Say not "Trinity": desist: it will be better for you

[Niblo]

Look back at sūrah Al-Ma'ida, and consider the words: ‘…..did you say to people, ''Take me and my mother as two gods alongside God''?'

Geoffrey Parrinder writes:

'In Arabia there were in the early centuries some (called Antidicomarianites) who protested against the idea of the perpetual virginity of Mary. But there were cults, some semi-pagan, which exalted Mary in unseemly fashion. The Collyridians, an Arabian female sect of the fourth century, offered to Mary cakes of bread (collyrida), as they had done to the great earth mother in pagan times.

'Epiphanius, who opposed this heresy, said that the Trinity must be worshipped, but Mary must not be worshipped. The Qur'ān may well be directed against this heresy. It gives its support against Mariolatry, while at the same time it recognizes the importance of Mary as the vessel chosen by God for the birth of his Christ.' ('Jesus in the Qur'an - Makers of the Muslim World').

Louay Fatoohi writes:

'I should stress another important point. A common mistake in studying the Qur’an’s discussion of Christian beliefs, including the doctrine of the Trinity, is to suggest that the Qur'an talks about the New Testament only, or simply misunderstands it. The Qur'an rejects particular Christian beliefs, regardless of whether they are found in the New Testament or not. For instance, the Qur'an rejects the worship of Mary, even though Mariolatry is not a New Testament doctrine. The New Testament does not have any special scriptural value outside mainstream Christianity, which was itself defined in the first few centuries after Jesus. The Qur'an is interested in clarifying its positions on doctrines that Christians hold, regardless of the origin of those doctrines. The Messiah, son of Mary, was no other than a messenger before whom similar messengers passed away, and his mother was a saintly woman.' ('Jesus The Muslim Prophet: History Speaks of a Human Messiah Not a Divine Christ').

Concerning the Oneness of Allāh (subḥānahu ūta'āla):

Geoffrey Parrinder writes: 'The Qur’ān denies Christian heresies of Adoption, Patripassianism, and Mariolatry. But it affirms the Unity, which is at the basis of trinitarian doctrine.' ('Jesus in the Qur'an - Makers of the Muslim World').

Pinder is correct to say that the Qur'an denies notions of Adoption, Patripassianism, and Mariolatry; but he is quite wrong to suggest that it: 'affirms the Unity, which is at the basis of trinitarian doctrine.' It most certainly does not.

Louay Fatoohi writes: 'Under pressure to reconcile contradictory statements in the New Testament, Christian theologians work hard to stress that the concepts of divine oneness and unity are one and the same. The Qur'an rejects this equation, as logic does. The God of the Qur'an is one, not united." ('Jesus The Muslim Prophet: History Speaks of a Human Messiah Not a Divine Christ').

This from the Gospel of Mark:

'And one of the scribes came, and having heard them reasoning together, and perceiving that he had answered them well, asked him, Which is the first commandment of all? And Jesus answered him, The first of all the commandments is, Hear, O Israel; The Lord our God is one Lord.' (12: 28-29; KJV).

'Sh'ma Yisrael Adonai Eloheinu Adonai Eḥad'. One Lord. One God. This is tawḥīd.

'Lā ʾilāha ʾillā llāh' (There is no god but God). One Lord. One God. This, too, is tawḥīd.

The entirety of Islamic teaching rests on the principle of tawḥīd, meaning 'oneness'. This is Islam's most fundament concept: Allāh (subḥānahu ūta'āla) is One (Al-'Aḥad) and Single (Al-Wāḥid).

The word 'trinity' is just another way of saying 'tri-unity'; the unity of three persons that is said to exist within the single Godhead. As you know, in the Trinitarian Godhead there is not one Lord, but three. We can see this very clearly in the following song:

'God the Father, God the Son, God the Spirit, three in one. God the Father loves me so, Gave His Word so I would know. God the Father, God the Son, God the Spirit three in one.

'Three in one and one in three, God the Son, He died for me. For my sins His blood He gave, then He rose up from the grave. Three in one and one in three, God the Son He died for me.

'Three in one and one and one in three, God the Spirit lives in me. Day by day and hour by hour- Helps me witness by His power. Three in one and one in three, God the Spirit lives in me.' (Produced for children by the CEF Press).

Search all you like, you will find nothing in the Qur'an, and nothing in the 'aḥādīth, to support the notion that Allāh (subḥānahu ūta'āla) is a trinity (three in one and one in three).

(Continued):

 

[Niblo]

You ask: ‘Do Muhammad’s Teachings contradict what the Bible has to say about the Trinity? If so, why? If not, why not?’

The short answers if ‘No’; since the Bible makes no mention of a ‘trinity’. Those who disagree with this statement may direct our attention to the following verses:

‘For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one. And there are three that bear witness in earth, the spirit, and the water, and the blood: and these three agree in one.’ (1 John 5: 7-8).

As you know, the words emphasised are referred to as the ‘Comma Ioanneum’.

Anthony and Richard Hanson write: ‘It (the ‘Comma Ioanneum’) was added by some enterprising person or persons in the ancient Church who felt that the New Testament was sadly deficient in direct witness to the kind of doctrine of the Trinity which he favoured and who determined to remedy that defect . . . It is a waste of time to attempt to read Trinitarian doctrine directly off the pages of the New Testament’. (‘Reasonable Belief: A Survey of the Christian Faith; page 171).

The ‘Comma Ioanneum’ is spurious, and yet for centuries the Church insisted it be included in 1 John 5; on the grounds that it had become official Church teaching.

In 1927, the Holy Office (Guardian of Catholic orthodoxy; and once named the ‘Supreme Sacred Congregation of the Roman and Universal Inquisition’) declared: ‘After careful examination of the whole circumstances that its genuineness could be denied’ (Ludwig Ott: ‘Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma’, page 56).

This is why my Bible (the Jerusalem Bible - a Catholic version) reads: ‘So there are three witnesses, the Spirit, water and blood; and the three of them coincide.’ By the way, another Catholic Bible – the Douay Rheims – still contains the ‘Comma’.

For around a hundred and fifty years there has been broad agreement among New Testament scholars that the historical Jesus did not lay claim to deity; that he did not understand himself to be God, or God the Son, incarnate.

Here are some quotes for you to think about:

'Jesus did not claim deity for himself' (Archbishop of Canterbury, Michael Ramsey: ‘Jesus and the Living Past’).

'Any case for a "high" Christology that depended on the authenticity of the alleged claims of Jesus about himself, especially in the Fourth Gospel, would indeed be precarious' (C.F.D Moule – an Anglican priest and theologian: ‘The Origin of Christology).

‘There was no real evidence in the earliest Jesus tradition of what could fairly be called a consciousness of divinity' (James Dunn – New Testament scholar, and minister of the Church of Scotland: ‘Christology in the Making’).

‘It is no longer possible to defend the divinity of Jesus by reference to the claims of Jesus' (Canon Brian Hebblethwaite - a staunch supported of Nicene/Chalcedonian Christology: ‘The Incarnation’).

‘There is good evidence to suggest that (Jesus) never saw himself as a suitable object of worship…..(it is) impossible to base any claim for Christ's divinity on his consciousness once we abandon the traditional portrait as reflected in a literal understanding of St. John's Gospel' (David Brown – an Anglican priest and another staunch supporter of Nicene/Chalcedonian Christology: ‘The Divine Trinity’).

Those who admit that Jesus never claimed to be divine have offered several explanations as to why he has come to be regarded as such. It is beyond the scope of this thread to discuss them; however, the root of each is an acceptance of – and an interpretation of – the writings of the New Testament.

About fifty years ago I had a colleague who was a Biblical Unitarian (I was a Catholic). We discussed (often) both the trinity and incarnation. He was older than I, and very well acquainted with the Bible. On one occasion I became angry with him (I was fiery in those days!). I grabbed my Bible and thrust it under his nose. ‘This is my Book’, I hissed. ‘What’s yours?’

He smiled, and gently removed the book from my hand. ‘This!’, he replied. I was stunned. How could this man read the very same book as I, and yet reach conclusions so opposed to my own? He was no fool; neither was he perverse. He was both genuine and honest; a decent man who lived his faith according to his conscience. And yet, he did not, could not, believe what I believed.

Here is a quote by Cliff Reed, a Unitarian minister:

‘Unitarians believe that Jesus was a man, unequivocally human. It has long been our view that to talk of him as God is unfaithful to his own understanding of himself. The New Testament accounts describe a Jewish man, chosen, raised up, adopted and anointed by God. They claim that the divine purpose was that Jesus should reconcile first the Jews and then all humanity to each other and to God. This would prepare the way for the Messianic age of peace.’ (Sourced from a Unitarian website).

Two groups of people read the very same scriptures. One group interprets these in a way that makes God a Trinity, and Jesus ‘wholly God, and wholly Man’. The other’s interpretation sees no justification for the notion of a trinity; and regards Jesus as just a man; in no way divine. Which interpretation is correct?

May the Exalted bless you, and all your family, and bring you to Himself.

 

[rrobs]

In the Holy Quran the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon Him) has said:

4:171 O People of the Book! Commit no excesses in your religion: Nor say of Allah aught but the truth. Christ Jesus the son of Mary was a messenger of Allah, and His Word, which He bestowed on Mary, and a spirit proceeding from Him: so believe in Allah and His messengers. Say not "Trinity": desist: it will be better for you: for Allah is one Allah: Glory be to Him: (far exalted is He) above having a son. To Him belong all things in the heavens and on earth.

With reference to the Quran and Bible, what did Muhammad teach about the Christian concept of the Trinity? Do Muhammad’s Teachings contradict what the Bible has to say about the Trinity? If so, why? If not, why not?

Was Jesus a Messenger of Allah as spoken of by Muhammad? Arguments based on either the Quran and/ or the Bible are acceptable as this is a discussion and debate about scripture.

Jesus is called a man at least 10 times in the scriptures. He is never directly called a god or a god-man. God is said to not be a man several times. The only meaningful conclusion I think one can get from these simple assertions, is that Jesus is not God and there is no trinity in the actual scriptures.

Jesus calls God greater than himself, he said God knows things he doesn't know, Jesus prays to God, sits on the right hand of God, was granted power and authority from God, had a different will than God, Jesus was tempted whereas God can not be tempted, Jesus had a beginning whereas God did not,. These are just a few ideas that also indicate a definite distinction between the two persons. There are many more.

The trinity wasn't a "settled" matter until about 350 yeas after Jesus lived. Prior to that the early Christians, who were mostly Jewish, kept with their belief that there is only one God. I know that Christians say, "God the Father," "God the Son," and "God the Holy Ghost" and then go on to say there are not three Gods but one God. Clearly that is a complete abandonment of the normal usage of language and concepts.

The trinity was promulgated by later "church fathers" that were enamored with Greek philosophy and Egyptian mysticism.

Islam is more accurate than Christians about the nature of God and His son, Jesus Christ.

 

[shmogie]

The Abrahamic Faiths with their monotheism are never going to compete with their polytheistic cousins on the Indian subcontinent, that is true. Perhaps Christianity was trying to be more like the Hindus and have three gods instead of one! Anyway last time I counted you had less gods than the monotheists. Some Hindu you are.

Christianity has one God, period. Unlike Humans, by which you want to judge, God has three points of consciousness, not one.

God certainly is not human, yet people want to use their filter of humanity to decide what God should be,

God is, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. These are human terms, used to try and help us to
understand a being beyond our experience or knowledge. The Biblical term is Godhead.,

An extremely crude analogy would be the Smiths, John Smith, his son Bill Smith, his grandson Jerry Smith. They are all called by the name Smith, each is a Smith, and they are Smiths connected by the very genes in each of their cells. They can function together as the family Smith, yet they can function independently as well.

The three entities of the Godhead, or Trinity are connected in a closeness that we cannot understand. They are in constant contact with one another, they are always working together perfectly for the same goals.

Each point of the consciousness of God has a specific function or role in accomplishing the purpose of God.

Many humans scoff at the Trinity., they cannot put God in the carefully constructed box that demands that God must conform to their limited, very limited,concept of who He is.

God is. He is who He is regardless of whether we understand Him, or not. Whether our feeble human reasoning agrees with who He is, or not.

God is, God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. One God.

 

[LuisDantas]

Ah, the Qur'an! Ever reliable in its determination to miss the point all the time.

All the more so if it can do that while insisting that it is Very Important to say that there is exactly One God.

I don't really understand how any Abrahamist can actually say that their God can't have multiple aspects, let alone why they would find that desirable or even crucial.

Attempting to make sense of such self-defeating doctrine is just not a good idea.

 

[shmogie]

You ask: ‘Do Muhammad’s Teachings contradict what the Bible has to say about the Trinity? If so, why? If not, why not?’

The short answers if ‘No’; since the Bible makes no mention of a ‘trinity’. Those who disagree with this statement may direct our attention to the following verses:

‘For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one. And there are three that bear witness in earth, the spirit, and the water, and the blood: and these three agree in one.’ (1 John 5: 7-8).

As you know, the words emphasised are referred to as the ‘Comma Ioanneum’.

Anthony and Richard Hanson write: ‘It (the ‘Comma Ioanneum’) was added by some enterprising person or persons in the ancient Church who felt that the New Testament was sadly deficient in direct witness to the kind of doctrine of the Trinity which he favoured and who determined to remedy that defect . . . It is a waste of time to attempt to read Trinitarian doctrine directly off the pages of the New Testament’. (‘Reasonable Belief: A Survey of the Christian Faith; page 171).

The ‘Comma Ioanneum’ is spurious, and yet for centuries the Church insisted it be included in 1 John 5; on the grounds that it had become official Church teaching.

In 1927, the Holy Office (Guardian of Catholic orthodoxy; and once named the ‘Supreme Sacred Congregation of the Roman and Universal Inquisition’) declared: ‘After careful examination of the whole circumstances that its genuineness could be denied’ (Ludwig Ott: ‘Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma’, page 56).

This is why my Bible (the Jerusalem Bible - a Catholic version) reads: ‘So there are three witnesses, the Spirit, water and blood; and the three of them coincide.’ By the way, another Catholic Bible – the Douay Rheims – still contains the ‘Comma’.

For around a hundred and fifty years there has been broad agreement among New Testament scholars that the historical Jesus did not lay claim to deity; that he did not understand himself to be God, or God the Son, incarnate.

Here are some quotes for you to think about:

'Jesus did not claim deity for himself' (Archbishop of Canterbury, Michael Ramsey: ‘Jesus and the Living Past’).

'Any case for a "high" Christology that depended on the authenticity of the alleged claims of Jesus about himself, especially in the Fourth Gospel, would indeed be precarious' (C.F.D Moule – an Anglican priest and theologian: ‘The Origin of Christology).

‘There was no real evidence in the earliest Jesus tradition of what could fairly be called a consciousness of divinity' (James Dunn – New Testament scholar, and minister of the Church of Scotland: ‘Christology in the Making’).

‘It is no longer possible to defend the divinity of Jesus by reference to the claims of Jesus' (Canon Brian Hebblethwaite - a staunch supported of Nicene/Chalcedonian Christology: ‘The Incarnation’).

‘There is good evidence to suggest that (Jesus) never saw himself as a suitable object of worship…..(it is) impossible to base any claim for Christ's divinity on his consciousness once we abandon the traditional portrait as reflected in a literal understanding of St. John's Gospel' (David Brown – an Anglican priest and another staunch supporter of Nicene/Chalcedonian Christology: ‘The Divine Trinity’).

Those who admit that Jesus never claimed to be divine have offered several explanations as to why he has come to be regarded as such. It is beyond the scope of this thread to discuss them; however, the root of each is an acceptance of – and an interpretation of – the writings of the New Testament.

About fifty years ago I had a colleague who was a Biblical Unitarian (I was a Catholic). We discussed (often) both the trinity and incarnation. He was older than I, and very well acquainted with the Bible. On one occasion I became angry with him (I was fiery in those days!). I grabbed my Bible and thrust it under his nose. ‘This is my Book’, I hissed. ‘What’s yours?’

He smiled, and gently removed the book from my hand. ‘This!’, he replied. I was stunned. How could this man read the very same book as I, and yet reach conclusions so opposed to my own? He was no fool; neither was he perverse. He was both genuine and honest; a decent man who lived his faith according to his conscience. And yet, he did not, could not, believe what I believed.

Here is a quote by Cliff Reed, a Unitarian minister:

‘Unitarians believe that Jesus was a man, unequivocally human. It has long been our view that to talk of him as God is unfaithful to his own understanding of himself. The New Testament accounts describe a Jewish man, chosen, raised up, adopted and anointed by God. They claim that the divine purpose was that Jesus should reconcile first the Jews and then all humanity to each other and to God. This would prepare the way for the Messianic age of peace.’ (Sourced from a Unitarian website).

Two groups of people read the very same scriptures. One group interprets these in a way that makes God a Trinity, and Jesus ‘wholly God, and wholly Man’. The other’s interpretation sees no justification for the notion of a trinity; and regards Jesus as just a man; in no way divine. Which interpretation is correct?

May the Exalted bless you, and all your family, and bring you to Himself.

Of course, for every scholar that denies the Trinity, I can find two that affirm it.

After all, Biblical scholars deal mostly in opinion. If you spit in your hand, you will be holding the exact value of any opinion, theirs, yours, mine.

Christ was called God as some of the Apostles kneeled before Him. He said " if you have seen me, you have seen the Father" and "I and the Father are one". He continually referred to the Holy Spirit as He.

What the Unitarians believe is as important to me as the number of crabs who had flatulence on the beaches of Samoa in 1957.

Sola Biblica is the standard for me, period.

 

[Dawnofhope]

I stand corrected.

• That, as you say, Jesuits inserted "trinity" into English Qur'ans, replacing the word "three", may have occurred in some translation either of the relevant surah or the Qur'an. But I have never seen such an egregious mis-translation. I and everyone I have exchanged comments with, here in RF, use translations by Muslims, not Christians, Catholics or otherwise. Everyone, that is,--now that I have reread the OP--except Adrian in the first post. Ha! I didn't catch that.

The translation I used was from Yusuf Ali, a highly respected Muslim translator and commentator. Others have used the word Trinity as opposed to three. If discussing Christian theology and Divinity what else would three be a reference to?

The Quranic Arabic Corpus - Translation

The comments by @Crosstian about the Jesuit’s influence on Qur’anic translations are irrelevant and simply reflect along with many other statements antipathy towards both Catholicism and Islam.

 

[Dawnofhope]

Christianity has one God, period. Unlike Humans, by which you want to judge, God has three points of consciousness, not one.

God certainly is not human, yet people want to use their filter of humanity to decide what God should be,

God is, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. These are human terms, used to try and help us to
understand a being beyond our experience or knowledge. The Biblical term is Godhead.,

An extremely crude analogy would be the Smiths, John Smith, his son Bill Smith, his grandson Jerry Smith. They are all called by the name Smith, each is a Smith, and they are Smiths connected by the very genes in each of their cells. They can function together as the family Smith, yet they can function independently as well.

The three entities of the Godhead, or Trinity are connected in a closeness that we cannot understand. They are in constant contact with one another, they are always working together perfectly for the same goals.

Each point of the consciousness of God has a specific function or role in accomplishing the purpose of God.

Many humans scoff at the Trinity., they cannot put God in the carefully constructed box that demands that God must conform to their limited, very limited,concept of who He is.

God is. He is who He is regardless of whether we understand Him, or not. Whether our feeble human reasoning agrees with who He is, or not.

God is, God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. One God.

My comment was made in jest to my atheist Hindu friend Aup.

I have little doubt Jesus and the Apostles taught monotheism based on Judaism while bringing much needed reform and change and a New Covenant (Jeremiah 31:31).

There is no direct reference to the Trinity in the New Testament and its importance developed amongst the early church fathers in understanding the nature of the relationship between God the Father and Jesus the Son and later on the role of the Holy Spirit. So perhaps the value of the Trinity doctrine that became more formalised through the 4th century is to draw our attention to these core entities, their interrelationships and our relationship to all three. The value of these interconnections is acknowledged in the writings of my own faith.

Bahá'í Reference Library - Some Answered Questions, Pages 113-115

The doctrine of the trinity is not without controversy within Christendom and a problem seem in the Quran appears to be the deification of Jesus where Jesus becomes God incarnate. So theology around the Divinity of Christ and the trinity are two of the core differences between Islam and Christianity.

Whether reconciliation between the two theologies is possible is a key question for Christians, Muslims and Baha’is.

Thanks for your post.

 

[wizanda]

a New Covenant (Jeremiah 31:31).

The New Covenant of Jeremiah 31 is when all 12 Tribes are restored in the Messianic Age; Yeshua's New Defiled Covenant was stated in Ezekiel 4-5 contextually, where Communion is a defilement of the Law on purpose, to see if people read legal contexts.

Whether reconciliation between the two theologies is possible is a key question for Christians, Muslims and Baha’is.

It is easy to rectify the differences between these religions, as Messiah I've literally explained it on this forum multiple times, and if even one person took religious prophecy seriously, we could begin creating world peace...

Yet because people won't take it seriously, the Great Tribulation will still happen as prophesied, mankind will still end, and then we keep the Enlightened Saints.

As a doctor who clearly gets the pulse of the situation, as I answer your threads because they are exactly what needs fixing; yet your investigative process stops before reaching the results of a biopsy, to show what the details are, to then create an antidote.

In my opinion.

 

[Dawnofhope]

I recall finding this in the Quran many moons ago when I was young, and my thought at that time was that Mohamad clearly did not understand the teachings of the Christian Trinity.

"And as Allah said, "O Isa son of Maryam, (Jesus son of Mary) did you say to mankind, "Take me and my mother to your selves as two gods, apart from Allah '?" He said, All Extolment be to You! In no way is it for me to say what I have no right to."

~Surah 5:116​

So, yes, Mohammad had a wrong idea of what the Christian Trinity doctrine teaches. No Christian theologian, nor lay person as far as I know, believes the Trinity is Father, Son, and Mother Mary.

This began my understanding how that the claim and beliefs of "divine revelation", in the mouths of "messengers", was actually just based upon their own human ideas attributed to God. Cleary one can see they aren't necessarily accurate and true, and therefore they are not really "messengers" in that sense of the word as speaking perfect truth from God.

I would recommend you read the Sura 5:116 and ask yourself if there is any mention of the word trinity or three. There is none.

The two Qu'ranic verses that more explicitly allude to the trinity are 4:117 mentioned in the OP and 5:72-75

They have certainly disbelieved who say, " Allah is the Messiah, the son of Mary" while the Messiah has said, "O Children of Israel, worship Allah, my Lord and your Lord." Indeed, he who associates others with Allah - Allah has forbidden him Paradise, and his refuge is the Fire. And there are not for the wrongdoers any helpers. They have certainly disbelieved who say, " Allah is the third of three." And there is no god except one God. And if they do not desist from what they are saying, there will surely afflict the disbelievers among them a painful punishment. So will they not repent to Allah and seek His forgiveness? And Allah is Forgiving and Merciful. The Messiah, son of Mary, was not but a messenger; [other] messengers have passed on before him. And his mother was a supporter of truth. They both used to eat food. Look how We make clear to them the signs; then look how they are deluded.

— Qur'an, sura 5 (Al-Ma'ida), ayat 72-75[4]

There are no verses in the Quran that explicitly define what the trinity is in regads its three constituent elements.

 

[Dawnofhope]

One might think so, if it were only Christians who were doing the interpretating/misinterpreting. However, ... I find the following in THE QUR'AN: Translation and Commentary edited by Seyyed Hossein Nasr.

• 115 And when God said, “O Jesus son of Mary! Didst thou say unto mankind, ‘Take me and my mother as gods apart from God?’” He said, “Glory be to Thee! It is not for me to utter that to which I have no right. Had I said it, Thou wouldst surely have known it. Thou knowest what is in my self and I know not what is in Thy Self. Truly it is Thou Who knowest best the things unseen.
  
  116 Some assert that God’s questioning of Jesus in this verse took place immediately after his ascension (3:55; 4:158). Yet the verse seems, rather, to bring the discussion back to God’s questioning the prophets, apparently on the Day of Judgment, about how people responded to their messages, as initiated in v. 109. Although many prophets and their messages were forgotten over time, the issue here is the extent to which Jesus’ spiritual station was exaggerated by his followers after his death to the point that they attributed divinity to him and his mother. Following immediately upon the warning in v. 115 that whoever disbelieved after the miracle of the table would be punished, this verse suggests that this is the disbelief of which they had been warned.
  
  Commentary: Although traditional Christian doctrine does not view Mary as a member of the Trinity, the Quran may here be referring to certain Orthodox and Roman Catholic doctrines regarding Mary, for example, her identification as Theotokos, or “Mother of God,” which is a doctrinal extension of the Christian belief in Christ’s divinity. The implicit criticism of the divinization of Mary here may also suggest that she is understood to be the third person in the Trinity as it is criticized by the Quran (cf. 4:171; 5:73), rather than the “Holy Spirit,” since the latter term is used in the Quran, as already mentioned, primarily as a reference to the Archangel Gabriel, and it is never suggested that he was improperly divinized. In this verse, however, the Quran may be criticizing not Christian doctrinal formulations concerning Mary, but rather popular Christian exaggerations of Mary’s status that approach divinization, similar to the Quranic criticism in 9:31: They have taken their rabbis and monks as lords apart from God, as well as the Messiah, son of Mary, though they were only commanded to worship one God.
  
  Connecting the belief in Jesus’ divinity to his miraculous actions recounted in v. 110, al-Rāzī says that if Christians consider Jesus’ miracles to have been “created” by him at will—that is, that he, rather than God, had full control over them—then they effectively consider him Divine (R). Jesus indicates that he bears no responsibility for such exaggerations of his or his mother’s status, but rather than directly denying that he commanded his followers to take him and his mother as gods apart from God, he demonstrates an attitude of proper comportment before God by offering a response of perfect humility, saying he had no right to utter such a thing (Bḍ, R). His further response is similar to that given by the prophets in v. 109, indicating that his testimony is ultimately unnecessary, since God knows all things, including the things unseen (see v. 109 and commentary), thus properly deferring the matter to Him (R). Jesus’ statement that God knows what is in his self, but that he does not know what is in God’s Self, may simply mean that God knows whatever Jesus knows, while God’s Knowledge remains unknown to Jesus (Z), or that God knows what Jesus might hide within himself, but that Jesus does not know what is hidden in God (R). Self, used in connection with both Jesus and God, translates nafs; in the case of Jesus, it refers to his human soul, whereas in the case of God, it can be said to refer to His Essence (R).

If you read what Islamic scholars have to say there will be contradictory and conflicting accounts, just as we have for Christian scholars. So while I agree that some Muslim scholars believe Muhammad was referring to the Christian trinity as the Father, son and mother, other scholars clearly don't hold this view at all. One of the problems with some Muslim scholars is they don't know Christianity too well and have not taken the time to study either the Christian Bible or Christain history too well. Christian apologetics often make the same mistake with Islam.

The whole argument about Muhammad's trinity being different from the Christian trinity appears to be the classic strawman argument. The Christian trinity is never defined in the Quran and why should it be? its not a book about Christian theology and Muhammad is simply rejecting the concept of the the trinity.

Sura: 5:116 appears to be a criticism of the deification or veneration of bother Jesus and Mary. Here's another Muslim commentary that clearly distinguishes the rejection of deifying Jesus and Mary as opposed to rejecting the trinity.

 

[Dawnofhope]

I concur, with a comment: regarding #1 -- The divinity of Christ, according to some Christians, is rooted in and founded on the incarnation of (a) the pre-mortal and divine existence of Jesus, the Son of God, and/or (b) the purpose and function of Jesus' presence during his life among mankind.

The only thing I can think of adding to your list is the execution and entombment of Jesus and the absence of the apocryphal accounts of Jesus' infancy and youth, which are briefly mentioned in the Qur'an.

The differing theologies certainly have implications in regards salvation, substitutionary atonement and our relation with God.

Clearly the narratives about the crucifxion and resurrection while being in part historic have important implications in regards the nature of God and our purpose.

Muhammad never denied Christ was crucified btw. Its perhaps one of the strongest exmaples where Muslim scholars are the own worst enemy.

You have an interest in "rabbit holes" and "rabbit chases", eh? I declined because (a) I could have presented an orthodox version of the Trinity but didn't want to or (b) my personal, sketchy and incomplete heretical version, which would probably get me burned at the stake, which I'm not ready to go through here.

I don't want to see you getting burnt at the stake Terry.

My guess: We might well agree on how Allah is described in the Qur'an and maybe even agree on how Yahweh is described in the Tanakh. But if we do, I believe we both will agree that they are not the same.

Do you think there is any overlap or similarities between Allah in the Quran and Yahweh in the Torah?

 

[Aupmanyav]

IMO, theoretically, Mormons have an infinite number of Gods and Goddesses. Hindus can't beat that.

Yeah, can't beat that, if they so believe. I do not know much about that. Of course, in theist 'Advaita', which is Pantheism, all things are Brahman, even the non-living (mine is different because it does not consider Brahman to be the God). A popular saying in Hindi is 'Kan kan mein Bhagawan' (God exists in every particle of the universe).

 

[Dawnofhope]

The New Covenant of Jeremiah 31 is when all 12 Tribes are restored in the Messianic Age; Yeshua's New Defiled Covenant was stated in Ezekiel 4-5 contextually, where Communion is a defilement of the Law on purpose, to see if people read legal contexts.

It is easy to rectify the differences between these religions, as Messiah I've literally explained it on this forum multiple times, and if even one person took religious prophecy seriously, we could begin creating world peace...

Yet because people won't take it seriously, the Great Tribulation will still happen as prophesied, mankind will still end, and then we keep the Enlightened Saints.

As a doctor who clearly gets the pulse of the situation, as I answer your threads because they are exactly what needs fixing; yet your investigative process stops before reaching the results of a biopsy, to show what the details are, to then create an antidote.

In my opinion.

Well then, now you have declared yourself to be the Messiah, it kinda makes Islam and Christianity irrelevant, doesn't it?

 

[Terry Sampson]

Do you think there is any overlap or similarities between Allah in the Quran and Yahweh in the Torah?

• I believe that there is a bare minimum of overlap and very large differences.
• Of course, I am nobody.
• I have yet to read any discussion, joint or separate, regarding the "sizes" of the spaces that I have identified as "similarities" and "differences" in my sketch below.
• Judaism and Islam's characterization of each other as "monotheistic" religions seems, IMO, of little importance if the similarities of the encircled entities are small and their differences are enormous. By way of an analogy, Hinduism is explicitly polytheistic, where it is not atheistic, and the Latter-Day-Saints sect of Christianity is implicitly polytheistic. But the polytheism of both hardly makes them more alike than not, don't you think?
• Note that I haven't included Christianity's God in the picture.

 

[Terry Sampson]

Yeah, can't beat that, if they so believe.

They do ... implicitly, but I'm inclined to believe that it would take someone with more authority than me to persuade the LDS church to admit it.

 

[Firemorphic]

With reference to the Quran and Bible, what did Muhammad teach about the Christian concept of the Trinity? Do Muhammad’s Teachings contradict what the Bible has to say about the Trinity? If so, why? If not, why not?

There is no Trinity in the Bible, period.

 

[Dawnofhope]

View attachment 34599

• I believe that there is a bare minimum of overlap and very large differences.
• Of course, I am nobody.
• I have yet to read any discussion, joint or separate, regarding the "sizes" of the spaces that I have identified as "similarities" and "differences" in my sketch below.
• Judaism and Islam's characterization of each other as "monotheistic" religions seems, IMO, of little importance if the similarities of the encircled entities are small and their differences are enormous. By way of an analogy, Hinduism is explicitly polytheistic, where it is not atheistic, and the Latter-Day-Saints sect of Christianity is implicitly polytheistic. But the polytheism of both hardly makes them more alike than not, don't you think?
• Note that I haven't included Christianity's God in the picture.

OK then. How about the differences and similarities between Yahweh in the Tanakh and God/Jesus in the New Testament?

 

[Firemorphic]

The Word, Logos, is one description of Christ, in St John's Gospel, which is of pivotal importance to Christian doctrine about the nature of Jesus. Logos (Christianity) - Wikipedia

According to this yes, the Word is a messenger to man, but is an aspect of God himself. The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us.

Logos - Wikipedia

 

[Dawnofhope]

There is no Trinity in the Bible, period.

I agree. I don't see that anyone here has claimed the Christian Bible makes any specific or explicit reference to the Trinity. No one here has ventured to provide an argument for the Trinity based on scripture.