3.02.2017

Islam vs Christianity: Claim: Jesus is not divine



While Islam refers to Christians as "people of the book" along with Jews and Zoroastrians (as opposed to polytheists and animists), it denies that Christianity is the final and permanent revelation of God and speaks quite negatively of Christians as "the infidels" (kaffur). This is because Muhammad, "the seal of the prophets," is the last and greatest of the prophets of Allah (Qur'an 48:27-28). He alone corrects the errors of the past, including the aberrations of Christianity. Islam abrogates Christianity (Qur'an 48:27-28); it is Christianity's replacement. The argument for abrogation  is rooted in five major claims made by Islam against Christianity. This is a significant apologetic challenge that Christians today need to face intelligently, given the global reach of Islam and its growing influence in the West.

Claim 3: Jesus is not divine. Muslims are repulsed by the confession of Jesus as divine. The Qur'an affirms concerning Allah, "Say not three" (4:171) and "Allah has no son" (72:3). Thus they reject a trinitarian God by insisting that Allah has no partner.
Surely Allah does not forgive that anything should be associated with Him, and He forgives what is besides this to whom He pleases; and whoever associates anything with Allah, he indeed strays off into a remote error. (Qur'an 4:116)
According to Islam, Jesus is Allah's prophet, born of a virgin, sinless and the Messiah (in a scaled down sense from the biblical view); he will come again, but he is emphatically not divine. As the Qur'an declares:
O followers of the Book! do not exceed the limits in your religion, and do not speak (lies) against Allah, but (speak) the truth; the Messiah, Isa son of Marium is only an apostle of Allah and His Word which He communicated to Marium and a spirit from Him; believe therefore in Allah and His apostles, and say not, Three. Desist, it is better for you; Allah is only one God; far be It from His glory that He should have a son, whatever is in the heavens and whatever is in the earth is His, and Allah is sufficient for a Protector. (4:171). Certainly they disbelieve who say: Surely Allah, He is the Messiah, son of Marium; and the Messiah said: 0 Children of Israel! serve Allah, my Lord and your Lord. Surely whoever associates (others) with Allah, then Allah has forbidden to him the garden, and his abode is the fire; and there shall be no helpers for the unjust. (5:72)
In response, one must appeal to the most reliable documents: the New Testament. … Jesus claimed deity, and his apostles affirmed this repeatedly, as If so, the claims of the Qur'an can be dispensed with on purely historical grounds.

Muslims sometimes employ philosophical arguments against the deity of Jesus (although the Qur'an does not) by claiming that Jesus cannot be divine given that he prayed to his Father, said that the Father was greater than he was and so on. These objections have received sustained treatment in recent decades by philosophers,  … the concept of the incarnation is not contradictory and has not been affirmed as such in Christian creeds or confessions. Therefore, this charge is without bite.

Douglas Groothuis. Christian Apologetics: A Comprehensive Case for Biblical Faith (pp 607-608)

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