously a weakness in my position, but it is something I beleive nonetheless. So to say that one human soul is God is therefore to equate a part of God with the whole, which is God, which is incorrect and I believe a form of idolotry. I don't know if this is the Muslim view or not, but it's my view, so I thought i would share it with you.

you also quote daniel when you say that 'Daniel 7:13 says "and behold, one like the son of man coming with the clouds of heaven! ...and to Him was given dominion and glory and kingdom, that all peoples, nations, and languagesshould serve him; His dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away." Clearly the son of man here in Daniel is a divine being, for the language here is language that is only attributable to God!' But I disagree with you here. On my theology, that language doesn't necessarily have to be 'only attributable to God' but could be attributed to Jesus, without Jesus being God incarnate or the second person of a divine trinity. But I digress...

you also use the gospel of john in your arguments, and many christians do, in order to affirm jesus's identity with God, but I'm sure a Muslim would not accept John's gospel as being authentically the words of jesus, I know that I do not. It was written in 110 AD, 80 years after the death of jesus and has heavy gnostic overtones and it is because of these gnostic overtones that I think that most, if not all of the gospel of john, must be interpreted allegorically and metaphorically, not literally. when one interprets it in this way, al-ghazali's statement becomes more and more true and a lot of the argument for the incarnation and the trinity falls by the wayside. but obviously, this is a hermenutical (spelling?) issue and I'm sure that we will disagree on how exactly it should be interpreted. that's a big reason i've wanted to get a religion degree here as well, hopefully, i can study some hermenuetics, but i probably have to go to a theology school to do that.

also, one of the Muslims chief claims is that the christian scripture has been corrupted and I'm sure that they would claim that the gospel of john is evidence of this corruption. This is one of the chief reasons that Islam was invented in the first place, so that the world would have a scripture this is incorruptable. The Quran is suppossed to be this scripture and it claims that angels themselves will guard it to make sure it is not corrupted.

I dont' necessarily believe this, about the quran I mean, but I do believe that only the gospel Q is the authentic words of Jesus and that everything else was added after the fact, in order to meld the myth of the Jewish messiah with the pagan godman mystery religions that were all the rage in the mediterranean at that time. that is a big reason why I agree with more the muslim view of jesus than the christian view, although i disagree if the muslim view means jesus was not at all divine.

you also state that 'But then OF COURSE a precondition to forgiveness is a sacrifice.' and later that 'Furthermore, any half-minded Jew would have known that in order to be forgiven by God, a NECESSARY condition (not sufficient) was that a sacrifice be made. It is even further dubious that Murad focuses on only one saying of Jesus, and not His many others about His death and His role in taking away sin. See Matthew 26:39, Luke 24:25-26, John 1:29; 6:51; 10:11 are just a few.' but I, and I think a muslim as well, would disagree with the idea that a sacrifice is a necessary condition for the forgiveness of sins. I think that one could argue that God is so loving and so merciful that a blood sacrifice is not necessary for the forgiveness of sins, indeed, no sacrifice is necessary when the prodigal son parable is interpreted in the way murad has interpreted it.

so i guess that i'm saying that I think a muslim would respond that god's omni-benevolence does not require a sacrifice or an atonement, that putting this constraint on God diminishes his omni-benevolence and that we are anthropomorphizing God by putting our own ideas of justice and benevolence onto him. that his benevolent nature is such that no sacrifice or atonement is necessary. i dont' know if i necessarily believe this, but i could see somebody responding in this way. and since those passages that you quoted are not from the gospel Q, I could see a muslim saying that they were latter additions by the gospel writers themselves, in order to more fully judaize jesus and make his radical ethic of love fit inside their conception of God's forgiveness. so i guess one could argue that jesus conception of forgiveness is not in fact intelligible with the old testament view.

so this is my response, as incoherent and skeptical as it may be. i hope that i have further clarified my own positions regarding this issue, as many of them fall in accord with Islam, but some of them do not. i also hope that i have represented a muslim response well, but since i am not a muslim, i dont' know if i have or not. i look forward to response and your attempt to destroy my skeptical and quasi-islamic arguments. :) talk to you soon

Alex said:

I finally printed this article and will read it today and perhaps give a reply in the near future. I will simply state one thing namely that the doctrine of the Trinity is not a belief that can be rationally proved and the only way to know of it in an intimate manner which penetrates to the depths of one's soul and becomes firmly accepted by the intellect is through an act of faith. As such the revelation of the Trinity gives to mankind a knowledge, albeit in an obscure manner since no one can penetrate the depths of the mystery of the inner life of God. One of the key points in the Catholic understanding of the Trinity is how the relationship between the Three Persons is predicated upon their Love for one another. Anyway, hopefully (I am not making any promises...lol) I will write something with at least a minimum of intelligence.

Noel said:

Thanks as well for the response. But I have a just afew things to say...

You say: You ask the question 'Now what does Murad mean here by ultimately simple?' and then you go on to state that 'A very large portion in the history of Christian theology has maintained God's simplicity, his not having properties which are distinct from him.' However, this is not what I think Murad means here. I dont think he is talking about divine simplicity, I think he is talking about simplicity meaning easy to understand, contrasted with complexity, meaning difficult to understand. At least that is how I interpreted this statement... I think your statement that 'Granted, it stretches the mind to think of one Godhead composed of three persons.' is a more accurate description of what he was trying to say,

That's right, and I was clear that that was what he probably meant.

You say again: In addition to this, whether one regards the trinity as rationally dubious or not, I think he was just trying to give his own intuition regarding it... So I think he was more trying to express his own intuitions, and maybe those of other Muslims, when he made that statement, not necessarily trying to give a complex argument about why the trinity is conclusively rationally dubious.

I was never claiming he was trying to give a complex argument. But if you are going to say that you think something is rationally dubious, then you had either better give some reasons why, or be explicit and say that this is just your opinion and you either cannot substantiate it or will not. Murad does neither.

You say: As far as the next part, regarding Jesus divinity, I must say that I agree with the Muslim perspective when they state 'that Jesus of Nazareth himself never believed, or taught, that he was the second person of a divine trinity.' but I think that this is a different claim from the claim that jesus was divine. This is because I believe that everybody is divine, in so much as everybody has a soul and the soul is divine, that is why I agree with the article when it says that 'A few years previously, the twelfth-century theologian Al-Ghazali (the founder of Sufism) had summed up the dangers of ghuluww when he wrote that the Christians had been so dazzled by the divine light reflected in the mirror like heart of Jesus, that they mistook the mirror for the light itself, and worshipped it.' I think that this happened to the Apostles and is still happening with Christians today.

Jason, you're killing me here! You are clearly equivocating on 'divine' here. What is in mind is whether or not Jesus is God. You can use divine however you want, but the debate here is whether or not Jesus is God, not whether or not he has somed ivine part in light of having a soul. Let's keep to the original debate and not get sidetracked here.

You say : In fact, I think that he might have been the most divine person to ever exist, when that divinity is understood as al-ghazali's divine light, and I think that other people in history, like Ghandi and Dr. King, were able to let their own divine light of their soul shine through their beings. I think that this is actually the purpose of human existence, to completely align and harmonize your 'earthly' self with your 'divine' self while living our lives, but even if this harmonization took place and one has completely harmonized their dual selves (as I believe jesus was able to do, 100% human, 100%> divine as the catholics profess), this is still not the same thing being God Incarnate or the second person of a divine trinity. There is a world of difference between these two.

Let's keep to the debate here...WHETHER OR NOT JESUS WAS FULLY GOD AND WHETHER OR NOT THE BIBLE TEACHES THIS.

You say: you also quote daniel when you say that 'Daniel 7:13 says "and behold, one like the son of man coming with the clouds of heaven! ...and to Him was given dominion and glory and kingdom, that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him; His dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away." Clearly the son of man here in Daniel is a divine being, for the language here is language that is only attributable to God!' But I disagree with you here. On my theology, that language doesn't necessarily have to be 'only attributable to God' but could be attributed to Jesus, without Jesus being God incarnate or the second person of a divine trinity. But I digress...

As you should. For you are not at all familiar with old testament theology here, nor with 1st centuryJewish beliefs, nor with biblical theology at that! Well, maybe on YOUR theology Daniel 7 need not imply that the son of man is God, but with all do respect, we are not concerned with your theology, but with biblical theology. I thought this much should have been obvious, for even Murad tries to give arguments on the basis of what scripture says (however erroneous). And clearly, for any Jew, the language attributable to the son of man in Daniel 7 clearly implies that the son of man there is God. To attribute to a being the properties of being served by all nations, peoples, tongues, and having a dominion that will not end to a person other than God would have been blasphemous! Is not this obvious? It is very bad exegesis to take a scripture and interpret it in such a way that it pays NO attention to the context and time in which it is was written.

You say: you also use the gospel of john in your arguments, and many christians do, in order to affirm jesus's identity with God, but I'm sure a Muslim would not accept John's gospel as being authentically the words of jesus, I know that I do not. It was written in 110 AD, 80 years after the death of jesus and has heavy gnostic overtones and it is because of these gnostic overtones that I think that most, if not all of the gospel of john, must be interpreted allegorically and metaphorically, not literally. when one interprets it in this way, al-ghazali's statement becomes more and more true and a lot of the argument for the incarnation and the trinity falls by the wayside. but obviously, this is a hermenutical (spelling?) issue and I'm sure that we will disagree on how exactly it should be interpreted. that's a big reason i've wanted to get a religion degree here as well, hopefully, i can study some hermenuetics, but i probably have to go to a theology school to do that.

Well, it is, of course, debatable whether or not John was written that late. But this is another matter. To be sure, perhaps many Muslims would not count the gospel of John as trustworthy. But I do not see where this gets us. I don't think that the Quran is divinely inspired, and so I could just dismiss much of what it has to say. But all this is wrongheaded here in the present debate! For we are concerned with whether or not Jesus in the gospels teaches that He is God. I think that is why Murad himself mentions biblical scripture. He is trying to say (or so it seems to me since he uses scripture) that one cannot conclude from scripture (the gospels) that Jesus is God. Now it is a whole other question whether or not the books of the bible are authentic, or reliable,etc. But what we are concerned with here is whether or not scripture teaches that Jesus is God, regardless of the time the gospels were written or are trustworthy. It seems to me that you have confused the two issues, and so it is irrelevant to claim that John was written late, which is a contentious claim anyway.

You say: I do believe that only the gospel Q is the authentic words of Jesus and that everything else was added after the fact, in order to meld the myth of the Jewish messiah with the pagan godman mystery religions that were all the rage in the mediterranean at that time. that is a big reason why I agree with more the muslim view of jesus than the christian view, although i disagree if the muslim view means jesus was not at all divine.

This is all irrelevant here in the present debate, as was showed above. But just a quick note. The gospel Q has never been found. It was postulated in order to make sense of the synoptic gospels (their very strong similarity). In fact, Q got its name from the german word 'quelle' which just means source. Now there may have been such a thing as Q (and if fact, I am not opposed to this at all, and neither are a great many biblical scholars), but why believe that only what Q says (which is just what the synoptic gospels agree about) should be taken as valid? Either way, this is all irrelevant in this debate!

You say: You also state that 'But then OF COURSE a preconditionto forgiveness is a sacrifice.' and later that 'Furthermore, any half-minded Jew would have known that in order to be forgiven by God, a NECESSARYcondition (not sufficient) was that a sacrifice be made. It is even further dubious that Murad focuses on only one saying of Jesus, and not His many others about His death and His role in taking away sin. See Matthew 26:39, Luke 24:25-26, John 1:29; 6:51; 10:11 are just a few.' but I, and I think a muslim as well, would disagree with the idea that a sacrifice is a necessary condition for the forgiveness of sins. I think that one could argue that God is so loving and so merciful that a blood sacrifice is not necessary for the forgiveness of sins, indeed, no sacrifice is necessary when the prodigal son parable is interpreted in the way murad has interpreted it.

You're killing me here once again, for you have clearly failed to understand both Murad and me! Obviously Muslims (and you as well) do not think that a blood sacrifice is necessary for forgiveness. But THAT IS NOT WHAT IS UP FOR DEBATE!!! Murad was trying to show that the gospels does not teach that a blood sacrifice was necessary. I showed that it was! Just a cursory reading of the Old Testament will show why the Jesus in the gospels does think this! The question here is not what Muslims or you believe, but about what the Bible (the gospels) teaches. After all, is this not why Murad himself is using scripture? If we was just concerned with what Muslims believe,then he would not have to quote the bible. He could just quote some passages from the Quran. But he DID quote the bible because he WAS trying to show that Jesus did not believe in a blood sacrifice. But I have show why Jesus did believe in a blood sacrifice. You have not given any exegetical argument here, but merely asserted something we all know. That muslims do not believe in a blood sacrifice.

Furthermore, you have completely discarded my argument given to you in conversation about Jesus being a sacrifice, and therefore appeasing God's wrath and satisfying His justice. The biblical account of atonement satisfies two VERY important desiderata, namely, God's love and mercy AND His wrath and justice. The islamic conception fails here at this point. but you say...

so i guess that i'm saying that I think a muslim would respond that god's omni-benevolence does not require a sacrifice or an atonement, that putting this constraint on God diminishes his omni-benevolence and that we are anthropomorphizing God by putting our own ideas of justice and benevolence onto him. that his benevolent nature is such that no sacrifice or atonement is necessary. i dont' know if i necessarily believe this, but i could see somebody responding in this way. and since those passages that you quoted are not from the gospel Q, I could see a muslim saying that they were latter additions by the gospel writers themselves, in order to more fully judaize jesus and make his radical ethic of love fit inside their conception of God's forgiveness. so i guess one could argue that jesus conception of forgiveness is not in fact intelligible with the old testament view.

But Jason, why am I guilty here of anthropomorphizing here any more than the Muslim? And how in the world does it diminish God's love? I know you do not necessarily believe this, but I would want an answer here from the Muslim. And the appeal to Q is, again, besides the point in the present context. Once again, it is one thing to make claims about what scriptural portions are reliable or not, and then make arguments using those scriptures, and another to ask what the Bible, or here, the gospels, teach. If Murad were going to discount the gospel John, he sure did not say so. And it seems as if he was trying to show that theJesus of the Bible did not teach trinity or a blood sacrifice. But the Jesus of the Bible includes the Jesus found in John, and Murad said nothing at all about the status of John's book.

Thanks Jason for your lengthy response, even if Idisagreed heartily! Much appreciated man. I'll talk to you soon bro.

I replied:

sorry its' taken me so long to respond to your response, but i wanted to read the article over again, even more closely than i did the second time i read it to respond to your original response, to answer some of your claims. so here goes.

noel says that I am 'clearly equivocating on 'divine' here. What is in mind is whether or not Jesus is God.' But I don't think I am equivocating on divine here because i do not think that this is what is up for issue. I think what is up for issue here is whether or not, in murad's words, 'Jesus of Nazareth himself never believed, or taught, that he was the second person of a divine trinity.'

I think that the confusion is coming in here because in my eyes, the issue whether or not jesus taught that he was god incarnate or not and the issue of whether jesus taught that he was the second person in a divine trinity or not are two seperate issues, whereas I think that for you Noel, these two issues are one and the same issue. i think that you can have jesus being god incarnate without being a part of a divine trinity and you can have a divine trinity without jesus being god incarnate. i thought that murad was arguing that jesus did not teach that he was the second part of a divine trinity, not that jesus did not teach that he was god incarnate. he is clearly arguing against jesus divinity, but i understood it to be an article arguing against his divinity characterized as a divine trinity, not necessarily arguing against his divinity characterized as god incarnate. but maybe i'm still failing to understand what is at issue here or what murad is arguing against here.

i do agree with you that murad is trying to argue, from a biblical perspective, that jesus did not teach that he was the second person of a divine trinity. the line in the article that confirmed this for me was when he writes that 'One of Reuther's own main objections to the Trinity, apart from its historically and Biblically sketchy foundations, is its emphatic attribution of masculine gender to God.' murad is here inserting his own opinion that the doctrine of the trinity has 'historically and biblically sketchy foundations.' so i think you are right when you state that what is at issue is what the bible teaches in regards to the trinity, but does this necessarily have to do with the issue of whether jesus is god incarnate, as my above paragraph tries to clarify?

after reading the rest of your response, i think that i can't say anymore until this previous issue gets clarified. i think a lot of what i will or won't say hinges on this issue, whether the trinity and the incarnation can be seperated or not and whether murad believes this or doesn't.
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