conversation with a muslim

[Mateo el Feo]

Hi hopeful1,

This is a whole lot of late-night ramblings. I hope you don't mind...

I've had a few discussions with Muslims who were evangelical about their faith. Muslims see the West as a spiritual vacuum that they can fill.

Anyway, this is a book I would recommend: [url="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0965922855/qid=1098931815/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/102-4660511-1640900?v=glance&s=books"]Inside Islam: A Guide for Catholics[/url]

First bit of advice, "Know thy self. Know thy enemy" (Sun Tzu). They know more about us than we know about them.

Based on my own personal religious dialogues, I've put together a few common arguments that were part of the Muslim evangelist's game plan. I've added my own answers/comments. I kinda got burnt out toward the end.

[b]1) [/b]Muslims talk about the corruption of the Old and New Testaments, citing the fact that there is more than one translation as "proof" that it's not the Word of God. They especially don't like St. Paul and St. John, because the divinity of Jesus Christ is clearest in their writings. They also claim that early heretics were persecuted and surpressed by Christianity, a hint of the "hidden pre-Quranic Islam" theory.

[b]Corruption of the Bible.[/b] To begin with, the Catholic Church does teach that there are corrupt versions of the Holy Bible, but that there are also approved translations which preserve the Word of God. We have the Word of God, transmitted to a variety of prophets, over the course of hundreds of years. It has stood the scrutiny of endless numbers of scholars looking at manuscripts that are both diverse in language and geography.

I think that the preservation of the Holy Bible (particularly the New Testament) is really a miracle, given the fact that Christianity lived under persecution for the first few centuries of its existance.

In contrast, the Quran began in the context of a growing despotic power. It began by being transmitted orally (from Muhammed to his followers, being memorized). Memorizing the books, BTW, wasn't a novel practice in those days; Christian scribes (and just about everyone else's scribes) did the same thing.

Well, "corruption" set in. The oral versions started having differences. Naturally, so did the various versions of the written Quran. Some variation has to do with the arabic language:

a) Short vowels (most look like accents) weren't even written. Later (I don't know when), an "official" version with vowels were added.

b) Diacritical marks (dots) apparently didn't exist in written Arabic at the time of the first Quranic manuscripts. This is surprising to me, because the consonants are varied with these marks. For example: n, t, th, b, and y would look the same! This was added during the reign of the fifth successor to Muhammed.

Other variations were addressed by Uthman, the third successor to Muhammed, around 15 years after his death. Uthman requested copies of the Quran from all the Muslim world. He then created his own composite, and burned all the previous versions.

According to Muslim apologists, all this variation is just because of differences in regional language...theorhetically, not a big deal. If this is true, though, why was this controversial enough that at least one scholar was recorded as being publically flogged for not accepting the Uthman version. Why burn the previous text if it's "just" variations in local writing forms?

With the strength of the state behind Islam, it's not surpising that Uthman could enforce his version and burn all the others.

Here's a little more at "Answering Islam's" website:
[url="http://answering-islam.org.uk/Green/uthman.htm"]http://answering-islam.org.uk/Green/uthman.htm[/url]
[url="http://answering-islam.org.uk/Green/seven.htm"]http://answering-islam.org.uk/Green/seven.htm[/url]

[b]St. John the Evangelist[/b] (I'll skip St. Paul). It's important to note that his gospel is clearest in showing both the divinity and the humanity of Jesus Christ. There is an important reason for this: it underlines the truth of His Divinity to those who deny that He was God, and it underlines His humanity to those who would deny that He was human. Christians have seen heresies on both sides.

[b]Heretic Persecution[/b]. I think that the early Church didn't really have the means to persecute those who held false beliefs. They were too bust trying to avoid being eaten by lions.

[b]The "true Jesus."[/b] I have been waiting to find some pre-Quranic writing that would support the description of Jesus in the Quran. Maybe Arian works? Anyway, I haven't found anything yet...

This is a biggie: the Quran places its credibility on the line when it makes its version of Jesus at odds with what a diverse set of historical accounts record about Jesus. But then again, the Mormons claim that Jesus went to America and converted entire Indian nations...that later disappeared... To me, this kind of thing looks like a conspiracy theory gone bad.

[b]2) [/b]Muslims claim that there was no unity in the early Church.

As a point of fact, there were diverse heresies in the beginning of the Church, and there were false writings that attempted to hijack the person of Jesus Christ and turn Him into someone that He was not.

[b]Unity in the Church[/b]: Even in the New Testament, controversies among believers arise. The young, visible Church developed ways to deal with these controversies. In response to the geographic, linguistic, and cultural diversity of the Church, the Church's bishops and priests worked to protect the faithful from those who introduced false teachings.

At the very least, Muslims have to admit that Islam had precisely the same problem of fragmentation. The only difference was that they had the state (a sword) to resolve all disputes. The early Church had the Holy Spirit.

[b]3) [/b]Muslims claim that the Trinity is not "logical," and that Islam is fully logical. In fact, they really think that Christians are Tritheists (believers in three gods). The marketing campaign here is, "Islam has no mysteries."

I've talked with some who like to bring up Ockham's razor (ironically, Ockham believed in the Trinity--he was a Catholic monk).

Basically, Ockham simply believed that some truths cannot be shown through human reason. Ockham--using the principle with his namesake--believed that the Trinity could only be understood by faith, and not by human reason alone.

But, Ockham also believed that other Truths could not be known through reason. For example, ask a Muslim if one could "prove" the immortality of a soul. It's a mystery of the Catholic faith that we possess a soul that will live into eternity. To my knowledge, Muslims believe that the soul lives past the end of a person's life on earth. I do not understand through reason alone; but through faith.

Here's more on the Trinity:

[url="http://www.answeringislam.org/Trinity/index.html"]http://www.answeringislam.org/Trinity/index.html[/url]

I believe that it was St. Thomas Aquinas who said that while we should not try to "prove" the Trinity through reason alone, it is important that the absence of a "proof" does not equate something being contrary to reason.

[b]4) [/b]Muslims attack the divinity of Jesus Christ. They'll say that Jesus never called Himself God. They also complain that God could not "need" anything (like breathing, food, water, etc), because He is omnipotent.

In fact, in the Quran, "Isa" (Jesus) is confronted by Allah here (I'm going to add bold):
[quote]"5.116":    And when Allah will say:  [b]O Isa son of Marium! did you say to men, Take me and my mother for two gods besides Allah he will say: Glory be to Thee, it did not befit me that I should say what I had no right to (say); [/b]if I had said it, Thou wouldst indeed have known it; Thou knowest what is in my mind, and I do not know what is in Thy mind, surely Thou art the great Knower of the unseen things.

"5.117":    I did not say to them aught save what Thou didst enjoin me with: That serve Allah, my Lord and your Lord, and I was a witness of them so long as I was among them, but when Thou didst cause me to die, Thou wert the watcher over them, and Thou art witness of all things.[/quote]

Here's an interesting Gospel account:[url="http://www.usccb.org/nab/bible/john/john20.htm#v27"]John 20:27-31[/url]:
[quote]Then he [Jesus] said to Thomas, "Put your finger here and see my hands, and bring your hand and put it into my side, and do not be unbelieving, but believe."
Thomas answered and said to him, "My Lord and my God!"
Jesus said to him, "Have you come to believe because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and have believed."  Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of (his) disciples that are not written in this book.  But these are written that you may (come to) believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through this belief you may have life in his name. [/quote]

Of course, this is one example of why Muslims can't accept the Gospel accounts.

Regarding his "need" (for example the statement "I thirst" in [url="http://www.usccb.org/nab/bible/john/john19.htm#v28"]John 19:28[/url]), I think the basic idea here is that Jesus Christ truly assumed a human nature, and sanctified it in the act. As a believer, this does not diminish His Divinity any more than human free will diminishes God's omnipotence. But, that's just my opinion.

Here's a good link on the question "Who is Jesus?":
[url="http://www.answeringislam.org/Who/index.html"]http://www.answeringislam.org/Who/index.html[/url]

[b]5) [/b]Muslims claim that Jesus didn't die on the Cross.

I actually haven't figured out whether they think that Judas or someone else was killed, or that Jesus was snapped up by God before the crucifixion, or some variant story. I don't know if the variety of stories is caused by the voices of "unorthodox" Muslims or if this is within mainstream Islam.

[b]6) [/b]Muslims attack the disunity of Christianity as proof that it is false.

The Holy Bible warns of these divisions; Jesus knew that they were coming. Obviously, the Catholic faith laments this disunity, because the Church desires Christians to be united.

I think it's safe to say that Muslims still persecute other Muslims for differences in belief (i.e. in contrast to ethnic or political reasons). There are also Muslims who declare eachother to be heretics. Also, there are some groups of "Muslims" who are so unorthodox in their beliefs that they are declared (by some authority or another) as non-Muslims. For example: Nation of Islam and the Druze are viewed as outside of orthodox Islam.

Once again, at best, Islam is in the same boat as Christianity.

These are just some random thoughts. There's a lot of information out there and topics on Christian/Muslim points of debate.

God bless!

PS: In my own experiences, my person-to-person interactions with Muslims have been quite positive. Unfortunately, I've encountered some "impassioned" online muslim evangelists. With the impersonal nature of the 'net, it's natural that the gloves come off a little faster in cyberspace. But the Muslim apologists have provided me a new set of challenges to the faith that is entirely different from Protestants.