Help me to answer Muslim Apologetics!

[myLordandGod]

Dear friends, I come across some questions our Muslim brethren use against Christianity. They use these questions to our youth in schools and colleges. Can you help with this?

1. Christians have various versions of Bible while Muslims have only one version of Quran. Various versions dent Bible’s authority.
2. Matthew 15:24 says Jesus is sent only to the lost sheep of Israel. Therefore Jesus was a prophet for Israel not for the whole world.
3. They (some Muslims) accuse Jesus of committing a sin; Jesus called the Canaanite woman a dog. Therefore he is not divine.
4. They say that Jesus himself admits that he is not ‘good.’ Mark 10:18 Jesus asks why do you call Me good? No one is good but God alone.
5. Quran says Jesus did not die. Hebrews 5:7 says “In the days when he was in the flesh, he offered prayers and supplications with loud cries and tears to the one who was able to save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverence.” They say that his prayers answered means he did not die on the cross.
6. They say that Jesus did not wish to die. The prayer, “Father, if you are willing, take this cup away from me; still, not my will but yours be done" (Lk 22:42) is a proof for this.
7. They say that Jesus was not divine. If he were divine why did he pray 'My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? (Mt 27:46)
8. They say that Jesus was created. They cite Revelation 3:14.
9. Jesus was not under the earth for 72 hours as he prophesied citing the example of Jonah three nights and days in the belly of fish.

 

[FloridaCatholic]

Muslims actually don’t have only one version of the Quran. This is a popular myth. There was one version that was chosen by the early Islamic community.

Also three days and nights doesn’t have to be 72 hours. That’s a seventh day avendtist kind of logic

 

[phoage]

Answers in order:

1. There are not various versions, there are various translations. The only proper Quran is in Arabic. If you do not read Arabic, then there is no “approved” translation.
2. Matthew 28:19-20…Go therefore and make disciples of all nations… etc.
3. A couple verses later, he declares that she has great faith and heals her daughter. Also, see above. This was not a sin. Jesus stated a fact but then expanded his mission. He is God, he can do that.
4. This is a rhetorical question by Jesus. He has already been transfigured and shown that he is God. Why call me good when only God is good/, because I am God and so am good.
5. They can say what they want but there are contemporary accounts that Jesus did, in fact die, Flavio Josephus ofr one.
6. Christians believe that Jesus was fully God and Fully man. The man did not want to die, not unreasonable. The God submitted to His Father’s will.
7. This is the the first line of Psalm 22, a common prayer in distress. Read the whole thing and you see it ends praising God and extolling the virtue of persevering in distress.
8. I do not see where Revelation 3:14 says Jesus was created.
9. He said he would rise on the third day, not the 72nd hour.

Patrick
AMDG

 

[Sedona]

I don’t imagine that Christians get any closer to God by arguing with Muslims about God, nor would I imagine that Muslims get any closer to God by arguing with Christians about God. God is probably found in our day to day encounters with the world around us, which in truth must be a reflection of the mind of God if we subscribe to the idea that God created it. Therefore, I would offer that engaging in life is a direct and only meaningful encounter. Arguing about what is in a book is probably not.

All the best!

 

[myLordandGod]

Hi Sedona, reality and truth can be beyond your ‘imagination’ if you are searching God in ‘your’ encounters with the ‘world.’ The news is that God has spoken through Lord Jesus Christ.

 

[myLordandGod]

Thank you Patrick

 

[Sedona]

If that is the case, then I would recommend focusing on your direct experience with Jesus. My point is that this is not what happens when Christians spend their time fussing with Muslims and Muslims spend their time arguing with Christians. It’s a distraction that foments ill will and has caused enormous bloodshed over the course of time. It’s always odd to see that faith traditions that call themselves religions of peace seem to stir up anything but peace when they encounter another religion of peace. It renders the message of both sides more annoying than profound.

All the best!

 

[SalamKhan]

Allow me to answer as a Muslim:

1. Muslims should nonetheless show respect for the Bible, because there could be genuine inspiration contained within it.
2. The idea that Prophets were sent to certain people to the exclusion of others, until the advent of Prophet Muhammad (S), should be questioned in my opinion.
3. Being sinless has no bearing on divinity to most Muslims anyway, as many Muslims believe that all Prophets were sinless.

4 &7. Yes, Prophet Jesus (A) was/is not divine.

5, 6 & 9. I believe the popular view that Prophet Jesus (A) was not crucified must be challenged, the Ismaili Shiahs already have a better view on this, and so does contemporary Sunni Muslim scholar Sheikh Imran Hosein.

1. I don’t believe the Book of Revelation to be authentic or inspired, regardless of the contents.

 

[cathapolo]

You may find the following page a helpful resource:

http://www.catholicapologetics.info/apologetics/islam/index.htm

 

[toddy]

Don’t waste time for endless debate with Muslim.
Satan had plan to rebel God and God give men free will to choose their destination. Every year God appeared at Jesus tomb in Jerusalem on Eastern for 2000 years. Enough said.

If Muslim want to understand who Christ our Lord is then we help.

 

[poche]

Two things.
Jesus virgin birth can be looked upon as a sign of His divinity.
Also, I notice that in the Quran when God speaks and refers to Himself it is in the plural. He uses the pronoun “nahnu.” which is the first person plural. That is a sign of the Trinity. So even though they deny it we can still see the presence of the trinity in the Quran.

 

[Niblo]

Two things.
Jesus virgin birth can be looked upon as a sign of His divinity.
Also, I notice that in the Quran when God speaks and refers to Himself it is in the plural. He uses the pronoun “nahnu.” which is the first person plural. That is a sign of the Trinity. So even though they deny it we can still see the presence of the trinity in the Quran.

Why should the virgin birth be a sign of Yeshua’s divinity? If we say it is because he had no earthly father then neither did Adam, or Eve. Are we to assume that they, too, are divine? God created Yeshua with a single word: ‘Be’ (‘Kun’); the word by which all things were created. There is no indication in the Qur’an that this word imparts divinity. I’m sorry, but it is what it is.

In the Qur’an, God uses the ‘We’ of majesty (as did Queen Victoria when she said ‘We are not amused!’). If we are to insist that ‘We’ demonstrates plurality of being, then why stop at three (a trinity); why not eight…or a hundred…or any number we wish to chose? There is no ‘presence of the trinity’ in the Qur’an, save what we ourselves put into it.

Have a nice day.

 

[OriginalGabrielof12]

Dear friends, I come across some questions our Muslim brethren use against Christianity. They use these questions to our youth in schools and colleges. Can you help with this?

When did it become legal for a religion like Islam to proselytize in any school or colleges? Are other religions allowed to proselytize at these same schools? If not? then these schools should be made known, reported in the public sector.

Islam teaches from a carnal logic. The Quran never reveals the True Trinity. Thus a Muslim has no understanding of Jesus two natures, one divine and full humanity. Man who is created in God’s Image also possesses a soul and a body something to grasp at here. It is a heresy to call God, your Father. Jesus almost always referenced God as His Father, from His human nature. A Muslim is always at a disadvantage, for the Muslim is under threat of death by Islam, should the Muslim convert to another religion.

Christians have multiple translations of the bible. While Muslims have multiple interpretations that are taught from the one Quran and none of the Muslim interpretations of the Quran agree with one another, thus you have Muslims killing Muslims in the name of their interpretation of the Quran for thousands of years.

Imams who teach Muslims from the Sacred Scriptures can only teach from a carnal mindset. Islam considers their holy spirit is not God the Holy Spirit and considers the latter blasphemy. That is why, the Muslim Apologetics is grounded in carnal logic, and Islam cannot raise it’s faith to understand the divinely inspired Word of God, when it is God (the Holy Spirit) who teaches us.

It is blasphemy for a Muslim to enter into God’s Holy Spirit or to be taught by God the Holy Spirit, who teaches and reveals divine revelation to our hearts when we read God’s Word.

Thus, the Crucifixion of Jesus Christ becomes a Stumbling block for the learned Muslim who is grounded in carnal logic and can never gain divine revelation revealed by Jesus divinity and humanity.

All that the Muslim reveals about Jesus humanity from the Sacred Scriptures is True, except the crucifixion. Yet a Muslim cannot speak to how and why Jesus forgave sin, raised the dead, walked on water, calmed the storm, gave sight to a man born blind, healed with His Words from afar etc. For these all reveal Jesus divinity at work. A Muslim will argue, yes God can do all things through His prophets. Yet all the prophets pre-announced Jesus coming in the flesh from heaven (divinity), and His Kingdom will have no end. Whereby, Muhammad’s coming is never pre-announced by anyone except the spirit of the anti-Christ who is to come and is already here.

 

[UglierThanThou]

Many of your points concern the Trinity, and the Muslims’ inability to comprehend it. This inability stems from the fact that Muhammad didn’t understand the Trinity, and that, the Quran doesn’t accurately depict it.

Perhaps this analogy would help explain the Trinity. I have yet to run it by anyone, so I’m unsure whether it accurately depicts the Trinity. I’ve been trying to develop an analogy for some time now, and this one seems the most promising. Perhaps our friends and siblings, here, can help us refine it.

God is like a body which stands behind a curtain, and whose arm extends through the curtain, and whose hand enters a bowl. There are three parts: the body; the arm; and the hand. God the Father is the body; God the Spirit is the arm; and God the Son is the hand. Now the curtain symbolizes the divide between eternity and mortality, or the utmost extent of the heavens, beyond which there is only God; and the bowl symbolizes the earth. And so it was, before the beginning, that God stood at the curtain and envisioned his hand, entering the bowl. And it was, in the beginning, that God caused the curtain to ripple, as his hand entered through it, being his very arm. And God did place the bowl. Thus—even before the heavens and the earth were made—it was the hand of God which brought all things forth; and, for that hand, all things are made.

As for your first point: During the first decades after the death of Muhammad there existed many versions of the Quran. However, the third ruler after Muhammad, named Uthman, decided to issue an official version of the Quran, ordering that all variations be destroyed. The Church, on the other hand, chose a different course of action with respect to its scriptures, by keeping all of the variations of the New Testament instead of destroying them.

 

[OriginalGabrielof12]

Many of your points concern the Trinity, and the Muslims’ inability to comprehend it. This inability stems from the fact that Muhammad didn’t understand the Trinity, and that, the Quran doesn’t accurately depict it.

Correct the Quran never denies the True Blessed Trinity and never reveals the True Blessed Trinity. Muhammad possessed a heretical Arian view that rejects Jesus divinity. Muhammad’s brother in law was an Arian Christian Priest who converted to Islam. Some scholars believe that is how many Christian distorted stories find themselves in the Quran including Catholic rejected gospels stories of Jesus infancy, that never made the canon of the bible as divinely inspired of God. Yet the Quran possesses these lost rejected gospel narratives of Jesus.

In short God did not reveal the True blessed Trinity to Muhammad nor in the Quran. The trinity that Islam rejects is a trinity the Catholic Church rejects and never taught.

As for your first point: During the first decades after the death of Muhammad there existed many versions of the Quran. However, the third ruler after Muhammad, named Uthman, decided to issue an official version of the Quran, ordering that all variations be destroyed.

I agree with you on the historical account of the Quran here. Although, my comment focused on the present many diverse interpretations of the Quran by Muslims, that do not agree with each other. Last I learned of seven different Muslim interpretations of the same Quran today.

I will respond to your trinity commentary.

 

[OriginalGabrielof12]

No one pretends to define God or more specifically the mystery of the blessed Trinity. The best we can do is speak to the mystery of the Trinity in analogical terms or from a doctrinal statement that becomes the bulwark to this Truth.

The doctrine can be found in the CCC 253-255.

What you appear to be describing by analogy is the divine procession of the Trinity of persons and not necessarily the Blessed Trinity.

By divine procession the Father eternally begets the Son and the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son. From this divine procession in the Trinity of persons, God reveals divine revelation from eternity into space and time to our humanity, by sending us the Son who reveals the Father and the Holy Spirit confirms the divine revelation to our hearts and mind in sustained faith in One God.

It is from this divine procession of divine revelation that Muslims cannot comprehend the divine Word of God spoken and written. Because Muslims considers the Holy Spirit is not God and Jesus is not divine. So they distort the scriptures to their own demise.

Back to the ;procession, using biblical analogical terms. The Father who speaks His Voice from eternity sends His Word who is Son. The Son is distinct from the Father in Presence, whereby the Father never proceeds, God the Father in Presence is the principle source from which divine revelation proceeds and is sent. The Word who is God in Presence becomes God incarnate (flesh) in space and time.Because God is the Source of all creation and all life, sends His Word who is Son and God who is life proceeds Life in Breath (Holy Spirit). Where the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son in distinct presence from the Father and the Son, in one Spiration of Love.

God is One God in divine Essence. Divine revelation proceeds in the presence of the distinct persons of the Father (Voice), Son (Word), and Holy Spirit (Breath or Love who is God).

I get your analogy of the body, arm and hand, but I have trouble with the curtain symbol. When God is omnipresent. Eternity and Mortality are inferior to God. I believe to enter into the mystery of the Blessed Trinity, we have to understand the apostolic faith and Church definition of Divine Essence, Person, Substance, Presence and divine Procession.

All that was said here, and we have not discussed or defined the mystery of the Blessed Trinity. Apart from this brief theological discourse. Faith is the gift from God, that is free for all including Muslims, when Muslims do not fear reprisals from Islam and have ears to hear God when God calls them by name to Himself.

I have much more to share here, so I limit the discussion so as not to take away from the OP or the present discussion. I look forward to your response.
P.S your Trinity analogy is new to me and very interesting to contemplate here. Thank You

 

[SalamKhan]

@OriginalGabrielof12 It is irrelevant whether the begetting of the Son from the Father is sensible, imaginable, or intelligible. The fact remains, that Christians believe that Jesus (A) is the Son of God in the real sense, this is not something figurative for them, and this is what we Muslims reject.

 

[SalamKhan]

As for your first point: During the first decades after the death of Muhammad there existed many versions of the Quran. However, the third ruler after Muhammad, named Uthman, decided to issue an official version of the Quran, ordering that all variations be destroyed.

This isn’t true. It seems to me that only non Muslims support this largely (if not completely) unsubstantiated theory, not even Shiah Muslims support this theory, and they have more reason to do so (maligning Uthman’s character for example). The truth is that in the expanded empire of Uthman, there were a lot more dialects of Arabic, and this brought confusion over which dialect of Arabic is to be recited for liturgical use; and so Uthman compiled a standard recension for the Qur’an.

 

[Hodos]

Christians have various versions of Bible while Muslims have only one version of Quran. Various versions dent Bible’s authority.

While Christians do have differing translations, the major translations are very faithful to the original Greek and Hebrew Biblical texts. This is actually a positive because it allows the Gospel to be proclaimed to all nations and throughout all time despite changes in linguistics, etc. And while Muslims have only one Quran since translations of the Quran are considered to be perversions of the Quran, fewer than 15% of Muslims speak or read Arabic.

Matthew 15:24 says Jesus is sent only to the lost sheep of Israel. Therefore Jesus was a prophet for Israel not for the whole world.

This is only one passage. Jesus frequently taught in Gentile cities and towns and actually had a greater response in many documented instances in the Gospels from the Gentiles, than from the Jews. In addition, Christ gave the great commission to his disciples to make disciples of all nations, which they zealously fulfilled.

They (some Muslims) accuse Jesus of committing a sin; Jesus called the Canaanite woman a dog. Therefore he is not divine.

This is nonsense. Muslims will claim that Jesus was sinless when it suits them, then levy this charge when it doesn’t. So pick a stance, either he was sinless, or he wasn’t. But addressing the specific passage, Jesus is probably quoting a common saying, and as you can see in the story the woman did not view this statement as pejorative but persisted in her faith and was rewarded for doing so in faith.

They say that Jesus himself admits that he is not ‘good.’ Mark 10:18 Jesus asks why do you call Me good? No one is good but God alone.

This is an incomplete reading of this passage. Jesus is actually pointing to his divinity in this passage. If you read the rest of the passage, Jesus says that what is impossible with man is possible with God when speaking of saving man from sin. The entire passage points to Christ’s salvific work as God incarnate within the greater context of the passage and book.

 

[Hodos]

Quran says Jesus did not die. Hebrews 5:7 says “In the days when he was in the flesh, he offered prayers and supplications with loud cries and tears to the one who was able to save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverence.” They say that his prayers answered means he did not die on the cross.

This is a clear misreading of Hebrews 5:7. The entire point of Hebrews 5:7 is that Christ died as the atoning sacrifice and due to this perfect sacrifice is the high priest who makes atonement for us for all time (Hebrews 2:9, 2:14, 7:27, 9:11-14; 10:10; 10:12, etc.). Christ’s death is proclaimed in numerous places throughout Hebrews. This should actually challenge the historicity and “perfection” that is claimed by Muslims of the Quran and would be a strong apologetic point against Islam.

They say that Jesus did not wish to die. The prayer, “Father, if you are willing, take this cup away from me; still, not my will but yours be done" (Lk 22:42) is a proof for this.

Correct, Jesus human nature would not have wished to do, yet Jesus was obedient unto death. Refer to Philippians 2:5-11 for example. Not sure why this would be an issue considering we hold that Jesus was both fully human and fully God. It speaks more to the ignorance of most Muslims of Christian doctrine.

They say that Jesus was not divine. If he were divine why did he pray 'My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? (Mt 27:46)

This is a recitation of Psalm 22. And the Bible lays very clear claims to Jesus divinity such as in John 1:1-18.