When I watched a compilation of 'highlights' featuring Matt Dillahunty on ‘The Atheist Experience’, a call-in show founded in 1997 which he has co-hosted since 2005, a particular clip on this compilation video, all the way back from 2010, really had me scratching my head. While I take issue with the vast majority of Dillahunty’s positions, rarely do I feel the need to interject, as his popularity and reputation has led to a constant stream of rebuttals from opponents. However, in this instance, I felt it necessary to write a response, albeit a decade in the making. Interestingly, when the program in question originally aired, I was still an atheist and probably would have instinctively agreed.
The caller into the show was asking about proof and faith before Dillahunty asked him why he doesn’t have blind faith that Islam is true. The caller stated that Islam isn’t based on the same God, which quickly prompted a response from the pair of hosts. Co-host Jen Peeples claimed ‘it’s [Islam] based on the same God you [the Christian caller] worship.’ The caller protested before Dillahunty backed up his co-hosts claim with a resounding answer in the affirmative, joined in saying this by Peeples simultaneously, twice each, in a tone that would infer obviousness before Dillahunty then goes on to ask the caller if he knows the story of Isaac and Ishmael. I would argue that Yahweh and Allah are not similar in being, nature or character, showing that Allah could not possibly be based on Yahweh in any way unless the two hosts disputed one of those three aspects. If they were different in being, nature and character, then it could not possibly be true that there is any correlation between them at all. Before I present the clear differences in these three facets between the God of the Bible, Yahweh, and the God of Islam, Allah, I will quickly address Dillahunty’s question about Isaac and Ishmael to the caller. It was important that Islam used earlier, widely accepted stories from Christianity among other ancient sources Muhammad took from, but it does not necessarily follow that Islam entails the same God, or is even based on the same God, as Christianity. Let’s say that two independent groups claim to have a direct explanation for a singular event. Just because both discuss the same event with the same direct explanation, it does not necessarily mean that the two direct explanations are the same. Why couldn’t two groups, or religions, claim different Gods did the same act? They could and in this instance, they did. Islam simply inserted their God, a different God, into this story in the place of Yahweh. This Islamic God is completely different in almost every conceivable way to Yahweh, despite the claim that other Holy Books are from him. This was so blatant that Muslims have to revert to the claim the Bible is corrupted as there is a clear difference between the God and narrative of the Bible compared to the Qur’an. I will start by addressing the physical characteristics of the Gods in Christianity and Islam, which would show a difference firstly in what type of beings we are actually dealing with. While Christianity solely presents an immaterial being outside the physical, material universe, Islam could not be more different, with literal body parts. Allah’s face is explicitly referred to in two verses. In Surah 55:27, we read; ‘and the face of your lord will abide the possessor of majesty and honor.’ Similarly, in Surah 92:19-20, the Qur’an says; ‘and they do not expect any favor in return except seeking the face of his lord, the highest.’ His face isn’t the only physical attribute given to Allah in the Qur’an, which we will focus on rather than appealing to hadith, which reveal more physical body parts. In the commonly used Surah 38:75, the Qur’an reads; ‘He said, "O Devil, what hindered you from worshiping what I have created with my hands?’ while in Surah 68:42, Allah’s shin is referred to; ‘A day the shin [of Allah] will be made bare, and they will be called to worship, so they will not be able.’ These verses establish a very different being in makeup; one is viewed as an immaterial being while the other is very much a physical being. I had formerly assumed that Dillahunty and Peeples would have conceded the clear and accepted difference in nature between Yahweh and Allah but this is not the case, in resounding fashion, so since I cannot take it for granted, I will have to qualify both positions in detail, despite almost across-the-board agreement between Christians, Muslims and Atheists. The Christian God is a single being involving three persons. In terms of logic, this is simple. Much like multiple consciousnesses, the persons of the Trinity exist independent of each other’s persons while being simultaneously all part of the same being, God. In scripture, the Trinity can be seen in both Testaments of the Bible, so I will endeavour to show two clear examples from each. In Isaiah 63:7-8, we hear that God will become the Saviour of Israel before explaining how in 63:9-10; ‘In all their affliction he was afflicted, and the angel of his presence saved them: in his love and in his pity he redeemed them; and he bare them, and carried them all the days of old. But they rebelled, and vexed his holy Spirit: therefore he was turned to be their enemy, and he fought against them.’ The word ‘affliction’ indicates reference to Exodus 3, where the Angel of the Lord appears to Moses, while the phrase ‘angel of his presence’ does not denote a created angel, as the Hebrew word for Angel does not necessarily mean a created Angel, rather meaning messenger and can refer to a human, Angel or even for God himself, self evident in this instance as a saviour. The Holy Spirit is also introduced in this rich set of verses, showing that God saved the children of Israel through his presence and the Holy Spirit. In order to show the Holy Spirit, my second example needs to demonstrate that the Spirit is not God's active force or a creature but distinct altogether. Rather, he must be eternal, uncreated by nature, fully God and a Person. To do this, we will use three verses. The first is 2 Samuel 23:1-3, where we see that the Spirit speaks and use David as an instrument. Even more than this, the Spirit is called ‘The God of Israel’ and ‘The Rock of Israel’, showing that he is God; ‘The inspired utterance of David son of Jesse, the utterance of the man exalted by the Most High, the man anointed by the God of Jacob, the hero of Israel’s songs: “The Spirit of the Lord spoke through me; his word was on my tongue. The God of Israel spoke, the Rock of Israel said to me: ‘When one rules over people in righteousness, when he rules in the fear of God’. In Psalm 139:7-8, we see that there is not a place anyone can go to escape the Spirit; ‘Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.’ This also shows the Spirit is omniscient because there is nothing hidden from the Spirit’s sight. The Spirit’s omniscience is further confirmed in my final example, Isaiah 40:13-14, where we read; ‘Who can fathom the Spirit of the Lord, or instruct the Lord as his counselor? Whom did the Lord consult to enlighten him, and who taught him the right way? Who was it that taught him knowledge, or showed him the path of understanding?’ Here we see another set of rhetorical questions, telling us firstly that no-one has directed, consulted or taught him and secondly that he is distinct. So, to recap, the Holy Spirit is called God, is omnipotent and omnipresent, creator, life giver and sustainer. The Trinity can be seen all through the Old Testament and rather than risk labouring the point unnecessarily, I will move to the New Testament. I would further recommend this Sam Shamoun video or this Anthony Rogers article if you want to see more on the Trinity in the Old Testament. To show two examples of the Trinity in the New Testament, we will first look at Revelation 22:3, which says; ‘And there shall be no more curse: but the throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in it; and his servants shall serve him’. ‘The Lamb’ is Jesus Christ, on God’s throne and we can further know this because Revelation 5:13 reads; ‘And every creature which is in heaven, and on the earth, and under the earth, and such as are in the sea, and all that are in them, heard I saying, Blessing, and honour, and glory, and power, be unto him that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb for ever and ever.’ This passage tells us that the Lamb is no mere creature or created being, John goes to great lengths to show this, and to put a created being in the place of the Lamb would be blasphemous, so it cannot be any other than Jesus. The Lamb also receives exactly the same worship, from every creature in existence, as God the Father. My second example comes in the form of Philippians 2:9-11. Here, we once again see an exhaustion of the language to clearly distinguish Jesus from all created existence; ‘Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name: That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth; And that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.’ If Jesus is not a divine person of the Trinity, how can Paul separate him from every creature in existence? If he was just a man, or Prophet as Islam professes, he too would be part of creation but according to Paul, he is distinct. While the teaching of God’s nature in the Bible is the Trinity, Islam professes what is often labelled ‘pure’ Tawhid, but this is inaccurate. Even though Allah does not have triune nature like Yahweh, a colossal difference, Islam has multiple uncreated, divine, eternal beings. A second divine being in Islam besides Allah is the Spirit, or ‘Rūḥ’ in Arabic. We see in Surah 19:17 that this Spirit descends down to Mary; ‘So we sent our spirit (Rūḥ) to her, so he appeared to her a normal human’. You might ask where the issue is here, isn’t it just Allah’s spirit? Any Muslim would immediately deny this, as in Surah 5:116 we read; ‘You know what is in my soul, and I do not know what is in your soul’, with ‘Allah’s soul’ in Arabic here being Nafs, different to Rūḥ. The usual Islamic narrative is that the Rūḥ is Jibril, the Angel Gabriel, which appears a possible explanation on the surface, but is wrong. In two verses, the Rūḥ is separated from the Angels. Surah 70:4 of the Qur’an says that; ‘The angels and the spirit (Rūḥ) ascend to him in a day; its duration was fifty thousand years’ and Surah 70:38 says that ‘A day the spirit (Rūḥ) and the angels stand in ranks’. This undisputedly leaves a second divine entity in Islam. Read more about Islamic polytheism in this article, which posits one hundred and twenty divine beings in Islam, on this website. Now that we’ve established differences in the very nature of these two beings, let’s move on to character. In Surah 3:54 of the Qur’an, we read; ‘And they deceived, and Allah deceived. And Allah is the best deceiver’. The context for this is in Allah’s deceit over Jesus’ (in Islam, Isā) resurrection, wherein Allah deceives the people and is the best of deceivers. This is not an isolated incident. In Surah 8:30, Allah is again called the best of deceivers; ‘And when those who became infidels deceive you to detain you or to kill you or to expel you. And they deceive, and Allah deceives. And Allah is the best deceiver’. Not only in Christianity and most of philosophy is this impossible for God, the Bible proclaims the exact opposite identity of the greatest deceiver. In Revelation 12:9, it is instead Satan who is the greatest deceiver, not God. ‘And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him’. I think the evidence here overwhelmingly shows that ‘God’ in Islam is ‘Satan’ in Christianity. In Islam, Allah also does not understand the Trinity, much like Matt Dillahunty if the video compilation in question is an accurate representation, as we see in Surah 5:116, where Allah asks ‘O ‘Isā, son of Mary, did you say to the people, 'Take me and my mother as two gods, other than Allah'?’ This verse is enlightening. It shows conclusively that Allah believe the Trinity to be composed of the Father, the Son and Mary, which is still a belief by Muslims today. The only possible objection to this narrative would be if Allah was referring to the Catholic beliefs about Mary, but because he fails to include the Holy Spirit, so it is still a legitimate misunderstanding of the Trinity in any possible scenario of explanation. While the original statement by Dillahunty and Peeples may just have been worded poorly, I cannot help but point out that the Islamic God hates people who say Jesus Christ, son of Mary, is Lord. There couldn’t be a more blatant difference between the Christian God, of whom Jesus is part of the triune nature, and Allah, who condemns this idea and is clearly based on different ideas altogether. In Surah 5:72-73, Allah condemns those who believe the Trinity by decreeing; ‘Infidels, indeed, are those who said, "Surely Allah is the Christ, son of Mary. ‘Infidels, indeed, are those who said, "Surely Allah is the third of three." And there is no god except one god, and if they do not refrain from what they are saying, a painful torment will touch those who became infidels among them.’ Atheists, including Matt Dillahunty, have often criticised theist debate opponents in the past for simply assuming when they attempt to show a deity exists, it is their deity. Putting the validity of this argument aside (which would depend on whether the theist is taking a first step or final step in their cumulative case), I would say to Dillahunty that he cannot have his cake and eat it too. If he thinks it would be wrong for theists to automatically associate a basic idea of God with their religion’s more developed idea of God, I would argue it is also wrong to completely dispel all character, attributes and being of any two Gods so that he can associate them on a basic level too. While the pair insinuates that reading the Bible and Qur’an clearly shows they are at least based on the same God, I could not disagree more and I hope that the evidence I have presented in this article (which is a very small proportion of the total evidence in showing differences and various premises here) goes some distance to persuade you as well.
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