Responding to the Mohammed Hijab Video

all right everybody and so um I got kovid on the way back from uh Jerusalem so I'm feeling a little bit under the weather but um since then the video with Muhammad hijab has come out and uh for me that video was just another day in the week with Jordan he asked me in last minute to come and to participate and now I'm seeing that it's creating a huge amount of reaction and I've received quite a number of emails from several people from all kinds of people people that are angry with the way I reacted people that are happy with where I reacted Christians that it felt like I didn't defend the Trinity enough and Muslims which who are apologizing for Muhammad hijab and saying that he is not a representative of uh any kind of Islam that they think is is intelligent um and so I thought maybe I'd give a few thoughts about the event and uh how why I was reacting the way I was and uh yeah so let's let's do this this is Jonathan Pedro welcome to the symbolic world [Applause] so the first thing to understand is this was not an event that I plan to do Jordan invited me the day before he said why don't you come talk to this guy Muhammad hijab I didn't really know who he was and so I went online and uh all I found were videos of him in the street with masked men you know saying how they're gonna fight off whoever comes to get them videos of him in the street you know saying that if these Jews come out with their dogs again we're going to kill their dogs those are the videos that I saw uh of him and so I was like who is this guy and why are we meeting with him there were a lot of people warning us we went to dinner the day before and there were a lot of people warning us saying we shouldn't meet with him um and so you know whatever you know I'll do I'll do whatever I'm not uh I'm not scared of I'm not afraid I mean it was fine we'll just go meet with this guy that's fine I've had stranger things in my life so we went to meet him and I realized very quickly in the discussion that all this person really cared about was converting us to Islam he really did not want to have a discussion he did not want to have uh he did not want to listen to what we were saying he just wanted to uh convert US to Islam we just wanted to convince us and my understanding was that the this the purpose of the discussion was to talk about uh the place of Jesus in Islam and how there could be some discussion about that and see how there's overlap you know I think Jordan was hoping to find some common ground but obviously that was not what was happening all this person was doing was trying to convince us of becoming Muslim but that's not the only thing that was going on there was another thing going on was that he really wasn't trying to convert US to Islam he was trying to convince his buddies in the room that he was trying to convert US to Islam that was what that's what was making the whole thing even stranger because when he started talking about what Christians believed I had to laugh I was just smiling sitting there watching him because no Christian would recognize themselves in what he was describing Christianity to be no Christian would would recognize themselves in what he was describing the Trinity to be or the Incarnation or anything that he was describing about Christianity he was presenting to us the wildest caricature of what Christians believe and then he was trying to mock it or refute it and so that's when I realized that he really wasn't even talking to us he was talking to his fellow Muslims trying to gain clout and trying to make himself more important by proving to them and showing to them that here he was he was the tough guy Muslim and he was going to you know tell us about what Islam is and it was going to convert US to Islam so how do you react to something like that you know how can you sit there for two hours and look someone in the eye and realize this person isn't engaging with me at all this person isn't listening to me or to Jordan or to anybody he's not even actually trying to communicate anything in a way that he's hoping that will connect with me he's just trying to open the valve and and you know and just shoot out his prefab scent prefab arguments and his prefab prefab arguments in our faces until the conversation was over and so to be honest I was just sitting there going what are we doing here like what is happening and I and so I didn't say much because what was I going to say I was like going to start arguing with this guy about the Trinity I mean let's be honest after the discussion when we were having lunch I provoked him a little bit I said you know Muhammad the version of the Trinity that you proposed to us was quite a caricature and he said of course it wasn't a caricature I took it straight out from the Apollo's Creed and I was like really okay you know it's like I guess we're getting our theology from Rocky 2 now but I mean I get it look I'm not even criticizing him I don't know that much about Islam and so you know I probably would be making those mistakes as well if I was trying to to kind of preach to to Muslims and trying to convert Muslims but as you notice I don't do that because I don't feel like I know enough about Islam all I try to do is try to present the things that I've understood and the things that I have intuitions about and that's what I'm interested in doing but but uh but so if you want to understand why I was reacting the way I was that is what was going on now if you want to talk about the Trinity I am not the greatest expert on the Trinity I've actually said that many times but I understand enough about the Trinity to to think that it is not the ridiculous caricature that was presented to us so maybe we can just talk a little bit about why the Trinity is so important for Christians and why the Incarnation is so important for Christians uh and and maybe can help some people understand I don't know I mean it seems like the things I'm going to say maybe are going to be completely obvious to Christians and I won't be even talking to anybody because I'm pretty sure that that the the Muslims uh that are on Muhammad hijab side won't be watching this video anyway so let's do it we'll see what happens uh and so the question about the trinity the question about the Trinity has a lot to do with the problem of Duality and the problem of how is it that God can have a relationship with us in Christian terms what is mostly worried about or what we care about is the question of whether something is created or uncreated and so we have the sense in which God is uncreated he's not made and his dep his existence is not uh you know his existence is not dependent on anything and then we have creation which is made and whose existence is dependent on the infinite is dependent on God who is the source of all things and of all being and so these are the two categories that we deal with now so when we ask ourselves what is God or what aspects that we see in scripture in Revelation that is God what we're asking ourselves and what what is created and what is what is uncreated what is not created and the the conclusion to which the church fathers came to is that the word by which God created the world the one that is presented in Genesis 1 and that is presented also in the first the the first book of John is not a creation it is God himself it is God's word it is not something that God made it is not a it is not a creation it it is God's word and that God's spirit which we see in Genesis 1 that the spirit that hovers above the waters the spirit of God is God's spirit it is not created it is not something that God has made it is an actual it is something which is related directly to God now of course the way to formulate it I can understand why some people find it difficult because some of the terms are obviously technical uh because we're trying to talk about something which is very very difficult but nonetheless the problem that you have with the the problem of monotheism or the problem with the God is that if you're not careful what you're going to end up having and so imagine that you say when God speaks his speech his word is created it is no longer God as soon as God speaks it is no longer God as soon as God you know um extend them extends himself into the world then it is no longer God and so what you have is you have this divide that is so radical between God and the world that there is no possible relationship between God and the world and that that is not just a problem in terms of terms of like let's say sentimentality in terms of thinking like okay so God creates us and we have no relationship with him it's actually a more technical problem which is that where is the world then is the world where does the word world exist did God create something completely outside of him so now there's God and there's this thing creation which has a completely separate existence from him well no I think that even even Muslims would believe that the world is dependent on God but to in what way is the world dependent on God how is the how does this how is this dependence possible and the man in which that the Christians have seen in the revelation of scripture and in the Revelation that they that they have that they've gone from God is that the Trinity is is the manner in which God Appears to us as love and that this love is that which fills the world and so the Orthodox for example will go even further than just the Trinity we say that the God's energies that is that the actions of God in the world are God they are not they are not created and so underlying actually all of creation are God's energies which are God himself which are not a diminished version of God they're not like a lower form of angel or a lower form of being but they are God himself and so this what it does is that it means that Christianity is ultimately an extremely mystical form of religion it means that Christianity is a religion in which the the very existence of the world is shimmering with the presence of God everything that exists is has a spark hidden behind behind it or inside it which is God himself and it doesn't mean that things are Gods nobody believes that it doesn't mean that that objects in the world are God but that underlying the cause of all things is this Divine spark the action of God behind it and The Trinity has that same aspect it means that when God pours himself out into the world it is God that is pouring himself out it is not some lower form of God it is not like in the Gnostic systems where the world is created by a lower form of God what that does is it creates this strict strict strict hierarchy where beings the lower they are the further they are from God the less they have you know the the less ontological existence that they have and the more they are evil so often in these in a lot of systems where they don't where they're not able to create a bridge between God and the world like what is the bridge between God and the world if you if they for a lot of the systems that can't find that bridge they have the problem of understanding the world as fallen or the world is evil in itself because it's not connected to God how is it connected to God and so one of the aspects that the Trinity does is that when God speaks it is not a lower lesser aspect it is not something which is away from him it is it is God himself that speaks and his spirit that is that movement out from God and back into God right this movement out and back into God is God himself and so sometimes it's for it said something like that God speaks the speaks and his speech is God and even the space between his speech and himself is God right his Spirit which binds his speech to himself is God and so Christians believe that there is only one God God the father but that his word is fully fully fully God but it's not it's not also can I say this so we say it's a specific hypothesis because we also we also see that Multiplicity how does the multiplicity exist one of the same problems is that one of the problems of seeing God as a fully as a full monad and seeing for example his characteristics as lesser than him is you have the same problem you always have the same problem of creating a world which is in some ways evil or lesser or or you know that isn't in any ways connected to God and so by having three hypotheses these are three it's hard to find a word because as soon as you you the word we say three persons but of course these words are analogies they're not they're not if you if you use a person the way that you understand it now and you've tried to limit it to that you have to use it as a kind of springboard to understand to understand the more of God but the notion that there are three persons you could say something like mediates the space of God I don't know how else to say it mediates the space of God that is God gives his divinity to the son gives it his divinity to his word in his spirit and so the word is different from the father it's not the father but it is fully the father has fully given all of his divinity into the word and so what it does is it mediates the the the difference between God and creation ultimately it makes it possible for multiplicity to exist because it is not an easy question to understand how is it that multiplicity exists if we understand a kind of absolute unity and absolute Multiplicity in God then the problem goes away and it's not a multiplicity of contradiction it's a multiplicity in love it's perfect love is the best way to understand the nature of God as Christians understand it that it what it does is it gives reason and it gives vision for why the world exists and how it exists now if you the best thing you can get I think if you don't have a sense of this in your theology is that all we exist for is to worship that's all we exist for and I and to be honest I've seen Muslims say that it's like you exist to worship that's your job get on your knees and worship and it's interesting and and you can see how in Christianity at least the Christianity that I that I care about we are meant to worship god of course we are meant to worship God but that in that worship God calls us to participate in him that our ultimate goal or ultimate resting place is to be United fully and completely with God and to even become deified to that to the extent that that's possible and that is actually the reason for creation and so God in his absolute unity and absolute multiplicity has this outpouring of Love out of which creation is made and then this callback into himself which is this this this vision of how all things can be full full of God and be transparent and glorious in in the finality and so I mean that is why the Trinity is so important in Christianity and it's not a it's not a detail it's not something that we should that we should that that I know some Christians sometimes are ashamed of it and kind of shy away from it but it is extremely important to understand the problem of believing in multiplicity and what it means to have only one God and multiplicity without something which mediates that multiplicity it's very you know like I said you're gonna have some you're gonna have some issues in justifying all that but the thing that was interesting for sure in that discussion and and the reason why to be honest in the end I wasn't I wasn't really angry I was just kind of surprised as I found myself in a situation that was similar to the situation that I grew up in which is that I grew up in certain circumstances not everybody I've said often that it wasn't like that in my family but in the churches I grew up in and some people that I still care about very much today have this attitude of looking for every opportunity to evangelize you to look for every opportunity to give you the message in a way that is at some point even I think destroys the relationship or ignores the true relationship that can exist between two humans you know I remember when I was young even hearing someone when I brought up the fact that God says to love our neighbor um that the answer was yes to love your neighbor is to evangelize them that is how you love your neighbor and so it's something that I've known quite well that I known quite well my whole life and that I grew up with um and so you know I just felt like I was sitting in that moment again and to be honest there's no way that I was going to engage in the in in the kind of debate in a situation where the person in front of you is not listening to you in any way and really doesn't doesn't want to know what you think just wants you to listen to their preaching and so that's that and so I hope this was helpful to maybe help people understand a little bit you know why it is that I reacted the way that I did and sorry for my coveted voice here hopefully I'll be better next week and uh and we'll have a and we'll have a less scratchy videos so thanks everybody and I'll talk to you very soon

Channel: Jonathan Pageau

Views: 114,767

Keywords: symbolism, myths, religion

Id: SslZiTdSud4

Length: 19min 49sec (1189 seconds)

Published: Sat Oct 22 2022