Some Thoughts on the "Proofs"
of the
Alleged Divinity of Jesus(as)
Based on a lecture by Gary Miller
One of the crucial issues which separates Islam and Christianity is their
beliefs concerning the nature of Jesus - peace be upon him. The majority of
Christians believe that Jesus is "Divine", i.e. they believe him to be
God incarnate. Muslims, on the other hand, believe that Jesus was only a great
Prophet of God and a faultless human being.
Approach to a Muslim--Christian Dialogue
The doctrine of the Trinity says that the three distinct co-equals are
altogether God -- or that God is made up of three co-equal "persons".
In particular, Jesus is said to be "God the Son", or the "Son of
God". In a Muslim-Christian dialogue, inevitably the Muslim will question
the details regarding this theology. The Christian, on the other hand, will
usually form a common explanation by complaining that Muslims simply do not
understand the Trinity, and that what the Muslim accuses the Christians of is
one thing which Christians don't really believe. In short Muslims do not
understand how the Christians understood the Trinity. The Muslim seeks to find
clarifications of the teachings of this doctrine by asking for explanations as
to how that would be so, because the term Son of God cannot have a literal
interpretation: Sonship and divine nature would be two attributes which are
incomparable, because sonship describes someone who receives life while divine
nature describes someone who receives life from no one. To be a son is to be
less than divine and to be divine is to be no one's son. Eventually the
Christians would seek refuge in the response of "these are things which we
cannot understand."
Verification and Understanding
Christians seem to be confusing two concepts -- the concept of
verification and the concept of understanding. This can be illustrated in the
example of hydrogen combining with oxygen to make water. We can verify this
statement in a laboratory to see whether this statement is a statement of fact.
But after verification, that does not mean what we have understood the nature of
atoms. Verification and understanding are two different concepts. Thus, what
Muslims should do is to re-direct the discussions because the first issue is
more basic than simply resolving all the difficult points of Trinitarian
doctrines. It is not the explanation of how to understand the concept of the
Trinitarian doctrine that we seek, but rather, to seek verifications of their
belief, that is, why in the first place must we believe that Jesus is divine
(not how but why).
The Trinity -- A Church Doctrine
If Muslims pursue this approach, ultimately many Christians will
usually say that "the Church says so", that is, it is the Church's
doctrine. Thus many Christians' arguments stop short of questioning the Church's
authority. They will not challenge it to find out the basis for their claim or
their teaching. Although many Christians in fact concede that this is the case
on the subject of Trinitarian doctrine, there are also others who insist that
Jesus did talk about the Trinity himself.
"Let them produce proof"
We have been told in the Qur'an to tell the Christians "Let them
produce proof". Thus we demand them to provide documentation that Jesus
himself claimed unqualified divinity for himself, and that he said in so many
words: "I am God". The Muslims are advised by another Qur'anic verse
to tell the Christians: "Say: O people of the Book you have no ground to
stand upon unless you stand fast by the Law, the Gospel and all the Revelation
that has come to you from your Lord." This demand is reasonable, for
Muslims are also told in another verse that Jesus never claimed to be God.
Therefore if the Christians were to look into their own scripture they would not
be able to find any saying of Jesus, that should him clearly claiming to be
equal with God.
Explicit and implicit statements
>From the Biblical record, the sayings accredited to Jesus are very
small because after allowing for duplications in the Four Gospels' account of
his -life, these sayings could be reprinted in two columns of a typical
newspaper. And none of these texts is a clear claim to divinity, because nowhere
does he explicitly claim to be God. All the quotations are implicit. The
difference is, an explicit statement is one which requires no explanation. The
meaning is right on the .surface of the word. For example, when your gas gauge
in your car shows empty, you do not need to ask your passenger to interpret it
for you. it is very clear. An implicit statement is a statement where the
meaning is carried just beneath the surface of the word. It requires some
thought before we determine what was meant by the words. And all quotations that
are cited by Christians in order to put in the mouth of Jesus the claim of deity
are implicit -- which means interpretation is required. Thus what happens is,
when we are told what Jesus said, we are then told what he meant. In other
words, they interpret the meaning for us.
Christians' claim
The Christians' claim of Jesus to be God through his Virgin birth (The
Immaculate Conception) is cited as one case of insufficient evidence. But, the
Bible also tells us about the Creation of Adam -- i.e. without father or mother;
and the account of the miracle associated with the prophet Elisha. Also, the
case of Melchizekdek can be cited: "without father or mother or genealogy,
and has neither beginning of days nor end of life, but resembling the Son of
God" - Hebrews 7:3. For these men, no Christian will say he was divine. Yet
each has the qualifications in common with Jesus. Another claim is that Jesus
was God because the Hebrew Scripture predicted his coming before he was born.
Yet the Christians seem to betray a selective or forgetful recall of the
Scriptures because in places where they predict the coming of
John the Baptist they quote prophecies from the Book of Malachi.
Son of Man, Son of God, Messiah, Savior
Another argument of Christians that Jesus claimed to be God is that
Jesus constantly used the terms, "Son of God", "Son of Man"
and "Messiah" and "Savior". Since he uses these terms, they
argued, therefore he was claiming to be God. These terms were also applied to
other individuals as well, in the Bible. For example, Ezekiel was addressed as
"Son of Man". Jesus himself speaks of the peace makers as "sons
of God". It is interesting to note that even though Jesus is called the
"Son of God" in the Bible, he is never called "God the Son",
which is what the Christians have made him into due to their Trinitarian
theology. Even Cyrus the Persian is called "Messiah", or "the
anointed", in Isaiah Chapter 45. This verse has been translated in a
misleading way. The meaning of the Hebrew word "Messiah" is
"God's anointed". Here, when it refers to Cyrus, they translated the
Hebrew word "Messiah" with "God's anointed". But in places
where- the Bible is talking about Jesus, when the term "Messiah"
appears, instead of translating it as "anointed", they simply
transliterate it (i.e. they write the Hebrew words with the Roman Alphabet
without translating it) so that it reads "Messiah". Interestingly this
word "Messiah" is in the Greek equivalent written as
"Christ". Thus there seems to be a conspiracy to give us the
impression that there is only one Messiah, one Christ and no other. As for the
term "Savior", the word is clearly applied to other individuals
besides Jesus, for example the Book of II Kings, Chapter 13, Verse 5, says:
"And the Lord gave Israel a Savior, so they went out from under the hand of
the Syrians; and the children of Israel dwelt in their tents as
beforetime."
"I and My Father are One"
In John, Chapter 10, Verse 30, Jesus is quoted as saying "I and my
Father are one". Some Christian scholars have insisted that the only
probable understanding of these Words are: as one in essence or nature. Yet
there are several examples where the same Greek words were used but not
understood in the same way. For example, John 17:11 says: "And now I am no
more in the world but these are in the world and I come to thee. Holy Father
keep through their own name, those who thou hast given me that they may be one,
as we are."
End