Sura 112 and the Trinity, part 3

Part 1 is here, part 2 here.

The first condition that a claimant to godhood must meet, according to the Qur’an, is to be the only god in existence, or the only true God. Shakir’s translation perhaps conveys the singular nature of Allah best; this closely corresponds to the Great Shema: “Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD [is] one!” (Deut. 6:4). An alternate rendering of this verse says, “The LORD is our God, the LORD alone” (that is, the only one). In another place, God says, “I, [even] I, [am] the LORD, / And besides Me [there is] no savior” (Isaiah 43:11). The Bible makes indelibly clear that God is singular; it condemns any form of taking any god besides the true God, whether that other god is on par or of lesser power. Likewise, the Qur’an in numerous places condemns shirk, or associating “partners” with Allah. Muslims also emphasize that Jesus quotes Deut. 6:4 in Mark 12:29-30.

Muslims do agree that the God of the Bible is singular. However, they do this by denying the deity of Jesus Christ, claiming that Christians have made up that concept and that any verse showing His godhood has been corrupted from the original text. In addition, they promote several misunderstandings about the doctrine of the Trinity, the main ones being that (1) it consists of God the Father, Jesus, and Mary; (2) there is no Biblical support for the doctrine, or that the support is ambiguous; and (3) God cannot be three in one, and that the Trinity is really three. This paper will briefly deal with each of these.

The next paragraphs deal with those misconceptions. That part is key to the paper. Muslim claims of corruption are likewise a weighty issue; the author plans to address those in a major future paper.