God of Islam: God of Nature and the Creator of our Universe
Epigraph: "In the name of Allah, the Gracious, the Merciful." (Al Quran 1:1)
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Written and collected by Zia H Shah MD
The Messiah, Mirza Ghulam Ahmad Qadiani, the Founder of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community, wrote that Islam has presented a God that is reflected in the mirror of nature. God of Islam is visible in nature and is perceived by human hearts. He wrote:
The God of Islam is the same God Who is visible in the mirror of the law of nature and is discernible in the book of nature. Islam has not presented a new God but has presented the same God Who is presented by the light of man's heart, by the conscience of man, and by heaven and earth.
God of the Christian dogma is counter-intuitive, against laws of nature and human conscience. With the Christian mysteries of Trinity, Resurrection and Eucharist, Christian understanding of God, never offers human mind and heart full satisfaction. The unadulterated human nature revolts against wafer being body of Jesus and God by extension and wine being blood of Jesus or God, as in the Catholic understanding of Eucharist. No wonder, many a Christian apologists have applauded the Islamic understanding of pure Monotheism.
Rev. Elwood Morris Wherry (1843- 1927) was an American Presbyterian missionary to India, who wrote a number of books and was a famous Christian apologist and Orientalist in his time. He wrote acknowledging the beauty of Unity of God in Islam:
A few passages, like the oases in the deserts of Arabia, stand out as truly beautiful both in their setting and in their thought. Take the first chapter, the Fatihat:
'In the name of God, the compassionate, the merciful. Praise be to God, Lord of all the worlds! The compassionate, the merciful! King on the Day of Judgment! Thee do we worship, and to thee do we cry for help! Guide then us in the right way! The path of those to whom thou art gracious! Not of those with whom thou art angered, nor of those who go astray.'
The celebrated throne verse in Chap. II., 255, is as follows: 'God! there is no God but he; the living, the self-subsisting: neither slumber nor sleep seizeth him; to him belongeth whatsoever is in heaven and on earth. Who is he that can intercede with him, but through his good pleasure? He knoweth that which is past, and that which is to come unto them, and they shall not comprehend anything of his knowledge, but so far as he pleaseth. His throne is extended over heaven and earth, and the preservation of both is no burden unto him. He is high, the Mighty.'
The question is often asked why a book of such singular composition should hold such sway over the millions of the Moslem world. In reply two reasons may be given: first, the beautiful rhythm, and often sweet cadences of the original language, which like some enchanting song hold multitudes with rapt attention who understand scarcely a word they hear; secondly, there is a vast amount of truth contained in the book, especially the truth of the divine unity and of man's dependence upon God, as seen in the throne verse just now quoted.
Now, I quote, what the Jehovah witness' site has to say about Old Testament and Trinity:
WHILE the word "Trinity" is not found in the Bible, is at least the idea of the Trinity taught clearly in it? For instance, what do the Hebrew Scriptures ("Old Testament") reveal?
The Encyclopedia of Religion admits: "Theologians today are in agreement that the Hebrew Bible does not contain a doctrine of the Trinity." And the New Catholic Encyclopedia also says: "The doctrine of the Holy Trinity is not taught in the O[ld] T[estament]."
Similarly, in his book The Triune God, Jesuit Edmund Fortman admits: "The Old Testament . . . tells us nothing explicitly or by necessary implication of a Triune God who is Father, Son and Holy Spirit. . . . There is no evidence that any sacred writer even suspected the existence of a [Trinity] within the Godhead. . . . Even to see in [the "Old Testament"] suggestions or foreshadowings or 'veiled signs' of the trinity of persons, is to go beyond the words and intent of the sacred writers."—Italics ours.
An examination of the Hebrew Scriptures themselves will bear out these comments. Thus, there is no clear teaching of a Trinity in the first 39 books of the Bible that make up the true canon of the inspired Hebrew Scriptures.
Carole Hillenbrand, a professor of Islamic History at the University of Edinburgh, states about Montgomery Watt and it is quoted in Wikipedia:
He was not afraid to express rather radical theological opinions – controversial ones in some Christian ecclesiastical circles. He often pondered on the question of what influence his study of Islam had exerted on him in his own Christian faith. As a direct result, he came to argue that the Islamic emphasis on the uncompromising oneness of God had caused him to reconsider the Christian doctrine of the Trinity, which is vigorously attacked in the Koran as undermining true monotheism.
Influenced by Islam, with its 99 names of God, each expressing special attributes of God, Watt returned to the Latin word "persona" – which meant a "face" or "mask", and not "individual", as it now means in English – and he formulated the view that a true interpretation of Trinity would not signify that God comprises three individuals. For him, Trinity represents three different "faces" of the one and the same God.
With 2 billion Christians in the world, different economic and other interests have kept Christian dogma entrenched in human society in one form or another over the millennia. The Christian apologists like Montgomery Watt keep redefining the Christian dogma and obsessions rather than going freely, where ever the truth leads them.
The Trinitarian Christians with their obsession with the person of Jesus of Nazareth are not willing to give up the mysteries of Trinity easily, but, here we need to be reminded of insightful saying of a 19th century German philosopher, George Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, "Once the world of ideas has been transformed, reality cannot hold out for long." In our age of information, this profound observation may soon become true in favor of Islam as the Western readers begin to see through the distortions of Christian dogma.
Now let me quote what the Jehovah witness' site has to say about New Testament and Trinity:
WELL, then, do the Christian Greek Scriptures ("New Testament") speak clearly of a Trinity?
The Encyclopedia of Religion says: "Theologians agree that the New Testament also does not contain an explicit doctrine of the Trinity."
Jesuit Fortman states: "The New Testament writers . . . give us no formal or formulated doctrine of the Trinity, no explicit teaching that in one God there are three co-equal divine persons. . . . Nowhere do we find any trinitarian doctrine of three distinct subjects of divine life and activity in the same Godhead."
The New Encyclopædia Britannica observes: "Neither the word Trinity nor the explicit doctrine appears in the New Testament."
Bernhard Lohse says in A Short History of Christian Doctrine: "As far as the New Testament is concerned, one does not find in it an actual doctrine of the Trinity."
The New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology similarly states: "The N[ew] T[estament] does not contain the developed doctrine of the Trinity. 'The Bible lacks the express declaration that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are of equal essence' [said Protestant theologian Karl Barth]."
Yale University professor E. Washburn Hopkins affirmed: "To Jesus and Paul the doctrine of the trinity was apparently unknown; . . . they say nothing about it."—Origin and Evolution of Religion.
Historian Arthur Weigall notes: "Jesus Christ never mentioned such a phenomenon, and nowhere in the New Testament does the word 'Trinity' appear. The idea was only adopted by the Church three hundred years after the death of our Lord."—The Paganism in Our Christianity.
Thus, neither the 39 books of the Hebrew Scriptures nor the canon of 27 inspired books of the Christian Greek Scriptures provide any clear teaching of the Trinity.
Due to the near impossibility for human mind to comprehend a Triune God, as presented by Trinitarian Christianity, the day to day usage, of the concept of God, by the Christian masses, reminds us of Judaism and Islam and the saying, 'imitation is the best form of flattery.'
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