Transcription
Muhammad Hijab and Dr. William Lane Craig on: Is the Trinity Coherent?
In this video, Dr. William Lane Craig and Muhammad Hijab discuss their respective views on the coherence of the Trinity. This is a very unique opportunity to hear from two well-known thinkers as they unpack one of Christianity's most intricate and debated doctrines. Let me go ahead and pull them up on the scene here so you guys can see both of my guests.
Dr. William Lane Craig is a Christian and a distinguished philosopher and theologian, serving as a research professor at Talbot School of Theology and professor at Houston Christian University. Renowned for his work on cosmological and moral arguments for God's existence, Dr. Craig has engaged in numerous discussions with both atheists and theists. He's also participated in interfaith dialogues with Muslim scholars, uh, like Shabir Ali and now with Muhammad Hijab. His contribution to *One God, Three Persons: A Theological and Philosophical Dialogue*, edited by Chad Macintosh, highlights his expertise on the Trinity, making him an ideal guest for today's conversation.
Joining him is Muhammad Hijab, a Muslim philosopher of religion and co-founder of Sapiens Institute. Muhammad's discussions, representing the Islamic viewpoint philosophically, politically, and theologically, are among the most viewed globally, with 1.2 million YouTube subscribers. He is a significant voice online, providing Islamic perspective on a wide range of topics. Additionally, Muhammad is pursuing his PhD at the University of Birmingham, where he continues to deepen his studies in philosophy and theology.
We're talking about the coherence of the Trinity: Is the concept of one God in three persons logically coherent, or does it present fundamental philosophical challenges? So to begin, each participant will share their positions on the Trinity. They will each have three minutes for opening remarks, followed by a discussion period with two-minute timed responses. As moderator, I will take a very active role in ensuring equal speaking time for both participants. So let's begin with Dr. Craig's opening remarks.
Yeah, thank you, Cameron. Um, it's a delight to have the invitation to be part of today's dialogue on the Trinity with Mr. Hijab. As you know, uh, ever since doing my doctoral work in philosophy at the University of Birmingham on the cosmological argument for God's existence, I've had a deep interest in Islamic philosophy and theology. I was able to resuscitate the ancient cosmological argument, uh, which is now once again at center stage, and as a result, countless Muslims all over the world are following Reasonable Faith and are appreciative of the work that we're doing. So when I went on to Germany to do my second doctorate in theology, it was only natural that I would choose Islam as my, uh, area of specialization. And it was during that time that I worked through the entirety of the Quran and studied Islamic theology and history. And as I read the Quran, I was surprised by the evident misunderstanding of the Christian doctrine of the Trinity that I found there. For example, in Surah 5:116, Allah is portrayed as saying to Jesus: "Jesus, Son of Mary, did you ever say to mankind, 'Worship me and my mother as gods besides God'?" And Jesus replies, "I could never have claimed such a thing." Uh, indeed, such a caricature of the Christian doctrine of the Trinity is, uh, a blasphemous monstrosity. No wonder Muhammad rejected it if that's what he thought the Trinity taught. But I think that the basic doctrine of the Trinity is actually taught in the pages of the New Testament itself, and it consists of just two fundamental tenets: first, that there is exactly one God; and second, that there are three persons who are properly called God, whereby properly I mean literally, truly, as opposed to metaphorically or hyperbolically. So that's it—no metaphysical mumbo jumbo, no theological hair-splitting. This is a simple and straightforward doctrine: God is an immaterial tri-personal being.
Now, standing opposed to the doctrine of the Trinity is the Islamic concept of God and the doctrine of Tawhid, or the Oneness or Unicity of God. And this is a doctrine which is very confusing and very controversial among Islamic theologians. There are a number of different versions of Tawhid on which there is no consensus. For example, the most basic doctrine would state that there is exactly one God, and that is a point of… Dr. Craig, would you… would you like to continue your comments here just to finish out your thought, and then we'll give extra time to… Oh, you say I've used up my time? Yes. Oh, I'm sorry. Um, yes, I'll just, uh, finish with the thought, uh, that this is a very controversial doctrine; it has a number of different versions, and so I'm interested in hearing what is the version of Tawhid that, uh, Mr. Hijab espouses, uh, and how would he justify that. All right. So Muhammad, whenever you're ready, feel free to begin your opening statement, and you will get another 15 seconds on top.
I want to start off by saying thank you very much to the organizers and to Dr. William Lane Craig for this discussion. To dive straight into it, the last comment that Dr. William Lane Craig made is absolutely problematic; uh, it's erroneous. In fact, Muslims have never had a problem discussing the *huwiyya* of God; they have had controversies surrounding the Oneness of God, but that's aside the point. Today we're talking about the Trinity, and it's quite astounding that on a topic to do with the Trinity that Dr. Craig decided to talk about Tawhid, which is not on the topic today. Dr. Craig himself, sorry to say, does not even represent mainstream Christianity when it comes to the Trinity. He attacks Thomas Aquinas, and he can correct me if I'm wrong, for example. He corrects Thomas Aquinas on the fact that he believes in one-self theories, and he says that, for… for example, if you take the “is of identification” for God and you believe in that, uh, the Father is God and the Son is God, therefore it follows that the Father is the Son. This is his view of Thomas Aquinas. He also says that the Trinity is against Divine Simplicity, which Thomas Aquinas and other places actually does espouse; that's his view, and he can correct me if I'm wrong. So that's… I mean, Thomas Aquinas is one of the Saints of Catholicism, and we're talking about a great deal of people who follow that—obviously, 50% of Christians are Catholics. He doesn't just take aim at Aquinas; he takes aim at the… the Church Fathers. He… he takes aim at the Church Fathers—Gregory of Nazianzus, Basil. He clearly states, for example, that they believe in a kind of polytheism, uh, because if you take the fact that the Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God in a full sense, that this is a kind of polytheism. So it's… what… what version of Christianity or of the Trinity is Dr. William Lane Craig representing? He's representing his own version, ladies and gentlemen; he's not representing the version of the majority of Catholics, the majority of Protestants, the majority of, uh, Eastern Orthodox. And what he said about the Quran, as we've just mentioned, is erroneous. He said that in Chapter 5, verse 116, that the Quran depicts the Trinity in the wrong way. The Quran doesn't even mention the Trinity in that verse, and you don't need to know the Arabic language to understand that, because the Trinity is not mentioned in Chapter 5:116. It says that, "Did you say that you take me and my mom as Lords, gods beside God?" Means God's—be subjects of worship. We do believe, like Protestants as he claims he is, that Mary is venerated to a point of worship; that doesn't mean that she's part of a Trinity. So he's got a misreading of that, and in my next segment I'm going to talk about how he opposes practically all of Christianity with the Eternal Begotten Son doctrine, but I would like him to correct me if I'm wrong in so much as I've represented his views on one-self theories and the “is of identification,” and, uh, his views also, uh, on the Church Fathers and how he… he… he openly aims—takes aim at them. Uh, actually, to be honest with you, so I think that's my time.
All right, let's turn it over to Dr. Craig. You've got, uh, two minutes for your first, uh, response.
Among Christian Trinitarians, there are two very broad schools of thought called social Trinitarianism and Latin Trinitarianism. Now, Thomas Aquinas is a representative of Latin Trinitarianism, and Mr. Hijab is quite correct that I reject Aquinas's doctrine of Latin Trinitarianism because I don't think it does justice to the biblical data. As I say, the biblical data teach that there are exactly three persons—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—who are properly called God. And so those of us who are social Trinitarians, uh, take this very seriously and literally: that there are three centers of self-consciousness in God. God is a… an immaterial tri-personal being, and my claim is that this is the… the doctrine that is taught in the New Testament. And as a Christian who believes that, uh, Holy Scripture is the only inspired source and authoritative source for, uh, Christian faith and practice, I believe what the New Testament teaches, uh, about the doctrine of the Trinity. And I am less concerned with conformity to, uh, later ecclesiastical developments of that doctrine. So I'm taking my stand on what I call the biblical doctrine of the Trinity, which I've already stated. Now, I do think that the Islamic doctrine of Tawhid is very relevant here, because this is the doctrine that is opposed to the Trinity, namely that God is absolutely one. And yet this doctrine comes in so many different versions: Does God have physical parts? Does God have metaphysical parts? Are all of God's properties identical to one another? Is God distinct from his properties? Is God's essence the same as his existence? Muslim theologians cannot come to consensus on this doctrine of the unity or Oneness of God. So Muhammad, you've got another 10 seconds. 10 seconds? Did you say… Oh, sorry, sorry. I meant like a, uh, two minutes, 10 seconds. Okay. So, uh, Dr. Craig has said that he's, uh, he represents social Trinitarianism, but he doesn't actually represent all of social Trinitarianism. For example, he… he takes aim, as I've mentioned, at the Church Fathers who represent a type of social Trinitarianism. He states the following: "Given that there are three hypostases in God distinguished according to Gregory in the Trinitarian relations, then there should be three Gods. The most pressing task of contemporary social Trinitarians is to find some more convincing answer to why, on their view, there are not three Gods." So in his understanding, William Lane Craig believes that Gregory of Nissa, who wrote this book called *Not Three Gods*, he believes that this Church Father is a polytheist. This is a… a social Trinitarian doctrine. We'll come to Dr. Craig's understanding of the Trinity as parts of God and his… his… his… his… his… mical understanding. However, the… the fact remains that he doesn't represent social Trinitarianism; he represents his own version of social Trinitarianism, which quite frankly… let's… let's demographically—of 100% Christian population—I would even wage 1% follow what he believes in. So that's the first thing. The second thing is he… he's talking about the Quran. He agrees with the Quran because he… he believes—William Lane Craig believes—he does not believe in the Eternal generation of the Son, which is something in the Nicene Creed. He does not believe in the generation of the Son because that would make the Son generated and caused, and that is staple Islamic reasoning. The Quran says, "Say, He is Allah, one and only Allah, the eternally besought of all, the self-sufficient; He begets not, nor is He begotten." William Lane Craig believes the Islamic standard over and above 1,500 years of Christian belief, because no one took his belief—for 1,500 years of Christianity, no one took his belief that the… the Son was not eternally begotten. And the Quran does say that, because the Quran indicates that being begotten is an… is an inhibition, is a… is something it inhibits and retracts from—detracts from—the fact that God is necessary. God is necessary, God is independent, God is self-sufficient, and William Lane Craig admits this. So he disagrees with Protestant Christianity; he disagrees with Orthodox Eastern Orthodox Christianity; he disagrees with the Catholic, and he agrees with who he calls Muhammad; he agrees with the Quran on this specific issue. So this is the first thing. He has not admitted this yet. Why does William Lane Craig not admit to the audience that his view about the Eternal Begotten Son is commensurate with the Quranic discourse and is incommensurate with Christianity as a whole? He, in fact, attacks the Nicene Creed. He talks about, "Well, Gregory of Nissa is not an authority," but the Nicene Creed is an authority according to Catholics and according to Eastern Orthodox. In fact, they consider it to be dogma. The Nicene Creed itself is that… So he has to now admit to the audience freely and openly, "Yes, you say I believe what the Quran states is more coherent than what Christianity said for 17 centuries." Please say that.
All right, Dr. Craig, turn it back over to you. Another two minutes.
I want to reiterate that what I am defending is the biblical doctrine of the Trinity that is found in the pages of the New Testament itself. So, of course, it's a version of, uh, social Trinitarianism. There are many varieties, and no one takes the writings of Gregory of Nissa to be authoritative for Christian doctrine. It's just one opinion among many, and my critique of Gregory was simply that he didn't do a very good job in, uh, answering the questions about, uh, the three persons in one, uh, being or essence. So, uh, I again am going to be defending a very simple version of the doctrine of the Trinity that then can be elaborated in a number of different directions. For example, you can add to my model the Eternal generation of the Son and the procession of the Spirit. In the forthcoming book on the Trinity you referred to, Cameron, William Hasker does exactly that. Hasker and I see eye to eye on our model of the Trinity, except Hasker adds this additional element of the inter-Trinitarian processions, and that's fine. The reason I don't espouse it is because it's not found in the pages of the New Testament itself. I am basing my doctrine of the Trinity on what the New Testament teaches, which is that there is exactly one God and there are exactly three persons who are properly called God. What I'll do at this point is I'll just go back and forth, and I'll… I'll say something if I need to, but otherwise, feel free to just go ahead and take up your time. Mohamed, is… can hear us now? Yeah, can you hear us? Okay. Yeah, well, feel free… yeah, feel free to go ahead right now.
Okay. Yeah. So Dr. William Lane Craig has not admitted openly to the audience that his view of the denial of the Eternal Begotten Son, which is the second person of the Trinity, is a view that was not held by all of… Christianity—sorry—for… can you hear me? Yeah. Sorry. It's a view that has not been held in all of Christianity for… until the 17th century. The first recorded—to my knowledge—to my knowledge, the first person who denied the Eternal begotten nature of the Son was Racovian in the 17th century. So we're talking here about a fringe opinion of a fringe… of a fringe opinion. But what seems to be interesting is William Lane Craig was attacking the Quran in the beginning, in his… in his first introductory statement. However, he agrees with the Quran because the Quran states that being begotten is an inhibition—is a diminution—it's something it inhibits and retracts from—detracts from—the fact that God is necessary. God is necessary, God is independent, God is self-sufficient, and William Lane Craig admits this. So he disagrees with Protestant Christianity; he disagrees with Orthodox Eastern Orthodox Christianity; he disagrees with the Catholic, and he agrees with who he calls Muhammad; he agrees with the Quran on this specific issue. So this is the first thing. He has not admitted this yet. Why does William Lane Craig not admit to the audience that his view about the Eternal Begotten Son is commensurate with the Quranic discourse and is incommensurate with Christianity as a whole? He, in fact, attacks the Nicene Creed. He talks about, "Well, Gregory of Nissa is not an authority," but the Nicene Creed is an authority according to Catholics and according to Eastern Orthodox. In fact, they consider it to be dogma. The Nicene Creed itself is that… So he has to now admit to the audience freely and openly, "Yes, you say I believe what the Quran states is more coherent than what Christianity said for 17 centuries." Please say that.
So Dr. Craig, when you're ready, feel free to, uh, respond. Um, you've got two minutes.
I… I… I would like to, if we could go… go to discussing the, uh, logical coherence of the Trinity. It feels like we've been discussing, uh, whether or not Dr. Craig's views are heretical or sort of unpopular, um, yes, which is not to say that they're false. I… I'm claiming to be defending the New Testament doctrine of the Trinity. So I'm not denying, uh, Mr. Hijab, the procession of the Son and Spirit. As I said, you can add that to my model if you want to, but it's not affirmed in the New Testament, and the earliest Church Fathers didn't affirm that doctrine. People like Ignatius, Clement, um, and… and others in the, uh, in the post-apostolic age. This doctrine originates in the so-called Logos Christology of the Greek apologists like Athenagoras and Justin Martyr and… and so forth. And I would follow them if that doctrine were to be found in the New Testament, but I think the majority of scholars would say this doctrine is not a New Testament doctrine, and therefore no Christian is obligated to believe it unless he recognizes the conciliar authority of these, uh, later creedal statements that you mentioned. But as a Protestant, I bring even the Creeds before the bar of scripture and weigh them by their conformity with scripture. Now, in terms of agreeing with what the Quran says, of course I agree with lots that the Quran says. I don't maintain that the Quran is 100% false; it has all sorts of truths in it. For example, uh, that first, uh, tenet of the doctrine of the Trinity: There is exactly one God. Uh, Islam is a monotheism, as is Judaism, Christianity. So I agree with lots of things in, uh, Islam, but I do not agree with Tawhid that, uh, God is this undifferentiated unity as opposed to three persons in one being—a… a spiritual, immaterial tri-personal substance.
All right, and Muhammad, when you're ready.
Okay. So this is what Dr… Dr. Craig says. He says, "For although Creeds affirmed the doctrine of the generation of the Son and the procession of the Spirit, it's a relic of Logos Christology which finds virtually no warrant in the biblical text and introduces a subordinationism into the Godhead which anyone who affirms the full deity of Christ ought to find very troubling." So it's very clear here that Dr. Craig has understood what Nicene Christology is, and he's essentially saying, "You've got these Greek philosophers who've corrupted Christianity and introduced a subordination into it," and now this is not something found in the New Testament—the Eternal Begotten nature of the Son. I'm saying, "I agree with you, Dr. Craig; this is what I agree with you on." But the problem is this: The problem is no one in Christianity did agree with you until Hernandez Racovian in the 17th century. So the point we're making is, if the biblical text was so clear for everyone to see, how could it be that for almost 2,000 years nobody could… could detect what you're talking about? And all these Church Fathers, from the ordinary language of the text of the Bible, understood the Eternal Begotten doctrine in a different way. Then the Bible… then is an encrypted text; it's a text that nobody can access for 17 years until William Lane Craig comes or Racovian comes or somebody else comes and tells us what it's meant to be. This is preposterous. This is another problem. You're adding layers of problems to Christianity; you're adding layers of issues and complications for Christianity. Now you were talking about… we're not talking about the coherence of the Trinity. This is at the heart of the coherence of the Trinity, because most Trinitarian models, as you know, has inside of it or embedded into it this idea that the Son is eternally begotten. You consider that to be a subordinationist position. What I'm saying to you is, if it's a subordinationist position, then the Trinity is incoherent on many different grounds. For example, when we talked about Aquinas, I agree with your assessment of Aquinas that it's… if you take the “is of identification,” that the Father is God and the Son is God, therefore the Father is the Son. The logical law of, uh, identification—the law of identification—would be contravened. So I agree with you; this is… is at the heart of the coherence of the Trinity. So you'd have to say, "Well, maybe half of the Christians of the world are believing in an incoherent Trinitarian doctrine." No problem. Me… me and you both agree; we have to acknowledge that not all Christians believe in the model of William Lane Craig; in fact, I think seldomly anyone does. So this is the reason why I've mentioned at this point, but we will go to the heart of Dr. William Lane Craig's model of the Trinity in what will follow, 'cause I do have my arguments against that, and I will present them, uh, to Dr. Craig, and I… I… I'm pretty sure he will not be able to answer them in any coherent fashion. And he has not done any service to Christianity; this is not Christian apologetics; this is Christian capitulation. He's capitulated to the Muslim arguments. We've gone, uh, almost 50 seconds over, so we'll go two minutes, 50 seconds for Dr. Craig and his response.
Okay. Well, I'm not capitulating to anyone, Mr. Hijab. I am defending the doctrine of the Trinity that is taught in the New Testament, and I am under no obligation to defend later doctrines taught in the, uh, 13th century by Thomas Aquinas or others. I did mention the names of certain Church Fathers that held to the New Testament doctrine—Clement of Alexandria, Clement of Rome, uh, Ignatius, for example. So it's simply not true that, um, from the beginning, Christian theologians have affirmed these inter-Trinitarian processions. This arises somewhat later in the Logos Christology of the Greek apologists. To repeat myself, now you have exactly the same sort of doctrinal evolution within Islam. You yourself know that as a Sunni, you disagree with, um, Muslims belonging to other schools with respect to doctrines like Tawhid, or the uncreatedness of the Quran. Is the Quran a created product, or is it something that is co-eternal, uncreated, and necessary alongside God? Uh, these are doctrines that develop later in Islam, uh, and you are free to affirm or reject them, and there's great controversy among Islamic theologians on these doctrines. So the fact that, uh, Christians take a wide variety of views on the Trinity is unremarkable; it's insignificant so long as the doctrine of the Trinity that is found in the pages of the New Testament is coherent and is taught there. And I now await your demonstration that this is an incoherent doctrine.
All right, Muhammad, when you're ready.
Yeah. So the difference between Muslims and Christians in this regard is that creedally and theologically, Muslims have disagreed on the Oneness of God, meaning how is God the way he is, but Muslims have never disagreed on the *huwiyya* of God—who is God in… in the first place. How do we understand who God is? Is God one, three? Is it tritheism? Is it… is it… is it modalism? These kinds of issues have never arisen in Islam. All Muslims—the… the… the… this ones, that ones, all of the… all of them agree that there's one God. So this is a… a failure. If you want to compare the idea that, you know, the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit, and the… the Holy Spirit was only granted co-equal, co-eternal status in that full sense somewhere in the fourth century. There's no equivalent in Islam; I don't even think there's much equivalent in many other religions. This is the first point. Now I'm… you… you… you said you awaited my… you're awaiting my demonstration. You don't need to await my demonstration. You have people like Scott Williams who have already demonstrated this: that you… you believe that there are three wills of the Trinity; you believe that the Father has a will which is distinct from the Son, and you believe that the Son has a will which is distinct from the Holy Spirit, and they all have wills that are distinct from each other. My question to you is just one for now: How do you establish—and this is the question of Scott Williams in the… in the peer-reviewed academic paper—how do you establish necessary agreement such that those three persons of the Trinity can never disagree? This is my first question to… to get the ball rolling.
Okay. You've just said it's perfectly reasonable, but you've offered absolutely zero justification why. So here's my question: If it's necessary agreement, that is to say—and you know this; you've written books on the cosmological arguments; you know the modal distinctions—okay, if it's necessary agreement, that means it's impossible for them not to disagree. And for you to say it's impossible… well, as you know, there's logical impossibility and there's metaphysical impossibility. My question to you is, how do you establish the impossibility of disagreement? This is the question of Scott Williams; it's not just my question; it's the question that you've been posed in academic papers. Richard Swinburne—trying to answer this question… Swinburne—sorry, I forgot his first name now—but Swinburne tried to answer this question, and he said that it's got to do with the relationships between the Father and the Son, yes, and that the Father has a love relationship with the Son and obedience relationship. These are the lengths that theologians of the… the highest eminence and of the top caliber in Christianity have to… to reach.
To try and explain, through the three-will model, which is a heresy—once again, because you've adopted many heretical positions—it's a heresy. Let's be honest and say this: the three-will model. That you now have to explain why there is necessary agreement. So you have yet to demonstrate to the public how it is impossible for them to disagree. This is my question.
Okay, so the, the said Divine Perfection—this is the key term that you've used—but in other context you've, in other context you've accepted that God, there has to be a level of arbitrariness in God's decision-making; otherwise, it would lead to necessitarianism and modal collapse. So if it was one Divine Perfection that was, that exists within each of the wills, that would mean to say that all of them really don't have a choice in the matter, in which case God doesn't have will. That's the first argument. The second argument is the following: you've made this comparison with God with Cerberus, the, the, the three-headed dog. And this is—I mean, if you, if you can see on the camera, this is exactly what you've written in your article—that God is like a three-headed dog. You got one, two, three, okay. And just as it's one body and three heads, you know, the Trinity is the same thing; it's one body and three different heads. That's what you've said.
Now my, my question to you is as follows: if you have Siamese twins—and this you've been asked this once again before by Snider on reviewed journals—if you have a conjoint twin, what person, person A, person B, would you consider that to be one person, or would you consider that to be two people? This is my question.
All right. Um, I certainly think that God has contingent properties and that what God wills, he wills contingently, uh, in many cases. For example, the will to create the world is a free decision by God, which is freely willed. So I'm not maintaining at all that everything about God is necessary and that he does nothing contingently. My claim is simply that, given this perichoretic interpenetration of the persons of the Trinity, they always act, uh, in harmony with one another. Now the example I used of Cerberus, uh, Mr. Hijab, I think has been greatly misunderstood. That is not intended to be an analogy to the Trinity. That was meant to be a springboard for thinking about what it means to be three persons in one being. And so I, uh, thought of this mythical dog in the, uh, labors of Hercules, guarding the gates of Hades, which has, uh, three heads. So presumably three brains, so three states of consciousness of what it's like to be a dog. And then based on that, I endowed them with self-consciousness and personhood. And, uh, my position would be that you have, uh, in that case three persons in one being, and it would be similar with the Siamese twins or triplets. You have three brains, three centers of self-consciousness, and so three persons. Now in the case of God, he doesn't have a physical body. So what I argue there is that God is an immaterial spiritual substance or Soul who is so richly endowed with cognitive faculties that he has three sets of cognitive faculties, each sufficient for personhood, and therefore there are in God three centers of self-consciousness. And that would be a model of what it is to talk of God as an immaterial tri-personal being.
You, you say that, yeah, you, you say, you say that this is not an analogy, but that's exactly what you write in your article. You say, "Perhaps we can get, we can get a start at this question by means of an analogy," Mr. Hijab. That's a springboard to thinking about—Dr. Let's, let's, let's let Muhammad finish his, his thought. I understand, but you, you, you, you denied in your, you denied in your response there that this was an analogy, and you've written in your written work that this is, "Perhaps we can get, uh, can get a start at this question by means of an analogy," and then you mention Cerberus as the, the analogy. So the point is this: I know it's difficult, I know it's very embarrassing, I'm sorry to say, I mean, comparing God to a dog. Anyway, I mean, we wouldn't compare a prophet to a God, but let's just for the sake of argument, we're analogizing God with the, with the dog. Now I asked you a question, which is that if you have a conjoined twin, Siamese twins, one of them commits murder, we're going to put both of them in prison. One of them does something. This dog here can lick, this dog here can bite, this dog here—these are three different centers of consciousness. Why are we considering this to be one dog? Only because it has overlapping bodies. This is a question that was posed to you in the academic literature. We've heard your response. I have to say it's a very insufficient and unsatisfactory response, absolutely unsatisfactory. This is your model of the Trinity. I think this could be debunked by children, with all due respect. This is your model of the Trinity.
Now going to the part of, you have to now maintain that God is made out of parts, and you've said this, you've made clearly, you have the view that God is part, uh, uh, they are parts of God. No problem. My question to you is this: who created the universe? Did the Father create the universe? Did the Son create the universe? Or did the Holy Spirit create the universe? Who is responsible for the creation of the universe? Now on your model, you cannot actually say that the Father created the universe in a full sense. If you do say that, then you can't say that the Son created the universe in a full sense. And if you say that, you can't say the Holy Spirit, because you can't have two subjects operating on one object and creating it and being responsible for it in a full sense. I can't go to the gym and pump 100 kgs by myself as well as my friend over here, or William Lane Craig doing the same thing. It could be shared, but then if it's shared, then you've got one-third God. So can you clarify: do you believe that the Father is one-third responsible for the creation of the universe? Or do you believe in the logical contradiction that you have two, two subjects that are fully responsible for the creation of the universe? Which one you believe? I gave you an extra 20 seconds for the, uh, interruption, but Dr. Craig, it's now your turn, two minutes.
Causal overdetermination is not incoherent, Mr. Hijab. Imagine a candle being lit by two simultaneous matches. Each of which is sufficient to, um, illuminate the candle. In the case of the Trinity, the classical Christian doctrine is, in Latin, *opera ad extra sunt indivisa*: that the operations of the Trinity toward the external, uh, world are undivided and therefore undertaken by all three persons at once. Now I don't agree with that doctrine in every case. I, I think that leads to real problems, but I think that is very plausible with respect to the doctrine of creation—that the three persons act, uh, in concert with each other to create the world. Um, so they're all responsible for the creation, and in the New Testament creation is ascribed both to the Father, uh, and to the Son. If they're responsible, they can only be responsible either in a partial sense or in a full sense. They can't be responsible both in a part, in, in a partial sense and a full sense. You said co-, uh, causal overdetermination. I'm sorry to say, you have not answered the question. The question is: can you have two subjects that are fully, fully responsible, one to a degree of 100%, fully responsible for the creation of one thing in its entirety? For example, can you have two mothers that are fully responsible, fully responsible for the production of one child, fully responsible? I think even the transgender movement would raise their eyebrow to this. The LGBT, they will say, "No, Dr. Craig has lost it." To say no one could say this: can there be two authors that are fully responsible for the writing of one book? Can there—I mean, once again, when you, when you talk about, you don't want to say this because I know it's, it's heresy, it's a heresy to say that the Father is not the creator of the universe 100%, but that's what you have to say to avoid contradiction. So why don't you say that? Why don't you say that the Father is not the Creator? He is a partial Creator; he is a one-third Creator; he's a 33% Creator. The Father is not fully responsible for the creation of the universe. Is that correct?
I, I don't think you understand causal overdetermination, Mr. Hijab. When two matches light a flame simultaneously, or light a candle, they don't each contribute 50% to the lighting of the candle. They are each 100% sufficient for the effect, but they act concurrently with each other, uh, and so in the act of creation, I see absolutely no problem with saying that there is a concurrence here of the action of the three persons of the Trinity to produce this creative effect.
Okay, so to respond to this very clearly: your candle example with overdetermination, causal overdetermination, it's complete, it's, this analogous to what we are talking about. Why? If you have two candles that come together to light a flame, you will have a bigger flame. You see, it's there sufficient condition, yeah, all there sufficient. You've written this in your book on logic. You have a fantastic book, and I recommend it to the people, for children, on logic, the difference between necessary and sufficient conditions. What is required for the lighting of a candle? What is a necessary condition for the lighting of a candle is not achieved with the lighting of two candles. What is required for the creation of the universe is not achieved with the creation w- with two creators creating the same universe. So I'm saying it's this analogous because we're talking about the flame, and the flame here is a product of the two lights that you've talked about, which is a bigger flame. I'm saying now, now each atom, each, uh, quark, each whatever it is in the universe, proton, electron, how is it conceivable, possible, intelligible that there can be two subjects that are fully responsible for each of those things to a degree of 100%? How is it possible that I can go to the gym and pump 100 kilos and somebody else can pump the same 100 kilos? How is it possible that a mother can give birth to a child to a degree of 100%, and that another, and that another mother is responsible for the same, to the same degree, for the production of the same child? This is, these analogies are the ones that—Analogist—not to cut you off, um, but we couldn't hear you the last, uh, 10 seconds or so. Can you just repeat your last point?
I, I, I, I, I said the analogies which are analogist are, for example, how is it possible, I asked for there to be a mother who gives birth to a child and that she is responsible for that production 100%, and there to be another mother for 100% responsibility. Why don't you admit that on your model you have to say the Father is not fully, holy, completely responsible for the creation of the universe? He has to only be partially responsible. Why can't you admit that?
I, I don't admit it because your analogies are inept, like two women giving birth to the same child. In a case like that, you're absolutely right, you cannot have overlapping, uh, causes or causal overdetermination, but that doesn't imply that there are not other cases, such as the illustration I use to show that there can be cases of causal overdetermination where three agents work together to bring about a single effect. Now every physical illustration is going to involve points of disanalogy when you're talking about spiritual entities. So the fact that maybe the flame would be bigger if it's lit by two matches instead of one match, that's just irrelevant to the question of whether or not you can have, uh, two causes, uh, concurrently acting to produce a single effect. So I'm, I'm just not persuaded at all by your objection. It's, it's, it's not, it's—with the greatest of respect—but it's not for me to be, I mean, it's not for you to be persuaded. With what I'm saying is really for us to be persuaded of what you're saying, because frankly, even Christian co-religionists of yours don't, are not accepting what you're saying. Scott Williams, who wrote a peer-reviewed paper, and he was, he was asking the fundamental question about necessary agreement, and he gave an example, which maybe we can move to because I don't agree with anything you've just said there. I mean, you talked about the flame, the, the two, the two matches coming to, to create a bigger flame, but that is clearly a different product. The two matches are different to the flame. There is not a single analogy that you can bring which match the analogies that I've brought forward, which, which show the fundamental point, which, by the way, many of the Islamic, uh, thinkers and like Ibn Rushd and others spoke about this at length, which is that you cannot have two subjects that are responsible fully for the same thing to a degree of 100%. But the public will judge, the public will judge what, who is right and who is wrong on this, and maybe even your Christian brethren will judge, but at this point you have not convinced anybody. The second point that you mentioned—yes, he's got another minute—oh, oh, sorry, yes.
So the point, my question is this: now unnecessary agreement. Yes, if the Father wanted to do something, let's say, for example, he wanted to, to take life away from William Lane Craig, and the Son wanted to keep life in William Lane Craig, is it possible that that can both happen at the same time? No, it cannot happen. Is it possible that both of them won't happen? No, because that will contradict the law of excluded middle. The first one contradicts the law of non-contradiction; the second one contradicts the law of excluded middle. Is it possible that William Lane Craig can have life in his body without any reason? No, because that contradicts the PSR, the principle of sufficient reason. Now the question is this: is the Father capable of supervening on the will of the Son? Is the Son capable of supervening on the will of the Father? Is the Father capable of creating the universe all by himself, all right, that's time, without any involvement from the Son?
Oh, those are two different questions. Certainly the Father would be capable of creating the universe by himself if he wanted to, and the Son wanted to. What I'm arguing simply is that there is no disagreement among the three persons of the Trinity, nor is there any reason to think that this is impossible or incoherent. And in fact, the position that I'm articulating here is the standard Christian position: *opera ad extra sunt indivisa*—the operations of the Trinity toward the external world are undivided, uh, it's only the *opera ad intra*, the intratrinitarian relations that are traditionally differentiated, uh, from each other. So the position I'm taking, whether it's right or wrong, is the mainstream, uh, Christian view. It's not a peculiarity of William Lane Craig's theology.
No, no, no, the position that you—sorry, sorry—the position that you take on partialism is absolutely not the mainstream view. I mean, it's seen as a heresy almost across the board. It's seen as a heresy across the board with Protestants and Catholics and Eastern Orthodox to say that the, the persons are parts of God in the way that you've, you've said. But put that to the side, no problem. My, my point is this: let's go back to the, the thing that you've said. You said it's, it's possible for the, the Father is capable of creating the universe by himself. Okay, let's, let's take that for a second. If the Father is capable of creating the universe by himself, but he does not create it by himself, but according to you creates it in concert with the Son and the Holy Spirit—these are your words, not mine—in concert. These are the words you used. Yes, that the Father is capable, but no, he does it in concert with the will of the, the, the Holy Spirit, the Son and the Holy Spirit. That means to say that the, the addition of the Son and the Holy Spirit have had an inhibiting impact on the will of the Father. That means to say that the Father is being inhibited by the Son, and by the way, just to be clear, this is not my arguments, this is exactly the argument of the Quran in chapter 23, verse number 91: that Allah has not taken a son, nor does he have any creator with him. If that was the case, they would have taken each part of what they have created and they would have tried to outstrip one another in power. The reason why you are not able to answer this question is because it comes from the highest Source; we believe it comes from God. This argument is a Godly argument, and this is why necessary agreement on your model cannot, there is no real way to prove it. You ask what is incoherent about your model? What is incoherent about your model is that when you look at it, and you look at each person of the Trinity, and you look at the Father, what he's capable of doing by himself versus what he's capable of doing with the Son and the Holy Spirit, you realize that that he's capable of doing less because of the Son and the Holy Spirit. And if he's capable of doing less because of the Son and the Holy Spirit, that means to say that the Son and the Holy Spirit are having an inhibiting impact, which is, is not all-powerful, then the Father has been stripped from his omnipotence because of the Son and the Holy Spirit. There's no possible way that you can have a part of God which is both omnipotent in the full sense and in the partial sense at the same time, because a part is by definition smaller than the whole. Wouldn't you agree with that, that the part is not the whole?
Certainly, yes, but I, I, I simply don't understand the objection that you are pressing here. I, I don't see how the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit willing together to produce the same effect is any imposition upon the Father's will or derides in any way from his omnipotence. I, I think that your argument is just a non sequitur. And as far as partialism is concerned, I think our audience, uh, needs to have this defined. I suggested that we could think of the persons as parts of the Trinity in the sense that the whole Godhead is not just one person. Now you yourself hold to a sort of doctrine of God that involves partialism, if I'm not mistaken, because you believe that God has a diversity of attributes, like omnipotence, uh, omnipresence, um, goodness, eternity, and that God is not identical to his properties, neither are the properties identical to one another, but that they are, uh, distinct. And so this is the same sort of, um, position that I've suggested that a Trinitarian could take if he wants to.
When Craig—whether I believe in the moon is made of cheese or whether I believe that I can fly, it doesn't change the Trinity; it won't make it incoherent. Because right now we're talking about whether the Trinity is coherent, and you're talking about what I believe. You're talking about fallacies and nonse—this is a *tu quoque* fallacy. If, if, if anything, let's look at what you said, because you talk about the part of God, 'cause you do like to do this, you like to make analogies with animals, Godly analogies with animals. You said a cat's DNA or skeleton is feline, even if neither a cat nor is just—sorry—even if neither is a cat nor is this sort of downgraded or attenuated felinity, a cat skeleton is fully and ambiguously feline. So what you're doing is essentially saying that the persons of the Trinity are to God like a skeleton of a cat is like to a cat. And that is different from what anything, any Muslim has ever said in the history of Islam. Not, you will not find a quote like this from a single Muslim scholar, even the most extreme of them or the most heretical from a mainstream demographic perspective. But the, the point I'm making to you is this: if it is the case that God or the Father is a part of God, if the Son is a part of God, and if the Holy Spirit is a part of God, how can a part of an entity take responsibility for the actions of the whole entity? The creation of the universe is one act. How can a part of an entity take full responsibility for the creation of an entire act? Can you please answer that question?
Well, real quick, uh, we are coming at the end of our time together today, so we will need to transition at this point to closing statements.
Okay, okay, no problem. I think the point made—thank you. So with that, Dr. Craig, whenever you're ready.
Sure. I, I want to close by addressing, uh, personally our Muslim listeners today. I imagine that most of you have probably been raised in Muslim homes and perhaps even in a Muslim culture, and I think you would agree that being raised in a certain way doesn't provide a good reason for thinking that that religion is true. If a Christian were to say that, "I believe Christianity is true because that's how I was raised," you would think that was a pretty weak argument. In exactly the same way, I think many Muslims today are beginning to ask themselves, "How do I really know that Islam is true?" Um, and as a result, many Muslims are succumbing to the temptations of the new atheism and to agnosticism. Now I think that's wholly unnecessary and unwarranted. I think there are good arguments for the existence of God, and so I believe that we should be theists. But the question of where you go beyond that, to what sort of theism, Islamic or Christian theism, I think is going to depend upon the person of Jesus of Nazareth. Who was Jesus of Nazareth? He was more, I believe, than just a mere prophet of God. He claimed to be the long-awaited Messiah, the Son of God in a unique sense, and the Divine-human Son of Man. And he was crucified for these allegedly blasphemous claims. But I believe that there is good historical evidence that God raised Jesus from the dead, and by doing that he vindicated, in a public and unequivocal sense, the truth of those allegedly blasphemous claims for which he was crucified. And for that reason, I am a convinced and ardent Christian theist. And so I would simply want to invite you to begin to look at the person of Jesus and the evidence, uh, for him and his resurrection. We have thousands of resources available free of charge on our website, reasonablefaith.org, and I would invite you to view or to read those, um, resources and to ask yourself, "Could this really be true? Um, could the Christian God actually be the true God?" And I think if you'll do that, um, it could change your life in the same way that it changed mine.
All right, and Muhammad, when you're ready.
I did want to just mention really quickly that I'm so sorry we haven't been able to read any super chats. We just haven't had time today. We wanted to devote most of it to the dialogue between Dr. Craig and Muhammad. So, uh, Muhammad, whenever you're ready.
The public will realize that Dr. William Lane Craig, despite completing two PhDs and, in my opinion, being the foremost and the most prolific and most influential, most significant Christian debater of the last century, has retreated from the entire discussion altogether. Instead of talking about the Trinity and summarizing his arguments, which he knows are feeble and that the Christian population doesn't even agree with themselves, he started talking about the resurrection and crucifixion of Jesus Christ, and he's gone into full preacher mode instead of going into philosophical mode and rational mode, which he made his career on. That's the first thing. Look, I mean, at the end of the day, the public will see, and the public will make their decision today based on what we have said, because what we have done is we've dismantled Thomas Aquinas together, me and Dr. William Lane Craig. Yes, Dr. William Lane Craig is right that the ident—if you take an identity view of God, such that the Father is, with the identity is God, and the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God, in that sense, then that means that the Father is the Son, because that contravenes the law of identity to say that it's not the case. And if you take the social Trinitarian view of Gregory of Nyssa and these other people, which many of the Eastern Orthodox believe—that's already 60 or 70% of Christianity—then according to him, it is polytheism. So me and Dr. Craig have worked together to dismantle the majority of the Christian faith.
Then, now, we talked about his view, which is the partial view, really and truly. And we've seen how it doesn't achieve necessary agreement. We've achieved, we've seen through the Quranic arguments how the, that the wills cannot, they don't always have to, uh, there's not an impossibility for them to conflict.
And what I will say is this: he talks about Reasonable Faith. I've been following Reasonable Faith, and that they've done really good work with the atheist. But the Saans Institute, which also has, which I work for, co- has a website, which is sapiensinstitute.org, has a lot of what you, what he talks about Christianity for Islam.
So if you're a Christian listening to this and you realize now that the Trinity is false, it's defunct, it's a rationally incoherent Doctrine, and you want the pure monotheism, the one God to worship without this complication, this father, son, Holy Spirit, Incarnation, this that the other, then it's Islam that you have to start looking into, with with sincerity. If you are sincere, if you are sincere, the whole problem is solved. The whole problem is solved. sapiensinstitute.org.
And if you want evidences for the rationality and the truthful Islam, then muhammadhijab.com has a an article of 10 of the evidences of why Islam is true. So the point I'm making to you is that the, the argument has been failed miserably by Dr. Craig. He has not been able to achieve even to the, even to the pleasure or the satisfaction of his co-religionists a standard of evidence that is acceptable, uh, for a rational mind.
All right, thank you. Do you mind if we, if I ask you guys one, one last question, Dr. Craig? I know you've, uh, you've got a short time limit here, but can I ask one question that might help to, to bring us back together? So I sent you guys these questions in advance, but I want to know what is one thing that you like about the other person's views?
I kind of encourage some more in, I like his monotheism. We both agree that there is exactly one God. Uh, moreover, I like his denial of divine simplicity. Uh, I don't agree with those who say that God, um, is not, uh, complex in his being. Uh, Mr. Hijab's doctrine of Tawhid, which we really didn't hear very much about tonight, um, is not a doctrine of divine Simplicity, which says that God's properties are all identical, that God is identical to his Properties, or that his Essence is existence and so on. That, uh, we very much concur, and I appreciate, um, that positive feature of his view.
Muhammad, what about you? I like Dr. William Lane Craig as a person. I think he's done a fantastic job, and I, and I've read almost every single book that he's written, uh, it's maybe to his surprise, um, but what I will say is, uh, this, I mean, what I do like about his views is his bravery in denying the begotten, the Eternal begotten nature of the second person. Yes, on the one hand, he's rejected all of Christianity, Orthodox Christianity with a with a small case o, he's rejected it, but it takes bravery to do so. I have to say, intellectual and academic bravery to do so. And I particularly like it because I agree with it.
How can you believe that there is a co-equal, co-eternal son who has now been generated and caused by the father? This is a contradiction and it's rationally implausible in my opinion, and it's something we are taught as children, as 5-year-olds and 6-year-olds. Say, is Allah one and only Allah, the self-sufficient? He begets not, he begets not, nor is he begotten, and there's nothing like him. And this is the simple doctrine of what it means, the Islamic standard of believing and worshiping one God, that if someone believes in, they will be saved. They will be saved.
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