ALLAH OR the TRINITY in VIEW of INHERENT HUMAN RELATEDNESS Brian Scalise Dissertation Presented to Dr. Smither, Dr. Morrison, A
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ALLAH OR THE TRINITY IN VIEW OF INHERENT HUMAN RELATEDNESS Brian Scalise Dissertation Presented to Dr. Smither, Dr. Morrison, and Dr. Hartman, August 1, 2014 i TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION, THESIS, RATIONALE........................................................... 1 Introduction ................................................................................................................................. 1 Thesis .......................................................................................................................................... 3 Rationale...................................................................................................................................... 3 Survey of Literature ................................................................................................................. 3 Survey Conclusion ................................................................................................................. 20 Fields of Direct Relevance ........................................................................................................ 20 Criteria ....................................................................................................................................... 26 Method ...................................................................................................................................... 29 CHAPTER 2: PROLEGOMENA ................................................................................................. 31 Introduction ............................................................................................................................... 31 Analogical Predication .............................................................................................................. 31 ............................................................................................................ 38 Analogia Entis and Apophaticism ......................................................................................... 46 Anthropology, Society, and the Deity ....................................................................................... 56 Hypostasis and Perichōrēsis ...................................................................................................... 61 Ousia.......................................................................................................................................... 68 and the Ninety-Nine Beautiful Names ......................................................................... 71 Conclusion ................................................................................................................................. 75 CHAPTER 3: ON ALLAH ....................................................................................... 77 Introduction ............................................................................................................................... 77 Oneness ..................................................................................................................................... 82 Distinctness ............................................................................................................................... 92 Relatedness ................................................................................................................................ 99 Conclusion ............................................................................................................................... 104 CHAPTER 4: ON THE TRINITY .............................................................................................. 108 Introduction ............................................................................................................................. 108 Oneness ................................................................................................................................... 111 Distinctness ............................................................................................................................. 125 ii Relatedness .............................................................................................................................. 133 Conclusion ............................................................................................................................... 136 CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION ................................................................................................... 139 Introduction ............................................................................................................................. 139 Humanity is not completely dissimilar to Allah according to Islam ....................................... 139 Paratactic Comparison............................................................................................................. 142 Oneness ................................................................................................................................ 142 Distinctness .......................................................................................................................... 143 Relatedness .......................................................................................................................... 144 ........................................................ 144 Semantic Matters towards describing Allah vis-à-vis the Trinity ....................................... 145 Humanity as Image of Allah vis-à-vis Image of Trinity....................................................... 146 Allah as the personalizing One vis-à-vis the Trinity as the personalizing One .................. 147 The Formula of Lover, Beloved, and Love predicated of Allah vis-à-vis the Trinity .......... 147 Return to the Thesis in View of Paratactic Comparison ......................................................... 149 Ramifications of this Study ..................................................................................................... 156 Hospitality through serious Consideration ......................................................................... 156 Is the Deity of Christianity the Deity of Islam? ................................................................... 156 Ethics of Love ...................................................................................................................... 168 Socio-Political Concerns ..................................................................................................... 181 ’ b ................................................. 185 Ongoing Research ................................................................................................................... 188 BIBLIOGRAPHY ....................................................................................................................... 203 iii CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION, THESIS, RATIONALE Introduction One strand of historical discussion between devotees of Islam and Christianity highlights the impasse of the opposing viewpoints on the nature of the Deity (or how He is understood to exist) respective to each religion.1 On the one hand, Islam’s understanding of affirms in the strongest terms Allah’s aloneness, without partner, rival, or equal.2 On the other hand, the Christian doctrine of Trinity asserts that God lives forever as intra-relationships, not alone because the one God is an eternal coinhering community of equals.3 This impasse is all the more immoveable because both doctrines are derived from each respective religion’s Scriptures: the 1 Timothy of Baghdad, Apology for Christianity, Questions and Answers 1 and 2. Kindle. “And our [Islamic] king said to me: “Do you believe in Father, Son, and Holy Spirit?”—And I answered: “I worship them and believe in them.”—Then our king said: “You, therefore, believe in three Gods?"—And I replied to our king: “The belief in the above three names, consists in the belief in three Persons, and the belief in these three Persons consists in the belief in one God. The belief in the above three names, consists therefore in the belief in one God. We believe in Father, Son, and Holy Spirit as one God” (Ques. and Ans. 1). “And our [Islamic] King said to me: “If He is one, He is not three; and if He is three, He is not one; what is this contradiction?”—And I answered: “The sun is also one, O our victorious King, in its spheric globe, its light and its heat and the very same sun is also three, one sun in three powers” (Ques. and Ans. 2). “And the King said: “You appear to believe in three heads, O Catholicos.”—And I said: “This is certainly not so, O our victorious King. I believe in one head, the eternal God the Father, from whom the Word shone and the Spirit radiated eternally, together, and before all times, the former by way of filiation and the latter by way of procession, not in a bodily but in a divine way that befits God. This is the reason why they are not three separate Gods” (Ques. and Ans. 2). When writing about how Christians and Muslims understand “God,” without qualifying how each religion’s unique attributes predicated of “God” distinguish “God” from the other religion, the term “Deity” is used. Said differently, the term “Deity” is employed when focusing on the commonalities of the “divine” proper to each religion without supposing that the “Deity” is ultimately the same because of prima facie similarities. When speaking of the unique attributes (or lack thereof) predicated of the “Deity” according to Christianity, either “God” or