1. Opening Statements
1.1. [1] William Craig
1.1.1. [1] Religious Relativism is incorrect
1.1.1.1. [1] It is logically Inconsistent
1.1.1.2. [2] The concept of God in Islam and Christianity is so different in crucial respects that they cannot both be right
1.1.1.3. [3] Everyone needs to ask themselves what reasons they have for thinking their beliefs are true. Otherwise, we run the risk of being deluded.
1.1.2. [2] Going to defend two basic contentions
1.1.2.1. [1] That there are good reasons to think that the Christian conception of God is true
1.1.2.1.1. [1] Jesus of Nazareth regarded himself as the unique, divine son of God
1.1.2.1.2. [2] His divine understanding of himself was vindicated by his resurrection from the dead
1.1.2.2. [2] There are not comparably good reasons to think that the Islamic conception of God is true
1.1.3. [3] The Muslim conception of God
1.1.3.1. [1] The Muslim conception of God shares many elements of similarity with the Christian conception of God. This is only to be expected since historically Islam is an offshoot of the Judaeo-Christian tradition. It therefore has many elements of truth. Nevertheless, I do not see any comparably good reasons to believe that the Islamic conception of God is wholly true.
1.1.3.2. [2] What good reason is there to think that the Islamic conception of God is true? As the Koran says "produce your proof, if you speak truly"
1.1.3.3. [3] Two reasons why I am persuaded that the Islamic conception of God is not adequate. My misgivings are historical, and philosophical
1.1.3.3.1. [1] Philosophical
1.1.3.3.2. [2] Historical
1.1.3.3.3. [6] For these and other reasons, even if I was not a Christian I still could not become a Muslim. There is just no good reason to believe that the Islamic conception of God is true.
1.1.4. [4] Summary
1.1.4.1. [1] In summary, We have seen two good reasons to think that the Christian conception of God is true.
1.1.4.1.1. [1] First, Jesus of Nazareth regarded himself as God's unique, divine son.
1.1.4.1.2. [2] Jesus' divine self understanding was vindicated by his resurrection from the dead.
1.1.4.2. [2] Moreover, we have seen two good reasons to think that the Islamic conception of God is not wholly true.
1.1.4.2.1. [1] First, Islam seems to have a morally inadequate conception of God.
1.1.4.2.2. [2] Second, Islam has a historically inadequate conception of Jesus.
1.1.4.3. [3] It seems to me therefore, that when we weigh the evidence as dispassionately and objectively as we can, the evidence suggests that God has revealed himself decisively to mankind in the person of Jesus of Nazareth. Through him we can come to know God's wonderful love and forgiveness.
1.2. [2] Jamal Badawi
1.2.1. [1] Pure Monotheism requires 3 key conditions
1.2.1.1. Conditions
1.2.1.1.1. Believe that God is the creator and sole sustainer of the universe. There can be no partner or co-creator with him
1.2.1.1.2. God alone is worthy of worship. None can be worshipped instead of him, alongside of him, nor can he be worshipped through any of his creatures - no confession or clergy with authority.
1.2.1.1.3. God is not only one numerically but also in attributes and person.
1.2.1.2. Any departure from these conditions is shirk. This is not only polytheism but also means to associate others with God in his exclusive, divine attributes. The Quran presents this as the cardinal sin that will never be forgiven.
1.2.1.3. Pure monotheism has been the message of all prophets throughout history
1.2.1.3.1. All followers of previous prophets were Muslims
1.2.2. [2] Literal meaning of the term 'Islam' is to achieve peace with God, within oneself, with others, humans, animals, planets, ecology etc, through submission to God and acceptance of history
1.2.3. [3] Gods qualities and attributes
1.2.3.1. There is absolutely nothing comparable to God.
1.2.3.2. He begets not nor was he begotten
1.2.3.3. Justice
1.2.3.4. Forgiving qualities
1.2.3.5. Holiness
1.2.3.6. 'wadood' is more than 'god is love'. It means 'full of loving compassion'. The readiness of God to forgive those who turn back to him is evidence of his loving quality.
1.2.4. [4] The incarnate second person of Jesus
1.2.4.1. Jesus as both Fully man and fully god. Infinite and finite at the same time. This is a contradiction in terms.
1.2.4.2. To a Muslim it is a deep belief that Jesus was one of the five greatest prophets in history.
1.2.4.3. The gospel statements saying that God raised Jesus shows that there is a greater power than Jesus.
1.2.4.4. Resurrection is not a big deal and does not make a person divine. God raises whoever he wishes.
1.2.4.5. John 14: I am the way,the truth and the life, nobody comes to the father except by me
1.2.4.5.1. Every prophet speaks not for himself. Jesus said in John that he speaks for God who sent him. Every prophet in his lifetime is the way the truth and the life, nobody can reach God except by following the way that God revealed to that prophet.
1.2.4.6. John 10: I and the father are one
1.2.4.6.1. In John 17:11 Jesus spoke of being one with his disciple
1.2.4.6.2. In John 14:20 Jesus said 'I am in you as the Father is in me", which means that the oneness with the father is only oneness in purpose not in divinity or essence, let alone the greek words i don't have time to elaborate(?)
1.2.4.7. Jesus saying 'whoever has seen me has seen God'
1.2.4.7.1. Where Jesus says 'see' here he actually means 'known/understand'. The Hebrew scriptures and the New Testament say that nobody has ever seen God.
1.2.4.8. Thomas saying 'My Lord and my God' and Jesus does not rebuke him
1.2.4.8.1. Some biblical scholars say that there are alternative modes of expression where this actually means 'My godly Lord'. This means that you are godlike but not literally God.
1.2.4.9. Mark 14 Jesus accepting worship from others
1.2.4.9.1. This is very strange because the word worship is sometimes used to mean 'intense love'. Mayors are sometimes addressed as 'your worship' as well. If Jesus himself were an object or worship the pages of the New Testament would be full. Instead, we find he himself worshipped God. He fell to his face and prayed to God, and prayer is petition from the finite to the infinite.
1.2.4.10. Where Jesus says "before Abraham was, I AM" in John 8
1.2.4.10.1. The words 'I AM' do not carry the connotation given to it. this is not the same term used in Exodus because the Greek term used in each case is not the same.
1.2.4.10.2. The preexistence in terms of being before Abraham can be understood in terms of the Bible itself. In 1 Peter 1:20 it says of a jesus ass one who was destined before the foundation of the Earth. In Acts 2:23 the same thing speaks and uses the exact term 'foreknowledge' of God. So yes, Jesus, and all of us existed in the foreknowledge of God before the foundation of the earth.
1.2.4.10.3. Why did the Jews try to stone Jesus? It was not because he said that he was God, but because Jesus healed someone on the sabbath, thereby making himself equal to God. That's why he had an eloquent response to them about how the sabbath is made for man, not man for the sabbath.
1.2.4.10.4. Jews were also offended because of their love for Abraham and didn't like the notion of a jesus putting himself above.
1.2.4.11. There is no conclusive claim (evidence?) that Jesus ever said he was god. This should be crystal clear when it comes to divinity, you can't have amibiguous statements when it comes to teaching people the basics of the faith.
1.2.5. [5] Points raised by Dr Craig
1.2.5.1. Agree that trinity and pure monotheism are not compatible. One must be right and the other wrong.
1.2.5.2. Luke, servants and sending the only son
1.2.5.2.1. The word servant is more honorific than son of God. In the Quran the word servant has a higher meaning than son because we know from the Bible that the term 'Son of God' refers to any good person
1.2.5.2.2. Dr Craig has looked very literally at biblical statements about 'only' and 'beloved'. Eg: in the Quran the term 'first born' is attributed to more than one prophet: Abraham, Jacob and David. If we take it literally that's a self contradiction. First does not necessarily mean one event. The term 'only son' is used metaphorically in the Bible and not in the literal sense. Eg: genesis 22:2 'taking your only son, Isaac', obviously this was not his only Son, because Ishmael was already there
1.2.5.2.3. 86 times in the Bible Jesus is referred to as 'Son of God'. Not once was he ever referred to as 'God the Son'. That theology developed later and this is extremely significant.
1.2.5.3. Matthew 11:27 Jesus says 'god gave me everything'
1.2.5.3.1. Logically if someone is receiving and someone is giving, the one giving is fester and he's the only one God.
1.2.5.3.2. There can be no trinity then because god the father is totally emasculated because he has given 'everything' already. If you want to take things literally it goes both ways.
1.2.5.4. Question about the 'knowledge of the hour'
1.2.5.4.1. This itself is an admission that Jesus is not divine, because one of the attributes of divinity is to know the hour, not be unaware of the future
1.2.5.5. The disciples own religious experiences and statements
1.2.5.5.1. This is all immaterial because angels are themselves 'creatures' of God and lower than God himself.
1.2.5.6. Didn't find any of the points mentioned by Dr Craig very convincing
1.2.5.7. Rejection of Islam
1.2.5.7.1. Reject Dr Craigs assumption that Islam is an offshoot of judeo Christian tradition. This is based on the false assumption that when two texts are similar then the latter must have copied from the earlier. We also know that two texts can also have been based on a third common source, which is exactly what Muslims believe. God revealed the Torah to Moses. God revealed the Injeel to Jesus and it is the same God who revealed the Quran to Muhammad. So Islam is based on the same source on which Judaism and Christianity base their beliefs.
1.2.5.8. That Muslims do not have a morally adequate view of God because of this notion of love
1.2.5.8.1. The notion of love is already there in the Quran directly and indirectly and can be found in dozens and dozens and dozens of verses.
1.2.5.8.2. Dr Craig has a flawed exegesis and does not understand the mode of expression in the Quran.
1.2.5.8.3. Where the Quran says that God does not love the cruel, the rejectors of faith, and all kind of evil deeds, it is actually a metaphor referring to rejection, and not loving evil deeds. When God speaks about loving the believers, the kind, it does not mean exclusive love for those people, it is also a metaphor of loving the good deeds.
1.2.5.8.4. I consider it morally inadequate for God to say that he loves those who do evil and those who do good equally, as it leaves us with the conclusion that it doesn't make any difference and that when Adolf Hitler encounters Mother Teresa in paradise he will smile at her and say "are all, it didn't make any difference, did it?"
1.2.5.8.5. Dr Craig mixes two things: statements in the Quran about loving and hating, to refer to the good deeds and evil deeds in order to give us the moral inducement. That is the ultimate of moral adequacy is to make a distinction between good and evil.
1.2.5.8.6. The other thing Dr Craig is confusing is the notion of God loving human beings in spite of their evil. In that we don't differ. eg: As Muhammad said: "if this world is worth even the wing of a fly, God would not even have given the unbeliever a drink of water from it." So people disobey God but he still let them breathe and eat and even then he says 'if you repent and come back to me, I will forgive you and receive you'. In one of the hadith Qudsi God says 'if you come to me one inch I'll come to you one arm'. I think there is a mixup between God caring about all, including those who are disobedient, and if he doesn't care about them, why does he send Prophets?
1.2.5.9. Dr Craig keeps claiming that the Bible is authentic, there no disagreement
1.2.5.9.1. I disagree. In codex A in the british Museum it was found the one of the Greek manuscripts was originally written 'ho" which means 'which', they found after analysis there was a different ink that added the letter S to ho, and hos means God and that totally changed the meaning and this is only but one example of many of the various editorial work that was done in the scriptures.
1.2.5.10. Dr Craid could not present a convincing argument about why trinity is better, nor could you make any effective rebuttal that Islam is inadequate concept of the true monotheistic faith
1.2.6. [6] Resurrection
1.2.6.1. There is evidence in the first/second book of kings and in Ezekiel that God raised people from the dead, sometimes even just through touching the bones of dead prophets.
1.2.6.2. We will all be resurrected at the end, does that mean we will all be promoted into the Godhead?
1.2.7. [7] Muslims don't see what the disciples say as binding because they are not prophets of God.
1.2.8. [8] Trinity
1.2.8.1. Baptism that appears in Matthew 28
1.2.8.1.1. this is found in manuscripts dating from the fourth century when the doctrine of the trinity became official
1.2.8.1.2. Eusebius referred to the same quotation from matthew 28:19 18 times without using the so called Trinitarian baptismal formula, which indicates that it came later.
1.2.8.1.3. In the New Testament the baptismal formula did not include the Trinitarian form, only the name of Christ. That's in Acts 2:38, 8:16, 10:48 and 19:5.
1.2.8.2. Jesus being manifest in the flesh in 1 Timothy 3:16.
1.2.8.2.1. The revised standard version of the bible does not talk about Christ but about God. Actually it says 'he who was manifest in the flesh', not that God was manifested in the flesh.
1.3. William Craig
2. Response
2.1. Craig
2.1.1. Response to Badawi