Muslims and Christ Divinity

[PRmerger]

That’s what you have to believe, the alternative would create extremely uncomfortable cognitive dissonance for you.

If the Trinity could be distilled from reading the Bible alone then there would be no such thing as Unitarians, JWs, Christadelphians.

QED.

 

[Kliska]

If the Trinity could be distilled from reading the Bible alone then there would be no such thing as Unitarians, JWs, Christadelphians.

QED.

This makes no logical sense. There are plenty of teachings in scripture that people reject, just because someone rejects it doesn’t mean it’s not there.

 

[dronald]

This makes no logical sense. There are plenty of teachings in scripture that people reject, just because someone rejects it doesn’t mean it’s not there.

Can you see now why I didn’t want to get into this and why I called it redundant?

It doesn’t matter if it’s a discussion with Muslims, Mormans, JW’s, Evangelicals, whatever. She brings this point up and bye bye thread.

 

[AspiringSoul]

I’m not claiming to know any better but from a purely philosophical point of view…the Logos can be likened to a prism. Glass would be more appropriate but prism because through it the Absolute Essence that is God…manifests all the attributes we associate with God. It’s the very thing through which God is known. Therefore where the logos is, that’s where God is. However the Logos is not God, just like the light and glass are not the same.

In Islam you have 2 perspectives. One is Called Haqiqah which means Truth. The Truth is basically what i’ve said above. The inner experience of a person who awakens himself to the highest consciousness…witnessing the Unity of God, it is a ‘Unity of Perception’.

The other is called Marifah which means Gnosis. Gnosis is the concept of becoming the thing you seek, or reflecting it’s qualities. Ie to know something you must become something. When Jesus said things like ‘I am in the Father and the Father is in me’ and also ‘I am in you and you are in me’ (or something close to this) it was…the concept of Marifah he was referring to.

If you understand the above concepts it’s easy to understand what’s being taught in the new testament. Nothing is contradicted, nothing is rejected, there’s a consistency in theology with the entire bible and you can easily remain in true monotheism.

The person who exists in a state of marifah, he doesn’t see ‘Jesus’. He sees God.
When Peter asked Jesus ‘show me God’ and Jesus replied ‘If you have seen me you have seen God’ he was once again referring to this.

What do you think it means ‘in the minds of the pure, all things are pure’?

unfortunately these concepts were not even known by most people who either accept or reject Christianity. The texts were taken at face value and brought down to the lowest level. Jesus…or ‘baby’ Jesus literally became the ‘son of God’ without any regard to the metaphor it was originally meant as.

Another example is the term ‘Lord’ ie Lord Jesus Christ. The term Lord is misused by the average Christian. When applied to Jesus it does not mean Lord God.

*Psalm 110
The Lord says to my Lord:
“Sit at My right hand
Until I make Your enemies a footstool for Your feet.”
*

The Lord=God=Adonai
my Lord=Jesus Christ=Adoni

evenwhen I look at the title of the thread ‘Christ divinity’ is it referring to the logos or to Jesus? Or perhaps you do not distinguish between the 2 and regard them as the same. Of course to a person in marifah, there is no difference

Here is a perfect example of a person, in the state of Marifah.

Psalm 44
3 For by their own sword they did not possess the land,
And their own arm did not save them,
But Your right hand and Your arm and the light of Your presence,
For You favored them.

the body is merely a vessel of consciousness and when the consciousness is filled with Light (Matthew 6:22) then even the actions are…the light (the act of God).

There’s a very similar Quranic verse

(1) Ye (Muslims) slew them not, but Allah slew them. And thou (Muhammad) threwest not when thou didst throw, but Allah threw, that He might test the believers by a fair test from Him. Lo! Allah is Hearer, Knower.
( سورة الأنفال , Al-Anfal, Chapter #8, Verse #17)

 

[IgnatianPhilo]

And so my point still remains incontrovertible: the Trinity can not be found in the Bible, as the Muslim poster stated.

You cannot prove the Trinity from the Bible, and esp. not only from the Gospels, which was what you were trying to assert.

I take a bit of “what are you talking about?” kind of attitude to this sort of statement. What do you think the fathers of the church were basing their opinions on when the trinity was formulated if they were not basing it on the scripture which for them was the great authority? This isn’t to suggest tradition didn’t help them (of course it did and they were bound to it as we are all bound to tradition) but they saw the trinity in scripture and quoted constantly from scripture to establish their points, be it Gregory, Athanasius or Basil.

I get what you are trying to establish, that it is the church which has defined doctrine which is not explicitely found in the bible but we should never say the trinity is not in the bible and leave an opening for the unitarian to attack us. I am orthodox and I do not believe in sola scripture but I also believe the bible is the chief authority along with the church and our doctrines, especially our doctrines about God should come from and be justified by the bible. The trinity as laid out at Constantinople in a concise formula is not directly stated in the bible, rather what is in the bible is that theology which at the time had not yet been defined and thats how we should state it.

Now I would like to tie this in as a responce to aspiring soul’s recent post.

What is the best way to interpret the vast amount of sayings and things attributed to Jesus? I believe it is best found in the trinitarian explanation of things which neccessarily requires not just a knowledge of who God is, father son and holy spirit in one substance, but also the relationship between the father and the son, the relationship of the Humanity and divinity of the son and whether or not Jesus has a human will.

If I were to expect a muslim understanding in the gospels and when I read that Jesus was the creator of heaven and earth, the one name under heaven and earth by which we are saved, to deny him is to deny God the father, to have grace in Jesus Christ, to see Jesus forgive sins, to see Jesus proclaimed greater than Moses (as one who establishes instead of follows according to hebrews), I must confess that I would expect any muslim to say such a picture of Jesus is terribly heretical.

Yet we can point to the humanity of Jesus, that he sleeps, that he eats, that he is at times ignorant of certain things, that he follows his father perfectly and many of the other verses in the gospels muslims will go to and say “look and see Jesus is just a man.”

Well he is not just a man because we cannot avoid the other statements and sayings of him in which he is clearly beyond man. This is what the Christians struggled with in attempting to define the faith. The first important distinction is that Jesus is both human and divine and these two do not mix. So it wasn’t the divinity of Jesus sleeping and doing all those natural human acts (including defecating as muslims love to point out time and time again as if this was an immoral thing). The second distinction is to say that the father is the fount of all divinity, from him the spirit proceeds and the son is begotten and what do we mean by begotten? We mean that he shares the exact same nature as his father in heaven and that he has always been the begotten son of the father from all eternity. The third distinction is to say that when Christ took on humanity he did not take on humanity as a man controling a robot, but he took on a human will and adopted human inclinations in everything except sin. Hebrews tells us we have a high priest who understands us because he was exactly that, human and Paul goes on to tell us the same thing that he did not consider his equality with God something to be used to his own advantage but humbled himself and became human not only by adopting a nature that was ours but also a will like ours (hence why he was ignorant of the time in regaurds to his humanity).

This is the theology of the incarnation as I understand it and it is the best way to understand the gospel.

 

[PRmerger]

I take a bit of “what are you talking about?” kind of attitude to this sort of statement. What do you think the fathers of the church were basing their opinions on when the trinity was formulated if they were not basing it on the scripture which for them was the great authority? This isn’t to suggest tradition didn’t help them (of course it did and they were bound to it as we are all bound to tradition) but they saw the trinity in scripture and quoted constantly from scripture to establish their points, be it Gregory, Athanasius or Basil.

What did the ecfs use in, say, 50 AD? And can you cite your source?

 

[AspiringSoul]

^^
*If I were to expect a muslim understanding in the gospels and when I read that Jesus was the creator of heaven and earth, the one name under heaven and earth by which we are saved, to deny him is to deny God the father, to have grace in Jesus Christ, to see Jesus forgive sins, to see Jesus proclaimed greater than Moses (as one who establishes instead of follows according to hebrews), I must confess that I would expect any muslim to say such a picture of Jesus is terribly heretical. *

Was it ‘Jesus’ that was specifically being referred to here? or the Word that was in him?
In John 1 that is.

The Word became flesh.

refer back to what I said about ‘Unity of perception’. The true seekers would recognise the Word in Jesus more than Jesus the man.

*Psalm 44
3 For by their own sword they did not possess the land,
And their own arm did not save them,
But Your right hand and Your arm and the light of Your presence,
For You favored them.
*
just as David sees God even in the actions of humans. As i said, the body is a vessel of consciousness (The Word IS Complete Consciousness) and when the consciousness is filled with light the actions of the body are a manifestation of the light itself.

just think about this one for a moment.

Do you worship the body, the consciousness or the light itself which was the Cause of causes?

This is, the concept of Marifah. To see God in all things.

 

[AspiringSoul]

a similar concept to the Trinity is the following

Bismi-llāhi r-raḥmāni r-raḥīm

There is the Absolute Essence of God
Rahman means Merciful and this is manifested at the level of the Logos/The Son/Image of God
Rahim means Bestower of Mercy and it manifests at the level of causation. This is the Holy spirit.

I’ve done my research and it appears this (The Basmala) was actually used by Aramaic Christians before Prophet Mohammed…and it was their interpretation of the trinity.

These are 3 ontological faces of ‘God-head’ manifesting on 3 levels.

You’ll be surprised just how many muslims (especially the sufis) have no problem accepting
God
The Word of God
The Holy spirit

the problem appears when Christians insert Jesus the man, into the equation. Jesus the man, as God.

Whereas I differntiate between Jesus the man and the Word that was in him. I can recognise that the actions of Jesus were…the actions of God!! The key point to remember is it’s largely due to the inner perception of the seeker. Ie i can look at a tree and see God. It doesn’t make the tree God, but the signs of God are in it.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athanasian_Creed
The 2 aspects of Jesus that are not exactly the same

btw, i Completely agree with the Athanasian Creed and i’m a proper muslim, as orthodox (sunni) as they come.

I guess it’s because the concept of Marifah and Haqiqah have been explained to me.

 

[IgnatianPhilo]

What did the ecfs use in, say, 50 AD? And can you cite your source?

Well the “early church fathers” then were the apostles who used their apostolic authority to write and preach true doctrine. If we are talking about early church fathers beyond the apostles and the sources they used, they argued of course from their own tradition they had received (Ignatius, Iraneaus and Polycarp as examples) but also used scripture to supplement their arguments. I am not for this either tradition or scripture approach or saying that the bible does not teach trinity. The bible teaches trinity, however the opponents of truth will distort it either ignorantly or on purpose to their own ends and wicked doctrines.

 

[IgnatianPhilo]

^^
*If I were to expect a muslim understanding in the gospels and when I read that Jesus was the creator of heaven and earth, the one name under heaven and earth by which we are saved, to deny him is to deny God the father, to have grace in Jesus Christ, to see Jesus forgive sins, to see Jesus proclaimed greater than Moses (as one who establishes instead of follows according to hebrews), I must confess that I would expect any muslim to say such a picture of Jesus is terribly heretical. *

Was it ‘Jesus’ that was specifically being referred to here? or the Word that was in him?
In John 1 that is.

The Word became flesh.

refer back to what I said about ‘Unity of perception’. The true seekers would recognise the Word in Jesus more than Jesus the man.

*Psalm 44
3 For by their own sword they did not possess the land,
And their own arm did not save them,
But Your right hand and Your arm and the light of Your presence,
For You favored them.
*
just as David sees God even in the actions of humans. As i said, the body is a vessel of consciousness (The Word IS Complete Consciousness) and when the consciousness is filled with light the actions of the body are a manifestation of the light itself.

just think about this one for a moment.

Do you worship the body, the consciousness or the light itself which was the Cause of causes?

This is, the concept of Marifah. To see God in all things.

It was refferring to the word who was Jesus and to try and detach the word from Jesus doesn’t quite fit in with the rest of the gospel of John. Jesus tells us he had glory with the father before the world was, we are told all judgement is handed to the son, we are told before abraham was “i am.” I am not a gnostic and do not seperate the Christ from Jesus, that is a foreign understanding which has no place in the gospels. There is not the Christ who is not Jesus, there is not the Jesus who is not the Christ, there is only Jesus who is the Christ.

 

[IgnatianPhilo]

a similar concept to the Trinity is the following

Bismi-llāhi r-raḥmāni r-raḥīm

There is the Absolute Essence of God
Rahman means Merciful and this is manifested at the level of the Logos/The Son/Image of God
Rahim means Bestower of Mercy and it manifests at the level of causation. This is the Holy spirit.

I’ve done my research and it appears this (The Basmala) was actually used by Aramaic Christians before Prophet Mohammed…and it was their interpretation of the trinity.

These are 3 ontological faces of ‘God-head’ manifesting on 3 levels.

You’ll be surprised just how many muslims (especially the sufis) have no problem accepting
God
The Word of God
The Holy spirit

the problem appears when Christians insert Jesus the man, into the equation. Jesus the man, as God.

Whereas I differntiate between Jesus the man and the Word that was in him. I can recognise that the actions of Jesus were…the actions of God!! The key point to remember is it’s largely due to the inner perception of the seeker. Ie i can look at a tree and see God. It doesn’t make the tree God, but the signs of God are in it.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athanasian_Creed
The 2 aspects of Jesus that are not exactly the same

btw, i Completely agree with the Athanasian Creed and i’m a proper muslim, as orthodox (sunni) as they come.

I guess it’s because the concept of Marifah and Haqiqah have been explained to me.

The problem with your understanding of the athanasian creed is that it is reading meaning into it which was never intended.

“That we worship one God in Trinity, and Trinity in Unity; Neither confounding the Persons; nor dividing the Essence.”

What does it mean not to confound the persons nor divide the essence? By person it means a specific individual with an identity unique to his own. That is to say the son can say to the father “I am the son and I am not the father.” Muslims are traditionally unitarian and as far as I understand it Jesus being the word of God in islam is not a concept equal to like it is presented in the gospels. Whereas the word is eternal that is not the case in islam, Jesus Christ is clearly created and we Christians are basically anathama for declaring Jesus as God. I find it difficult that you can agree with the athanasian creed without redefining words and concepts which have a totally different way of being understood in Christianity.

Take in mind that the athanasian creed says the son is God as the father is God. Do you believe an eternal son who is God? I dare say that would make you at odds with your fellow muslims.

 

[AspiringSoul]

The problem with your understanding of the athanasian creed is that it is reading meaning into it which was never intended.

“That we worship one God in Trinity, and Trinity in Unity; Neither confounding the Persons; nor dividing the Essence.”

What does it mean not to confound the persons nor divide the essence? By person it means a specific individual with an identity unique to his own. That is to say the son can say to the father “I am the son and I am not the father.” Muslims are traditionally unitarian and as far as I understand it Jesus being the word of God in islam is not a concept equal to like it is presented in the gospels. Whereas the word is eternal that is not the case in islam, Jesus Christ is clearly created and we Christians are basically anathama for declaring Jesus as God. I find it difficult that you can agree with the athanasian creed without redefining words and concepts which have a totally different way of being understood in Christianity.

Take in mind that the athanasian creed says the son is God as the father is God. Do you believe an eternal son who is God? I dare say that would make you at odds with your fellow muslims.

What you have overlooked is the concept of Marifah in Islam, so i’ll give you the following quote which should shed some light. It’s about Oneness of perception.

“Praise is to Allah! Thousands of evidences of His glory and grandeur are revealed through the bodies of the earthly elements. His perfect Nature is watching play of His unparallel beauty in a clean mirror made by Him; and is playing the game of Love by himself; He is himself a vision, a viewer and the ‘beloved’ (because so much of ALLAH’s beauty & grandeur is being reflected through this material world). O Talib (seeker) if you lift the veil (of your ego from your eyes) you will observe that everything is singularity (in reality there is ONLY one ENTITY) which actually exists (and) all of the duality (of things) (the world of variety & multiplicity) is only due to your (squint) eyes”

The trinity reveals 3 ontological faces of Godhead. As I explained, what is fascinating is the Basmala of the muslims as it also reveals the same truth.

Marifah is such a concept where the Seeker recognises God…not just in 1 individual, but in the whole of Creation, in all existence.

THIS, the Unity of Perception, is 100% Christianity
*For like as we are compelled by the Christian verity; to acknowledge every Person by himself to be God and Lord; So are we forbidden by the catholic religion; to say, There are three Gods, or three Lords
*

The true Christians, are not trinitarians according to the Athanasian Creed…but Unitarians. They see the Oneness of God here, not the trinity. They see the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit as 3 seperate aspects of God’s manifestation…but still God is One. Do you get this?

Now let me remind you once again that Marifah is the very thing Jesus Christ preached.
Oneness of perception

‘Let your eye be single’
ie to see Oneness of God in ALL things.

As Paul said* ‘to the pure all things are pure’. *

Now you ask me about The Son.
I have made it very clear that The Son is not the same as Jesus the physical man, the son of Mary.

*For the right Faith is, that we believe and confess; that our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is God and Man; God, of the Essence of the Father; begotten before the worlds; **and Man, of the Essence of his Mother, born in the world. **
*

*Who although he is God and Man; yet he is not two, but one Christ. One; not by conversion of the Godhead into flesh; but by assumption of the Manhood by God. One altogether; not by confusion of Essence; but by unity of Person. For as the reasonable soul and flesh is one man; so God and Man is one Christ
*

You’ve got to understand the dual nature of man. We have a higher part (The Holy Spirit within us) which is the ‘God’ within.
We also have our flesh nature…and the 2 are not the same, yet we both equate each one with Self.

The secret here is in understanding how the 2 are 1.
Consider the following

The actions of a person are a manifestation of the qualities of the Heart. The secret of the Heart…is the Holy Spirit…reflecting The Son.

The pure, God-enlightened being, though he acts…and though he thinks, it is always the Act of God manifesting through him.
In this way a true Unitarian perceives…what?

He perceives the Oneness of God in All.

However he isn’t particularly worshipping each human as ‘God’ but worshipping God, who is manifesting through the acts.

The Acts…are what we refer to in regard to Jesus especially

proof
*Don’t you believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me? The words I say to you I do not speak on my own authority. Rather, it is the Father, living in me, who is doing his work.
*

Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; or at least believe on the evidence of the works themselves.

twice Jesus mentions the ‘Works’ ie the Acts. he doesn’t refer to his face, his hands, his eyes, ears, mouth, body, he refers to the acts.

What is a human, but the acts? a human is a vessel through which the acts manifest. What are the acts? they are the manifestation of the heart? what is the heart? the heart is consciousness itself.

 

[AspiringSoul]

The Son represents the Universal Consciousness. It is Eternal. It is always existing with God. It’s also called the Image of God, a term you’re familiar with. It is the Eternal Expression of the Absolute Essence of God. It is the Macrocosm of all creation.

The Holy Spirit, represents the reflection of The Son. It is the Microcosm of the The Son. This is why it says
‘Let us make Man in Our Image’ ie the Holy Spirit is in all humans.

As it says in the Athanasian Creed

*The Father is made of none; neither created, nor begotten. The Son is of the Father alone; not made, nor created; but begotten. The Holy Ghost is of the Father and of the Son; neither made, nor created, nor begotten; but proceeding.
*

These 3 are eternal aspects of the Absolute God-head.

I have no problem accepting this and i’ve already believed it by the very fact the Essence of the Quran can be summed up by the Basmala

In the Name of Allah, The Most Merciful, The Bestower of Mercy

What is unique about Jesus Christ however is an added element that unlike every other human, the Son (the macrocosm) is manifested, not just the microcosm. This concept of ‘Incarnations of the Universal Consciousness’ are not unique to Christianity btw but it is a universal concept.
Where do you think Logos came from (as a concept)? it originated in India, was passed to the Persians (remember the 3 magians) and it reached the Greeks, then Hellenised world, the jews in particular.

The relationship between the Macrocosm and the Microcosm is explained by sufis in the following way

The Microcosm in the Macrocosm=A drop in the ocean
The Macrocosm in the Microcosm=An ocean in a drop.

It is the basis of the saying
Ali ibn Abi Talib You [humans] think that you an insignificant, while there is a great universe contained in you.

great concept for example
in.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20081219075613AAyhSvV

The meaning of this is Jesus Christ was a fully awakened being, to the True reality of all existence (the macrocosm) whereas the normal enlightened human is only able to perceive himself as the Microcosm.

It takes a great awakened being to reveal the unity of the microcosm and the macrocosm with the Absolute Essence of God. This is why Jesus Christ came, to bring that message. To teach us this truth of our connection with the Absolute.

 

[Kliska]

The point about Jesus is that He called us to believe very very specific things about Him and then to trust only Him for salvation. You can’t separate His claims of divinity from His other statements.

 

[PRmerger]

This makes no logical sense. There are plenty of teachings in scripture that people reject, just because someone rejects it doesn’t mean it’s not there.

You see it because you accept the authority (here, at least, along with the 27 book canon of the NT) of the CC, which directed your gaze towards finding it in the Bible.

However lots of folks, millions of folks, have read the Bible and reject the Trinity, because they reject the lens of Tradition.

Just watch this video of this earnest young woman, a former Christian who “decided to find out for myself what the Bible said about the Trinity” and came to this conclusion: wn.com/non_trinitarian_churches

A lethally salient point that this woman says at 6:28: “We are given doctrine before we read the Bible.” Bingo. Egg-zactly.

And when she rejects the lens, she comes to the conclusion that “The Trinity is not in the Bible”. She astutely notes that we have received our understanding first, and then look to the Bible for confirmation.

That is what everyone does.

And if one tries to read it “independently”, then one comes to all sorts of heterodox conclusions.

 

[PRmerger]

Can you see now why I didn’t want to get into this and why I called it redundant?

It doesn’t matter if it’s a discussion with Muslims, Mormans, JW’s, Evangelicals, whatever. She brings this point up and bye bye thread.

It is indeed, an incontrovertible fact that I do enjoy presenting oft.

Even if there are those who remain obdurate and recusant to it, the fact remains: outside of the lens of the Church one would not find the Trinity in the Bible.

 

[Kliska]

You see it because you accept the authority (here, at least, along with the 27 book canon of the NT) of the CC, which directed your gaze towards finding it in the Bible.

However lots of folks, millions of folks, have read the Bible and reject the Trinity, because they reject the lens of Tradition.

Just watch this video of this earnest young woman, a former Christian who “decided to find out for myself what the Bible said about the Trinity” and came to this conclusion: wn.com/non_trinitarian_churches

Again, there are plenty of teachings in scripture that people reject, just because someone rejects it doesn’t mean it’s not there. You can keep rephrasing it in any way you want, but that is the fact. It’s not an opinion. Just because someone rejects something in scripture doesn’t mean it isn’t there. As others have pointed out, the ECF’s and other Christians (RCC/ECC/OC/Protestant) I’ve met form their argument of the Trinity from scripture. You are free to disagree.

 

[PRmerger]

Well the “early church fathers” then were the apostles who used their apostolic authority to write and preach true doctrine.

Can you give an example of an apostle teaching that the Holy Spirit is a Person and is the 3rd Person of the Godhead?

 

[PRmerger]

Jesus the man, as God.

I find that Muslims have a harder time embracing the above, but an easier time accepting it when it is presented this way:

Jesus as God, becoming Man.

Can you accept that the All Powerful Creator could do this?

 

[PRmerger]

Just because someone rejects something in scripture doesn’t mean it isn’t there.

It can only be seen when one doesn’t read the Bible “independently” and without any pre-conceived ideas.

As soon as one starts to read the Bible on her own, she will reject the Trinity.

Or, if one reads the Bible after being raised on a desert island, in complete isolation from any tradition, she will never conclude, “There are 3 Persons in 1 God!”

As others have pointed out, the ECF’s and other Christians (RCC/ECC/OC/Protestant) I’ve met form their argument of the Trinity from scripture. You are free to disagree.

Sure, they can use the Bible to support their view.

But the dogma came first, delivered once for all to the saints, and the Scriptures which conformed to this view were chosen (by men, Catholic men) to be part of the canon of the NT.