Muhammadan Objections

150	OBJECTIONS AGAINST CERTAIN LEADING

their monks and the Messiah, Son of Mary, for Lords, besides God, though bidden to worship one God only. There is no God but He!"

C. We have already seen why and in what sense the Qur'an refuses to Christ the title of Son of God. The habit of giving religious teachers the title of Rabbi (to which v. 31 refers) is condemned by Christ Himself in Matt. xxiii. 8. But the title did not mean in Hebrew what it does in Arabic.

135. M. If you say that you do not believe in three Gods but in one God, and that the doctrine of the Trinity is not what the Qur'an condemns, what is your doctrine of the Trinity?

C. It is given in the Nicene Creed (A.D. 325), in the Creed known as that of St. Athanasius, and more simply still in the following Article:—"There is but one living and true God, everlasting, without body, parts or passions; of infinite power, wisdom, and goodness; the Maker, and Preserver of all things both visible and invisible. And in unity of this God-head there be three Persons" (Hypostases, Subsistences), "of one substance, power, and eternity; the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost" (Art. I of the 39 Articles). These statements are merely attempts to summarize what the Bible¹ teaches; that there is but One God in three Hypostases (اقانيم). These Hypostases cannot be separated from one another; but, if they could, no one of them alone would be

¹ The Bible proofs are given by Boultbee and by Bishop Harold Browne on Art. I.

CHRISTIAN DOCTRINES—THE TRINITY

151

God, while each with the other two is God¹. This is what we understand to be taught in the Bible. It is not taught in the Qur'an, but it can hardly be said to be contrary to the latter. It is above Reason, not contrary to Reason. Of God's Nature we can know only what He has himself revealed: hence the saying, "Disputation about the Nature of God is blasphemy" (البحث عن ذات الله كُفرٌ‬)².

136. M. It is contrary to both Reason and the Qur'an: for God is One, and the idea of Unity is the very contrary of that of plurality. Contraries cannot be both true.

C. The idea of Unity does not exclude all idea of plurality. You rightly acknowledge the Unity of Essence in God as well as plurality in His attributes, such as mercy, justice, power, wisdom, eternity. These two ideas do not contradict one another. You rightly call God the "Union of (good) Attributes" (مجموع الصّفات Majmu us Sifat), and His many Names or Titles express these, as "the Merciful, the Just,

¹ This is, in effect, what Dr. Cook says (Boston Monday Lectures).
¹ "The New Testament clearly expresses, and (in most of the places where a plurality within the Godhead is referred to) strongly insists on, the μοναρχια of the Father. He is the original Divine Person (original, of course, not in time but in causation); the Son and the Spirit issue (in different ways) from Him. It has always seemed to me that the Scriptural insistence on the subordination of the Second and Third Persons to the First within the Godhead ought to be helpful to an open-minded and intelligent Muslim."—Rev. Dr. Hooper. (Vide note to § 102.)

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