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A talk about Holy Trinity and Incarnation to a class of Muslims (updated!)Friday in June 2020 I had an interesting class: some Muslims girls tried to make me Muslim. Theyasked me why I think Christianity is credible; for them Trinity and Incarnation are like fables; Iexplained everything and they got very silent....About Trinity, I said: first the distance between God and any creature is so extremely great; muchbigger than between us and a mosquito; and for our knowledge (and talking) we start always fromwhat we know and experience: the created world; but the distance with God is so great, that we canhardly use our experience from the created World.To talk about God we can rather use 1° negative theology, that means: we deny all imperfectionsthat we find in the creatures; 2° superlative theology: all perfections we find in creation are in Godpresent in the highest degree; 3° causative theology: we learn something about God’s perfectionsfrom his works: for example: God did not create only one colour, one type of animal, one type offlower, but He created so many to show His beauty and His goodness for us.God is perfect implies that there can only be one God. If there were 2 or 3 gods, then one wouldhave something the others don’t have, so they would not be perfect anymore, that means they wouldnot be gods. The real God can only be one. God is eternal means in God is no time (succession):since He has all perfection in Himself, he does not need to change.Now about Trinity: Although creation is not really a help to understand about God, still somecomparisons can help: a simple one: a table (one single table): has a height, a depth, a length.But a better comparison is our thinking process: I think for example about the human nature. Thatidea about human nature is at that moment in my mind, but that idea is not me, it is different frommy own person, but it is in me, it is a part of my being. With this example we see that in creationsomething that is one can be two from dif...

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H. Trinity & Incarnation for Moslims

Pages: 3p

Language: English

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H. Trinity and Incarnation, answers to objection of Moslims, a summary of a class to Moslims in June 2018 (updated!)

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1 comments

ARI

Franchement, j'ai lu ce texte sur la Trinité et l'Incarnation et c'est super intéressant de voir comment l'auteur essaie d'expliquer des trucs aussi compliqués à des musulmans. On sent qu'il y a du respect, c'est pas une attaque, c'est vraiment une tentative de dialogue pour montrer que la foi chrétienne est pas "illogique". Voici ce que j'en retiens avec mon regard :L'Unicité vs la Trinité : Il a raison de dire que Dieu est parfait et donc unique. Mais quand il utilise l'exemple du processus de pensée (le penseur, l'idée, l'amour) pour justifier les trois Personnes, pour moi, on sort du Tawhid pur. En Islam, Dieu n'a pas besoin de "procéder" de Lui-même pour s'aimer ou se connaître ; Son essence est une et indivisible, sans aucune distinction interne. La nécessité de l'Incarnation : Son argument sur la "réparation" du péché est intéressant mais théologiquement problématique pour nous. Il dit que seul Dieu pouvait réparer l'offense, mais qu'Il devait devenir homme pour pouvoir mourir. Or, nous croyons que Dieu est Al-Ghafur : Son pardon n'est pas lié à une transaction de sang ou à un sacrifice. Dire que Dieu "doit" mourir pour pardonner, ça semble limiter Sa puissance absolue. Le statut de Jésus (Issa) : Il explique que Jésus priait parce qu'il était une créature dans sa nature humaine. C'est là qu'on bloque : si on admet qu'il doit prier Dieu, c'est bien la preuve qu'il est un serviteur et un prophète, pas Dieu Lui-même. L'idée de "double nature" est un concept que l'Islam rejette pour protéger la pureté de la divinité. L'authenticité des textes : Son point sur le fait que Jésus utilisait les Écritures de son temps est très fort. Ça nous force à réfléchir. Cependant, quand il minimise les variantes entre les manuscrits, il oublie que pour nous, la moindre altération humaine dans un texte divin pose un problème de fiabilité totale, contrairement au Coran. La langue et l'accessibilité : C'est tout à son honneur de souligner que l'Église veut que les gens comprennent ce qu'ils lisent via les traductions. Même si l'arabe reste sacré pour nous, l'intention de rendre la parole de Dieu accessible à tous, comme dans les langues Mizo ou Naga, est une démarche qu'on peut respecter. Bref, son approche est super pédagogique et c'est pas "déraisonnable" comme il dit, mais d'un point de vue islamique rigoureux, on ne peut pas accepter que la perfection divine nécessite de se diviser ou de s'incarner pour nous sauver. On reste sur deux visions du monde très différentes, même si le dialogue est enrichissant.

1 comments

Matheus Robert

H. Trinity: We all agree: God is absolutely one and simple. He has no parts, no composition, no change. When Christians speak of the Word (God’s self‑knowledge) and the Spirit (God’s self‑love), we do not mean actions added to God or processes occurring in Him. We mean God Himself, because in God: knowing = being and loving = being. In other words: God’s knowledge and God’s love are identical with His essence. Therefore, the Trinity is not three beings, but three relations. The Father, the Son, and the Spirit are subsistent relations of origin within the one essence: the Father = unbegotten; the Son = God’s own eternal self‑knowledge; the Spirit = God’s own eternal self‑love. These relations do not divide God, because in God relations are identical with the essence. Divine simplicity is fully preserved. The distinctions are relational, not essential. The divine essence remains one, indivisible, absolutely simple. Islam holds that any internal distinction implies composition. Christians believe that relational distinctions do not divide a simple Essence. I want to stress that the example in my article is only an approach. We cannot comprehend the divine Essence. On the necessity of the Incarnation: “Il dit que seul Dieu pouvait réparer l'offense, mais qu'Il devait devenir homme pour pouvoir mourir.” Perhaps I expressed myself poorly: “devait” is too strong. God was not obliged to become man. But if He chose to save us, there are reasons of fittingness (raisons de convenance): God was not obliged to create, but He did so out of love. God was not obliged to save humanity, but He did so out of love. And He saved us by a gesture of total self‑gift - the supreme sacrifice - out of love. There is even a parallel: Man sinned by a tree; God saved by another tree (the Cross). Since He did it, we seek to understand its fittingness. That is all. On Christ’s prayer and divine purity: Christ is one Person - the divine Person of the Son, the eternal Word - with two natures, divine and human. Each nature acts according to what is proper to it: As God, Christ does not pray. As man, Christ prays. Christ prays to reveal His true humanity and also to give us an example. Christ works miracles as God, not as man. The two sets of actions come from the two natures, but they belong to one and the same Person. I recommend reading the ancient hymn I translated (Dutch and English): https://www.syriac-treasury.work/post/5c505174-cb82-41f7-9397-d80b5ce10aa6 Our disagreement is not about whether God is pure. It is about whether the divine Person can assume a human nature without compromising divine purity. The Incarnation does not mean that God becomes something new or undergoes any alteration. Nothing happens to God. Something happens to the human nature that God assumes. Divine purity remains untouched. The Person of the Son assumes a human nature. The divine nature does not mix with, change into, or absorb the human nature. The human nature does not contaminate or diminish the divine nature. The humanity of Christ is a creature - finite, limited, capable of suffering - and therefore it prays. But it is united to the divine Person without becoming part of the divine essence. Thus, the limitations of the human nature do not imply limitations in the divine nature. The Incarnation is an act of God’s will, not a modification of His being. God remains what He eternally is.

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