Comparative understanding of Islam to the Christian religion

The church discipleship group which I attended yesterday was going through a comparative religious study on Islam. The focus of the study was on Islam’s understanding of the resurrection of Christ.

The differences highlighted by the discipleship group leader about Islam in regards to Jesus Christ is that Islam teaches in the Qur’an that Jesus is only a prophet and not divine, and that Jesus was not crucified, but it was merely made to appear so, while Allah raised Jesus to heaven.

The material that the discipleship group leader had prepared then went on to the question on whether the Bible or the Qur’an was more reliable. The answer given was that the Bible was more reliable because it was written down within the first generation of the events recorded, while the eyewitnesses were still alive, as compared to the Qur’an, written over 600 years after the events with no independent, historical source of information. An excerpt from William Lane Craig’s article “Who is the Real Jesus : The Jesus of the Bible or The Jesus of the Qur’an?” was presented in the material, which states that “In fact, the Qur’an contains demonstrably legendary stories about Jesus which evolved during the centuries after his death….For example, the Qur’an mentions the story – borrowed from the legendary forgery entitled The Infancy Gospel of Thomas – of how the boy Jesus made a bird out of clay and then made it come to life. Such stories are fictional.”

The material also cites historical evidences other than the bible which corroborates with the account of Jesus crucifixion, such as the Jewish historian Josephus reference to Jesus’ condemnation to the cross by Pilate in Testimonium Flavianum, Roman senator and historian Tacitus reference to Jesus in his Annals, and Greek satirist Lucian’s scornful remark of Christ in The Death of Peregrine. One objection that I have heard raised by counter-apologists is whether these other sources qualify as independent attestations of the gospel narrative, since they were written decades after the crucifixion, and might have been derived from the same sources used for the gospels

The session also discusses about the understanding of the doctrine of the Trinity. Islam rejects the Christian belief of God as existing in three persons. The material attempts to explain the idea of the Trinity with William Lane Craig’s description of God as a soul endowed with three complete sets of rational cognitive faculties, each sufficient for personhood. The discipleship group leader tried to explain this using the analogy of three different people in a company holding the similar position of CEO and being able to sign off with such a title. Another member in the discipleship group attempted to explain the idea of the trinity with an analogy of different descriptions given of a three-dimensional object from different perspectives. According to her, there exists a fourth dimension not comprehensible by human mind where God can exist in separate rational forms but maintain the same essence. Another discipleship group member casually cites the example of someone with the mental illness of bipolar, where two separate personalities exists in the same person, much like the story of Jerkyll and Hyde. For me, I find it easier to understand the idea of the Trinity as simply one rational faculty controlling three persons, much like how a puppet master controls multiple puppets, although I reckon that such an idea of the trinity would run into problems explaining why Jesus would admit not having knowledge that belongs to God the Father, or why Jesus had to pray to God. Considering such difficulties of conceiving the idea of the Trinity, I can understand why Islam would reject this idea and why some Muslims would even label this as polytheistic.

I would like to present here the beliefs of a Jewish law professor on campus on how he understands the Christian religion in relation to his own Judaistic faith. This professor believes that Jesus is both the Messiah prophesied in Isaiah 53, but also the prophet described in Deuteronomy 13 whom God had warned the Israelites not to follow but to put to death. As such, the Christian religion is God’s way of reaching out to the gentiles, but is also a test of the Jews to remain faithful to their Judaistic roots and not be led astray by other beliefs. I wonder whether such a pluralistic theology explaining Judaism and Christianity as being God’s different ways of reaching out to different people can also encompass Islam.