Between Muhammad and Jesus: a Dialogue with Peter Kreeft and Zeki Saritoprak

welcome to the Veritas forum engaging University students and faculty in discussions about life's hardest questions and the relevance of Jesus Christ to all of life good evening peace be with you in a few minutes ten minutes right we have ten minutes I will try to summarize the faith of Islam can you imagine 10 minutes so basically just few things to say when we say Islam five pillars of Islam comes to our mind to believe in one God there is only one God to five to have five daily prayers to pray five times a day to first in the month of Ramadan it's a one month fasting to a pill to a pilgrimage to go Mecca as a journey in once in your lifetime if you are available financially and health side and to give charity which is a compulsory charity in Islam one of my Catholic colleague who is a priest once said the thing I love about Islam the most is that Islam made charity as a compulsory because you have to give you have to give 2.5 percent of your wealth to the poor to the needy these are like five principles of Islam these are considered practical and two of them are financial if you are not financially capable you don't have to do that the financial one was one is charity if you need charity you cannot get charity so basically you deserve charity in such cases you will be receiving and the second one is pilgrimage if you are financially not capable you are not required to go to pilgrimage again this is a part of Islamic faith and the second important aspect of Islam is what we call six articles of faith and that is to believe in one God one God only to be worshipped for this reason in the probably Middle Ages when Orientalists we're talking about Muslims they would say Mohammedans or Mohammedanism this is considered offensive for Muslims because it indicates that Muslims worship Muhammad it's absolutely wrong because Muslims do not worship Muhammad Muhammad is a worshiper of God he cannot be worshipped in fact no anyone other than God can be worshipped angels cannot be worshipped none can be worshipped except God so worship is only to God in the Islamic teaching all messengers of God Muhammad Jesus Moses were all worshipping God there are the best worshipers but not to be worshipped so that's very important to heed ta W hid the ones of God is very very important element of Islam the first article of faith in fact the second is to believe in God's angels angels are real creatures in the Islamic teaching and they are not superficial in fact we have angels according to the Islamic teaching one is on our right shoulder the other one is on our left shoulder and the one who is on right shoulder is writing good things the one that's on left shoulder writing bad things so always we need to increase the job of the right shoulder angel to do good deeds basically there are many you you cannot have their numbers they are innumerable we cannot actually number angels and they are real and there are four Arch Angels one is angel Gabriel other while the other one is angel Azrael the Angel of Death and the third one is angel is Raphael which is responsible for blowing in the trumpet at the end of time and Angel Michael or Micahel in the Islamic teaching again who is responsible for the irrigation of the planet so any green things thing is related to Angel Mikael or Michael so the second article of faith the third article of faith is to believe in the divine scriptures so basically Muslims have to believe in the Quran which is the final revelation of God according to the Islamic teaching they have to believe in the scriptures prior to the Quran and basically to believe in the Torah as the divine message to believe in the gospel with in fact not plural form one gospel that Muslims speak of it so and to believe also in the sounds which was revealed to David in fact when Muslims teach their children at a very young age they say we believe in for divine books great books they are called great books in the Islamic teaching the Torah revealed to Moses the sounds revealed to David the gospel revealed to Jesus and the Quran the final revelation revealed to Muhammad by God so basically the third article office is a belief to believe in the scriptures and then to believe in the messengers of God prophets of God and that's why Muslims believe in all messengers of God as a general statement we believe in all messengers of God there are 25 of these prophets namely mentioned in the Quran so for example for Muslims Sulaiman or Salomon is a Messenger of God they is a Messenger of God Moses is a prominent Messenger of God in fact one of the sayings of the Prophet suggests that there has been 124,000 prophets before Mohammad came all of them are true messengers of God all of them reveal to humanity convey to the humanity the divine message that God sent to them so basically five of these messengers are considered the elite prophets the highest of 124,000 and these are Moses Noah Jesus Abraham and Mohammed these five prophets are considered the highest of all of them so when Muslims speak of Jesus as the Messenger of God as the prophet of God is very powerful statement it's not you know like prophet that we use in English sometimes anyone who speaks about feature prophethood is very profound concept in the Islamic teaching very profound concept not anyone can be a prophet it's chosen by God and basically it's a reveal revelation came to this personality he is meeting with angel Gabriel so basically very profound term the concept of prophethood in Islam and the the fifth article of faith is to believe in the afterlife so there is a life after this life Muslims believe that there is a life after this life we are here to gain eternity that's the purpose of life - to actually spend a little time here prophet of islam says my study is like a traveller who takes a little rest under the shade of a tree and then goes on on his trip that is my story prophet Muhammad says peace and blessings be upon him so basically people are in this all to attain to gain the afterlife through one through faith through grace through good deeds and you know through all past positive things that they would prefer on this planet and the final one which is among Muslim theologians also debated to believe in the divine plan that there is a destiny there is a plan of God and Muslims have to believe in that although Muslims believe in the free will of human being as well but they believe that the Divine Will is encompassing our free will is within the concept of the Divine Will so I think my 10 minutes are finished right is that right so basically these are the points that I like to make and we will have more probably after this thank you very much thanks for giving us an easy task summarize Islam in 10 minutes summarize Christianity in 10 minutes summarize the meaning of life in 10 minutes well obviously Christianity is about Christ and the first thing about Christ is that he was a Jew and therefore he believed in the God of Abraham which is the same God that Muslims believe in if you look at the 99 names of Allah in the Quran including the 100th name which is silent and unpronounceable you find that they are all in the Christian scriptures as well since we worship the same God we are like soldiers on a battlefield with the same commanding officer or like players in an orchestra trying to obey the same conduct as human soldiers we are fallible and imperfect as players in the orchestra we make mistakes but our intention our spirit our heart our love goes to the same ultimate object what Christians believe about Jesus that distinguishes them that makes them Christians and not anything else is that Jesus is first of all the Messiah the one promised to the Jews to establish the kingdom of God the quran agrees with that by the way but also that he is the Lord the earliest Christian Creed is a three word formula in the New Testament Jesus is kurios a Greek word meaning Lord and it's not used for human lords so we believe that Jesus is divine as well as human only Christians believe that if anyone believes that that makes them a Christian and if you don't believe that that makes you not a Christian so that's the great divide however Muslims as Zeki pointed out have a very high regard for Jesus he is a prophet he speaks the Word of God and what Muslims believe about the Koran which is the center of Islam is in some ways strikingly similar to what Christians believe about Jesus namely that it's both heavenly and earthly at the same time that there is one Quran but that there is the heavenly Quran and the earthly Quran which is the same now Jesus is not a book and the Quran is not a person but we believe that Jesus has two natures human and divine although he is only one person and therefore if we believe that about him then he is the Lord not just objectively but subjectively not just theologically but psychologically not just the lord of creation-- but the lord of our lives and therefore the the essence of Christianity is a kind of total surrender or submission or Islam to the one God in Christ now Muslims have at the heart of their religion exactly the same aspiration or desire or will namely to totally surrender to to totally conform to to totally submit the heart and the life to the one true God so even though our ways are different Jesus says I am the way yet our ends are identical we also believe that Jesus is the savior that's the meaning of the word Jesus Jesus saves us from sin sin is not just things that we do sin is a broken relationship with God we believe that Jesus comes to restore that relationship finally what we believe about ourselves and the meaning of our lives is strikingly similar first of all we believe that God created us to be Saints to be holy that's the ultimate end of our lives not not just to live but to live for something not just to be a person but to be a good person and the meaning of holiness I think is strikingly similar for Christians and Muslims in that it has both natural and supernatural virtues the natural moral law known by reason and conscience known by everyone since we're all creatures of the one Creator require us to practice justice and courage and self-control and wisdom and the supernatural virtues which connect us to the one God require faith hope and charity the three greatest things in the world faith begins in intellectual belief believing that God has revealed himself but it centers in a personal trust in a something more intellectual belief James in the New Testament says do you believe that there is one God oh good for you the devil's also believe that and shake with fear so this is our first connection with God our first glue to to God and and the next one is hope hope in God's promises hope in God's fulfillment of his promises hope in life after death hope for heaven we believe that this earth is like like a large womb and the purpose is to have a good birth and when we die we'll look back on this little 13.7 billion light year universe as little more than a womb I think compared with with heaven and then finally the culmination of life is charity Jesus taught that the two great Commandments summarized the entire law the entire will of God to love God with your whole heart your whole soul your whole mind and your whole strength and your neighbor as yourself in that is the teaching of all the prophets we have differences but the differences are inevitable as our first introducer pointed out this is not a debate about our differences or an attempt to resolve our differences and produce some sort of amalgam or world religion that's simply unrealistic and unworkable but to listen to each other and to learn from each other and I'm very excited about tonight because I want to learn more about God and more about our relationship to God and more about prayer and more about Islam both as a great world religion and as a practice because this total surrender or submission of ourselves to the one God is the only sane thing in human life sanity is simply conforming to reality and if you know who God is the only possible relationship to him is a total surrender so I would like to for a very selfish reason to hear more about that surrender because there's the meaning also of my life thank you both for a wonderful explication of each of your respective faiths the impetus for this whole event was my reading dr. craves book between Allah and Jesus what Christians can learn from Muslims I thought that would be a great premise for a dialogue so you have each given us the outlines of your faiths would you now tell us how that faith comes to be embodied in your life maybe speaking of when there comes a point in time in everyone's life when when you begin to own the faith you grew up with so what what difference does all that make in your morality in your ethics in your social responsibility and then what have you learned from Christianity or from Islam that has helped you along that way in fact when we read the holy book of Islam the Quran it gives us a variety of instructions both socially and spiritually in many Quranic verses I would say probably over 500 verses of the Quran as you know the Quran has more than on 6,000 verses about maybe 500 verses speaks of faith and immediately after faith it says Camilla Sally hot which means and do good deeds so faith is good is wonderful but should be completed with good actions if you say I love orphans and when you said an orphan you escaped instead of taking care of an orphan that means that you know love is not love actually that faith that you say is in fact not effective maybe still it there is a kind of light of it but it is very weak that's why in the Islamic teaching when you say faith on there are thousands of levels of faith if we make an analogy like a light you know imagine a small bulb that has only one watt of light and then a bulb that has 100,000 watts both are considered light but one is so little the other one is so high so basically faith should be strong and when you have strong faith your action comes after that your actions will be compatible with faith and that's why the Quran strongly encourages encourages to do good actions then it reminds you of your responsibility social responsibilities like Peter mentioned you know the story of Jesus when he speaks off your neighbor love your neighbor in the same way Prophet Muhammad says if your stomach is full and your neighbor is hungry you are not considered a member of my community first of all you have to shave your food with your neighbors it's in the Islamic tradition we have stories that Prophet Muhammad would ask his wife every day did you share our food with our Jewish neighbor it was a tradition Islam made this as a compulsory in fact he says angel Gabriel came to me and so much encouraged about taking care of my neighbor eventually I thought that my neighbor will be able to be an inheritor of my legacy of my property after I die so that such a comment didn't come but Prophet Muhammad was expecting something like that even that God will command him to do something like that for the neighbors so it's so important and therefore social activities is a part of Islamic faith in fact it shows that how you are strongly believing in the principles of the tradition so I think just few words Christianity to insists on combining faith and love love is not primarily a feeling love is primarily a deed a choice the works of love Christians differ or at least they used to differ more sharply than they now do about the relation between these two things the Protestant Reformation began largely because Luther disagreed with the Catholic Church about salvation about how to be saved and the traditional presentation of that difference is that Luther said you are saved by faith alone the Catholic Church said you were saved by faith plus good works as a student at Calvin College I was a little suspicious of that and I said that's that's a little too simple but only later did I realize that both sides as I just defined them are presented much too simplistically because faith and love are really ultimately the same reality namely the very God spirit in us if you begin by surrendering to God in faith then inevitably that is going to produce love not just by your human reaction but by the the reality of what is there it's like when a wife surrenders to her husband and gets pregnant the result is a baby it's it's a it's a causal process so it's not that there are two different things first comes faith and then comes love it's that there's one thing it sort of comes comes in one end and out the other so the very first requirement in order to produce the works of love is this surrender this trust this Islam but the whole purpose of that is to produce the works of love it's it's like a plan if you don't have the roots nothing else in the plant will follow and the roots are like faith but the whole point of the plant is to produce the fruit which is the the edible thing or the flower which is the beautiful thing so I think we we both see the same truth in somewhat different words and I think Protestants and Catholics have also understood each other much better in the last few years on that issue because the the joint statement on justification has made more progress I think in a humanism among Christians than than anything in Christian history it has said that we're saying essentially the same thing in different language systems so much so that one Protestant theologian Marc Knoll has said the Reformation is over it's a bit of an exaggeration but great progress has been made there and those are two examples Christians and Muslims will sing to each other and Protestants and Catholics listening to each other of a very simple educational process which which works by simple humble listening instead of clever theologians trying to figure out how to deal with differences and going into endless debates we simply want to listen and learn from each other and that desire I think God honors marvelously I think he's doing that today just few words on the concept of love I have been thinking of this concept in Christianity as you know you may find sometimes writings God loves everybody I have been thinking of these in fact personally because in the Quran it's very clear God doesn't love everybody because the Quran says for example God doesn't love the arrogant vehicle in allaha yuhibbu cool immortal in a theme the sinner the arrogant God does love God doesn't love such a person so what is the counterpart of this in Islam I try to find out that from Islamic theological perspective I found out that the concept of life that we have in Christianity in Islam is called mercy God has mercy for everybody be believers believers or non-believers for example through the mercy of God someone who do not believe in God also get fresh age it's a divine gift fresh it is a divine gift God does not distinguish between I believe it well yes you are a believer you will get fresh aid but the other one is none believe it I will not give him all other God gives water to everybody whatever you know the sustenance the fruits the food anything that we see in this planet both believers and non-believers are all benefiting so with this regard God has mercy for everybody I think love in Islam is much more special and it has something to do with pleased with being pleased with something so when you say you know like I love someone that means you are pleased with this person in the Islamic teaching and therefore God is not pleased with the actions of some people like criminals God is not pleased with their actions so God basically does not love their actions but still gods have mercy for those people God's mercy is continuing for all those people so one thing it was on my mind for a long time so I finally I solved the problem in my career I think most Christians think that in the Quran Allah is described as just more often than merciful could you correct that how often is he described as merciful yeah that's wonderful thank you Peter in fact that's one understanding that we actually we have few knowledge about it one theme that we have fee knowledge about it and the concept of mercy in Islam is so profound Quran has 114 chapters in the beginning of each chapter one chapter is exception because one chapter is considered the continuation of the other chapter so on that one that is exception let's say in the beginning of 113 chapters of the Quran the divine name the most merciful is repeated allora him bismillahi r-rahman r-rahim in the name of God the most compassionate the most merciful 113 times repeated and separately within the Quranic verses maybe 700 times I you know I don't have statistic in front of me but it's very frequently repeated so basically justice and love justice and mercy in Islam are completing each other mercy should not be an obstacle to justice in the Islamic teaching for example when judge has found a criminal and the criminal comes to him he would say well I am very merciful I should forgive this criminal Islamic television says justice should be applied that mercy at that case is not appropriate because justice should be applied you if you forgive individually you are allowed to forgive yes let's say somebody did some negative actions against you the Quran says retaliation is possible but forgiveness little ation is actually negative forgiveness is better if you have such a case in front of a just judge then judge should not show compassion because judge is opposed in a position to fulfill the law and therefore law should be applied so in the Quranic language I would say the merciful name of God the divine name the most merciful is much more repeated than the divine name Allah tell which means the just and in fact there is a saying related to the divine which is in the Islamic teaching known as hadith but holy hadith that Prophet Muhammad narrates from God which is different than the Quran is lower with regard to the soundness of the narration God says my mercy has overcome my wrath my mercy is more that's why in the Islamic teaching the number of the gates of heaven paradise or eight the number of the gates of Hell are seven so the number of gates of Hell is lower than the number of the gates of heaven because more people that wants to be in heaven in the Islamic understand would you not agree that justice and mercy imply each other because unless there is a rule of justice mercy is meaningless unless you deserve to be punished it's not merciful to take back the punishment and in another sense mercy is prior to justice because we are God's creatures and we did not exist before we were created so we could not possibly justly deserve to exist so it was pure mercy that established our existence and our justice that's yet very good now we turn in a different state different style but it's perfectly fine I think I agree with that you know from Islamic theological perspective the concept of justice and mercy from the divine perspective it's absolutely right as Peter said because on for our very existence we are indepted to God for our very existence we in fact Islamic theologians would say we have received our reward already because what we do as prayers you know all these beautiful things that we have we are doing is basically unable to bring a paradise for us paradise is merely a divine gift for human human beings so all these things that we have is a part of the divine mercy divine the divine compassion for human beings and that's why we have a story narrated in the Islamic tradition in fact it narrates from the early you know prior to Islam prior traditions that a one person would have his prayers in a cave for forty years and on Moses is narrated to Moses Moses when he wanted to go to a Mount Sinai to speak to God he mostly asked him I am going to talk to God do you have any message for God you know do you want anything from God and he says well I have been worshiping for forty years so just ask God to give my reward and that's it the word of my prayer and Moses tells these to God this is story of course may not be in a real sense but Muslims make a sense of it basically they use this as an evidence of the divine mercy God says to Moses it says tell to my servant in the cave that I have compared his 14 years of prayer to the two eyes that I have given him he still indepted me so basically he needs to do 40 more years just in order to fulfill the reward that I gave him as two eyes just eyes two eyes that we have we see the sight that God has given to human beings so basically you are unable to finish the divine gifts your prayers are not enough to fulfill all these divine gifts so what you do you say Lord I am doing these prayers for this limited period of time if you have given me 1 billion years of life I would have done the same so because of this beautiful intention God says I will give you as you have lived billion years so therefore you will be eternally in the eternal paradise because of this beautiful intention intention is essential in the Islamic teaching so Zeki when you die and you face the Last Judgement is your hope for paradise based on allows mercy or his justice mercy absolutely mercy because in Islam it is absolutely God is the most just but as human beings we are not in a position to ask well Lord we have done the best so you have to give us there is no such thing in Islam that God is required to do something God is not required God is merciful and actually deals with human beings which is mercy if there is a verse in the Quran it says God never never do wrongs to any God never does wrong to any creature any human beings whatever God does is just but for human beings basically we cannot ask you know as a reward for our actions and say well Lord just give the reward of my actions and is it I am done always we ask for more forgiveness and more mercy thing the distinctive teaching of Christianity about Jesus which seems to distance us from Islam in another way unites us because in Christianity Jesus is more than just a prophet he is the incarnation of God and one of Paul's letters Colossians says that in effect if you want to know God look at Jesus this this that's all there is there ain't no more that's the complete final revelation of God well Jesus is pure mercy if you look at him as as a sign as something you look along instead of just look at as an icon as an image as a symbol as a beam of light you can look at a beam of light or you can look along the beam of light and see what's illuminated by it his claim is he reveals the nature of God and his entire life is mercy I think we've established some several general areas of broad agreement and similarity I hear a commonality of the need to submit to God because God is love God is mercy and it is through mercy that we go to heaven I did have a couple more questions for our moderated discussion but I already receive questions that were texted in so a reminder if you want to ask questions you can text them or if you need a note card just raise your hand and someone will come by the first question I receive though was about heaven and it's asking for some maybe a bit of a difference here the question is do both do both Muslims and Christians go to heaven along with that can you expand a little bit more about what heaven is in each tradition and and what we might learn from the other tradition about God from our concepts of heaven well if there's two countries that are at war and each is trying to capture prisoners from the other country let's say America and Germany are at war all right America wants to get German prisoners of war out of Germany into American prisoner of war camps in Germany wants to get American prisoners out of American territories in the German prisoner of war camps so if you have two different leaders if you have let say Roosevelt versus Hitler then their goals are to put their captives in two opposite places if on the other hand Muslims and Christians worship the same God although in different ways and by different means and they have significant differences but if if there's just one commanding officer then he wants to put as many of us as possible in his heaven so despite our battles here on earth our common Creator wants as many as possible of his children to go to heaven so the answer to that question has to be yes because of the one god yes the answer is yes you know in the Islamic teaching and Muslims are very careful to make judgment on behalf of God but they can just say some general you know statements for example for a Muslim if you ask a Muslim are you going to heaven you would say well I hope but God knows because there is no guarantee in Islam there is no guarantee you may go astray at the very moment and therefore always you have to be hopeful and also very careful careful of what possibly you may lose because you have been given as Peter mentioned to be a saint you have this capacity in fact every human being regardless of their nationalities regardless of their ethnicity they have the capacity to become a saint to become a divine you know like a person who is beloved by the divine but they can lose at the same time and therefore it's some Islamic scholars compare these to a seed when you put a seed underground this seed has capacity to grow and become a tree and give fruits but if you don't give it water soil warmness the Sun the light the heat then this seed will be rotten and die basically will die and therefore it will be nothing every human being is like such a seed and it can develop and become a wonderful trees wonderful tree in paradise through this process that the prophets have told the prophets have mentioned this so the Quran speaks of our Muslims if you do it speaks of three conditions to go to paradise to believe in God these conditions to believe in God first to believe in the afterlife and to do good deeds so basically the quran says big I think chapter 2 verse 62 if you have time you can look at this Quranic verse be a Muslim or a Christian or a Jewish or as habían if you believe in God and believe in the afterlife and do good deeds you will be rewarded in the afterlife you will be in paradise some Muslim scholars interpret this they say in fact if you believe really if you believe in God you have to believe in Prophet Muhammad as well because it is so much unique it is so much you know like a mercy of God as just Peter said Jesus is a measure of God in the Quranic language Prophet Muhammad is a mercy for the entire universe rahmatan lil alamin for the universe's not only one universe Prophet Muhammad's description in the Quran so basically they would say yes if you believe really in God you will believe in Prophet Muhammad as well properly they would say but the Quranic verse is very clear that if you have these three conditions God willing you will be among the people of paradise again for a Muslim even there is no directly I am a Muslim so I guaranteed I am going to paradise no such easy thing and such a cheap way to go into paradise it's really you need to be very hardworking Muslims would make some comments on this in order to have a wonderful palace in this planet how much of work do you need to do so paradise also is not cheap in the Islamic teaching you have to work very hard you have to make some sacrifices from your probably properties giving charity from your time spending some time in the way of the divine doing prayers you will do all your jobs and then you will say Lord I have done my best but I know that with this I do not deserve it still I need your mercy but these are some good sign that I am having a good intention to receive your mercy and I think with this you are very hopeful very hopeful because there is a statement in the Quran it says only this believers become hopeless of the Divine Mercy a believer in the Quranic language cannot be hopeless only these believers can be hopeless of the Divine Mercy so always there is a hope in fact one one of the statement of the Prophet suggests that a person once speaks of his sin as like big as mountains and the Prophet says even this person should not be hopeless that God is the most forgiving so far one of the divine names the most forgiving God may forgive so do not be hopeless just do your best there are two alternatives to Hope presumption and despair evil usually comes in opposite forms whereas good is is one many Christians today I think are very presumptuous because they assume that everyone or nearly everyone is going to heaven if there's any one doctrine in Christianity that's unpopular nowadays it's certainly the doctrine of hell but if everyone goes to heaven then Jesus is a very bad teacher because he warned repeatedly about Hell he also didn't satisfy our curiosity about numbers when the disciples asked him Lord are many going to be saved they probably thought let's get the information from him before he goes away the comparative population statistic is evident hell please and his answer to that like his answers to most questions was essentially you're asking the wrong question so he answered the right question which they should have asked instead he and that brings us straight to Jesus our second question and I'm going to add one so the second question is for dr. Sarah toh prick and then in that question is how can be how can Jesus be the great prophet when he claims to be the Son of God and I'd like to reverse that sort of to dr. Kraft what what can Christians make of the Muslim claim that Mohammed is a prophet of God in the let me respond to this from theological methodology of Islam when there is a statement by such a prominent Messenger of God let's say Jesus Jesus says I am the son of God let's say Jesus said it Oh Muhammad peace and blessings be upon all of the messenger of God Muhammad said I am the son of God what would be Muslims response to this theologically speaking first of all Muslims believe that Jesus doesn't lie if Jesus says it is accurate it is correct because Jesus is a Messenger of God trusted by God given the gospel the holy book that the Quran refers to it as a holy text of the divine so Jesus doesn't lie Jesus says the truth did Jesus say it that is the problem so let's search because apparently this is contradicting the major principle of the Quran that God doesn't have children the Quran says God does not beget and God is not begotten so God doesn't have children allegorically may people say all human beings are the children of God that means the creatures of God if that is the case it's acceptable but to say a person individual as the son of God will be contradicting what the Quran says so basically they would say let's search do a research on this and see if really Jesus has said this we made a huge research and found out that religious societies then Muslim commentators would say theologians would say so what is the word son in the original language let's say Jesus what languages were talking about talking in which languages were talking he was talking in Aramaic language okay what is the word for son in Aramaic language well is it even is it AB or is it something else then they will have etymological aspects of this word and they would say what is meant by this word in the common language of the Aramaic people of the time would someone when used I am the son of something doesn't mean that he is the beloved of that person in this case they will interpret that while Jesus was accurate when he said he meant that I am the beloved of God not son not literally but allegorically I am the beloved author and if this is the case then Muslims will say we have no problem with this because it is not contradicted with the Quran when Jesus says I am the beloved of God perfectly Quran which suggested because the Quran says Jesus is the beloved of God he is the Messiah in the Quranic language so basically this not only for Jesus is for Moses for Muhammad anyone when there is something that is contradicting what the Quranic principles have then they will interpret interpret in a way to make it possible even let's say with all these possibilities we couldn't find a way to find a solution then Muslims would say Jesus was right but we don't understand him still we don't understand him because we haven't found what he meant by this I think Christians would say something similar about Mohammed there's a similar problem Mohammed claims to be the last and final prophet and yet it certainly seems that the Quran contradicts the teachings of Jesus about who Jesus is is he the son of God the Quran claims to correct the Jewish and Christian scriptures and claims that what we have today are not the original books that God revealed which are infallible but books which came became corrupt over time and errors crept into them ah so the question for a Christian is about Mohammed just as the question about a Muslim is about Jesus Mohammed claims to be a prophet a prophet speaks the truth a prophet is not just a human philosopher who might make errors a prophet doesn't speak his own opinions but communicates the mind of God the claim that Mohammed makes is that these words were given to him by the angel Gabriel from God and he is like most prophets in our Bible reluctant even reluctant to admit and to believe at first because he he thought he was insane but he had to believe all right so that has the marks of a prophetic call about it now that's either true or it isn't the initial problem that I think a Christian would have with that is well if it is true then Islam is the final religion and if it isn't true then Muhammad is not even a prophet because he lied about where he got these words from because if these words aren't true then they're not from God ah and yet if they're not from God then either they're from his own pride and he's deliberately lying or even worse from from demonic inspiration but if you look at the Quran and judge it by by Christian standards it's a very holy book 99% of it agrees with the Bible so if that's from the devil the devil certainly compromising his own principles he's he's he has to admit a lot of good in order to have a little bit of error Mohammed's theology is a very high in holy monotheism which combatted the pagan polytheism of his time his morality is a very high in holy morality which which combatted that the selfish tribal violence of his time and if all that only came from Muhammad and not from God then Muhammad is certainly the greatest human philosopher in the history of the world because who who by merely human reason ever arrived at a very high in holy concept of God and morality well I would say as a historian a philosopher probably Aristotle came the closest but if you count the 99 names of God in the Quran and you look at the concept of God in Aristotle's philosophy he got nine of the 99 that's pretty good that's 10% maybe nobody else got more than 5% but that's still not very much so if if Muhammad is only a philosopher he's an amazing philosopher that can't be all right well then if he's neither a mere philosopher nor if nor is he inspired by the devil nor is he a deliberate liar what could he possibly be by Christian standards other than exactly what Muslims say he is namely the final and infallible prophet well I think that the most reasonable answer that is that he is a mystic who received indeed divine revelations either indirectly through Jews and Christians that he met or elles directly through perhaps an angel many Christian saints received divine revelations private revelations from God and they are indeed from God and these are very holy people but they often contradict each other how can that be since God never contradicts himself well they're they're mixed with human interpretation or misinterpretation if Mohammed is anything less than an infallible prophet he could be a holy human being who actually received messages from God but misinterpreted them now that's certainly not the Muslim take on Mohammed that's taking him down a peg of this peg but very similarly the Muslim take on Jesus takes him down a peg from son of God to simply a prophet so I think we have a quid pro quo here one of the key aspects of the Christian faith is that we are broken we are fallen we are sinful there is a broken relationship between God and us and Jesus comes to fix that so I have one more question for each of you and for dr. Sarah tope wreck the yours is is there a similar aspect to that relationship in Islam is our is the human relationship broken with God and if so how is it restored and then I'll have another question for dr. Kraft in the Islamic teaching there is no concept of original sin and they you know like the father the parents of humanity let's say Adam and Eve may eight and mistake committed sin in paradise but God forgave that sin and that's it it's forgiven so basically there is no transmission of the sin of and you know like an ancestor to the offspring we are not guilty because because of the addends mistake the sin that he he committed this is like a principle in Islam because very clear very clearly in the Quran it is stated that Adam and Eve both were forgiven God forgave them and in fact even Adam is known as the first prophet in Islam became the prophet of God and they were they had a mistake together by the way not only Eve committed first and then Adam they the Quran says they committed together the same mistake and they were forgiven by the divine with this there is one aspect in the human nature that potentially human being is able to commit sin human being has the capacity to become an evil person and also has the capacity to become an angelic person basically we have both sides as human beings and when we become evil god forbid human beings evilness is greater than other creatures evil because they have planned they can do actually and organize and make a huge huge crime and that's why the Quran speaks very emphatically about the mistakes that human being may have or the crimes that human being may commit now who can fix this this aspect of human being all prophets of God Jesus Moses Muhammad abre Noah Isaac Ishmael all these came to guide humanity to the right direction Satan will always try to deceive people it's a kind of divine plan why that is the case can God you know can God just stopped Satan from deceiving people yes God is all-powerful can do that but God wants to test people because in Islam life is a test whether you will pass or you will fail and that is basically for for who are the teachers of these tests prophets messengers oh come they come they give the directions they give the instructions and some people will listen to them using the free will because that's why we have free will some people will not listen to them and they may fail so you know I am going very in a very short way to explain these very deep issues in Islam okay some people never have heard have never heard of any prophets what will be their situation in Islam they are among the people of saved because they haven't heard anything they haven't heard any positive things about the messages of the divine messengers so therefore they are not actually responsible because the Quran clearly says we cannot God said we do not punish anyone that has not received the revelation so basically there are some people who may have never received the revelation and on coming you know with with regard to the human nature you use your freewill and always when you use your freewill you will say ask grace from God guide me to the right direction that's why in the five daily prayers approximately a Muslim who is practicing daily prayers five times a day daily 40 times has this prayer Lord guide me to the right path why because it's easy to be on the wrong path and therefore you always ask God 40 times can you imagine everyday and Muslim around old will ask God for guidance and then you'll use your free will and then you will say the rest is upon God I don't you know I have done my best and I am asking the divine grace after this so basically the message of of prophets is to convey the divine the divine message and that you can in the Christian tradition it it has become known as fixing the broken relationship with God it's very possible Bailey you have broken bro you can broke your religion you can break your relationship with God on daily basis and then you have to fix it how you fix it you make repentance when you repent that relationship is fixed and then you will not do it again of course you have to have good intention that Lord I will never do it again but you are human being and you are weak you may do it again again you will fix it with the divine and reconnect yourself with the divine mercy I want to ask you one question about that what is the the Arabic word for forgetting of God Gus la something like that awful a Escala yeah Duff Allah basically heedlessness alright did Adam and Eve have that before the before they eat the forbidden fruit or only after they I think the Quranic verse uses Nissan which means forget they forgot their promise to God it's a general statement in the in the Quranic term it's believed that they they forgot the divine commanded God told them do not approach these three and Satan in the Islamic in the Quranic narrative Satan comes and deceives them this story is very long probably they know you might know from the Bible as well the God creates Adam first I will do it in very short way then there is one individual among angels who is not an angel by the way in the Islamic teaching Satan whose name is Iblees is not an angel he's from Jin which is you know in the English I think we used Genie something you know indicates some invisible creatures they are created from fire in the Islamic literature so Satan was one of them it least was one of them among angels praying to God and when God created Adam God asked all angels to obey before him and Satan said I don't do that I am better than him because you created him from soil and you created me from fire I finally stronger than soil so I cannot obey Adam that's why in the Islamic tradition people when talk about this they say Satan or Alize was the first racist because he used his origin as the source of superiority I am superior to Adam he said then God said Adam these will be your enemy be aware of him he said I am Lord give me permission I am going to deceive them Adam and his offspring and God said you have no power of my pious servants and he said I am going to approach them from up from down from sides in order to deceive them God gave him this chance so that human being will be tested that's you know the story and surely he came to Adam and deceived both of them said there is a fruit here if you taste it you will be eternal in paradise that's why God asked you not to do that and they were deceived by atoms of ice Satan's on instruction negative instruction and when they realized that that was Satan instructed them and and have them made this mistake they became very sorry and immediately they asked God for forgiveness and of course as kind of result God said go out of paradise go on earth so they came to earth and they started the beginning of human beings you know the narrative is this way but we have many commentators by Muslim scholars on this and then they form basically we are coming to the concept of forgetfulness in Sun is a word for human being in the Quranic language in Sun is derivative of Nisshin which means forgetfulness human being is actually the name of very name of it in Arabic is coming from forgetfulness human being is forgetful today you say something tomorrow they forget and therefore you have to remind and that's why one of the names of the Quran is a snicker which means a reminder every day when you read it's reminding you it's really reminding you and especially when you read carefully you feel like really it's talking to you it's giving you every mind our mind so in Quranic theology God created us in this state of forgetfulness yes was not a result of the fall and those people who have never heard a prophet they don't know enough about God from their conscience to be responsible they want there are two theology two theologies in Islamic theological literature one says because the Quranic verse is very clear it says God says we will never punish any nation without sending them a messenger from us so if people never heard of a messenger from God they will not be punished they will be in paradise and not only these children for example all children hood who died before the age of puberty they are people of paradise they are in paradise all children because they have no capacity to distinguish bodies between what's right and what's wrong and therefore the people who have this mind brain in one school of Islamic thought Matuidi actually al mythology you might have heard of this school of Islamic thought one of two majors of schools of Islamic thought says well God has given you brain God has given you mind and therefore you have to use your mind and understand that this universe needs a creator and therefore Elma truly the school of thought says if you live in a place that is distant from all things anything's all civilization you know like in the Islamic literature we have high vineyards on who lives in an island or Robinson Crusoe like living in an island and you never heard of anything about divine one school of Islamic thought says you are excused you don't have to believe in anything but modernity says because you have brain God has given your mind you should contemplate how this starts how this moon how this Sun is so organized so you have to find at least to a certain level the concept of the Creator in this universe well dr. crave you complained at the beginning that we asked you to summarize the Christian faith in 10 minutes so now I'm going to top that in ask you one final question if you could answer it shortly one of the key aspects of Islam is of course that there is one God well how then in Christians also believe in one God how can there be three forms of one God there are not God God has no form he is infinite but he is three persons one God and three gods is a contradiction one person and three persons is a contradiction one God in three persons is a mystery but not a contradiction the reason Christians believe in this mystery is basically their scriptures they're saying Christians are scientific like like anybody anybody can do science science has just refined common-sense science really science tests hypothesis by data now believers accept Scripture as divinely revealed data so our scriptures tell us very clearly that there is only one God and clearly this is the being that Jesus calls father jesus also claims to be God praise to his father has a relationship of Islam or surrender or submission of will to his father says he will send the Holy Spirit which is the Spirit of God which is also divine so we have apparently contradictory data here one God the Father is God Jesus is God the Holy Spirit is God the Father is a different person than Jesus the Holy Spirit is a different person than Jesus how can you reconcile all this data without denying any of the data if it is all data well that's a little bit like the problem in in physics is light undulatory or corpuscular is it wave or particle that's a little bit like they ask me sometimes how to pronounce my name is it is it creeped or crafts and I say well that's like the the joke about the Englishman and the Irishman arguing about D s a mirror or neither and the Scotchman settles it by saying it's neither so so it's it's Krave so it's neither wave alone nor particle alone but both a similar mystery puzzle problem is the two natures of Jesus human or divine well bad to say that Jesus is one person and two persons is a contradiction to say that he has one nature and two natures is a contradiction but to say that he has one that that he has two natures in one person is a mystery but not a contradiction because even all of us in a different way have two natures were both visible and invisible we're both mortal through our bodies and that's us and immortal through our souls and that's us God's world is full of mysteries and the higher you go the more mysterious so we're not that surprised that there should be mysteries which seem to amount to contradictions but aren't the farther you penetrate into the mind of God but the ultimate reason why we accept the doctrine of the Trinity is because we can't deny any of the data dr. Crafton dr. Sarah topic I have learned a great deal both about Islam and my own faith Christianity and so I thank you and now I'd like to ask all of you to join me in thanking our two speakers this evening for more information about the veritas forum including additional recordings and a calendar of upcoming events please visit our website at Veritas org

Channel: The Veritas Forum

Views: 38,685

Rating: 4.6666665 out of 5

Keywords: veritas forum

Id: EdTQNh5CQOM

Length: 78min 59sec (4739 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 13 2012