This is an example of some illuminating apologetics from a Muslim who responded to a Christian arguing Jesus is God from the Bible based on 7 points. How would you have responded?
Each of the Christian’s points are mentioned with a bit of commentary by the Muslim negating the respective claim. {} are comments added by me.
[Christian name censored] said:
“Here’s an argument a friend and I constructed (to prove Jesus is God)”
Muslim: Please see my response below to your questions – prefixed with A and <question number>
1. A morally perfect God cannot deceive.
A1. According to the bible, God is blasphemed against by joining Him to the ranks of deceivers like Satan and the antichrist (Dajjal).
“For this reason God sends them a powerful delusion so that they will believe the lie” [2 Thessalonians 2:11 NIV]
{God sent a lying spirit into the mouths of false prophets as a means by which He brought just punishment on those who rebelled against Him (1 Kings 22:33), and just as the New Testament warns that those who refuse to love the truth will be caused to love a lie (2 Thessalonians 2:10-11) – James R White}
2. A morally perfect God cannot validate the claims of a deceiver
A2. Again the bible proves you wrong
“And the spirit said, I will go out, and be a DECEIVING spirit in the mouth of all his prophets. And the Lord said, you will be successful: GO AND DO IT! [2 Chronicles 18;21]
3. Jesus claimed to be the Messiah and God.
A1. Jesus didn’t claim to be God. If he did please provide a clear and unambiguous proof from the bible where he himself made such a claim.
4. Jesus promised that his claims would be validated by his resurrection after his violent death.
A4. The very fact that you believe Jesus died voids your claim of Jesus being God. Almighty God is immortal unlike Jesus (1 Timothy 6:16) who’s not subject to death.
{Powerful counter-point!}
5. Jesus died a violent death and rose from the dead.
A5. Death and resurrection only applies to mortals and not to God.
6. Only God has the power to raise the dead to life.
A6. Brandon, have you actually read the bible?
1. Elijah raised the son of the Zarephath widow from the dead (1 Kings 17:17-22).
2. Elisha raised the son of the Shunammite woman from the dead (2 Kings 4:32-35).
3. A man was raised from the dead when his body touched Elisha’s bones (2 Kings 13:20, 21).
4. Peter raised Dorcas from the dead (Acts 9:36-41).
5. Eutychus was raised from the dead by Paul (Acts 20:9-11).
(J. L. Meredith, Meredith’s Big Book of Bible Lists, (Inspirational Press, NY; 1980), p. 115)
Are all these people and even the bones of the dead truly God based on your claim?
{Very smooth and thoughtful. A note here for our Christian friends. Muslims believe Jesus raised the dead too, we believe Jesus was performing miracles by the permission of God. Please see Islam and the miracles of Jesus}
7. Jesus’ claims were validated.
7A. Jesus claim in the Bible of 3 days and 3 nights in the tomb is a failed prophecy unless you can show us how this is possible from Friday afternoon to Sunday before the sunrise.
{Concerning the idea of false prophecies attributed to Jesus, listen to Candida Moss from timeframe 3.10}
8. Therefore, Jesus is the Messiah and God.
8A. From the above 7 points, you clearly failed to show Jesus was God and your claims were so poor that they were easily refuted by the bible alone
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The message of Islam [Sh. Khalid Al Ghamdy]
Categories: Islam
Blogging Theology 
It is quite funny, if not plain pitiful, how such confident arguments and claims by Christians for the deity of Christ are so easily refuted and dismantled by their own Bible. It makes one wonder if such Christians really do read their own book, as it seems that their beliefs are based more on man-made unbiblical innovations and traditions than any Bible based theology.
In regard to the alleged resurrection, it does not provide evidence that Jesus is God. In the end times, ALL HUMANS who have experienced death, will be resurrected to stand before Allah on the day of Judgment, If we say that resurrection alone is a sign of Godhood, then the logical conclusion would be that all humans who are resurrected on judgment day will become gods as well…..sounds like Mormonism.
IF the Christian assertion about Jesus having died and subsequently resurrected is true, it just means that he was honored with being the first (or one of the first) humans among mankind to be resurrected. And yet, even this does not seem that impressive when we recall that we will ALL be resurrected in the end as well.
It would be much easier for Christian’s and their theology, if they could agree that there is no need to claim deity for Jesus or argue that was anything more than he was. The simple fact that he was a (fully human) wise sage, Messenger and a Prophet of God is more than honor enough.
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I regard to point 7 and 7A, not only did Jesus fail to fulfill the time aspect of the prophecy, but if the Christian interpretation is accepted, then he failed to meet the prophecy of being “as Jonah was……so will the Son of man be…”
But he answered them, “An evil and adulterous generation seeks for a sign; but no sign shall be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. 40 For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the whale, so will the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. (Matthew 12:39-40)
Quote by Ahmed Deedat, on “the Sign of Jonah”:
If Jonah was alive for three days and three nights, then Jesus also ought to have been alive in the tomb as he himself had foretold! But Christianity hangs on the flimsy thread of the death of Jesus for its salvation. So it has to answer that Jesus was DEAD for three days and three nights.The contradiction between his utterance and its fulfillment is obvious. Jonah ALIVE, Jesus DEAD! Very UNLIKE Jonah! Jesus had said “LIKE Jonah” not UNLIKE Jonah. If this is true then according to his own test Jesus is not the TRUE Messiah of the Jews. If the Gospel record is genuine then how can we blame the Jews for rejecting “CHRIST”.
The choice Christians are left with, is that either the prophecy is an utter failure on two points, (time and likeness), or at the very least, Jesus was ALIVE (not dead) in the tomb, just as Jonah was ALIVE (not dead) in the belly of the fish.
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It goes without saying that if Jesus was ALIVE in the tomb (like Jonah was Alive in the belly of the fish), then there is no possibility of a resurrection having occurred.
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Very interesting point.
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“Quote by Ahmed deedat”
And there goes all honour…
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Paulus,
The fact that you are not a personal fan of Deedat does not discount his work.
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LOL Cerberus! Yes, we all know that Christians don’t like Sheikh Ahmed Deedat and the damage he did to your religion and scripture. No wonder Christians were so afraid to debate him!
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resurrection is no proof of diety. if christians really like worshiping humans , they should worship elijah because he hasn’t died and if he was dead, why did the jews think jesus was calling out to elijah for help?
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I would propose that believers need not speculate in a vacuum; rather, they can read Gen 1:26-27 in the context of…
(a) 1 Corinthians 8:6, which treats the Father is our Creator,
(b) John 1:3, Colossians 1:16, which allude to the Son as our Creator, and
(c) Job 33:4, Psalms 104:30, Psalm 33:6, which can be understood as alluding to the Holy Spirit as our Creator, and
(d) Isaiah 44:24, which has God acting alone in creation.
On such a view, there are three Persons who take part in creation (precisely the three Persons mentioned in the veritable Christian basmala of Matthew 28:19), and yet God acts alone in creation. In my view, the best reconciliation of those points would be precisely that proposed by the churches which have existed from antiquity unto today (whether they be Catholic, Orthodox, or Miaphysite): that the one God encompasses three Persons. Moreover, as I alluded to above, it can be seen as providing explanatory scope to the shifts from plural to singular in Genesis 1:26-27 (and would lead at least some believers in the Bible to being more open to the possibility that the passage is referring to the Trinity).
On a similar note, I think many would agree that Deuteronomy 6:4 and Psalm 135:2-3 are referring to the same Being (i.e. that the one LORD God of the former is the same Being as the God of gods and Lord of lords in the latter). Such becomes interesting in light of 1 Corinthians 8:5-6, which seems to have the Father indirectly bearing the title God of gods and the Son indirectly bearing the title Lord of lords. Such leaves some favorable to the conclusion that the texts in Deuteronomy 6 and Psalm 135 are alluding to a Being which encompasses both the Father and the Son.
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A4. The very fact that you believe Jesus died voids your claim of Jesus being God. Almighty God is immortal unlike Jesus (1 Timothy 6:16) who’s not subject to death.
{Powerful counter-point!}
When will a muslim actually engage with Christian belief? When will a Muslim engage with the two natures of Christ andthehypostatic union? When will a Muslim do this? Until you do, it’s a pathetic counterpoint, essentially a straw man. A fallacy. Irrational
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since jesus’ person is “fully divine” then it implies that inherent within its person is divine Attributes. Then the question is, how did the fully human part convey to the divine person the feelings of dying and suffering? It only makes sense thAt the fully united person, in both natures ,was shot and experiencing pain And suffering and crying like a cry baby, dad dad why have u forsaken me?
This is the most logical conclusion. jebus’ MIND in the 1 person was transferring feelings of suffering tHROUGH each nature. There was link and connection.
so when the person of your god experienced taking a shit in a hole, his divine person WAS DEFINATELY connected in the whole experience
Otherwise, you have divine person WITHOUT A nature I.e the person jumped into the human nature, but you say as it is taking shit it is fully yhwh.
So all I am doing is connecting both natures in the one person. jaesus is one with both natures.
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Paulus,
Many Muslims have engaged the Christian belief in the “hypostatic union” often on this blog and elsewhere as well.
Unfortunately single minded fundamentalist Christians like you don’t seem to want to engage with your own texts. 1 Timothy 6:16 makes it clear that God is immortal, and given that Jesus died, ergo he is not the one true immortal God.
The fallacy of “hypostatic union” is a red herring designed to draw attention away from the fact that it is impossible for any man, including Jesus, to be God. But worse than that, its unbiblical.
THE PROBLEM OF THE HYPOSTATIC UNION
The problem with the Chalcedonian concept of Christ is in the fact that the Council in effect merely asserted that Jesus was “truly God and truly man” without attempting to say how such a paradox is possible. Merely to assert that two different natures coexisted in Jesus without confusion, without change, without division, without separation, is to utter a form of words which as yet has no specified meaning. The formula sets before us a “mystery” rather than a “clear and distinct idea.” Further, this is not a divine mystery but one that was created by human beings meeting at Chalcedon in present-day Turkey in the mid-fifth century (Hick 1993:48).
JESUS CHRIST: TWO NATURES, ONE PERSON? (The Fallacy of the Doctrine of Hypostatic Union) by Bro. Joe Ventilacion
http://fallaciesofthechurch.blogspot.com/2015/09/jesus-christ-two-natures-one-person.html
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Paulus,
Simply referring to a defective man-made innovated hypothesis (Hypostatic Union) and calling it “divine” does not change the true reality that God is absolute in his Unitarian Oneness and without associates or partners (triune or otherwise) in his Divinity. If you don’t believe Muslims, you can just ask the first Jew you meet.
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It’s pretty simple, Cerberus. The “two nature” theory was a later invention of the church. There is no evidence for it in the Bible. Christians had to invent it to explain the contradictions in their gospels.
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“When will a Muslim engage with the two natures of Christ andthehypostatic union?”
Lol. When it comes to the death of Jesus, Christians tend to engage rather with a hypostatic division.
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Cheburus needs to explain what that 1 person was doing while the human person was dying? Was that 1 person watching the dying jeesoz? if that 1 person was watching, how is there a union? how can you have a union while there is separation? What is the divine person DOING cheburus while the human person is UNITING with PAIN, SUFFERING and death? “Divine PERSON” WHATS GOING on in this person? Was it UNITED with death? did its DIVINE person RECEIVE feelings from the human person?
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Amazing statement , ibn Issam
“The fallacy of “hypostatic union” is a red herring designed to draw attention away from the fact that it is impossible for any man, including Jesus, to be God. But worse than that, its unbiblical.”
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since jesus’ person is “fully divine” then it implies that inherent within its person is divine Attributes. Then the question is, how did the fully human part convey to the divine person the feelings of dying and suffering? It only makes sense thAt the fully united person, in both natures ,was shot and experiencing pain And suffering and crying like a cry baby, dad dad why have u forsaken me?
This is the most logical conclusion. jebus’ MIND in the 1 person was transferring feelings of suffering tHROUGH each nature. There was link and connection.
so when the person of your god experienced taking a shit in a hole, his divine person WAS DEFINATELY connected in the whole experience
Otherwise, you have divine person WITHOUT A nature I.e the person jumped into the human nature, but you say as it is taking shit it is fully yhwh.
So all I am doing is connecting both natures in the one person. jaesus is one with both natures.
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Question – could an omnipresent, omnipotent being (that God is described as being) not divide itself into multiple forms and even experience death through one of those forms?
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creative – what religion do you have in mind?
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My point is that, surely a Trinity-style arrangement is not beyond the powers of God?
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I leave it to our trinitarian experts to show you “haven’t understood the trinity” 🙂
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“Question – could an omnipresent, omnipotent being (that God is described as being) not divide itself into multiple forms and even experience death through one of those forms?”
you mean like divide his omniscience into multiple forms and experience blindness?
you mean like divide is all hearing into multiple forms and experience deafness?
you mean like divide his omnipotence into multiple forms and get TAKEN over by something he created like death and loss?
this is a divided god which is not worthy to be called almighty . such god then is capable of having his ass handed to him and maybe his creation can rule over him?
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But how exactly is God’s omnipotence dampened by the power to manifest in multiple forms, anywhere, any time? That to me would suggest God actually IS all-powerful.
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The triune God does not “manifest in multiple forms”. No idea what you are on about.
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It’s easy. What’s preventing an all powerful deity from manifesting as more than one form, and even experiencing death and resurrection in one of those forms?
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Never heard of such a nonsensical “deity”.
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You worship an omnipotent, omnipresent deity do you not? Are you placing limits upon its power?
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I know Who I worship thank you. I do not know what you are on about.
Is this “omnipotent being” that divides itself into multiple forms the same as the “deity that manifests as more than one form”? As I said, sounds creative.
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This question is like asking can God create a square circle or can God create an unliftable stone or can he create another all-powerful being who is more powerful than Him. All of these questions are logically flawed from their premise.
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How so? God is described as omnipotent. That means literally all-powerful. By suggesting there are limits to God’s power, you are suggesting God is less than divine.
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Um no. What you are trying to do is apply faulty logic regarding what it means to be “all-powerful”. God wouldn’t be all-powerful if He created another being more powerful than Him. It does not logically follow. The same can be said about God making Himself less than all-powerful.
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“Are you placing limits upon its power?”
So christian!
Are we placing limits upon God because we believe that he cannot be limited?
“The Messenger of Allah (ﷺ) said: ‘No people go astray after having followed right guidance, but those who indulge in disputes.’ Then he recited the Verse: “Nay! But they are a quarrelsome people.’
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“God is described as omnipotent. That means literally all-powerful.”
It doesn’t mean self-contradictory.
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“By suggesting there are limits to God’s power, you are suggesting God is less than divine.”
you are suggesting god can divorce himself from his powers because he is all powerful and when he is in the state of being creature he is not less than divine but divine?
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Can’t the one God divide Himself into more than one? Can’t the immortal God die? Can’t He be human? Better yet, can’t He be Satan?
Your questions boil down to: can God be not God, while still being God? And if He can’t, then He’s not God.
As you’ve been told, such questions make no sense. And it makes no sense that God should be limited by every illogical situation one can find in their imagination.
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Verdant,
“And it makes no sense that God should be limited by every illogical situation one can find in their imagination.”
Exactly.
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“But how exactly is God’s omnipotence dampened by the power to manifest in multiple forms, anywhere, any time?”
so lets assume that in one of his forms he is blind. how did he communicate or give such experience to the omniscient mind?
if it is omniscient , how could it ever have a form in which it is blind?
if god sees, past, present and future, then the blind form will never come into existence, it makes no sense.
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“But how exactly is God’s omnipotence dampened by the power to manifest in multiple forms, anywhere, any time? That to me would suggest God actually IS all-powerful.”
you mean why can’t an all powerful being become limited in power by having death overtake him?
to you this is all powerful?
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If an omnipotent, omnipresent deity could divide itself into multiple forms which are also presumably omnipotent, omnipresent, that would mean that one could possibly limit the powers of the others and vice versa, thus resulting in multiple Gods none of whom are truly omnipotent, and omnipresent, and contradicts the claim of a single God who is all-powerful. Such an illogical reality would result in disharmony in the universe stemming from the chaos created by opposing deities. This is also true even if the multiple forms of the Godhead have varying degrees of omnipotence and omnipresence. Such thinking inevitably leads to Tri-theism, or at the very least an illogical belief which leads to Tri-theism, or even polytheism.
For a God to be truly and absolutely omnipotent, and omnipresent there must be no equals, no associates, no partners in deity at any level, and that rules out any other multi-God pantheon, or multi person Godhead……..including the trinity.
This is why the Islamic Shahada, “La Illaha illa Allah – There is no God, except God” is a much more sound, logical and defensible belief and understanding of the nature of God’s deity.
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“You worship an omnipotent, omnipresent deity do you not? Are you placing limits upon its power?”
if death over took him who put limits on his power? death?
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consider Genesis 1:26-27, and the question of why it transitions from the plural to the singular. Some might, with a wave of their hand, simply declare the first of the two verses is employing a “majestic plural”. However, that would beg the question of why such is not applied in the following verse (or at least certain other verses quoting God). Moreover, it would be worth noting that throughout Jewish history, there have been thinkers (from Philo in antiquity, to RaSh”Y in the medieval period, to certain liberal Jewish scholars in modern times) who saw the plural in verse 26 as literal (though not in the sense of a multipersonal conception of God). I would propose that believers need not speculate in a vacuum; rather, they can read Gen 1:26-27 in the context of…
(a) 1 Corinthians 8:6, which treats the Father is our Creator,
(b) John 1:3, Colossians 1:16, which allude to the Son as our Creator, and
(c) Job 33:4, Psalms 104:30, Psalm 33:6, which can be understood as alluding to the Holy Spirit as our Creator, and
(d) Isaiah 44:24, which has God acting alone in creation.
On such a view, there are three Persons who take part in creation (precisely the three Persons mentioned in the veritable Christian basmala of Matthew 28:19), and yet God acts alone in creation. In my view, the best reconciliation of those points would be precisely that proposed by the churches which have existed from antiquity unto today (whether they be Catholic, Orthodox, or Miaphysite): that the one God encompasses three Persons. Moreover, as I alluded to above, it can be seen as providing explanatory scope to the shifts from plural to singular in Genesis 1:26-27 (and would lead at least some believers in the Bible to being more open to the possibility that the passage is referring to the Trinity).
On a similar note, I think many would agree that Deuteronomy 6:4 and Psalm 135:2-3 are referring to the same Being (i.e. that the one LORD God of the former is the same Being as the God of gods and Lord of lords in the latter). Such becomes interesting in light of 1 Corinthians 8:5-6, which seems to have the Father indirectly bearing the title God of gods and the Son indirectly bearing the title Lord of lords. Such leaves some favorable to the conclusion that the texts in Deuteronomy 6 and Psalm 135 are alluding to a Being which encompasses both the Father and the Son.
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In the Holy Qur’an, every single instance of ‘We’ referring to Allah, is accompanied by a singular form either in the same verse or the preceding verse or the following verse.
It proves that the ‘We’ is a majestic plural and any thought of a literal plural is immediately put off by the surrounding text.
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3 persons take part in creation? how? In your pagan minded theory how do you imagine Hebrews thought that the plularity of persons which DO not have a NUMBER in HB bible ARE co-equal? maybe they are less than the other but still take part in activity?
so we have 3 different things creating THROUGH one thing? As 1 thing? How are 3 things as one thing? That one thing is one? so does the fathers creating activity FUSE with sons CREATING activity , fuse with spirits CREATING activity rendering each as One person doing act of creation? So the persons are not DISTINCT in ACT/ROLE of creation because each is doing act as one person?
how do you tell that father created this part , ghost created the other… When each is sharing in the role the other does to have feeling of the external one being?
Or they do not share in each other roles in order to remain in their distinction
When father /dad made mountains, did he know he is separate person from the spirit?
father made mount everest
spirit made mount everest
did spirit do EXACTLY what father did? then in this act how do they tell each other apart?
Father created section A mount Everest
is spirit also creating exactly the same section? So spirit has temporarily become the father in creative activity?
or is it a case where each person is creating different sections in order to remain distinct ?
Or is the one being a remote controlled thing separate from the persons?
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