0:03

Truly understanding your identity is a

0:05

deeply personal journey and discovering who you

0:07

are starts with knowing where you came

0:10

from. This applies to us

0:12

as individuals as well as collectively. Though

0:14

it's popular to question the existence of

0:16

a historic Adam and Eve, did they

0:18

truly exist or were they merely archetypes?

0:21

The truth is much of our uniqueness

0:23

as humans only makes sense in the

0:25

light of the Genesis account of creation.

0:28

These questions and more are explored at

0:30

length in a free download I believe

0:33

you'll enjoy called Don't Dismiss

0:35

Adam, Eve and the Genesis Story.

0:37

It's more relevant today than ever. Discover

0:41

even more about who you

0:43

are and why when you

0:45

go to premierinsight.org/resources and download

0:48

this important resource. I

0:50

encourage you to do so today. God

1:02

is a mystery and we need to

1:05

respect this mystery and maybe that's the

1:07

whole point. Maybe the whole point why

1:09

God may give different people different

1:12

texts and allow for many different interpretations

1:14

even from the same text. The

1:17

understanding in Christianity is because Jesus

1:20

is a divine person, he is

1:23

worthy of worship. Now

1:25

I would just sort of from my own perspective think

1:27

that a Muslim would not be comfortable in

1:29

worshipping Jesus. Hello

1:35

and welcome to Unbelievable, the show that

1:37

gets Christians and non-Christians discussing and

1:39

debating the topics that matter to all of

1:41

us. I'm your host Andy

1:43

Kind and today I'm delighted to be

1:45

introducing an Unbelievable presented by Justin Briley

1:48

looking at the differences

1:50

between Christianity and Islam. In

1:53

the show Abdullah Ghaledari and Joshua Sijuadi

1:55

engage in a thought-provoking discussion

1:57

on the reconciliation of Christianity.

2:00

and Islam. Abdullah argues

2:02

that the Quran's interpretation of Jesus's

2:04

deity may align with Christian theology,

2:06

while Joshua defends a monarchical view

2:09

of the Trinity. Both

2:11

speakers acknowledge common ground but also

2:13

identify areas of disagreement, highlighting the

2:16

complexity of the relationship between Islam

2:18

and Christianity. Be sure

2:20

to rate and review the podcast on whatever platform

2:22

you're listening on. We're in for

2:24

a fascinating discussion today, taking another listen

2:26

of a show hosted by Justin Briley.

2:29

When it comes to the deity of

2:31

Christ and the Trinity, Christians and Muslims,

2:34

the Bible and the Quran, may have

2:36

more in common than we think, says

2:38

one of my guests Abdullah Ghalidari. Abdullah

2:40

is an Islamic scholar whose book Quranic

2:42

Hermonutics has been creating a wave of

2:44

interest in the interfaith community and some

2:47

controversy in the Muslim community. He joins

2:49

me today to talk about the way

2:51

the Quran interprets in his view, the

2:53

claims about the deity of Christ found

2:55

in the Gospels, and he's going to

2:57

be in conversation with my other guest

3:00

Christian theologian Joshua Sujawade. Now Joshua

3:02

has a background in discussing the

3:04

Trinity with Muslims and is a

3:06

leading exponent of what's sometimes called

3:08

a monarchical view of the Trinity,

3:11

as expressed in his PhD thesis

3:13

on the metaphysics of the Trinity.

3:15

So today we're having very much, I think,

3:18

a collegial friendly discussion on how much

3:20

Christians and Muslims can in fact be

3:22

reconciled on Jesus and the Trinity. And

3:24

if you want links to both my

3:26

guests, I'll make sure they are there

3:28

with today's show as well. So welcome

3:30

Abdullah and Joshua to the show today.

3:33

Well thank you very much. Thank you so much, Josh. It's

3:35

great to have you both with me. Abdullah, let's start with

3:37

you. Tell us a little bit about your

3:39

background. How did you come to be

3:41

an Islamic scholar writing this specific book?

3:43

Well of course in my

3:45

previous incarnation I was really not an Islamic

3:48

scholar and I wouldn't even call myself an

3:50

Islamic scholar, maybe even today, but I

3:52

actually started being

3:54

an engineer in my previous incarnation and

3:57

however I wanted to... actually

4:00

change career paths. I wanted to

4:24

fantastic. Tell me about this new book of

4:27

your research, Quranic Hermonutics.

4:29

What does that mean and

4:32

what is it about in a nutshell? Well,

4:34

Quranic Hermonutics is basically a method

4:37

that I propose on a way

4:39

to have some form of interpreting

4:42

the Qur'an. It's a

4:44

method which I call intertextual polysomy,

4:47

looking how the Qur'an uses polysimus

4:49

terms and how they're linking them

4:51

with each other both within the

4:53

Qur'an and itself and between the

4:55

Qur'an as well with, for example,

4:57

the Bible and other biblical literature.

5:00

I was going to say, specifically, one of the

5:02

chapters I know deals very much with the Gospel

5:04

of John. Do you want to just talk about

5:06

how it relates to that and the language used

5:08

there? Exactly. So there

5:10

are three chapters in the book

5:12

that is fully devoted on the

5:15

intertextualities between the Qur'an and the

5:17

Gospel of John. And

5:19

I try as much as possible

5:21

not to really delve at all

5:23

into theology and Christology. All

5:26

that I try to show is basically

5:28

that if we compare the texts themselves,

5:30

if we compare the Qur'an with the

5:33

Gospel of John, they're not really in

5:35

contradiction. How we interpret

5:37

each one of those texts may contradict,

5:39

but the texts themselves do not necessarily

5:41

contradict one another. And so that was

5:43

the main focus of the three chapters

5:46

that are used to show the parallelism

5:48

between the Qur'an and the Gospel of

5:50

John. So this

5:52

was the interesting thing I found about the

5:55

book. One of your main claims is that

5:57

the Qur'an doesn't necessarily reject the

5:59

Gospels. it interprets them. What do

6:01

you mean by that? Well

6:04

it means that the Quran

6:06

basically accepts the Gospels.

6:08

It's not really trying to say that

6:10

there was some kind of changes

6:13

that happened into the text of the

6:15

Gospels or anything like that. Like

6:17

a lot of the Muslims for example, they have

6:19

the concept of what is called Tahrir or

6:21

the corruption of

6:23

the scriptures or the previous scriptures. And I

6:26

try to show that it's not what the

6:28

Quran is trying to talk

6:30

about when it uses the term Tahrir.

6:33

And in reality it's just trying

6:36

to tell the people for example

6:38

of the book, well instead

6:40

of straying away from your book but

6:42

stand upon your book and look into

6:44

the book. And along

6:47

with that the Quran is trying

6:50

to interpret the Bible. It starts

6:52

to interpret for example in

6:55

my book the Gospel of John, interpreting

6:57

what the logos is according to the

6:59

Quran. So it's interpreting it. It's not

7:01

trying to say well this is wrong and

7:03

this is the correct thing. It's just saying

7:05

that this is perhaps what it should be

7:07

interpreted as. And is

7:10

this why the book as I

7:12

said is somewhat controversial in parts

7:14

of the Islamic community? Because that

7:16

is taking quite a different line

7:18

obviously than many Muslims take when

7:20

it comes to the way they

7:22

understand the Gospels. Yes absolutely. It

7:24

does create controversy not only amongst

7:26

the Muslims but also with some

7:28

Christian circles as well.

7:31

And maybe perhaps the reason is because

7:35

many religions especially like Christianity and

7:37

Islam they try to win in

7:39

followers and so they try to

7:41

be in competition with one another.

7:44

And when you want to be in competition with one another

7:47

each party wants to show well you see

7:49

we're different from them and so we're better.

7:52

But when you show a lot of

7:54

commonalities then some people would say okay then

7:56

then what's the difference between us and them? There's

7:58

no difference and therefore How

8:01

are we going to compete? So, it

8:03

is controversial in some circles, of course,

8:05

within the Muslim communities, as well as

8:07

perhaps in some of the Christian communities.

8:10

Well, that's really interesting. Perhaps something we can return

8:12

to later in the conversation with Joshua.

8:15

Joshua, welcome to the show as well. It's

8:18

great to have you on for the first time, both

8:20

of you, today on the show. Joshua, I've been wanting

8:22

to have you on for years because I've been aware

8:24

of your work, your debates that

8:26

you've had, and your own progression

8:28

to a very fine scholar and

8:31

theologian yourself. Tell us a bit of

8:33

your own background, though. How did you first get into

8:35

talking about debating the Trinity, especially

8:37

with Muslims, to start out with,

8:39

Joshua? Okay, yeah. So, it's

8:42

sort of linked to my own personal sort

8:44

of story in that I

8:46

became a Christian when I was 19 years

8:48

old, based off of a religious

8:50

experience. Now, prior to that religious

8:52

experience, I was living a completely different life,

8:54

and my main sort of goal in life

8:56

was American football. I wanted to play American

8:58

football and get famous and all those sort of

9:01

things. But then I had

9:03

this religious experience that completely changed my

9:05

life, and it reorientated my

9:07

thinking. And I realized, actually,

9:09

I want to ask and try and

9:12

answer the deep questions about life. And

9:14

so, after that experience, I then

9:17

focused my thoughts and my life

9:19

on wanting to sort of develop academically.

9:21

So I decided to go and study

9:23

theology, and then I decided to go in

9:26

sort of the postgraduate level and

9:28

get a PhD focusing on Christianity.

9:31

And when I was sort of thinking

9:33

of PhD topics, I was always interested

9:35

in what is the Trinity? And I

9:37

wanted to use my PhD not just

9:39

on something that I could write an

9:41

80,000-word dissertation, but

9:44

I wanted to do something that actually could help me spiritually

9:48

in understanding God better. And

9:50

I decided to focus on my PhD on the

9:53

Trinity. And also, whilst

9:55

I was doing that, I was visiting

9:57

Speakers Corner as well in

9:59

London. Yeah, it was a great

10:01

experience in encountering Muslims and having great conversations

10:03

with them and it was even developmental for

10:06

myself. It was able to help me think

10:08

through some of the positions that I hold

10:10

to on the Trinity. So yeah,

10:12

it was sort of falling into study

10:15

that I got into through this experience and

10:17

then just from it, I fell in love

10:19

with study and theological sort of deep

10:21

questions and trying to answer them. Brilliant.

10:25

And so tell us a bit about sort of where

10:27

that's taken you in terms of your view of

10:30

the Trinity. This may be a new concept

10:32

to many people. This is what I've described

10:34

as the monarchical view of the Trinity. Can

10:36

you again express it in a nutshell for

10:38

listeners? Yeah, so the monarchical view sort

10:41

of in a nutshell is the idea

10:43

that the one God is identified as

10:45

the Father. So instead of

10:47

identifying the Trinity and saying God

10:50

is tri-personal or three persons in

10:52

one, the one God is actually

10:54

solely the Father. However, the

10:56

Son and the Spirit are divine as well

10:58

and they're divine in the same way as

11:00

the Father is divine. So if

11:02

we are sort of putting it in a slogan

11:04

way, you'll say that there are three divine persons,

11:06

the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Each

11:09

of them are consubstantial. That means they

11:11

share the same nature. There's no distinction

11:13

between them there. Yet the

11:15

one God is identified as the Father.

11:17

He is the one God because He

11:19

is the source of all things and

11:21

He comes from nothing. So He can

11:23

bear the name God. It's

11:26

a bit of a strange view for some people

11:28

when they first encounter it because they're like, what

11:30

do you mean God is not tri-personal? But

11:33

why I like this view is because I

11:35

do believe it corresponds to Scripture a lot

11:38

better than the sort of conventional view. And

11:41

then also I believe it's the historically

11:43

sort of grounded view. When we look

11:45

at the history of the church in

11:48

the first four centuries, what was their understanding

11:50

of the doctrine of Trinity? I

11:52

would sort of in my sort of opinion say,

11:54

well, it was a monarchical view, the idea that

11:56

the one God is the Father and there are

11:58

two other divine persons. person who are consubstantial

12:01

with the Father, but share the same nature

12:03

as Him. And

12:05

does this kind of take us into the territory

12:07

which I know is controversial in some Christian circles

12:10

of a sort of hierarchical

12:12

slash kind of

12:14

the spirit and the some being in

12:16

some way subject to the Father or in

12:19

some way? How does it interact

12:21

with those kinds of views? Yes,

12:23

so it definitely would. And I think we

12:25

can affirm a hierarchy in one sense and

12:27

then negate it in another sense. And

12:30

the one that we want to negate is

12:32

an ontological hierarchy in that the

12:34

Son and the Spirit are subordinate to

12:36

the Father because they have a different

12:38

nature from Him. So for example,

12:41

we are subordinate to God because He has

12:43

a divine nature, we have a human nature.

12:45

So that would be a type of subordinationism

12:47

that we want to negate and say no,

12:49

that's not correct. That would be

12:51

a heresy as far as your... Yes, that will be heretical. That

12:53

will be incorrect. Yes, that will be wrong and it's not something

12:56

of the monarchical view affirms. But

12:59

the view simply affirms that there is

13:01

a relational hierarchy in that the

13:03

Father is greater than the Son based on the

13:05

relation that He bears to the Son, in that

13:07

He is the Father, He is the source of

13:09

the Son. And so that's why

13:11

there is a distinction. So I normally give an

13:13

analogy. You can think about it

13:15

in the sort of a family sense. Your father, if

13:18

you have a father and you have a child, the

13:21

father and child are different in

13:23

one sense and they're equal in another sense.

13:25

They're equal in their nature. So

13:27

there's no hierarchical subordination when it comes to

13:29

what they are. But based on

13:31

their relation, there is a hierarchy. The father in some

13:34

way should be superior to the Son. It will be

13:36

strange if the Son said to the Father, go and

13:38

tidy your room. I mean, that will

13:40

be strange, but it's not strange when

13:42

a father says it to the child because of

13:44

that relational distinction between them. And

13:47

yes, so in the Trinity, there's that relational

13:49

distinction in that the Father is the source

13:51

of the Son and the Spirit. And so

13:53

He has a relational superiority. But when it

13:55

comes to their nature, they share the same

13:57

nature and they're equally perfect. Okay, very interesting.

14:00

I'm sure we could do a whole debate, you know, with

14:02

possibly other points of view on that. But

14:04

as far as you're concerned, this is a perfectly orthodox

14:06

way of understanding Trinitarian

14:08

theology. I mean,

14:10

I'll be very interested to come back in a

14:13

moment then to see how that has been helpful

14:15

for you in engaging with Muslims and their objections

14:17

to the Trinity in a moment, Joshua.

14:20

But let's maybe first just define what the problems

14:23

are and maybe, Abdullah, you could spell out for

14:25

us some of the typical objections that a Muslim

14:27

would have to the idea of the Trinity. I

14:30

think most people are very aware that, you know,

14:33

as soon as you get into a discussion between a

14:35

Muslim and a Christian, one of the first things that's

14:37

going to arise is, well, how can you believe God

14:39

is three persons in one or that

14:41

there are three gods or whatever? And

14:44

just take us to some of the specific

14:46

passages in the Qur'an that deal with this

14:48

Abdullah and what the typical objections are from

14:51

Muslims towards the Trinity as

14:53

it's typically expressed. Yes.

14:56

Thank you for that. One

14:58

of the major issues that

15:00

the Qur'an has is about

15:03

Jesus not being begotten of

15:05

God because the Qur'an

15:07

frequently says that Jesus is not

15:10

begotten of God. And

15:12

of course, I mean, immediately

15:14

once one would say, well, that's obviously

15:17

something that would go against the Gospel

15:19

of John and therefore there is a

15:21

contradiction. However, what

15:23

I try to show is that in

15:25

reality, that is not what the

15:27

Qur'an is trying to suggest. It

15:29

is not suggesting that the Gospel

15:32

of John is incorrect in its

15:34

way of its in its way

15:36

describing who Jesus is as

15:38

the Logos, as the Word that

15:40

has incarnated in flesh.

15:44

So in reality, when we

15:46

do look into the Qur'anic passages,

15:48

especially whenever it actually says

15:50

that Jesus is not

15:52

begotten of God, every single

15:54

time it uses the word, welled, it says

15:57

that Jesus is not welled of God, is

15:59

not begotten of God. begotten of God. But

16:01

immediately afterwards it says that

16:04

whatever God will, God says

16:06

be and it becomes, kun

16:08

shayakun in Arabic. And

16:11

so every single time it says well

16:13

don't say welled, don't say begotten, it

16:15

says kun. But if

16:17

we try to really understand what

16:20

those terms really mean in

16:22

the Arabic language it is very difficult. What

16:25

is the nuance in the

16:27

difference between the concept of tawlid

16:29

which is to

16:32

beget in Arabic and the

16:34

concept of takuin which means to

16:36

become in Arabic. Because both

16:38

of them means to generate. So both

16:40

terms really mean to generate. And

16:44

because both terms really mean to

16:46

generate it's very difficult even for

16:48

people who are Arab speakers to

16:51

really try to figure out well what's really the

16:53

difference between them. And some might for example say

16:55

well maybe tawlid is

16:57

biological begetting and maybe takuin

16:59

is just generation through other

17:01

means. But even in

17:03

the Arab speaking world today for

17:05

example we do use the word

17:07

tawlid for even not necessarily biological

17:10

begetting. For example generating electricity we

17:12

use the word tawlid. So

17:14

it's just simply means to generate. So

17:17

what's the difference between tawlid and takuin?

17:19

It's a very very fine line. There's

17:21

a nuance which perhaps nobody really knows.

17:24

But the Quran seems to be very adamant. No

17:26

don't say tawlid. Don't say

17:29

be getting through tawlid but

17:31

say generating through takuin instead.

17:33

And so what I argue

17:35

is that maybe that's what the Quran

17:37

is trying to interpret the logos in the

17:39

Gospel of John. Because in the

17:41

beginning of the Gospel of John it says in

17:44

the beginning was the Word and the Word was

17:46

with God and then it says and the Word

17:48

was God. Well what does it mean?

17:51

Well of course a lot of the for example

17:54

dialogues that exists between Christianity and

17:56

Judaism they would simply say well

17:58

as soon as As soon

18:00

as John says, and the Word

18:03

was God, now it became something that

18:05

is not Jewish. However, I

18:07

argue that is very much Jewish. Why?

18:10

Because we all know that the prologue of

18:12

the Gospel of John is trying to parallel

18:14

the prologue of Genesis and how

18:16

creation came to be. And

18:19

so if we read Genesis independent from the

18:21

Gospel of John, of course God is the

18:23

source of all things that were created. And

18:26

the Word that God speaks to create

18:29

everything is the Hebrew Yehi,

18:31

which is from the root Haya, which

18:34

means let there be. So in other words,

18:36

be. The Septuagint, for

18:38

example, uses genitheto. And

18:40

actually the word genitheto coming from the Greek

18:42

genomai means to generate. Now

18:45

so in the beginning was the Word. If

18:47

we understand now that the Word is the

18:49

word be, which in Arabic would be kun,

18:52

and it wouldn't be welled, it would be kun, to be.

18:55

So if we say that the Word is actually

18:57

the word be, which was with

18:59

God from the beginning, and

19:02

then that the Word itself was

19:04

God, well why would the Gospel

19:06

of John say that the Word itself was

19:09

God? If we do look into the Bible,

19:11

for example, in Exodus 3.14, how

19:14

does God actually describe

19:18

itself to Moses? It says,

19:20

ehiyeh, ashar, ehiyeh. I

19:23

will be who I will be. So

19:25

God describes itself with the

19:27

word be, with the root hayah,

19:31

which in Arabic would be kun. So

19:33

it's as if it's saying akun men

19:36

akun in Arabic. So I will be who I

19:38

will be. The Quran

19:40

usually translates this encounter between

19:42

God and Moses with inni and

19:44

Allah. I am who I am

19:46

God. So basically,

19:48

maybe what the Quran is trying to

19:51

say, don't say welled because the word

19:53

welled has no connection with

19:55

the name of God, has no connection

19:57

with the Word that created everything. However,

20:00

when we use the word kun, then

20:02

that is actually the word of

20:05

B, which describes how

20:07

everything was created according to Genesis

20:11

and is itself associated with

20:13

the name of God. Actually,

20:16

in Hebrew, of

20:19

course, we have the tetragrammaton, which is,

20:22

of course, nobody knows how it is

20:24

exactly pronounced, but it is something like

20:26

Yahweh. And itself

20:29

is perhaps rooted in the

20:31

term Hayah. And

20:34

so perhaps what the Gospel of John

20:36

is trying to do is that, well, I'm not

20:38

going to use the name of God because

20:41

in the Jewish tradition,

20:43

putting the name of God or writing the name

20:46

of God is sometimes considered to be very

20:49

holy and that it's

20:51

usually used like putting instead some

20:54

other names like the Lord, like

20:56

Adonai, Hashem, or sometimes Memra, the

20:58

word, which perhaps is what the Gospel of John

21:00

here is doing. So

21:03

let me just try to summarize this as far

21:05

as I've understood it then, Abdullah. So

21:07

when the Quran objects to the idea

21:09

that God begets, and this would be

21:11

the typical objection of Sheik,

21:13

the idea of associating God with other

21:16

deities and so on, that seems to

21:19

you normally be taken as an objection

21:22

to the idea of a Trinitarian view

21:24

or Jesus as the Son of God

21:26

and so on. But you

21:28

say no, as soon as

21:31

it said that, it says, don't use this

21:33

word begets, but rather the word be, anything

21:35

God comes from God is

21:37

kind of immediately generated or something like

21:39

that. And that this, this

21:41

then you find it is an interpretation of

21:44

the logos in the beginning of John's

21:46

Gospel. And from that point of

21:48

view, you're saying, is

21:51

it then that in your view it's

21:53

plausible to believe that the Quran is actually

21:55

not necessarily discounting in some

21:57

sense the divinity of Jesus? as

22:00

expressed there, but just simply trying to reinterpret

22:03

it as not some kind of form of,

22:06

you know, additional person in

22:09

this way. Well,

22:11

I try to stay away from

22:14

theology and Christology in the

22:16

Qur'an and just comparing

22:18

the texts. So the texts themselves,

22:21

they don't contradict one another. Now,

22:23

what does that mean is a different story.

22:26

Like, for example, even in the early churches,

22:28

for example, the early churches, they had

22:31

different Christologies, different understandings of

22:34

who Christ is, the

22:36

divinity of Christ and so forth.

22:39

But did they all have different texts? No.

22:41

They all use the exact same text.

22:43

They all use the same gospels. They

22:45

didn't use anything different. Yet

22:47

they reached different conclusions from within

22:49

the same text. So

22:51

here in the Qur'an, you can,

22:53

of course, be – you can

22:55

consider yourself having some kind of

22:57

an orthodox view of Christ, for

22:59

example, and still be able to

23:01

see that in the Qur'an. You

23:04

can have maybe an Aryan view and still see

23:06

that in the Qur'an. You can have

23:08

a completely different view and

23:11

completely discounting the divinity of Christ and

23:13

still see that as well in the

23:15

Qur'an. So you can really

23:17

pretty much have all the different views. And

23:19

if you ask me personally, I

23:21

mean, what makes me

23:23

me as a human being right now

23:25

in front of you? Every single cell

23:27

of my body that exists today did

23:30

not exist ten years ago. So

23:32

my whole physicality that exists today is very different

23:34

than what it was ten years ago. Does

23:37

that mean I was a different person ten years ago

23:39

than I am today? Is my

23:41

physical body what makes me who I am?

23:43

I have no idea. I mean,

23:46

some people would say, well, the humans

23:48

are made up of, you know, like the body and

23:50

the soul. And then

23:52

there's the idea about whether the

23:56

soul is distinct from the body or is part of the body

23:58

or something like that. Nobody's like that. really

24:00

knows. And of course there are

24:02

many different philosophers out there that talk

24:04

about what is consciousness and what makes

24:06

a human human and so forth. But

24:09

if we don't know who we

24:11

are, then how

24:13

did we even try to

24:15

speculate who God is? Right?

24:17

So if I can't even tell you what my

24:20

essence really is, if I don't really know what

24:22

my essence is as a human being, how

24:24

will I even be able to determine and

24:26

interpret the essence of God? Yeah,

24:29

it's a very interesting point. We need to

24:32

take a quick break now, but our

24:34

debate topic for today is the differences

24:36

and similarities between Christianity and Islam. In

24:39

a moment we'll return to the debate,

24:41

but let us know what you think.

24:43

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26:21

unbelievable show. That's

26:23

premierinsight.org/unbelievable show. Thank

26:25

you so much.

26:30

you Welcome

26:37

back. You're listening to Unbelievable,

26:39

the show that gets Christians, skeptics, agnostics

26:42

and all those in between thinking about

26:44

the topics that matter to every single

26:46

one of us. I

26:48

am Andy Kind and we are

26:50

about to rejoin a fascinating discussion

26:52

between Abdullah Galidari and Joshua Sijuadi,

26:55

hosted by Justin Briley. They

26:57

are engaged in a thought-provoking discussion finding

26:59

common ground between the Bible and the

27:02

Quran. Let's see who

27:04

convinces you. Let's get back into it. So

27:07

yeah, I know Joshua that you have only

27:09

recently come to sort of read yourself the

27:11

work of Abdullah and start to interact, so

27:14

there's a lot you've got to digest here

27:16

and so on, but what's your additional thoughts

27:18

on this quite interesting way of understanding and

27:21

interpreting the relationship of the Quran with the

27:23

claims there right at the beginning of the

27:25

Gospel of John? Yes,

27:28

I find it a very interesting proposal

27:30

and something I would like to look further into, but

27:33

it's just sort of trying to understand

27:36

how far the Quran allows you

27:38

to affirm the divinity of Christ,

27:41

because obviously as a Christian or someone

27:44

who holds to the authority of the

27:46

Council, so the Council of Chalcedon in

27:49

451, the affirmation of the divinity

27:51

of Christ was that he is a

27:53

fully divine person and then what

27:56

we have in Constantinople is that that divinity that

27:58

he has is the same as the Father. And

28:01

so what I'm interested to sort

28:22

of to Abdullah just to understand the

28:30

word that is in John according to the

28:32

Quranic sort of understanding,

28:35

is it something that's numerically distinct

28:37

from God or is it God?

28:39

Is it numerically identical? So do

28:42

we have two things there, two

28:44

numerically distinct things or do we

28:46

just have one thing and the word is

28:48

just like myself, my word is something that's

28:50

me or do we have

28:52

something numerically distinct? So that's something I like to

28:55

understand. That's

28:57

a very fair and good question. So

28:59

is this B, this Qun,

29:01

is it distinct from God

29:03

itself? Well, it's very

29:06

difficult really from the Qur'an

29:08

to determine whether the Qun itself

29:10

is the essence

29:13

of God, is in itself God

29:15

or is it just maybe a name

29:17

of God as it is in the, for example,

29:20

in the Hebrew Bible where God

29:22

is, is, I will be who I

29:24

will be. It's

29:27

very difficult really to determine exactly

29:30

what the Qur'an tries to

29:32

suggest. But like for example, one

29:34

of the passages in the Qur'an that

29:36

tries to say

29:39

about using numbers and

29:41

the numerical thing, the

29:44

Qur'an is very adamant that there's

29:46

no three, there's only one and a lot

29:48

of the, for example, Muslims, they

29:51

usually interpret one of those passages. Like

29:53

I can tell you what that passage

29:55

is, it's Qur'an 4171 which says

29:57

all people of the book don't, Go

30:00

to extremes regarding your faith and say

30:02

nothing about God. Accept the truth. And

30:04

then it says the Messiah Jesus son

30:07

of Mary. Is. A messenger

30:09

of God. Com. And

30:11

his words whom he

30:13

gave to marry. A

30:16

and A Spirit. From Him. And

30:18

so believe in God and his. Messengers.

30:22

And do not say three. Desist.

30:24

It is better. For you. For.

30:27

God is only one God. And. A

30:29

lot of the of muslim interpreters. Of

30:31

course will usually read this passage as.

30:33

Denying the trinity. But.

30:36

It. Can be read not necessarily

30:38

as denying the trinity. Because all

30:40

it saying is that don't say three. I

30:43

mean as if we compare the for example with the as

30:45

a nation. Creed the attorneys and Greed says like

30:47

the father. Is it There are no The

30:49

funny through an old? The Holy Spirit Eternal

30:51

The Father unlimited. The Sun unlimited. The Holy

30:54

Spirit unlimited. Armor. And yet

30:56

there are not three a month.

30:58

Him Eternal. They're not three. unlimited.

31:01

An infinite, or unlimited. It's only

31:03

one. And. And the as a nation.

31:06

Frequently. Says don't say three, it's

31:08

only one. As a week

31:11

and even read this passage in the Koran

31:13

to actually say well don't say three, just

31:15

say one. So. It doesn't really

31:17

necessarily. Denounce the trinity per se.

31:20

It's it's can be read and again. That's why

31:22

I try to make a distinction between what the

31:24

text says. And what theologians

31:27

usually try to interpret. A

31:29

Because there's it could be a distinction.

31:31

We can interpret this perhaps as denying

31:34

the trinity. But. It can be

31:36

actually interpreting baby denying some kind

31:38

of maybe and eighty and kind

31:40

of christ all a g and

31:42

which we we shouldn't basically make

31:44

a distinction. It's only one.

31:46

I mean there are many different ways to

31:48

interpret this and and I just. Keep

31:51

the. Be interpretation for the people to

31:53

make and as just look into the Texas

31:55

they are. Work. festival joshua

31:57

sketch out kind of were typically

32:00

the debate tends to revolve when you are

32:02

having this conversation with Muslims. And then we'll

32:05

talk a bit about how you think Abdullah's

32:07

synthesis, if you like, kind of speaks to

32:09

all of this. What do you find are

32:11

the typical views, though, that you're encountering and

32:13

the way you tend to respond to them

32:15

yourself, Joshua? Yeah, so

32:17

generally you normally see a lot of

32:20

Muslims, when I'm speaking to them, is

32:22

that the understanding of

32:24

the Trinity is something which is not

32:26

affirmed by the Quran or

32:28

Islamic theology. It's not possible that it

32:30

could be, specifically because

32:33

you have this equating of

32:36

God, Allah, with another being,

32:39

a being that's numerically distinct from Him.

32:41

And that is something which cannot be,

32:43

and my understanding is an unforgivable sin

32:46

to associate partners with God. And

32:48

so the understanding is that if we –

32:50

sorry, a Muslim would say – if we

32:52

accept the Trinity, we are affirming that. The

32:54

idea that there are three divine persons, the

32:56

Son and the Spirit, are consubstantial. They share

32:59

the same nature as the Father. So in

33:01

a way, you are associating partners with Him.

33:03

And so that would be sort of one

33:05

issue that they would say, well, clearly the

33:07

Quran says you cannot affirm that, and so

33:10

that's something that you cannot hold to. And

33:13

then a sort of general objection

33:15

that you'll find is normally this philosophical

33:17

aspect where they'll say, well, there's

33:20

good reason why the Quran even says that.

33:22

It's not even just because it's not that

33:24

Allah has these partners. It's that it's not

33:26

even logically possible. It's not

33:28

metaphysically logically possible that there could

33:31

be two other divine persons

33:33

in addition to Allah. So this idea

33:35

of having three persons, and then also

33:37

you're saying there is only one God,

33:39

there seems to be some form of

33:42

contradiction there. So generally, it's the

33:44

idea theologically that God has said this is

33:46

just not correct. And then

33:48

secondly, you sort of see a philosophical objection,

33:50

which is, well, it just doesn't make sense.

33:52

It's incoherence. You cannot have three divine persons

33:55

and one God. And

33:57

is your work generally speaking to the...

34:00

second of those two objections saying

34:02

that it is logically coherent, is

34:04

that where you would come down? Yes,

34:07

yes. So I sort of work more,

34:09

I would say academic sort of my

34:11

academic writings isn't normally on the philosophical

34:13

aspects of Christianity, so yeah

34:15

I've been trying to deal with these sort of

34:17

logical problem of the Trinity issues and so that's

34:19

mainly where my focus is but I think sort

34:21

of the view that I'm sort

34:23

of defending does speak to that first issue as

34:25

well in a way. Okay,

34:28

I mean just very briefly just before we come back

34:30

to a duller's point there then, when

34:32

you're typically down the speaker's corner

34:35

and you're meeting those common objections to

34:37

the Trinity, how does this monarchical, this

34:39

is more hierarchical view if you like

34:41

of the Trinity help to engage people's

34:43

objections there? Oh yeah, I

34:45

think for me it deals with the

34:48

general problems that you'll find because

34:50

there is no philosophical incoherence because the

34:52

idea here is that the one God

34:54

is identified as the Father and

34:56

so when I'm normally discussing this sort of issue

34:58

I would start off by saying firstly

35:01

the term God is an ambiguous word

35:03

and it's quite evident that is ambiguous

35:05

because we can affirm many things as

35:07

God and we're not necessarily meaning the

35:09

same thing. So God is an ambiguous

35:12

word but given

35:14

this ambiguity we have at least two ways of

35:16

understanding it and what we find in the Bible

35:18

and what we find sort of in church history

35:20

is that there are these two ways. One

35:23

way is using the word God as a

35:25

name for a being and another

35:27

way is using the word God as

35:29

a predicate or an adjective. So

35:32

sort of at a general level you can see

35:34

this with the word Brown. Brown can be used

35:36

as a name for something but it can be

35:38

used as an adjective to sort of describe the

35:40

characteristics of someone and so sort of

35:42

I would say with a monarchical view what you understand

35:44

is that there's one way of using the word God

35:46

as a name and there's one way of using the

35:48

word God as an adjective. When we

35:51

use the word God as an adjective it

35:53

applies equally to each of the persons the

35:55

Father, Son and Holy Spirit. So We

35:57

can affirm the Son is God and we can affirm the

35:59

Holy Spirit. God I'm as with

36:01

the father because they have that

36:04

that sort of characteristic of being

36:06

perfect. They. Are divine and so

36:08

they can be predicated The word God. However,

36:11

without first usage of the What God

36:13

as a name not solely given to

36:15

the Father alone and we see this

36:17

route the New Testament. When. Ninety

36:19

nine percent of the passages would

36:21

be saying the time hosts fails

36:23

the God applies to the father you

36:26

see actually in the New Testament

36:28

Sometimes. It is just common knowledge

36:30

that they don't even use the what Father

36:32

So when Paul is speaking he would say

36:34

the got you know that God or you

36:36

say to God and Father of Lord Jesus

36:38

Christ was your visa What God I'm for

36:40

the Father and he wouldn't even need to

36:42

use the word I'm Father because this is

36:44

common knowledge that the name God was given

36:46

to the Father. And so when

36:48

you're than dealing with the philosophical issues,

36:50

you simply say well, when we're trying

36:52

Six Counts gods, when we're trying to

36:54

be money, she is stick. Which.

36:57

Which meaning of the wide god is important

36:59

while the meeting the what god that's important

37:01

is the name. How many divine

37:03

Parsons bad name gotten the trinity? There

37:05

is only one. the father alone because

37:08

he's a sole source, the ultimate source

37:10

of all things the sun and the

37:12

spare time. And he come from him.

37:14

And so that's why he can bad

37:16

his name God. And. So there is

37:19

also a social problem because as only one

37:21

god and that one god is a clickable

37:23

to the father relied yep that that's really

37:25

really helpful. What the wave of help dispel

37:27

out the way you with engage in ages

37:29

issue with with a muslim he has this attack

37:31

him as I say coming back to done and

37:33

and hadn't I mean again as I said before

37:35

you have any recent he counted this kind of

37:38

way as of may be. Bringing. Together,

37:40

the crowd and John's gospel in this

37:42

way. I. Did did the how do

37:44

you think it speaks to it especially in a

37:46

given more apt Allowed to say that that last

37:48

segment about the. The. When he died of a

37:50

dance to your question about the weight. And.

37:52

Whether they are not this is a a different

37:55

be a good or bad juju. Different said it,

37:57

things are or what and yes yep. am

37:59

i I'm very, like I said before,

38:01

I'm very definitely

38:04

original because I haven't looking

38:22

at the text and you're not trying to

38:24

step into the theological sort of issues but

38:27

my only issue is that I think in

38:29

my own mind you can't really divide those

38:31

two things. There are sort of I would

38:33

say a full psychotomy there because

38:35

the text, well I would say even in

38:37

a Christian perspective, the text is read in

38:39

light of the teaching of the church and

38:42

so we interpret the text in light of

38:44

it and so if

38:46

you just have the text alone you can have hundreds

38:49

of interpretations and hundreds of different ways of

38:52

understanding it, actually it could mean this or

38:54

it could mean that but when

38:56

we want to come to the truth of the matter

38:58

on an issue I think we need to understand what

39:00

the interpretation is so we can correctly apply it to

39:02

our lives and so I would

39:05

say the way then you have to do that is

39:07

by then battling with the theology because if

39:09

the Quran does allow us

39:11

to affirm this divinity of

39:14

Christ then it does seem

39:16

to me sort of if we look at

39:18

the theological sense, well the divinity of Christ

39:20

understood in the Christian context is that he

39:22

shares the same divinity as the Father, it's

39:25

not a lesser divinity and so then

39:27

what you are really saying is that there are in

39:30

a way that there's allowed to be two

39:32

divine persons in an Islamic worldview that's sort

39:34

of in my opinion but if

39:36

you just go with the text you would say it

39:38

just allows it to be open but I think if you're

39:40

going to understand I would

39:43

say the issue further we have to

39:45

also battle with the theology and I

39:47

think the theological implications might

39:50

be troublesome for

39:52

sort of bringing the Islamic view and the

39:54

Christian view together. Abdullah. Thank

39:57

you so much for that Joshua.

39:59

Yes, I do, of course, understand

40:02

why people would want to know

40:04

what would the interpretation be. But

40:07

as I said, I mean, if I don't

40:09

even know what makes me me as a

40:11

human being, I mean, is my physical body

40:13

what makes me? Is my soul what

40:15

makes me? Is my spirit what makes me? I

40:17

mean, you can even think of the human as

40:19

a Trinity, right, with body, soul, and spirit. Or

40:22

even a different kind of Trinity according to the Qur'an,

40:24

according to the Qur'an, even a different kind

40:26

of Trinity. You've got God created the human

40:29

from dust and from water, made

40:32

it into clay, and then breathed

40:34

into this clay from God's Spirit,

40:37

and this person became alive. So

40:40

there is this kind of also a

40:42

Trinity of a human. Because

40:44

if we think of the four basic elements in

40:46

the ancient world, the human is

40:49

made out of earth, made out

40:51

of water, made out of air. The

40:53

only thing it's not made out of is the fire, perhaps. But

40:56

the three elements, the three basic elements of

40:58

the ancient world is what the human being is

41:00

made out of. So the

41:02

human is made out of three elements, maybe, maybe

41:05

also the metaphysical things

41:07

such as the soul, spirit,

41:09

and body, and so forth. But

41:12

all of these things, I mean, if I don't even know

41:14

what makes me mean reality, the truth

41:16

of the matter, what is my essence,

41:18

if I have no idea what that

41:20

is, then maybe before I

41:22

even try to speculate, well, what is the

41:25

essence of God and try to understand the

41:27

truth of the matter of God's essence,

41:29

and if God is a

41:31

Trinity, and if God is three different elements

41:33

or three different persons of the Trinity,

41:36

well, maybe I should first ask myself, well, what

41:38

am I? And if I figure

41:40

that out first, then maybe I can

41:42

look into theology. So I do fully

41:44

understand. I mean, many people, okay, but what does it

41:46

mean? We need to know what it means. But

41:49

I think maybe we need to have this

41:51

kind of humility and humbleness that maybe

41:54

these things about God is a

41:56

mystery. And one of the things

41:58

about the Eastern Orthodox church

42:00

and the Oriental churches as well,

42:06

they emphasize negative theology. We can say maybe what God is

42:08

not, but it's very difficult to say what God is, because

42:11

God is a mystery and we need to

42:15

respect this mystery and maybe that's

42:17

the whole point. Maybe the whole point

42:19

why God may give different people different

42:22

texts and allow for many different interpretations

42:24

even from the same text. Looking

42:26

into the early churches for example

42:28

and their big debates about Christology,

42:31

well maybe because the goal is

42:33

for people to seek the truth, to

42:35

seek God. And if everybody said, well

42:37

God is ABCD, then nobody

42:39

will be seeking the truth because everybody will tell you,

42:42

well God is ABCD. But if God as

42:44

you said Joshua is very

42:46

ambiguous, that's the beauty.

42:48

Because God is very ambiguous, God

42:51

is a mystery and so it allows

42:53

for people to try to seek who

42:55

God is and what the truth really

42:57

is and maybe that's the purpose of

43:00

why God wanted to create humans. Yeah,

43:04

so that's interesting. My only sort

43:06

of thought on that would be

43:08

that I do understand what you're saying

43:10

but I feel we also need

43:12

to take into account that there is an understanding that

43:15

we are to have a relationship with God. So

43:17

God is relational and so if we are to

43:19

stand in a relationship with God, we

43:22

need to have some or a good understanding of

43:24

the God that we are in a relationship with.

43:26

If I was in a relationship with my wife

43:28

but I absolutely knew nothing about him, I just

43:30

said she was a mystery, it won't be a

43:32

very good relationship. But there

43:34

is an understanding that we are in a

43:37

relationship with God. We stand in this

43:39

relationship and if we are to be able to fulfill

43:42

the expectations of the relationship and for God

43:44

to fulfill the expectations that he has as

43:46

well for us, then

43:48

we will need to have some understanding.

43:50

So why I think is good to

43:53

sort of emphasise is in sort

43:55

of Christian theology, we would say that

43:57

you can apprehend what God has

43:59

revealed himself but you cannot comprehend

44:01

it in that we are

44:03

not going to fully understand everything about

44:05

God but because God has revealed things

44:07

about himself we can apprehend it, we

44:10

can come to some sort of a

44:12

conceptual understanding of these things because if

44:14

we can't then I don't know how

44:16

we can enter into an authentic relationship

44:18

with him. And so I

44:20

for me personally sort of maybe it's

44:22

my philosophical sort of hat that I

44:25

wear all the time but I don't

44:27

really like the word mystery in that

44:29

I think I do believe mystery, there

44:31

is always a mystery or

44:33

mystical element of theology

44:36

but I do believe that sometimes we

44:39

pull the mystery card too early when

44:41

I don't think we have warrant to

44:43

do that yet because

44:46

I would say if we've been able to

44:48

develop our understandings of many things in the

44:50

world why can't we do the same thing

44:53

for God and not God from

44:55

an a priori perspective in that I'm

44:57

sitting on my couch and God

44:59

hasn't revealed anything and I'm just going to think and know

45:01

about God but an a posteriori perspective

45:03

saying because God has revealed things about

45:06

him and based on this revelation he

45:08

wants us to be in a relationship

45:10

with him then we should be able

45:12

to understand things about him. I think

45:14

the doctrine of God, the nature of

45:16

what God is, is extremely important if

45:18

we're going to have that type of

45:20

relationship. And so for me

45:22

the doctrine of Trinity I would say and the

45:25

incarnation of the Son as the person

45:27

of Jesus are fundamental things that I

45:29

think we can come to a good

45:31

level of understanding of. And

45:34

I just wanted to come in on this Abdullah

45:36

because we've spoken about just those first verse or

45:38

two of the Gospel of John, in

45:41

the beginning was the Word and the Word was

45:43

with God and the Word was God and the

45:45

way that you do believe that speaks based to

45:47

obviously the Hebrew account of that and the

45:49

way that you believe the Quran is if you like speaking

45:52

to that. But of course as

45:54

that passage goes on John says and

45:56

the Word became flesh and lived among us.

45:59

This is the central claim,

46:01

if you like, of Christianity, that that

46:04

word, that logos, that

46:07

God became human, the

46:10

incarnation. So now,

46:12

is that a kind of fundamental separating

46:15

point between Islam and Christianity? Most people

46:17

would assume it is. What's

46:20

your view on the incarnation

46:22

specifically? I don't think

46:24

it does have any issues

46:26

with the understanding from the

46:28

Gospel of John, because as

46:31

you just said, the thing is in the Qur'an,

46:33

for example, it does say that the likeness

46:35

of Jesus unto God is like that of

46:37

Adam. He created him of dust and

46:39

then said to him, be, and

46:42

he becomes. So

46:44

we do see, because a lot of people

46:46

also usually think that the word

46:49

be is the word of creation.

46:51

But in this passage, there's also a distinction

46:54

between creation and being. There's

46:58

this ontological issue, a

47:00

distinction between them, because it says

47:02

that God created him of dust. It's

47:04

a past tense. God created the physical

47:07

flesh and then said

47:09

to the physical flesh, be. And so this

47:11

be now becomes into that

47:13

flesh after it had been

47:15

already created. So

47:18

I don't see in here that the Qur'an

47:20

again, it's not necessarily

47:22

contradicting the Gospel of John at all.

47:25

And it does affirm that the

47:27

word, that the Qun has become

47:29

in the flesh, in the form

47:31

of Jesus. There's no distinction in

47:33

there. And to answer Joshua, let

47:36

me actually ask Joshua a question. Do

47:38

you have a good relationship with yourself? That's

47:43

the first time he'd answer. I

47:46

hope. I don't know. Do I have

47:48

a relationship with myself? I

47:52

don't think so. In

47:54

that relations are

47:56

normally dyadic in that

47:59

there is a. another thing that's numerically distinct

48:01

from a being that you then stand

48:03

in a relationship with. I don't know

48:05

if I have a relationship with myself but

48:08

I don't know. It's something I need to think

48:10

about. What's the point of the question there, Abdullah?

48:13

Well that's a good answer.

48:15

My next question would be, you

48:17

said you have a good relationship with your

48:20

wife, correct? Oh

48:23

right. I tried to. You tried to.

48:25

Well that's great. The

48:27

thing is, do you know

48:30

the relationship between

48:33

your wife's physical flesh,

48:36

her soul, and her spirit?

48:39

The relationship between them? Because

48:41

honestly speaking, if I ask myself this

48:44

question, what is the relationship if I mean I

48:46

have no idea if I have a soul, a

48:48

spirit, or even if my physical flesh

48:50

is actually part of my own essence, but

48:52

I have absolutely no idea to be very honest

48:54

and to be very truthful to myself. I

48:57

don't know what's the relationship between my soul and

48:59

my flesh, my body, or

49:01

between those and the spirit. I have

49:03

no idea what the relationship is between

49:06

them. But that doesn't mean that

49:08

I cannot have a relationship with

49:10

myself or a relationship with any

49:12

other human being who perhaps is also

49:14

made out of flesh, spirit,

49:16

and soul. So

49:19

knowing the relationship between them does

49:21

not really tell me that I

49:23

cannot really have a very good relationship with

49:26

that being without necessarily knowing

49:28

the relationship between the essence

49:31

or the different elements of

49:33

the essence of that being.

49:36

Yeah. Just in response to that,

49:38

I would agree with you in part but I

49:40

would say that you can

49:43

be in a relationship with an entity

49:45

even if you don't know many things

49:47

about them or anything about them. You can

49:49

stand in a relationship or in a relation but

49:52

the idea was about the value of

49:54

the relationship. A relationship is bettered if

49:56

I know that being better. I

50:00

have a relationship with the Queen of England,

50:03

even though she doesn't know who I am, but I

50:05

am in a relation with her in that I am

50:07

a subject of her, but my

50:10

relationship is not good because she doesn't know

50:12

anything about me. But if

50:14

I was, let's say, one

50:16

of her children or grandchildren, my

50:18

relationship will be better. The

50:21

only reason being is because we know each other better. And

50:23

so, with just the idea about the soul, my

50:26

wife's relationship with me is

50:28

better if I know more

50:30

about her soul, because her soul is

50:33

the seat of her thinking, her emotion,

50:36

what she likes, her wants, her desires. Those

50:39

are things which are rooted in the soul.

50:41

And so if I knew her soul better,

50:43

that means I knew her wants better, desires

50:45

better, then I will know her a thousand

50:47

times. I'll have a thousand times better relationship

50:49

than if I just knew her physically. So

50:52

my idea here is that the relationship, I

50:54

think, is better if we

50:56

know the relata, the

50:59

thing that we're standing in a relationship with,

51:01

to a greater extent than if we didn't.

51:03

And so the value is just a little

51:05

bit greater. Let's

51:07

pause for a quick breather there. But

51:10

let us know your thoughts. Send us

51:12

your questions. Email us, unbelievable at premiere.org.uk.

51:15

We want to hear from you. We want to know

51:17

what you think, and we want to get your questions

51:19

answered in upcoming shows. Also, follow

51:21

our new Instagram feed at Premiere

51:24

Unbelievable, where we regularly drop updates and

51:26

opportunities for you to have your say

51:28

in upcoming shows. Welcome

51:39

back to our final segment here on

51:41

Unbelievable. It's a really interesting

51:43

discussion between Abdullah Ghaledari and Joshua Sijuadi,

51:45

talking about the Quran and the Trinity,

51:47

and whether we need to rethink the

51:49

relationship between the two. Before

51:52

we get back into it, though, a

51:54

quick reminder to rate the podcast on

51:56

Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or whichever platform you

51:58

use. Now, let's get started. back into

52:00

this final part of our discussion. I

52:03

would love to return to this issue though of the

52:05

incarnation of Jesus, which again is at

52:08

one level highly mysterious and we are in a

52:10

sense trying to grasp the mystery when we just

52:12

use that word. But to what

52:14

extent do you feel like Abdullah's view

52:17

that actually there is some way of understanding

52:19

it in the Qur'an and that it's not

52:21

necessarily a complete contradiction in Islam? What's

52:23

your take on that Joshua? I

52:25

think, again, I think if you're just going

52:27

at the textual sort of level, and I'm

52:29

not a textual scholar so I can't really

52:31

come back to you on your interpretation of

52:34

your sort of exegesis, but

52:36

I would say at the textual level from what

52:38

I've seen at the sort of prima facie level,

52:40

it is something that can together. But

52:42

it's just when we think of again the

52:44

theological implications of this, it seems for me

52:46

to be problematic because a question

52:48

which I'll like you to answer in a

52:51

second as well is about the idea of

52:53

worship of

52:55

Jesus because the understanding in Christianity

52:57

is because Jesus is a divine

53:00

person, he is worthy

53:02

of worship. Now I

53:04

would just from my own perspective think that

53:06

a Muslim would not be comfortable in worshiping

53:08

Jesus, but the understanding in

53:10

Christianity from the first century was that

53:12

they did worship him. And

53:15

I've just a verse I would like to, I'd

53:17

like to just really is just from Exodus where

53:19

God says, do not worship any other God for

53:21

the Lord whose name is jealous, is

53:23

a jealous God. Now God is

53:26

saying that soul worship is given

53:28

to him alone, but then what

53:30

we see in the New Testament

53:32

specifically after the resurrection appearances is

53:35

that there is this sort of

53:37

now dyadic devotional sort of pattern

53:39

where cultic veneration is now given

53:41

to Jesus. Then he's

53:44

prayed to, his name is invoked,

53:46

people baptise in his name, there's

53:48

a Lord supper, hymns and psalms

53:50

and spiritual songs are given to

53:52

him. And so my understanding is

53:54

that there is a recognition now

53:56

that Jesus, if he is the incarnate son

53:58

or the incarnate son, he is the son of Jesus. word, he

54:00

is worthy of worship and that's I

54:05

think Islam will affirm the idea

54:07

that worship is given to Allah

54:09

alone and none of His prophets

54:11

are worthy of worship. But

54:13

then you see in Christianity, Jesus is

54:16

worshiped and He's worshiped as a God.

54:19

And so my problem is how would you square

54:21

that together? Very

54:24

good question, excellent question. And

54:26

I do discuss not using these

54:28

terms but the idea of what

54:30

it would mean from the

54:32

Quranic perspective. As you said, you're right, the

54:35

Qur'an does say that worship is only to

54:37

God. But we also see

54:39

something very interesting in the Qur'an. The

54:42

Qur'an says that God tells the

54:44

angels, I will form from clay

54:47

the shape of a human or flesh

54:49

and when I breathe into it and

54:52

when I form it and breathe into

54:54

it from my spirit, bow

54:56

down towards it. So in other

54:58

words, it's as if the angels

55:00

are now worshipping this flesh. Now

55:03

if we look again into the

55:06

text itself and the words and the

55:08

polysemy that the Qur'an is using, the

55:10

word it uses when it says that when

55:13

God is speaking to the angels, when I form

55:15

it and it uses the word,

55:18

so weitu, and it's the

55:20

same root word used frequently in

55:22

the Qur'an whenever God establishes

55:24

on its throne, fastawah al-al-arsh,

55:27

so it's the same word. It's

55:29

as if this forming of the

55:31

human is the way that God

55:33

actually establishes on its throne. And

55:36

then it says, and when I

55:38

breathe into it from my spirit,

55:40

so now the spirit of God

55:42

is inside this flesh which is

55:44

formed or established just as God

55:47

established its throne, therefore

55:49

we could imagine that this flesh

55:51

has now become the throne of God.

55:54

And so when the angels according to the

55:57

Qur'an were perhaps to bow before it, they're not

55:59

really bowing before it. before the flesh,

56:01

but they're bowing before God who

56:03

is now incarnate in that flesh,

56:05

the Spirit of God is

56:07

in that flesh. So you can have that

56:09

kind of an understanding as well from the

56:11

Qur'an. So again, without

56:13

looking into the theology or the

56:16

Christology, the Qur'an does allow for

56:19

that kind of an interpretation about

56:21

even whether it is okay to

56:23

worship God in a

56:26

different form. So we wouldn't

56:28

necessarily say that you're worshiping someone other

56:30

than God, you're only worshiping God, but

56:32

you're worshiping God maybe in its

56:34

throne. Even if we look into the Muslims

56:36

today, they're bowing every day towards Mecca,

56:39

which is of course where the Kaaba

56:41

is and it's the imagine to

56:43

be the temple of God or the house of God.

56:46

But every Muslim would tell you, in reality, we're not

56:48

really worshiping the Kaaba, we're

56:50

worshiping God and the Kaaba is only

56:52

symbolizing the house of God. Who

56:55

knows? There's multiple interpretations that

56:58

one can interpret, but what does it

57:00

really mean when God told the

57:02

angels to bow before this flesh he

57:04

had formed? It could be

57:06

perhaps the incarnation of God, it

57:09

could be perhaps just a symbol of God, but

57:12

it doesn't mean that worship

57:15

cannot be done to God through

57:17

a different entity

57:20

or being

57:22

or even like the stones of the Kaaba

57:24

at the end of the day. You're

57:27

still worshiping God through that. Joshua,

57:30

what do you make of that? Yeah, so

57:32

my only issue is that I think I

57:36

would say it depends again what you're

57:38

understanding by worship because you're saying worship

57:40

applies to this idea of boundown. But

57:44

what I see in the New Testament is

57:46

that in the Second Temple period and

57:48

even prior to that,

57:50

worship and when I'm using the word

57:53

worship, I'm using cultic veneration, devotion to

57:55

a being that was

57:57

given to God alone. was

58:00

the way that the Jews were able to distinguishes

58:19

you as a Jew, as a monotheist.

58:22

And so the understanding is that this was such

58:24

an important issue

58:26

that if we worship a being

58:28

that's not God, then that is

58:30

idolatry. And so what then

58:32

we see is when there's

58:34

this resurrection appearance that happens to the

58:37

disciples, is that they now then, as

58:39

we see in the book of Acts

58:41

and later in the writings of Paul,

58:43

that there is this cultic veneration that's

58:45

given to Jesus. And it's not given

58:48

to God through Jesus, but

58:50

it's actually given to Jesus

58:52

himself as a distinct individual.

58:55

And so my problem is I don't

58:57

think Islam would affirm that because as

58:59

I was saying, there's at least six

59:01

characteristics of this four name, not invoking

59:03

the name of God, invoking the name

59:05

of Jesus, there is baptism. So the

59:07

initiation into the Christian sort of religion

59:10

was not done through actually just the

59:12

name of God as Father, Son and

59:14

Holy Spirit, but also what the disciples

59:16

were using, they were using the name

59:18

of Jesus, we baptize you in the

59:20

name of Jesus. Now, for

59:23

me, again, that seems to be problematic

59:25

because you don't see that happening in

59:27

any other strand of Judaism, because for

59:29

them, that would be idolatry. But Christians

59:31

saw that actually, no, this can be

59:33

done. We can pray to him, we

59:35

can evoke his name, we can baptize,

59:37

we can have a sacrificial meal in

59:39

his name, we can sing hymns to

59:41

him. And so what I'm trying to

59:43

say is that it seems to me

59:45

that there was a complete elevation of

59:47

Jesus to the same level as the

59:49

Father. And I don't know

59:51

if Islam would be able to affirm

59:53

that and say the same worship that

59:55

we give to Allah can also be

59:58

given and the same worship until the

1:00:00

last day. He can also be given

1:00:02

to his prophets. We can,

1:00:04

maybe there's an, there's an understanding that we can

1:00:06

bow down to individuals because humans sit on the

1:00:08

throne of God. Can we

1:00:10

have this cultic veneration that

1:00:12

actually would have been seen in Judaism to

1:00:15

be idolatry? Final part of our discussion today

1:00:17

on the Trinity, the deity of Christ, the

1:00:19

Quran, the Bible. Is there more common

1:00:21

ground than we may have thought? Asks Abdullah

1:00:24

Ghalidari, one of my guests today.

1:00:26

His book, Quranic Hermonutics has some

1:00:28

really interesting, groundbreaking, sometimes controversial ideas

1:00:30

on the way that he believes

1:00:32

there is a commonality between the

1:00:34

gospel of John especially and the

1:00:36

way the Quran speaks about Jesus

1:00:38

and the Trinity. He's been

1:00:40

in conversation today with Joshua Siduadeh and I'll make

1:00:42

sure there are links to both of them, their

1:00:44

academic profiles and their writing so you can pursue

1:00:46

this at more depth. I

1:00:49

do want to come to the kind of question

1:00:51

of to what extent this does build the bridge

1:00:53

between the Quran and the Bible, Christianity and Islam

1:00:56

in a moment Abdullah. But just responding first of

1:00:58

all to Joshua's point that he

1:01:00

believes there is something quite different about the

1:01:02

kind of worship offered to Jesus than might

1:01:04

be offered to a revered individual who God

1:01:07

is working through or whatever. And

1:01:09

he just doesn't see that could really fly in

1:01:11

Islam when you look at the way Islam really

1:01:13

draws a sharp distinction about the kinds of worship

1:01:15

that can be offered. So any quick response to

1:01:18

that before we move ahead? Sure

1:01:20

and I'd like to thank Joshua for that

1:01:22

comment and that's the reason I

1:01:24

try to make a distinction between the text

1:01:27

and the theology or the Christology that

1:01:29

can be interpreted from that text. When

1:01:32

we do look into the text of the

1:01:34

gospels and the Quran we don't see the

1:01:36

contradiction. We don't see for

1:01:39

example because it can be read in the

1:01:41

gospels that yes maybe you can worship Jesus

1:01:44

as an entity or maybe not

1:01:46

necessarily. Maybe that's not what the

1:01:48

word worship even in the gospel

1:01:50

of John after Jesus' glorification and

1:01:52

what did it mean that they

1:01:54

were worshiping Jesus. There is a…

1:01:56

it's open to interpretation even within

1:01:58

the gospel. How was

1:02:01

that interpreted by some

1:02:03

Christian communities? That's

1:02:05

their interpretation. But

1:02:07

the texts themselves, the Quran and the Gospel,

1:02:09

when we put them together, we don't see

1:02:12

the contradiction. So that is

1:02:14

why I think maybe instead of

1:02:16

looking into what's the differences between

1:02:18

Christianity and Islam, if we think

1:02:20

as if Islam is just maybe let's

1:02:22

call it the Muslim church, and

1:02:25

then what we could do is we can

1:02:27

have some kind of an ecumenical council and

1:02:30

bring everybody together just like the early churches

1:02:32

had whenever they had their debate, interpreting

1:02:35

the same texts, the same Gospels. They were

1:02:37

not interpreting different Gospels, different texts, the same

1:02:39

texts. So we can bring them together,

1:02:41

the Muslims and the Christians, and say, okay, so

1:02:43

these are the different variations of different theologies,

1:02:45

and this is your theology. But at

1:02:48

the end of the day, we'll keep

1:02:50

the texts themselves instead of our interpretations

1:02:52

of them, we'll keep the texts

1:02:54

themselves as our mediators. They're

1:02:57

the ones that would mediate

1:02:59

our understanding rather than the

1:03:01

other way around. It's

1:03:03

very interesting to hear you say that, Abdullah,

1:03:05

because the question I wanted to get

1:03:07

to, and I'll have Joshua comment on this in

1:03:10

a moment, is what kind of a bridge are

1:03:12

you building here between Islam and

1:03:14

Christianity? And it's very interesting

1:03:16

you use that idea of maybe we could

1:03:18

even come to regard Islam as another essentially

1:03:21

interpretation of Christianity. You've got your Catholics, you've

1:03:23

got your Protestants, you've got your Baptists, and

1:03:25

then you've got your Muslims all using essentially

1:03:27

the same text. To that

1:03:29

degree, presumably, is it your view

1:03:31

that a Christian does not

1:03:33

need to become a Muslim, that a Muslim

1:03:36

does not need to become a Christian, that

1:03:38

essentially we're all part of the

1:03:40

same thing, just different interpretations of the same

1:03:42

text? According

1:03:44

to the Qur'an itself, for example,

1:03:46

in Chapter 5 of the Qur'an, Surat

1:03:49

al-Mahida, it repeatedly says that

1:03:51

the people of the book need to abide

1:03:53

by their book. It says that, for example,

1:03:55

the Jews need to abide by the Torah,

1:03:57

the Christians need to abide by the Gospel.

1:04:00

And it uses present tense, it doesn't

1:04:02

use past tense, it doesn't say that you

1:04:04

should have used your the Torah or you

1:04:06

should have used the gospel. It

1:04:08

says that in the present tense that they have to abide

1:04:11

and it actually says that all people

1:04:13

of the book you abide or

1:04:15

you are standing upon nothing unless

1:04:17

you abide by the Torah and the

1:04:19

gospel. And what

1:04:21

is interesting is that some Muslims,

1:04:24

for example, the way they would interpret these

1:04:26

passages in the Quran, they would say, oh,

1:04:28

that's abrogation. These are abrogated

1:04:30

verses, they're cancelled verses, and

1:04:33

newer verses came later, abrogating the former

1:04:35

verses. But what is interesting is

1:04:37

that according to Muslim tradition, some

1:04:40

of the Muslim traditions say that

1:04:42

the last passage that was revealed in

1:04:44

the Quran is basically that

1:04:46

today I have perfected your religion

1:04:49

and completed it and completed my

1:04:51

providence to you and accepted

1:04:54

Islam as your religion. And of course the

1:04:56

word Islam is typically now understood or

1:04:58

interpreted as the religion of Islam because

1:05:00

the Quran might have simply said, and

1:05:02

I accepted the surrender to God as

1:05:05

your religion. The question is,

1:05:07

where is this passage in the Quran? It's

1:05:09

also from Chapter 5 in Surah Al-Mahida. So

1:05:12

if the final passage believed

1:05:14

by some of the Muslim

1:05:16

traditions is in the same chapter

1:05:19

in the Quran, which talks about that the

1:05:21

people of the book must abide by their own

1:05:23

books, then how can we

1:05:25

even try to bring up the idea,

1:05:27

although those are abrogated verses and they are

1:05:29

newer? We're talking about the same chapter, which

1:05:32

some Muslims believe the final revelation of the

1:05:34

Quran is saying that the people of the

1:05:36

book must abide by the gospel and the

1:05:38

Torah. So to answer your

1:05:40

question is, according to the Quran, yes,

1:05:43

very much. The Jews must abide by

1:05:45

the Torah or otherwise they would be

1:05:47

in trouble, and the Christians

1:05:49

must abide by the gospel or otherwise

1:05:51

they would be standing upon nothing. And

1:05:54

what's interesting is that there is another

1:05:56

passage in the Quran which says that

1:05:58

the Jews say that the Christians, stand

1:06:00

upon nothing and the Christians

1:06:02

say that the Jews stand upon

1:06:04

nothing even though they are both

1:06:07

reading the book and the

1:06:09

same thing are those who have

1:06:11

no knowledge say the same. In

1:06:14

other words, anybody according to that Quranic passage,

1:06:16

anybody who says that the Jews stand upon

1:06:18

nothing or the Christians stand upon nothing according

1:06:21

to the Qur'an they have no knowledge. They

1:06:23

are standing upon something and what is that

1:06:26

something? That's the Torah, that's the gospel. Joshua,

1:06:30

coming to you I'd be interested to know just how

1:06:32

nominal a way of approaching this is

1:06:34

compared to the Islamic thinkers

1:06:36

and scholars you normally engage with on these

1:06:39

issues and whether you think this is

1:06:41

a kind of valid way of creating a kind of

1:06:43

a bridge, a kind of common understanding that these are

1:06:45

all different ways into the same

1:06:47

text ultimately. What's your view on this

1:06:49

Joshua? Yeah, so it

1:06:51

is very novel and yeah very

1:06:54

fascinating I would say because yeah I haven't

1:06:56

encountered that. Normally what I

1:06:58

would see from Muslim and this is learned Muslims

1:07:01

as well they would just simply say there is

1:07:03

an incompatibility there at the textual level and then

1:07:05

they would say at the theological

1:07:07

level but it's just made me rethink

1:07:09

sort of the textual sort of incompatibility is

1:07:11

not really there and is it just more

1:07:13

at that sort of theological sort of level

1:07:16

and so I think yeah from my own sort of

1:07:19

you know limited understanding of the textual issue

1:07:21

I would say yes great and it seems

1:07:23

to definitely establish that bridge

1:07:26

but then where I was saying before was

1:07:28

I think you can't really divorce

1:07:30

though the theological implications

1:07:33

and just another thought about that would be

1:07:35

we focus on the incarnation, we

1:07:37

focus on the Trinity but when it comes

1:07:39

something to something like the Atonement would

1:07:42

that be something which can be affirmed by a

1:07:44

Muslim? I would hesitate to say

1:07:46

yes that can I would say clearly

1:07:48

they would say there is no the

1:07:51

soteriological system of Islam is incompatible

1:07:53

with that of Christianity but I

1:07:55

would say even the Atonement is

1:07:57

more fundamental even at the textual level.

1:08:00

Because the textual level is quite

1:08:02

clear that Christ was a sacrifice

1:08:05

for the sins of humanity. And

1:08:07

so for me I would say, is it

1:08:10

because we just focus more on these sort

1:08:12

of incarnations and Trinity level, but when we

1:08:14

come to other doctrines which are fundamental in

1:08:17

Christianity like the Atonement, can that incompatibility be

1:08:19

seen there? I would struggle to say that,

1:08:21

and that would be problematic for me. It's

1:08:24

so interesting. I wish we had more time maybe

1:08:27

to go through some of those other aspects in

1:08:29

that sense. But we're going to have to leave

1:08:31

it here. I just want to say thank you

1:08:33

for a really fascinating exchange. As you can tell,

1:08:35

Abdullah, Joshua, and myself are both relatively new to

1:08:38

the way you approach these texts. But I

1:08:40

should say thanks to Jacob Varghese, who was

1:08:42

a friend of mine on the show who

1:08:44

suggested this topic in the

1:08:46

first place. And I think there's a lot of people

1:08:48

very interested in what you're saying and the connections you're

1:08:50

drawing, Abdullah, even while they're still struggling

1:08:52

to maybe understand exactly how

1:08:54

it all maps out theologically, because

1:08:57

that's obviously something you're – it

1:08:59

sounds like you're very keen to be understood not to

1:09:01

be trying to make a theological

1:09:03

case here necessarily. Just remind us

1:09:05

as we close out what your

1:09:07

hope is ultimately for this. Do

1:09:09

you want to see a kind of more

1:09:12

of a rapprochement between Islam and Christianity through

1:09:14

your work, or are you simply saying, hey,

1:09:16

here's some interesting facts about the way the

1:09:18

texts speak to each other? What's

1:09:20

your ultimate goal in all of this, Abdullah? Yes,

1:09:23

I would like to – I do hope

1:09:25

that, of course, that Christians and Muslims

1:09:27

could get to see that their texts,

1:09:29

their scriptures are not in contradiction. Maybe

1:09:33

their interpretation of their texts could

1:09:35

be in contradiction. That is a

1:09:38

possibility. But the texts themselves are

1:09:40

foundational. And if I would

1:09:42

like to use maybe Joshua's term in

1:09:44

his theological discourse about grounding. So

1:09:47

if we look into grounding

1:09:49

theology into the scripture themselves,

1:09:52

so if we will ground those

1:09:55

theologies into scripture and see if they

1:09:57

do whole things, because at the end of the day,

1:09:59

it's just – theology is an

1:10:01

interpretation of the text and

1:10:03

maybe yes we try to

1:10:06

find out more about God but

1:10:08

we should also realize that that God is

1:10:10

infinite God is indescribable

1:10:13

is beyond words it's

1:10:16

for example if someone who has never

1:10:18

tasted anything sour how

1:10:20

will you be able to describe to them what

1:10:22

the lemon tastes like you will try

1:10:24

to use as many metaphors as

1:10:26

you like and different interpretations and

1:10:29

theologies and or maybe we can call

1:10:31

lemon ologies or things like that but

1:10:33

at the end of the day nobody will

1:10:35

really perfectly understand it until they actually taste

1:10:37

it for themselves and

1:10:39

hopefully when we do taste the

1:10:42

divine ourselves maybe then we can

1:10:44

better understand the divine maybe

1:10:47

any final thoughts from you Joshua as we close out yes

1:10:51

so I'm really happy about even changing the

1:10:53

conversation between Muslims and Christians because it is

1:10:55

always that oh we the one side is

1:10:57

saying we've got this better than you and

1:10:59

I think Abdullah saying actually there's a way

1:11:01

for us to come closer on this issue

1:11:03

maybe still with our distinctions but that we

1:11:05

can come close on some certain things but

1:11:07

specifically at the textual level I would say

1:11:09

is really good and it's something to be

1:11:11

favored great thank you both for being with

1:11:13

me on the show it's been a great

1:11:15

conversation I'll make sure there are links from

1:11:18

today's show if you want to find

1:11:20

out more about the work of Joshua or Abdullah but for

1:11:22

now both thank you very much for being

1:11:24

with me thank you thank you so much for

1:11:26

having us well we're approaching the

1:11:28

bell now but a huge thank you to

1:11:30

you our listeners we hope you've enjoyed today's

1:11:32

episode I've loved it as always

1:11:34

let us know your thoughts send

1:11:36

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1:11:38

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1:11:41

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1:11:43

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1:11:47

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1:11:49

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1:11:51

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1:11:53

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1:11:56

for now it's been great to be with you and

1:11:58

we'll see you next time for more discussions and

1:12:00

debate on Unbelievable. From me, Andy Kind

1:12:02

and the team, goodbye for now.