Islam and Christianity
- Claim 1: The Original Holy Book (the Christian Old and New Testament) has been distorted
- Claim 2: Jesus was not crucified
- Claim 3: Jesus is not divine
- Claim 4: God is not Triune (Qur'an 5:73)
- Claim 5: Jesus was a prophet of Allah
Concept of God in Islam and Christianity:
ReplyDeleteBut the major objection lodged by Islam against the Christian concept of God concerns the doctrine of the Trinity. In particular Christians believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and shares the same divine nature with God the Father. Muslims reject this doctrine because they believe that it commits the sin they call shirk, which is the sin of associating anything with God. Since God is thought to be incomparable or without peer, He cannot have a Son, as Christians claim. Thus, the Qu’ran denounces anyone who holds that God has a Son as “an unbeliever” and consigns him to hellfire for such a blasphemous assertion. The Qur’an states: “They are unbelievers who say, ‘God is the Messiah, Mary’s son . . . .’ Surely, whoever associates anything with God, God shall prohibit him entrance to Paradise and his home shall be the Fire. None shall help the evil-doers” (5.73).
Unfortunately the Qur’an’s denunciation of the doctrine of the Trinity seems to be based on a gross misunderstanding of that doctrine. First, a bit of history here: Early Christian creeds had adopted the language of speaking of Mary as “the Mother of God” because she bore Jesus Christ. Now to someone not familiar with the theology of the early Church Fathers, such an expression as “the Mother of God” is almost guaranteed to be misleading. What the Church Fathers meant is that the person whose human nature Mary bore is a divine person. Mary did not give birth to the divine nature of Christ; nevertheless, Mary could be called the Mother of God, since Christ, whose human nature she bore, was a divine person.
But Mohammed evidently thought that Christians believed in a Trinity composed of God the Father, Mary, and their offspring Jesus. It’s no wonder that he regarded such a ridiculous doctrine as blasphemous!