Introduction
Introduction
FROM HUMANKIND’S EARLIEST HISTORY, philosophers and theologians have pondered the nature of God. Is God a mystery, or can he be known? If he can be known, what are his nature, attributes, and characteristics? What is his relationship to creation, and how is he supposed to be worshiped? Several religions came up with different answers to these questions and diverging understandings of the nature of the deity.
The Christian understanding of the divine nature is trinitarian (Mt 28:18-20; Mk 14:62; Jn 1:1; 20:28; Rom 9:5; 1 Cor 8:6; Phil 2:6-9; Titus 2:13; Heb 1:1-3; Rev 1:5-9; 22:13). God lives forever in intrarelationship, never alone because he is one God living in an eternal coinhering community of equals. Christians settled their debates about the trinitarian nature of God in the Nicene Creed in AD 325 and 381 and about the nature of Jesus in the council of Chalcedon in AD 451. However, when Muslims expanded beyond the Arabian Peninsula and invaded the Levant (contemporary Syria, Palestine, Lebanon, and Jordan), Arabophone Christian theologians and philosophers found themselves obligated to defend the Trinity against tawḥid (the absolute oneness of Allah)—the Islamic understanding of the divine. Allah is alone—without a partner, rival, or equal.
In the West, scholars were not in touch with Muslims in the same capacity, but they wanted to preserve the orthodox belief of the Trinity by following the Nicene Creed. Therefore, they strived to show that the Trinity is not a contradiction. During the Enlightenment, many wrote about it to refute liberal scholars, such as Kant and his infamous pronouncement that the doctrine of the Trinity, taken literally, has no practical relevance to the Christian consciousness. Today, scholars see a great relevance and high importance of this doctrine and consider it the foundation of other doctrines, especially the morality of God. As Thomas R. Thompson says, the doctrine of the Trinity is “a veritable treasure trove of ethical and practical riches, not least of which is its redolence for human social form and function.”
In the Middle East, in around AD 750, the Abbasids overthrew the Umayyad caliphate and reigned until they were destroyed by the Mongols in AD 1258. This period is known as the Golden Age of Islamic scholarship because of the translation movements that took place. This movement began with the Arabization of the administration of the empire by the Umayyad caliph ‘Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan (AD 646–705) in the seventh century. This movement made Arabic the Muslim lingua franca. Up to this point, Christian communities had preserved Greek learning in their libraries and monasteries in Alexandria, Antioch, and Edessa. They also taught and wrote their theological works in Greek; therefore, they were able to contribute to this translation movement by translating many philosophical, medical, and religious books from Greek to Arabic and participate in the dialogue between Christians and Muslims.
This era witnessed many conversations and discussions between Muslims and Christians about the nature of the deity in each religion. This dialogue served as an instrument by which authors would intellectually verify and defend their positions while critiquing their opponent’s worldview. During this period, many Christian theologians and philosophers left written documents explaining the differences of the nature of Allah (both were calling God Allah in Arabic) and defending the Trinity. This study will focus primarily on two Christian theologians—John of Damascus (died in AD 749) and Theodore Abū Qurrah (died in AD 820)—as well as one Christian philosopher—Yaḥyā Ibn cAdī (died AD 974). These three Christian scholars came from different backgrounds and defended the Trinity in three dissimilar constructions.
The history of Christian-Muslim relations, especially in the Abbasid era, sheds great light on the interreligious dialogue between Christians and Muslims. It provides contemporary Christians with many insights for interacting fruitfully and effectively with Muslims without compromising the nature of the Christian gospel. Today’s Christians might not realize that early Arab Christians faced several objections to the Trinity when Islam expanded to the Levant. This study, therefore, aims to prevent contemporary Christians from reinventing the wheel and missing the positive contributions of early Christian-Muslim history.
After considering these early Arab scholars, I will explore themes in contemporary trinitarian arguments in the West. Several scholars who are immersed in philosophy, especially metaphysics, came out with many models that help explain the Trinity in a logical and philosophical way. The book will focus on three different models to help readers compare the Arabic and Western explanations of the doctrine of the Trinity: social trinitarianism, Latin trinitarianism, and the relative identity theory. This study will present the theory that the orthodox doctrine of the Trinity has never changed throughout history. Christians have never stopped believing or defending it.
RATIONALE AND NEED
This study relates to the philosophy of religion, to theology, and to medieval Christian history. The book will cover the times between the end of the Umayyad and early Abbasid dynasties. The period between the eighth and the tenth centuries, known as the Golden Age of Islam, is considered an illustrious period of Muslim-Christian interaction. As mentioned above, the early centuries of the Abbasid era were a period when Muslims became increasingly eager to validate their beliefs in light of the challenges confronting them by more educated Christians. The doctrine of the Trinity is one of these challenges, and it is inevitably discussed in terms of the sifat Allah (the beautiful names of God) found in the Qur’an. During that time, the Arabic church produced several theologians and philosophers eager to answer the trinitarian theological objection, and thus their works deserve to be known in the West.
The academy needs Eastern Christian scholars; their expertise would be especially beneficial because research in this area is still in its infancy. Unfortunately, few academics write on John of Damascus, Theodore Abū Qurrah, and Yaḥyā Ibn cAdī; the ones who do are mostly Arabs, and many of their studies are not translated to English. Few Western scholars have attempted to introduce and translate their works and they are still, in my opinion, underrepresented in Western scholarship. This study therefore attempts to bridge the gap between the East and the West by shedding light on the Islamic context of Arab scholars and how they were able to defend their Christian faith.
Despite the primary and secondary resources available on John of Damascus, Theodore Abū Qurrah, and Yaḥyā Ibn cAdī, there are not many academic works written on their arguments for the Trinity, especially when compared to those of early, medieval, and Reformed theologians, such as Augustine, Aquinas, and Calvin. A small number of monographs were written on the life and the work of each of these scholars, but few focused on their methodology in examining and explaining the Trinity in their Islamic surroundings. To my knowledge, no scholars have used or developed the arguments of these three Arab scholars to defend the Trinity.
In addition to reporting the historical data that is collected from Arabic and non-Arabic resources of John of Damascus, Theodore Abū Qurrah, and Yaḥyā Ibn cAdī, this book will seek to trace the sources of the Islamic Trinity in the Qur’an, especially the idea of including Mary in the Trinity. This investigation is needed because a few studies have stated that Mohammad derived his information from cultic Christianity that was spreading in the Arabian Peninsula at that time. Although this hypothesis might be true, there might be another influence on Mohammad’s belief, one related to the veneration of icons in the church. Therefore, this study shall investigate the possible influence of the Theotokos icons and how their presence in cathedrals came to influence Muslim understanding of the veneration of Mary and their eventual inclusion of her in the Trinity. To my knowledge, no other studies have investigated this influence.
The value of this study is to bring Eastern and Western scholarship together by shedding light on an area of history that is ambiguous and not very well known. The book will also be beneficial for those who want to compare and contrast the Arabic and Western scholarships on the doctrine of the Trinity. I hope that this study becomes a great aid for scholars of history, theology, and apologetics as they seek to develop their arguments about the Trinity. Even laymen would benefit greatly from understanding the history behind the current defense of the Trinity and learn how to defend the Trinity themselves in Islamic context.
RESEARCH PROBLEM, SUB-QUESTIONS, LIMITATIONS, AND TERMS
The main question this book is asking is this: “Does the Trinity make sense?” Christians and Muslims agree that human beings will never fully perceive God in their minds. For both, God is an unlimited, infinite, divine being, and they are limited, finite, human beings. However, while Muslims think that God should make sense in order for human beings to believe in him, Christians believe that human beings are capable of perceiving limited aspects of God—the ones that he has revealed to them. Founding their belief on the biblical data, the early church perceived God as trinitarian in nature. Today, Christians still accept the Nicene and the Chalcedonian definitions of God as a Trinity and consider them logical. They believe that the Trinity makes perfect sense based on the relational aspect of God’s nature. To address whether the Trinity makes sense, sub-questions should be asked further: How do Muslims and Christians perceive the Trinity? How do the Arab medieval fathers, such as John of Damascus, Theodore Abū Qurrah, and Yaḥyā Ibn cAdī, understand and explain the Trinity to Muslims? How do they differ and agree with the Nicene and the Chalcedonian creeds? Do their perceptions of the Trinity vary among each other? How do contemporary scholars explain the Trinity? How can contemporary scholars benefit from the Arabic explanations of the Trinity?
This study does not seek to criticize the Islamic belief in tawḥīd as much as it attempts to further the dialogue between the two religions. It does not intend to investigate whether Christians and Muslims believe in the same God. However, since this topic is related to the book, it will appear in the conclusion. The principal aim is to inform the reader of the historical contexts of John of Damascus, Theodore Abū Qurrah, and Yaḥyā Ibn cAdī. The study will examine how they defended the Trinity in their medieval Islamic surroundings and will build on their arguments to further the conversation with contemporary Muslims. Furthermore, the study does not seek to redefine the historical understanding of Trinitarian orthodoxy or come up with a new perception. The book will adhere to the Nicene and the Chalcedonian definitions of the apostolic faith, which are based on the Bible.
Since the book does not aim to compare tawḥīd and the Trinity, the use of polemic language against Islamic theology and its understanding of tawḥīd will be minimized, except for language used by the three chosen scholars in their arguments. The Western trinitarian arguments do not mention Islamic belief. They focus primarily on philosophical understanding of the doctrine. In the final section of the study, the relational aspect of the nature of God will be emphasized. This emphasis might be perceived by some as a criticism of tawḥīd.
In these discussions, the book will use Greek, Arabic, and English terms related to the topic of the Trinity: Greek terms such as Theotokos, hypostasis, ousia, and perichoresis; and Arabic terms such as Uqnūm (singular) / Aqanīm (plural) اقنوم/أقانيم and Asma’ Allah al-Ḥusna [the beautiful names of Allah] أسماء الله الحسنى.
According to the Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, Theotokos means “the ‘one who gave birth to God.’ . . . The word was used of the Virgin by the Greek Fathers (perhaps by Origen and possibly even by Hippolytus) and increasingly became a popular term of devotion).” This word will appear in the section in which the investigation about the Islamic Trinity is made.
According to the Evangelical Dictionary of Theology, the literal meaning of the Greek word hypostasis is “‘substance,’ ‘nature,’ ‘essence’ (from hyphistasthai, ‘stand under,’ ‘subsist,’ which is from hypo, ‘under,’ and histanai ‘cause to stand’), and denotes a real personal subsistence or person.” The word developed theologically to describe any one of the three distinct subsistences/persons of God. Later on in history, it is used more to refer to the hypostatic union of the two natures of Christ (human and divine).
In the Council of Nicaea, hypostasis is taken as a synonym of ousia (substance). However, after Nicaea,
The Cappadocians established a clear distinction between ousia as the name for what is common to the Persons of the Trinity, and hypostasis as the name for their distinctness: each Person is a hypostasis precisely to the extent that it is characterized by specific individuating characteristics (or idiomata). The Son, for example, is everything that the Father is (i.e., with respect to ousia) except that the Son is begotten and the Father the one who begets (the particular characteristics of their respective hypostases).
This is the meaning the author will follow in this study. The formula of one ousia/three hypostases was translated into Latin as “una essential/substantia, tres personae” or “one essence/substance in three persons.”
Perichoresis is a theological term that describe the relational aspect of the Trinity. As Randall Otto puts it, it is “the necessary being-in-one-another or circumincession of the three divine Persons of the Trinity because of the single divine essence.” It is the intertwining, inexistence, and immanence of the divine Persons. According to Thomas H. McCall, “The divine hypostases are genuinely distinct, and they are related to one another in the interpersonal perichōrēsis of holy love.” The divine persons are three fully personal and fully divine entities who know and love one another. While this concept existed in patristic thought, the term perichoresis was popularized in the eighth century by John of Damascus. Some modern theologians, such as Jürgen Moltmann, have used this term in a different sense that denies its basis in the one divine nature; however, this book will use it in the historical sense used by the patristic fathers.
Ousia or essence denotes the “whatness” of a thing. It designates the real being of God. According to Francis Turretin, the essence is “often met with in Scripture, not only in the concrete when God is cladded on (Ex 3:14; Rev 1:4), but also in the abstract when deity (theotēs, Col 2:9), nature (physis, Gal 4:8), divine nature (theia physis, 2 Pet 1:4) is attributed to God.”
Uqnūm/Aqanīm (singular/plural) is attributed to the three persons of the Trinity. Instead of using the word “person/s” in Arabic or Syriac, Arab and Syriac theologians created a new word, Uqnūm/Aqanīm, and dedicated it to the persons of the Trinity. Uqnūm/Aqanīm is a word early Arab fathers used in the defense of the Trinity that they took from their fellow Syriac theologians to express the difference in meaning between the human person and the divine person. James Sweetman mentions that the Syriac word ܩܢܘܡܐ uqnūm was accepted and widely used without causing any debate or quarrel because of its use in the Syriac translation of John 5:26. This is important to establish because the word Uqnūm/Aqanīm will be used repeatedly in this study.
Arab-Syriac apologists believe that it is hard for Muslims to understand the concept of the Trinity in a metaphysical sense as opposed to a simple numerical one. Therefore, they decided to create a new word to convey the idea of divine person and illuminate the similarities with the concept of a human person as they understood it. According to Imad Shehadeh, a leading contemporary scholar on the subject of the Trinity in Jordan, “The only benefit from using this word [uqnūm] in Arabic language is to distance the word ‘person’ from God and substitute it with a foreign and an unknown word that conveys its meaning.” In other words, dedicating a special terminology to divine person indicates a special meaning and illustrates the confusion Muslims faced regarding the human/physical meaning of the word person. Furthermore, Awad Sim’an, who is a leading Arab Christian scholar on the subject of the Trinity in Egypt, defines Aqanīm in the following way:
The word Aqanīm differs totally from the word “persons,” the one that is used in Arabic language and its synonyms in other languages, in two ways: a) “persons” have separate essences from each other. Whereas, Aqanīm means one essence, which is the essence of God who does not have associates, or anyone like him. b) Even if persons participate in one nature, none of them has the same qualities, attributes, or characteristics of the others. Whereas regarding the Aqanīm, despite the fact that they are distinct from each other regarding the person, they are one in essence with all its qualities, attributes, and characteristics of the other because they are the essence of the one God.
This definition is needed to avoid the modern concept of a person as merely an individual will and consciousness, an understanding that would inevitably lead to tritheism. The divine Aqanīm (persons) are three in a way that does not apply to human persons and cannot be understood from human experience apart from divine revelation.
Asmā’ Allah al-Husnā means “the beautiful names of Allah” (Surah 7:180; 17:110). These names are understood to refer to the divine essence and act. Therefore, understanding the names of Allah is foundational to Islamic theology, especially to an inquiry into the nature and characteristics of the deity. The attributes that Muslims impute to Allah reflect who he is and how he acts.
The book will talk about three different groups of Christians that were active before the Islamic conquer into Levant, Mesopotamia, and Egypt. The first group is called the Chalcedonian/Melkite. This group (both Eastern and Western) affirmed the Chalcedonian Definition.
The second group is called the Oriental Orthodox/Jacobite (pejoratively and incorrectly called Monophysite). This group separated from the Chalcedonians in the sixth century because they believed (incorrectly) that the Chalcedonian Definition was Nestorian. The Oriental Orthodox and Chalcedonians were certainly consistent in their Christologies, as modern ecumenical dialogues have demonstrated.
The third group is called the Church of the East (pejoratively and incorrectly called Nestorian). This group separated from the churches in the Roman Empire in the early fifth century. Contrary to popular opinion, they separated as an organizational matter, not because of Christology. Nestorius had not arisen on the scene yet in 424 when the separation happened! It is possible, although not agreed, that their Christology was not actually Nestorian and was in fact consistent with the rest of the church.
LITERATURE REVIEW
To demonstrate the unique contribution of this present work, I will survey the relevant literature in order of importance and relevance to the stated thesis. In addition to the primary resources of the written works of John of Damascus, Theodore Abū Qurrah, and Yaḥyā Ibn cAdī, secondary works on their writings are beneficial. Despite the fact that there is not a plethora of secondary resources on these three theologians, there are plenty of studies available on the history of their contexts, which will be included in this study. This is not to say that other works on the Trinity should be overlooked. On the contrary, contemporary research on the Trinity will be used as well because it forms the foundation for the present inquiry.
As for secondary resources on John of Damascus, Daniel Janosik has written an excellent monograph about his life and his Islamic context. He calls John the first apologist to the Muslims and includes several theological arguments that were circulating among other sects of Muslims, such as Ash’arites and Mu’tazilites. Moreover, Charles C. Twombly has written a book called Perichoresis and Personhood: God, Christ, and Salvation in John of Damascus. This book focuses on the Perichoretic concept of the Trinity that John explains. Both of these books offer great insights into John’s trinitarian theology.
Andrew Louth has written extensively on John in his book St John Damascene: Tradition and Originality in Byzantine Theology. In addition to informing his readers of John’s life and context, he offers a chapter on John’s position in defending the veneration of icons against the iconoclasm initiated by Emperor Leo III in AD 726. Furthermore, Peter Schadler has written John of Damascus and Islam: Christian Heresiology and the Intellectual Background to Earliest Christian-Muslim Relations. In this book, Schadler focuses on the idea that John considered Islam not a new religion but a heresy. In his opinion, the main reason for this classification is to establish a church’s institutional and social power under the Melkites’ foundation. Defining what is orthodoxy helped the faith community build a refutation of all alternatives, including Islam.
The second theologian this book focuses on is Theodore Abū Qurrah, who was a Melkite. He left several tracts (called Mayāmer), one of which is on the Trinity. Sara Leila Husseini, who wrote her doctoral work on this period, included in her sources Abū Qurrah and two other Arab Christian theologians from the ninth century: ‘Ammar al-Baṣrī and Abū Rā’īta Al-Takrītī. These men were Nestorians (the church of the East) and Jacobites, respectively. Husseini focuses on their historical, social, linguistic, and religious contexts under the Islam rule to determine how their explanation of the Trinity was affected by their Christian tradition. While she gives great attention to Abū Qurrah, she only briefly mentions John and Yaḥyā Ibn cAdī.
Wafik Nasry contributed a major work on Abū Qurrah and paid special attention to his book Al-Mujādalah. In his book, Nasry provides arguments both for and against the authenticity of Al-Mujādalah book as well as discussing whether Abū Qurrah actually wrote it or not. Since this study is not focusing on Abū Qurrah’s writings in general, our concentration will be given to his argument for the Trinity, which Nasry discusses thoroughly. Recently, Najib Awad published a large monograph on Abū Qurrah’s life and writings. In it, dedicates a whole chapter to Abū Qurrah’s trinitarian theology. He even makes a comparison of Qurrah’s trinitarian argument and other theologians contemporary with him, such as John and Maximus the Confessor. Awad describes Abū Qurrah as not just a mere witness or testifier to patristic orthodoxy but also a protector and defender of it. In Awad’s opinion, Abū Qurrah does more than simply preserve and protect Christian orthodoxy against the heresies: he also defends it against Islamic monotheism.
In addition to these works, Abū Qurrah has also been the subject of several scholarly papers. In one, John Lamoreaux revises Abū Qurrah’s earlier biography. In a paper titled, “The Biography of Theodore Abi Qurrah Revisited,” Lamoreaux defends the idea that Abū Qurrah was a member of Mar Saba’s monastery in Palestine. He also mentions that Abū Qurrah is the first Syriac scholar to write in the Arabic language, acknowledging him as a significant defender in the history of the iconoclast controversy, especially in its non-Byzantine form. Moreover, Nestor Kavvadas contributed a paper called “Theodore Abu Qurrah and Byzantine Orthodox Iconoclasts in the Early Abbasid Society,” in which he examines the reason why Abū Qurrah defended the veneration of the icons. This paper relates both to our investigation of Mary and the Trinity and to whether the veneration of the icons has anything to do with the Muslim understanding of her inclusion in it.
The third thinker that this study seeks to examine is Yaḥyā Ibn cAdī. His original writings were lost for some time but were found in Tehran Codex. This study will examine the article “The Life of Yahya Ibn ‘Adi: A Famous Christian Philosopher of Baghdad” by Mohd. Nasir Omar. This article is important because it not only sheds light on Ibn cAdī’s life, education, and career as a philosopher, but it also records the Islamic scholars and resources that mention him, for Ibn cAdī was a famous philosopher who had Christian and Muslim pupils. Moreover, Father Samir Khalil al-Yasu’i analyzes, commentates, and interacts thoroughly with Ibn cAdī’s Essay in Monotheism in his book Al-Turāth al-‘Arabī al-Masiḥī (the Arabic Christian Heritage). Al-Yasu’i contrasts and compares Ibn cAdī’s answers to the Trinity and the nature of God with ‘Abd al-Masīḥ al-Kindī’s apologetics against Islam. This work is written in Arabic, and it will expand the horizon of this research by shedding great light on Ibn cAdī’s sources. Finally, Nadine Abbas has written several articles as well as her doctoral dissertation on Ibn cAdī in Lebanon. Her book is published in Arabic, but it is not available in the United States. Her articles in Arabic summarize her thoughts on Ibn cAdī. The first article is called “Al-Falsafa wa al-Lāhūt ‘nd Yaḥyā” (The Philosophy and the Theology of Yaḥyā), in which she lists Ibn cAdī’s essays and traces the weight of logic in defining and explaining his theology. The second article is called “Mafhūm al-‘lūhiya ‘ind Yaḥyā Ibn cAdī fi Kītāb ‘al-Rad ‘ala al-Warrāq’ wa Maqālah fi al-Mawjūdāt” (The Concept of Divinity for Yaḥyā Ibn cAdī in the Book “The Reply to al-Warrāq” and “A Tract in Things that are Existing”), in which she reviews the terminologies that ‘Adi used in his explanation of the meaning of the divine.
As for Muslim-Christian relations in the eighth, ninth, and tenth centuries, David Thomas has written and edited several books on this topic. In Routledge Handbook on Christian-Muslim Relations, the writers walk the readers through the history of Christian-Muslim relations from the beginning, through the Middle Ages, and to early modern and modern periods. Thomas reports the situation of Christians in the Middle Ages under Islamic rule. He starts by explaining the Pact of ‘Umar and how it affected the liberties of Christians by opening the doors for mistreatment. During that time, many Islamic officials treated Christians as lesser citizens by asking them to dress in a certain way, to show respect to Muslims and give up their seats for them, and possibly not to teach the Qur’an to their children. Additionally, in the same volume, Sandra Toenies Keating discusses in her article “The First Arabic-Speaking Christian Theologians” the situation that forced the Christians who knew Greek and spoke Aramaic and Syriac to see a great need to shift to the Arabic language. By the late eighth century, deeper differences were introduced that necessitated creative responses to the emerging religion of Islam. The situation further escalated with the accession of the Abbasids dynasty and their intentional program of Arabization and Islamization. Consequently, the early ninth century saw an intensified effort on the part of all Christians to provide theological responses to the questions of both common people and elite Muslims. Moreover, I. Mark Beaumont briefly surveys the earliest written Christian references to Islam in his article “Early Muslim Attitudes Towards the Bible.” None of the articles included in this book, however, carefully examine the early argument for the Trinity.
Daniel King provides another edited work titled The Syriac World of the East, which includes great information about the status of the church during the early invasion of Islam and the Abbasid period. In this source, David Wilmshurst includes a chapter about “The Church of the East in the ʿAbbasid Era.” By this time, the church’s losses were too many. After the loss of the patriarchates of Rome and Constantinople, nine metropolitan provinces of the patriarchate of Alexandria were placed under the Arab Islamic conquest of Egypt, and three metropolitan provinces in the patriarchate of Jerusalem and twelve metropolitan provinces in the patriarchate of Antioch were placed under Islamic rulers. The time between the reigns of the Caliphs al-Mahdī AD 775–785 and al-Mutawakkil AD 847–861 was marked by a religious debate, enabling few scholars (such as the ones this study is focusing on) to introduce their defense for the Trinity and other topics.
Regarding the divine images and icons in the church, this study shall investigate several resources. As mentioned earlier, the three above scholars had their own teachings on the icons of the church. John and Abū Qurrah argued for the veneration of the icons, and Ibn cAdī was against it.
In a book published for the J. Paul Getty Museum, Alfredo Tradigo explains the different types of icons that churches used throughout history. Many of them were used in the Byzantine era, especially in the cathedrals of Constantinople. During the struggle of the iconoclasts in the seventh century, the use of The Virgin Nursing icon spread widely in Egypt, Constantinople, and Jerusalem. Pope Gregory, while writing to his adversary Emperor Leo III, mentioned that The Virgin Nursing icon should be worshiped. He also referenced the Three-Handed Virgin Icon that healed John’s hand when the Islamic emperor amputated it. This source is necessary to learn what type of icons were circulating among cathedrals during that period.
In the book The Virgin Goddess: Studies in the Pagan and Christian Roots of Mariology, Stephen Benko proposes that there is a direct line between the goddess-cults of the ancients to the reverence paid to the Virgin Mary. One cult he mentions is the Collyridians (Kollyridians), who worshiped Mary in Arabia. Many scholars related this cult to the misunderstanding of the Islamic Trinity. While this idea is not impossible, it is not known how or when this cult developed in Arabia. There is also no record in Islamic literature that Mohammad was in contact with such a cult. While Benko’s book does not give a definite answer to our question about the Islamic Trinity, it sheds light on several Marian cults and how they affected the development of Mariology within the church.
Imad Shehadeh wrote a two-volume work titled God With Us and Without Us, in which he makes a comparison between Trinity and Tawḥid. In the first volume, subtitled Oneness in Trinity versus Absolute Oneness, he examines the historical struggle over absolute oneness between two Islamic schools in the eighth century. At the end of this volume, he attempts to harmonize the nature of the doctrine of the Trinity with logic by explaining that the eternal existence of God is in harmony with the eternal activity of his attributes. In order for God’s attributes to be part of him, they must exist eternally with him. In other words, they need to be eternally functional and active with him in order for him to be the highest conceived divine being. In volume two, Shehadeh deals with several topics related to the Trinity, such as the difference between Old Testament oneness and absolute oneness. One such difference is that the oneness of the OT shows God’s desire to be known. This idea is clear “in God’s revelation of his attributes, in his promise of knowing him, and in the use of anthropomorphism to describe him,” whereas within absolute oneness, the idea that God desires to be known is completely rejected. There are several covenants in the OT in which God expresses his desire to have a relationship with his people. Moreover, Christ’s revelation of the special relationship between the Father and Jesus revealed God’s desire to be the Father of all believers by extending the sonship to them. The fatherhood and sonship concepts are absent from the absolute oneness.
Another important work on the subject of the Trinity is written by Miroslav Volf and titled Allah: A Christian Response. In it, Volf develops part of his argument in a dialogical manner with Sheikh al-Jifri. Volf, a prominent trinitarian theologian, explains some of the difficulties of explicating the Trinity. For instance, he mentions the tension that the term begets sparks in the Muslim’s mind and explains that this word does not mean a male and female relationship. Furthermore, Christians are not trying to soothe the troubled conscience of their supposed tritheism by means of a belief in trinitarian monotheism. Volf clarifies that the acts of the Christian God are divided because they belong to three different persons. Volf explains that regarding creation, God is acting “toward the outside”; his acts are undivided and inseparable. Every act of one person of the Trinity is always caused by all three.
William Montgomery Watt’s work Islam and Christianity Today: A Contribution to Dialogue makes a comparison study on several topics between Islam and Christianity. On the transcendence and the immanence of God, Watt states that the Qur’an shows Allah’s immanence; he concedes that immanence is more obvious in the Christian faith than it is in Islam. On the topic of oneness and unicity, he is probably the first scholar to use the word unicity to explain the nature of Allah and God. He demonstrates that the problem of the attributes of Allah arises from the fact that in mainstream Islamic thought the Qur’an is not created but is accepted as the speech of God, which makes it eternal with the eternality of God. The opponents of this view do not accept the idea of the eternality of the Qur’an because they could not admit to two Eternals. Although Watt’s book does not include a thorough discussion of the Trinity, it offers good analysis and comparisons over several topics, which in turn are helpful for this study.
Additionally, Gregory A. Boyd has written an article titled “The Self-Sufficient Sociality of God: A Trinitarian Revision of Hartshorne’s Metaphysics.” In it, he compares classical trinitarianism on one hand, and process trinitarianism and the sociality of God on the other. The former believes that God’s essential sociality is defined within Godself. The only important metaphysical relationship that God has is within the Trinity of the divine persons. Any relationship with creation is highly contingent on God’s will or choice. The process of trinitarian thought, in contrast, believes that God is essentially social but that his sociality is defined by his relationship with the world—a relationship that lies “beyond the accident of God’s Will.” The notion that God could exist apart from the world is, within process thought, an unintelligible notion. Boyd’s article is important because the thought process seems similar to Islamic belief about the tawḥidic nature of Allah. The supposition of a self-sufficient social God who satisfies the a priori requirements of relationality (God-God) when he is alone before the creation is a necessary idea to provide the metaphysical foundation for a coherent understanding of the contingent relationality (God-creation).
Michael J. Chan and Brent A. Strawn have collected several essays by Old Testament theologian Terence E. Fretheim and published them in a book called What Kind of God? Collected Essays of Terence E. Fretheim. Fretheim’s central theology rests on a God-world relationship. God is and remains transcendent while simultaneously immanent. God has taken initiative and freely entered both into a relationship with his creation and into a covenant with Israel. Having done so, He “has decisively and irrevocably committed himself to be in relationship with the world.”
SURVEY CONCLUSION
From the content of our literature survey, it is clear that of the several resources written on Christianity under the Abbasid dynasty, few dealt with the Arabic trinitarian apologetics under the Islamic context. However, none whatsoever reflected on John of Damascus’s, Theodore Abū Qurrah’s, and Yaḥyā Ibn cAdī’s arguments of the Trinity/iconoclasm particularly for the purpose of creating contemporary trinitarian apologetics. Many separate studies reported these three thinkers’ trinitarian arguments without reflecting on how contemporary readers can benefit from their contributions. Moreover, no literature on record has attempted an abductive/analytical method to show the trinitarian God as the greatest conceived divine being. Once this analysis is properly integrated, the path will be open for adding new insights to the apologetical argument against Islamic objections in our contemporary days.
STATEMENT OF METHODOLOGY
Because this volume relates to history, theology, and apologetics, it will employ a combination of methodologies. Due to its historical nature, a textual analysis will be done to establish the context the Arabic church in general and the three thinkers, in particular, were facing. Then, an abductive historical investigation will follow, exploring the probable cause behind the Muslim misunderstanding of the orthodox Christian Trinity. The trinitarian arguments of the three thinkers will be textually analyzed and closely defined and compared. Last, a deductive analysis will be applied to reach into an apologetical answer to Islamic objections against the Trinity.
The historical investigation will adopt abductive reasoning, which typically begins with an incomplete set of observations and proceeds to the best explanation for the set. Abductive reasoning does its best with the available information, often incomplete. It relaxes the standard and gives up the search for absolute certainty. While I cannot prove that the Theotokos icons are the main reason for Mohammad’s misunderstanding of the Trinity, I can at least show that it is probable. My goal in using this method is to provide the best explanation for the Islamic perception of the Trinity.
The abductive reasoning process of inquiry is one of the most widely used ways to examine a perceptual problem that cannot be addressed through immediate observation and background knowledge. Mark Tschaepe calls this step “a guessing procedure,” in which the inquirer’s starting point is an attempt to resolve a genuine doubt about a certain issue and arrive at a stable belief. Tschaepe explains:
The more the problem is examined, the further we move from the perceptual judgment and into the procedure of guessing. Perceptual judgment simply declares the problem or question at hand. Guessing is the process that creates a Third by which to understand the problem that was determined by perceptual judgment but for which perceptual judgment could not supply an answer.
At the beginning of the process, the inquirer guesses by defining a new starting point in his examination. This new point serves as an attempt to address the surprising phenomenon that has led to doubt. Next, the inquirer draws a number of elements without ranking them or giving them any priority over each other for the purpose of reaching into the best explanation of the inquiry.
In identifying the starting point, I will review the answers that were provided for the Islamic conception of the Trinity, arguing against their adequacy. Next, I will examine Islamic historical resources that mention the relationship between Christians and Mohammad in the areas where he visited or lived. I will also evaluate the conversations that were widely spread among Christians and Muslims from the seventh century to the tenth century to verify whether they are consistent with the Islamic understanding of the Trinity.
Some previous attempts of the concept of “guessing,” which is the starting point of the inquiry, have led to the post hoc propter hoc fallacy: the belief that “because event B happened after event A, therefore there must be some causal connection between the two events.” Sometimes there is no connection, and in other cases, there might be more complicated reasons and connections than the historians have proposed. To avoid such fallacies, this study shall follow the criterion of “the sufficient cause” rather than “the necessary cause.” According to Carl Trueman, the necessary cause means, “if phenomenon B is present, then A must be present too; though the presence of A does not necessarily imply that B will occur”; whereas, the sufficient cause means, “A necessarily implies the presence of B, but B could be caused by C; thus the presence of B does not mean that A is necessarily present.” The misunderstanding of the doctrine of the Trinity necessarily implies a false narration, teachings, or implications of some other beliefs, which are caused by the spread of cults, other religions, or misrepresentation of orthodox Christianity. Thus, the false narration, teachings, or implication of some other beliefs does not mean that the misunderstanding is necessarily present. The presence of the misunderstanding of the doctrine of the Trinity does not mean that the extensive reach of icons is necessarily the cause of this misunderstanding, but it is a sufficient cause, given other circumstances.
While the historical application of this study will adopt abductive reasoning, the philosophical application will require deductive reasoning. Deductive reasoning starts with true premises and ends with a strongly supported conclusion. If the premises are true, then it would be impossible for the conclusion to be false. By employing the deductive method, the study will defend the relational character of God to refute the Islamic objection that the Trinity is a theologically contradictory concept that minimizes the perfection of the divine nature.
The argument goes this way:
P1: One aspect of divine perfection is relationality—the greatest conceived being should be a relational being in order to be perfect (the greatest).
P2: The Trinity shows God as a relational divine being (intrarelational and interrelational).
C: The Trinity is noncontradictory.
If I am successful in defending the first and second premises, then the conclusion should necessarily be true and therefore demonstrate that the Trinity is not a contradiction but instead a necessary attribute of the greatest conceived divine being.
The main question of this study is related to the divine nature, a topic that falls under theology proper. Therefore, the idea of the Anselmian God (as presented by David Baggett and Jerry Walls) shall be both presented and assumed in this study. In their book Good God: The Theistic Foundations of Morality, Baggett and Walls identify the Anselmian God “as a being who has no ontological deficiencies, and who is also the proper desire for human beings.” I will use the notion of the Anselmian God throughout the study to refer to the highest perceived divine being, and not necessarily the Christian God. On one hand, both Islam and Christianity affirm their belief in the “greatest conceived being,” which is monotheistic in nature. They both also deny any type of atheism, agnosticism, or skepticism. Likewise, both believe that God is monotheistic, omnipotent, omniscient, glorious, and worthy; and both deny that the “greatest conceived being” is an impersonal force, chi, or amorphous cosmic power. On the other hand, Christians and Muslims disagree about the nature of the divine. Muslims believe in tawḥid and Christians believe in the Trinity. The differences between the two doctrines will be briefly explained to show the general direction. The bulk of attention, however, will be given to trinitarian apologetics.
While recognizing that the interaction between theology and philosophy has been an apologetic necessity in the history of Christian thought, several distinctions should be made at this point to offer more clarity to this argument.
Throughout this book, I will be using the term apologetics. Some people think that all apologetical methods are polemic. I admit that the latter term is related to the former, but it has a different meaning. Apologetics is a subset of theology involving the art of providing a defense for one’s faith. A person can develop an apologetic that defines her belief in opposition to other people’s beliefs and religions. Defined in this way, apologetics is related to polemics. The differences, however, have to deal with the tone, intent, and content. Polemics is a critique of other ideologies and sets of belief. Polemic is less interested in defining one’s religion than it is in defining and criticizing others’ doctrines and beliefs. The three thinkers examined in this study used a combination of apologetics and polemic. On some occasions, they defined the orthodox Christian faith; and at other times, they explained the weaknesses of certain Islamic beliefs and pointed out their illogical and philosophical flaws.
Most encyclopedias of Islam present a classification according to the attributes of essence, such as existence, divine eternity, and divine permanence, and the attributes of action, such as divine power, will, and knowledge. Other scholars have categorized the attributes of Allah in relationship to God’s essence, to the universe, to the natural world, and to human beings. This study, however, shall follow two categorizations of essence and action.
This analysis focuses on the nature of the divine and its moral perfection, not moral goodness and rightness. The study is not related to God’s commands or actions, but his divine nature and whether it is lacking any attributes that prevent him from being perfect. The study presupposes that being relational is one of the attributes that contribute to God’s goodness and perfection. If God is nonrelational, then his nature is missing a major attribute, and therefore is imperfect. Christians believe that God’s inherent trinitarian nature and desire for harmonious relationships with his creation demonstrate a profoundly social and relational divine nature. His trinitarian nature shows that He is eternally relational, from eternity to eternity. He is intrarelational before the foundation of the earth through the persons (aqānīm) of the Trinity, and He is interrelational with his creation in the Old Testament, New Testament, and through the Holy Spirit in today’s church age.
CHAPTER BREAKDOWN
Following this introductory chapter, examines the historical, linguistic, and intellectual environment of the Arabic church in the eighth to the tenth centuries. The church lived under the Abbasid dynasty in a period known as the Golden Age of Islam. Special attention was given to science, philosophy, and language during this brief period, and Arabic became the official language of the government after replacing Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic. Many Christians converted to Islam to avoid heavy taxation and to facilitate entry to government services. This massive conversion prompted Christian authors of this period to compose apologetic treatises that reflect Islamic concerns and explain Christian doctrines by using the Arabic language and Islamic concepts. This shift explains the widely recorded Islamic contextual perception of the doctrine of the Trinity.
presents the answer to the Qur’anic objections against the Trinity. The writer of the Qur’an thinks that Christians believe in the divinity of Mary and they include her within the Trinity as being God’s wife and the mother of Jesus. This chapter summarizes the efforts that have been done to explain the Qur’anic reference of Mary and examines the historical prevalence and the theological beliefs about the Theotokos icons in the history of Christianity, seeking to discover a link between these icons and the impression they might have left on Mohammad’s understanding of the Trinity.
investigates the trinitarian apologetics of John, Theodore Abū Qurrah, and Yaḥyā Ibn cAdī by comparing, contrasting, and defining the essential and the fundamental components and layouts of their apologetics, noting how they used Islamic and Qur’anic concepts in their defense. It is important to discuss their arguments and understand how the Arabic church defended the Trinity against Islamic objections to learn from their apologetical style and to form a modern defense that suits the current Islamic objections in the twenty-first century.
explores the historical development of the doctrine of the Trinity in the West after the Nicene Creed with a concentration on contemporary studies. The chapter presents three trinitarians models presented by four Christian contemporary philosophers/theologians in the last thirty years. The three models are Social trinitarianism, Latin Trinitarianism, and the relative identity theory. The purpose of this chapter is to inform the reader about the recent development of this doctrine and give him a chance to compare the Arabic and Western rationalizations of the Trinity.
provides trinitarian apologetics against the claim that its doctrine is illogical (tawḥīd is unsurpassable) and therefore does not present God as the greatest conceived being. Since the idea of the Anselmian God is a common ground between Christians and Muslims, this chapter argues that the greatest conceived being should be relational. Otherwise, he is not the greatest being because he lacks an essential attribute—the one that makes him merciful and compassionate. For God to be relational, he has to be trinitarian in nature because the Trinity is the only manner in which he reveals himself as a relational divine being—he is intrarelational within himself as a Trinity and interrelational with his creation. In this way, God is not dependent on his creation because there is no time in history when he was alone without a relationship before the creation, and there is no time when he needed the creation in order for his attributes to be functional (such as being a seer, being a hearer, or being loving).
Finally, the conclusion will summarize my argument, finalize my analysis, and discuss further areas of research.