Nabeel Qureshi's PERFECT Response To a Muslim QUESTIONING The Nature of Christ

 Muslim: "YOUR GOD IS ILLOGICAL"

Nabeel Qureshi: "LET ME RESPOND!" 

Nabeel Qureshi's PERFECT Response To a Muslim QUESTIONING The Nature of Christ

Muslim(M): As-salam u alaykum. 

Nabeel Qureshi(NQ): Wa alaikum assalam. 

M: So being a Muslim, my main problem is with the Christian doctrine of Godhood of Jesus. There's a couple of questions to relate it. 

M: First of all, I find this concept logically fallacious.   How can God be finite and then infinite at the same time? Like it's like saying that they could exist a square circle. It's logical fallacy. When we say that Jesus was God or Son of God, they are actually  saying that God existed in finitude during the life of Jesus. And He also is infinite  at the same time. This is logically fallacious. Now because you are coming from a historical standpoint. 

NQ: Did you want me to respond to that? 

M: It's the same question continuing. So because you're coming at it from a historical standpoint, the   concept of Trinity, the word Trinity itself, it doesn't appear as a theological term till near the end of the second century after Jesus. It was first used as triass by Theophilus, the Bishop of Antioch in AD 180.   Adding up to that, when you refer to Mark chapter 14 verse 62, which is what you say is the proof that Jesus claimed to be God. Are you really applying the same criteria of objectivity that you are applying previously to the Quran when interpreting this as meaning that Jesus is claiming himself to be God? Because if you like look at it completely objectively, looking at the entire text, like there is nothing in the entire text that's saying that Jesus claimed to be God. And in fact, the words that you yourself quote is actually saying Son of Man. So I mean.. 

NQ: These are great questions. Don't go anywhere. 

NQ: What's your name? 

M: Munzer.

NQ: Munzer, where are you from? 

M: I'm from Pakistan. 

NQ: Pakistan. 

NQ: I have the exact same questions when I practiced Islam. What I want to point out is that first and foremost, what we have to see is what Jesus claimed for himself. 

Now the secondary stuff that follows, the theological unfolding or unpacking of what he said, we can spend years and years debating what it means. But what did he say about himself? That's the first thing we want to look at. Again, that's a historical perspective. Theologians argue all day long, back and forth, back and forth.  You know, theologians argue all the time and I just sit back and watch and smile because you can't really prove it one way or another. 

NQ: But when it comes to historical events, we can show with relative degrees of certainty, if the evidence is good, if the records are good, what the most likely conclusion is. 

So first, and let me give you an answer before if you feel like interjecting, we can talk afterwards. First, I want to point out, you are absolutely right. The term Trinity is not used till the end of the second century. 

NQ: What is the doctrine of God called in the Quran, in Islam? What is the doctrine of God called?

M: Tawhid. ( Read here ) 

NQ: Tawhid. Is that in the Quran? No, the word tawhid.. The word tawhid is a derived word from Ahad. 

Alhamdulillah! 

Good. 

So you understand the word tawhid is not itself in the Quran. 

In the same way, the word Trinity is not itself in the Bible. 

This doesn't pose a problem. 

The shahadah is not found in the Quran. 

You have the components of the shahadah in the Quran. But you do not have la ilaha illallah muhammadur rasulullah in that way found in the Quran. 

The components are found in the Quran. 

With the Trinity, the components are found in the Bible. 

M: The word tawhid does appear in the hadith. 

NQ: Oh, that's great, but it's not in the Quran. 

Just variations of the prophet. 

And the hadith is much later. 

So we're looking at the, you asked for the Bible, and we have within the early canonical tradition, people calling God a Trinity in the early canonical tradition. 

In fact, much closer to Jesus' time than the hadith were to Muhammad's time. So whichever way you stack it, when you're consistent, you end up with a stronger case for the Trinity, for Jesus' deity. 

NQ: Now I want to continue on to your next part of your question, which is, is Jesus finite or infinite? 

The argument is that Jesus is, you know, actually I'm going to pose it in a slightly different way. 

NQ: Can Allah come onto this world if he wants? 

M: I wouldn't think so 

NQ: You wouldn't think so. So Allah's omnipotence is limited. 

M: He can't come onto this world. 

M: It's like, basically, Allah cannot do a logically fallacious thing. Because that's something logically fallacious. 

NQ: But how do we know that's what this is? But how do we know that's what this is? 

Because, for example, in Surah Ali Imran, when Allah is talking to Moses, it says in Surah Ali Imran, I think it's Surah Ali Imran, it might be Surah 18, but double check, that Allah, as he spoke to Moses, Allah was in the bush. So, if you want to say that meant something else, you're going to have to argue with the Quran on that one. 

NQ: It seems to be pretty clear that Allah can emanate his voice from a physical place. 

He can be in a physical place in a sense. 

In the same way, we don't believe, I don't believe, that God coming to this earth limits his omnipotence. 

It's not a limitation of his omnipotence. 

Jesus has taken on flesh. 

God the Father is still everywhere. 

God Jesus, the Son, is here on this earth. 

It's a limitation in that sense, but it's not a limitation of his nature. 

He is both the divine and human nature. 

That's the argument. 

You asked about the Son of Man. 

You said he's not calling himself the Son of God. 

He's calling himself the Son of Man. 

l'm emphasizing to you, my friend, when this hit me, again, while I was practicing Islam, when this hit me, it hit me like a bolt of lightning. 

The claim, Son of God, according to Jews at that time, was not anything divine. 

Adam was called the son of God 

Solomon was called the son of God. 

In the Psalms, it says, you are gods. (Psalm 82:6 reads, "I said, 'You are "gods"; you are all sons of the Most High.' But you will die like mere mortals; you will fall like every other ruler." )

It's not a divine claim to call someone a Son of God. 

But when someone refers to that Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven, who's going to receive glory, authority, and sovereign power, and people of every nation and language are going to worship him with the worship due only to God, that the Son of Man is more than just a human. 

He is divine. 

He's going to be worshiped by all people of all time. 

So when Jesus calls himself the Son of Man, it's not the Son of God title, and lots of Christians get this wrong, so I'm not pointing the finger at you. 

Lots of Christians say, oh, Son of Man means he's human, and Son of God means he's God. 

No, it's the other way around. 

In the Jewish context, son of God was a normal human title. 

Son of Man, from Daniel 7, that was something divine. 

Go back and read Daniel chapter 7, see that this man is worshiped by all people from all eternity. 

This man, the one who looks like a human anyway, is worshiped by all people alongside of God the Father. 

That's the one Jesus is claiming to be. 

Definitely understand that point that I'm trying to make. 

And so when you see that Jesus' claim is found there in Mark 14:62, it's found in all the Gospels, and every time Jesus uses the term Son of Man, he's alluding to that. 

You cannot extract that from the Gospels. 

So please put Mark 14:62 next to Daniel chapter 7 and see what Jesus is claiming for himself. 

Muslim 2: I really admire the fact that you argue with reason and facts. 

So my question was basically in John 5, if you read from 19 onwards, Jesus says that he can actually do nothing, and that wherever his power is coming 

from the Father, in John 5:30 he says, I can of my own self do nothing. And as I hear I judge, for my judgment is judged, for I seek not my will, but the will of the Father. 

And also in John 17, he says that, I have completed your mission that God's, Father gave him on this earth, and at that time he was not crucified. 

In the Old Testament, Abraham was visited by God with two angels, but in human form, right? Yes. In human form. So was God Jesus at that time? 

NQ: Okay. He was in human form to become a secret. Great question. Great series of questions. 

NQ: The first thing I want to mention again is, one more time, I'm not theologian, so I don't deal with Genesis per se. I deal with the historical aspect of Jesus. But I can look at what Genesis says, and I can't be sure. Are those three angels Jesus? Is one of them Jesus? Is it not? We can't be sure. Nothing is said. And I don't want to say that the Bible says something that it doesn't say, because that's a very dangerous thing. I'm taking Genesis for what it says at face value. Are those three God? Is one of them Jesus? Are all three of them Jesus? Are all three of them Yahweh once Father, Son, and Holy Spirit? 

NQ: I don't know. It's not said clearly. When it comes to the Gospel of John, though, I want to encourage you. The Quran and the Bible are not the same book, of course, but a lot of times we come to them exegetically as if they were. The Muslims and Christians wil come to the Quran exegeting them as if they were their own book. Or they'll come to the Bible, exegeting it as if it was the Quran. This is a problem. The Quran was not written like the Bible. 

NQ: How was it written? Muhammad would receive a revelation, or so the Islamic sources say, about five verses at a time, generally speaking, according to the Hadith, he would relay to his scribes, the scribes would write them down, and that was one recitation. And later again, and later again, later again, and then at the end, and sometimes it would be longer, at the end all of them were collected when he died.So it's very possible that one section of the Quran, one verse, has very little to do with the next verse, at least at face value. 

NQ: That's why you have the whole series of Hadith called Asbab al-Nuzul which I'm sure you're familiar with. The Hadith that say, this is when this verse of the Quran came, this is what it means. This is when this verse of the Quran came, this is what it means. That's who, the tafsir of the Quran, that's where they get this stuff from, the Asbab al-Nuzul Hadith. And so you need the Hadith to exegete the Quran because one verse does not necessarily relate to the next. 

NQ: The Bible is not like that. In the Bible, the Gospel of John, John 1:1, relates to John 21. It's all related. So you need to read the whole book before you try to pull a part out and exegete it. And I'm not saying cherry-picking is necessarily a negative intention, it's just what happens when you exegete the Quran that way for so long. So we have to make sure when we read John 17, which he referred to, that we also read John 14, where in John 14, Jesus says, when l am gone, whatever you pray in my name, I wil hear it and I will do it for you. 

NQ: Jesus is saying, when l am gone, so he's not there, he can hear people's prayers, so he has to be omniscient, and "I will do it for you", omnipotent. Right there, same discourse, we can't divorce the two, it's the same discussion. 

NQ: In the same way, we cannot leave out John chapter 1. When John writes his Gospel, he expects everything that you read in there to be interpreted through his introduction. The introduction of John's Gospel is vitally important. 

NQ: For example, my book that I wrote, I don't know where it went. If you don't read the prologue, if you don't read the prologue of that book, you're not going to get a lot of it. You're not going to get a lot of it. You have to read the prologue, it explains the rest. 

NQ: In the same way, John chapter 1, verse 1 through verse 18 is the prologue of John's Gospel. What does it say? It says, In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. In the beginning, there was the Word, and the Word was with God, so you have this thing that is the Word. It was with God, and it was God. Already you're having the setup for the Trinity in John chapter 1, verse 1. And then it says, nothing was made in this world apart from that Word. That means the Word is, in a sense, the Creator. John's telling you right off the bat, no matter what you read in John's Gospel, the Word should be understood to becthe Creator of this universe. It was created through him. 

NQ: And then it says in verse 14, the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory. He makes it clear this Word is Jesus. And in verse 18, if you have a good translation of the Bible, verse 18 makes it clear that this Word is the only begotten God. That's how you're supposed to read the rest of John's Gospel. So any verse we take should be read in that light. Any verse we take should be read in that light. I forgot the rest of your question. 

Muslim 2: That was John 5, verse 30. Why is Jesus saying that I can of my own self do nothing when he's actually God himself? 

NQ: Exactly. Great question. The argument here is that the Jews are saying that you have a demon, that you are not. You are not working with God. You're working against God. Jesus' response is here, look, if I can of my own will do nothing, except through the will of the Father. 

NQ: In other words, he doesn't have a separate will from the Father, insofar as what he wants to see accomplished, what he wants to see done, he's not standing against his Father's will. So the point he's trying to make is, No, l'm not the devil. I'm not anti-God. I proclaim God. I do His works. I do these healings. I'm not against Him. I'm with Him. That's the point he's making. And we can read further into that and say, Oh, he's not God. But if you do that, you're ignoring the context. You have to let the context speak. And where the context is clearest, that's where exegesis should be the strongest. 

NQ: But when I was a Muslim, I didn't necessarily understand the Christian Gospel all that well. And the Gospel is this. This is an amazing story. That, God knows you from before the beginning of time and realizes he knows full well that no matter how hard you try, you will not be able to break away from sin. You will sin. And since God is perfectly holy, there can be no sin in his presence. So when it comes to after one's death, it's a simple matter of can you be in His presence or can you not? And if you have any sin, you by definition can't be in God's presence because He doesn't coexist with sin. And so according to the Gospel message God has to sacrifice for the sake of sin. He has to remove it all himself. There's nothing we can do to come up before God without sin. He has to cleanse it off us by himself. And so the message, the Christian message is God loves us so much that despite our sin, he will continue to love us. He will do what he can to save us from destroying ourselves. Even if it means his humiliation. Even if it means God is not being worshiped on the throne by angels but rather being crucified on a cross. God is willing to do that because he loves people more than he loves his majesty. There's an amazing message in the Gospel there. There are beautiful things here in Christianity and I hope we can understand that there are beautiful things about both faiths and we should respect them both to that end. 

NQ: But the question is not what is beautiful because what I know is that when l've talked to Muslims, when l've talked to Buddhists, when I've talked to Jews, when I've talked to Christians, generally speaking, and you can tell me if this is wrong, but generally speaking, people like what they were raised with. They like the faith that they were born with. They feel comfortable with that. At most, they'Il tend towards some kind of a nominal, less devout adherence to that faith, but generally speaking, people don't leave their faith. They like what they were raised with. 

NQ: So the question is not what do we like? The question is not what is it that we think sounds beautiful? The question is what's true? What's true? Because at the end of the day, ultimately, Muslims believe and Christians believe that there is one God and only one God. And Muslims believe that there are certain things you must do to go to heaven and Christians believe that there are certain things you must have faith in in order to go to heaven and the two don't coincide. 

NQ: Islam is an exclusivist faith and so is Christianity and both cannot be true. So the question is which one is true? Now, l'Il tell you this from a very young age, l absolutely loved Islam. l adored it, just like l said. And my parents taught me to adhere to Islam to the best of my ability. To give you an example of how I used to live my Muslim life as a child, my  parents had taught me by the age of five the last seven chapters of the Quran by memory so that I could recite them during my five daily prayers.   Regularly, I recited portions of the Quran every single day. Not only that, but we would also recite various prayers throughout the day before starting something like l recited earlier. 

Even upon waking up, first thing in the morning before my feet have hit the ground, my parents taught me to recite a prayer. 

Alhamdulillahil ladhi ahyana ba da ma amatana wa ilayhin nushoor. 

Thanking God for giving me life every single day. 

Thanking God that He is the one who has given me life and He causes me to die and He causes me to rise up again. 

A foreshadow of the resurrection, the day of resurrection which all Muslims believe in, but also a daily thanks to God for waking me up every single morning. Because l have no say in whether I'm going to wake up in the morning or not. Thank you Allah for waking me up every morning.

This is the type of prayer that we pray. And I loved it. As it went out through my day, I would practice Islam absolutely as best as I could. I absolutely loved it. 

But when l got to college, I met a Christian who was able to start defending Christianity. Now I had believed from a very young age that there's no way you can defend Christianity. I believe that the Bible had been corrupted. I believe that Jesus never claimed to be God. And the Quran says so in chapter 5 verse 72. The Quran makes it very clear. Chapter 5 verse 116 as well. The Quran makes it very clear that Jesus is not God. He never claimed to be God. That's something that people invented after he left. Surah AI Maidah is very clear on this. 

NQ: l also believed as a Muslim in Surah An Nisa verse 157. Chapter 4 verse 157 of the Quran. Wa maa qataloohu wa maa salaboohu wa laakin shubbiha lahum. Jesus was not killed on the cross, nor was he crucified but so it appeared to them. Jesus didn't die on the cross, Islam teaches. He wasn't crucified. So he's not God. He wasn't crucified on the cross And surely, if he wasn't crucified, he didn't raise from the dead. So Islam denies these things about Jesus. 

NQ: But Christianity, not only does Christianity affirm those very three things, but it says that you must believe them in order to be saved. Chapter 10 of Romans verse 9. If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. 

NQ: Now work with me for just a moment here. The Quran says Jesus did not die on the cross. He is not God. Therefore, he has not risen from the dead. Christianity teaches he did die on the cross. He did claim to be God and he did rise from the dead. 

NQ: Notice then, it's not feasible to say all religions are true. We're making truth claims here about a man who existed in the first century. Jesus Christ, Islam and Christianity, is laying claim to him. And Islam is saying he did not do certain things  Christianity is saying he did do certain things. Let us have no pretenses about both being true in these matters. One of them is true and one of them is not. Now the foundational claims for Christianity are exactly those claims. 

Notice the statement here was if you wish to be saved, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. 

So these are central matters to Christianity. 

In fact, I believe that these are the very three matters that determine whether or not you are a Christian. Do you believe that Jesus is Lord? And chapter 10 of Romans defines very clearly Lord as Yahweh, God himself, not just some leader to follow, but God. Do you believe Jesus is God? 

NQ: Number two, do you believe he died on the cross for your sins