Mufti Muhammad Sadiq, the first Muslim missionary to USA in 1920s, in his early days in USA, to initiate his missionary work, went into a store and bought three pencils and chose to pay for the price of only one pencil. When the shop keeper protested and asked for further payment, Sadiq retorted, you do believe in one in three and three in one. Don’t you? After a little quibbling the stage was set to start talking about Islam and Christianity!
The testimony of One God is every where in our universe and Trinity is no where to be seen. The universe and all life forms on our planet earth speak of One Creator and not three. If god the son and the Holy Ghost did not create any thing then they are not equal to God the Father, and hence not equal partners in ‘Trinity.’
I invite all our Christian brethren to also ponder over other religions that existed before Trinity, Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Zoroastrianism, Confucianism or the aborigines of America and Australia.
Arius aught to have been declared a saint rather than a heretic! The term ‘Arianism’ is used to refer to other nontrinitarian theological systems of the 4th century. Arianism is the theological teaching of Arius (CE 250–336), a Church priest, who was first ruled a heretic at the First Council of Nicea of 325, later exonerated in 335 at the First Synod of Tyre, and then pronounced a heretic again after his death at the First Council of Constantinople of 381. The Emperor Constantine was baptized by an Arian Bishop. The Roman Emperors Constantius II (337-361) and Valens (364-378) were Arians or Semi-Arians.
If a Christian gives up Trinity, he or she still has the choice to become a Unitarian Christian, a Muslim or a Jew, before opting to be an agnostic or an atheist.
Hadhrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, the Messiah of this age writes:
“The God of Islam is the same God who is visible in the mirror of the law of nature and is discernible in the book of nature. Islam has not presented a new God but has presented the same God Who is presented by the light of man’s heart, by the conscience of man, and by heaven and earth.” (Tableegh-e-Risalat, Vol. VI, p. 15).
The word Trinity is not even mentioned in the New Testament. It is stated in 1890 edition of Encyclopedia Britannica, “The Trinitarians and the Unitarians continued to confront each other, the latter at the beginning of the third century still forming the large majority.”
In The Encyclopedia Americana we read, “Unitarianism as a theological movement began much earlier in history; indeed it antedated Trinitarianism by many decades. Christianity derived from Judaism and Judaism was strictly Unitarian [believing that God is one person]. The Road which led from Jerusalem to the Council of Nicea was scarcely a straight one. Fourth century Trinitarianism did not reflect accurately early Christian teaching regarding the nature of God; it was, on the contrary, a deviation from this teaching.”
I invite all our Christian brethren in the words of Albert Einstein, “The further the spiritual evolution of mankind advances, the more certain it seems to me that the path to genuine religiosity does not lie through the fear of life, and the fear of death, and blind faith, but through striving after rational knowledge.”
Let them ponder over other religions that existed before Trinity, Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Zoroastrianism and Confucianism.
“‘Confess and believe in God (Is’ana) who is the worthy object of obedience…… Oh strive ye to obtain this inestimable treasure’ …said Buddha as quoted by King Ashoka in one of his inscriptions at Pardohli, a rock located in the Eastern bank of the river Katak, twenty miles from Jagan Nath, India.”
He outlines at least 7 proofs for his thesis that Buddha believed in One God, the One God of Moses, David, Solomon, Jesus and Muhammad, may peace be upon all of them. Read Imran Ghumman’s article online:
http://www.muslimsunrise.com/dmddocuments/2006_iss_1.pdf#page=19
‘The great Tao is vast. He is on the left and He is on the right. All creatures depend upon Him, and the care of them tires Him not. He brings creation to completion, without seeking reward. He provides for all His creation, but requires nothing for Himself, so He may be considered small. All creatures turn to Him for their needs, yet He keeps nothing for Himself, thus He may be named ‘the Supreme’. He does not consider Himself great and because of this He is truly Great.’
Again we have another description:
‘Looked for but not visible, such a Being may be colourless. Listened for but not heard, such a Being may be called Silent. Grasped for but not caught, such may be called Concealed. No one can comprehend the ultimate source of these three qualities, but they are found in one Being. Though not luminous yet below Him there is no darkness. Being infinite He cannot be described. All His shapes keep returning to nothingness, thus we can say He is Shapeless; His image is without form. He is beyond comprehension (being the rarest of things). Try to reach His beginning, no beginning can be seen. Seek His end, no end can be perceived. Therefore, follow the ancient ways and improve your present.’
Also, in another verse the description of Tao runs as follows:
‘He is indivisible and His true nature cannot be grasped. All creation originates from Him. He existed before heaven and earth were created. He is One and alone without form or sound. He exists independently without any support. Nothing changes in Him. He is in constant motion, but never tires. He can be called the Begetter of the universe.’
These quotes I have just copied from the book by Hadhrat Mirza Tahir Ahmad Revelation, Rationality, Knowledge and Truth from the chapter Taoism. The book can be read online:
‘It is said in the ‘Book of Poetry’:
‘Heaven, in producing mankind,
Gave them their various faculties and relations with their specific laws.
These are the invariable rules of nature for all to hold,
And all love this admirable virtue.’
The term “Heaven”, as understood by Mencius is a Conscious Being and it is interchangeable with our term of God. Heaven may be seen to symbolize the active and conscious creative principles of God. Thus he says:
‘This is illustrated by what is said in the ‘Book of Poetry,’—
“Be always studious to be in harmony with the ordinances of God,
So you will certainly get for yourself much happiness;’
Classical Confucianism, undoubtedly, presents man as a creation of God rather than just a product of unconscious nature. For Confucius, the ultimate goal in attaining knowledge of one’s own nature is to attain harmony with God, and this is the ultimate of man’s vision of heaven. This belief is quite similar to the Quranic teaching in presenting man as having been created according to God’s attributes.
… and follow the nature (attributes) of Allah after which He fashioned all mankind… (Al Quran 30:31)
The book can be read online:
“Say, ‘Have you seen your associate-gods whom you call on besides Allah? Show me then what they have created of the earth. Or have they a share in the creation of the heavens? Or have We given them a Book so that they have an evidence therefrom?’ Nay, the wrongdoers promise one another nothing but deception.” (Al Quran 35:41)
And again:
“He has created the heavens without any pillars that you can see, and He has placed in the earth firm mountains that it may not quake with you, and He has scattered therein all kinds of creatures; and We have sent down water from the clouds, and caused to grow therein every noble species. This is the creation of Allah. Now show me what others besides Him have created. Nay, but the wrongdoers are in manifest error.” (Al Quran 31:11-12)
Intelligent Design movement in USA has its origin in Evangelical Christianity, they want to teach Design and Creation in schools as opposed to evolution, but despite their belief in trinity, never in their literature have I seen mention of three creators, even though mention of the Creator or one creator does come around.
Heredity is all-or-none. That’s digital. But what neither Mendel nor anyone else before 1953 knew was that genes themselves are digital, within themselves. A gene is a sequence of code letters, drawn from an alphabet of precisely four letters, and the genetic code is universal throughout all known living things. Life is the execution of programs written using a small digital alphabet in a single, universal machine language.
For further details please see November 2008 Alislam-eGazette:
Secondly, what does biology tells us? Is there no creator and atheists are right? Is the data more compatible with One Creator, multiple creators or three creators? Additionally, what does physics tell us, we have not started to develop that reasoning yet.
Going back to the historical evidence, now I want to go to North and South America. Fazal Ahmad from UK, examines this issue in an article titled, The Native American Beliefs in Review of Religions:
http://www.alislam.org/ror/Dec_2006.pdf
Incidentally this volume of Review of Religions also has an additional article Divinity and Trinity – A Scriptural Comparison by Arif Khan from UK.
Priestly further writes:
“Now I ask, wherein the doctrine of Trinity differs from a contradiction? It asserts, in effect, that nothing is wanting to either the Father, the Son, or the Spirit, to constitute each of them truly and properly God; each being equal in eternity and all divine perfections; and yet that these three are not three Gods, but only one God. They are, therefore, both one and many in the same respect, in each being perfect God. This is certainly as much a contradiction as to say that Peter, James and John, having each of them everything that is requisite to constitute a complete man, are yet, all together, not three men, but only one man.”
(Joseph Priestley. A history of the corruptions of Christianity Page 321. Published by The British and foreign Unitarian Association in 1871.)
Whole of his book can be read at www.archive.org or Google.com, books section.
Saint Patrick’s Day is annually celebrated, on March 17, the day on which Saint Patrick died. The day is a national holiday in Ireland. In Canada, Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States, it is widely celebrated but is not an official holiday. All over the world we see the symbol of Saint Patrick and Trinity in the form of three leaflet shamrock on display. It is said that Saint Patrick’s Day is celebrated by both Christians and non-Christians by wearing green, eating Irish food and/or green foods, imbibing Irish drink, and attending parades.
How to refute this symbol has been discussed in this thread and additional material can be sought in an article St. Patrick’s Day and the Christian Trinity in Spring of 2008 volume of Muslim Sunrise:
References
- Prof. William R Cook. The Catholic Church: A History. The Teaching Company, 2009. Page 20.
Zia H. Shah
Clovis I and Arianism
Clovis was converted to Catholicism, as opposed to the Arian Christianity common among the Goths who ruled most of Gaul at the time, at the instigation of his wife, Clotilde, a Burgundian Gothic princess who was a Catholic in spite of the Arianism which surrounded her at court.
From Wikipedia about Clovis I