Muhammadan Objections

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160 OBJECTIONS AGAINST CERTAIN LEADING

is that the food they eat does them good, or why man cannot live long without food. But if a man were to decline to eat until he knew all about the use of food, you would consider him mad. The benefit of the food does not at all depend upon ability to understand its effects. So with the knowledge of the truth.

155. M. But what is the good of believing in the doctrine of the Trinity1?

C

. It enables us to believe in the truth of Christ's claims to be the Word of God or the Son of God, and to accept the salvation which He offers. If the doctrine of the Trinity is not true, then Christ was not what He professed to be. He was not even a true prophet if His teaching was untrue. Thus disbelief in the doctrine of the Trinity overthrows both Christianity and Islam. Again
1 Here may be entered the following Muhammadan objections:—
M. If God is One, how can there be three Persons in the Godhead?
Ans. Your difficulty probably arises from your not understanding the technical use of the word "Person." [In Arabic, Urdu, and Persian we use the Syriac word (Aqnum) اقنوم , Ar. pl. Aqanim اقانيم , to express "Person" or "Hypostasis" in its theological sense in reference to the Godhead, explaining it by the Persian word هَسْتي (hasti) existence.]
M. To say that three "Persons" are necessary to do the work of One God is to represent God as weak and incomplete. Which is greater, God the Father or God the Son?
The answers to this will be found given in different parts of this chapter.
CHRISTIAN DOCTRINES—THE TRINITY 161

Muslims often ask such questions as this: "If Christ was God, who ruled the world when Christ was in the grave?" No one who believed the doctrine of the Trinity would ask such a silly question.

156. M. We want logical1 proof, and what you say falls short of that.

C

. Different2 subjects require different kinds of proof. Were I to demand from you chemical proof of Alexander the Great's existence, or historical proof of the composition of water, or mathematical proof of the resurrection of the dead, you would justly declare the demand absurd. What kind of proof convinces you of the truth of the doctrine of the resurrection of the dead, of life after death, of rewards and punishments in the next world?
1 As such, the Rev. A. E. Johnston suggests the following argument:—
Is God possessed of Attributes? Are they active or dormant? Or is there change in Him, so that they would be sometimes one and sometimes the other? Was He ever devoid of any of His Attributes? Is God dependent on anything outside of Himself? Does He need anything, without which He would not have or could not exercise His Attributes? Does not the epithet As Samadu (Surah CXII., Al Ikhlas, 2) denote His self-sufficiency? Is not God 'alim? Does not the very existence of 'ilm (knowledge) imply three things, an 'alim (knower), a ma'lum (thing known) and a nisbat i 'ilmiyyah (bond of connexion between the two)? Since God is independent of anything outside of His own Nature, and is Omniscient ('alim), must He not have within Himself all three, and be therefore a Trinity in Unity? Rev. Dr. Hooper founds much the same argument on the words Allah Kafi inscribed in a Lahore mosque.
2 Cf. Ibhathu'l Mujtahidin, pp. 73, 74

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