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Some Thoughts on the "Proofs"
of the
Alleged Divinity of Jesus(as)
One of the crucial issues which separates Islam and Christianity is their
beliefs concerning the nature of Jesus - peace be upon him. The majority of
Christians believe that Jesus is "Divine", i.e. they believe him to be God
incarnate. Muslims, on the other hand, beleive that Jesus was only a great
Prophet of God and a faultless human being.
Approach to a
Muslim--Christian Dialogue
The doctrine of the
Trinity says that the three distinct co-equals are altogether God -- or that
God is made up of three co-equal "persons". In particular, Jesus is
said to be "God the Son", or the "Son of God". In a
Muslim-Christian dialogue, inevitably the Muslim will question the details
regarding this theology. The Christian, on the other hand, will usually form a
common explanation by complaining that Muslims simply do not understand the
Trinity, and that what the Muslim accuses the Christians of is one thing which
Christians don't really believe. In short Muslims do not understand how the
Christians understood the Trinity. The Muslim seeks to find clarifications of
the teachings of this doctrine by asking for explanations as to how that would
be so, because the term Son of God cannot have a literal interpretation:
Sonship and divine nature would be two attributes which are incomparable,
because sonship describes someone who receives life while divine nature
describes someone who receives life from no one. To be a son is to be less
than divine and to be divine is to be no one's son. Eventually the Christians
would seek refuge in the response of "these are things which we cannot
understand."
Verification and
Understanding
Christians seem to be confusing two
concepts -- the concept of verification and the concept of understanding. This
can be illustrated in the example of hydrogen combining with oxygen to make
water. We can verify this statement in a laboratory to see whether this
statement is a statement of fact. But after verification, that does not mean
what we have understood the nature of atoms. Verification and understanding
are two different concepts. Thus, what Muslims should do is to re-direct the
discussions because the first issue is more basic than simply resolving all
the difficult points of Trinitarian doctrines. It is
not the
explanation of how to understand the concept of the Trinitarian doctrine that
we seek, but rather, to seek verifications of their belief, that is,
why in the first place must we believe that Jesus is divine (not how
but why).
The Trinity --
A Church Doctrine
If Muslims pursue this
approach, ultimately many Christians will usually say that "the Church says
so", that is, it is the Church's doctrine. Thus many Christians' arguments
stop short of questioning the Church's authority. They will not challenge it
to find out the basis for their claim or their teaching. Although many
Christians in fact concede that this is the case on the subject of Trinitarian
doctrine, there are also others who insist that Jesus did talk about the
Trinity himself.
"Let them produce
proof"
We have been told in the Qur'an to tell
the Christians "Let them
produce proof". Thus we demand them
to provide documentation that Jesus himself claimed unqualified divinity for
himself, and that he said in so many words: "I am God". The Muslims are
advised by another Qur'anic verse to tell the Christians: "Say: O people of the Book you have no ground to stand upon
unless you stand fast by the Law, the Gospel and all the Revelation that has
come to you from your Lord." This demand is reasonable, for
Muslims are also told in another verse that Jesus never claimed to be God.
Therefore if the Christians were to look into their own scripture they would
not be able to find any saying of Jesus, that should him clearly claiming to
be equal with God.
Explicit and
implicit statements
From the Biblical record,
the sayings accredited to Jesus are very small because after allowing for
duplications in the Four Gospels' account of his -life, these sayings could be
reprinted in two columns of a typical newspaper. And none of these texts is a
clear claim to divinity, because nowhere does he explicitly claim to be God.
All the quotations are implicit. The difference is, an explicit statement is
one which requires no explanation. The meaning is right on the .surface of the
word. For example, when your gas gauge in your car shows empty, you do not
need to ask your passenger to interpret it for you. it is very clear. An
implicit statement is a statement where the meaning is carried just beneath
the surface of the word. It requires some thought before we determine what was
meant by the words. And all quotations that are cited by Christians in order
to put in the mouth of Jesus the claim of deity are implicit -- which means
interpretation is required. Thus what happens is, when we are told what Jesus
said, we are then told what he meant. In other words, they interpret the
meaning for us.
Christians'
claim
The Christians' claim of Jesus to be God
through his Virgin birth (The Immaculate Conception) is cited as one
case of insufficient evidence. But, the Bible also tells us about the Creation
of Adam -- i.e. without father or mother; and the account of the miracle
associated with the prophet Elisha. Also, the case of Melchizekdek can be
cited: "without father or mother or genealogy, and has neither beginning
of days nor end of life, but resembling the Son of God" - Hebrews
7:3. For these men, no Christian will say he was divine. Yet each has the
qualifications in common with Jesus. Another claim is that Jesus was God
because the Hebrew Scripture predicted his coming before he was born. Yet the
Christians seem to betray a selective or forgetful recall of the Scriptures
because in places where they predict the coming of
John the Baptist they
quote prophecies from the Book of Malachi.
Son of Man, Son
of God, Messiah, Savior
Another argument of
Christians that Jesus claimed to be God is that Jesus constantly used the
terms, "Son of God", "Son of Man" and
"Messiah" and "Savior". Since he uses these terms,
they argued, therefore he was claiming to be God. These terms were also
applied to other individuals as well, in the Bible. For example, Ezekiel was
addressed as "Son of Man". Jesus himself speaks of the peace makers as
"sons of God". It is interesting to note that even though Jesus is
called the "Son of God" in the Bible, he is never called "God the
Son", which is what the Christians have made him into due to their
Trinitarian theology. Even Cyrus the Persian is called "Messiah",
or "the anointed", in Isaiah Chapter 45. This verse has been
translated in a misleading way. The meaning of the Hebrew word
"Messiah" is "God's anointed". Here, when it refers to Cyrus,
they translated the Hebrew word "Messiah" with "God's anointed".
But in places where- the Bible is talking about Jesus, when the term
"Messiah" appears, instead of translating it as "anointed", they
simply transliterate it (i.e. they write the Hebrew words with the Roman
Alphabet without translating it) so that it reads "Messiah".
Interestingly this word "Messiah" is in the Greek equivalent written as
"Christ". Thus there seems to be a conspiracy to give us the impression
that there is only one Messiah, one Christ and no other. As for the term
"Savior", the word is clearly applied to other individuals besides
Jesus, for example the Book of II Kings, Chapter 13, Verse 5, says: "And
the Lord gave Israel a Savior, so they went out from under the hand of the
Syrians; and the children of Israel dwelt in their tents as
beforetime."
"I and My Father are
One"
In John, Chapter 10, Verse 30, Jesus is
quoted as saying "I and my Father are one". Some Christian scholars
have insisted that the only probable understanding of these Words are: as one
in essence or nature. Yet there are several examples where the same Greek
words were used but not understood in the same way. For example, John 17:11
says: "And now I am no more in the world but these are in the world and
I come to thee. Holy Father keep through their own name, those who thou hast
given me that they may be one, as we are."
Based on a lecture by Gary
Miller
