A Refutation of Answering Islam's Article on the Trinity

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Introduction

Anyone who has seen Jochen Katz’s infamous list of 110 difficulties in the Koran (he calls them “difficulties”—I call them “easy as pie”—but they’ve already been answered to my satisfaction by folks such as Randy Desmond, Osama Abdallah and especially the Understanding Islam team, so I won’t bother with them on this site) has probably seen the “diffuculty” about whether Christians can enter Paradise or not. In this article, after making the remark, “It is historical fact that Christianity has always considered Jesus to be the LORD, to be of the same nature of God,” (apparently Mr. Katz thinks that if he says something is historical fact, that makes it true), Katz links us to http://answering-islam.org/, which he deems “a great, “insightful presentation.” This link goes to the article, “The Trinity: An Appreciation of the Oneness of God with Reference to the Son of God and the Holy Spirit, for Christians and Muslims,” by M. Anderson. This is a refutation of that article.

The Koran on the Trinity—Or Could It Just Be the Koran on Catholicism?

The article starts off with the typical accusation that the Koran’s understanding of the Trinity was that it consisted of God, Mary and Jesus. He quotes these passages:

They are unbelievers who say, “God is the Messiah, Mary’s son.” For the Messiah said, “Children of Israel, serve God, my Lord and your Lord. Verily whoso associates with God anything, God shall prohibit him entrance to Paradise, and his refuge shall be the Fire; and wrongdoers shall have no helpers.”

(- 05:75 -)
Noble Quran

They are unbelievers who say, “God is the Third of Three.” No god is there but One God. If they refrain not from what they say, there shall afflict those of them that disbelieve a painful chasitsement. Will they not turn ot God and pray His forgiveness? God is All-forgiving, All-compassionate.

(- 05:76 -)
Noble Quran

The Messiah, son of Mary, was only a Messenger; Messengers before him passed away; his mother was a just woman; they both ate food. Behold, how We make clear the signs to them; then behold, how they perverted are!

(- 05:77 -)
Noble Quran

And when God said, “O Jesus son of Mary, didst thou say unto men, “Take me and my mother as gods, apart from God”? He said, “To Thee be glory! It is not mine ot say what I have no right to. If I indeed said it, Thou knowest it, knowing what is within my soul, and I know not what is within Thy soul; Thou knowest the things unseen.

(- 5:116 -)
Noble Quran

I’ve already answered this to some extent in my “FAQ from Christians”, but let’s delve a little deeper into this. If the Trinity consists of God as well as two other beings, then how is it the Trinity? In other words, God is mentioned separately from the Messiah (peace be upon him) and his mother in these verses, meaning that they were not considered to be part of God! It is God, and then the blessed Jesus, and then Mary. It does not even say “God the Father” but “God.” God being separate. So what is being referred to? A trio of things being worshipped, and those are God, the blessed Jesus, and his mother. Not really a Trinity, but simply what we call Catholicism. Now Catholics deny and deny and deny that they worship Mary, but as Osama Abdallah pointed out at http://answeringchristianity.com/, you can tell that Catholics are worshipping Mary just by looking at their rosary:

Hail, Holy Queen, Mother of Mercy, hail, our life, our sweetness, and our hope! To thee do we cry, poor banished children of Eve! To thee do we send up our sighs, mourning and weeping in this vale of tears. Turn then, most gracious advocate, thine eyes of mercy toward us; and after this, our exile, show us the blessed fruit of thy womb, Jesus. O clement, O loving, O sweet Virgin Mary!

Now I don’t see how it can even be considered disputible that this is not worship. Really, I think anyone but a Catholic will see it for what it is. It certainly seems to bear every mark of worship. (I swear I'm not setting out to offend anyone--I just want this to be a wake-up call, and it is sadly in the nature of wake-up calls that they are blunt.) Now to give you an idea of what I mean, let’s change around the gender and the names, and finally change “blessed fruit of thy womb” to “thy blessed son,” and you can see just how strongly this resembles a prayer to God:

Hail, Holy King, Father of Mercy, hail, our life, our sweetness, and our hope! To thee do we cry, poor banished children of Eve! To thee do we send up our sighs, mourning and weeping in this vale of tears. Turn then, most gracious advocate, thine eyes of mercy toward us; and after this, our exile, show us thy blessed son, Jesus. O clement, O loving, O sweet God!

Could that not be a very good Christian prayer, in the Trinitarian vein? Do you not see it now? The Koran was right. God takes a backseat to idols whenever people worship them, and modern day Christianity makes a point of idolizing the blessed Jesus (who never claimed to be God, as I point out in the “Trilemma Refuted” article on this page), and Catholicism adds the idolization of Mary on top of that. In Catholicism, God is the third of three (in terms of importance), right behind His “son” and the mother of that “son.” (The problem with idol worship is that the idols get in the way of God Himself—he becomes less important to you.) Buddha Guatama was idolized despite his wishes through Mahayanist Buddhism, which naturally became the dominant branch of Buddhism—think of it like that.

A Self-Defeating Argument Regarding the Term “Monogenes”

Anderson tries to establish that the Koran was wrong on the whole issue of begetting by pointing out the exact meaning of the word “monogenes” in Greek (which is what is translated “only-begotten,” such as in John 3:16), but when he points out the meaning of this term according to the Exegetical Dictionary of the New Testament, he shoots himself in the foot. Here is the quotation in question:

“Unique” is the actual meaning of monogenes as can be seen in Hebrews 11:17, where it is used of Isaac (Gen 21:12). The word here means only (son) of his kind. Abraham in fact had already begotten Ishmael and later had six other sons ...

Notice how the word “son” is in parentheses there. Not knowing Greek, I will take Mr. Anderson’s word for it that the citation he gave is correct and the word means “only of his kind” or “unique.” Well, of course the blessed Jesus was the only of his kind. He was the Messiah, and there was to be only one of those. (See the “FAQ from Christians” on this page for more on his being the Messiah in Islam.) He then cites John 14:5-11, John 1:18 and Hebrews 1:3 to establish that the blessed Jesus was not a literally begotten son but only a sort of reflection, the fruit of the tree that is God (later on, he compares him to the destructive rays coming out of a bomb). Well, here’s the issue he skips: if he was not begotten, then how did he get here? The answer is the virgin birth.

The thing is, the concept of a virgin birth actually nullifies the idea that the child being born is a son of God in any way. Ordinarily, a mother and a father have a child through sex. A virgin birth would mean that, with no sex, a child is still born. Hence, the child is fatherless. And so we Muslims believe that the blessed Jesus had no father. This is why he is called “Jesus son of Mary.” And that’s what common sense would dictate: virgin birth = no father. But Christians believe that the “spirit of God” was supposed to have come upon Mary and impregnated her. A spirit causing a fleshy impregnation? Well, God can do anything, right? But read what I said on the anunciation in my “Trilemma Refuted” article and I think you’ll see how faulty a ground this is.

The Blessed Jesus as God’s Creating Agent

Anderson then cites two biblical sources to support the idea that the blessed Jesus was God’s creating agent. One is from St. Paul (Colossians 1:15-16), whom he must know Muslims do not care about, even though his article is supposed to be addressed to us as well as to Christians, and even though the verse cited doesn’t say that anything even suggesting that the blessed Jesus was God anyway, but only the image of God, and the first born, for whom all things were made (did not the blessed Adam share these traits in the Bible?). The second source is the opening words of the Gospel of John. Well, let’s take a look at the entire opening of the Gospel of John:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God; all things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. He came for testimony, to bear witness to the light, that all might believe through him. He was not the light, but came to bear witness to the light. The true light that enlightens every man was coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world knew him not. He came to his own home, and his own people received him not. But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God; who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God. And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth; we have beheld his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father.

(John bore witness to him, and cried, “This was he of whom I said, ‘He who comes after me ranks before me, for he was before me.’”) And from his fulness have we all received, grace upon grace. For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God; the only Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he has made him known.

In the end this passage is irrelevant, since it’s just the author’s personal commentary (and appears to consist largely of speculation), and so I used to dismiss it as such, but lately I’ve been thinking that even this apparently clear proclamation of divinity may not be exactly what Christians think it is. Let us consider the Greek word used in John 1:1. It is a well-known fact that this word which is always translated “word” is “logos” in Greek, and that “logos” doesn’t really mean “word” but something more like “principle of logic.” (As far as I can tell, it’s sort of like the Chinese concept of Tao.) This principle of logic was something God used to make the world. Then He put it in human form and had this human dwell among us.

Now what Christians assume here is that this principle of logic was a part of God Himself, and just something God used. In fact, it was divine, meaning that it was of God, of a godly nature, and that is the proper translation of John 1:1. See http://answering-christianity.com/ for more on this. I’m willing to believe what Abdallah says on the matter, because “the logos was with God and the logos was divine” is a much more coherent statement than “the logos was with God and the logos was God.” "With" implies otherness. And no, this cannot be meant in a Trinitarian sense--would you ever say you were "with" yourself, even though you consist of a head, abdomen and sub-abdomen?

God put His principle of logic in a man named Jesus (peace be upon him). Anderson himself unknowingly explains why this Word was not an incarnation of a part of God Himself when he cites many verses from the Koran which say that when Allah wants to create something, he just says, “Be!” and it is. Well, nowhere in the Koran is this word, “Be!” said to be a part of Allah Himself. Why? Because the notion is ridiculous. God’s principle of logic and God Himself are two different things, as the distinction in the Greek text of John 1:1 indicates. The rays that come from a bomb are quite distinct from the bomb itself, not a part of it at all. A word from someone’s mouth—not the person himself, quite obviously.

God’s principle of logic was obviously the thing instilled in each prophet. What else would any prophet be but flesh carrying the logos of God in him? To be the mouthpiece of God is what it means to be a prophet—that’s the definition of the word “prophet”. You know God’s will and speak God’s words. God used his principle of logic to make the world, and then put it in his prophets.

The Blessed Jesus As God’s Judging Agent

Next, Anderson points out verses from the Bible which label the blessed Jesus God’s judging agent in some way or another come Judgment Day. I don’t see what any of this has to do with his being either God or God’s son, but let’s take a look at his references (I’ll even copy and paste them directly, even though he uses the NIV translation and I always use RSV on this site):

He commanded us to preach to the people and to testify that he (Jesus) is the one whom God appointed as judge of the living and the dead. (Acts 10:42 NIV)

For He (God) has set a day when he will judge the world ... by the man He has appointed. He has given proof of this to all men by raising Him from the dead. (Acts 17:31 NIV)

This will take place when God will judge men’s secrets through Jesus Christ. (Romans 2:16 NIV)

Moreover the Father judges no one, but has entrusted all judgement to the Son. (John 5:22 NIV)

The second and third quotes Anderson offered obviously refer to God doing the judging, no one else, but also doing it somehow “through” or “by” His “son”. (He even put those prepositions in bold himself.) The acts reference says that the “son” was “appointed”. Supposing that all of these verses come from reliable sources, and even that they are all part of a single, unified Bible (and are not just separate documents which were never meant to end up together in a volume—in other words, that these verses are exactly as connected and reliable as Christians tend to think they are), what would all of this mean? To answer that question, let’s take a look at John 5:22 in context, adding emphasis here and there in bold (and returning to my habit of using the Revised Standard Version, since I’m no longer quoting Anderson):

Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of his own accord, but only what he sees the Father doing; for whatever he does, that the Son does likewise. For the Father loves the Son, and shows him all that he himself is doing; and greater works than these will he show him, that you may marvel. For as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so also the Son gives life to whom he will. The Father judges no one, but has given all judgment to the Son that all may honor the Son, even as they honor the Father. He who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent him. Truly, truly, I say to you, he who hears my word and believes him who sent me, has eternal life; he does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life.

Truly, truly, I say to you, the hour is coming, and now is, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live. For as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself, and has given him authority to execute judgment, because he is the Son of man. Do not marvel at this; for the hour is coming when all who are in the tombs will hear his voice and come forth, those who have done good, to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil, to the resurrection of judgment. I can do nothing on my own authority; as I hear, I judge; and my judgment is just, because I seek not my own will but the will of him who sent me. (John 5:19-30)

I think no more needs to be said.

The Blessed Jesus As God’s Saving and Loving Agents

Anderson then points out a lot of verses from the Bible referring to the blessed Jesus as our “savior,” through whom God’s love for us came. Once again, this has nothing to do with either being God or being God’s son. Why couldn’t anyone else “save” us but a son of God? Why could no one but God be a vessel to transport God's love to us either? Christians always go around in circles of gibberish on the subject, but the fact is that they don’t know what they’re talking about. They seem to think that going from sacrificing animals to sacrificing God incarnate is some kind of natural logical correlary. Well it isn't. In fact, no sacrifice could be more unnatural.

Let’s touch only briefly for the time being on the fact that the very concept of our needing a “savior” to be tortured and crucified or else God can’t or won’t forgive us our sins, is both insulting to God and ridiculous in itself (despite St. Paul’s frequent parroting of the idea, such as in the Romans verse Anderson cites). Let’s also not dwell on the fact that the four Gospels are mostly consistent with each other until they get to the accounts of the alleged crucifixion and subsequent alleged resurrection, at which point they suddenly become extremely contradictory. Let’s even overlook the fact that the narratives remain rather tame and realistically written until that point and then suddenly venture off into the land of theatrical epic storytelling. (“I tell you the truth: before the cock crows you will deny me three times.”)

Instead, I’ll focus on something that Christians never seem to notice about John 3:16 (which Anderson quotes), even though they quote it more frequently than any other verse in the Bible: it is in the past tense. God had already given his “monogenes” to the world. In other words, had sent him, as you see explained over and over again in John. And, as John 3 continues, if the world rejects him, they stand condemned. This fits in with the Islamic worldview, in which the prophets sent to each society were the only way for the people there to know God and do His will. Over and over again in John you get the same kind of message: God sent me, I can’t do anything without God, God is greater than me, he is my Father and yours. The whole book is peppered with such notions. Christians eagerly figure out ways to incorporate it into the complexities of their Trinity concept, but wouldn’t the much more obvious and realistic solution be that all of this means he was just a prophet? The verse from Jude he cites makes this crystal clear:

To the only God, our Savior through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority, before all time and now and for ever. Amen. (Jude 1:25)

God is mentioned there separately from “Jesus Christ our Lord". Not “the Father” but God. As in all of God. Compare it to this verse from the Old Testament:

The LORD says to my lord: “Sit at my right hand, till I make your enemies your footstool.” (Psalms 110:1)

The LORD said something to his lord. The LORD and the Lord. The LORD speaking to the Lord. I’m sure Mr. Anderson would consider this further evidence for his complicated theory about what it means to be the son of God, but when two entities are mentioned separately, with different titles (one is all in capital letters and the other isn’t because one is the Tetragrammaton, the name of God, and the other isn’t), and as speaking to each other, with one promising to overcome the other’s enemies for him, I think it only makes sense to think that two different entities are being referred to here. But of course, nothing is too contradictory not to be considered by a Christian to be a manifestation of the Trinity.

Jesus (peace be upon him) and the Koran

Anderson then makes a very interesting point by comparing the Koran, which is supposed to be a copy in human language of an eternal book in heaven, to the Christian concept of the blessed Jesus, who is supposed to be a copy in human flesh of an eternal God in heaven. Fascinating! But totally irrelevant as well, since the Koran was never meant to be a part of its Creator but only a guidance from Him—which also goes for the blessed Jesus, considering the things I’ve pointed out so far in this essay, as well as the things I pointed out in the essay “The Trilemma Refuted” elsewhere on this page.

Anderson then makes the absurd claim that saying you’re “from God” means that you’re saying you are God Himself. Well I guess that means that all the other prophets who were obviously sent from God (I refer you to the long passage from John 5 which I cited earlier) were also God Incarnate. Could it not just be that the Jews tried to stone him because he was saying he was sent from God even though he was teaching ideas contrary to what the corrupt Jewish elders were declaring of their own accord was God’s will? And I guess that anytime any prophet who was from God went back to God (i.e. died), and went back to God, they were also rejoining their divinity with the Divinity...or something. It could even be that the Pharisees, like the modern day Christians, were taking him too literally, thinking mistakenly that he was proclaiming himself God incarnate.

The “Holy Spirit”—Many Meanings, No Hint of Anything Trinitarian in Any of Them

In this next section Anderson says:

The Spirit Creates:

The Spirit of God has made me; the breath of the Almighty gives me life. (Job 33:4 NIV) (See also Gen 2:7)

When You send your Spirit, they are created, and you renew the face of the earth. (Psalm 104:30 NIV)

The Spirit Judges:

Unless I go away, the Counsellor will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you. When He comes, He will convict the world of guilt in regard to sin and righteousness and judgment: in regard to sin, because men do not believe in me; in regard to righteousness, because I am going to the Father, where you can see me no longer; and in regard to judgment, because the prince of this world now stands condemned. (John 16:7-11 NIV)

The Spirit saves:

... because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death. (Romans 8:2 NIV)

The Spirit Loves:

I urge you, brothers, by our Lord Jesus Christ and by the love of the Spirit, to join me in my struggle by praying to God for me. (Romans 15:30 NIV)

I don’t see why he cited those first two verses. The breath of God (“spiritos” in Greek) brings life to the world. It was also used, in a similar way, in the long Ezekiel passage he cited after the above quotation. So what? The breath is not the same thing as the one who breathed. They’re two different things, just as the word coming out of someone’s mouth isn’t the same thing as the person himself. God put His spirit, His breath, in the blessed Jesus (John 20:22) as well as in other prophets (http://answering-christianity.com/, and I know I’ve linked to that site quite a lot by now, but hey, Adallah knows his stuff when it comes to the Bible).

The John 16 reference is useless to quote to Muslims, since we typically think it was referring to the blessed Muhammad and not to some ill-defined part of the Trinity. Paul’s first reference was to “the Spirit of life”, not to “the Spirit of God” or “the Holy Spirit”. (Remember than in Greek you don’t have capital letters like you do in English.) I think he was using the term in the same sense that others might use it—that he became spirited or inspired. Paul’s second reference was similarly probably to the spirit of reverence for God that people who love God will have (again, no capital letters in Greek).

Even if it’s the same Spirit doing all these things, then so what? Suppose that both the “Spirit” and the “Son” are used by “the Father” and sent from Him (which always seems to be the case in the Bible, and you have seen many examples of that here). Doesn’t that make them subject to Him, tools of His? I would worship the Father alone, since He seems to be the one in charge of the other two parts of this “Trinity”.

A Self-Defeating Analogy of the Trinity, and the Reason Why The Trinity Doctrine Is Polytheistic

Every analogy I’ve ever heard Christians use to explain the Trinity involves a supposed unity of three objects which, if you think about it, all turn out to be different objects altogether. Thus, while trying to establish how the belief is not polytheistic, they end up establishing the opposite. The most famous parable is the one St. Patrick was said to have made about the three petals of a shamrock. Well, those three petals may be connected by a stem, but tear them off and it should be clear to you that they are three different objects.

Or take the analogy I’ve heard several Christians use, that H20 can come in three different forms: water (liquid), ice (solid) or mist (gas). All three are H20, but all three are different forms. The blessed Jesus is like ice, as he was solid and walked around with us. The “Holy Spirit” is like water, as it is what is poured onto us. The Father is like mist, a gas spread throughout space. Well, that’s pretty clever, but it overlooks the fact that ice, mist and water are all different objects. When you evaporate, liquify or solidify something, you get a completely new item. Anyone can tell that water, ice and mist are all different things, and that they can all exist independently of each other.

Anderson uses a typically self-defeating analogy when, in the next section, he compares the Trinity to a fruit tree. The tree proper is God the Father, from which the other two come. The fruits that dangle from it are the “Son”, which give sustenance to people from the tree. The juice inside the fruit, which carries the nutrients to us, is the “Holy Spirit”. Once again, it’s a pretty clever analogy, but once again, it refers to three different objects which can exist independently of each other, and often do. Once you pluck the fruit from a tree, it becomes something different, just a fruit now rather than something that’s “one” with the tree. The same goes for squeezing the juice from the fruit. Everyone knows that an orange tree, an orange and orange juice are all completely different things, even if they originally were connected by organism (in the same way that the three petals of a shamrock were).

I said earlier that these self-defeating analogies all betray a true polytheism in the Trinity doctrine. But how is the doctrine polytheistic if it says that God simply exists in three persons, rather than that there are three gods? Well, to help you understand, consider what a “person” is. A “person” can simply mean a human being, or it can also mean a personality, an individuality, an entity—more specifically, a conscious being. Thus, to say that God exists in three persons is to say that God is three entities, three beings. In other words, that God is three gods. But Christians insist that they can still be three persons while remaining one God, even though this is beyond our comprehension.

Now there is the problem: it’s beyond our comprehension, and Anderson makes quite a point of this. But when faced with the option of believing something it can understand or something it can’t and seems nonsensical, the human mind will choose the former option over the latter. Now this doesn’t mean that it will automatically realize that this is what it’s doing—back when I was a Christian I noticed that, try as I might, I couldn’t help but think of Father, Son and Holy Spirit as if they were three, distinct beings, and I noticed by the way other Christians spoke of them that they had the same problem, even though they didn’t notice it. Polytheism in doctrine and polytheism is belief in the doctrine, in psychology or human nature, are two different things.

More of the Same, and the Alleged Divinity of the Koran

Next in Anderson’s essay come some sections describing, by using the Islamic scriptures, how some things are spoken of analogically or are beyond us (elaborating on the point I have just responded to), and then repeating the issue of the breath of God. Again, something that comes out of God, such as a “word” or “breath”, is obviously not God Himself—even if these terms are analogical, as Anderson suggests, the fact would remain that they are displaced from the Deity into people or His creation, and are thus not inseparable as the Trinity doctrine suggests that Father, Son and Holy Spirit are. And as I have explained, God’s “spirit” is in someone else is his inspiration (to help you understand, consider that the word “spirit” is the basis of the word “inspiration,” a word that originally mean “inhalation”—again referring to breath), and that the blessed Jesus was “from” God simply by being sent from Him—as all prophets were.

Anderson then cites some Islamic scholars who said that the Koran was divine, inseparable from Allah, to further his Blessed Jesus-Koran comparison. Now I have not read very much tafsir yet, being a relatively new Muslim, but it seems to be that the idea that the Koran’s original copy in heaven is actually a part of Allah, contradicts what the Koran itself says on the matter:

By the Clear Book,

(- 43:02 -)
Noble Quran

Behold, We have made it an Arabic Koran;

(- 43:03 -)
Noble Quran

And behold, it is in the Essence of the Book, with Us; sublime indeed, wise.

(- 43:04 -)
Noble Quran

We Muslims believe that the Koran is a copy of an eternal book in heaven—in heaven, not in Allah. The cited passage says the Essence of the Book (sometimes translated “mother of the Book”) is with God, not that it is in God. Like the logos of God is with God and is divine (not "is with God and is God". The Koran is a guidance sent first to the Arabians and then later to all of humankind, just as the blessed Jesus, who was the logos or logic of God in flesh, was sent from God to give guidance to the Jews, and eventually to all of humankind when his life, miracles and teachings were recorded in the Koran. Neither is divine; for the Koran is a creation of God (quite naturally, being a revelation from Him—another eternal thing, time, is a creation of God too), just as the blessed Jesus was a creation of God, sent by God to Israel, so that if they rejected him, they rejected the One who sent him. It all makes perfect sense, unlike the Trinity doctrine, which is so self-contradictory that Christians must leave it that it is beyond our comprehension.

The Appendix to Anderson’s Document

This appendix answers four objections that Anderson often hears from Muslims on the issue of the blessed Jesus’s divinity in the Bible. Objection #1, having to do with the idea of God incarnate being ignorant of certain facts, is not an objection that I make, so I won’t discuss it. I would expect that if God ever came in the form of a human, His ordinary omniscience would be diminished by the limited power of the human brain.

The second objection refers to the blessed Jesus calling God our Father as well as his father, our God and his, in John 20:17. His rebuttal is that the blessed Jesus did not say “our Father and our God,” but mentioned separately that God was our Father and his Father, our God and his God, thus indicating that it meant something different for us and for him in both cases. It seems to me that whenever anyone says “my X and your X,” what they’re saying is perfectly synonymous with the statement “our X.” For an example, consider how these two statements are saying the same thing:

“George W. Bush is my president and your president.”

“George W. Bush is our president.”

The third objection he rebuts is one that I have used in this essay, that the Father being greater than the “Son” means that the “Son” was just another creature. He cites the full context of John 13:33-14:28, from which the statement, “The Father is greater than I,” is taken, and points out how in this context there are three statements which he alleges are claims to divinity: that he and the Father are one, that whoever has seen him has seen the Father, and that the Father is in him and he in the Father. I’ve responded to the first two claims in my article on the Trilemma, and I think my answer to the first claim can also apply to his third claim, about one being in the other and vice versa. The Gospel of John is simply a very mystical book.

He then points out John 17:1-5, in which it is stated that the blessed Jesus had glory with God before the world was. Consider how the Old Testament prophet Jeremiah was spoken of in the same way:

Now the word of the LORD came to me saying, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations.” (Jeremiah 1:4-5)

The final objection he brings up is that the blessed Jesus’s being God Himself was a later addition of the church, and not something that he claimed himself to be. In attempting to answer this objeciton, he confirms it, because none of the verses he cites are words from the blessed Jesus himself, except those in which he calls himself “son of God.” In effect, Anderson is inadvertently admitting that we have only the testimony of other people to go by that he was God himself—one of which, the alleged prophecy of Isaiah 9:6-7, is supposed to be enough according to him, being written long before the alleged Incarnation happened. I have discussed Isaiah 9:6-7 in my article on the blessed Muhammad in the Bible which is elsewhere on this page, in which I pointed out the present tense of the child’s birth in this passage from Isaiah, meaning that it was a child actually born to the people of the time, not a prophecy. Furthermore, the government was never on the blessed Jesus’s shoulders, and especially never stopped increasing. Does it not sound to you like the child born to these people was expected to be a military leader, who would gain so much conquest that people would worship him?

A Few Final Words on the Trinity

God’s absolute oneness is often expressed in the Bible, and believing in it was the greatest commandment according to the words of the blessed Jesus in the New Testament:

And one of the scribes came up and heard them disputing with one another, and seeing that he answered them well, asked him, “Which commandment is the first of all?” Jesus answered, “The first is, ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one; and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.” (Mark 12:28-30)

If the greatest commandment is that the Lord is one, and to love the Lord alone, then how can the Lord also be three? The statement is “the Lord is one.” If there were any threeness involved, you’d think it would have been mentioned, if the belief in the Trinity is both true and also so important as Christians think it is. We Muslims believe to deny that God is one through and through, and only one, and that there’s nothing more to it than this, is polytheism. One person is all that is needed for God—an omnipotent, limitless, ultimate being does not require to be divided up into different parts to perform His different tasks. The oneness of God is just part of God’s uniqueness. As I said before, if God the Father is supposed to have sent the other two parts of the Trinity and to be greater than them, why not devote all your worship to God the Father alone, and do things in His name only? And why not also just believe that God the Father is separate from all the things He sends and controls, and is their Lord, which is supposed to be the case with everything in the world except for the other two parts of the Trinity.

Worship God the Father, then. And only God the Father. He is the true Lord of all, including the two beings who are allegedly the other two parts of the Trinity, as Anderson himself repeatedly indicates in his essay. Anyone knows that the purest goal is the single one, in which all red herrings have been cleared and you have just one thing on your mind, a single prize, a single object of focus with no distractions. Oneness. As the blessed Jesus himself says in the Gospels:

“No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.” (Matthew 6:24)

Is it really so much of a stretch to think that this applies to the different parts of the Trinity as well as to mammon? Is that so unbelievable, given all the things I’ve pointed out in this essay? And so I’ll leave you with these words from the Koran, which could not possibly be any truer:

People of the Book, go not beyond the bounds in your religion, and say not as to God but the truth. The Messiah, Jesus son of Mary, was only the Messenger of God, and His Word that He committed to Mary, and a Spirit from Him. So believe in God and His Messengers, and say not, “Three.” Refrain; better is it for you. God is only One God. Glory be to Him—that He should have a son! To Him belongs all that is in the heavens and in the earth; God suffices for a guardian.

(- 4:171 -)
Noble Quran

The messiah will not disdain to be a servant of God, neither the angels who are near stationed to Him.

(- 4:172 -)
Noble Quran

They are unbelievers who say, “God is the Messiah, Mary’s son.” Say: “Who then shall overrule God in any way if He desires to destroy the Messiah, Mary’s son, and his mother, and all those who are on earth?”

(- 05:17 -)
Noble Quran

May God bless us all and guide us all to a straight path.