Islam and the Holy Trinity Part 1 of 2: Explaining the Trinity

The Islamic faith continually objects to the Christian Doctrine of the Trinity, but the question we must ask is "Do the Islamic objections have validity?"  To answer that question, we have to look at what the Trinity is, and analyze the Islamic objections to it.  There are entire books written about the doctrine of the Trinity, so for the essence of time, I’ll provide a summary.  The first issue we come up with is trying to understand an infinite God within our finite minds.  How can we express in words Infinite Truth?  Examples aren’t exact, but give us an idea.  God is completely unique-Isaiah 40:25 “To whom will you liken to me?”  God is not limited to time and space, as we are, there are no limitations to his being.  Words that we use often carry excess baggage.  So to summarize the doctrine, I’ll describe it as such:

“Within one Being that is God there exists eternally three coequal and coeternal persons, namely the Father, the Son, & the Holy Spirit.” 

·         There is only One God (Romans 3:30)

·         The Father is God (John 6:27)

·         Jesus is God (John 20:28, Romans 9:5, & Acts 5:3-5)

·         The Holy Spirit is God (Acts 5:3-5)

·         The three are distinct Persons (John 14:16-17)

Three Person’s in One Being=Very Important (One What & Three Who’s).  Each of the divine person’s is eternal & coequal.  To understand this, I read the writings of a chemistry student who was once a skeptic who later became a Christian.  In one of his courses, his professor stated that the drawings of molecules were just the best way to show them on paper, but in reality, they were much more complicated.  Technically, a molecule with resonance is every one of its structures at every point in time, yet no single one of its structures at any point in time.  This made the student question “How can one thing be many things at once?”  One molecule of nitrate is all three resonance structures all the time and never just one of them.  The three are separate, but one, they are three in one.  This is the distinction between “Being” and “Person.”  A Being is the quality that makes something what it is, and a Person is the quality that makes something who he is.  In my case, I’m a being.  A human being (as are you).  I am also one person (You can call me Joe).  The Trinity teaches that God is one Being with three Person’s “Father, Son, and Spirit.”  The different roles is what distinguishes Father, Son, & Spirit, but doesn’t put one up over the other.

The essence of the Trinity is summarized by John Gilchrist “We believe that the eternal Son of God, one with the Father from all eternity, united to him in one Spirit, became flesh and dwelt among us (John 1:14).  He took the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of man (Philippians 2:7).  We do not believe that God took to himself a partner and sired another God.  Matthew 11:27, John 5:16-27, John 6:34-40, Matthew: 34-36, and John 17:1-8 all illustrate Jesus’ relationship with God and illustrate his divine nature.  Daniel 7:13-14 alludes to all of this.  To understand the role of Jesus, he is the Word of God.  As written in the opening of the Gospel of John: “The Word became Flesh & walked among us.”  The Word existed before the beginning, the Word is eternal, not a creation.  The Word was not alone, it was with God & was God: “All of the Word=All of God.”  The Word is eternal, personal, & deity.  The pre-incarnate of Jesus is what Isaiah saw and what walked with Abraham. 

Now this is the summary of the Trinity.  To address some of the areas of controversy, I shall begin here.

First and foremost, the Trinity was not invented by the Council of Nicaea.  The Early Church Fathers all preached the Trinity for centuries before the Council.  Clement of Rome, a Church Father who was born in 35 A.D. and died in 99 A.D. was consecrated by St. Peter himself and served as Pope from 88 A.D. until his death.  Clement of Rome wrote extensively on the triune nature of God.  St. Ignatius, also born in 35 A.D. and died in 107 A.D., served as the Bishop of Antioch and was a pupil of the Disciple John.  He likewise wrote extensively on the triune nature of God. 

Second, the Trinity was not pagan.  I examined the numerous pagan faiths that existed in the European, African, and Middle East Regions during the time of Christ.  None of these pagan religions followed the doctrine of the Trinity.  Pagan faiths taught things like “Triads” which taught that Gods would have intercourse with each other and give birth to more Gods.  However, this is not the Trinity, and no Pagan group taught of “Within One Eternal Being that is God there exists three eternal persons.” 

As I studied the Bible, I learned that the Trinity was solely biblical, and it was found throughout the Old and New Testaments.  Ex. Matthew 28:19-Jesus told his Followers to make Disciples of all Nations, and to Baptize in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.  Acts 20:28 is likewise a Trinitarian passage.  To  find the Trinity in the Old Testament, it is everywhere.  In fact, it’s in the First Chapter of Genesis.  We read in Genesis 1:1 that God created the Heavens and the Earth.  The very first verse(Genesis 1:2) mentions the Holy Spirit: “Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.”  In Genesis 1:26 it is written that God says “Let us make man in our image”  Why would God call himself “us?”  Biblical Hebrew does not allow for the plural of majesty, so God is pointing out that in some sense, he is plural.  Isaiah 48:12-16 (check link for verse: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Isaiah%2048:12-16) clearly teaches the Trinity. 

As we continue through the Bible, we learn that the omnipotence and omnipresence of the Holy Spirit is written throughout the Old Testament.  For example.  Psalm 139:7-“Where can I go from your Spirit?  Where can I flee from your presence?”  Psalm 104:29-30-“You hid your face, they are dismayed; You take away their spirit, they expire and return to dust.  You send forth Your Spirit, they are created; And You renew the face of the ground.…”  The Spirit came upon Judges, Warriors, and Prophets throughout the Old Testament and granted them extraordinary power.  Ex.  Joshua (Numbers 27:18), Gideon (Judges 6:34), Samson (Judges 13:25 & 14:6), & Saul (1 Samuel 10:9-10).  The Spirit played a prominent role in the long span of Old Testament Prophecy.  David declared that “The Spirit of the Lord spoke by me and His word was on my Tongue” (2 Samuel 23:2).  Ezekiel also stated “the Spirit entered me when He spoke to me” (Ezekiel 2:2). 

You may also be surprised to know that prior to the schism of Judaism and Christianity, many Jewish scholars in fact taught that Yahweh was One Being but not One Person.  Zohar for instance taught of a Triune God.  20^th century Jewish scholars Alan Segel and Daniel Boyarin likewise taught that First Century Jewish scholars held a “binitarian” view of God (Applying Divinity to God the Father and the Holy Spirit) It is only after the schism in the later 2^nd-3^rd centuries that Rabbis began turning away from the notion of a multi-personal God as a reaction to Christian theology (a number of Jews have since turned back to this and became Messianic: (Jews who accept Jesus).

So you see, the Trinity is Biblical in origin and found throughout the Old and New Testaments.  It may be complex to comprehend, but God is not meant to be simple.  In truth, our world is not simple.  There are mysteries within mysteries in our world that we are still seeking to unravel.  There is sound in the world that we as humans cannot hear, and light we cannot see, but we know it's there.  Simply because we cannot see God for ourselves, it doesn't mean that He is not among us.

Sources:

Dr. James White.  The Forgotten Trinity: Recovering the Heart of Christian Belief.  Minneapolis: Bethany House Publishers, 1998.

Dr. James White.  What Every Christian Needs to Know about the Qur'an.  Minneapolis: Bethany House Publishers, 2013.

Josh McDowell & Jim Walker.  Understanding Christianity & Islam: Beliefs That Separate Us & How to Talk About Them.  Eugene, OR: Harvest House Publishers, 2013.

Nabeel Qureshi.  Seeking Allah, Finding Jesus: A Devout Muslim Encounters Christianity.  Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2014.

The Holy Bible

The Glorious Qur'an