Ali Dawah - WHO IS GOD？ - THEOLOGIAN VS MUSLIM

00:00:00.000 You're a monotheist and you're a Unitarian. I'm a monotheist and I'm a Trinitarian.

00:00:05.180 So you're a monotheist and a Unitarian because you believe there's one person who is God

00:00:09.520 and there is only one person who is Divine. I'm monotheist because I believe there's one

00:00:15.740 person who's God, but I'm Trinitarian because I believe, yeah, there are three persons who

00:00:20.020 are Divine. Divine. The all-knowing. Yeah? The all-powerful. The all-seeing. The all-wise.

00:00:26.560 Why does he require to share his power with other entities? The question number one is

00:00:34.200 why would God require that?

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00:00:47.880 website is in the description link below. You can also use the discount code SALAM10 for

00:00:52.960 10 percent of their products. So, Assalamualaikum warahmatullahi barakatuh, brothers and

00:00:58.720 sisters. Welcome to Salam Corner. We're starting again. We're going to try, inshallah. Like I said

00:01:04.300 before, we have Joshua today. Joshua had a discussion with brother Mansour Hashim, Mohammed Hijab. I've

00:01:10.060 spoken to him a long, long time ago. Last year, I think we started as well. Like I said today,

00:01:14.700 I want to, I want to, I want to learn from him and his belief system because there is some, not tweaks, but

00:01:22.700 maybe what you may tell me and educate me, your belief in Trinity. How is it different to the common

00:01:29.820 belief? And if you can just elaborate on that. Okay, so yeah. So my, my, um, my position is that there are

00:01:36.380 three persons in the Trinity. Each of them are divine. Father's divine, Son and the Spirit are each divine.

00:01:41.660 And because they are each divine, we can use the term God in a certain sense, in a predicative sense.

00:01:48.980 So we're using it as a predicate for that being. So the Father is God because he has a divine property.

00:01:54.880 The Son is God because he has a divine property and divine nature. And the Holy Spirit is God because

00:01:59.160 he has a divine property and divine nature. However, we can use the term God also in another sense,

00:02:03.860 which is called the nominal sense. That basically means using it as a name for an entity, using as a name

00:02:10.980 for a thing. So God is now is used solely as a name for the father. So if we go to scripture and it

00:02:18.200 says there is only, only one, only one true God. Okay. Or it says, um, Jesus says, I'm going to my

00:02:25.140 father and to your father, my God, or my God. Or Paul says, um, there is one God, the father and one

00:02:31.200 Lord Jesus Christ. What Paul is saying when we, Paul and Jesus are saying is that yes, there is one God,

00:02:36.820 the father, and he's a soul God because he has the name God. And that name is applicable to him.

00:02:42.980 And that name is not applicable to the son. Neither is it applicable to the spirit. However,

00:02:47.380 the father, son, and the spirit are each God. Like I said at the beginning in a predicative sense,

00:02:51.940 because they each have the divine property. They are each all powerful, all knowing,

00:02:56.360 all loving, and so forth. And so what I'm saying to you, where the differences between me and maybe

00:03:01.140 the common view is the idea when we say who is, what's the one God, a lot of the common view would

00:03:07.100 be the one God is the Trinity. And I think I saw that also in, I think a video in the past,

00:03:11.240 uh, the diagram one where the one God was equal to the Trinity. I would say, no, the one God is equal

00:03:16.420 to the father. The one God is equal to one of the persons in the Trinity. So why we are monotheist is

00:03:22.240 because we believe in one person who is one God, the father. However, we are Trinitarians because we

00:03:28.440 believe in three persons who are each divine. So they're each divine, but one of them is God in

00:03:34.020 a nominal sense as a name who is the father. And that's why we are monotheist. Sorry, if it might

00:03:38.840 get confusing, if you want to break down. No, no, no, it didn't actually. I'm actually surprised

00:03:42.340 myself. I understood it very well. Okay, let me get this right. So you're saying when it comes to the

00:03:46.100 title, when, when it says I'm going to my God, that title is referred to the father. However, in actual

00:03:55.440 sense, they all have some kind of divinity. We have divinity in that. So when we're, when we see in

00:03:59.940 other parts of the Bible where it says in Acts five, the Holy Spirit's God, or it says in Titus

00:04:04.580 two 13, that Jesus is a God and savior. It's using that word God, not in the same way as a name.

00:04:10.960 Yeah. As the father, it's not using as a name. It's using as a predicate saying they are, it's this

00:04:16.500 being the Holy Spirit and the, and Jesus Christ and Titus two is a divine person. He has the divine

00:04:22.120 properties. So it's using, so God can be used in different ways. That's what I'm trying to say.

00:04:26.500 Yeah. That's interesting. Okay. So now what I want to delve into is that firstly, okay. Thank you

00:04:33.240 very much for educating me on that because it's very important that we understand where you're

00:04:36.880 coming from. Yes. Because sometimes what we do is dawah. We do dawah to our judgment. Oh, did you get

00:04:41.920 that? Some people do that with us. Yeah. They come and talk to us because they have a judgment

00:04:44.620 about Islam and we're like, look, that's not what we're talking about. We don't believe that. So it's good

00:04:49.400 that you've educated me and I've learned from that and I thank you for that Joshua. Um, what

00:04:53.280 I wanted to say was the following. When you say the father, so the father is the one who's

00:04:59.280 entitled to the title of God, like the name, the name, the name, the name, the name. Yeah.

00:05:04.320 But in essence, the father, the son and the Holy Spirit are divine. Isn't that some kind

00:05:11.680 of a hierarchy? Yes. I agree. Okay. If there is an hierarchy, it reminds me of why Islam came

00:05:19.560 to Arabia. And tell me if I'm wrong. Because the pagan Arabs, they affirmed and acknowledged

00:05:27.000 that Allah is their Lord. So we have in Tawheed, the oneness of God, we have three categories.

00:05:34.320 We have Tawheed, Tawheed al-Rububiya, Tawheed al-Ulahiya and Asma wa Sifat. So what that means

00:05:41.420 is we affirm and acknowledge and single out God in his Lordship. So when we say God is

00:05:48.620 the one who's created, he did not need any other entity to carry that Lordship out. He

00:05:53.460 is the ultimate Lordship. Now, where we differ with you guys, and this is the reason why I

00:05:59.200 wanted to ask about the hierarchy and why Islam came down. Because Islam came for this very specific

00:06:04.200 reason that you have your belief system. Because the pagan Arabs did not have free persons who

00:06:12.380 were divine. And they just said, for example, the only reason we go to the statute is just

00:06:17.080 to get closer to the ultimate God, which they gave a title. Like here we acknowledge, he's

00:06:21.880 Allah, he's the one who's created us. We are just using that. Now that comes to the second

00:06:26.180 part of the Tawheed al-Ulahiya, worship. So what we do is we single out God in worship. Because

00:06:34.360 otherwise, if we didn't, then there is no difference because you said you're a monotheist. We'll say

00:06:38.520 that kind of monotheism is not the monotheism that we understand. That's the reason why Islam came

00:06:43.460 down with a pure monotheism and came to the pagan Arabs and told them that you are mushriks, pagans.

00:06:50.500 In the context of, you say you believe in Allah, but you've made these handmade statues and you're

00:06:56.180 worshipping them. Just as the story of Ibrahim alayhi salam in the old times in the Quran, where they

00:07:01.460 had the main idol, his father had the main idol, uncle, uncle, uncle, there's a camera, in the camera, yeah?

00:07:06.260 Sorry, forgive me. Sorry uncle, it's just because it will get in the way, yeah? And so for example,

00:07:12.100 in that angle, they said for example, you're affirming God, but you've got, oh sorry, Ibrahim. So Ibrahim,

00:07:18.660 what he did is his father, he was telling his father, look, look, you've made this with your own

00:07:22.660 hands and you're worshipping it. Like, come on. One day, his father was out and he went into the

00:07:28.100 specific place, yeah? And he destroyed all the statues, except the big one. And when his dad came

00:07:33.300 and said, what has happened to our gods? He said, you see that big one? He destroyed all of them. And he

00:07:38.820 said, son, do you not know that it doesn't speak? How could it destroy it? When he said, father, duh,

00:07:44.660 like in the context, that's what I'm trying to tell you. So he's trying to tell him, look,

00:07:48.820 you've made it with your own hands. Now, this is the reason why Islam has pure monotheism.

00:07:54.420 Because the third thing, which I said, lordship, worship, and his names and his attributes.

00:07:59.700 So we do not give those names and attributes to men or the creation. Yeah, we can't say to a creation,

00:08:05.460 he's the all-knowing. We can't say Prophet Muhammad is the all-knowing. No, he's not. God is all-knowing.

00:08:09.220 He's the all-powerful. No, he's not. And we do not ascribe that to mankind. Now, what you've told

00:08:15.060 me is that even though the title belongs to the father, and when we say God, we're actually talking

00:08:19.380 about the father, even though the three of them share the divinity, this is the very reason,

00:08:24.660 Joshua, Islam came to abolish. So I'm just asking, like, I just want you to understand from our

00:08:30.100 perspective, what you believe, how could it be true monotheism where you're sharing the same traits

00:08:36.980 as pagans in Arabia? So I'll just say that a distinction needs to be made between two concepts,

00:08:44.180 monotheism and monolatry. It's a weird, difficult word to say, but monolatry. So monolatry is the

00:08:52.260 worship of one entity, one being. Monotheism is the belief in one being or belief in one God. So,

00:08:59.700 yeah, so one belief in one ultimate God. Okay. That's monotheism. Monolatry is just monolatry.

00:09:06.980 Monolatry. Yeah. Yeah. It's the, it's the worship, it's the worship of only one being. Okay.

00:09:15.860 So where I would differ with you is that I, I'm happy to say I agree. And I think actually

00:09:20.580 we share, funny enough, funny enough, we share, um, even more things that maybe a common, let's

00:09:27.140 say a common Trinitarian will say to you that God is tri-personal. God is three persons. I disagree

00:09:32.500 with that. I say, God is one person, the father. Yeah. So yeah. So some common is more lay level

00:09:42.340 common. Trinitarianism will say, God is tri-personal. God is three persons. God is the trinity. Okay.

00:09:49.700 As you did in that diagram before, God is the father. Okay. However, each of them are divine.

00:09:56.180 And so they're God in another way, in another sense. But when we're using that monotheism God

00:10:00.900 term, we're referring to the father. So why we are monotheists is because there's only one entity,

00:10:05.700 one being, one person who is God in that sense. And that will be a shared thing. Actually,

00:10:10.820 interestingly, this position with a Jew and with a Muslim who say, yeah, God is one person. God is

00:10:15.940 not three persons. So we will share that. But where I'll disagree with you is the conflation of

00:10:20.900 monotheism and monolatry. I don't believe that you need to say that, oh, because I believe there's

00:10:25.780 only one God, one ultimate being who we term the father, that also we can only worship that father.

00:10:32.900 I would say worship is contingent on a being being divine. So if a being has all power,

00:10:39.700 all knowledge, perfectly good, necessary, eternal, then it's worthy of worship. It has these properties,

00:10:45.620 so it's worthy of worship. Why I wouldn't worship that thing that couldn't do that action is because it

00:10:50.260 lacks one of those properties. It's not all powerful. It's not all knowing. It's not all

00:10:53.300 big. So the reason why I'll worship the sun and worship the spirit as well is because they are

00:10:57.460 equally, they're equally divine. The sun, the, the, the sun and the spirit are equally worthy of

00:11:04.660 worship with the father because they are equally divine because they have omnipotence or omniscience

00:11:09.540 and so forth. But why I, why I had that problem with you is because you are saying to be monotheist,

00:11:16.180 you also have to be hold some monolatry and there's only one entity that's worthy of worship.

00:11:20.500 Well, I disagree with you. I believe in monotheism, but I think that there are entities that can be

00:11:25.380 worshipped if they are divine. And we will say there are three entities, the father,

00:11:28.740 son and the Holy Spirit who can equally be worshipped because they're divine.

00:11:31.780 Okay. That's brilliant. Thank you. I've, I've learned something new again today. And it's very

00:11:34.740 interesting because what it is, it's like, it's like to us from an assignment perspective, it's like

00:11:39.540 gradual steps towards monolatry, monolatry, monolatry, monolatry. Yeah. So it's, it's, it's,

00:11:45.780 thank you for that. I learned a new word as well today. Yeah. Um, so it's, it's steps towards monolatry.

00:11:50.260 That's what we're calling to. So if your definition is going to be that in that aspect, what it shows

00:11:54.900 is that Joshua, you're another step closer in that context from our perspective, yeah, is that we can see

00:12:00.740 the innate disposition calling for that. And it's like a step towards it. That might be intentional or unintentional.

00:12:06.180 I'm not saying the intention is doing that. It might be unintentional, but then again, it comes

00:12:10.260 back to the same point where if God is the all divine, the all knowing, yeah, the all powerful,

00:12:18.020 the all seeing, the all wise, why does he require to share his power with other entities? The question

00:12:26.820 number one is why would God require that? And secondly, for example, isn't it a contradiction to his very

00:12:34.740 essence? Because what we say, when we learn this, like when we study these books, the reason why

00:12:39.220 Islam appealed to me so much besides the textual scripture, like preservation, is that it was

00:12:46.100 calling to pure monotheism, which prophets before, because you believe in many prophets. Yeah. Yeah.

00:12:51.700 And we believe, yeah. That's what Allah said to us in the Quran,

00:12:55.060 not of the people of the book of the same. Yeah. So that's the reason why when it comes to monotheism,

00:13:02.740 monolatary. Yeah. It's the only religion where I found in Islam. And not only that,

00:13:07.300 I'm not saying Islam is true just on this, but I'm saying the nature, the human nature understands it,

00:13:12.900 it clicks with it. And when it comes to, for example, you had to do a lot of explanation. Now,

00:13:16.740 this doesn't mean it makes it false. I'm not trying to say, oh, just cause you was,

00:13:19.460 no, what I'm trying to say is that it's very simple in Islam. We single out God in his lordship. He's

00:13:24.980 the all powerful, the all knowing. Okay. Then we sing them out in worship. We worship him to a

00:13:30.340 Lord. A lot of Christians who come to Islam, which is one thing, I'm not using this point to prove that

00:13:34.660 Islam is right. The main thing that they see is the following. As a Catholic, I didn't know, Mary, Jesus,

00:13:40.500 the spirit. And there was a confusion. Joshua, can you relate and understand as Muslims and as

00:13:48.340 someone who's a Christian and those Christians who may have left the faith because it doesn't

00:13:54.020 make sense that the essence of God and his divinity is shared? Why does God need to share that? Can

00:13:58.500 you, can you maybe just answer that question? So I would say to you that God needs to share it

00:14:01.940 because it's, it's necessitated by his nature, necessitated by his nature. So I would say if God

00:14:08.340 has the property of being perfectly good, then it requires there to be two co-equal divine persons with

00:14:15.060 him. So if there's one divine person who has, we agree the property of all powerful, all knowing,

00:14:20.900 and he's perfectly good, everything that he does, he does, he, um, he does a good action. Um, I would

00:14:26.980 say for a being to exist in that way, there has to be two other beings. Why two other, but not four other,

00:14:36.180 or five other. Okay. Good. Okay. So we can get, uh, thank you. I don't get it. You don't like me and

00:14:42.020 you're heckling him. Heckle me. Um, yeah, what was your question? Okay, good. Why two more? Okay. Okay.

00:14:48.900 So the idea. So the idea, yeah. So the idea, the idea here is, is that for, for the first,

00:15:00.340 for one divine person to be perfectly good, it needs to inevitably, that means from the beginning,

00:15:07.060 there's no time that passes. It has to bring into existence another being so that it can

00:15:14.420 instantiate. So I'm using a big word, but it means like, um, uh, instantiate just means to make real

00:15:22.660 the action of loving. So this being would not be perfectly good if it does not instantiate

00:15:31.860 the action or perform the action of loving. Okay. Okay. You're sort of getting one thing. So now

00:15:39.860 the idea here is, is that there are three or there's more than this, but there's at least three

00:15:44.660 qualitatively different forms of love. There is self-love. That's just me loving myself. Okay.

00:15:50.100 I can live on an island and just love myself. Then there is shared love. Example of this will be

00:15:55.700 like a marriage. You love your wife. She loves you. You reciprocate in your love. And then there's a

00:16:00.500 cooperation together in sharing your love. So me, my wife, we now share our love together with another

00:16:07.140 being, which could maybe be our child or for some people it's an animal or whatever, but you work

00:16:11.460 together, you love each other and you want to share your love with that third being. So there's self

00:16:15.300 love, shared love and cooperative love. Okay. Now each form of love is better than the other one. It's

00:16:22.980 qualitatively better. So I'm a better being. If I'm not just selfish and love myself, I'm a better

00:16:28.340 being. If I share my love with another, and I'm, we're even a better, we're better together. If we're

00:16:33.540 not just set selfish together and say, no, we don't want to give our love to anyone. We don't

00:16:37.540 want to help people. We don't want to give our love to a child or to an animal or whatever. We

00:16:40.740 just want to selfishly love each other. We're better if we cooperate together in sharing our

00:16:45.940 love with another. So each love is qualitatively better. Now the idea here is, let's say there is

00:16:51.860 one divine person who's solely by itself. What it does by itself is, well, it has self-love.

00:16:57.540 It loves itself, but it cannot show or exemplify. Okay. So if you just have a divine person,

00:17:06.180 one divine person, let's say in Islam or Judaism, there's just one divine person, no other beings

00:17:10.660 with it. That being can only instantiate, only show, only exemplify self-love. It can't exemplify

00:17:17.700 the qualitatively better form of love, which is shared love because there's no other being. So if it existed

00:17:23.700 by itself, it didn't create anything, there's no other being for it to share its love with.

00:17:28.340 Okay. And so the idea here is for that being to exemplify a better form of love, shared love,

00:17:35.620 it needs to inevitably bring into existence an equal entity who it can share that love with.

00:17:42.020 But then remember, qualitatively cooperative love is better than just shared love. So if there were just

00:17:48.820 two entities, there will only be shared love. But remember, we said that there's a qualitatively

00:17:55.780 even better form of love, which is cooperative love. When two entities share their love together,

00:18:00.260 and then they cooperate together in sharing their love with another. And so what the idea here is,

00:18:04.820 is that they will either two of them together, they will inevitably bring about a third equal to

00:18:11.860 cooperate in sharing that love with. Now, the question, sorry, you said, because the idea could be,

00:18:16.420 well, why would it stop at three? Why couldn't there be another fourth divine person or fifth

00:18:20.420 divine person that they all cooperated in sharing their love? The issue is, is that there is no,

00:18:25.540 there's no qualitative difference between me cooperating with one being and cooperating with

00:18:32.820 another being. So I'll explain it. So if I have a wife, yeah, I have a wife, I have someone that I'm

00:18:37.780 sharing my love with, and we work together to share our love with another being, if we shared it with

00:18:43.140 another being and another being and another being, the forms of love are not different.

00:18:47.300 Remember each step, there was self love, shared love, cooperative love. But then if I share it

00:18:53.220 with another, there is no other form of love, it's still cooperative love. There's not a qualitatively

00:18:58.420 greater form of love than I'm bringing about. So the problem that you'll have then is that if

00:19:03.140 one of the divine persons brings about a fourth or a fifth divine person, this will be an act of the

00:19:08.260 will. And a divine person by definition can only exist out of necessity. It can't exist because it

00:19:15.060 was willed to exist. It has to exist because it's necessary that it exists. So the idea here is if

00:19:20.500 there was a fourth being, that being would not be divine, because it would not be necessary. It would

00:19:25.140 have been a choice to bring about that being. But the second and third are existing out of necessity.

00:19:30.260 Okay. All right. There's some very interesting points you mentioned. And once again, I personally

00:19:36.420 don't believe it justifies and neither does it answer the very nature of God to have more than

00:19:44.740 two or even if we were to give it on the terms of like you said about sharing that love with the

00:19:49.300 second and the third. Yeah. And you talked about necessary existence. It's necessary for it to

00:19:55.780 do it with three but not four. Yes. So I want to point out something because this is something that

00:19:59.700 we studied in Creed books in Tahaweah. And it's very interesting because it touches this topic.

00:20:05.700 Because what you're seeing is in order, so for example, God is the most merciful. He's the most loving.

00:20:11.780 Therefore, so there's a discussion happening here. Therefore, he needs to bring about,

00:20:17.780 you're seeing another divine being in order to share that love with. Now we have this discussion,

00:20:24.180 but we have it with human beings. So what we say is from the get-go, we do not believe

00:20:29.140 God shared his divinity. God's against his nature. However, we say this. Is God still the all-knowing,

00:20:34.740 the all-lovable, the all-loving, the all-merciful without creation? Okay. Thank you.

00:20:40.100 So just to elaborate. Yeah. So what we say is Islamically, God is always the all-knowing

00:20:45.460 when, for example, there was no creation. God is still the all-merciful when there was nothing to

00:20:50.900 have mercy on. Because that is his innate attribute. Now, him carrying that mercy out,

00:20:56.820 yeah? For example, he will have a creation. Yeah? So for him to, for example, carry those certain

00:21:02.980 actions out all-loving, he will have a creation. But what you're saying is similar. But what you're

00:21:10.500 saying is, no, he needs to share his divinity. Now what we're saying is the following. We're on the same

00:21:14.900 page, but in a bit of a different way. Because you're trying to justify God sharing his divinity,

00:21:18.580 where he is saying God in his essence is the most merciful, the all-loving. And he's always

00:21:24.100 been like that. He's been, he's been like that, even when there was no creation. But you're taking

00:21:30.340 that a step further and trying to justify why God needs to free or more. Well, you're saying it

00:21:37.460 stops at free. The question is why? And you, and you, and you said by necessary, by necessity,

00:21:41.700 God is a necessary fact. If God is necessary, there can't be nothing like it. So once again,

00:21:55.220 do you see as Muslims, monolatary? Got it right, yeah? Why it's so unique that we say God doesn't share it,

00:22:03.700 doesn't share it, it goes against attribute. And by necessity, he doesn't need to, to become the

00:22:08.980 all-loving or the all-merciful. He doesn't need the creation, let alone having another divine being.

00:22:14.820 Do you see the problem we're trying to pose? And we're trying to say that God almighty in Islam is

00:22:20.660 the sole creator. He doesn't share his divinity. He doesn't need to. The moment he says, I need to have

00:22:26.580 another divine being, or I need to. What that means is God needs something to show his, do you

00:22:33.540 know what I'm trying to say? Yeah, yeah. So what the idea here is, as I said, God has the property or

00:22:37.940 attribute of being perfectly good. And defining perfectly good, that just means that this entity

00:22:43.780 will inevitably, that means just out of its nature, perform a good action if there is one. So if there's

00:22:49.700 a good action there, God will perform it. If there's another good action there, God will perform it.

00:22:54.020 He will just inevitably do it. Now, what I'm trying to say to you is that there is a good action,

00:22:59.700 but you're saying to me that God wouldn't perform it. Because there's a good action of

00:23:03.460 loving. That's an action there. But remember, we just agreed that by definition, God is perfectly

00:23:09.220 good. And so if there's a good action, he will inevitably do it. He will just do it. And so there's

00:23:14.300 a good action there in front of God saying, love, it's called loving. Now, if God is perfectly good,

00:23:20.900 he will just inevitably perform that action of loving, being in a loving relationship.

00:23:26.500 But then that requires and that entails that there is another entity who he can love. Because

00:23:32.980 what I'm saying to you is that... Why not creation? Why divine? Okay, good. Yeah, that's a very good

00:23:37.140 point. Because that's not a perfect form of love. A perfect love is where the love is reciprocated in

00:23:44.340 quantity and kind. Okay. So if I'll give you an example, why obviously, there'll be loads of

00:23:49.620 reasons why someone can't do this. But why you can't, why you can't be in a loving, romantic,

00:23:56.500 loving relationship with let's say a child is because that child cannot reciprocate the love

00:24:01.460 that you give to it. The love, the knowledge, everything that I bestow and give the totality

00:24:06.020 of my being that I give to that child, they won't be able to give it back to me because they don't have

00:24:09.940 the mental faculties to be able to do it. But someone who's equal to me, let's say my wife,

00:24:14.580 she can reciprocate in quantity and kind the love and the totality of myself that I give to her. She

00:24:19.780 can also give the totality of herself to me and everything to me and we reciprocate that. Now,

00:24:24.100 the problem that you'll have is that if God does that with creation, it's impossible because creation

00:24:28.980 is not equal to God. And so they can't reciprocate what God gives to them. Because when you love,

00:24:35.860 like I was saying, you give everything to that entity. Well, then can God give all of his divinity,

00:24:40.500 all he has, all he possesses, which is his divinity to creation? No, I'm saying, no,

00:24:46.100 I'm saying the question was, is that why can't he share that love with creation? So I'm answering

00:24:49.540 and saying, yeah, but I'm saying, yeah, exactly. Because a divine person is only the entity that can

00:24:54.660 reciprocate the thing that he gives. Because a divine person, if I'm divine and another being divine,

00:24:59.460 and I love that being, I give all that I have my divinity to that being. And that being gives his

00:25:04.260 divinity or whatever their divinity back to me, they reciprocate everything I give in quantity and

00:25:09.380 kind. But creation can't do that. Created reality by definition is created. So they can't give divinity

00:25:15.540 back to me. So God can love us, but he doesn't love us perfectly. He only loves us perfectly if he loves

00:25:22.500 a thing that's equal to him. And we are not equal to him. Okay, Joshua, who sets those standards? Because

00:25:27.060 what you're doing now is you're, you're giving a definition of love, how love can be shared.

00:25:33.540 Yes. But you're giving these standards. Now, this is the reason why in Islam, one of the biggest sins

00:25:38.660 as shirk is to say something about God, he doesn't, he hasn't never said. That's why as Muslims,

00:25:43.860 we have a dialogue with Christians, because we believe you're uttering something that God has not

00:25:48.180 verified. So now when you're saying, Joshua, that God needs something divine to share it,

00:25:52.900 because that's, and give it his divinity, only so it can give it the same back. What we're saying

00:25:57.860 is number one, God doesn't need human beings. Let alone another divine being. We say from the get-go,

00:26:02.100 God doesn't need anything, another divine being, because he goes against his nature. God doesn't

00:26:06.100 need human beings from the get-go. That's the reason why we are told that we only enter paradise by the

00:26:11.300 grace, you would say, or by the mercy of Allah. Because, sorry, because the thing is, God doesn't need us.

00:26:18.180 We need him. So he shows us his mercy by, for example, the things he's blessed us with, the

00:26:23.220 guidance that he shows us, and he wants us to enter his paradise. That's why Allah says in the Quran,

00:26:28.100 what will I get out of putting you in the hellfire? You think I'm somebody who's

00:26:32.740 hungry to put people in the fire? No, I don't want that for you. So the question that needs to be asked

00:26:37.620 again is, Joshua, what I said to you, God is all merciful and all loving,

00:26:43.380 all loving, even if there was no human beings and no creation. Why does God require another divine

00:26:52.420 being? Because it goes against his essence. Because the moment you say he needs, remember

00:26:56.420 what I said, I said, God doesn't need human beings. Yeah? So why does he need another divine?

00:27:02.260 And if he does, it goes against his nature, because it means I need love myself and to love,

00:27:07.300 I know, you said he will be just loving himself. So therefore, he needs another divine being

00:27:12.500 that is not sharing the title, the essence, but not the title, like you said, and he will love me

00:27:18.260 back. Why does God even need that? Because remember what I said to you, I said,

00:27:21.380 there are different qualitative forms of love, and each one is greater or better than the other.

00:27:37.300 Remember, God has the attribute of being perfectly good. So everything that he does

00:27:41.140 would be to the greatest standard. So he wouldn't bring about a worse form of love than one that's

00:27:50.020 available. So if there's self-love, there's shared love, and there's cooperative love,

00:27:54.180 and each one is greater than the other. If God is just self-loving, then he has a depreciated

00:27:59.380 form of love that he's instantiating, which is a perfectly good being wouldn't do. A perfectly good

00:28:04.340 being would instantiate the greatest form of love possible. And that will be qualitatively including

00:28:09.300 self-love, him loving himself, sharing love, sharing love with an equal, and then cooperating and

00:28:14.340 sharing love with another equal. That allows it to be the qualitatively greatest form of love.

00:28:19.300 You're instantiating each form of love, and each one is greater than the other.

00:28:23.300 So just answering what you were saying about God being, I think, all-powerful, all-knowing.

00:28:29.220 Yeah, so the problem is that there's a difference between being, let's say, perfectly good and

00:28:35.220 loving, performing the action of loving, and being all-powerful or being all-knowing.

00:28:40.420 Those are properties that you have without any entity. You don't need anything to have it.

00:28:45.860 Okay? So God is all-powerful without anything. Okay? He, that just means he has, he's able to

00:28:51.380 perform any action. All-knowing means he knows all truths, and he doesn't need anyone to know those

00:28:56.340 all those truths. But to be perfectly good, and that means also being loving, that does require

00:29:03.300 something else. And that's what I'm trying to argue here. I'm trying to say...

00:29:05.860 Yeah, I disagree. Yeah. Okay.

00:29:08.420 Oh, no, no. I'm just saying, so that certain property, that attribute requires something

00:29:15.700 outside of itself. The other... Yeah, so my problem is, is that where my argument will be is that

00:29:21.300 it seems then that your view of God, not your view personally, but the view of God that's not

00:29:26.980 arguing the way that I'm trying to put forward, is an incoherent idea of God. Because you're saying

00:29:31.720 God is all-powerful, he can perform any action, all-knowing, he knows all truths, perfectly good,

00:29:36.920 he'll perform any good action, inevitably, if he does, if there is one. But there is a good action

00:29:42.280 that he doesn't perform. That's contradicting. Because you're saying he will perform any good

00:29:46.280 action if there is one. There is a good action, loving, shared and cooperating in love, but he

00:29:51.880 doesn't do that. Then that means that he's not perfectly good, and so that's incoherent.

00:29:55.560 Okay, so the reason, okay, the reason why I believe, is it recording that one, by the way?

00:30:03.080 Okay, the reason I believe, where, like, with all due respect, the incoherence is coming from your

00:30:10.680 behalf, is because you're making statements about God that contradicts his nature. I'm not

00:30:15.400 contradicting his nature. You said something, you said, he can be the most powerful and all-knowing,

00:30:19.240 that's within his nature. But in order to be the most merciful and the most loving, he needs creation.

00:30:24.040 Because you're saying, you're saying, how could he be, but you said that, I misunderstood.

00:30:31.160 No, so I didn't say most merciful. So mercy, I think, is a dispositional attribute of a thing.

00:30:36.920 So it has it, it's a disposition that it has. It doesn't need something else to,

00:30:41.240 it doesn't need to exercise it to be merciful. Love is different, no. So remember what I said,

00:30:48.120 loving is an action. So it's an action, it's not a dispositional property. I didn't say,

00:30:53.880 God is, is God, is God perfectly loving. Okay. I said, is he loving? Is he performing the action

00:31:01.560 of loving?

00:31:03.720 Yes. So, so I'm not arguing. I could agree with you. You can be perfectly loving without anything,

00:31:08.360 because that's just the, sorry, one second. That's just, that's, that's just a disposition to

00:31:13.960 be loving. So God is perfectly loving if he just has a disposition to love. But can God perform the

00:31:19.560 action of loving and not love something else? That's what I'm saying. Okay. So what I'm saying is the

00:31:24.040 following, yeah? One second, one second, brother. What I'm saying is the following. The reason I

00:31:27.960 believe that there's incoherence on your behalf is because you're attacking the very nature. Not,

00:31:32.680 not literally, yeah. But what you're doing is you're going against the very nature of God by saying

00:31:36.920 that if he's the loving, there must be something to love. What we're saying is the following. God

00:31:43.080 Almighty has always been the loving when there was no creation, because he had the power to carry the

00:31:49.720 will out. So we can't say you're not the all loving because there was nothing to love. No,

00:31:54.600 he had that innately. That's his disposition. So what we're saying is that that can be carried out

00:32:00.280 and God is the all merciful or specifically all loving. He's all loving when there was no creation.

00:32:05.080 It's not contradictory because he has that in his essence and he chooses to will that if he created

00:32:10.840 creation. Yeah. So, but where you, what you're saying, Josh, is that God needs. So for example,

00:32:18.440 in order for God to be all loving, you're not even saying he needs a creation because we can say,

00:32:22.920 okay, look, Islam has that creation. He's loving, most merciful, wants paradise. What you're saying

00:32:27.240 is he requires another divine being. And we're saying, why the stretch? And once again,

00:32:35.480 it doesn't, it's contradictory. It doesn't make sense because, because what you're doing is you're,

00:32:40.920 you're given some laws, but I'm saying, where are you getting these from? Because logically speaking,

00:32:45.880 logically speaking, I believe the all divine being, the one and only, he's the all loving,

00:32:51.720 the all merciful, the all powerful, and he doesn't need anyone to share it with. The moment you say he

00:32:56.360 shares it, it's a contradictory statement to his very essence. You're doing that. I'm,

00:33:01.320 I'm saying his loving, his love is shared with the creation. You're saying his love is shared with

00:33:06.200 another creator. No, no, listen. So remember what I said though, that the, the shared love that God will

00:33:12.840 have. So let's say God creates the world and shares his love with that world. It will not be a quality,

00:33:18.680 the quality, the, the best form of shared love. The best form of shared love is sharing between,

00:33:24.760 with an equal because creation cannot reciprocate the love I give. And this is,

00:33:29.640 this is the way we apply things to things. Well, I can't go in. Sorry.

00:33:33.080 That means, doesn't that mean that God needs love to be sent back to him?

00:33:39.800 Yes. And I have no problem. But the moment we say God needs, requires so much so that he's going

00:33:46.040 against his very nature to create another divine being's love. But remember, you're saying going

00:33:49.560 against his nature, but I'm not saying that. I'm saying part of God's nature is certain attributes,

00:33:55.080 all powerful, all, all knowing, and being perfectly good. And then part of him being perfectly good means

00:34:01.240 that he will perform the good action of loving. And so I'm not going against the nature. Maybe it's

00:34:05.880 the nature that you might hold to, but the nature that I'm arguing for, there is no contradiction in

00:34:10.520 what I'm saying. I'm saying from this nature, it leads to there being two other divine persons.

00:34:15.480 But if you hold it, because the thing is, I think you will not disagree with me with the attributes

00:34:19.480 I've said, I said to you all power, I said to you all knowledge. It's just we're saying you're sharing

00:34:23.560 that with another being. Yes. But I'm saying that third attribute requires that. So unless you say to me,

00:34:28.520 Josh, perfect goodness. So if God, you can say to me, okay.

00:34:31.880 He's perfectly good. It's like the one who came to Jesus, all good master. Yes.

00:34:35.320 He referred him back to who? Yes. The all good. Yes.

00:34:38.200 So if that is the case of Jesus as one of the divine entities, referring back to the all good

00:34:43.400 of the father, that's, it's like Jesus speaking as a Muslim. He's saying the all good is good.

00:34:48.680 Don't call me good. That's the essence of all good. Why does he need to share that goodness with another being?

00:34:54.120 Can I just address that, that verse? That verse is not negating the goodness of Jesus.

00:34:59.000 What it's saying is that look to the source of goodness. So, but remember what I said to you,

00:35:03.800 God, so the father is understood in a nominal sense to be God.

00:35:08.120 And I didn't say that the reason why he has that is because he's the source of everything,

00:35:12.760 the ultimate source. If you, as you understand with the Trinity, ultimate source of everything.

00:35:17.880 Even for the second creation that would love him back.

00:35:19.800 Even for the son. Yes.

00:35:21.240 So they rely on.

00:35:22.200 Yes. So remember, yeah, remember we are with the doctrine of the Trinity. Remember the father

00:35:28.120 begets the son and he spirates the spirit. So he generates the son and he generates the spirit.

00:35:34.280 That's the orthodox understanding of the Trinity. Now they come from the father eternally, inevitably.

00:35:40.920 So the ultimate source is the father because the father does not come from anyone else.

00:35:45.320 The father is an uncaused being. So he's the ultimate source. And so the reason why,

00:35:49.960 and this is why in the first, second, third, going into the fourth century, why the father was

00:35:55.080 understood to be the one God in that sense is because he is the sole ultimate source of all reality

00:36:00.760 and even of the son and even of the Holy Spirit. But that doesn't negate from them,

00:36:05.480 each being perfect, each being divine. And so the Trinity says there are three divine

00:36:10.840 persons, father, son, and the Holy Spirit who are co-equal ontologically with their divinity.

00:36:16.680 However, where there is a distinction is that the father is God in the sense of having the name

00:36:22.360 God, because he is the ultimate source of everything. He brings about the son, the spirit,

00:36:28.280 and that is the reason why he has the name God. And that's why Jesus points to the father,

00:36:33.320 says point to the father, because the father is one who's the source ultimately of the divinity

00:36:38.280 that the son has. And so the goodness that the son has comes from him. So that's why he's always

00:36:43.240 pointing back to him. So just a few last ones. What I would say is that I'm, as I can get to the

00:36:50.600 corner as much as possible, I'm trying to let people understand that there's an alternative

00:36:54.520 understanding of the Trinity, which is not a new understanding, but it's the historical

00:36:58.280 understanding. So the view that I'm trying to argue for is not a view that just popped out of

00:37:02.440 nowhere. It is the historical view that was defined at Nicaea. So in 325 and at Constantinople in 381.

00:37:10.040 So the authoritative councils were arguing for what I said, because if you remember, as the council

00:37:15.400 says, the Nicaean creed, I believe in one God. Who does it say God is? The father. Then it says,

00:37:21.480 I believe in one Lord. And it doesn't use that term God in a name for the son. And it doesn't say that

00:37:27.240 for the Holy Spirit, but it says that they are homoousios. They share the same nature. They are divine

00:37:33.560 as each other, but there's only one who's God. And that's why I'm a monotheist. And that's why

00:37:37.480 Trinitarians in this sense are monotheists because they believe in one person who is the one true God,

00:37:42.520 the father. And however, they are co-equal in their divinity. And that's why they're Trinitarians.

00:37:47.320 So you would be, sorry, just, I am talking a lot, but you would be, you would be a Unitarian

00:37:51.880 because you only believe in your monotheist and your Unitarian. I'm a monotheist and I'm a Trinitarian.

00:37:58.120 So you're monotheist and Unitarian because you believe there's one person who's God,

00:38:02.920 and there is only one person who is divine. I'm monotheist because I believe there's one person

00:38:08.760 who's God, but I'm Trinitarian because I believe, yeah, there are three persons who are divine.

00:38:13.160 Exactly. Joshua. Yeah. So have you always hold this position or is this in a position?

00:38:18.280 No, no, no. So this came from my PhD research. So when I, when I, when I, when I was going,

00:38:22.680 um, cause I, I, the prior understanding was the understanding. I think you, you, and most people,

00:38:27.400 you were attacking. So, and other people were saying this, if there's a problem with it,

00:38:30.920 which I agree with you, that saying that there are three divine persons. So they're Trinitarians,

00:38:35.160 like me, three divine persons, but how they will call themselves monotheists,

00:38:38.520 because they say the Trinity is the one God. So they would say the one God is the Trinity itself,

00:38:44.680 the, the collective of all the three. I disagreed. And that's why I used to have,

00:38:48.840 but looking at the historical texts, looking at scripture, where it says there's one true God,

00:38:53.960 the father, where Jesus says, my father, my, uh, your father, my father, my God, and your God,

00:38:58.920 where it says, Paul says there's one God, the father and one Lord Jesus Christ. And then looking at the

00:39:04.600 historical texts, I realized that actually the position of Trinitarianism was not that

00:39:09.160 position to say that the Trinity is the one God. It was the father. Who's the one God.

00:39:12.680 Can I ask you a personal question? Yeah. Did you feel a bit more at ease with what you believe now?

00:39:19.720 Oh yes, of course. Cause yeah, sorry. Just in an actual, I'm so sorry. Cause, cause do you not believe

00:39:25.240 Joshua? Yeah. And I'll be honest with you. I genuinely, I'm not here to win an argument.

00:39:30.200 I'm genuinely not here to have one of you. I genuinely want the best for you as you want the

00:39:34.440 best for me. Do you believe your innate disposition is, is calling out to my belief of monotheism

00:39:45.320 and Unitarianism in the context of one divine being? Because the fact that you felt at ease,

00:39:50.680 what you've discovered recently, would you say Joshua is Islam? What's stopping you from saying,

00:39:56.840 you know what, the concept of Islam, because I know a lot of Christians I speak to, yeah? And the

00:40:00.520 reason I'm getting personal is because at the end of the day, I just really want to hear you out,

00:40:03.160 yeah? Do you think, because a lot of Christians I speak to is like, oh, Mohammed married,

00:40:06.520 I'm sorry, and all these moral things, oh, it doesn't sound good to the ear. And to me,

00:40:10.760 I have the position, whatever's the truth, if God told me you climb Sundays to the tree,

00:40:15.880 get two apples, sit down, do press ups and do four black vips, I'm doing that. And there's a

00:40:20.840 misunderstanding of that whole, the prophet's marriage. What's stopping you from coming?

00:40:25.080 Because we're saying, because obviously we disagree with this, we've made that clear,

00:40:28.360 to the ultimate worship of the one divine being, because to us,

00:40:31.960 what you believe still falls into idol worship, because you're giving divinity to other beings,

00:40:37.000 and attributes of God to that. What's stopping you from saying, you know what, the Islamic concept,

00:40:41.960 or Islam in general, what's stopping you? Okay, just to, just to,

Ali Dawah - September 01, 2020

WHO IS GOD？ - THEOLOGIAN VS MUSLIM - SPEAKERS CORNER

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